Art & Inspiration When did cool cars become cool ?

If and when one of these unicorns actually materializes it will be beyond cool.
It will be epic!


https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/61-impala-ss-four-door.1005300/

 

I don’t know about that entirely. There have been some cars come out that were cool even when showroom floor new. But I agree, most take ten to twenty years before the average kid can afford one of them, if they even can then. Some 10 year cars are selling for the same money they sold new for, inflation weakened dollars for sure. Hard to buy cool when you’re on minimum wage….

 

^^^^ This one pretty much describes what a cool car is these days. The number of doors doesn't have the bearing on being cool or not like it used to have. Not common is what is cool these days. The more unusual it is, the more cool it appears to have became. I think people are tired of looking at jellybean look a likes.

After the calendar turn to this century, most of the car bodies carried on pretty much unchanged for several years. things are nothing like it was back in the day when every year or two almost every model changed the body style. Back then "not common" was a 5 year old car. There days "not common" might be a 10 year old (or more) body style, and it may have only been "updated" last year just enough for the car company to call it "a new design."

 

Just imagine how much more excited you'd be about this car if it looked like this. For the amount of work it would take to make a driver/beater out of this, what's an extra few days tacked on to the build?

 

Nice work, now make it a 150!

 

Hey, @BamaMav
I agree. I was actually thinking of saying exactly that.
I wasn't very clear. I didn't mean entirely. When I said, "One answer" I meant it to mean "Here's one answer."

 

When did cool cars become cool?

Me personally I have always thought that building cars is an artistic expression and so even simply looking at vehicles I tend to look with the same eye.

Cool is in the eye of the beholder.

 

Maybe it's the era I grew up in but everyone always said four doors for more whores. But to me if they can't squeeze between a bench and a pillar it ain't a whore worth having.

 

The term cool has lost its standing in the current culture. All the young kids drive 4 doors. Even the pickup trucks have 4 doors. Only old farts drive 2 doors.

 

The only two door they know is when they walk into a shopping center and that single door splits into two, slide in and let them in.

 

Well any car owned by your dad is cool by definition, I'd have killed to have my dad's 53 Chev, his 57 Plodge or his 64 Ford Fairlane. All were 4-door sedans with 3 on the tree and sixes under the hood, so nothing special but I grew up in those cars, hence...

No, none would stay stock.

Oh and I think the 2-door is better than 4-door is a US thing, here in Europe we had a thing known as "sports saloon" for a very long time and many got raced, so the stigma never arose (same applied to our "customs", that is, special versions built by the coach builders of the time on chassis supplied by the factory, many of which were 4-door).

 

Cool is subjective.
What some find cool others may look at and go...meh.

 

In the general public, anything made 10 or more years before your D.O.B.

 

More like 30 years now. !

 

Mark, I'll always advocate for a '57! Only 2 things you don't like, it's a white, 4 door sedan. The straight 6 adds points in my book. You'll be winter camo in Minn, white paint against all that snow.
Realistically, it can probably haul as much as an S10.

 

See ! I told ya !!

cool story on the car , the body does not look to bad , besides the moss .

my old man owned an O/T 72 mustang when I was a kid , not totally a fan but would own one simply because I remember him dropping my off at school with it and sticking to the black vinyl seats in the summer
His first cars in Canada when he came over where a 62 New Yorker black on black ( 4 door ) and a 63 Parisienne convertable red on red and white interior with a white top . He was a lincolin town car guy for many many years , that’s probably where I get my love of 4 door land yachts .

anyways , yes . 4 doors can be cool especially when they have a great story behind them .

 

Nope, sorry, not drinkin the koolaide…

 

More doors became cool when classic two doors became priced out of reach for the average person.
My 4 door Olds works for me, and I won’t be parking next to one at a large event…

 

As the years go by, a lot of vehicles were affected by the "trickle down" effect. '55-'57 Chevrolets, for example; first, only the convertibles and hardtops brought big money, then the Nomads were added to the list, then it was any two door, and now it's damned near anything. Same with when I bought my '64 GTO in 1981. At that time, you could pick up Tempest and Lemans parts cars for almost nothing; not so today!

 

I know this thing is not a hot rod or a custom by any stretch of the imagination

but a little lowering and if possible a different tail light treatment and to me , this thing is just snazzy !!!!

I would drive this all over hells 1/2 acre and park it on the devils lawn with a big ol grin on my face the entire time !!

while not cool in a custom hot rod way , this car had to of been something to look at and admire even by the young lads of the day .

 

That Imperial has always been cool among diplomats

 

What about degenerates ?

 

not likely.

 

When we started running out of the actual cool cars and they got priced out of Joe Average's reach. That's when the oddball two doors, the four doors, and the wagons started to get noticed and built on. Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

There's a whole generation who don't understand the term "Dibs on shotgun!" and it shows!

 

Kind of a stupid question, really. "COOL" is subjective, like "What's your favorite color?". Everybody is gonna have a different answer.
Cool, how?
Cool to who?
Define Cool!

 

Sez you ...

 

one of my all time favourite cars ever !

but when they where new they where economical cars drive em and throw them away .

when was the first documented Willy’s used as a drag car , and when did it become “ The gasser “ ?