Marmon Sixteen Overhead Views

Photos of car designs from an overhead perspective can be interesting.  I find this particularly so for cars of the 1930s.  That's because body elements such as hoods and fenders had not yet become integrated with the main body.

The subject of this post is the 16-cylinder Marmon produced 1931-1933.  They were styled by pioneer industrail designer Walter Dorwin Teague.  LeBaron built nearly all of the bodies, but apparently did not do design work on most of its Marmon Sixteens.

I previousy wrote about Marmon Sixteens here.

Images below are via Mecum Auctions.

Gallery

1931 Marmon Sixteen Convertible Coupe
V-16 and inline-8 motors required longer hoods than did V-12s and inline sixes and fours.  Though the needed additional length wasn't very great.  The hood seen here and some other V-16s and I-8s is longer  than absolutely necessary, being more of a style or marketing feature.  Note the hood's aft cutline and the locations of the side air vents, indicating where the motor most likely was.

That long hood is complemented by a long section abaft of the passenger compartment.  This car has a rumble seat, as evidenced by the step near the right taillight.

1931 Marmon Sixteen Victoria Coupe
Teague's design is simpler, more austere than usual for the very early 1930s.  The grille seems rather architectural, perhaps because because some early car stylists and industrial designers had training in architecture, or like Teague, had a youthful interest in the subject.

The Victoria Coupe was rated as a five-passenger car, so there was no need for a rumble seat.  Built-in trunks, as seen here, were rare on multi-passenger cars in those days.

Marmon Sixteen - Main Body Types

The Marmon Motor Car Company (Wikipedia entry here) produced 390 16-cylinder cars 1931-1933.   Interestingly, the basic design was contracted out to Walter Dorwin Teague, a pioneer industrial designer in the earliest years of that profession.

LeBaron built nearly all of the Sixteen's bodies, but apparently did not do design work on most of its Marmon Sixteens.

Below are side views of the Sixteen's body styles.

Gallery

1932c. Marmon Sixteen 7-passenger sedan - unidentified photo source
Five-passenger sedans and limousines looked the same as the car above from the outside.

1932 Marmon Sixteen Close-Coupled Sedan - RM Sotheby's photo
This was the original style that Teague proposed.

1932 Marmon Sixteen Victoria Coupe - Mecum Auctons photo
Also called a Five-Passenger Coupe.

1931 Marmon Sixteen Convertible Sedan - Driehaus Collection photo
This body type was still fairly common in the early 1930s, though losing favor.

1931 Marmon Sixteen Two-Passenger Coupe - car-for-sale photo
For sportier buyers.

1931 Marmon Sixteen Convertible Coupe - RM Sotheby's photo
Even sportier ... and with a rumble seat.

1930 American Luxury Sedans

Styling departments had only recently begun to appear in the USA by the 1930 model year.  Most high-priced cars having factory-built or contract body-builder bodies were not professionally designed.  General Motors had a styling section and Chrysler Corporation was setting one up around that time.  Otherwise, "factory" bodies were usually designed by engineers, though some carmakers might have made use of custom body designers to make suggestions or even do some actual design work.

The present post presents some non-custom-bodied sedans from that essentially pre-styling model year.  Car bodies were typically wood-framed with metal or sometimes fabric cladding.  How appealing are they?

Gallery

1930 Cadillac V-16 - Hyman Ltd. photo
The body seems to be by Fleetwood, a captive supplier.  Fisher-bodied V-16 sedans were similar, but had hood louvers rather than doors.

1930 Chrysler Imperial Seven-Passenger Sedan
"Styled" Imperials arrived the next model year.

1930 Lincoln L Series Sedan - for-sale photo
This was the final model year for that series, so the design is less up-to-date than some others seen here.

1930 Packard 740 Custom Eight Five-Passenger Sedan
At that time, Packard was regarded as the premier American luxury carmaker.

1930 Pierce-Arrow Model A Seven-Passenger Sedan - for sale photo
Most Pierce-Arrows featured distinctive (and ugly) fender-mounted headlights.

1930 Peerless
I'm not sure if this is a sedan or a limousine.  Alexis de Sakhnoffsky might have contributed to the design.

1930 Marmon Big Eight Five-Passenger Sedan - via Marmon Club: owner's photo
The rounded top and window outlines suggest a designer's touch.

More-Distinctive Late 1920s Grille Designs

Recently I wrote about 1927-vintage grille designs that can make it difficult for me and others to easily identify a car's brand.  By "grille" I'm largely referring to the chrome or nickel frame around what was usually an open radiator front.

Although each brand featured in that post had a distinctive grille ensemble, the areas in question were never large (often just the upper part of the frame), rendering differences subtle in most cases.

The present post presents some designs that offered more distinction than usual, making brand identification somewhat easier for the casual viewer.  Also, I've expanded the time frame to a few years on either side of 1927 so as to include some interesting examples.

Gallery

1927 Marmon - Hyman, Ltd. consignment photo
Marmon was a luxury automobile maker, but late-1920s grilles lacked distinction.  Here we find a rather heavy frame rounded at the top with a touch of sculpting and a brand medallion.  This is typical of the times for American cars.

1928 Packard - Bonhams auction photo
Packard was America's leading upscale brand in those days.  The shaping of the upper part of the frame is more sculptural than Marmon's, but in itself nothing very special.  Yet Packards were easy identify.  Why?  Because that grille frame design (with detail variations) was used on Packards for almost all of the firm's existence.  Consistency was a virtue.

1928 Buick - for sale photo
Buick's upper frame was superficially similar to Packard's, but not used as consistently as Packard.  Most grilles had horizontal lower framing, but Buick's is more shapely.

1926 Oldsmobile - Mecum auction photo
Even more shapely was Oldsmobile's grille frame.

1927 Chandler - Auctions America photo
Chandler, on the other hand, made its grilles distinctive by adding chrome vertical bars.

1928 Durant - for sale photo
Durant picked up on Chandler's idea and added a horizontal bar for good measure.  Chandlers and Durants were easy to identify.

How Four-Door Sedans Got Their Trunks

I borrowed this post's title from a Rudyard Kipling Just So story title dealing with elephants, in case you might be curious.

For some reason hard to fathom 90 years and more later, American automobiles did not have storage areas worthy of the name.

For example, even this late-1920s Checker taxi in New York City has no roof rack or other obvious place to store luggage and other large objects.  I suppose these were placed between the passengers' knees and the driver's seat.

Trunks became an industry-wide feature during the 1930s, the decade when car design evolution was at tis strongest.  The focus here is on four-door sedans because coupés and some two-door sedans, due to their shorter passenger compartments, got integrated trunks sooner than their four-door siblings.

Examples of trunks from that era are shown below.  Unless noted, images are of cars listed for sale on the internet.

Gallery

1929 Auburn 8-90
This Auburn is typical of its time, having no trunk.

1929 Hudson Club Sedan by Biddle & Smart - RM Sotheby's photo
However, some larger upscale cars did have trunks.  This Hudson's trunk is conventional, being a separate item placed aft of the main body of the car.

1930 Stutz Monte Carlo, Weymann body - RM Sotheby's
This Stutz appears to have two trunks, a separate unit at the extreme rear as well as a trunk abaft of the passenger compartment accessible from outside.  This was extremely rare in 1930 for four-door sedans.

1931 Marmon Sixteen Close-Coupled Sedan by LeBaron - Hyman Auctions photo
Marmon V-16 cars were among the those at the top of the price/prestige ladder, and this one has a trunk attached to the car's body.  It is a separate element, not integrated like the Stutz's trunk in the previous image.

1933 Cadillac Town Sedan
By 1933 trunks like this were becoming common on larger cars.

1934 Studebaker Land Cruiser - my photo
Here is an example of an integral trunk several years ahead of its time.  The design of this car was derived from the 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow.

1935 Buick 41 Club Sedan
More typical is the trunk on this Buick.  It remains visually distinct, yet its edges are smoothed into the main body -- a step towards complete integration.

1936 Cord 810 Beverly - Hyman
Standard Cord 810 Westchester sedans had a fastback design incorporating a lidded trunk.  Beverly models had fancier interiors and some were given the tacked-on trunk lid seen here to provide some extra storage space.

1936 Lincoln Zephyr - factory photo
Aerodynamically-influenced Zephyrs has integral trunks.

1938 Studebaker Commander
Less radical is the trunk on this Studebaker.  In some respects it's similar to that on the 1935 Buick above, but its blending into the body is more complete.

1938 Graham
Now we see an early version of the "bustle back" style common after the war.

1939 Mercury Eight
A "fastback" design like the Zephyr, but this Mercury's trunk is wider and more practical.

1941 Pontiac Torpedo Sedan
By the early 1940s integral trunks were the industry standard.