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• 1 media/1956_Pontiac_Club_de_Mer-thumb.jpg media/Pontiac_01.jpg 2020-07-27T12:26:39-07:00 1956 Pontiac Club de Mer 6 plain 2020-08-22T17:34:43-07:00 From 1953 to 1961, GM hosted a traveling extravaganza called Motorama, where they premiered new production cars and showed off experimental vehicles. Prior to this, automakers did not exhibit their design studies. In 1956, the company’s Pontiac division debuted a car on the circuit that scarcely resembled anything previously seen on the road. The Club de Mer was equipped with GM’s most powerful engine, a 300-horsepower V8 known as the “Strato-Streak.” It lacked a conventional front grille, normally used to funnel air that cools the engine. Instead, the front end of the car featured a wide, narrow slit. 
   
• 1 2020-07-27T12:18:00-07:00 1952 Packard Pan American 1 plain 2020-07-27T12:18:00-07:00 A venerable automaker dating from the earliest days of the industry, the independent company Packard had fallen on hard times by the middle of the century, unable to achieve the Big Three’s economies of scale. In 1952, Packard gambled that its Pan American could help reestablish the company as a contender on the luxury car market. Its low-slung styling and subtle shape won it the top prize for engineering and design at the International Motor Sports Show in New York. Though only five Pan American prototypes were made, they influenced the look of Packard’s successful Caribbean convertible.