The images evoked by automobiles vary depending on which part of the car you examine. Surely, the front of a car is facelike, which is why automobile designers routinely referred to the radiator as the mouth and chrome uprights in the radiators as teeth. Throughout the early 1950s, the faces of cars tended toward hostility and defensiveness, especially on the big cars, but also on Chevrolets and Plymouths. The chrome was thick. The teeth were large, the bumpers suggested armour. One is tempted to find the countenance of Senator Joseph McCarthy glaring out defensively from their front ends. The pugnacious grilles provided a mobile image of an America obsessed with finding and fighting enemies within.

That image changed in the Populuxe era [1954–1964]. Cars gained a friendlier look. If they had teeth they were smaller, but the mouth often stretched the entire with of the car in an almost Eisenhowerish smile. Headlights developed rather large and protruding eyebrows, but these did not project a defensive air as much as an urge to move forward. A few cars, notably the late 1950s Dodges, maintained a fierce, toothy image with catlike eyes, but they were peaceful compared to what had been on the road earlier in the decade.

– Thomas Hine, Populuxe

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