The cars you could buy in Germany in 1955, if you could
Half a kilometer wide would have been the front that Lloyd small cars lined up next to each other would have formed in 1955 if they had been lined up like this. At least that's what it says on the first page of the special magazine issue "Auto-Parade - Automobiles of 1956".
We recently found this magazine and of course immediately integrated it into our archive. It was printed on the occasion of the International Motor Show (IAA) in 1955. The 24-page, large-format newspaper contains more or less all the vehicles available in Germany at the time, including prices and rudimentary technical data.
A major topic in the editorial section was the growth in size and the inflation of horsepower. Critical questions were sometimes asked: "In some respects, of course, this development may also give pause for thought. Won't larger cars clog up our city centers even more than before and how will the average driver cope with the high speed at which he can drive his powerful car? Won't the powerful engines become too expensive?". Well, of course, in the days of the German economic miracle, people didn't believe that bigger was worse and more powerful was more dangerous. This development, illustrated by the "big" DKW 3=6 in comparison to its predecessor, was viewed quite positively.
Around 150 vehicles are listed in the price list and these were not just the basic models. The Porsche 356 A alone is listed in 13 variants with different displacements and bodies. The selection was so clear that it was possible to illustrate and describe all the models on seven pages.
The entire magazine can be browsed through in the Zwischengas magazine archive .
