Eldorado Biarritz

Harley Earl retired from General Motors in 1958. The 1959 Eldorado was the last car he greenlit and the last car that wore his idea of America to its logical conclusion. Fins that started at the door, peaked above the rear glass, and ended in twin chrome bullet lamps that lit up like rocket exhaust at night.

Mechanically the Biarritz was a 390-cubic-inch V8 with triple two-barrel carburetors, an automatic transmission, and a ride engineered to flatten any interstate built or yet to be built. The Eisenhower-era highway program was less than a decade old. Cadillac sold the Eldorado as the official car of that highway.

Today the 1959 Eldorado is a museum piece almost by default. The fins are too tall to be ironic and too sincere to be camp. They are simply what the future looked like to a country that had won a war and was building a continent.