Vintage American Sports Cars

One of the curious offshoots of America’s involvement in WWII was the fact that many American GI’s developed a taste for European-style sports cars while overseas. The result of this exposure was a virtual post-war invasion of British and Italian sports cars onto American shores. As often seems the case, the American automobile industry was caught off-guard by this shift in taste. With small manufacturers like MG making inroads in the U.S., a number of large and small manufacturers made early attempts at an “American sports car,” between 1949–1957. This month’s featured Web site is devoted to the history of many of these early post-war pioneers.

This site features photographs and brief histories on the better know examples such as the Corvette and the Thunderbird, but more interestingly, also includes such lesser-known sports cars as the Bosley, the Kurtis, the Victress, the Woodil Woodfire, the Muntz Jet, the Kaiser Darrin and many others. While most won’t seem like sports cars by today’s standards, this site provides an interesting perspective on America’s early love affair with “Sporty Cars.”