I was watching a program on American Pop-Culture on the History Channel a couple of days ago, and of course the automobile played a prominent role in it.  During the course of the documentary, the authors crowned Harley Earl as the Godfather of stylists, and gave a brief history of his work, from independent designer, to King of all GM Design Studios.  Harley Earl.  Until General Motors started running their new series of commercials on the tube, I didn’t even know the man’s name.  Now, 70 years after he got involved in the car biz, he’s becoming a household name.

Of course, anything automotive gets the diecast gears turning inside my mind and after a little pondering, I thought, ”Oh Boy, We’re going to see some cool diecast now, Concepts and Oldies!  Why now?  A couple of reasons.

Reason number One:  Practicality is Boring

I have spent many hours Googling my way through pictures of fantastic [and sometimes ludicrous] concept cars on various web sites.  The vast majority of them were either Harley Earl designs, or were heavily influenced by him.  Remember, General Motors was the ‘big dog’ back in the 40’s and 50’s.  One out of every two cars sold in the USA was a GM.  Now that GM has dug up Harley’s memory, to help remind us that General Motors used to be able to make cool looking cars, I predict that some diecast manufacturers will jump on the Harley Earl nostalgia band wagon.

Mattel already has a history of releasing relatively current concept reproductions, but they turned back the clock a bit by producing the Sentinel 400 limousine in 2002.  Syd Mead, the futurist / illustrator who designed this car was a contemporary of Harley Earl.  Will it be too long before one of the diecast companies decides that they will take a chance and manufacture a few of the other, futuristic designs that never saw more than the Motorama circuit back in the 50’s and 60’s?  The Ford FX-Atmos, Studebaker-Packard Predictor and Harley Earl’s winged trio of Firebird concepts would make very striking miniatures.  Racing Champions has already slated the jet-like Chevy Astro III from the early seventies for release in their Concept and Muscle Series.

I don’t expect to see a flood of prototypes, because not all collectors really want to see the roots of where their cars came from, or where the edge of the envelope is.  They want to see familiar cars that either they or their parents drove.  However, after having lived through a decade or two of pretty mediocre or fairly predictable automotive designs, we are once again ready to see some sharp angles and curves with sharp edges on them, where form does not necessarily follow function.  What better place to find them than in the archives of the 50’s design studios where excess was the norm, Yank Tanks ruled, and the closer an automobile looked to an airplane the better?

Reason Number Two:  Nostalgia sells. 

How many times have you seen warm, happy, Currier and Ives or Coca Cola scenes on Calendars, diecast, Christmas ornaments, beverage trays, etc?  Every generation has its trials, and as a result, every generation looks back to the “simpler” times of its youth.  Life may not have been less hectic in the past, but at least we were young enough to not be aware of what was going on around us.  We forget the hardships, [except when we are lecturing our children on how good they have it] and remember the slower pace at which life seemed to move.

Diecast manufacturers have always followed this trend, catering to the “they don’t make them like they used to” appreciation that we learned from our parents.

In addition to producing cutting edge replicas of modern Low-riders, Jada is reaping major kudos with their interpretation of cars from the 40’s and 50’s.  They can’t survive on low riders forever, so I am predicting some vintage, albeit altered releases from them.

Johnny Lightning’s future and current releases are digging up some cars from the 30’s, through 60’s that up to now have had only cult followings, such as the Hispano-Suiza [ride of the privileged], Nash Metropolitan [production], Tucker [almost production] and Lincoln Futura [concept].

Mattel’s 2002 releases were the usual mix of fantasy and real cars, but 7 of the 12 Treasure hunts were 35 years old or more, and over one third of the First Editions could trace their lineage back 30 to 70 years.

I’m betting that although flames, ’57 Chevies, and muscle cars will never go out of style, we will be treated to some nice new oldies.  Although 1:43 seems to be the international standard for collectible diecast, we Americans are usually stubborn enough, or resistant enough to change to get what we want.  1:64 scale seems to be having its day in the sun.  There are socio-economic and logistical reasons why this trend will continue, but that’s another story.  Although there are already at least half a dozen excellent covers in 1:43 scale, the Tucker will finally be cast in 1:64 this year.  Can the Bugatti type 57 SC be far behind?

--Oldpole