Birth of a Car Nation

World War II took a huge toll on the world. Many industries were in shambles and many others were forced to close their doors for good. The American automobile industry wasn't spared its share of bankruptcies. Many of the smaller companies, especially many of the more prestigious lines could not withstand the combination of the Great Depression and the ensuing war.

For Detroit's big auto makers, the war meant hardship but also presented a great many opportunities. Many of the Detroit plants had been re-tooled to support the war effort and put a lot of people to work. After the war, with dwindling competition in many markets, the Big Three began the process of churning out new models.

While it really wouldn't be until the 1950s for the car to become king on the newly made American highways, it was the late 1940s, following the war, that the seeds of this country's car culture to be sewn.

Several factors went into making cars such as the 1949 Chevy Coupe seen here, must haves in many families. The end of the war saw the beginning of an economic prosperity. People had jobs and jobs meant money. People were moving out of the cities and into the suburbs for a chance to live the American dream and own their own house. The growing affordability of cars, especially the lower priced models coming from Ford, Chevy and Plymouth.

As new roads branched out away from the heart of the cities and suburbs sprang to life, people bought these affordable cars in order to get back and forth from home to work. Even people staying closer to the city found a new need to own a car as many cities saw the demise of their principle public transportation systems. Cable cars and trollies that had once dotted most every large city were going out of business, being purchased by a company that was funded by car and rubber manufacturers. Even the US government was in on the push to turn this into a nation behind the wheel as they set aside vast amounts of tax dollars and land to build an interstate highway system.

None of this would have mattered though had it not been for cars like this Chevy Coupe. A family car that was affordable to buy as well as to drive, it freed the American public to live and travel wherever it so desired. This 1949 model was a transition machine. It saw a country hungry to move on after a depression and a war and into the prosperity that would become the 1950s. This, and other models like it, were the birth of the USA becoming a Car Nation.