“Yet even that equality within the American middle classes had started to erode. The new models of car, for example, were categorised by rank and status. For those starting out there was the Chevrolet, next came the Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks, while the seriously rich drove Cadillacs. Not only that; buying and consuming were increasingly a social norm. You had to drive a new Pontiac, and by 1959 anyone still riding around in a 1956 model was.”
