Monday, June 26, 2023

1960s Styling Renderings of Exaggerated Cars

Stylists' sketches and renderings often exaggerate their design's appearance by using various kinds of distortion.  But often enough, such distortion is minimal, and it is the shape of the designed car that's extreme -- at odds with everyday usage practicality.  In other words, such designs would almost never see production as-is.

From the late 1950s into the 1960s a good many such presentation drawings featured cars that were too long to be practical.  Some sort of stylist fashion that I find hard to explain.

A large proportion of the renderings shown below are of Cadillacs, and three of them are by Wayne Kady, who at one point was head of Cadillac's advanced design studio.  So perhaps other Cadillac stylists were influenced by him.  Of course, Cadillac's status as a large, luxury automobile gave some permission for exaggeratedly long shapes.

Not all the images below are of Cadillacs, so the fashion seems to have been general in the American auto industry in those times.

Gallery

Oldsmobile design by Peter Wozena - 1958
A late-'50s example.  The exaggeration is the long trunk / rear fender area abaft of the passenger compartment.

By A.D. Tony Miller - 1960
The wheelbase is too short (note the rear wheel's relationship to the passenger compartment), and front and rear overhangs are extremely long.

By Syd Mead - early 1960s
A hugely long future limousine.  Also, impractically low.

Cadillac, by unidentified - c.1961
Basically an instance of "styling jazz."  The car has four doors, but the after doors lead to a windowless compartment.

Cadillac, by unidentified - c.1962
Not as jazzy as in the previous image, and more Cadillac-like to boot.  Overhang is vast.

Cadillac by Wayne Kady - 1963
Either the passenger compartment is too small or the car is huge.  Consider the size of the exposed tire, then the apparent space for the driver and passengers: one or the other has the wrong size.  As usual, extreme overhang.  One interesting detail is the fully-spatted rear wheel well, a feature that was pretty retro by the early '60s.

Cadillac by Wayne Kady - 1964
I think this design goes beyond styling jazz to the point of being ridiculous.  Must have been inspired by slingshot dragsters (not Cadillac things, those dragsters).

Cadillac by Wayne Kady - 1966
More miles of overhang.  The sides appear bulged out too far.  Note the car seat tops do not follow perspective rules.

Pontiac? by Wayne Kady - 1966
Another too-short passenger compartment.

Cadillac by John Perkins - 1966
The car is too low for human occupancy: Try to visualize where the driver might actually fit.

By Robert Ackerman - 1966
Jazz.

By Syd Mead - mid-1960s?
Even the great Syd Mead made designs with no room for people, or even a motor.

1 comment:

emjayay said...

Long, low and wide were the things then. Now similar renderings are also exaggerated, only with giant wheels and chopped tops.