Ghia's Alfa Romeo 1900 Supergioiello: Looks Good from Only One Angle

I've been paying attention to automobile styling since I was a schoolboy.  In a trivial sense, even before that.  By the time I was in high school, I was buying Road & Track, Motor Trend, and other car fan magazines along with a few inexpensive books about marques and designs.  Among the photos I viewed in those sources was the one below of today's featured car, Ghia's Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint Supergioiello.

This photo makes it seem really attractive, so for may years I thought it was a good example of postwar "golden age" Italian design.  But more recent images I've seen show that its poor proportions were largely disguised thanks to the flattering camera angle.

Some background on the design is here on RM Sotheby's web site.  Wikipedia's entry on Carrozzeria Ghia is here, and that for Alfa Romeo's 1900 line is here.

Let's see the design from more points of view:

Gallery

1950 vintage Alfa Romeo 1900 Berlina - unknown photo source
Alfa Romeo 1900s came in two wheelbases. Berlinas such as pictured here had the longer 103.5 inch (2630 mm) wheelbase, and Sprints had a shorter 98.4 inch (2500 mm) wheelbase.  Sedan bodies were unitary, and I'm not presently aware how carrozzerias dealt with this.

1953 Alfa Romeo 1900C Sprint by Touring - car-for-sale photo
This is an example of a custom design on the short wheelbase.  The "C" on 1900C stands for corto -- Italian for "short."

1953 Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint Speciale Supergioiello by Ghia - BaT Auctions photos
For some reason, our featured design was based on the longer wheelbase. This created proportioning problems.  The short passenger compartment greenhouse did not help either.  A longer one would have reduced the visual bulk of the trunk area (compare to the Touring design in the previous image).

The car looks best as seen from the font, minimizing the large, rather square rear.  The grille-headlight ensemble is interesting.

The area abaft of the greenhouse is too long and too tall.  Perhaps a dropped or flowing fender line might have helped reduce the bulk.

The design is at its worst seen from this perspective.  The chrome side trim was probably intended to minimize the slab-sidedness a little.  Note that the pale paint scheme hides highlights, making body sculpting less visible than seen on darker paint.  So the car would have looked a bit better, more like in the initial photo from the 1950s.