It tends to be forgotten, but the 1950s were hot with traditional sports cars. Little cars from Europe, combined with some interesting domestic models, made for a strong marketplace of cars that drivers used as their “fun” vehicles or for weekend transportation. Lots of them got raced as well. Remember, the first car that Shelby raced (and won in) was a MG TC.
According to this story from TheGlobeandMail.com, 1964 marked the end of the hot streak for traditional sports cars. It was in that year that the Ford Mustang and Pontiac GTO hit the scene and the popular public definition of a “sports car” went from a small, very modestly powered two-seater to a larger, more powerful car packing a larger motor.
To give an indication at just how viable the marketplace for small two-seater sports cars was back then, even Kaiser made one. The lead photo for this story is a shot of a 1964 Kaiser Darrin, which was not graced with much in the way of looks or power and sales numbers showed that people wanted both.
If we had to pick one traditional sports car from the 1950s we’d take a gullwing Mercedes like Stirling Moss raced.
