Auto writers uniformly say that Ford made a big mistake by emphasizing safety in ’56. Nobody wants safety!
First, Ford wasn’t alone in the “mistake”. Everyone started offering seat belts and padded dashes in ’56. Imperial and Chrysler had standard padding since ’49.
Second, it’s simply not true that everyone hates safety. Real men are supposed to hate safety, but women want it and unheroic men also want it. Real men are supposed to risk everyone’s life with crazy stunts and aggressive wars, or risk their family’s savings with crazy bets on horses or bitcoin. I’m not a real man. I like safety and savings.
Hudson had real safety after 1936, and they weren’t afraid to advertise it.
America’s Safest Car. Perfectly true. It didn’t have seat belts (which were already manufactured in the 30s) or padded dash, but it did have ONE feature that NOBODY ELSE EVER COPIED, even now after all the regulations. Several highway patrols bought Hudsons specifically for the failsafe brakes.
The appeal is clearly aimed at women, coupling safety and status. These location pictures were usually faked by photo retouching, a fine art before digital took over. Many of Hudson’s original promo pics were taken in front of their drab industrial factory:
Or an even drabber building near the factory:
Or on the factory roof, probably for protection against competing spies. This one shows the secret of the retouching. People and props were in the original, but the background was replaced by elegant beaches or golf courses or mansions. Seems like they could have made the retoucher’s job a bit easier with some white tarps!
Now, of course, we let AI do the retouching, disemploying not only the highly talented real photo retouchers but the somewhat talented Photoshoppers. It’s definitely a skill that requires practice! I’m pretty competent with other digital tools, but my attempts to mix in a background are poor.
Polistra's Mill 