Automobile Brand's Of The Past..,: North America's First Sport Cars

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

North America's First Sport Cars

The year was 1949 and the troops were home from the war in Europe.

The North American auto manufactures of the day noticed that a number of these service men brought something with them. Something that would turn heads.

It was a small two passenger car that was referred to as "SPORTS CARS"

The automobile industry took serious note of this and would never be the same again.

There was a scramble by the North American auto manufactures to get their own version of a "sports car" into production.

General Motors used existing parts from the Chevrolet and a fiberglass body to come up with the Corvette.

Ford built the Thunderbird, which also used existing parts, and Chrysler was going to build a completely new car but never completed the project.

The seven manufactures that were attempting to bring a sports car into production.

Some of these were more successful then others.

1953 Muntz Jet

I would suspect that many of you have never heard of the Muntz Jet. It was built by Earl "Madman Muntz" was an extremely successful used car salesman in California who became famous for his showmanship-like promotion of cars and the electronics products produced and sold..

The Jet was Muntz's answer to the sports cars that were coming onto the scene in the
early 1950's. This car is listed with Hyman Ltd.

Chrysler