Cars need roads. It is hard to believe that at one time our country was not crisscrossed with ribbons of cement creating a pathway to wherever we want to travel. Not to mention the GPS invention giving us instant driving directions instead of becoming our own navigator. There was a time in history when a focus on building the great highways was a mind boggling project with high levels of political and car manufacturing involvement. For the automobile executives it was an opportunity to sell more cars, as people would want to travel and experience these new open roads. It also gave precedence to another area of automotive manufacturing and that was the mighty equipment vehicles to construct these behemoth roads. General Motors was in the starting lineup with these construction vehicles and needed a strong marketing tool to get their products on the radar of the national contract awardees. They created GM Powerama.

In 1955 General Motors invited a bevy of bathing beauties, each a lovely siren, to splash about in a four-foot pool mounted inside a Euclid 50-ton LLD truck to entertain visitors attending GM Powerama. This was a $7 million, 26 day showcase of highway and off-road construction vehicles equipped with GM diesel engines. Held on Chicago’s lake front crowds came to browse and investors made decisions to get on board the lucrative business of the new construction of America’s highways.

Beyond the pool beauties, Time Magazine noted GM built a grandstand where 7,000 spectators could watch an hour-long musical titled, “More Power to You.” Show business techniques were part of the marketing plan to sell these behemoth road warriors.

Indeed construction power and work trucks would be needed because one year later President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Federal Aid Highway Act appropriating $25 billion for construction of 40,000 miles of interstate highways over the next 10 years. This was big business. Road construction continues to be a high ticket item in the budget even today. Although the bathing beauties, so popular on Florida postcards of the 1940s and 1950s, are seldom associated with orange barrels and giant Caterpillar earthmoving equipment they had a part in enticing the buyers to check out the trucks.

In 1998, William Anderson, the PhD at Boston University and Arthur C. Jacoby then lead researcher for the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Transportation Policy Studies suggests that thousands of construction workers owe their livelihoods to building and repairing our nation’s roads and bridges. Thousands of other workers are employed producing the equipment, construction materials and other supplies required by highway projects.

In 1998, highway capital outlays by all levels of government totaled $51.6 billion. $20.3 billion were initiated by federal aid projects. Dollars are well spent, because a safe and efficient transportation system, Anderson and Jacoby asserted, is crucial to America’s prosperity.

In 2009, President Obama initiated the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act through Congress, providing stimulus to construction projects around the nation. Money goes to workers, to cement, bituminous materials, ready-mix concrete, lumber, reinforcing steel, structural steel, noise barriers, guard rails, bridge rails and signage.

Somewhere, a hard hat construction guy is coaxing out another year from his giant gravel hauler because replacements are mighty pricey. He dreams of finding a bevy of bathing beauties jumping in and out of the cargo space. Dream on to a place where the sirens still dance and the roads are wide open for cars and construction crews.




Margery Krevsky is the author of “Sirens of Chrome” published by momentum. She is the CEO of Productions plus, an automotive supplier, You can view her auto blog on sirenofchrome.com
Maureen MacDonald, researcher

For more information about other iconic figures, go to MotorCities National Heritage Area at www.motorcities.org.