Giugiaro Improves the Porsche 914

The upper image is a 1970 drawing of the Porsche Tapiro concept car by its designer, the famed Giorgetto Giugiaro.  Its Wikipedia entry is here, and I wrote about it here.  The lower photo is one I took of my 1971 Porsche 914 that I wrote about here.  I wrote about the 914 design itself here.  The Wikipedia entry for the Porsche 914 is here.

The Tapiro was derived from the Porsche 914/6, the six cylinder Porsche-engined version of the 914 that otherwise was powered by a four-cylinder Volkswagen motor.  The designs are strikingly different, so I thought readers might be interested in seeing them compared.  Click on the images to enlarge.

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Side view of a Porsche 914/6, Mecum auction photo.

Side view of the Tapiro.

Diagram showing ket interior layout features and dimensions.  Wheelbase lengths are identical, but the overall length of the Tapiro is 4060 mm whereas the 914's is 3985.  The major difference is height, the 914 measuring 1230 mm and the Tapiro 1110 mm.

A 1969 photo of what probably is a 914/6 pre-production car.  That's Porsche 911 stylist Ferry Porsche with his hand on the driver's side window.

The Tapiro seen from a similar angle.

A rear-quarter image of a for-sale 1971 Porsche 914.

Rear quarter view of the Tapiro.

Redesigned Genesis G80 for 2021

I confess that it took me a long time before I took Korean automobiles seriously.  I spent most of a year in South Korea in the early 1960s while in the Army.  In those days, the country was economically somewhat isolated and had done little more than patching up Korean War damage.

This is a photo I took from Seoul's main railway station.  The cars are Japanese-made, the busses are Korean bodies placed on army truck chassis' -- and I am not sure about the hopsung vans' basis.

Early Korean imports to the USA were not impressive, but Kia and Hyundai rental cars I've driven in recent years have been satisfactory.  (My personal cars over the last 15 years have been a Chrysler 300 and three Toyota RAV4s.)

A large leap for the Korean industry, following the footsteps of Toyota's Lexus brand, is Hyundai's Genesis.  The subject of this post is the redesigned for 2021 Genesis G80 luxury sedan.

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The 2017 Genesis G80.  The Wikipedia entry above credits its design to Peter Schreyer, at the time director of Hyundai styling.

Here is the 2021 Genesis G80, Luc Donckerwolke given overall styling credit.  Wheelbase and length are almost exactly the same as those of the 2017 car, but the body appears to be entirely new.

Side view of the 2017 G80.

2021 G80.  In profile, the new G80 is less boxy than the previous model.  The shoulder height character line falls slightly to the rear from a point near the cowl.   Side sculpting is mercifully simple, as should befit an upscale sedan.  The most interesting details are the double-bar lights seen at the front, abaft of the front wheel opening, and at the rear.  These are highly distinctive and help to unite the design.  Very clever.

The rear of the '17 G80 is fairly conventional in a bland way.

The redesigned rear is very nice.  The roofline is fastback right up to the aft spoiler.  I am not sure about that supplemental short horizontal character line on the rear fender.  In a way it's too close to the main character line, but it does tie to the taillight assembly.

Dramatic view of the front quarter showing those running lights.  Donckerwolke and his team did a very good job at the front.

But the rear is even better in today's context of fussy styling clichés.  Aside from the exhaust pipe area, the rear design is comprised of a concave oval-shaped area contrasted by angular taillight assemblies overlapping the sides.  Simple, distinctive, nice.
One casualty of the redesign is the short-span bird-wing emblem seen on the 2017 Genesis.

Raymond Loewy's First Hupmobile Design

The 1932 Hupmobile (corporate Wikipedia entry here) was an early project by pioneer industrial designer Raymond Loewy, and his first production automobile design.  I wrote about his Hupmobile work in general here.

The present post features his 1932 design that was used on Hupp's more expensive line of cars.  According to the Wikipedia entry, by the late 1920s the company added models intended for what amounted to the upper-middle market segment and promoted them accordingly.  This was at the price of moving away from the clientele base that built the brand.  That resulted in diminished sales, a condition exaggerated by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

For the 1932 model year Hupp marketed both the Loewy design and, for its lower price range, continuation of its previous design.  Examples of both are shown below.  Aside from photos taken when the cars were new, images are sourced for cars up for sale or auction.

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1932 Hupmobile 216 Coupe
This lower-priced Hupp used the pre-1932 body design.  Note the conventional (for the time) front fender style.

1932 Hupmobile B 216 4-door sedan
The hood and grille on this sedan are narrower than on the new upscale Hupps, and grille design details differ slightly from the new design seen below.

1932 Hupmobile 226 4-door sedan
The Loewy design is fairly typical of its time.  That is, the basic body shape is similar to late-1920s configuration, but slightly more rounded at the aft of the passenger compartment and here and there elsewhere.  In 1950/51 Loewy stated that his contribution was the automobile's front end; presumably Hupp or supplier body engineers were responsible for the design abaft of the cowl.

The same car, side view.  For some reason Loewy chose "cycle" type front fenders rather than the "ogee" curve fender format found on most contemporary American cars including the Hupps shown in the first two images above.  Perhaps he thought cycle fenders connoted a sporty, racy appearance.

The same car in rear quarter view.  The cycle front fenders allowed spare tired to be fully exposed, rather than being partly nested in the fenders.

1932 Hupmobile Series-I 226 Rumbleseat Coupe
Side view of a sporty upscale '32 Hupp.

1932 Hupmobile Coupe posed in front of a dealer's showroom.
Loewy's grille design eliminated the wide, central vertical bar while adding a new hood ornament and some vertical ribbing at the top center of the frame.

1932 Hupmobile advertisement
An example of how 1932 Loewy-design Hupmobiles were presented to potential buyers.  The car in the main illustration is highly distorted, though the lower drawing is closer to being correct.

2021 Buick Envision: General Motors' Latest SUV Styling

The Chinese-built Buick Envision SUV has been restyled for the 2021 model year.   As of July 2020 when this post was drafted, the expectation for its appearance on the American market is early 2021.   Preliminary information from Car and Driver magazine can be found here and here.

As I frequently mention, styling a SUV is more restricted by packaging and aerodynamic requirements than for most other types of vehicles.  The result is that SUVs from different manufacturers tend to look similar aside from ornamentation and superficial sheet meal sculpting.

The Buick-furnished images below suggest that General Motors' stylists remain trapped along with SUV stylists in other firms.

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The openings below the headlight assemblies (are they real or fake?) and their relationship to the projected-forward grille area differ from the norm.  They also do not make for an attractive composition, being somewhat more aggressive than I think necessary.  Otherwise frontal design is tasteful in terms of current front-end styling clichés.

Side sculpting on the lower parts of the doors is arbitrary, not related to the window profile or other basic body shapes.  This sculpting and the higher-up character line suggesting a rear fender both disappear around the mid-point of the rear side door.  This might be interpreted as designating a separation of front and rear styling themes -- or simply slightly weakening overall design unity.

Rear styling includes many current clichés, but fairly simplified, and not with the sharp, angular details found on Japanese brands especially.  Therefore I call this part of the car a qualified styling success.

From 1941 LaSalle to 1941 Cadillac

General Motors' LaSalle (Wikipedia entry here) was a "companion brand" to Cadillac.  LaSalles were marketed for model years 1927-1940.  They were originally slated for 1941, but management decided to drop the brand and expand the Cadillac line to make up for the loss of LaSalle.

All that remains of the prospective 1941 LaSalle line are photos of LaSalle mockup models or prototypes.  Some of these are shown below along with images of comparable 1941 Cadillacs.

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1941 LaSalle C-body sedan.

1941Cadillac 62 C-body sedan, Barrett-Jackson auction photo.  Aside from the grilles, the trim on these cars is similar.  Especially note the air vents on the side of the hood -- they occupy the same space, though their details differ slightly.

Fastback LaSalle sedan, side view.

1941 Cadillac 61 Touring Sedan, for-sale photo.  Cadillacs and LaSalles shown here have three horizontal chrome strips abaft of their wheel openings.  The LaSalle's are wider and indented in their centers.  The Cadillac versions are longer and more closely spaced.  The chrome running board edge trim on both cars is the same.

Front quarter view of the fastback LaSalle sedan.

Side view of a LaSalle sedan with a modest notchback.

The equivalent Cadillac 63, photo source unknown.

Cadillac 63 apparently shown at a prototype display for management.

Rear quarter view of a notchback LaSalle.

Same for the Cadillac 63.

Rear quarter view of a 1941 Cadillac 63, Hyman, Ltd. photo.

Hudson Grilles 1948-1954

The great Depression of the 1930s affected the Hudson Motor Car Company to the extent that, aside from its ill-fated 1953-54 Jet compact car, only two basic body series were used between 1936 and 1954.  That was when the company merged with Nash to form American Motors and the final Hudsons were based on Nash bodies. I wrote about 1936-1947 Hudsons and their facelifts here.

The present post presents Hudson grille designs during 1948-1954 model year production of the second of those basic body series.  That was a period of seven model years during an era when General Motors, Ford and Chrysler tended to offer redesigned bodies every three or four years on average.  But Hudson did not have their financial resources and relied on facelifts longer than it should have for corporate longevity.

Unless noted, images below are of cars listed for sale on the Internet.

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1948 Hudson
This was the debut grille design for the radically redesigned postwar Hudson line.

1949 Hudson - Mecum auction photo
There was essentially no change for the following model year.

1950 Hudson
Grille styling was tweaked for 1950.  The air opening for the radiator was retained, surrounding sheet metal was given minor adjustments, and the grille bars were redesigned while preserving the previous horizontal theme.  The most striking change was the addition of angled bars forming an inverted-V that was intended to be interpreted as a variation on Hudson's triangle logotype theme.

1951 Hudson
The following year the grille opening and related sheet metal were restyled in a rounded manner.  Grille bars were fashionably bolder and the triangle feature was integrated with the license plate area frame.

1952 Hudson
A very minor adjustment followed for 1952.   I think this was the best of this series of grille designs.  The '51 design was good, but for '52 the turn signal lights at the edges are now rounded, fitting the overall theme better than the rectangular lights of 1951.  However, the '51s had a better, smaller, hood ornament.

1953 Hudson
For 1953 the triangle was pushed back behind the grille bars, rendering it essentially invisible.  Some readers might prefer this design due to its simplicity and thematic consistency.  I agree that this version is aesthetically better, but nevertheless like the triangle's role in brand identification -- an important marketing consideration.

1954 Hudson
The 1948-vintage body was given a major facelift for its final year.  The grille design is simple, but undistinguished.  No real Hudson character here.

Dodge Viper as of 2003-2007

Not long ago while I was taking my daily walk in the town where I live (70 miles north of Seattle), I spotted an immaculate Dodge Viper.  Of course I whipped out my iPhone and took a few photos of it.  They are displayed below.

Some background information on the 10-cylinder motor Viper is here.  They were produced from 1991 through 2017 with a hiatus 2011-2012.

The Viper I saw was from the 2003-2007 generation -- I'll call it a 2005 model.  In addition to my photos below, I include images of examples from the first and final Viper generations for context.  My impression is that the 2003-07 Vipers had the cleanest design, but judge for yourself.  Click on the images to enlarge.

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2005-Vintage Dodge Viper - Donald Pittenger Photos:

Vipers had the traditional Dodge "crosshairs" grille bars.

The styling feature common to all Vipers is the large, engine heat exhaust vent abaft of the front wheel opening.  Its details varied from one Viper generation to the next.  This angular design is less-complicated than those on early and late Vipers.

Rear styling of the 2005-vintage Vipers is cleaner, less-fussy, than otherwise.

1992 Dodge Viper RT/10 - Mecum Auction Photos:

Early Vipers had a flat appearance.

Note the curved shape of the engine heat vent.  That, and the bulbous front fender divide the car into two segments -- thematic unity is destroyed.

2013 Dodge Viper GTS - Factory Publicity Photos:

Final-Generation Vipers seem to have all been coupés.

The heat exhaust vent here is similar (though less-curved) than that of early Vipers.  However, the front fender is less bulged, so this design holds together better.  That said, the 2005 model I saw had better, though less-aggressive, styling.