1929 Auburn Cabin Speedster

It was a show car, not a production machine.  Yet for some automobile enthusiasts it is a cult item.  A cult item probably not widely known to car fans, let alone the general public.  Moreover, it was destroyed in a fire only a few months after it was built.

It is the 1929 Auburn Cabin Speedster, a boat-tail coupe.  For a detailed report, please link to "The Sensational Auburn 1929 Cabin Speedster" by Michael Lamm.

Boat-tail roadsters, where in plan view a car's sides converged to a point at the rear, thrived in the late 1920s into the mid-1930s.  "Thrived" is actually likely too strong a word.  Not many were built, but that was the era when they were built.

Regular roadsters -- a two-seater form of convertible coupé -- did not have tapered bodies.  And their conventionally shaped rear ends could feature a rumble seat, an impossibility for a boat-tail.

What makes the Cabin Speedster interesting and unusual is that while its body had a boat-tail taper, the body was an enclosed coupé -- not any kind of convertible or drop-head.

The original car was destroyed along with many others when a huge tent for a Los Angeles car show caught fire.  But the car was remembered, and eventually two replicas were built, as mentioned by Lamb.   I came across one of these recently while visiting the excellent Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Indiana.

Below are some photos of the original car along with a few of mine taken at the museum.

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Side view photo taken when the car was new.

Front quarter view showing that the headlights had not yet been installed.  This image and the next two are from Lamm's article.

Rear quarter view.  Note the tiny, impractical aft window.

This photo was taken at the Chicago car show.  Woodlites are installed, but the car never received bumpers.

Now for my photos.  Here is the wood body framing of the kind used before all-metal bodies became common in mid-1930s USA.

Front quarter view of the replica car built on Auburn components.

The Cabin Speedster was quite narrow, yielding comparatively small frontal area -- a theoretical aerodynamic advantage.  So far as I know, the original car was never tested at high speed.

Interior view.  The cane seats are an interesting, light-weight touch.

This shows the sculpting around the drastically raked dual-pane windshield.

Italian Variations on a Coupé Theme, Circa 1950

There are all sorts of reasons why automobile designs from different sources can seem quite similar.  In some cases, a stylist from one firm would be hired by another and he continued in his usual manner.  Another possibility is stylists from different firms meeting in the same bar and trading stories, though this is difficult to document if it ever happened at all.  A third would be a zeitgeist argument, that certain idea were simply "in the air" at a given time.  Fourth might be the state of the technological art driving what kinds of shapes and packages were possible at one of these given times.

The present post presents coupé designs from three Italian carrozzeria: Pinin Farina, Touring, and Ghia.  Those designs featured similar passenger compartment "greenhouses" along with some other similar features.  Please correct me, but as far as I can tell, there was no transfer of stylists between the firms during the period 1947-52 when the cars shown below were designed.  The "same bar" hypothesis can also be ruled out.  Technology was a consideration, as I'll explain.  What happened was that Pinin Farina came up with a design suited to the immediate post- World War 2 glass-forming technology in Italy.  Then Touring and Ghia, within changing limits of technology, refined Farina's concept.

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Pinin Farina - 1947 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Coupé
I don't know if this car or the one in the following image came first, but their bodies are identical aside from wheelbase and brand identification details.

Pinin Farina - Delahaye 1947 135MS Coupé
Windshields are two-pane, flat glass.  Side windows are also flat glass.

Pinin Farina - Delahaye 1947 135MS Coupé
Back windows are fairly small, with glass curved slightly horizontally.  The shape of the top is large-radius and uncomplicated by the presence of a second set of side windows abaft of the doors.

Touring - 1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Super Sport Coupé
The passenger compartment greenhouse in this Touring design is better shaped, more graceful than Farina's original effort.  The lower body is entirely different.

Ghia - 1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Coupé
A Ghia version of the same Alfa type features through-fenders like Farina's '47 Alfa 2500.  The greenhouse is shorter and airier due to larger windows.

Ghia - 1952 (circa) Alfa Romeo 1900C Coupe prototype
A few years later Ghia created this refinement on the theme.  Now glass-forming technology allowed a one-piece curved windshield and a larger, more-curved backlight.

Ghia - 1953-54 Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint Speciale Supergioiello
Few examples of this design were built.  The greenhouse is not like the Farina version aside from the side windows and presence of the large aft quarter pillar -- yet the general spirit remains.  The name "Supergioiello" might be freely translated as "fabulous jewell."

Toyota Corolla: Fixing a Detail

Now for something pretty subtle.  It has to do with the aft part of the side window profile of the previous and current generations of the North American version of the Toyota Corolla.

It's just a small detail, but I am bothered by it almost every time I see a previous-generation Corolla.  At least current Corollas lack that problem, whether by the accident of a redesign or conscious effort to make the correction.

For a discussion of the flaw, let's go to some images: previous-generation Corolla images alternate with photos of current Corollas.

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Previous-generation Corolla.  Note the pointed aft end of the side window profile.  From this and similar viewpoints, it seems to simply intrude on the C-pillar.  An intrusion for no apparent reason.

Current Corollas are better styled in general, with a strong shoulder-level character line that extends almost all the way to the rear of the car.  The window profile is essentially self-contained with no sharp points seemingly floating noplace in particular.

In this side view we see that the sharp point is actually related to the C-pillar fold atop the trunk.  In theory, this is proper automobile styling practice -- relating features at a distance to help visually tie a design together.  But Corolla's problem is that the fold is weak.  It needed to be a little bolder so that the relationship to the point was more obvious.

The shoulder character fold on current Corollas serves to tie the design together, leaving the C-pillar to be simply a C-pillar and not a canvas for a visual linkage.

Even when seen from the rear, the visual link is weak.  As just stated, the sculpting need to be at least a little bolder.

No such problem on the current Corolla.

Cadillac Sixteen Concept from 2003

Cadillac famously built cars with 16 cylinder motors from the 1930 through 1940 model years.  Since then, the largest engines in Cadillacs have been V-8s.

Harking back to V-16 glory days, in 2003 Cadillac revealed a concept car called the Cadillac Sixteen.  It had a 16 cylinder motor derived from a production V-8, its horsepower claimed as 1,000.

An early 1930s Cadillac V-16 posed with the 2003 V-16 concept car.
Several years ago I noted it here, mentioning:

"The Sixteen is one Cadillac concept that I would have loved to have seen enter production.  I actually viewed it at a Pebble Beach Concours d'Élégance and was not bothered at all by its flamboyance and exaggerated proportions (that long hood is fabulous!).  I never could have afforded one, but dream cars are dream fodder, aren't they?"

In retrospect, if Cadillac launched a production version of the Sixteen (with 500 fewer horsepower), in one stroke that might well have energized the brand's image as a luxury car.  Now, more than 15 years later, Cadillac's image still suffers in comparison to, say, Bentley and top-of-the-line Mercedes, BMWs, and Lexuses.  Even Lincoln might be gaining on Cadillac.

But back in 2003 General Motors was well on the road to its eventual bankruptcy.  Funds for such a super-Cadillac were almost surely lacking.  And projected monetary return from its potential sales along with possibly increased short-run Cadillac sales in general might not have convinced GM bean-counters.

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The Sixteen has classic long-hood, short front overhang proportions.

Rear overhang is also short; the trunk might be a little too small for a production version.

A production job would have slightly smaller wheels plus a trifle taller greenhouse.

The vertical headlight ensembles previews the current Caddy front running light theme.

Photo of the rear I took in July when the car was on display in Tacoma.

Interior.  A current production version would of course sport a computer screen.

The 1960 Ford Galaxie and its Four Facelifts

One of Ford's most attractive designs, in my judgment, was the 1960 standard-size car noted in the publicity material shown above.  I wrote about it and the designs for adjoining model years here.

During the early 1960s as well as model years before and after, American cars received sometimes-expensive annual facelifts as a marketing tool.  The success of the Volkswagen Beetle at that time (which was seldom facelifted), was probably a factor that eventually helped lead to American car makers downplaying or abandoning annual appearance changes after a new design was launched.

The 1960 Ford's basic body remained in production for five model years.  That was a comparatively long time, because in the 1950s three or four years was the typical lifetime for a design.  But back then, car makers only built standard-size cars, whereas by the 1960s Ford and others were introducing compact and intermediate size bodies.  That expensive effort was probably why Ford economized by keeping the 1960 design in production an extra model year or two.

The images below trace Ford facelifts on Galaxy models.  Featured are hardtop convertibles, both two-door and four-door.  Unless otherwise noted, images are publicity photos or pictures of cars advertised for sale on the Internet.

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First, grille designs are presented.  This is the 1960 grille seen on a Mecum auction photo.

The grille and hood were drastically redesigned for 1961.  The theme is simpler, but less distinctive: I prefer the '60 version.

The main change for 1962 was the grid pattern, though a medallion was also added.

1963 saw a mild reshaping of the hood, grille opening and bumper.  Tidier-looking than the '62 version.

The 1964 grille was widened slightly, returning somewhat to 1962.  The simple horizontal bars undulate in plan view, adding interest.

Now for two-door hardtops, starting with this 1960 model.

The 1961 facelift was fairly drastic, most front-end sheet metal being replaced.  The result was that the front and rear sections of the design were not as well integrated as on the 1960 models.

A major facelift was made for 1962.  The passenger compartment greenhouse was given a Thunderbird-like wide C-pillar and squared-off backlight.  The windshield was also reshaped and the rear fender redesigned, losing its small tail fin.

Early 1963 Galaxies received revised chrome trim on the sides.

But partway through the model year the roofline was drastically changed.  Gone was the Thunderbird look, replaced by a narrower, sharply slanted C-pillar.  Mecum photo.

Galaxies for 1964 got revised side sculpting and other detail changes in order to freshen appearance in the year before the redesigned 1965 Fords appeared.  Barrett-Jackson auction photo.

Now for four-door hardtops.  This 1960 example has a Thunderbird-like C-pillar, unlike the two-door version.

The same can be said for the four-door 1961 Galaxy as was mentioned above for the two-door model.

The 1962 Galaxy four-door hardtop.

And the 1963 model.  Unlike the two-door hardtops, four-door models retained essentially the same greenhouse design through all facelifts.

But 1964 models had the aft part of the greenhouse reshaped gracefully, the Thunderbird style being abandoned.  I think the 1960 and 1964 four-door hardtops were the most attractive of their set.

1932 Packard: Extending the Brand Theme

A while ago I wrote an e-book about automobile brand identification themes -- you can see the link on the right-hand panel.  I noted that the strongest visual continuity over time would usually be found in luxury brands, an important example being Packard.

Not long ago I visited the Nethercutt museum in Sylmar, California that featured many luxury cars from the 1920s and 1930s.  One such was a 1932 Packard Twin-Six (V-12) Convertible Roadster with a body by Dietrich.

When reviewing the photos I took, I noticed an interesting detail that I had been aware of in times past, but had forgotten.  I'll explain in the captions of the images below (click on them to enlarge).


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1934 Packard Super Eight Coupe Roadster, RM Sotheby's photo.  Packards had three main identification elements, at least two of which were present at any time.  The car shown above features all three: (1) the ox-yoke motif at the upper part of the grille, (2) the pen-nib arrow along the side of the hood, and (3) red hexagons on the hub caps.

This 1951 Packard 400 retains all three items, though the grille form is slightly stylized to accommodate early 1950s styling fashions.

Now for some 1932 Packards similar to the featured car.  This is a Rumble Seat Roadster.

Here is another Roadster.  All three brand elements are seen here.

The Convertible Roadster by Dietrich as found in the museum.

Again, the three brand elements car be found in this photo.  But there is a fourth item -- a variation on the grille theme.  Look carefully at the headlight bezels.  They are not uniformly shaped all around.  And the headlight glass is not flat or uniformly bulged.  That glass comes to a shallow V in plan view mimicking the form of the grille, and the bezel conforms to this.  Moreover, the bezels are slightly hooded in an irregular departure from a smooth transition.  This transition  is actually a subtle evocation of the upper shape of the grille opening.

Front view of the car.  If you look carefully at the headlight bezels you might detect their echo of the upper grille form.