Cruise-O-Matic, Automobile Advertising of the 1950's [Paperback]

Yasutoshi Ikuta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2000

The 1950s were the golden age of the American automobile, and the cars were faster, bigger, and more boldly styled than ever before. Sunday driving--Cleaver-style--in the regal family Ford, Edsel or Plymouth topped the list of national pastimes; and teenagers, behind the wheels of their daddies' thundering T-birds, had fun, fun, fun across America's highways. The economic prosperity of the country made for an "ultramatic" boom in car manufacturing, and the advertising industry followed suit. This reprint of a Chronicle Books classic collects the "masterpieces" of automobile advertising, culled from the pages of such popular periodicals as Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Look, and Holiday. Their colorful illustrations and catchy copy give these ads a "power-packed beauty" all their own, offering a fun look at 50s culture and values. So take a cruise down memory lane with this fond look back on a time when tail fins and chrome were the standard, and the American car was the true King of the Road.

Editorial Reviews

Review

FLAUNT
Mark Bennett
When a kind editor at Flaunt phoned to ask if I'd consider writing a few words about Cruise-O-Matic, a new softbound reprint of a coffee-table-worthy tome from the late 80s by Yasutoshi Ikuta about vintage automobile advertisements, I wish I'd been wearing a diaper. Not only have I listed after the visual expressions of that singular era, I have created a series of artworks based on that very subject.

Flushed with anticipation, I ripped open the envelope from Chronicle Books, my gaze immediately falling upon the jacket cover featuring Anne Fogarty, famed fashion designer (looking like a bus and truck Eve Arden in pageboy bangs), sitting behind the wheel of a pristine white-over-red 1955 De Soto. Little did I suspect that between those covers author Ikuta had painstakingly compiled a true gem, the best of that era's splashy, surreal, storytelling ads. In that world, it didn't matter that you weren't off to the opera; if you bought their car, you'd feel like you were off to the opera. Or the rodeo, a yacht, the country club... even Paris.

Starting with a 1950 Ford and ending with a 1959 Pontiac (whose make boasted that its new wide-track Bonneville would slice a few years off your age), Cruise-O-Matic offers examples from the Big Three as well as obscure Crosley and Kaiser-Nash lines. From the diamond-encrusted Cadillac hood ornament to the smart and sensible dual country/city horn featured on the Renault "Dauphine," Ikuta cruises through a decade of automotive splendor before those pesky oil embargoes forced American automakers to downsize their designs.

A must for the car buff of nostalgia nut, Cruise-O-Matic does more than just peddle cars. Its ads make you want to learn to sail, or ski, or attend a tailgate party (even if you don't like football). No matter that taking legal possession of these dream machines will probably always be in your minds rather than you garage. You don't have to turn the key—just turn the page. Take, for example, the Willys-Jeep ad, whose type promises that "there are dreams under this hood."

Cruise-O-Matic's test is precise, and the ads speak for themselves. The publisher can forget it—I ain't' givin' this back. It's a keeper.

Power Steering is easy as dialing a telephone... you can turn the wheel with one finger.

Language Notes

Text: English, Japanese (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (April 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811827771
• ISBN-13: 978-0811827775
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,734 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor Quality Production, August 5, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cruise-O-Matic, Automobile Advertising of the 1950's (Paperback)

If you're looking for vintage car ads, pass this by. The reproduction quality is very poor. Many of the ads were cropped badly, and much of the text is not readable. It's obvious that many of these must be amateur scans of magazine ads and not the original source material. I'd love to see a professional-quality re-work of this subject matter.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nifty 50s Reference, November 20, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cruise-O-Matic, Automobile Advertising of the 1950's (Paperback)

This is a terrific resource for illustrators, writers or anyone interested in 50s cars, design or culture. The color reproductions of the car ads are a real treasure -- the layouts, typefaces, symbols, cultural themes and color schemes are invaluable sources of information about 50s social history, values and imagery. And if you love the cars, it's even better! Chronicle Books does a nice job with books like this -- and at a very good price.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The book of big chrome, December 4, 2004

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cruise-O-Matic, Automobile Advertising of the 1950's (Paperback)

Certainly a neat idea for a book: to see how Detroit created car sales with ads brimming with extravagant headlines, copy and visuals. I bought this book years ago and this is a timely reprint but I doubt I would have bought it now. This is because of the production, all the lovely ads have just been copied as whole originals without taking the trouble to separate the color graphics from the flat color headlines and copy. Doing it this way means that none of the photos or illustrations sparkle and frequently the ad copy is very light and not too readable.

Another reason I would probably not have bought it is because I have a copy of 'All-American Ads: 50s' by Jim Heimann (ISBN 3822811580) which has two hundred car ads from the Fifties over 188 pages (in a 926 page book) with much better production so that the images really look good, even on the pages with four ads.

It is unfortunate that the ads in 'Cruise-O-Matic' do not look as good as they should because they celebrate a particular American stylistic exuberance of the past.