Prewar

The late 19th, early 20th century was like an incubator for anything and everything automotive. Steam cars. Cars that ran on electricity. Air-cooled engines. Coachbuilt luxury and inexpensive, mass-produced people movers. Many of the models selected here were manufactured by companies that didn’t survive the Great Depression, and few high school students today have heard of. But modern automobiles wouldn’t be here without them.

Since the dawn of the automobile industry, countless promising automakers have fallen by the wayside. Some left behind treasured, legendary legacies while others became little more than footnotes in the history books. In this month’s special section, the Hemmings Motor News staff has compiled a smattering of its favorite vehicles from automakers that ultimately succumbed to economic, market, and even U.S. government pressures. The section is divided into three generations: Prewar, Postwar to 1970s, and the 1980s to present.

What’s interesting is how so many of these vehicles were engineering innovators, design leaders, or instrumental in pioneering some game-changing automotive segment — only to wind up in the dustbin. For instance, technology developed by now-defunct manufacturers during the prewar era formed the basis of the modern auto industry. The optimism that fueled the postwar expansion brought about a host of marques, no longer with us, that were and, in many cases, still are, household