1938 Hupmobile 822-E Walkaround

Hupmobile (Wikipedia entry here) was on its last legs as the 1930s ended.  Due to a corporate reorganization, there were no 1937 model year Hupps.  Redesigned sedans appeared for 1938.  They were built by Murray Corporation of America, according to Google's AI.

I have no information regarding the designer.  The pervious Hupp design was by Raymond Loewy, but for 1938 his firm was stryling Studebakers.  Presumably the new Hupp design was by Murray staff.  Prior to his February 1937 death, that staff was led by Amos Northup, but he has never been credited with the 1938 Hupp design.  I suspect he had a hand in it, however, given production lead-times -- assembly of '38 Hupps began in July of 1937, according to "Cars of the Classic '30s."

Photos below are via HandH Auctions, taken at the RAF Duxford aviation museum.  The auction site referred to the car as a 1939 822-E.  But for model year 1939, Hupp designated that sedan type as 922-E.  It's possible that the few '38 Hupmobiles shipped to England arrived during the 1939 model year or were registered or sold then.  Thus causing the confusion.  In any case, there was no significant appearance differences for the two model years that I am aware of.

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Basic design is in line with that of Buicks and other style-leading General Motors cars.

Most pictures of surviving '38 Hupps are of fastbacks such as this, though touring sedans with "bustle" trunk lids were also available.

Headlight and taillight assemblies are linked to side trim chrome strips, a fashionable touch.

Clean rear end.  Note the fuel cap discretely mounted on the inside of the fender, an unusual feature.

Some views of the car's right side ...

Headlight lens shapes are carryovers from the 1936-and-earlier designs.

Symmetrical placement of dashboard items.

1960s Lincoln Continental Gets Its Hardtop Coupe in 1966

The original, classic Lincoln Continental was a prestige car that lived in the minds of Lincoln marketers and potential buyers for decades.  This Wikipedia entry deals with all Continentals from 1940 through 2020 (though there were some model year gaps).  Some versions were little like the original concept.  Others, such as the famous (to automobile history buffs) 1956-57 Mark II, that I wrote about here and here, were attempts to evoke the original's spirit.

Today's post deals with some aspects of what Wikipedia calls "Fourth Generation (1961-1969)" Continentals.  These were stylistically unrelated to the original, yet the initial, 1961, design is considered by many (including me) to be a classic.

Model year 1961-1965 Continentals were four-door sedans and four-door convertible sedans.  Lincoln marketers decided that the line should be expanded to include a hardtop coupe to compete against Cadillac's Coupe DeVille.  It appeared model year 1966.

While researching this post, I noticed that passenger compartment greenhouses on the 1966-67 and facelifted 1968-69 Continental coupes had structural features similar to those found on contemporary Mercury models.  That became the main focus of the discussion in the Gallery below.

Lincolns were wider than Mercurys, so there must have been some necessary structural differences if other aspects of the passenger greenhouse actually used some Mercury tooling.   I do not know if that happened, but I find the similarities suggestive.  Comments with solid information are welcomed.

Gallery

1966 Lincoln Continental Sedan - BaT Auctions photo
The basic 1966 Continental.  Enough changed from the 1961 original that I can't call the design "classic."

1966 Lincoln Continental Hardtop Coupe - Mecum Auctions photo
Here is the new hardtop coupe version.  Note the shape of the passenger compartment greenhouse and the window profiles.

1966 Mercury S-55 Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
This is Mercury's top of the 1966 hardtop coupe line.  The C-pillar and after greenhouse segment led some to consider this a "fastback."  Ignore that: focus on the rest of the greenhouse and compare it to the Continental's in the previous image.  Note the widow profiles forward of where the C-pillars begin.  They seem identical to me.

1966 Mercury Park Lane Convertible - photo via Pinterest
As a side-note, this convertible's top illustrates what the Mercury's greenhouse shape might have been absent the "fastback" effect.

1968 Lincoln Continental Hardtop Coupe - car-for-sale photo
Continentals were slightly facelifted for 1968.  Here we see a revised greenhouse that was mostly changed in the C-pillar zone.

1967 Mercury Cougar Hardtop Coupe - car-for-sale photo
This is the first-year version of the Mercury Cougar.  Its passenger compartment greenhouse seems nearly the same as that of the '68 Continental.  Visible differences include the slope of the windshield and the upper right corner of the window profile.
Be aware of the different sizes in terms of wheelbase of the cars shown above.   Continental: 126 inches (3200 mm); standard '66 Mercury: 123 inches (3124 mm); 1967 Cougar: 111 inches (2819 mm).  The latter helps explain the differences in windshield slants.

1941 Graham Hollywood Walkaround

I recently discussed the Graham Hollywood, a 1940-41 sedan based on 1936-37 Cord bodies.  A while back I posted "Hupmobles and Grahams with Cord Bodies."  The first-mentioned post contained multiple views of one of those Grahams, but today's post is a more traditional walkaroud.

As mentioned, both Graham and Hupmobile were badly damaged by the Great Depression on the 1930s.  In efforts to survive, they made use of (inefficient) Cord body tooling to produce stylish cars in hopes of survival.  The resulting design was Cord-like aside from the hood, grille, headlights, front fenders, and a few other details.

Whereas the Cord design was advanced for 1936, by 1941 American car styling fashions had changed in the direction of fenders integrated (or nearly so) into the main car body.  Also, grilles were generally in horizontal layouts on comparatively flat front ends.  Graham Hollywoods, on the other hand, had separated, teardrop-shaped front fenders and sculpted hood and catwalk fronts with part of the grille in the hood front.

The early 1940s context was that the Hollywood definitely had a distinctive appearance that was a touch old-fashioned.  (The same might be said for pre-Clipper Packards.  But the Packard brand was far stronger than Graham's.)

Photors below are via Mecum Auctions.

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This illustrates the features mentioned above.  Another archaic feature is the headlight housing; by 1941, most American cars had headlights blended into fenders or the grille zone.

Standard 1936-37 Cords had a 125-inch (3175 mm) wheelbase.  The Hollywood's wheelbase was 115 inches (2921 mm), the shorter length manifested forward of the firewall/A-pillar.  For that reason, the front fender profile has less of a teardrop profile than Cord's.

The Hollywood is essentially Cord-like from this perspective.  The main difference is the bumper design.

Another difference from Cord is the fixed quarter window pane on the rear door.

Unlike the famous Cord "coffin nose," the Graham has a boat-like hood form.  Aside from the clutter of headlights and the supplemental fog lights, the appearance is pleasant.

The return of the 1956 Mercury XM Turnpike Cruiser Concept Car

A 1950s Ford Motor Company concept car that always interested me is the 1956 Mercury XM Turpike Cruiser.

I've posted about it twice, the more recent one here.  Besides commentary and images of the car in its prime, I included some photos of it from 2018 when it was about to be restored.  It turns out that around the time I wrote the article, the restoration was completed.  The next year it was put up at Mecum Auctions, but failed to sell at the restorer's price.  After that, it was purchased by the American Muscle Car Museum.

As for the restoration, the restorer's Hemmings account of the process is here.

Images below are via American Muscle Car Museum.  Mecum Auctions has an image set here.

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Ford Torino Hardtop Coupe Evolution

Ford Torinos were marketed model years 1968-1976 in America.  As Wikipedia explains, it began as an upscale variant of Ford's intermediate-size Fairlane line.  By 1970, Fairlanes became lower-price Torinos, and the following year Ford's intermediate line was purely Torino.

Late in 2018 I posted "Ford's Redesigned 1972 Torino" -- the one I remember best because of its distinctive grille design.

Wikipedia noted three Torino generations: 1968-69, 1970-71, and 1972-76.  Wheelbases for those generations were: 1968 - 116 inches (2946 mm); 1970 - 117 inches (2972 mm); 1972 - 114 inches (2896 mm) for coupes and 118 inches (2997 mm) for 4-door models.  So those 1972 Torino coupes were slighly more compact than the earlier ones.

Today's post deals with coupes from each generation.

Gallery

1968 Ford Torino Hardtop Coupe - car-for-sale photo
The basic Torino coupe.  Its proportions and wide C-pillar remind me of first-generation Ford Mustangs.

1970 Ford Torino Hardtop Coupe - car-for-sale photo
Wikipedia considered this a second-generation Torino.  But from a design standpoint, the body is not greatly different from the 1968 version.  It could even be considered a major facelift.  This makes sense to me, because a two- model year generation was (and is) not normally economical.  Three or four production years are usually needed to amortize development costs.  So there might have been only two Torino generations: 1968-1971 and 1972-1976.

1972 Ford Gran Torino - BaT Auctions photo
The new Torino coupe body.  Mustang-like feeling is continued.

1968 Ford Torino GT Cobra Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
Fastback hardtop coupes were part of the Torino portfoliio.

1970 Ford Torino Cobra Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
The "second generation" fastback received a greater facelift that did the "formal" type coupe.

1972 Ford Torino GT Sport Fastback Hardtop Coupe - Mecum Auctions photo
A definite redesign, though the spirit of the earlier theme was retained.

1968 Ford Torino Cobra Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
Now for some selected non-profile views.

1970 Ford Torino Cobra Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
The windshield - A-pillar zone seems the same as on the 1968 car.  Ditto the lower body side in the form of the almost-identical wheel openings.

1972 Ford Grand Torino Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
There's that memorable grille.

1968 Ford Torino Cobra Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
Quarter view of the original fastback design.

1972 Ford Gran Torino GT Sport Fastback Hardtop Coupe - BaT Auctions
Puffier-looking.  More interesting backlight window and trunk lid ensemble.

1958 Edsel Corsair Walkaround

A while ago I posted "Making 1958 Edsels from 1957 Fords and Mercurys."  Ford Motor Company's Edsel brand was marketed only 1958-1960, and very few '60 Edsel's were built because production was halted very early in the model year.

Ford intended Edsels to fill some mid-range market gaps in its Ford, Mercury and Lincoln hierarchy.  For '58, there were four Edsel models.  From entry-level to top, those were: Ranger, Pacer, Corsair and Citation.  As noted in my post, Rangers and Pacers were based on bodies shared with Fords, and the others were Mercury-based.

My post "1958 Edsel Pacer Walkaround -- A Rather Pleasing Design" (link here) features a Ford-based model. And now it's probably time for a Mercury-based Edsel.

Rangers and Pacers came in six or seven (depending) body types, whereas Corsairs and Citations were available only as hardtop (pillarless) coupes and sedans.  The car featured below is a hardtop sedan, the best-selling of the lot.

Images of the 1958 Edsel Corsair hardtop sedan shown below are of a car listed for sale.

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The famous (in late 1950s USA) Edsel grille.  Most grilles had horizontal layouts, and even more traditional grilles such as Mercedes-Benz's were more square than strongly vertical.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Edsel front end design would have been improved with dual, not quad, headlights.

1958 Edsel Ranger hardtop sedan, photo via Ford.  This is the Ford-based, entry-level equivalent to today's subject car.

Ford Motor Company cars (save 1955 Lincolns) had panoramic windshields model years 1955-1959.

No fashionable tail fins.

The backlight window is panoramic, but the C-pillar zone seems, fussy, awkward to me.

The curves dropping towards the center of the car are a consistent theme.  But they are not well-related to one another from top to bottom.

Bold, two-tone areas are consistent with flamboyant late-1950s American car stying fashions.  At least the dark area's chrome outlining ties into elements at the rear.

There is also some sculpting around the dark paint area, which is why the forward chrome strip does not touch the two-tone framing.  The sculpting also echoes the slight fenderline profile flow point.

A busy design with many elements seemingly "tacked on" rather than integrated.

1956 Oldsmobile: Maximum Ovals

Following some rather busy designs -- especially that for the 1942 model year -- Oldsmobile styling settled into a pattern of comparatively simple grille designs.  I wrote about that here.

The general grille frame theme was a half-oval.  That is, assume an oval horizontally positioned.  Then sliced in half horizontally.  The detached upper half roughly approximating the grille framing. 

That continued until model years 1955-1957 when the framing became essentially ovaloid.  Leading up to this was the presence of oval details elsewhere on the cars.

The peak-oval model year seems to have been 1956, as shown on today's featured car below.  For 1958 and beyond, Oldsmobile styling went on other paths.

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1953 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday Coupe - via Hemmings
The oval theme is seen on the bumper guards.

1954 Oldsmobile Dashboard
The first year of 1954-1956 bodies.  The main items are circular or nearly so.

1956 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday Coupe - car-for sale photo set
But for 1956 they became oval.

Plenty of curves that aren't actual ovals, yet harken to the idea.  Note the non-circular, non-rectangular, sorta teardrop wheel openings.  Plus the side chrome trim the can be interpreted as distorted-oval.

Rear styling lacks the oval-derived them seen elsewhere.

Ah, the grille framed by the bumper.  Basically a stretched oval.