1954 Chrysler-Ghia GS-1 Low-Production Car

Chrysler Corporation sponsored several Italian-style concept cars designed by Vigil Exner in the early 1950s.  They were built by Carrozzeria Ghia.  A few of these designs became low-production models built by Ghia.  Among them was today's subject, the 1954-vintage GS-1 coupe.

The GS-1s ancestry began with the Exner-designed 1952 Chrysler SS (Styling Special), pictured in the factory image below.

It was built on a shortened chassis.   Chrysler Export Division president C.B. Thomas was so taken by the design that he ordered a version based on a '53 Chrysler New Yorker chassis with a notchback, rather than a fastback design.

The car pictured above is not Thomas' but one of about a dozen other Chrysler Specials by Ghia intended for sale in Europe.  I have no information as to the designer.  Given its Eurocentric origins, I'm inclined to think that Ghia was responsible, as they were obviously capable, and probably got Chrysler Corporation's approval.

The design was modified for Ghia's 1954 Chrysler New Yorker based GS-1 (probably fewer than a dozen made).  RM Sotheby's auctioned one of the early ones.  Its web page writeup here included the following:

"Chrysler’s Export Division had two 1954 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe chassis, each with a 125.5-inch wheelbase frame, a 235-horsepower Hemi V-8, and a PowerFlite automatic transmission, and they were delivered to Ghia to be bodied with variants of the Special design.  These two cars were distinguished from other Ghia Specials by their four-passenger interiors and flat exhaust tips, and they borrowed numerous Chrysler parts throughout, including the bumpers, taillights, steering wheel, dashboard gauges, and even the sexy wire wheels, which were a dealer accessory on Grandma’s Chrysler.  These two GS-1 Specials are believed to have been used by Chrysler for its own promotional purposes on the European continent, including the Turin show of 1954."

Below are an image of the GS-1 in preparation for the 1953 Paris automobile show, along with three images of the GS-1 auctioned by RM Sotheby's.

Again, I could find no solid information as to the designer.  Note that Export Diviion provided New Yorkers to Ghia for customization. That can explain why GS-1s included stock bumpers, taillight assenblies and such.  Easy Chrysler touches without any special effort from Exner's staff in Detroit.  So once more, I'm included to favor Ghia as the design source.

Below are photos from Hyman, Ltd. of a 1953 Chrysler Special and a 1954 GS-1 that they had for sale.

Gallery

The 1953 Chrysler Special.

The 1954 GS-1.  Differences visible here include the stock bumper, the rocker panel chrome strips and the  altered fender design.  The fender sculpting is an echo of that on the 1952 Chrysler Parade Phaetons as well as that found on the 1953 Chrysler d'elegance show car built by Ghia.

Rear quarter views.

Production 1954 Chrysler items include the bumper, tail light assemblies, and a variation on the symbol on the trunk.  Note that the rear end is basically like the 1953 version, unlike the rear end picured for RM Sotherby's auction.

Finally, a semi-walkaround of a GS-1 auctioned by Bonhams.  The grille is similar to that on the RM Sotheby's car, though lacking the golden horizontal bars.  These are placed over the vertical bars as seen on the blue Hyman car above.

This shows the revised fenderline better.  As often the case, details get busy around C-pillar's location.

Borrowed 1954 Chrysler details can be found here.

Rear view of a 1954 Chrysler New Yorker (via Mecum Auctions).  The Chrysler name in script on the panel below the trunk lid seems to be the same as seen on get trunk lid of the GS-1 in the previous photo.  Other carryovers are the bumper, taillight assemblies and the V on the trunk lid.

2004 Pontiac Grand Prix Walkaround

Back in 2005 I briefly considered buying a Pontiac Grand Prix, but thought it was too similar to the Oldsmobile Intrigue I was driving.  So I bought a Chrysler 300 instead.

Still, the 2004-generation Grand Prix was attractive, as I noted in my post "The Rise and Long Decline of Pontiac's Grand Prix."

In particular, I liked its front end sculpting.   I wrote "Subtle Sculpting on the 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix," and followed up that post with "More on 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix Hood Sculpting" here.

That latter post featured a car with an orange-gold matte finish that I assumed was a post-production custom paint job.  I was wrong.  It seems that it was Sunburst Orange Metallic paint provided by the factory.   The featured car below has that paint scheme.

The photo at the top of this post is of a car listed for sale.  Images below are via BaT Auctions.

Gallery

Note how the hood sculpting blends into the two-segment grille.  Headlight assemblies' upper curves (plus some sculpting on their indentations) echo the theme.  But the fog (?)  lights at the lower corners are totally different.  That works aesthetically because they are remote from the sculpting just noted.   Very nice designing.

Front quarter view: also very nice.

Side character sculpting is aligned with the bumper zone cut line: professional.  Also good is that those folds are distant from the front end, so not interference.

Front fender ends at the A-pillar, while the rear fender emerges slightly forward of the B-pillar: subtle.

Rear bumper cut line does not align with anything on the car's side -- a minor defect, but structurally probably necessary.

Sculpted metal extensions of the tail light sculpting is interesting, but add a touch of clutter.

This is probably the least-attractive view of the design.

Lower body is wedge-like.  This is counteracted by the long downward curve of the roofline towards the rear.

The round fog light and its nesting seen from another perspective.

All told, one of General Motors' best designs of the 2000-2010 period.

Dashboard/instrument panel is fussy.

More About 1939 Chrysler Front End Styling

For many years, cars' motors have usually been placed well forward, over the front axle line.  But in the years leading up to the mid-1930s, it was the radiator that sat close to the axle.  By 1940, American practice was for the radiator to be mounted slightly in front of the axle line and the motor placed slightly over it or just behind it.

I happen to have a soft spot for post-1933 "streamlined" designs where the fender fronts are forward of the front of the hood.  That's probably because in my teens I became enamored of the 1936-37 Cord design.

Which is why I posted "Chrysler's Intriguing 1939 Front End Styling."  I wrote:

"What interests me regarding 1939 Chrysler front ends is that the hood is set back a short distance from the very front of the car.  Far enough aft so that the hood and remainder of the car becomes one element and the front fenders and a connecting surface containing the main grille opening comprise a separate element."

That was in 2015.  Thanks to ever-expanding Internet content, I recently came across a set of photos that better illustrate those '39 Chrysler front ends.  Some of those images are presented below.

The subject car is a 1939 Chrysler Royal two-door listed for sale.  I characterize it as a Brougham, the most-produced 2-door sedan-like Royals for that year.  However, some Chrysler promotion material mentions such a car as a sedan.  The 2002 "Encyclopedia of American Cars" lists a Victoria Coupe (4-passenger, very low production) and a 5-passenger Brougham, 4,838 produced.  No mention of a 2-door sedan.

Those are incidental, "housekeeping" matters.  let's turn to the images.

Gallery

1939 Chrysler Imperial - car-for-sale photo
Establishment photo.  I used it in the linked post.

1936 Cord 810 Westchester - Hyman, Ltd. photo
The classic Cord design.  Unusual in those days, Cord had a front-wheel drive train forward of the V-8 engine, with the radiator placed on the axle line.  Some mechanical bits are forward of the axle, covered by the sculpted sheetmetal seen behind the bumper.  Those bulbous fenders help project the car forward of the axle line which is located slightly aft of the front of the hood in this photo.

1939 DeSoto 4-door sedan - car-for-sale photo
This DeSoto has the same wheelbase as the Chrysler Royal, the brands sharing the same body sets.  Here the frontal placement of fenders, hood front and grille are conventional for that model year.  Clearly, frontal Chrysler styling was intentionally different.  Model year 1940 saw redesigned bodies for Chrysler Corporation cars, and Chrysler front ends became conventional.

1939 Chrysler Royal Brogham - car-for-sale photo set
This overhead view shows the relationship of the hood, fenders, catwalks and bumper -- the key elements.   The grille opening is mostly in front of the prow of the hood.

From this angle, we see that the grille/catwalk zone does not actually extend very far forwards of the prow.  And all of this is well ahead of the axle line.

This "all-open" photo shows where the motor is located -- abaft of the axle line.

Side view, somewhat distorted thanks to a wide-angle lens.

Close-up view of the frontal design.

1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C "Tulipwood" Torpedo

In the years arond 1920, French coachbuilder Labourdette built a body style called "skiff," because it reminded people of small boats.

Perhaps the best-known skiff style car known today was not made by Labourdette.  It's our subject for this post, a Hispano-Suiza; spefically, an H6 Hisso created as a racing car for André Dubonnet, of the aperatif family.  More specifically, it's a 1924 H6C Dubonnet Boulogne Targa Florio speedster, body built by Nieuport-Astra, an airplane maker.

I used to see it every so often at the Blackhawk Collection in Dublin, California.  But in 2022 it was auctioned by RM Sotheby's, the hammer price being an astonishing $9,245,000.

RM Sotheby's page devoted to the car is here.

It mentions: "The true brilliance came in the coachwork.  Some of Dubonnet’s competitors, many of themselves aviators, had begun to figure out that aircraft construction methods could yield techniques useful in the construction of lightweight bodies; thus emerged the earliest fabric-bodied coachwork of the period.  Dubonnet seemed to cut out the drawing board between aviation and automobile, commissioning aircraft manufacturer Nieuport-Astra of Argenteuil to body his car.  Their creation was designed by their engineer Henri Chasseriaux and formed of delicate 1/8-inch-thick strips of mahogany—not actually tulip wood, but romantic legends and alliterative names both die hard—formed over an external layer that was in turn laid over inner 3/4-inch ribs, all secured together by many thousands of aluminum rivets and varnished.  Similar to the “skiff” bodies pioneered in the Teens and Twenties most notably by French coachbuilder Labourdette, Nieuport’s torpedo reportedly weighed only 160 pounds, featherweight by the standards of bodywork to be fitted to such a large automobile; by comparison, it added virtually nothing to the weight of its chassis and engine."

Gallery

1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C "Tulipwood" Torpedo
A period photo, André Dubonnet posing with the car.  Note the original fenders.

1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C "Tulipwood" Torpedo - D.B. Pittenger photos
These were taken by me years ago at the Blackhawk Collection.  My frustration with the Blackhawk was its concept of displaying cars like jewelry items; dark background and many small spotlights creating multiple highlights on the cars, making it difficult to create realistic photographs of car's shapes.

These fenders were added years ago, but in synch with the body style.  That said, their "teardrop" profiles are more 1930s than 1920s, though the body seems more 1930 than its actual 1924.

Note the cover over a rear passenger compartment.

1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C "Tulipwood" Torpedo - photos via RM Sotheby's
As was true of most custom cars in those days, the front is close to what emerged from the Hispano-Suiza factory.

1925 Hispano-Suiza H6B Skiff Torpedo by Labourdette - via St. Louis Art Museum
For context, a Labourdette Hispano skiff.  It's pretty flash, yet not in the same league as the "Tulipwood."

Here the rear passenger compartment is exposed.

Note the rounded rocker panel, absent in the top photo.  The RM Sotheby's link goes into detail regarding the various restorations and modifications of the car.

Less a boat tail, more a jet fighter rear 20 years ahead of its time.

Cockpit.  Leather added in a restoration, but very nice.

1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C "Tulipwood" Torpedo
This overhead photo looks pre- Blackhawk Collection, because the fenders differ.

General Motors' 1949 Hardtop Coupes

In 2015 I posted "Design Classic: GMs Original Hardtops."  It dealt with General Motors' 1949 C-body hardtops from Cadillac, Buick and Oldsmobile, and the similar 1950 hardtops from Pontiac and Chevrolet.

I wrote:

"Nowadays, the term "hardtop convertible" might refer to convertibles with retractable metal tops.   But from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s, the reference in the USA was to a car body with a fixed, metal roof where there was no B-pillar.  When windows were rolled down, there was nothing but open space between the the A and C pillars.  The style was very popular, and [nearly] every American automobile firm had them in their lineup at one time or another during those years.

"Cars with that configuration appeared long before General Motors' 1949 model year introduction of the style.  But it was GM's market dominance that made hardtop convertibles common.  The term was coined because convertible coupes lacked center posts, and the new design basically was a coupe lacking center posts, thereby evoking the look of convertibles with their cloth tops raised.  'Four-door hardtops' appeared on some GM brands in 1955, and by the following year they were available for all GM and Chrysler marques.

"One reason for the sudden popularity of hardtop convertible coupes was that those initial GM designs were very attractive, as we shall see below.  They first appeared on 1949 Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Cadillacs, but those lines were restyled for 1950 and the original top design was abandoned.  Chevrolet and Pontiac got the redesigned GM A-body in 1949, but didn't have hardtop convertible versions until 1950. However, the hardtop design they finally got was that used by GM's senior brands for 1949: they continued its use through the 1952 model year."

Today's post treats those 1949 hardtops from Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac in more detail.  They were a one-model-year-only affair because the 1948 vintage C-body was replaced for the 1950 model year and hardtops were also redesigned.

Influential that those first-generation hardtops were, not many were built.  Production totals were: Oldsmobile, 3,006; Buick, 4,343; and Cadillac, 2,150.  One factor might have been price, for hardtops then and later were generally more expensive than other models.  For example, the 1949 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday hardtop was listed at $2, 973 -- the same as the Convertible, whereas the most expensive 98 4-door sedan's listed price was $2,594.

Gallery

1949 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 Holiday Coupe - General Motors photo
First, a few "establishment" photos.  These and the others follow ascending GM brand status: Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  Above is a publicity image of the Olds hardtop.  1949 Oldsmobiles had very little chrome trim, including this top-of-the-line model.

1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera - unknown photo source
Buicks received their traditional chrome "Sweepspear" side trim early in the '49 model year.

1949 Cadillac 62 Coupe de Ville - General Motors photo
An example retained by GM for display purposes.  Note the tail fins, introduced on 1948 Caddies.

1949 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 Holiday Coupe - Mecum Auctions photo
Front quarter views.  Automotive glass technology was rapidly improving, but the curved windshield is still a two-piece affair.

1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera - BaT Auctions photo
Buicks were powered by inline-8 cylinder motors, so the hood had to be long.  Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs had shorter V-8 engines.

1949 Cadillac 62 Coupe de Ville - Mecum Auctions photo
C-body hardtop roofs were fairly rounded.

1949 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 Holiday Coupe - car-for-sale photo
These early hardtops shared the same passenger compartment greenhouse structure.

1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera - BaT Auctions photo
Here the windows are rolled up, showing the narrow chrome window framing where a B-pillar would have been.

1949 Cadillac 62 Coupe de Ville - Mecum Auctions photo
That greenhouse design was excellent -- maybe a bit unusual for a first attempt at a concept.

1949 Oldsmobile Futuramic 98 Holiday Coupe - Mecum Auctions photo
The backlight window is fairly narrow and low, perhaps restricting rear vision for drivers a little.

1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera - Mecum Auctions photo
That might have been partly due to the 1949 glass forming technology.  Note that the backlight was in three segments.

1949 Cadillac 62 Coupe de Ville - Mecum Auctions photo
The Cadillac's trunk lid is higher than on those of the other cars, but the bottom edge of the backlight window is the same on all three.