Studebaker's Tardy 1955 Panoramic Windshields

Keeping up with styling fads could be difficult if one's financial resources are limited.  Consider the 1955 sedans from Studebaker.

General Motors was for decades the American car style setter due to its dominant market share and the skill of Harley Earl, its styling director.  GM hinted at wraparound (panoramic) windshields as a future automotive feature as early as December 1950 when its Le Sabre dream car was revealed to the public in a Life Magazine article.  Such windshields reached limited production in 1953 on Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Fiesta convertibles.  Then for 1954, GM's B- and C-body cars for Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac appeared with such windshields and the rest of the American auto industry was in crash-program mode to have them on their 1955 lines.

Lincolns never had wraparounds for 1955, nor did Studebaker's coupe lines.  However, Studebaker sedans did get them, but not at the start of the model year.  This was a marketing and public relations faux-pas whose impact is hard to judge more than 60 years later.  The Gallery section below has some before-and-after photos of 1955 Studebaker sedan styling.

Besides GM, Chrysler Corporation came out with redesigned car for '55, and these were styled with panoramic windows in mind. Other brands including Studebaker had to graft wraparounds on existing bodies -- I mentioned Ford's elaborate 1955 facelift here (scroll down).

All the images below are from "for sale" web sites unless otherwise noted.

Gallery

This is a 1954 Oldsmobile Super 88 sedan showing General Motors' panoramic windshield as it appeared on its B-body lines.

These images illustrate Ford's grafting of wraparounds on an existing body design. A 1954 Ford two-door sedan is above, a '55 below.

Here are Studebaker four-door sedans showing how that firm applied panoramic windshields mid- model year 1955.  The earlier car in the upper photo is a Studebaker President (Barrett-Jackson auction photo), and the lower image is of a Studebaker Commander.

The same cars shown from a different angle.

Studebaker's panoramic window shape was not a full wrap such as can be seen above on the Oldsmobile and Ford.  But it followed Chrysler Corporation practice.  Compare the Studebaker to this 1955 Plymouth Belvedere.