cradduck

I have started reading "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson and found one section to be extremely "on point" with LCF. The book (which is extremely entertaining and I highly recommend), has a large section that talks about the rapid expansion of the car industry between 1950 and 1960.

An interesting note made in the book was that Chevy first starting pushing the idea of having a two car household in 1954 with the advertisement of "...why have one car when you can have two? Get chores done twice as fast and have more time for leisure!" I am assuming that the idea of having two cars before that point was simply unheard of or relegated to the rich?

How did America really get sold so completely on this idea?

bikeCarrot

Women moving from the household to the work place probably helped with this. I would imagine in 1954 having 2 cars was a luxury but with two working parents and kids to get from place to place a two car household seemed to be more of a necessity for some...

Roody

We only had one car until I was grown up. My dad drove to work every morning. Us kids walked to school. My mom walked to work in the afternoon and my dad picked her up at 11:30 PM with the car. We had the city bus system then for great mobility. I started riding the bus downtown when I was about 12. (Compare this to recent controversy about the subway kid in NYC.) I also hitchhiked a lot as a teenager, starting when I was about 14--in inner city Detroit two years after the riots!

There was nothing noteworthy about being a one car family. Nowadays they call it "carlite."

fatkid70

That book is most awesome. "Don't **** with the thunderbolt kid"