In 1942, the Post asked auto designers what the car of the future would look like. Some predictions came true, and some...didn’t.

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World War II wouldn’t be over for almost two more years, but Americans were already dreaming about their post-war cars.

So in 1942, the Post asked several auto designers what Americans could expect to see when Detroit began making passenger cars again. Author Edward R. Grace reported, “If our seven prophets are accurate, the postwar era will see more people than ever going places sitting down and they will go faster, more cheaply, and more comfortably, and in lighter, handsomer motorcars.”

Predictions that Missed the Mark

While some of the designers’ predictions proved accurate, others were wildly fanciful.

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Car bodies of molded plastic and plywood

Designers believed plastic could be developed that had 90% of the impact strength of steel. Molded-plastic auto bodies would reduce the weight of automobiles, making them more fuel efficient.The idea of plywood had been borrowed from the combat gliders developed by the Army. The plywood-construction idea was still a promising concept back in 1942, before the gliders were used in the European invasion and earned the nickname “flying coffins.” Plastic roofs with venetian blinds

“Plastics which permit the transmission of ultra-violet rays will give the passenger a good tan without the discomfort of sunburn, due to the elimination of the infra-red rays,” said a Ford Motor Company designer. “A lightweight venetian blind will control the amount of light desired.”He made these comments at a time when few were aware that tanning could lead to skin cancer. Also, he appears not to have known that it is ultraviolet rays, not infrared, that causes sunburn (although both kinds of radiation can cause cancer). No steering wheel or windshield wipers

Steering levers were proposed as more powerful, responsive alternatives to steering wheels. Heated windshields would somehow eliminate the need for windshield wipers. Competition from the aviation industry

America had been remarkably successful in producing aircraft and training pilots on a massive scale for the war. Some auto designers believed that, after the war, aircraft manufacturers would “turn out practicable planes at prices about the same as present-day automobile prices,” said Grace. The idea of Americans owning their own planes inspired some of the more fantastic ideas. A designer who’d worked for Packard expected to see “homes, offices, and public buildings designed to accommodate travel by air, which will give an entirely new functional value to roofs. I am confident that there will be many air-colony settlements. You are going to see service stations along our highways designed to accommodate both motorcars and planes.”



Predictions that Came True

But some predictions were spot on: