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But for the mass of Americans, European sports cars were not a satisfactory answer. Their hard springing rattled the normally pillowed spines of U.S. passengers; they often broke down under the long drives and hard beatings Americans give their cars. They were priced skyhigh, usually from $4,000 to $15,000. In a true sports car, comfort, room and easy riding took a back seat to performance, i.e., roadability, sensitive steering, balance, fast acceleration and speed. Many of the qualities that made an excellent sports car (e.g., a short wheelbase and hard springing to cut down sway) also made the passenger feel as though he were being dragged along the road in a box. So American carmakers, sniffing the trend, set to work to see what they could do.
Home-grown Hot Rods. Nash pioneered with its Nash-Healey, assembled it abroad with a British chassis, an Italian body (by Pinin Farina), and Nash engine and transmission, etc. The car was good enough to take third in the 24-hour Le Mans race in France last year, perhaps the world's toughest. Millionaire Briggs Cunningham built a car with a souped-up Chrysler engine that took fourth in the same race. Some small manufacturers, notably Britain's Allard Motor Co., built cars with Cadillac and Chrysler engines and many standard American parts and saw them lick the ears off finely tuned European sports cars. And in the last Mexican road race, Lincoln sedans came in one, two, three in the stock-car class.
To get in the parade, Buick tricked up is convertible with a new body, the Skylark; Cadillac brought out its El Dorado, Packard its Caribbean, and Oldsmobile its Fiesta. Kaiser-Frazer plans to bring out a fiber-glass plastic roadster this spring. Sports-car fanatics regard these cars as still too big. But even the fanatics were impressed when Chevrolet showed off its new fiber-glass plastic Corvette a fortnight ago. The Corvette, still to be put into production, seemed to have everything the best European sports cars have —except the ultra-high price.
Despite all the new cars, no American automaker thinks there is a big market for a true sports car in the U.S. But a sports-family car is something else again. Says Vance: "Originally, we thought that our sports car would appeal only to younger people. Now we're finding to our surprise that it's appealing to all classes of people."
"My Favorite Heretic." Harold Vance , 62, looks like the last man in the world who would care about sports cars—and speculate on their future popularity. His shoulders are somewhat stooped, perhaps from getting his 6-ft. frame in & out of standard cars. He never stands when he can sit, makes a move only when he has to, and then in leisurely motion. He has never been known to show excitement, is such a picture of unruffled calm that his wife Agnes sometimes refers to him as "the Sphinx." Says Vance placidly: "My blood pressure is normal, and I expect to live to a ripe old age. You don't have to be excited to be earnest."