What do we see in a curve of steel, a line of chrome, a sweep of glass? That rich lacquer and the depths of red paint? All those specular distortions. The Victorian facades of Main Street, Ft. Bragg, lie in the background and as a faint reflection in the white half of the quarter panel. Those times have faded. We're now firmly in the era of speed and space. The geometry of the classic Detroit iron is all about curves and lines, flares and folds. We see a haughty optimism. An almost narcissistic hubris that would so quickly fall pieces in the decade to come. But look at us here. Proud and patriotic. It was, after all, our boldness and technology that just led a world at war. California is the land of the possible and the land of the dream. Why not join us out here in Bel Air? Swimming pools and movies stars. The platinum triangle where palm trees sway gently in a ocean breeze. This was the fantasy that General Motors was selling at the time when this marvel was created - by the hands of the men and women of Michigan, which is a corruption of an Ojibwe word meaning big water. How fitting. There is nothing more promising as a vast expanse of water.
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