GM’s Marvelous Motorama: Dream Cars From the Joe Bortz Collection

1953 Buick Wildcat I

During the golden age of the automobile, from the immediate post-World War II era and into the 1960s, is when General Motors led the way in all things automotive. By about 1955, the largest employer in the world had captured half the automobile market. This happened because of the convergence of multiple events and the personalities involved, one of whom was Alfred Sloan, the president of GM and Harley Earl. Sloan hired Earl, a custom-car builder from California, to design the upcoming LaSalle, slated for release for 1927. The success of Earl’s design led to Sloan hiring him to set up a department dedicated to styling, something not done up until then in the mass-produced automobile industry.

Styling proved to be the number one consideration of the majority of car-buyers for decades and Earl led the auto industry with advanced ideas in styling. Such features as tail fins and the wraparound windshield were copied by the competition.

Another innovation from GM was the GM Motorama, a multi-city traveling exhibition of all things General Motors. Those held from 1953 to 1956 are primarily known for the so-called dream cars (concept cars in today’s vernacular). Dream cars such as the sporty 1953 Buick Wildcat I and 1954 Pontiac Bonneville Special were among many shown throughout the life of the GM Motorama. The traveling show introduced people to advanced ideas in styling and engineering to test their acceptance of these ideas as well as to familiarize them to what was coming within a year or two.

Today, among the most collectible of automobiles are the Dream Cars of the 1950s, especially those from the glory days of General Motors. Many were eventually scrapped after they were no longer a predictor of the future. Initially, some were given to VIPs who wanted them, but soon corporate policy dictated that such would not happen again. Some meant to be scrapped landed in the Warhoops junk yard in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Indeed, at least four of them were sent there and two were actually cut apart, but those pieces and the other two cars, untouched, remained in the junk yard for three decades. In 1989, a Chicago resident and car enthusiast named Joe Bortz was alerted to the presence of these cars in the salvage yard. A deal was made between the yard owner, Harry Warholak, Sr. and Bortz to purchase the cars. In the process, Bortz became the owner of the largest privately held collection of dream cars. Joe initially began some restoration of one of the cars, the 1955 Chevrolet Biscayne, but the process was interrupted for a time leaving it in essentially cosmetically unrestored condition. It was later shown in this condition at Pebble Beach, (a unique occurrence of showing an unrestored car there). Finally in the latter part of the 1990s, the Biscayne was fully restored. This effort was followed by the restoration of the LaSalle II Roadster, a compact sports car design considered as the design for the 1957 Corvette. The LaSalle II Sedan was also a compact car. Both LaSalle IIs featured a DOHC V-6.

These two historic dream cars as well as the 1953 Pontiac Parisienne, 1953 Buick Wildcat I, 1954 Pontiac Bonneville Special, and the unrestored 1955 LaSalle II Sedan are to be on display at the renowned Petersen Museum in Los Angeles for two years beginning in April 2024.

1953 Pontiac Parisienne

 

The LaSalle II Sedan will be displayed at the Petersen Museum in virtually junk yard fresh condition (with the exceptions being some clean-up and the installation of a new windshield). This is the first time a junk yard fresh car has been on display at this museum.

Both LaSalles will show what almost happened in the mid-1950s – a revolutionary V-6 engine that was approved for 1955 production and then abandoned virtually at the last moment for concerns that too much “new” was being introduced that year. For whatever reasons, that V-6 was not made available in the years following. Had GM done so, this action would have put them far ahead of the pack when gasoline became expensive in late-1973 and beyond and at a time when the federal government began issuing demands for improved miles-per-gallon. One can only speculate at what might have been.

This exhibition titled, GM’s Marvelous Motorama: Dream Cars From the Joe Bortz Collection, will be the largest gathering of GM’s dream cars since the days of the glamorous GM Motorama. Visitors will get a trip back in time and will be able to see how the future was seen from the standpoint of the 1950s and the time when General Motors led the way in all things automotive. The exhibit begins in the spring of 2024 and continues for two years.