The fifties were a decade of amazing change in automobile styling. At the start of the decade, you had rounded shapes, sometimes with fastbacks, and more often than not with separate rear fenders. Those rear fenders grew higher, flatter, and you ultimately got the flat-sided ‘shoebox’ shape (which Ford had since 1949). Then body surfaces grew flatter, body lines sharpened up, and rear fenders grew fins. Not the little rounded tail bumps seen on earlier Cadillacs, but sharper upward bulges often involving the entire fender line.
Opinions are divided on whether these had any practical benefit, but they were a transitory fad that had largely flamed out by 1960. Let’s take a look at a selection of fifties cars to trace the rise (and ultimate fall) of the fin. I’ll throw in a few general design comments along the way. If I seem to concentrate mostly on Ford and Chevy, that’s not by choice, just because there are more of them; the only fifties Mopar kits are the Moebius ’55 and ’56 Chryslers and AMT’s ’58 Plymouth.
1950 Ford
Futuristic. Smooth body sides proved very forward-looking, and as well as the lateral bulge for the oval taillight, there is a slightly sharp peak line at the rear fender top where other cars were more rounded – an interesting choice. I can only guess how radical this design must have seemed in 1949.
1951 Chevrolet
Classical GM. A much more rounded shape, still with the beltline raised above the fender tops and protuberant rear fenders which were raised and lengthened for 1951 and gained this accent strip along the top. A much more gradual approach, not the sharp break from 1948 that the Ford represented.
1953 Chevrolet
A much squarer shape here, though the beltline is still above the fender tops. GM seemed to cling onto the high hood and beltline look longer than most. Rear fenders are now suggested by bulges on the doors, while the taillights are large and vertical, accenting the added height of the rear deck.
1953 Ford
Ford meanwhile added chrome-accented bulges to hint at fenders, and mounted round taillights at the fender tops. Not so much a step forward in styling as a restatement of earlier themes, with the fender accent imparting a feeling of forward motion.
1953 Studebaker
Just to upset the applecart, Studebaker debuts another radical design. Take that, Harley Earl! Aside from the low proportions not as evident on the sedans, you have smooth body sides with a concave accent instead of convex, and on the doors not the rear quarters. But here we have vertical taillights with a sharp chrome accent along the fender top, and the slope of the rear deck almost gives something of a proto-fin effect. There’s a lot of other interesting stuff going on here, but I’m focusing on the rear.
1955 Chrysler 300
A curious blend of old and new. The generally rounded body shape is typical mid-fifties. The fender bulges arising from mid-body height and transitioning to fins are an interesting blend of past and future, while the vertical taillights and ornate surrounds from the Imperial point to the future. The following year would see more obvious fins develop from these.
1955 Chevrolet
GM’s most popular moves were to smooth body sides and a lower beltline. Triangular taillight shape kind of hints at fins, though the fender top is still pretty flat and rounded. This would change.
1956 Chevrolet
Largely the same rear fenders, with more of a finned look being achieved by a larger and reshaped taillight assembly, cut more into the fender and accented by the curve of the side trim on Bel Air and Two Ten models.
1956 Ford
Meanwhile over at Ford the 1952-4 body had been reworked with smooth sides, sharp fender tops, and triangular reversing lights atop the round taillights, with some interesting prescient creases on the fender sides. Crown Victorias added chrome highlights along the fender tops, sharpening the suggestion of fins.
1957 Chrysler
How the master did it. Beautifully integrated into the overall shape, a natural subtle outgrowth from the overall shape…
1957 Chevrolet
A sharper rear fender line with large chrome accents, and tiny little taillights which I always thought looked kind of lost way down there, not really where you would expect lights to be. Also note these fins had quite a rearward cant to them, not so much reaching upward as backward. Once again, the downward curve of the side trim makes the fin look taller.
1957 Ford
Ford went to a much more sculptured look for 1957. The fins seem a natural progression from the earlier design, but with larger lights and sharper fender tops. Beautifully integrated. Side trim on Fairlane 500s swept up, drawing the eye to the outward-canted fender top.
1958 Plymouth
New for 1957, this Plymouth shows smooth body sides with a pronounced hump beginning behind the door handles and transitioning dramatically to a definite fin on the rear quarters. Large intricately-detailed taillight surrounds accentuate the shape, aided on Belvederes and Furies by the upward slash of the side trim.
But elsewhere, things were getting weird.
1958 Thunderbird
Ford went to even more complex pressings for the Thunderbird, with small angled fins atop a straight fender line.
1958 Chevrolet
In a move away from a distinct fin, Chevrolet adopted something of a hunchbacked look, with a rounded upper fender bulge overhanging the lower body, which kind of resolved diagonally on the rear. Curious, but it sold.
1958 Edsel
A thoroughly contrary design, leading nowhere.
1958 Cadillac
Meanwhile the instigator of this whole tailfin thing was distinctly, definitely, defiantly going vertical. I’ve always thought this 1958 Eldorado Biarritz would look quite nice without the fins (ducks for cover…), as they seem like sharp blades stuck in the fenders of an otherwise rounded car. You could say they give tension to the design, or you could view them as incongruous. The regular non-Biarritz models carried them better.
1959 Cadillac
What, you think the ’58 had fins? Look at these! Pretty much a caricature, and iconic these days because of it.
1959 Chevrolet
Forget going up, let’s go sideways! Or, taking that 1958 theme way past its natural conclusion.
1959 Ford
Meanwhile, Ford went to a tubular upper fender design (like the ’58 Chevy) but terminated it with the backup light, with a chrome edged fin atop that. And made their round taillights even bigger.
1959 Imperial
And over at Chrysler, Virgil Exner was playing Space Invaders with this 1959 Imperial.
Where could you go from here?
1960 DeSoto Adventurer
Start them further forward?
1960 Plymouth
Even higher and further rearward?
1960 Chevrolet
Horizontal then angled down to a boxy deck?
1960 Ford
Horizontal then angled forward again?
1961 Ford
For 1961 it was all pretty much over. Fins were little more than a suggestively placed piece of trim.
But they were fun while they lasted.
Lovely article which is as close to auto porn as it gets. I just love fins being a boomer who grew up amongst the decidedly poor copies and scaled down Detroit clones.
Rootes debuted the Humber Sceptre (it was supposed to be a 4 door Sunbeam) in 1963. Is it last car launched with fins? It came out alongside the Triumph and Rover 2000 so looked from another era
Good question there, John. The Skoda 1000MB debuted in 1964 but I wouldn’t guarantee that was the last newly-finned car. Anyone else think of a later one?
We never got those ‘little’ Humbers down here in Australia, but I remember seeing them in a 1965 book of British cars. The more I see of them, the stranger they look. That sunken-in rear window. the vertical fin atop the rear wing pressing which looks like the Super Minx’s – until it goes angular around the taillight. I understand the desire to make the Humber look different, but this is defiantly diffferent rather than attractively so. And awfully, awfully dated.
Mind you, the Rover you cite also had fins, but at least they were tasteful.
All of the Super Minx family designs looked like they should have come out two to three years earlier than they did. The fact that they were originally intended to be the Mk.4 Minx suggests they were meant to arrive in about 1959.
Another late finned design has to be the Ford Consul Classic & Capri, which definitely were delayed. They had a pretty short life though.
Yes, I can. In October 1967, the Austin 3 litre was revealed to a breathless world – it was the stifled laughter – with the innovation of fins.
Better yet, in October 1968, the Austin1800 actually grew his very first fins. Aw, how cute, but I mean, talk about a late developer!
I have a set of those fins they kept them on the estates,
Today’s historical theme is a great way to show off some really nice model-making–bravo! Thanks for just laying out the story and not getting into the “what were they thinking?” crabbing and all that.
If I wanted to introduce a young car-fan to the whole phenomenon, I might add a 1948-49 Cadillac as a preface—-but then I’d be totally good-to-go for the whole rest of the story. Very enjoyable today!
(I still don’t envy the auto designers in the annual-styling-change era, trying to forecast what buyers would want, etc.)
Thanks George!
The day I just do one of those clickbait-journalism ‘what were they thinking?’ posts is the day Paul, Rich and Aaron can boot me off this site! I have too much respect for history, and too much respect for the written word to do that. There seems to be so much lightweight trivia on the net, and the rise of AI just seems to have made matters worse.
The fifties showed such a rapid, fundamental shift in the shape and proportions of of the everyday car. As a child of the fifties, I grew up seeing some of these cars, if only in magazines or on TV. Here in Australia we had the FJ Holden until 1956, still using a body from 1948 which wasn’t particularly advanced for the time. Put that alongside a new Ford or Chevy (a rich man’s car here), and my inquiring mind went into overdrive. Why was there such a difference?
The Cadillac might seem to be the obvious starting point, but seeing as I mainly write about models, I had to work with what I had. It’s interesting to note that GM did some funky things with some Biuck and Pontiac fenders in the early to mid fifties, but the actual plane-style tailfin remained a Cadillac thing. Well, until Exner caught GM napping.
Love the premise, love the photos, love the models, and I love that you led with the ’58 Plymouths, which to me (same as with the ’57s) represent the “everyman” pinnacle of tailfin style. I’m sure there was no comparative wind-tunnel testing with any tailfins. Another aesthetic ploy to sell the new, the novel, the next. Great post and work, Peter.
Thanks Joseph. The ’57-8 Plymouths were really ‘fins for everyman’, the Forward Look made affordable. But then it took a while to figure out what to do after the Great Fall of the Fin. Some early sixties cars are really uninspired IMO (no names), but no doubt have their fans.
I must beg to differ Joseph. Surely engineers must have subjected the ’58 Plymouth to a comprehensive battery of wind tunnel tests.
Why else would the ’58 Plymouth owner manual describe those rear appendages were “Towering Directional Stabilizers”. It would be shocking to think anyone in the auto business would make an unsupported claim just to sell a few more units.
My past ownership of a ’58 Plymouth supports the functionality of said stabilizers. At no time did my Plymouth ever display instability at the rear of the car.
that ’59 imperial is a real beauty with those sputnik taillights. and the pink ’59 cadillac biarritz??!! my love is bigger than a honda, it’s bigger than a subaru
The Caddy seems to be a pop culture icon, perhaps as wild as a GM sedan got, but I think I prefer the Imperial. I went with a fairly conservative colour scheme for mine, whereas the Caddy just had to be pink.
By Imperial decree! 👑 This is a FURY iuosly FIN tastic ADVENTURER exploring The GRAND era of Fabulous Famed FINNED fantasies! Long may they FLY!
Ha! I thought these would be right up your alley, Rick.
Peter,
A lot of modelers hate the ’58 Plymouth model because the side trim arches rather than goes straight but I have to say yours does not accentuate that feature at all.
is the ’58 Cadillac a multi-piece Revel body?
I think the 50s is a goldmine as far as style goes, I’ll choose your ’55 Chrysler but it’s a very close race
cheers
Thanks Dave,
Ah yes, that infamous side trim! I got a bit creative with the foil and the silver paint on those Plymouths. I filed the front and the rear ends of the side trim to visually straighten it a bit, then painted the bit between and applied a straight strip of foil to fool the eye into thinking the trim was straight. It’s still a bit curved.
The ’58 Cad is a Korean Lee kit, which I think may be a knockoff of the Arii kit. Single-piece body, but it’s molded in a weird brittle resin-ish plastic which cracks/shatters when you try to work it. Which you have to as the fins are different heights and you have to cut the hood open. I’m glad I only paid $10 for mine.
OK so now I know why the ’57s look so good.
I forgot to mention the JoHan ’60 Plymouth wagon and Desoto. Really accurate bodies on those and you built them out great. Fascinating to build these I would think. The wagon is so over the top that it just keeps growing on me as the years go passing by. Back in the day they looked out-of-date the minute you drove them off the lot. Also these remind me of the cars on the Leave it to Beaver tv show.
I totally agree with you about the ’60 Plymouth. The problem with these is that the fin look was so old-fashioned by the mid-sixties, and the more extreme the fins, the more dated the car looked. Earlier Mopars had the fins as an integral part of the body; these ones looked tacked on by comparison. Arguably a ’57 or ’58 would have appeared more modern. The ’60 Plymouth was like Exner’s take on a 10-year-old Caddy – same shape fin, just made bigger and sharpened up.
I’m impressed (as always). Something I never noticed before: The rear of the 1960 Ford looks like a very sad doggy with droopy ears.
Thanks Mike.
About the Ford’s rear, a lot depends on the angle you’re viewing it from. It works from dead astern, not so much from a three-quarter view. That design has a few ‘challenging’ angles, especially the sedan roofline.
Fascinating selection, Peter.
It might be interesting to line up each make chronologically on three shelves (each year lining up vertically) to show how each of the big three treated their tailfins and how they evolved over time.
Thanks Bernard. That would be indeed be fascinating to do if all three were available. Unfortunately but not surprisingly there are no early fifties Mopars,the earliest is the ’55 Chrysler – which reminds me, I must build that ’56. Oh well, next year…
Terrific models as always, Peter.
What surprises me is how the 1959 and 1960 Chevy rear ends actually look less insane in the models than in real life. They’re just jaw-dropping when I happen upon one on the road (which in fact happens every once in a while).
The 1960 DeSoto is a lovely color.
Thanks Jeff.
What surprises me most about the ’59 and ’60 Chevy is how much difference there is between the two years, more than you’d think at first. Aside from the roof the ’60 is a complete reskin, and yet somehow it just looks like a fairly restrained rework apart from the front end. Building the models I gained a new appreciation for how different the two are. Earlier Chevys at least carried over the door skin.
I haven’t seen one on the road for ages, but when I was a teen there was a house in the next suburb that had three ’59 four door sedans rusting away in the front yard. Yes, I have plans to do a sedan. Those goldfish-bowl windshields still blow my mind…..
Drove past a beatup orange 60 El Camino today bat wing chevs didnt sell all that well even with the new for 1960 in NZ automatic transmission, Aussie got the 283 in 1960 as a new thing.
Not the best of times to be selling such a big car down here.
I always enjoy these features on modeling and remain amazed at the level of detail incorporated into the assembly. In this installment, I can truly see the evolution of so many ‘50s design cliches beyknd tail fins, including two-tone paint, wrap-around windshields, and experimentation with chrome and other trim to enhance (or detract) from the basic lines and shape of each car.
In this batch, I love the green 1957 Chrysler and beige 1960 Plymouth wagon as being some of the most cleanly styled of all the finned creations from Detroit. Curiously, I’m also drawn to the 1959, 1960 and 1961 Fords, which perhaps were the most conservative expressions of 1950s styling trends and ones that don’t look absolutely ridiculous today. The GM models just struck so many discordant keys, with excessive ornamentation detracting from poorly resolved proportions, that I find it hard to take them seriously, though I will also say nobody rebounded more gracefully from the fintastic orgy better than GM did starting in 1961.
Yeah I’m that age that I notice fins, Chrysler did the most with them then sheared them with a vengence.
I think I once read somewhere that Chrysler said (with a serious face) that the tailfins on the `57 De Soto actually added stability at high speeds. Then there was a visit by Russian premier Kruschev when he put his hand on the tailfin of a `59 Cadillac and said ‘what is this thing supposed to do’? Happy Thanksgiving-if you celebrate it Down Under.
Our family car from the late ’50’s until ’64 was a 1957 New Yorker; as a kid growing up in the “space age,” I liked the tail lights on the ’57 DeSoto … they reminded me of a rocket ship.
Peter, your models are spectacular and these examples effectively tell the tale of the tailfin!
My favorites of the fin era in real life are the 1957-58 Chryslers and DeSotos, with the 1960 versions of the same makes as close runners-up.
But my favorite of the models is that striking two-tone blue ’59 Chevy Impala.
Contemplating the sin of the fin, its rise and droop on scandalously public display, it’s pretty wry that the whole thing came from the land of the Puritans (as did the Dagmars, but I digress).
In a land where deluded ’50’s hat n glove wearers attended their (sectarian) churches in boiling heat, and everyone thought England was the motherland, such wayward displays could not be countenanced. Stuffy lot, really, though the rectitude part has it virtues, such as the disregard for the sheer excess of the relatively rare US roadbuggerers. Only Flash Harrys and spivs and rock stars bought these. Not for us good English-style folk, said we. A bit embarassing, those Yank Tanks, as, indeed, are Americans in general.
And that attitude persisted for years and years, less being enough, more being uneccessary, as witnessed even in the very style of the cars made here (ironically, by US giants, but quiet there).
Not so now, for better or otherwise. Plenty of cashed up middle-aged folk are importing old ’50’s finners in droves, usually to accompany their F-150 (bought at colossal expense in RHD) and power boats the size of the QE2. We now not only don’t mind extravangance, we demand more of more at all levels.
I’ve got old. I still look on the things with a smile (though some I secretly can’t help but love), and still think them silly and crass – and yet I get those who can afford them buying them. And their attitude to their vast toys is usually genial.
Mind, I’d prefer them to be models from Master Craftsman Pete, lest they clog up the natural views of a Sunday drive.
Two favourites to mention from this crop of classics:
The 59 Chevvy and the 59 Ford. I had ride times in both as a kid, and remember them to this day.