Starting the 1950s With Designs For The Future... [PIC]

With the end of wartime production, the first few years the majors continued their prewar car designs while designing anew for the next decade. For their entry level bread and butter brands, Ford, in 1949, eliminated all fender bulges and went completely slab-sided with a jet intake inspired nose. Chevrolet, for 1950 kept the pontoon style rear fenders with a lower sleeker body design with a sloping front clip with a horizontal grill with a bulbous center hump to accommodate their Blue Streak 6 cylinder engine as there was no V8 option. As a kid, my visceral reaction to the two was a big "Yuck" for the Ford and a "that's pretty nice" to the Chevy. At my tender age, engines and performance meant nothing. It was all about the esthetics. Ironically, the two brands did a 180 a few years later with Chevy's Tri-5s going slab-sided and the '55 Ford going lower and sleeker from, what thought was the uglier '53-54 body design. Here's two ancient model by Franklin Mint: The 1949 Ford Custom convertible and the 1950 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe convertible.