From my DJ website, some soon to be Summer Travel Tunes just for you.
It’s getting to be that season where we all start making our travel plans. We all seem to set our sights a-far as the days get longer and the unofficial start of summer looms near Memorial Day. We’re all looking for those last minute deals on plane tickets and packages and wondering what does it mean to still use AirBnB in gentrifying big cities worldwide.
Once upon a time it was simpler and harder all at once. Travel came via Road and Rail, the locations less exotic, and often attached with many hassles.
Especially for folks of color and those outside of heterosexual norms, the call of the open road via recreational travel came with many limitations of where one could safely stop, rest and nourish well into the 1960’s (and some would still say into today). For African Americans, this dovetailed into having The Negro Motorist Green Book from…
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The Oldsmobile Toronado tried time and time again to break the molds of what it meant to be the most premium offering in the middle of the General Motors Hierarchy. Where it initially channeled the elegant grand touring ethos of the Cord 810 upon introduction, it became an off the rack designer clone of the Cadillac Eldorado for its 2nd Generation. That tradition continued through its 3rd Generation as well.
The Oldsmobile Ninety Eight once sat in a rarefied holy trinity at the temple of General Motors opulence. The eldest and the most modest of the trio between the most Senior Buick, the now Electra 225, and the myriad of Cadillac DeVilles and Fleetwoods, the Ninety Eight negotiated for the least of your finances for the most security and the most sensible set of luxury trappings for your dollar.
As Oldsmobile rose to their zenith in the 1970’s, it started to do so by playing musicial chairs with the various marketing images that made for being the toast of the town image that it had fostered since the 1950’s. The Olds-multiplicity of the brand had been a constant mix of practicality, performance and posh since the end of World War II. For the Elegant Ninety Eights there were the Superlative Super 88’s. For the practical F-85 there was the swashbuckling Cutlass. For the sword of intermediates, a crowned princess Supreme started an ascent to the top of the charts like Diana, Mary and Florence starting in 1966.
Out of the Japanese brands that landed in the American Market during the 1950’s and 1960’s, Toyota learned the quickest how to adapt to the foreign to them trends that set the Jones’s hearts alight. One trend realized was the splintering of the American Market, as the generation of Boomers headed to dealerships, they weren’t happy with one-size fits all motoring in escalating finery that had dominated the automotive landscape from The Great Depression through the Fabulous Fifties.
By 1966, the performance brigade of big bruisers were rapidly losing ground to intermediate muscle machines and pony cars. Oldsmobile would send the Starfire into orbit one last time. The Impala SS started its rapid descent from its peak.
One thing that General Motors mastered to gain the meat of the US market share was planned obsolescence. GM tricked buyers better than any other corporate behemoth on the wonders of superficial change to convince them that the purchase they just made suddenly wasn’t Spring Fresh.
Chrysler Corporation products of the early 1970’s embraced more fully than any other brand of car the intergalactic possibilities and fantasies of Science Fiction in the earthbound chariots they offered to consumers. Going from rectilinear boxes of the 1960’s, Chrysler flooded every sight line with bulbous curves with their new Fuselage look for everything above the Valiant and Dart.
Happy Spring! Here we find ourselves at Spring Equinox of 2017. What better way to celebrate the brightening longer days at this seasonal balance point than a shiny red super stock Dodge? Today’s example is a little bit flashier than the one that The Little Old Lady From Pasadena bought however.
Dynamic Drive 