Interesting conceptual drawing

While recently traveling the NYS Thruway (Interstate 87 for you who have not traveled up in the neck of the woods) I stopped at one of the rest areas in the Catskills and they were handing out this free postcard at the visitor’s center.

The picture looks very much like the overpass for the Kingston-Rhinebeck Bridge just north of exit 19. I don’t think the cars were supposed to represent any manufacturer in particular but the one pictured in front looks similar to a ‘46 Nash Ambassador sedan or maybe a 2-door fastback (if you remove the chrome hood center strip and added turn signals inside the headlights).

The back of the card reads “1946 artist’s rendering of the Catskill section of the NYS Thruway before it opened in 1954.” I wonder what the tolls were in 1954. President Eisenhower called the highway an “atomic defense asset” and “economic boost for New York.” Fifty-five years later and the tolls are still in effect, I guess it still is an economic boost, a trip from Albany to NYC is now $5.30 plus another $5.00 for the Tappan Zee Bridge. NYC to the Pennsylvania state line south of Buffalo is more than $20.00.