Playboy 1948-1951 - namesake
Summary
There have been around 10,000 car brands and designers - most of which have disappeared. The US brand Playboy can also be counted among them. However, due to a lack of capital, the Playboy Motor Car Corporation went bankrupt in 1951 - after building just 97 cars.
Estimated reading time: 3min
Preview (beginning of the article)
No, the US brand Playboy had nothing to do with the colorful magazine of the same name, which once revealed encouraging beauty in words and pictures to generations of young men at a time when dollars and bras still held true value. In fact, the Playboy Motor Car Corporation was founded in Buffalo, New York, in 1946, while the well-known magazine only came into being in 1953, at a time when the Playboy small car was no longer available to buy. The Playboy brand was one of the many projects with which ambitious designers and success-hungry businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic signaled a new automotive beginning after the Second World War. Playboy President Louis Horwitz came from GM; the designer was engineer Charles Thomas (formerly with Pontiac, Fisher Body and Amphibian Car), and the third initiator was Norman Richardson.
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