Motorama comes to Pebble Beach

Suddenly, today's SUV's don't seem so big.

As this Futurliner from 1953 shows, G.M. designers got a little nuts when production feasibility was not an issue and they were creating futuristic masterpieces for the traveling showcase known as Motorama.

The G.M. flights of fancy will be featured at this years prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance car show.

"In its heyday during the 1950s, Motorama delivered the automaker’s message of postwar optimism to millions of curious spectators," reports Don Sherman for The New York Times. "On display will be the 1938 Buick Y-Job that begat the dream-car era; 17 Motorama showpieces from the 1950s; a 1959 Corvette racecar that forecast the ’63 Sting Ray; and one of the custom-crafted trucks that hauled Motorama exhibits around the country."

The Firebird III from 1958. The final "dream car" built by Harley Earl.

In the future when all's well

On the glorious day that General Motors posted a $3.25 billion quarterly loss — heralded by analysts as "better than expected" — let's look back to happier, more optimistic times for the auto manufacturer born in Flint.

Set at the 1956 General Motors Motorama in Los Angeles, this weird Populux film reveals a drunkenly giddy, very likely drug-fueled vision of the future that obviously never came to pass for Flint. It's half Broadway musical, half burlesque show as envisioned by horny middle-aged GM executives.