Magnificence.

The period of the "Olympian Cars," a phrase coined by Richard Burns Carson, began around 1925 and extended into the early 1930s. These magnificent automobiles were brilliantly engineered and meticulously styled, and many of them were personalized by the custom coachwork of the great coach-making companies of the period — Brunn, LeBaron, Fleetwood, Dietrich, and Brewster. The January 1929 issue of Arts & Decoration illustrated several of the fine vehicles of the year, including a convertible Lincoln detailed by Dietrich; a Pierce-Arrow with "luxurious cushions" and gold ornamental hardware designed for Mrs. Calvin Coolidge; and a Cadillac convertible coupe with bodywork by Fisher and interior colors — "suggested by Vermeer's 'Head of a Young Girl' " — of pale blue, gold, and gray. These upscale cars made up no more than 5 percent of the American automobile market, but they spurred the imagination of the first generation in which...