I was in elementary school then. Aware of cars and brands, but unsophisticated. I remember being impressed by a green fastback '48 or '49 Cadillac owned by a doctor who lived up the street from us. And I recall the add-on tail fins one could buy at an auto parts store for attaching onto one's non-Cadillac.
Those Cadillac tail fins proved to be a marketing success, even though some important folks in management didn't like what they saw on styling models. On the other hand, reports I've read suggest that the stylists themselves liked the fins concept since the prewar days when some were taken to the nearby Army Air Corps Selfridge Field to view new P-38 fighters with twin vertical stabilizers.
The Book "Cadillacs of the Forties" by Roy A. Schneider (1976) mentions (p.124) some visual advantages claimed for the tail fins:
"Technically, raising the height or ends of the rear fenders had the visual effect of lowering the upper portion of the body. Another advantage incumbent to the finned fender was a car that looked longer in front three-quarter view. This was true because the full rear fender stayed in sight from any viewing position. Cars with traditional rear fenders that curved inward toward the rear bumper appeared shorter than they actually were because the lines of the rear fenders tended to fade away when viewed from frontal angles."
I don't buy the cases Schneider makes, though they make logical sense. In the first place, those early Caddy fins were too small, too short to make the rest of the car seem lower. Note that their tops were well below of the car's beltline. Later, larger, higher tail fins could perform that visual trick to a some degree. As for the other point, one viewing a car from a front quarter, body length is a lesser consideration than front end design. Length is best appreciated from side-views, where 1948-49 tail fins made the designs slightly shorter visually because they halt the eye as it sweeps from front to rear.
I suppose my problem with early Cadillac tail fins is that they strike me as being too small. They seem oddly insignificant. A visual "So what?" No doubt the profusion of much larger fins, especially on Chrysler Corporation cars starting in 1957, altered my perspective on the matter.
Why were they so successful from a marketing/branding standpoint? Placing those fins on Cadillacs, GM's luxury/prestige brand, conveyed prestige to the design. I wonder how they would have been accepted by the car-buying public if they were first given to, say, Pontiacs.
Let's take a further look at fins on various other 1948-49 Cadillac body types.
Sixty-Specials had longer wheelbases than basic Cadillacs. On these larger bodies, the fins seem more insignificant.
This is the basic 1948 Cadillac. The trunk profile curves downward enough that the fin acquires a small degree of dominance in side-view.
Now for the fastback design.
A high, more squared-off trunk lid offering more capacity was introduced during the 1949 model year.
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