Antique & Vintage Postcards

Fairgoers in early-1960s sport coats and A-line skirts stroll past one of the most audaciously theatrical pavilions of the 1964–65 New York World's Fair: the Chrysler Corporation's "Auto-fare" exhibit, its entrance crowned by an enormous stylized engine block bristling with spark plugs, gears, and chrome tubing — part carnival ride, part industrial fantasia. Inside waited the biggest car in the world, a 50-foot dragon sculpted within a giant engine, and a working auto assembly line, all packaged under the Fair's hopeful theme of "Peace through Understanding." The Unisphere® logo floats in a vignette insert at upper left, tying this card firmly to the official series printed by Dexter Press of West Nyack and distributed as Fair souvenir No. WF-48. The Chrysler pavilion was one of the most popular industry exhibits of the Fair, and its over-the-top pop-art architecture now reads as a perfect artifact of Detroit's mid-century confidence and showmanship.