Gorgeous best explains the look of the 1937 Chevy Cabriolet, sleek, with lines and curves that give the automobile’s design a windswept continuity, a car for the era’s fast, modern roads.
It’s one of 36 on display for the “100 Years of Chevrolet” exhibit that opened in June at the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey and runs through Oct. 14, 2012.
With its burgundy body and cream-colored convertible top, the ’37 Cabriolet is a rare vehicle, apparently one of only 1,724 made that year.
“We don’t know too much about this car,” said Michael Barrett, the museum’s executive director. “It could have been a design experiment. This car has more design features on it then any Chevrolet model at that time.”
Design is where Chevrolet leads in auto manufacturing and it’s the exhibit’s focus, Barrett said. Stroll the eras, from post World War I to the sports car ‘50s to the muscle car ‘60s into the 2000s. The emphasis is on cars with style, design and features.
There’s the 1918 V-8 Touring car, on loan from Warren Becker of Lititz, a larger than normal vehicle at the time and an experiment with eight cylinder engines that did not dominate cars until the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Becker’s grandfather bought he car when it rolled off the assembly line and it has been in the family for nearly a century. It sold for $1,385, which, along with its size, did not make it a popular seller in its day.
“People weren’t ready to pay for such a big car,” Barrett said.
Indeed, back then “Everyman’s car,” read an old advertisement among the framed art works around the museum, cost about $485.
Interestingly, the exhibit does not dwell on the 1920s, but picks up in the 1930s when, Barrett said, “Chevrolet was again a design leader.”
Chevrolet’s designs included such features as chrome-laced lights, fender skirts, running boards and the vehicle that generations later is still popular – the Suburban. The exhibit offers a 1935 Suburban, the first year they were made.
Not only was the Suburban popular with families then, but also with farmers, ranchers and businesses. “Interestingly enough, the utility companies used it because they could put men in the back of it,” Barrett said.
The Chevrolet century was more than just making well-designed cars; it was about marketing them, too. Chevrolet defined for the public a sense of family and American life – mom, flag and apple pie, said Nancy Gates, the museum’s spokeswoman.
“They were much more family oriented than the shows they sponsored,” she said.
The exhibit offers examples of this including advertisements of Diana Shore, whose 1950s TV show the car company sponsored with the signature song that blared from their sets: “See … the … USA in Your Chevrolet.”
The AACA Museum, 161 Museum Dr., Hershey, is inviting anyone with anything Chevrolet to a non-judged All Chevrolet Car Show on the museum grounds Sunday, July 22. For information, call 717-566-7100 or visit www.aacamuseum.org.
