The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades, and a Linen Rag on My Face

Man the fifties were exuberant. The 1930s and 40s seem pretty (olive) drab in comparison. People were optimistic. When they tried to picture the future, they didn’t default to Mad Max back then. They thought the future would be technically advanced, but they also thought it would be kinda fun. There’s a heaping helping of frivolity in their worldview.

By 1962, they figured they’d be flying, too:

I love the term “space age.” It’s like calling a boxy, plain house “modern.” Both terms are at least 75 years old, but still sound kinda up-to-date to modern ears. Of course space has turned into a humdrum place. In some ways, it always was. The Apollo missions to the moon used rockets that didn’t look very much like Flash Gordon would ride in one. They were the Chevy Citation of space travel. And now it’s just a bunch of nondescript satellites in an untidy mesh, beaming down TikTok videos of people trying to eat cinnamon by the teaspoon.

So the Astra-Gnome, the 1956 car of the future, is plenty fun to look at. But they really only got one thing right on the money about the future, and they got it right completely by accident. There was no way to get any air into the car with the bubble top down. You’d roast and smother in there, because people didn’t think the concept all the way through. The interviewer describes it as the “perfect covid car.”

Yes. Yes it is.