The 1958 Oldsmobile has often been maligned for its over-the-top styling. But that’s exactly what makes it so wonderful and compelling, to me at least. So I’m happily going out on a limb—or rocket-adorned fin—and presenting a different take on it. I found this striking original example for sale on eBay, listed by Gateway Classic Cars, featuring many artistic close-up photos of all the unique and fascinating design details this car has. In the science of semiotics we study symbols and try to determine their hidden meaning. What is this car trying to say?
Serious draftsmen at General Motors, possibly working on engineering drawings for tail fins, bumper bombs, and hood rockets, 1956.
Every styling detail started as an idea. Harley Earl, the undisputed leader of the GM styling studios, told his draftsmen what he wanted, and it was their job to draw it on paper. Earl, who never picked up a pencil, communicated his thoughts in rather arcane ways, using words like “whiz-bang” and “zong”. But what was Earl’s inspiration?
To find the answer, we have to go back twenty years to the 1930s. This is the time when what we would call “futurism” and a fascination with rockets and the potential for space travel began. Such ideas were dramatically presented in state-of-the-art science fiction films of the time (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon), and public exhibitions like the 1939 World’s Fair. You can see a lot of 1950s GM styling cues in the 1930s movie spaceship above.
The P-38 Lockheed Lightning warbird inspired Harley Earl to create tail fins. Modern airplanes, jets, rockets, fictional spacecraft–anything that represented the future and speed–were rich sources of inspiration.
Oldsmobile in particular adopted the “rocket” theme after World War II, hitting the market hard in 1949 with a one-two punch: The high-powered OHV V-8 combined with 4-speed Hydramatic transmission made Olds one of the fastest and sought-after cars on the road. Pleasant to look at and completely modern, Oldsmobile called the cars “Futuramic”.
Each year brought newer and greater advances: longer, lower, wider; more power for the “Rocket” engine; pastel colors and two-toning; hardtops (2- and 4-door); more chrome; elaborately sculpted bumpers; smoother Hydramatic; wraparound windshields; new options; speedometers that now go to 120; and more . . . !
With every annual model change, a new standard was set. Each “magic year” of the 1950s produced its own one-year-only, limited edition of automotive art and science–1955, 1956, 1957, building to a crescendo. Each new model stylistically and performance-wise must exceed and make obsolete all previous achievements, while maintaining a certain golden thread of continuity. Now it’s 1958–GM’s 50th Anniversary. What futuristic dreamboats will tempt buyers in Oldsmobile showrooms this year? The product planners pondered the thought, “How can we build cars that will be total knock-outs and outclass all competition?” Think bold–give free rein to your creative fantasies–the future is here–now!
From the author’s personal collection of LIFE magazines which I bought as a kid to look at car ads.
We’ll let our announcer describe it for you:
The new word for ’58 is “OLDSmobility”–a “new way of going places in the Rocket Age!” “A car in a class by itself!” “Excitingly styled . . . with distinctive good taste!”
OLDSmobility is not just about out-of-this-world style–there’s new Four-Beam Headlamps to knock your eye out, and New-Matic Ride: a new air suspension system that lets your family ride smooth and level over the surface of the moon. New-Matic Ride’s unique feature is that it doesn’t work, so few orders were placed, and cars equipped with the device were quickly converted back to steel springs, which worked just fine.
In the pursuit of innovation to give salesmen something to talk about, we have: a New Rocket Engine which provides “greater performance than ever before” with a claim of “improved fuel savings, as much as 20%!” (13 miles per gallon day-in and day-out would probably be typical). A Trans-Portable radio which you can take out of the car; a New Safety-Vee Steering Wheel that does away with the old-fashioned horn ring; and a Dual-Range Power Heater which is somehow superior to a regular car heater, but in a way that only an Oldsmobile salesman could explain it to you. A true innovation, an improved Hydramatic with a smoother 2-3 shift and greater durability, somehow is not mentioned.
So now let’s take a close-up look at this very original and quite pristine ’58 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 sedan, focusing on all the finely-crafted details that give this car so much unique character.
Not just a tail light, but a rocket nozzle topped by a chrome-bespangled tailfin.
Wrap-around windshield (like a fighter jet) with reverse-angled vent window–these always fascinated me as a kid.
Voluptuous curves and straight lines somehow harmonize beautifully.
“Eighty-Eight”–everything looks like it’s shooting forward at incredible speed!
O L D S M O B I L E in big, bold, three-dimensional letters.
A chromium rocket leads the way. Such romanticism!
A heraldic shield somehow combines the historical with the futuristic. Are the design elements in this shield related to Ransom E. Olds’ actual family crest?
Massive parking light housings remind you of “War of the Worlds”. The lower part is “ribbed”, just because.
Flamboyant architecture–the gracefully curved roof; the cut-down doors; the interaction of the bright metal trim strips front and rear; the “blister” above the rear wheel shooting forward–all suggest action and excitement.
The rear fenders–speed!
Star-like trunk emblems with matching Oldsmobile crests evoke the beauty of the stars and planets.
Inside door panel: color coordinated; not spartan, not plush. Typically appropriate for a medium-priced car.
Interior view featuring the new Safety-Vee steering wheel.
Cars of this era have these amazing dashboards that I call “intergalactic”. For all the artistic complexity, there are only two gauges–speedometer and fuel. Everything else is warning lights.
Wow, that was really something! But soon enough, the 1958 model year would be over, and what could Oldsmobile do to top this? Answer:
Harley Earl and his wizards have done it again! A car so new, so sleek, so modern (and so much bigger)–it’s almost unbelievable! GM and the USA clearly lead the world. I’m telling you–pretty soon, America will put a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth! Just wait, you’ll see!
Time marches on. The ’60 Olds would be a modified version of the ’59. 1961 seems to be an awkward “transition period” where the stylists didn’t know where to go next. There were now canted fins on the bottom of the rear fenders, making the cars look droopy in the rear. Above is an “all-new” 1963 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 in approximately the same color scheme as the ’58 model shown. Some could argue that this is a “clean, refreshing” design, and I can see that. To me, it also seems very blocky, generic, boring. It doesn’t soar; there are no rockets. Close-up detail photos of this car wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.
Where have all the flowers [old cars] gone? Long time passing . . .
So as a kid in the 1970s, I was always on the lookout for these fantastic finned monsters of the ’50s, which were still occasionally seen, but getting rarer. Even into the 1990s, it was still possible to find a ’58 Olds at a junkyard or stuffed behind other sorry wrecks at a seedy gas station. Here are two I photographed 25 or 30 years ago:
Asking me why I am so drawn to these cars is like asking Captain Ahab why he goes after Moby Dick. I can only say that I find them beautiful, inspiring, fascinating. They express something inexpressible. That’s as close as I can come.
Occasionally a nice ’50s survivor would magically appear, like this Ninety-Eight sedan parked next to my ’62 Mercury Comet, Montville NJ, August 1987. I would love to know where this Olds is today. (I think a girl was driving it?)
I even found a Futuramic ’50 buried in the weeds.
Of course, everybody thinks I’m a little nuts for caring about these cars so much. Also, it’s kind of sad to think about the fact that I’m among the youngest people who still has actual memories of growing up with cars of the ’50s. As time goes by, it seems that the whole subject of ’50s cars is less and less relevant to the modern conversation. But I’ve got my 1958, ’59, and ’60 cars, and I’m still driving them. I still look for other ’50s/’60s survivors while out on the road. I’m not giving up yet!
So remember, next time you see a classic from the 1950s “Golden Era”, know that you’re looking at an authentic work of rolling American art. Rest assured that there will be people a hundred years from now who will look back and wish they could own and drive one (as we can still presently do), and they will marvel at our romanticism.
See also:
Curbside Classic: 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic Eighty Eight–In Defense of The Baroque Beast
Curbside Classic: 1958 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88–OLDSmobility
Great piece, Stephen, and from the man that has the ultimate (IMHO) rocket engine festooned car, the ‘60 Dodge.
You make a fine argument on how cool these cars are, despite the fact most find them over the top, styling-wise.
There’s an old guy that comes to our local cars and coffee that has a ‘52 Olds that is about as perfect as this ‘58, condition-wise. He’s owned it since new (yeah, he’s that old), but admits it’s not all-original, it just looks that way. It’s been repainted over the years a few times, as well as getting new upholstery a couple of times, but the man loves his car, and has kept this beauty up perfectly.
Of the pictures you show here, I think my favorite is that golden ‘57. Pretty car.
The staggering ugliness of cars like this is the reason the ‘61 Continental is so memorable. IMHO.
Q: “What is this car trying to say?”
A: See your DeSoto-Plymouth dealer, and tell them Groucho sent you.
I cannot say I like the looks of these, but do appreciate the audacity of the design. To think, there was a time when people considered these normal. And I still remember being amazed when I learned that this 58 was just an extensive restyle of the genuinely new 1957 model.
I found a really nice original 58 88 that I wrote up quite a few years ago. After some research, I came away with some respect for the car, as perhaps one of the best cars you could buy in 1958 from a purely mechanical standpoint, in both performance and durability.
A neighbor lady had a 59 Olds when I was a kid, and I used to marvel at how old it seemed compared to our 64 Cutlass. That was a big change in a mere 5 years time.
Your pictures show one unique and useful feature that I haven’t seen on any other GM car. The cowl vent has a forward-facing scoop so it inputs air instead of just letting the fan suck the air. Nash had this feature in the 50s then abandoned it in 1960. The Nash version was better because it was all forward, with no upward parts to gather rain and leaves.
Some GM cars pulled in air through ducts next to the radiator, which had the same advantages as the Nash vent but probably picked up more heat and exhaust from other cars.
A travesty of design. Makes the Edsel attractive.