Why Automakers Turned Real Continental Kit Spare Tires Into An Unsatisfying Hump - Jalopnik

By the early 1950s, externally mounted spare tires sitting above the rear bumper had become a popular fad in automotive design. Unlike other key style traits of the era -- such as tail fins, the short-lived wraparound windshields, and copious amounts of chrome -- this spare tire setup, known as a Continental kit, provided both form and function. Moving the spare to the rear not only added visual appeal, it freed up valuable trunk space. Automakers ranging from Nash to Cadillac offered options for protruding spares that could add feet to the length of a car. Aftermarket kits also found their way to the market, allowing one to dress up just about any car on the road. This trend can be traced to the luxurious Lincoln Continental, which sported a purposefully mounted spare tire on the exterior of the trunk. Just as automakers up and down the price chain embraced the style, the second variation of the car that popularized the feature reversed course and bucked it. The Continental Mark II, now sans the Lincoln moniker, hit the street in 1956 having shed the rear spare in favor of a tire-shaped hump in the trunk that concealed the rubber entirely. Once again, the Continental birthed a new fad: trunk humps. In the following years Chrysler, Packard, and others introduced their own variations, but several of these humps didn't actually hold a spare; they simply borrowed the appearance of high fashion. As automotive styling evolved and engineers and designers found new places to hide spare tires, the Continental kit became passé. By the early 1960 the look had nearly disappeared. The faux trunk stampings, however, would last into the 1990s before the style finally fell into retirement.