Dateline:  Late 1956, Detroit, MI

“Have you seen what those bastards over at Chrysler have done?” Albert Clawson yelled as he lit one cigar off the glowing remains of an old one and chopped on it like it was  a hot dog.

Of course, all the other executives around the mahogany table had seen exactly what Chrysler had done, probably even before Al had, but none would be the first to respond.

“Who the hell does Exner think he is?  Fins on every single car they make.  Grilles that look like teenagers with braces.  By god, I won’t stand for that upstart to try to take the Leadership of Style  title from us without a fight.  We’re the damn company that put ‘Merica on wheels!” Al was on a rage-fed roll.

“Actually, that was Henry Ford,” Marvin Bell from accounting said under his breath.

“What’d you say, Bell?” Al barked.

“Nothing sir. Just cleaning my throat,” Bell chimed.  A sense of gloom filled the oak paneled board room.

Al grabbed the phone in front of him and punched up his secretary, Skylark.  “Get two or three boys from Design up here in ten minutes with sketch pads, pens, and  drawings for the ’59 Caddys.  Have Electra down the hall get some more Scotch and ice in here.  Tell her when she leaves to walk out slowly.”  He winked at the suits around the table as he hung up.  “Call your wives and tell ‘em you’ll be late tonight.  We’re not leaving till this is solved.”

The Design boys had never even been on that floor of the building, much less in The Room.

“Tack those drawings onto the wall and get your pens out,” Al barked.

“Right into the paneling?” Tim, recently promoted from Buick, asked.

“Unless you gotta roll of cork board up your butt!” Al responded.  “DO IT!”

Once the drawings were nailed up, Al told them he wanted more.  “More what?” they asked.

“More of everything.  More chrome.  More fin.  More of what ‘Merica strives to be.” he told them.

“What if we line the grill with 15 tiny silver bullets?” Tim asked.

“More!” Al yelled.

“Thirty?” Tim asked.

“Make it sixty, and slap ‘em on the backend, too.”

The suits around the table were starting to get into the process.  Clark from Personnel had just gotten off the plane from a Disneyland vacation.  “How about if you put two exhaust pods on the back end, one on each side of the sixty bullets?”

Marvin from accounting tossed in, “What about spears on each side that look like air intakes?”

Tim and his two co-harts couldn’t sketch fast enough.  The suits kept pouring Scotch.  “Make the fins taller, Al yelled.  “TALLER!”  A few hours later Al grabbed the phone again.  “Have Invicta call out for food.  And tell Electra to bring in more Scotch.”  As Electra dropped off a silver tray with three new bottles of the good stuff and fresh buckets of ice and slowly walked out of the room, Al yelled at the designers, “Make that rear end more bulbous!”

Pete from Purchasing hadn’t contributed much and was worried.  “We’re heading into the space age.  Toss some rockets on somewhere!”

“Damn good idea, Pete! Al proclaimed.  The stylists drew a red rocket on each tail fin.  “More!” yelled Al.  All of a sudden there were two on each tail fin.

By midnight they were all drunk and had to sleep in their offices, a few with their secretaries.  But there was a new American classic pinned to the paneling in the executive suite.

A new Standard of the World.