As it was: Dino Lella and his Ferrari 195 at Golden Gate Park in ’53. Dino took a wrong turn in the race and wound up stuck in city traffic on 19th Avenue. As it is: It will take Dodge over 12 months to turn the stock Viper into a works racer.
Sports cars are hardly a postwar phenome-non, but the existence of a thriving sports car culture in America is. For motoring’s first five decades, this country steadfastly ignored its few homegrown examples and scoffed at sophisticated imports. We believed in our own kind of car, and felt it was already the world’s best.
So how was it that by the early 1950s, the United States was suddenly the world’s biggest sports-car market? And why does it remain so?
The usual story is that GIs returning from Europe brought a taste for sports cars back with them. Doubtful: They did get used to seeing smaller cars there, but few soldiers had the fuel, time or
opportunity for Sunday driving overseas. But all Americans became more aware of Europe during the War, and that probably was a major factor. Others included our greatly increased purchasing power and the temporary scarcity of any new cars.
One more must be what Griff Borgeson, back in 1955, called "conspicuous contempt." As most Americans bought ever-bigger, more chrome-laden cars, owning a small and simple roadster was a statement—both public and private—that you rejected the norm and wanted something better. In addition to simply being fun, it told the world you were daring and individualistic.
This may be why sports cars still receive attention and admiration all out of proportion to their actual market share and technological importance. We’ll never know for sure, but in the end it simply doesn’t matter: All we really have to do is enjoy what the last 50 years have brought us. —SCI
