When did our conceptions of the future become terrifying? Dystopian fiction had been warning us about the dangers of technology for decades by the time General Motors introduced the fantastic 1956 Buick Centurion car as a Motorama concept, but at the time it undoubtedly all seemed so…fictional. Therefore, at the Motorama shows people were free to let their imaginations cut loose and dream about a future where electronic gadgets would make their lives easier and more stylish all at once; they were the ultimate expression of optimistic American consumerism. Some of the concept cars were over-the-top but they almost always had one foot in the present, a milestone to give potential General Motors buyers something with which to connect. While most of the Centurion’s themes and gadgets didn’t have a future on the production line, a few were found on GM products of the then-near future, and one is still with us today.
General Motors had already been putting on fantastic “road shows” for years when the first Motorama (by name) opened in 1950. The name “Motorama” had been used since 1947 for GM’s exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, but it would now be applied to the traveling car shows that engendered so many “dream cars” of the 1950s. In this image from 1956, we can see the Pontiac Club de Mer, the Oldsmobile Golden Rocket, and the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car, in addition to dozens of production cars. Does anybody else think that the Cadillac four-door hardtops of 1956 look spectacular?
The Centurion was just off-camera in that picture, but it is certainly one of the more memorable Motorama dream cars, and the interior alone would have made it so. GM designer Chuck Jordan was responsible for the Centurion, and according to David Temple’s book GM Motorama: The Glamorous Show Cars of a Cultural Phenomenon, Jordan said that with the Centurion, “they wanted an interior that went with the exterior.” Therefore, the Centurion has a cantilevered steering wheel and column (the traditional column was added later for some reason), four bucket seats with retractable headrests, a digital clock, and the most prescient feature: a back-up/rearview camera. The Centurion had no rearview mirror, but instead had a functional TV camera in its tail.
It’s surprisingly well-integrated for a car with a 1950s camera mounted where the trunk would normally be; you can see the cutout for the lens just above the rear “Dagmar” that boldly tells you that yes, this is a Buick. The six-pound camera was “made by University Broadcasting System, Inc. and…designed to be shock resistant.” Whether the modern backup camera has its roots in a 1956 Buick concept car I couldn’t say, but I do know that the Centurion’s fins must have certainly come to mind when the 1959 Chevrolets and Buicks were being drafted.
The Motorama show cars were commonly “pushers,” which means that they weren’t drivable, but they often had engines in place, and the Centurion is no exception. Aside from some harmonizing red accents, almost everything in the engine compartment is chromed or polished, including the four Carter YF side-draft carburetors atop the 322-cubic-inch Nailhead. Attached to a Dynaflow (of course), the 322 reportedly made 325 horsepower, but who really knows; it could easily be a stock engine with a fancy, expensive intake manifold. Can you imagine having this setup under the hood of your ’56 Century?
I mentioned how General Motors’ Motorama cars had some traditional styling cues so showgoers could relate to the cars that they were ogling on the production car stands or would be ogling in showrooms soon. The sweepspear on the side of the Centurion and the three hashmarks in front of the rear wheelwells would soon be seen on Buick’s 1957 model production cars. The finned wheel covers, which resembled larger-scale Dynaflow stators, would be a theme that Buick would mine as far in the future as the 1963 Riviera.
Some themes could already be seen on production cars, such as the air scoops on the front fenders (which apparently took in air for the air conditioning system), which resembled those seen on the 1956 Corvette (and on the quarter panels of air conditioned GMs). Another common feature (with the Corvette) was the Centurion’s fiberglass body; most of the Motorama cars had bodies built from fiberglass because it was cheaper and easier to use for one-offs, even for a company as spectacularly wealthy as General Motors. We all have to watch the bottom line, and the Motorama shows were wildly expensive to put on, which is why they only happened every few years.
Some ideas proposed on the Centurion didn’t find much traction, such as its clear plastic roof. Later cars, such as the Glass Roof Mustang, gave the concept a go decades into the future, but they had heavily tinted glass, unlike the clear heat box we see on the Motorama car. It is a “dream car”; all the ideas don’t have to be practical. (And to give credit where it’s due, Ford offered glass-roofed production cars from 1954 to 1956.)
Even the name “Centurion” was later recycled on the Wildcat’s replacement fifteen years later in 1971. The name itself was a mystery to Chuck Jordan; he had no idea who came up with it, but he thought that its similarity to Buick’s popular Century had something to do with it. A Roman officer most likely did not.
We are all fortunate that the Centurion is still around, most often found on display at Sloan Museum in its ancestral home of Flint, Michigan. Several of the Motorama show cars were destroyed, or at least ordered to be destroyed, by GM; after all, they couldn’t be licensed, and even if they could have been, most of them weren’t even working automobiles. For some reason, the Centurion was spared this fate so we can all enjoy it today and remember a time when advanced technology didn’t make us think of science-fiction movies, or real life.
Really cool car. Not “too” outrageous, I think they could have had something close for a production vehicle. Like a “Buick Corvette” type of thing. (Minus the clear roof, and toning down the rear end, just a little (for practicality/safety or whatever).
Front end looks extra Bada$$. Like a snake of some sort.
Aaron, I love how your title works on a number of different levels. There’s the metaphorical but also the literal. Who might have guessed that of all of the tech gizmos presented on a Motorama car, the back up camera might be the thing that has most thoroughly taken hold nearly 70 years later? I guess the moral is that no one should ever bet against the laziness of the consumer, and the ability to motor around without ever turning ones head turns out to be a compelling technology.
(I hate the things and abhor their facilitating drivers to slam their cars into reverse and back up willy nilly without even glancing backwards or sideways with their own eyes…but maybe that’s just me.)
The 1956 Centurion is one of my favorite show cars from the 1950s. At least until one gets to the rear end, it looks like something that might possibly be reality. Maybe a lot of that is how it evokes (to me) the initial Corvette. I also think that the interior arrangement almost works for real. And I know all of the impracticalities of a plexiglass top, but yeah, I like those too.
I dunno — many cars have had very bad problems with rear and especially rear-quarter visibility for years. In many cars and trucks, you really have to use your imagination to envision where the tail actually ends, and in quite a few, you can’t see the front end or even much of the hood either.
Even if you have good spatial reckoning, which many people do not, those blind spots can easily hide the potential for expensive or tragic accidents (e.g., small child or family dog running out behind the bumper below rear window level).
I do think it’s regrettable the outward visibility is often a low design priority, but I’m just not willing to concede that backup cameras are for “the laziness of the consumer.”
Adding to Aaron S’s comment, I will say that the rear view camera on my newest car with its 12.3-in screen and guidelines that change with steering wheel position provides the clearest and most complete view of what’s behind my car when reversing. I still turn around to look as well as check all 3 mirrors, but that camera is my primary source to use in backing up safely.
I’m not really a gadget guy, but I appreciate the backup camera in my ’23 Challenger simply because the rear visibility is hopeless. The blind spots are absurd, so it would truly be a challenge to back up without it. The peripheral vision of the camera is also useful for backing out of parking spots that abut someone’s GMC Sierra HD that stretches 27 feet out into the road.
Rear vision cameras have begun going into trucks deleting outside mirrors you get a screen on each A post to look at instead, it feels weird the first time in one, its taken a while but that future is here.
I’ll just add to my comment above, and in response to kiwi’s comment, say that I think the back up camera is an entirely different use case in a large truck/semi that has no natural rear view. Maybe screens and cameras to augment proper use of the mirrors, but in those cases augmentation might be quite valuable.
If you ever have a vehicle with full front/rear/360 overhead view, it is a game-changer.
I really enjoyed this – great stuff, Aaron! “Optimistic American consumerism”, as you put it, seems to encapsulate many things, and especially the entire Motorama program. And I agree that it was effective for these cars to have one foot / fin / whatever in the present in order to tie in that optimistic future with GM’s current offerings.
Clear plastic roof, as much as I love the sun, bad idea. LOL. Can you imagine baking underneath that? I also like that the camera weight a whole six pounds.
Leave it to Flint’s Buick, though, to pioneer some real technology. I’m thinking about the ’86 Riviera’s touch screen, which was also predictive.
Excellent work.
Thanks Joe. I remember sitting at the Buick dealership and playing with the touch screens in Rivieras and Reattas when I was a kid. I really wanted my dad to buy one because, to someone my age at the time, it was like having a video game in your car.
Aaron, to answer your question above regarding the Motorama show & the gorgeous `56 Cadillac 4dr. DeVille hardtops—YES! I’ve always loved 4dr. hardtops, and nobody else did them like GM. This model was also a sales boon for the division where they sold thousands of the new model! A Neighbor had an all-white 4dr. when I was not quite in school yet; I can still remember it! A beautiful car.
In the Motorama picture I’d pick the Buicks over the dream cars!
In terms of utopian consumerism, I feel like some of it fell into the category of “whistling past the graveyard.” Obviously, a big development of the postwar era, especially in the ’50s and early ’60s, was that world-ending catastrophe was no longer science fiction:
This was also the era when it was common to lie to schoolchildren with duck-and-cover drills to prepare for atomic attack, and when the U.S. developed nuclear weapons ranging from 15-megaton air-dropped bombs to the “Davy Crockett” nuclear mortar. In May 1957, a USAF bomber dropped a 15-megaton bomb outside of Albuquerque, although only the conventional explosive portion actually detonated, spreading radioactive debris over an area of about a mile that I don’t think was ever adequately remediated.
So, with all that in the background, I think there was a certain amount of, “Uh, yeah, let’s press some buttons in our swoopy Buck Rogers concept cars! Sure!”
I think Duck and Cover and other films like it, as hokey as they were, were not intended for those directly within the direct blast radius, but rather for those who were far enough away that buildings could be damaged, and then having a desk over your head might make some sense. But there’s no denying that there was a certain naive “hope they don’t think too hard about it” quality to Civil Defense preparedness, because there really wasn’t any plan at all aside from hoping it didn’t happen.
With that being said, my mom still can’t watch Duck and Cover because it makes her anxious; she had to do those drills in elementary school.
We didn’t duck and cover per se when I was in elementary school in the late 50s and early 60s; rather we had so-called air raid drills where we’d march to the basement, stand side-by-side along an interior wall, and were told to face the wall with our heads bowed downward.
Of course, the macabre joke then was that Pittsburgh with all its steel mills was a prime target for the A-bomb, and we being located bearly outside the city limits would be incinerated instantly.
As far as modern conveniences go I haven’t owned a car without power steering or A/C for over 30 years , and it’s been 20 years since we said farewell to window cranks. But I’ll take a backup camera over climate control or even cruise control any day.
Interesting. The only vehicle in our fleet that has a backup camera is the Promaster van, and I have to almost force myself to use it, and even then I look more at the two outside rearview mirrors than the screen. Having driven trucks and such going way back, I’m still a mirror guy. On the other hand I use cruise control fanatically, and can’t stand not to have it. A/C depends on how hot it is; I could do without it in the xB on local/regional trips, but not in the van on long trips.
Could that rear end have inspired the boat tail Riviera?
I see that the fantastic wraparound windshield with the neat curved A-pillars made it almost intact into GM’s production 1959-60 cars!
I think the 1956 Cadillac Coupe is very beautiful but not “spectacular” .
Is the red paint on this museum car really as bad as it looks here ? .
I’d love to see this or any other spaceship looking old car driving in traffic .
As far as backup cameras, since I was a Fleet Mechanic I thought them a good idea on trucks .
One or two of the modern cars I’ve driven with backup cameras had a fish eye lens that maybe was safer than the rear view mirrors .
? Any one here remember “Van Eyes” ? they were ribbed plastic sheets for the rear door windows of vans in the 1970’s, looked weird but actually gave a wider field of vision, always a good thing .
-Nate
To my knowledge, the Centurion has never been restored, so it should still be wearing its original lacquer paint on top of fiberglass. It is aged up close, but it doesn’t look too bad for almost 70.
I am fascinated by the Motorama cars. I have Temple’s book. A few of the cars are currently on exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. I don’t remember this Buick that well… what other Motorama cars are with it? The one that is lost that would be stunning to see is the Pontiac Club de Mer with translucent paint over a steel body. Supposedly a child’s car still exists. It’s interesting to think how GM was so loosey goosey loaning out some cars to various executives and dealers while being secretive about others and destroying still others (to be repeated with the EV1).
Also… I did get the opportunity to see Harley Earl’s Y Job and Le Sabre at a museum (the Blackhawk in Northern California). Just wow. I also saw one of the Mako Shark Corvettes at a car show. I can imagine Bill Mitchell’s employees stealing the marlin off his office wall and painting it to match the car.
Despite Winston Churchill’s paraphrased quote of “The farther back you look, the further forward you can see, being generally true, I would offer this Churchillian alternative to Aaron’s almost perfect title: “The best way to see the road ahead is without rearview mirrors.”
That said, great article. I look at that car and was wondering if it was built on a Corvette chassis. Also, the exhaust pipes beneath the rear bumper remind of the rear of a bit later Cadillac.
IDK if the steering column had the shaft added or if it was a retrofit as suggested but I do know Ford tried something similar (called “wrist twist”, see picture) in the mid-60’s, and the motion was transferred from the steering dials to the central shaft with bicycle chain. I was told by an old chassis engineer that this set-up as executed was complicated, troublesome and failure prone.
If this Centurian show car was using a similar set up, maybe they had similar problems.
I can also imagine that if such a cantilever set up got out on the road, that steering wheel would shake like hell because it was so far away from a structural component.