What is your favorite car of the 1950s?
Ducati Minor
The 1950s are well-known for movie stars, rock & roll, and simple ideals. They were also a decade of chrome-laden and finned coupes, flashy GTs, and grueling endurance races that made or slayed many a marque. What is your favorite car of the decade?
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Chris Paukert
Very tough question.
If we're restricting ourselves to road cars, I love tailfins and relaxed American motoring as much as the next guy, but I'm partial to sports cars of that era (of which we made very few). As such, I'd shortlist cars like the Jag XK-SS, Cisitalia 202, and of course, the entire Ferrari 250 catalog, along with more obtainable sheetmetal like the Alfa Giulietta. I'm also deeply intrigued by hybrids of the era... cars that featured Yankee powertrains and Euro styling. The Facel Vega HK 500 comes to mind, but that's more of a GT than a pure sports.
To be honest, though, I'm not sure if I could sleep at night if my design and innovation side didn't pick the Citroen DS.
Chris Paukert
Editor-In-Chief
Winding Road Magazine // NextAutos
Anonymous
Hands down, 1958 Porsche Speedster Carrera.
Dave B.
Today I'll vote for the Lotus Seven. Ask me tomorrow and I'll likely have a different answer. But that's the one I'd most like to get into and drive right now.
Ducati Minor
To keep this going because I think there's so much life in the subject, I'll (with some pain) say the Maserati 450S. It is, sadly, a car that I have never had the fortune of being close to, but I appreciate what history, power, and beauty lay with it. It was a limited-production race car that the crown marque built to stem off the inevitable Ferrari tide in European racing. The 450S program cost Maserati dearly, and it abandoned factory-sponsored racing thereafter. I nominated the 450S with some uncertainty because the populist in me dislikes the car's small production, and the possibility of me ever driving one (much less owning) is nil.
Ducati Minor
Mena
I'm not a fan of most cars from the 50's but if I were to choose a favorite it would be the Porsche 356A.
1959 Porsche 356A
JWBrothers
This is one of my favorites along with the 59 Eldorado convertable
Many Thanks
1953-54 Studebaker Starliner
Jim
Ducati Minor
Jim, I love the Starliner. It is my favorite American car of the '50s. How tragic that many have fallen victim to the shoddy work of the amateur hot rodder.
J2X
I'm partial to the Allard J2X– crude, raw power, all British. Glad to hear that it's back with all of the goodies it didn't have then.
The J-series Allards were most noted on the track in the capable hands of Sidney Allard and Tom Cole (3rd in the 24-Hours of Le Mans, also at the hands of John Fitch (winner of the Argentina GP), Freddy Wacker, Bill Pollock, and Irwin Goldschmidt. Carroll Shelby (one of his first successful racers) and Maston Gregory. Steve McQueen also had an Allard J2X.
The new one (Allard J2X MkII) is awesome.
Mena
Just Googled it. That's an awesome car! Do you own one?