John J. Chika 1940-Vintage Styling Sketches at Chrysler Corporation

John J. Chika was an automobile stylist active from around 1940.  His career began at Chrysler Corporation.  Then around 1945 he led the styling section for the Kaiser brand, leaving in 1947, about a year after production began.  After that, he worked for General Motors.

Given that track record, it seems that he was respected in the industry.  Yet his early drawings are not very impressive.  Some of these can be found in the book "Imagine! Automobile Concept Art From the 1930s to the 1980s" by Patrick G. Kelley, featuring renderings from his collection.

Three of the drawings shown below are via that book, and others are images found on the Internet.

Click on the images to enlarge.

Gallery

This was made in 1941.  Note that perspective is distorted, the rear part of the car seemingly being twisted towards us.  Might that have been done on purpose, so as to better show side features?  Or did Chika simply not understand perspective well at that stage of his career.  The concept reminds me of the 1948 Hudson.  Details of note are a wraparound windshield (not seen on production cars until the mid-1950s) and what might be a tail fin (later '50s).

A 1940 drawing.  The band running around the car is similar to those seen on some Chrysler Corporation styling clays that I wrote about here and here.

Another in the same apparent series.  The lower body is not tall enough -- stylists then and later often used a good deal of distortion.

This 1941 drawing is a design for Dodge.  Once more, a lot of distortion.  Ignoring that, one can see a fenderline/beltline treatment similar to a blend of Chrysler and GM features circa 1949.

A 1940 DeSoto drawing, according to the word in the grille area.  That bulge above the bumper is similar to that found on 1942 Lincolns.  Another sign that China's thinking was in line with styling ideas percolating at that time elsewhere than Chrysler.

 
Another 1940 DeSoto proposal, this showing a grille concept not far removed from that of DeSoto's 1942 design.  This drawing is much better than the others in terms of realistically depicting a potential automobile design.