HR-V: Honda's Small SUV

A rough styling rule-of-thumb is that the smaller the car, the more difficult it is to make it beautiful.  Small cars can be cute or even attractive, of course, and this post's subject falls into that aesthetic range.  But it has one serious flaw and a few minor ones, in my opinion.

That car is the Honda HR-V that appeared in the USA as a 2016 model.  As explained here, there was a previous version that was not imported here.   The link also notes that it shares components with the Honda Fit.  HR-Vs are slightly longer than Fits, their wheelbase being 102.8 inches (2610 mm) versus 99.6 inches (2530 mm).

The HR-V was given a modest facelift for 2019 that tidies up some front-end fussiness.

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A 2015 Honda Fit, the basis for the 2016 Hr-V.  Although it features many angles in its sculpting, they present a cluttered, yet coherent theme.

The 2016 Honda HR-V might be based on the Fit according to Wikipedia, but that is not apparent when comparing this image with the previous one.  The major flaw I mentioned has to do with the side character line that bends upward to converge with the upper side window framing curve.  These meet in the form of a triangle, the vertical element of which is the rear door handle, a touch borrowed from the Alfa Romeo 156.  That feature was dictated by the sweep of the curve: the resulting sculpting overlaid where a door handle would normally be.

This rear quarter view shows the door handle as well a questionable touch on the rear design.  That is the "smile" sculpting that sweeps below the license plate area.  The ends of this do partly relate to the tail light assembly designs and the curve does provide contrast with most of the other elements which are either horizontal or angular.  To my mind, the flaw is that the "smile" extends too far down.

A more conventional alternative to the bold up-sweep of the side sculpting would have it terminate along the top of the tail light assembly rather than abaft of the side windows.  That would give the rather stubby SUV design more visual length.  As it stands, it serves to enhance the stubbiness.  On the other hand, that sculpting and its setting are distinctive, and this might be considered a marketing plus in that the HR-V does not quite look like the rest of the crowd.

The 2019 Honda HR-V.  What was facelifted was the car's face.  The upper part of the ensemble including the headlight assemblies and the bold chrome bar have been greatly simplified from the clutter seen the earlier version.  Honda styling, like Toyota's, has been jarringly fussy in recent years, so I hope this facelift is a sign of returning sanity.

Chrysler Corporation's 1946 Facelift of Its 1942 Cars

American automobile production ceased early February 1942 by government order following the USA's World War 2 entry.  Production resumed a few months following Japan's surrender in 1945.  Most carmakers introduced redesigned bodies a year or two before the war, so development costs hadn't been fully amortized.  Besides, the three and a half years without automobiles leaving assembly lines combined with family moneys accumulated in wartime when many goods were hard to get, resulted in a large pent-up demand for new cars of any kind.

Consequently, nearly every firm in the industry simply freshened up prewar models for the 1946 model year.  Moreover, some didn't even bother facelifting for 1947 and 1948.  Such was the case for Chrysler Corporation whose 1947 and '48 models were virtually identical in terms of styling, and minimally changed from 1946.

This post deals with the facelifts Chrysler's brands underwent 1946-48 (taken as a whole) to distinguish themselves from prewar 1942 styling.  The focus is on front ends from the windshield forward, because that's where most of the facelifting action occurred.

All brands received restyled grilles.  Plymouths retained prewar front fenders while the rest of the Chrysler line got new fenders that extended aft onto the front doors.  And there were minor ornamental changes for all brands.

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1942 Plymouth Special DeLuxe Sedan

1947 Plymouth Special DeLuxe Sedan
Almost all of Plymouth's facelifting effort went into a redesigned grille.

1942 Dodge Custom Club Coupe - RM Sotheby's auctions photo

1948 Dodge Coupe - Mecum auctions photo
Dodges got new grilles and those new front fenders.  Part of that restyling involved moving the headlights closer to the edges of the car.  There are minor changes in chrome trim on the fenders.

1942 DeSoto 4-door sedan - cropped movie still from "The Postman Always Rings Twice" via imcdb

1948 DeSoto Custom 4-door sedan - Mecum photo
Prewar DeSotos had disappearing headlights, a concept that disappeared for 1946.  These two images clearly show how the new front fenders differed from their prewar design.  Like Dodge and Chrysler, whereas the grille is new, the 1942 hood design is retained.

1942 Chrysler Windsor Club Coupe - Hyman Ltd. auctions photo

1947 Chrysler Windsor Coupe - Mecum photo
Again, most changes are for the grille and fenders.  The chrome trim strip below the beltline has been shortened.

Unless otherwise noted, images are of cars for sale.

General Motors' 1959 Body Styles

As legendary design vice president Harley Earl neared retirement while lacking clear ideas regarding the direction car styling would take, General Motors began losing its reputation for styling leadership.  This reached a crisis point when Chrysler Corporation revealed its 1957 line featuring taut lines, thin roofs and -- oh, yes -- those tailfins.

Meanwhile, GM cars were rather rounded, having a heavier appearance than Chrysler products. General Motors went into crash project mode in reaction to Chrysler's initiative, first garishly facelifting much of its 1958 line and then redesigning the entire line for 1959.  What is interesting about the hurried '59 design was that GM used the same general body set across all its brands.

Before that, the corporation usually had two or three bodies that were allocated to different parts of its line.  For example, around 1950, its A-body was used by Chevrolet, Pontiac, and entry-level Oldsmobiles.  B-bodies were used by mid-range Oldsmobiles (and eventually all Oldsmobiles) and entry level Buicks.  C-bodies were for larger Buicks and for Cadillacs, though around 1950 top-range Olds' got them too.

The 1959 basic one-range-suits-all bodies most visibly differed in the designs of their passenger compartment greenhouses, though a common element there was a doubly-wrapped windshield.  Oldsmobile examples are shown below.  Otherwise, styling differences included brand-specific variations in ornamentation, wheelbase, and other items related to brand identity.

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1959 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Sport Sedan, factory photo
Four-door hardtops were popular from the mid-1950 until the 1970s, when federal regulations regarding roll-over damage killed that B-pillarless body type.  From the belt line down, Oldsmobiles looked pretty much the same aside from variations in model-specific ornamentation.  Note the windshield.  As mentioned above, this is consistent across all body types -- a cost-saving detail.  Also note the thin, flat roof, a response to 1957 Chrysler styling.  Also the wrapped back window.

1959 Oldsmobile Holiday Coupe, Barrett-Jackson auction photo
Hardtop coupes did not get the wraparound backlight (back window) seen in the previous photo.  Instead, they featured a more normal looking, but thin, C-pillar.

1959 Oldsmobile 4-door sedan
Four-door sedans with B-pillars were six-window affairs.  C-pillars and backlights are similar to those seen on the Holiday Coupe, above, and identical to those items on the 2-door sedan below,

1959 Oldsmobile 2-door sedan
Sedans with B-pillars had slightly thicker, more rounded roofs than the hardtops.  Backlights were shorter than those of hardtop coupe, but were wider due to C-pillar differences.  The roofs and upper window profiles of this car and the one in the previous image are the same.  The 2-door sedan has a wider front door than the 4-door, and there was no need for quarter windows.

1959 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Fiesta station wagon
Oldsmobiles also made station wagons that had their own specialized greenhouse design.

1959 Oldsmobile 88 convertible
The final GM body stye was the convertible that, of course, had no greenhouse at all.

Unless otherwise noted, images are for cars advertised for sale.

Ford's Faces for 1972

In my e-book "How Cars Faced the Market" I note that prestige brands tend to maintain front-end features over the years as a means of providing identity.  Rolls-Royce grilles are a prime example.  Moving down the hierarchy, grille designs become less consistent.  Perhaps a theme such as Ford's early 1950s spinners might be used for a few years and then dropped.  In other cases, a grille theme might last for only a couple of model years.

Though there were some mid-1930s exceptions, through the 1950s an American brand's grille design was used for all of its various models from entry level to the most expensive car offered.  This was because those models usually used the same basic body.  (General Motors' Oldsmobiles and Buicks often used more than one of GM's A, B and C bodies, but retained the same basic grille designs.)

Then around 1960 Detroit's Big Three carmakers introduced "compact" and shortly later "medium / intermediate" bodies to supplement their "standard" body lines.  At this point, brand continuity began to suffer across sub-models as well as over time.

The present post presents grilles used by the Ford brand for model year 1972, where thematic variation was considerable.

Unless otherwise noted, images below are of cars for sale or whose primary Internet source was unidentified.

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Ford Galaxie, one of three standard-size Ford models (others: Custom, LTD) that used the same grille theme.  Image from Ford sales material.

Ford Pinto, Motor Trend image.  Pinto was Ford's compact model.  A much smaller car than the Galaxie, too small to use the same grill theme.

Ford Maverick, not quite as small as a Pinto.  Its headlight assemblies and general grille shape echo the Pinto's, though the grille bar pattern and turn-signal light shapes differ.

Ford Mustang, the sporty car.  Its front end is totally different from the standard Ford's and those of Pintos and Mavericks.

Ford Torino, a "medium" size car.  It grille/frontal theme also differs from the others.

Ford Thunderbird in a publicity photo.  It shared its body with the Lincoln Continental Mark III.  Its grille theme is somewhat like the Galaxie's because both designs were created under the influence of Ford's short-time president Bunkie Knudsen, who favored prominent "noses" on cars.
In some respects, these various Ford models might as well have been separate brands, because they functionally were such.  But to make that official would have required legal/contractural steps regarding dealers as well as expensive signage, plus likely additions to the corporate bureaucracy along with possible hiring of more advertising agencies.  Calling these diverse models Fords kept things simpler, and the general pattern holds today for most automobile manufacturers.

1939 Chrysler Line Really Was Facelifts of 1938 Cars

A while ago I posted speculation that, what at first glance appeared to be completely redesigned 1939 model year Dodges, DeSotos and Chryslers, in fact were extensive facelifts.  I stated:

"I don't have a definite answer to the question posed in this post's title. That would have to come from Chrysler archives, an automobile restoration expert or perhaps a knowledgeable member of a club devoted to one of the Chrysler Corporation brands active in the 1930s.

"My strong suspicion, however, is that the answer is 'no,' even though various publications in my automobile library state otherwise."

Now I have such evidence from one of my books that was hidden away in the basement.  Prolific automobile writer Jan Norbye on page 95 of this book states that the 1939 Chrysler line was comprised of greatly facelifted 1938 models.

Now that my suspicion is confirmed, let's take a further look at some '39s compared with early models based on the same body.

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1937 Plymouth

1939 Plymouth
As mentioned in the earlier post, Plymouths only received restyle front ends from the cowling forward, including a new windshield.  The same was true for Dodge D-12s sold or assembled outside the USA.

1937 Dodge

1939 Dodge, Barrett-Jackson Auction photo
The previous post dealt only with 4-door sedans, so I thought I'd include some other body types: here are 2-door sedans.  1937 and 1938 2-door models had three door hinges.  1939 two-doors only had one exterior hinge, as the leading edge of the door was slightly reshaped as part of the change in the windshield from one-piece to V'd.  Otherwise the door frame is the same, as is the shape of its window.  It's hard to tell from these photos, but the aft side window outlines are either the same or very close to being so, even with a reshaped roof profile.

1937 DeSoto, promotional material

1939 DeSoto
Now for coupes.  Facelifting again is extensive, but the expensive-to-change cowling and body framing parts are essentially the same as those in previous years.  Like the 2-door sedans, earlier coupes had three exterior door hinges that were replaced at the leading cut-line for the facelift.  Side windows are clearly unchanged here, though the trunk lid is more rounded off.

1938 Chrysler

1939 Chrysler
Front door treatments are basically the same as discussed above, though 4-door sedans for 1937 and 1938 only had two exposed hinges.  The lower hinge was retained in the facelift, the upper one moved inside.  Otherwise, the front door and window are the same aside from the front cut line.  The rear door is partly reshaped, especially the C-pillar, and hinges are relocated.

1937 Chrysler Imperial

1939 Chrysler Imperial
The same applies to Chrysler's line-topping Imperials.  This view illustrates how dramatically different the post-facelift cars were.  A lengthened wheelbase placing the front axle line farther forward of the cowling helps this distinction.

Unless otherwise noted, images are of cars for sale.

Chevrolet Corvette Concepts at the 1954 Motorama

They were called Dream Cars back in the mid-1950s, not some nerdy, clinical label such as Concept Cars.  The whole idea for young automobile styling fans in the USA, Canada and parts of Europe and Asia was keep their senses on high alert for any new information regarding Dream Cars from Detroit.  Peak excitement was reserved for the announcement of what General Motors was presenting in its latest Motorama extravaganza that combined show biz, current products and ... YES!! ... Dream Cars.

Whereas Ford Motor Company show cars in those days often verged on fantasies of a Science-Fiction nature, GM's Motorama fare was a mix of exciting, semi-practical designs (Oldsmobile Golden Rocket), moderately customized production cars (Pontiac Parisienne, Cadillac Orleans), and items that were practical enough to have production potential.

Some of the latter are this post's subject matter.  The first-generation Chevrolet Corvette appeared as a show car in the January 1953 New York Motorama and reached production in the middle of that year.  January 1954 was the next Motorama and it contained three Dream Car variations on the Corvette.

I find the timing interesting.  For those Corvette variations to arrive at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel early in 1954, they had to have been designed not much later than the summer of '53.  At that time, no one at GM could be sure how successful Corvette's sales would be.  As it happened, only 315 Corvettes were produced in 1953 and 1954 production was the not-large number 3,640.  It took several more model years for the Corvette to establish itself in the market.

So those Corvette-based show cars were highly speculative, probably created in the hope that Corvette sales would be much greater than actually happened.  Of the three cars, one became production in a trivial sense, another's styling features appeared on later production Chevrolets and Pontiacs, and the third went nowhere.  Here is another take on those show cars.

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Here come the models!  The photo-shoot setting is probably Miami Florida's Dinner Key, once Pan American's seaplane terminal and now a marina and Miami's City Hall.  Miami was a Motorama site in 1954.

The ladies are now behind the wheels.  Nearest is a production Corvette.  Behind it is a Corvette with an experimental removable top that later entered production.  The third car is the Corvette Corvair fastback closed-body Dream Car.  The Corvair name was used on Chevrolet's rear-engine compact cars of the 1960s.  Last in line is the Chevrolet Nomad station wagon that I'll term "Corvette Nomad" here, because that's what it was.

Color photo of the cars in the same order.

Another pose.

This is perhaps the most widely used image from the shoot.

The Corvette with the hard top.

"Foam green" is the term used for this Corvair's paint job.  Sources say five were built, the Waldorf version being painted red.  None are known to exist, though replicas have been built by Corvette enthusiasts.

Rear three-quarter view.  This was an attractive design that might have seen production had early Corvette sales been strong.

The Nomad as seen probably in the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, the New York Motorama site.  The design of its greenhouse was used on 1955-57 production Chevrolet Nomad and Pontiac Safari station wagons.

Rear three-quarter view.

1950-51 Ford Crestliner

I wrote about General Motors' first-generation hardtop convertibles here.  In that post I mentioned that that they first appeared on the upper end of GM's brand hierarchy (Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac) during the 1949 model year.  The style was instantly popular, and hardtops were added to the Chevrolet and Pontiac lines for 1950.

Other manufacturers were forced to play catch-up.  Ford Motor Company didn't bother adding hardtops to its Mercury and Lincoln brands until they got new bodies for 1952.  Instead, models with vinyl top coverings were marketed in an attempt to offer sportier options for potential customers.  It wasn't until 1950 that Mercury and Lincoln announced, respectively, the Monterey and Cosmopolitan Capri Coupe.

Ford did the same for 1950 in the form of its Crestliner.  Some background is here, the most relevant bits in the final paragraph:

"The Crestliner was introduced in July 1950, late in the model year. That helped limit sales to 18,000 units, the smallest component of the 1.2 million Fords built that year. The model was continued into 1951 but sold even fewer cars. For the all-new 1952 lineup, Ford used “Crestline” as the name of a line of cars, without distinctive trim. By 1955, the Crestline name had completely disappeared from Ford's lineup."

I'll continue the story in the captions below.

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A 1950 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop coupe, Barrett-Jackson auction photo. This popular model was what Ford had to somehow compete against.

And this is Ford's late-1950 Crestliner shown in a set of "for sale" photos.  It was a two-door sedan sporting vinyl roof covering, a unique two-tone paint chromed divider and a special color scheme.

Side view.  Rear wheel spats were part of the package.

Front three-quarter view.  Arguably a fussier, less attractive design than found on ordinary '50 Fords.

1951 Fords got a new grille featuring two!! spinners instead of one.  The rear fender tail light assembly extension sculpting was given chrome sheathing.  The Crestliner two-tone trim was revised by the inclusion of the horizontal chrome strip seen here.  Barrett-Jackson photo.

Crestliners were never a strong response to Chevy Bel Airs, so Ford spent money it possibly wished it didn't have to in the form of a true hardtop convertible, the Ford Victoria.  The reason why Ford management was probably unhappy taking that risk was that Fords were completely redesigned for 1952, and this Victoria was in production for only one year, its sales marginally justifying its development expense.  "For sale" photo.
Production data are as follows: 1950 Crestliners, 17,601; 1951 Crestliners, 8,703; 1951 Victorias, 110,286.  Chevrolet produced 76,662 Bel Airs for 1950 and 103,356 for 1951, the body continuing in production for 1952 where an additional 74,634 were built before Chevrolets were redesigned for 1953.  The '51 Ford Victoria was highly competitive, but over the three model years that Chevy produced its first-generation Bel Airs,  254,652 units were built.  However, besides the Bel Airs, Pontiac marked its Catalina hardtop that used the same basic GM A-body.  I haven't been able to find Catalina sales over 1950-52, but they were probably on the order of 100,000.   So overall, Chevrolet and Pontiac A-body hardtops were clearly a better return on development costs than Ford's 1951 effort.

Crestliners sold poorly, but they had the virtue of being cheap to develop, being Ford Tudors with fancy trim.