The Powell Sport Wagon — Petersen Automotive Museum

Noticed in retrospect, the Powell also mirrored a exceptional viewpoint on post-war automotive development. Created in between the retreating shadow of World War II and the dawn of the American article-war economic climate, the pickup represented a blend of pre- and submit-war financial realities. In the suggests of its construction, the house-grown auto, built out of existing elements, spoke to an era of wartime rationing and products shortages, in which products like metals applied in vehicle construction had been scarce and citizens have been compelled to craft their possess merchandise in put of those they would consistently find on retail store shelves.

In its layout, and the pretty point that their organization experienced endeavored to current market a new auto to the community, nonetheless, the Powell brothers’ organization reflected the optimistic mind-set of the burgeoning mid-century American economic climate. Although Europe would keep on to truly feel the financial devastation of Earth War II very long soon after its conclusion, by the mid-1950s when the Powell Activity Wagon was launched, the American economy would knowledge a time period of rapid progress, in which the Gross Countrywide Solution (GNP) would expand to just about 250% its pre-war sizing. A concurrent, and insatiable, customer desire for new automobiles would drive the generation of new, interesting automobiles like the Chevrolet Corvette, which was, by the way, featured on the quite include of the February 1956 problem of Motor Trend in which Woron would chronicle his sights of the humble Sport Wagon.

With these two views as context, Channing and Hayward Powell established out to create a distinctive and, as Woron would explain, fairly legendary car or truck that would sell for beneath the “magical 1-grand determine.” Sad to say for the business, like most companies who sought to deliver this kind of a auto from scratch, “costs mounted upward like a mushroom pushing its way through the cracking earth.” Although the Powell brothers projected in Motor Craze that improved manufacturing figures would decreased the cost of their Wagon, at a price of a mere $95 about their target, the Powell Activity Wagon was very a noble endeavor.

By Kristin Feay

Images by Bob D’Olivo and Walt Woron