The Powell Sport Wagon — Petersen Automotive Museum

Viewed in retrospect, the Powell also reflected a one of a kind viewpoint on submit-war automotive design. Crafted in between the retreating shadow of Earth War II and the dawn of the American write-up-war financial system, the pickup represented a combine of pre- and post-war economic realities. In the suggests of its building, the household-developed automobile, crafted out of existing sections, spoke to an period of wartime rationing and components shortages, in which items like metals employed in vehicle building were scarce and citizens had been compelled to craft their possess goods in area of individuals they would frequently uncover on retail store cabinets.

In its design and style, and the quite point that their organization had endeavored to sector a new car to the public, however, the Powell brothers’ business mirrored the optimistic attitude of the burgeoning mid-century American economy. While Europe would go on to truly feel the economic devastation of Earth War II prolonged right after its conclusion, by the mid-1950s when the Powell Activity Wagon was released, the American economic climate would encounter a period of time of quick advancement, in which the Gross National Product (GNP) would develop to approximately 250% its pre-war dimensions. A concurrent, and insatiable, buyer demand for new automobiles would drive the creation of new, fascinating automobiles like the Chevrolet Corvette, which was, by the way, featured on the pretty cover of the February 1956 problem of Motor Craze in which Woron would chronicle his sights of the humble Activity Wagon.

With these two perspectives as context, Channing and Hayward Powell set out to create a one of a kind and, as Woron would describe, relatively legendary vehicle that would provide for beneath the “magical a single-grand figure.” Unfortunately for the enterprise, like most manufacturers who sought to make this sort of a car from scratch, “costs mounted upward like a mushroom pushing its way thru the cracking earth.” Nevertheless the Powell brothers projected in Motor Craze that improved production figures would reduced the cost of their Wagon, at a rate of a mere $95 around their concentrate on, the Powell Sport Wagon was quite a noble attempt.

By Kristin Feay

Images by Bob D’Olivo and Walt Woron