Petersen Automotive Museum Showcases ‘50s Futurism

“The future ain’t what it used to be.” – Yogi Berra, noted philosopher and Major League Baseball Hall of Fame player.

With World War II won and the arrival of new technologies like television into American homes, the future was regarded optimistically. This optimism was manifested in the car industry with the development of bigger, more powerful models.

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The style of these cars was steered by work done in specialist design houses such as Bertone, Pinin Farina, and Ghia which sketched futuristic and chic concept car designs. Some of these designs focused on cutting-edge silhouettes and jet-inspired styling, while others were essentially race cars for the road.

Southern California car designer and educator Strother MacMinn published a book in 1959 highlighting the best “sports cars of the future” and now the Petersen Automotive Museum has rounded up some of those futuristic machines for its new exhibit, Strother MacMinn’s Sports Cars of the Future.

This installation presents some of the cars chosen by MacMinn to illustrate the most promising aspects of sports car design of the era. Today, they offer a glimpse at what we once believed the future might hold. They were revolutionary vehicles for a revolutionary age and served to inspire a reimagining of the function and meaning of the automobile.