The best-looking ‘50s car

Michael Bozzo’s 1955 Oldsmobile Super-88 Holiday Coupe. (Photo by Dan Lyons.)

—The February 2020 entry in my Tide-mark “Cars of the Fab ‘50s” calendar is what I consider the best-looking car of the 1950 styling-idiom, a 1955 Oldsmobile Super-88 Holiday Coupe, a two-door hardtop.
It’s devoid of the garishness and fins that came later, yet much better-looking than GM’s turkeys of the early ‘50s.
All through high-school and college I lusted after a ’55 Chevy Two-Ten hardtop (like the car pictured below).

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

—You’d think I’d still be lusting after that Chevy, but this Olds looks better.
The chrome headlight surrounds are best-ever. Hood and front-fender shapes are perfect. And the grille and bumper are simple. After 1955 Olds got garish and fat-looking.
Striking is the two-tone paint treatment. Extravagant, yet simple.
Paint-schemes like this went out with the ‘50s, as did whitewall tires. More importantly two-tone paint was common to the average car-buyer.
Two-tone color hung around a while longer, but without the chrome separation molding.
Or perhaps the car-body was a dark color, and the roof a lighter color. Vinyl roofs became popular in the ‘70s.
Wild as it is, this car’s two-tone paint works well.
And sadly the market for ‘50s cars is waning. These are the cars I grew up with. In 1955 I was 11 years old. Cars like this ruled the highways when I was in high-school and college.
The editor of my Classic Car magazine takes on the collector-car crowd for being upset with ‘70s/‘80s/‘90s cars. Older car-guys like me are dying off: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on...”
I have a hard time thinking a late ‘70s Toyota is classic, but I’m an oldster.
Classic Car magazine is becoming what Special-Interest Autos became. Ferrin cars as well as American. Classic Cars promised it wouldn’t do that, and now it is — I didn’t forget.
Owning a ’55 Olds would be pleasant, but I wouldn’t go anywhere with it. Modern cars are what I’m used to; a ’55 Olds only looks nice.
No ‘50s cars for this kid; and no visor above the “Wraparound windshield” as on this ’55 Olds. (That visor looks stupid.)
And now Oldsmobile is GONE; victim of the Japanese auto invasion, and now even South Korea. Oldsmobile marketed some of the all-time classics, particularly the front-wheel-drive Toronado.
The Toro is a lotta car; the ’55 Olds is ordinary. But for 1955 you could buy a great-looking ordinary car. Compare it to some of the wretched excess that came later.
A ’56 Olds looks debatable, and by 1957 Olds was bloated.

• “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on...” is from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
• Special-Interest Autos failed.
• A “Wraparound windshield” is a one-piece windshield that wraps down around the corners. A techno-marvel that went outta style because that lower corner caught knees.