The New Deal: Lincoln Concept C

Reinventing American Luxury

Longer, wider, lower. As America embraced the consumer economy in the 1950s, America's automakers did their level best to persuade American consumers that more was, well, more. Between 1949 and 1969, the footprint of the basic Ford sedan grew 19 percent, for example. And even today, despite the oil shocks, the incursion of small cars from Europe and Asia, and today's financial meltdown, bigger is still regarded as better by many Americans.