Car thing in That Obscure Object of Desire

For American viewers, one of the more surreal things in Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire was a wealthy Spaniard climbing into the back of a chauffeur-driven Dodge Dart. Another rich guy was being driven around in what looked like a Dodge Coronet. In America at the time, they were small or mid-sized cars, but they were enormous by European standards. So I found that less surprising than the Cadillac Fernando Rey rides around in in France.

I had a huge American car once and there were a lot of slightly narrow streets I avoided. There must be a lot of places in French cities that you can't reach by Cadillac.

Long ago, I picked up a book on classic cars---it was on the cheap rack at Barnes and Noble. Turned out the book was British. There were a lot of cars I had never heard of. But I was startled to read a description of one car----it said that it combined British styling with American reliability.

"American what?" I said.

That might explain why they favored American cars.