While it was the industry leader churning out millions of mundanely styled production vehicles in the US, General Motors surprisingly was the one which always tried to push the creative envelope in concept vehicles in the 1950s and 1960s. And the 1951 Le Sabre is no exception. Inspired by the then state-of-the-art in aviation, General Motors unveiled the Le Sabre some five decades ago. Widely praised for its beautiful design, Le Sabre seamlessly and elegantly blended functional styling and advanced engineering.

The Le Sabre, one of the first post-World War II vehicles produced by the then-called GM Styling Section, reflected a new Yank fascination with the fighter planes that emerged in the war. External styling cues took a page from the aircraft industry, including the matched tailfins and nose-cone-like front end, but the more significant advances were more subtle. Le Sabre provided the first glimpse at a new trend -wraparound windshields. Sporting the industry's first wrapround windshield, the 1951 Le Sabre envisioned by Harley J Earl, vice president of General Motors Design, used lightweight components throughout the body. The deck lid, front fender valance and inner door panels were made of cast magnesium, while the hood, fenders and outer door panels used sheet aluminium. The supercharged V-8 powerplant was also constructed entirely of aluminium for added fuel efficiency, and the Le Sabre designers added another surprise concealed beneath the car's matching tail fins. One of the two rubberised 20-gallon fuel cells contained not gasoline, but methyl alcohol for additional power bursts when the accelerator was depressed beyond the mid-position.

The Le Sabre's amenities were equally suited for the airstrip or the expressway. Seats were thermostatically controlled through the same principles employed in electrically heated flying suits. Additionally, both the electrically operated convertible top and side windows automatically rose when the vehicle was parked and precipitation struck a sensor located between the seats.

A president, a king and a comedian have all been passengers in the Le Sabre. A distinguished list of passengers in the 1950s witnessed Le Sabre luxury first-hand, including: president Dwight D Eisenhower, king Baudoin of Belgium, president Sukarno of Indonesia, king Hussein of Jordan, Bob Hope, Dave Garroway, Stan Kenton and Margaret Whiting. No guests, however, needed to utilise another Le Sabre feature: built-in hydraulic jacks. The jacks, along with a hinged rear-wheel skirt, enabled a driver to change a tyre with ease. At the time of its inception, the Le Sabre simply broke the rules with features once relegated to the realm of science fiction comics. Of course some of the fins were taken to ludicrous heights but GM design these days is once again trying to recapture that magic from the 1950s.

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