Cars
American Roadsters: Power and Spectacle
Wind over bare aluminium, the crack of a V8 – nine American roadsters that trace a century of open-road ambition.
In America the roadster has always carried a different meaning. Even before the lightweight European sports cars arrived, Mercer, Stutz, Duesenberg, and Auburn had transformed the open body into a symbol of performance, prestige, and prosperity, creating cars born from competition but destined for the road.
In the postwar years this philosophy became still more distinctly American: generous proportions, large engines, and uncompromising character. Corvette and Thunderbird gave shape to the American dream, the Cobra married a light English body to the force of a V8, while Cadillac and Dodge took opposite paths – from the elegance of Pininfarina, perhaps not American enough, to the brutality of the Viper.
__1911 – Mercer Raceabout__
