In all the eras, what was significant was that safety, culture, market conditions, art movements and technology concurrently affected automobile styles. Improvements in manufacturing and methods increasingly allowed designers to design with fewer limitations. Technological gains in other disciplines like train and airplane design benefited automobile design by providing a semantic frame for the look and feel of the car. In previous eras we saw semantic expressions of the airplane (Fig.10) and missile (Fig. 8) being used in car designs. There were two creative schools of thought regarding semantics. The first school promoted the use of the old familiar product forms like the horse carriage as a frame for the first automobile.

The other creative school was exemplified by the designs of Marco Ricotti. His design of the Alfa Romeo in 1914 still influences present day airplanes (Noblet, 1993 and Borgeson 1990). Vittorio Jano borrowed the form from the 1932 Fairchild J2K (Fig. 10) and used it in the 1935 LanciaAstura. The LanciaAstura, in turn, influenced baby carriage designs in 1950.


Fig.10 - Effect of automobiles on other products

Lifestyle and cultural influences have transformed automobiles. In the Integration era, American car companies divided designs into men’s car and women’s car. Designers heavily borrowed from fashion, makeup, color trends and personal products like eyeglasses (Beazley 1998). In the 1950s after long years of war, young American woman wore slacks in shrill tones, casual sweaters and bright headscarves covering colorful hair curlers. Woman wore their hair either short with a light wave or simply pulled back in a pony-tail. Many women also teased their hair into emulating the high beehive that adorned the head of the Persian Queen. Broad-brimmed hats were highly elegant and graceful. Slender shoes with long, pointed toes and heels that were delicate as they were pencil-thin, were also typical of the period (Andressen 1998). Those things had effect on the eyeglasses designing and soon it began to influence Car designs, like in the 1959 Chevrolets as shown in (Fig. 11). In an effort to target separate markets, automakers advertised cars that resembled the design of the human model’s dress and makeup. (Fig. 11)


Fig.11 - Life style

The Ford Motor Company produced the most feminine car in automobile history (Streetka 2003 in Fig. 11). When Streetka was launched, Ford claimed that 80% of the buying public would be female. In 2003, 1% of men bought this car. The car was launched by Kylie Minogue (a well-known American singer). A special pink version of the car was used to promote the movie ‘Thunderbird’. A dress to match the car was made and later sold at a charity auction.

References:
http://www.autobelle.it/archivio_carrozzieri/zagato.php
http://www.allcarcentral.com/ford_pix-1930-1935.html