Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow: Aimed at the Future

The Great Depression was in full force.  The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company luxury automobile maker in Buffalo, New York was on a fatal downward trajectory despite being under the control of Studebaker, which also was suffering.

Those times forced carmakers to abandon slow product changes in an effort to attract customers.  The result was that the decade of the 1930s saw the most radical change in the appearance of production cars ever in that span of time.

Pierce-Arrow did its part by creating the Silver Arrow, a show car for the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress fair.  A few were made to that design, and some more conventional looking Silver Arrows were built by Studebaker.

The Silver Arrow's stylist was Phillip O. Wright, who years later designed the Aero Willys cars.

Background information regarding the Silver Arrow can be found here on RM Sotheby's web site related to a Silver Arrow they had up for auction.

Unless identified otherwise, the photos below were taken by me several years ago at the Blackhawk museum in Danville, California.

Gallery

1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow, Barrett-Jackson auction photo.  Wright retained the 1933 Pierce-Arrow grille design, but raked it back slightly and shaped the lower part into a very modest shovel form.  The brand's traditional headlights-atop-the-fenders feature was also retained, though he extended the headlight housings far to the rear.  In sum, the front of the car that must have seemed radical in 1933 strikes one now as being its most old-fashioned design aspect.

For about as long as I can remember, observers have commented that the Silver Arrow "predicted" the fender design of General Motors' initial postwar restyling.  Perhaps "anticipated"might be a better term, but the relationship is clear when comparing the first image above and this one of a 1948 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 fastback.  Surely Harley Earl and members of his styling team were aware of the Silver Arrow design, but I cannot say that they consciously copied it.  More likely, the combination of a swept back front fender and distinct rear fenders was one logical way to deal with "envelope" bodies.  This fender theme was being explored around 1940 by Italy's Touring coach building firm, another possible inspiration.  (The 1947 Studebaker line also had such fenders, but the basic '48 GM C-body design was probably nearly set by the time those Studebakers were revealed in June of 1946.)

Side view via RM Sotheby's.  From the aft edge of the front wheelwell to the rear of the car, the styling was nearly ten years ahead of its time.  Note the taut lines of the fastback, windows and side trim.  Very impressive considering that design work was done in 1932.

Silver Arrows must have seemed highly futuristic when viewed from this angle -- just what a show car needed.  But looked at 85 years later, the tapering of the main body seems impractical due to the resulting small trunk.  Of course, integral trunks are rare indeed in 1933, and the taper doubtless was inspired  because of its supposed aerodynamic quality.  More questionable is the odd-looking back window design, possibly a consequence of the glass forming technology state of the art back then.  I think Wright could have come up with a decent-looking backlight using two larger planes and a touch of sculpting to frame them.