Fins, chrome and muscle cars

US classics from the land of unlimited possibilities - everyone with gasoline in their blood automatically thinks of chrome, bright colors, panoramic windows and exalted fin designs. Or of hot rods, quarter-miles, bubbling V8 engines and muscle cars, in whose heyday the displacements could not be big enough. Sounding brands like Pontiac, Buick, Dodge, Cadillac and Oldsmobile come to mind, as do model names à la Mustang, Charger, Trans Am, Coronet, Eldorado Biarritz and Skylark. They are all representative of an automotive era in which everything seemed possible in terms of equipment, technical features, performance in abundance and fancy design. Many designs in the 1950s took their cue from aerospace; the studies and production models featured tail fins and rocket-like taillights, as well as chrome dashboard gauges that would have done credit to a fighter jet.

Anyone with that much on board has to carry a heavy load, so the only engine option was really ever a potent V8 engine, the more displacement the better. "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" was one of the big foreign currencies in the 1960s, i.e.: what was successful on the race track on Sunday could be bought at the dealer the next day, even if only the model name matched, but not the displacement.

Ingenious minds from the "Motorcity" Detroit such as John Z. DeLorean (among others. creator of the Pontiac GTO, later the man behind the DeLorean DMC 12), Lee Iacocca (pioneer of the Ford Mustang) and Ed Cole (developer of the legendary Chevy small-block V8) created milestones in automotive history, which also had a considerable influence on "old world Europe" and whose forward momentum was only dampened and later brought to an abrupt end by the energy crisis at the beginning of the 1970s.

Admire unique US classics from the heyday of US carmakers at the 22nd RETRO CLASSICS® in Stuttgart, presented by US car specialists NR Classic Car Collection, Rühle Motors and the US car club Southside Rebels Neckar-Alb in Hall 5 .