Oldsmobile Grille Evolution: 1946-1957

From time to time I post about grille/front-end design changes over many years -- years that span two or more body redesigns.  For example, I wrote about Pontiac 1935-1956 Silver Streaks here, DeSoto's 1940-1961 grilles here, and 1947-1955 Plymouth grilles here.

This post features an Oldsmobile grille theme that lasted 1946-1957.  I include grilles preceding and following that era to provide a little context for the theme.

Olds grilles in those years were simple in concept, framing being roughly semi- or completely oval -- deviations should be obvious in the images below.

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1942 Oldsmobile 76 Business Coupe - car-for-sale photo
I wrote about "The 1942 Oldsmobile's Complicated Grille" here.

1946 Oldsmobile 98 4-door sedan - car-for-sale photo
That grille design was abandoned when car production resumed after World War 2.  Framing might be characterized as "a flattened half oval, side and ends."  This simple design theme evolved over the next 11 model years.

1947 Oldsmobile 78 4-door sedan - car-for-sale photo
The design was only slightly changed for 1947.

1948 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 Convertible - Mecum Auctions photo
Top-of-the-line Olds Ninety-Eights got General Motors' new, postwar C-bodies for 1948.  The grille is simplified, and more oval if the "whisker" extensions of the upper frame are disregarded.

1949 Oldsmobile 76 2-door sedan - GAA Auctions photo
Lesser Olds' were redesigned the following model year and inherited the grille of the previous image.

1950 Oldsmobile 88 Holiday Coupe - Mecum
Same design as for 1949, though Olds Ninety Eights had slightly different front bumpers.

1951 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday Coupe - car-for-sale photo
Framing reverts to 1946-47 style, along with a new for '51 body design..

1952 Oldsmobile Super 88 Convertible - car-for-sale photo
And essentially continues for '52.

1953 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday Coupe - Daniel Schmitt photo
Final year for pre-1954 bodies.  Note the oval decorations on the bumper guards.

1954 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday Coupe - car-for-sale photo
For '54 Olds got General Motors' new "futuristic" bodies with panoramic/wraparound windshields.  For brand continuity purposes, carryover items included grille framing and those oval bumper guards.

1955 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday Coupe - car-for-sale photo
Major frontal facelift for 1955.  The grille opening is oval, as are the bumper guard caps.

1956 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday Sedan - car-for-sale photo
Another facelift.  Grille opening is nearly oval, but bumper guards and their ovals are missing.

1957 Oldsmobile Super 88 Convertible - Mecum
Redesigned body, but the oval grill shape is retained.

1958 Oldsmobile 98 4-door sedan - car-for-sale photo
All that is gone on 1958 Oldsmobiles.

Audi Mk.1 TT: Bauhaus Style

Pictured above is a 2001 Audi TT Roadster.  TTs were built 1999-2023, according to its Wikipedia entry.  It notes that there were three Marks or generations of the model.  Technological improvements aside, I prefer the initial 1999-2006 version for its design.

I prefer its design not because of its beauty -- the design is not beautiful, in my opinion.  I find the design interesting.

It interests me because it harkens to Germany's philosophically functionalist Bauhaus arts school that operated during the Weimar Republic years following the Great War.

Note the round wheel openings and how the profile of the car echoes those curves front and rear while the ends are linked by a simple, nearly straight fenderline.  Very functional, mechanical, in spirit.  Not exciting, as is true of many "functional" designs.  But attractive in its way.  Too bad I never owned one.

The TTs design is credited to Freeman Thomas.

All images in this post are via BaT Auctions.

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2000 Audi TT Coupe
The front end is Bauhaus-like as well.  Note how it is in three clearly-defined segments (yes, only two are visible from the camera angle).

The Coupe's roofline is also functional, but from an aerodynamic -- not mechanical -- perspective, unlike the lower body.

The three-segment motif continues at the rear.  Tail light and headlight assemblies have very similar shapes.

2001 Audi TT Roadster
Better view of those front-end segments.  Note how the hood cutline flows over the wheel opening structure.

The door cuts into the rocker panel.  Brutally functional.

Exhaust pipes emerge in the center segment, another disciplined touch.

American Four-Door Hardtops: The First and The Last

Apologies to the late General Adolf Galland for borrowing the English title of his autobiography for part of this post's title.

Two-door "hardtop convertible" or "hardtop coupe" bodies with B-pillars truncated at the beltline entered mass-production on some 1949 model year Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Cadillacs.  Four-door versions appeared on 1955 Oldsmobiles and B-body Buicks.  These were soon followed by 4-door hardtop sedans from other General Motors brands as well as from Ford Motor Company, Chrysler Corporation and (briefly) American Motors.

Federal regulations regarding rollover integrity in the early 1970s ended hardtops due to their lack of a B-pillar extending up to the roof framing.  The last American hardtops, 2-door and 4-door, appeared on 1978 Dodge Monacos and all Chrysler Newports and New Yorkers.

Some first-and-last examples are pictured below.

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1953 Cadillac Orleans Concept Car - General Motors photos
GM was testing the hardtop sedan body type on this Motorama show car.  Also panoramic windshields on cars with fixed tops.  (Convertibles with wraparound windshields were offered for 1953, as my post "1953 Oldsmobile Fiesta and Cousins" describes.)

The Orleans had absolutely no B-pillar.  Doors were hinged on the A and C pillars with latches down low on the frame.

1955 Buick Century Riviera Sedan - BaT Auctions photos
The first GM production hardtop sedans were on 1955 B-body cars such as this Buick Century.

The forward side window area included a Ventipane.  Rear door windows were once-piece for nearly all hardtop sedans ever built -- with an exception pictured a ways below.

Note the fashionable three-tone paint scheme.

1955 Oldsmonile Ninety-Eight Holiday Sedan - car-for-sale photos
Buick and Oldsmobile 88 hardtop sedans had 122-inch (3099 mm) wheelbases.  Olds Ninety-Eights such as show here had 124-inch (3150 mm) wheelbases.  The result was a better proportioned design.

1956 DeSoto Firedome Seville hardtop sedan - BaT Auctions
Chrysler Corporation redesigned its line for 1957, so its '56 hardtop sedans were the result of what appeared to be a crash project.  Note the awkward-retraction rear door window.  My family owned such a DeSoto because I pestered my father into ordering it rather than a conventional sedan.  In retrospect, I was wrong, the sedan being more practical.

1978 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham hardtop sedan - BaT Auctions
The end of the line.

Michelotti's 1952 Jaguars by Stabilimenti Farina

Customized Jaguars designed by professionals are far from unheard-of.  Even industrial designer Raymond Loewy, whose firm dealt with production Hupmobiles and Studebakers, got in that game.

An unusual case, today's subject, is a set of three Jaguars styled by the prolific Giovanni Michelotti (1921-1980, Wikiperia entry here). The carrozziera building the bodies was Stabilimeni Farina.

The work was done in 1952.  The three Jaguar designs were named "Meteor," "Golden Arrow" and "Flying Jaguar."  Here is some background from the carrozzieri-italiani.com site -- commentary from different pages:

"The Meteor was based on the Jaguar MK VII chassis, a luxury saloon platform that provided a solid foundation for Farina’s elegant and aerodynamic design.  Alongside the Meteor, Stabilimenti Farina also created two other exclusive Jaguar models: the Golden Arrow and the Flying Jaguar.  The Golden Arrow was essentially a convertible version of the Meteor, sharing the MK VII chassis but featuring an open-top design that gave it a more stylish and grand touring appeal.  The third model, the Flying Jaguar, was built on the Jaguar XK 120 chassis, a sports car platform known for its performance and agility."

"These bespoke cars were commissioned by the Brussels Jaguar dealer, who sought to combine Jaguar’s engineering excellence with Farina’s distinctive Italian design.  Today, all three cars; the Golden Arrow, Meteor, and Flying Jaguar; still exist, each a testament to the collaboration between Jaguar and Stabilimenti Farina."

Comparisons of the production and custom designs are below.

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1952 Jaguar "Golden Arrow" Cabriolet - photo via carrozzieri-italiani.com

1952 Jaguar "Meteor" Coupé - photo via carrozzieri-italiani.com
The customized Mark VIIs are identical aside from their tops, as would be the case if they were production models.

1952 Jaguar Mk VII Saloon - unknown photo source
Production Mk VIIs were sedans (saloons), so the cabriolet and coupé body styles on this platform were speculative, perhaps prospective supplements to the basic Mark VIIs sold by the Belgian dealer.

1952 Jaguar "Meteor" Coupé - photo via carrozzieri-italiani.com
Side view of the Coupé -- compare to the Mk VII below.

1952 Jaguar Mk VII Saloon - Bonhams Auction photo
The Jaguar design combines prewar, traditional English styling touches with postwar elements -- the flow-through fenders seen here.  Michelotti's design is classic 1950-vintage Italian, though built on a larger platform than usual.

1952 Jaguar "Meteor" Coupé - photo via carrozzieri-italiani.com
Simple shapes, subtly thought out.  The blue car in the background is a Bentley Continental, a contemporary.

1953 Jaguar Mk VII Saloon - Mecum Auctions photo
Again, the considerably different character of the production Jaguar.

1952 Jaguar "Flying Jaguar" Coupé - unknown photo source
Now for the "Flying Jaguar" based on the classic XK120.  Its design strongly echoes elements of the sedan-based customs.  For instance, compare the front ends.

1953 Jaguar XK120 Fixed-Head Coupé - Mecum
XK120 coupés first appeared in model year 1951, and this was the design Michelotti was commissioned to alter.

1952 Jaguar "Flying Jaguar" Coupé - photo via carrozzieri-italiani.com
Although proportions differ, the fenderline here closely resembles those on the sedan-based customs.  A noticeable difference is the placement of the side chrome strip.

1951 Jaguar XK120 Fixed-Head Coupé - car-for-sale photo
Despite -- because of? -- the passenger greenhouse, the XK120 seems to be a more interesting design than Michelotti's clean, classic Italian version.

1952 Jaguar "Flying Jaguar" Coupé - unknown photo source
Rear end closely matches that of the black coupé shown earlier.

1951 Jaguar XK120 Fixed-Head Coupé - RM Sotheby's Auctions photo
Yes, the Jag design looks pretty fussy when seen from this perspective.
An interesting feature of the Michelotti cars is that the designs are so similar, even though two platforms were used.  Was this a specification given to Michelotti?  Or did Michelotti decide to economize his workload by coming up with one theme to apply to all three cars?  I wonder if some documentation regarding this still exists.

Pontiac Aztek and Buick Rendezvous Revisited

The Pontiac Aztek SUV is often the butt of criticism regarding its styling.   Back in 2013, I posted "Aztek Rendezvous" about the Aztek and the Buick Rendezvous that shared its basic body.

Now that more, and often better, images are available on the Internet, I thought we should revisit those designs.  What is interesting is that the Rendezvous' styling suffered less criticism, even though its design also had some quirky features.  Plus, its sales were much better than Aztek's: 198,000+ (data seem to be incomplete) versus 119,000.  This was despite that its base price (around $25,500) was greater than Aztek's (around $22,000).

Those designs were developed while Wayne Cherry was Design Vice President at General Motors.

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2001 Pontiac Aztek - BaT Auctions photos
Aztek's grille was a split-level version of Pontiac's signature vertically split grille theme.

2002 Buick Rendezvous - factory photo
Rendezvous's grille was similar to those on other recent Buick models -- ovaloid with vertical bars.

The gray side scheme adds visual bulk due to its shaping.  The horizontal character folds are an echo of Pontiac's Silver Streak theme of the mid 1930s to mid-'50s.

2003 Pontiac Aztek - car-for-sale photo
It is not found on this later Aztek.  Sales probably weren't helped much, because the memory of the earlier theme might have lingered in the minds of potential buyers.  The rear quarter window's shape is logical, but it seems too large.  Chrome trim linking window tops and bottoms across the C-pillar might have reduced the effect by creating a unified window profile.

2003 Buick Rendezvous - car-for-sale photos
The C-pillar zone differs here, though the swath from the roof through the tail light assemblies with the dark window overlay is as quirky as some of the Aztek's details.  Side sculpting is fussy, but less so than the original Aztek's.

Not beautiful, but logical.  The relationship to the unfortunate quarter window and the "D" post degrades the theme.

The scoop cutline and how it ties to the rear is interesting, but not attractive.  Too large, too bold on this relatively small vehicle.