More About the 1939 Hanomag 1.3 Liter

Germans like to compress their often long words into simpler, easier to pronounce words.  So the firm Hannoversche Maschinenbau AG -- Hanover Machinebuilder, Incorporated -- was shortened to Hanomag.   Among many other things, Hanomag built cars in the 1920s and 30s.

I think the most interesting Hanomag car was the 1.3 Liter produced for model year 1939 only (World War 2 halted production).  I posted about it here.  Since 2013, more Hanomag photos have appeared on the Internet.  Not many, because few Hanomags exist; but enough to justify a short post.

About the only backgound information on the Hanomag 1.3 Liter is here, on the Lane Motor Museum website.  (When its featured car was noted years earlier on the BaT Auctions site, it was stated that this car lacked a motor.)

Most photos below are from original sources I cannot identify.

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Side view: Hanomags were not large, but could carry four people.   Plenty of curves give the design a strong streamlined feeling: very 1930s.

This image from the Hanomag brochure grossly exaggerates the car's size.  At least it indicates what goes where.

A simple, functional grille.  More interesting is the vertical chrome bar that transitions into central hood sculpting that ...

... continues as a ridge that passes over the roof, continuing downwards towards the bottom of the the trunk lid while splitting the backlight window's profile.  For some reason, I almost always like that sort of styling touch.

Factory overhead photo.  Some Hanomags had sunroofs.

Probably a publicity photo showing a family and its Hanomag at Heidelberg.  The Neckar River is in the background, but the castle those folks are probably viewing is above the picture frame.

1963 Buick Riviera vs. 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix

Model year 1963 featured three outstanding American car designs.  One was the Studebaker Avanti that I posted about here.  The two others, both General Motors products, were the Buick Riviera (Wikipedia entry here), and the Pontiac Grand Prix (Wikipedia entry here, and a post by me here).  The latter two are today's subject.

The Riviera link above (as of early April 2025) mentions:

"Jaguar founder and designer Sir William Lyons remarked that [GM's styling director] Mitchell had done 'a very wonderful job,' and Sergio Pininfarina declared it 'one of the most beautiful American cars ever built; it has marked a very impressive return to simplicity of American car design.' At its debut at the Paris Auto Show, Raymond Loewy said the Riviera was the most handsome American production car—apart from his own Studebaker Avanti, in his view the Riviera's only real competition for 1963."

Despite all that praise, let me suggest that the '63 Pontiac Grand Prix was at least equally worthy of such remarks.  Let's take a look.

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1963 Buick Riviera - car-for-sale photos
The Riviera design originated as a potential resurrection of GM's LaSalle brand that ended production in 1940.  Then it was shopped to various General Motors brands, whereby Buick was awarded it in a competition with Oldsmobile.  The result was a sales success.

1963 Pontiac Grand Prix - car-for-sale photos
The '63 Grand Prix was a facelift of the 1962 model that greatly simplified a rather cluttered design.  This is dealt with in my post linked above.

The Riviera design is more cluttered than the Grand Prix's, but still pretty clean.  Those "air intakes" near the rear wheel opening are fakes, for instance.

No fake stuff here.  The rear fended bulges out slightly, but the horizontal mid-body crease holds the fender design together.  Note that both cars have similar passenger compartments and window framing.

The lower body design flows, whereas the after part of the greenhouse structure has English-style "razor edging."  This was a touch that Bill Mitchell used here and on other cars, especially the 1980 Cadillac Seville.

The Grand Prix's backlight window is larger than the Riviera's.  Also, it is concave, rather than the normal convex shape.  Both cars have higher rear fenders than trunk lids.  Aft ends are uncluttered, though the Grand Prix's is simpler.

1963 Buick Riviera - car-for-sale photo
Now for two overhead views.  This image shows how the Riviera's fenders bulge out from the passenger compartment greenhouse.  The hood contains two passenger compartment air intakes that relate to hood sculpting.

1963 Pontiac Grand Prix - car-for- sale photo
As usual, the Grand Prix design is simpler than the Riviera's, even when seen from this perspective.  Only one air intake.  The body sides are only slightly bulged.  Front fender tops are flatter here.  Greenhouses look pretty similar.

1963 Buick Riviera - Broad Arrow Auctions photos
Finally, some glamour photos.  Black, highly polished paint jobs on both cars.  The Riviera's shape flows, yet its front leans forward aggressively.

1963 Pontiac Grand Prix - Mecum Auctions photos
A non-aggressive front here, and the side flows only a little.  Both cars are cursed with quad headlights, but that's how things were done in those days where state laws tightly dictated headlight details.

The Riviera has plenty of detailing all around to amuse viewers, something GM's legendary styling supremo Harley Earl favored on cars such as the 1941 Pontiac.

The Grand Prix, on the other hand lacks such detailing.  The design is simple, yet it has enough shaping to keep it from being boring, unlike so many "boxy" designs of the 1960s and 1970s.
Not that it matters very much, but my preference is for the Pontiac.  I always liked it, but never really cared for the Riviera.  But from my subjective perspective, the Studebaker Avanti design is the most emotionally compelling.  See below.

A Studebaker Avanti photo I took on Baltimore's North Charles Street in May, 1963.

1956 Studebaker Sky Hawk Walkaround

The 1953 Studebaker Starliner hardtop coupe was a classic American car design as was its less-sleek Starlight coupe with its solid B-pillar.  The pillar itself and some side-effects it created diminished the Starlight's comparative appearance and appeal.

Due to its less-expensive, entry-level status compared to the hardtop, B-pillar coupes continued in production through model year 1961.  Hardtop coupe versions only lasted through 1958.

All Studebaker coupes were given a major front-end facelift for 1956 and received the name "Hawk" with modifiers such as "Sky."  I wrote about them here and here.

Since then, many nice photo sets showing for-sale Hawks have appeared on the Internet.   One dealt with a 1956 Sky Hawk, the hardtop coupe powered by the largest Studebaker V8 motor (the top-of-the-line Golden Hawk had a Packard V8).

Photos below are from the fine set via Connors Motorcar Company, West Chester, Pennsylvania.

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In 1956, American car grilles had horizontal formats, so this tall shape was unusual, Mercedes-like.  (Studebaker marketed Mercedes-Benz cars in America 1957-1963).

The original "Loewy" coupe two-tone colors schemes had only tops painted in contrast to lower-body colors.  The scheme seen here required a chrome strip as a demarcation line.

I dislike that checkmark feature on the separation strip. A simple upkick aligned (as here) with the after edge of the C-pillar would look better.

Actually, I prefer no two-toning and no separation strip.  But marketing and competitive environment needs drove what we see here and think about some 60 years later.

The sculpting on the trunk lid is a facelift feature.  More attention to rear end appearance was growing in styling studios during the 1950s.

Some for-sale photos show the running motor's exhaust effect.  I hope it has to do with the winter air and not pollution.

Yes, without side chrome and two-toning, this is a nice-looking car.  Though the 1953 version is better, a classic.

Plymouth's Emergency 1963 Facelift

The last Chrysler Corporation production cars designed under the supervision of Virgil Exner were the standard size Dodge and Plymouth models for the 1962 model year.

According to the latter link (as of January 2025):

"Under the impression that Chevrolet was about to "downsize" its 1962 models, Chrysler introduced a significantly smaller standard Plymouth for 1962.  As is known, Chevrolet's big cars were not downsized, catching Plymouth in a sales slump in a market where "bigger was better".  The 1963 Fury, Belvedere, and Savoy were slightly larger, featuring a totally new body style, highlighted by prominent outboard front parking lights."

Given production lead-times of three or four years in those days, those '62 Plymouth designs were probably locked-in by, say, early 1961.  But redesigned 1961 standard-size Chevrolets appeared in the fall of 1960, so Chrysler management had strong reason to doubt the competitive abilities of the forthcoming Plymouths.  So it's fairly certain that a major 1963 facelift project was set in place about that time -- it being too late to greatly alter the 1962 styling.

Also around that time Elwood Engel replaced Virgil Exner as Chrysler's design chief.  At Ford, Engel was best known for his classic 1961 Continental with its plain sides and chrome-emphasized fenderline.  Engel carried the general theme over to designs he supervised at Chrysler for the early-mid 1960s.  That included the extensive Plymouth facelift for 1963 intended to make the cars appear larger that those of 1962.

So the Wikipedia quotation above is incorrect where it stated there was "a totally new body style."  This will be shown below.  I should also note that 1962 and 1963 standard size Plymouths had the same 116-inch (2946 mm) wheelbase.

The 1962 Plymouth images below are from Mecum Auctions, and those for 1963 are from Bring a Trailer Auctions.  Although the '62 model is a 2-door hardtop and the '62 is a 2-door sedan, the basic bodies are the same aside from the B-pillar zone.

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1962 Plymouth Sport Fury 2-door hardtop coupe
The '62 Plymouth carried many Exner touches that were away from mainstream American styling themes of the time.

1963 Plymouth Belvedere 2-door sedan
So Engel brought Chrysler styling back to industry norms.  The hood cutlines remain, but quad headlights are closely grouped and the grille pattern is a more conventional grid arrangement.  The headlight-related dips on the '62 bumper are straitened for '63.

Front quarter view.

Engel did his side-smoothing here.

Note the quirky little beltline hump by the after side window.  Chromed and plain, these are found on all '62 standard Dodge and Plymouth sedans and hardtops.

It disappeared for '63 as part of a C-pillar/backlight window reshaping.  We also see an Engel sculpted sweep along the car's side that replaced the two-segment Exner sculpting.  The door cutlines and window vents are the same on both cars.  Ditto the wheel openings.  Note the wide C-pillar, another Engel carryover.

Rear quarter views.

The trunk and rear are new for 1963.

Rear.

From unconventional to conventional.  Even the previous bumper was abandoned on this end of the car.

1935 DeSoto Airflows, Coupe and Sedan

Nowadays I often find sets of car photos on the Internet with many images -- basically walkarounds.  And I'm happy to make use of them on this blog.   For example, here is a walkaround post featuring a 1936 DeSoto Airflow sedan.

Today's post features some images that I came across recently, photos of a 1935 DeSoto Airflow four-door sedan, and of a '35 DeSoto Airflow coupe.

For some reason, Chrysler and DeSoto Airflows interest me.  And for other reasons there are a lot of Internet images available of those cars.  Strange, in a way, because for many years Airflows were considered ugly, market-failures.  Yet many seem to have survived to be photographed.

DeSoto Airflows were shorter than the Chrysler versions, all having only a 115.5 inch (2934 mm) wheelbase.  1934 Chrysler Airflows, on the other hand, had wheelbases ranging from 118 inches (2997 mm) to 146 inches (3708 mm).  DeSoto Airflows all had short, stubby hoods, and therefore were generally less attractive than their Chrysler counterparts.

Airflows were not a market sucess in 1934, so for the 1935 model year the conventional Airstream design was added to the Chrysler and DeSoto lines.  I wrote about that here.

DeSoto's 1935 Airflow line consisted of a business coupe (70 built), a five-passenger coupe (418 built), a four-door sedan (6,269 built) and a four-window Town Sedan (40 made).  This post features images of a sedan and a coupe.  Also included are 1935 images of the Town Sedan -- only one seems to exist, and it has been hot-rodded enough to be useless for my purposes here.

Photos of the sedan below are of a car listed for sale.  Coupe photos are via Mecum Auctions.

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The 1935 DeSoto Airflow sedan.  Note how the windshield pivots open.

Coupes were necessarily racier-looking.

Sedan side view.  Compare to the coupe below having the same wheelbase.

Airflow coupes had wider doors than sedan front doors.  This was to improve access to the back seat.  That seemingly cramped back seat area permitted an advanced, for the time, "fastback" profile of the kind commonly found on early-1940s American cars.

This sedan lacks outside access to the trunk area behind the back seat.  Airflow sedans were not given conventional (for the 1930s) trunks until the 1936 model year.

On the other hand, all Airflow coupes had trunk lids.

A sales-card illustration of a 1935 DeSoto Airflow Town Sedan.  These had sedan bodies with the after side windows blanked over.

Advertisement photo of a 1935 DeSoto Airflow Town Sedan.

1961 Chevrolet Biscayne Panoramic Backlight Window Walkaround

Today's post is a follow-on to this post of 24 April 2025.  I repeat its first two paragraphs below.

In the late 1950s General Motors launched a crash-redesign program in response to the redesigned 1957 Chrysler cars.  Given automotive development timelines, those new cars did not appear until the 1959 model year.  I wrote about one aspect of the new styling in the post "General Motors' 1959 Four-Door Hardtops" here.

"A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design" by Michael Lamm and David Holls on page 180 mentions two innovations for the 1959 General Motors models. One was Pontiac's two-segmented grille pattern. "The second was the 'flying wing' or 'cantilever' roof on the 1959 GM four-door hardtops. Credit for the design goes to a young Japanese-American stylist named Bud Sugano, who proposed it in early 1957. Carl Renner, under Clare MacKichan in the Chevrolet studio was instrumental in 'productionizing' the flying wing for 1959. Renner ... extended the flying wing not only to all five GM lines but also to the 1960 Corvair sedan."

That roofline included a one-piece backlight window that was drastically curved.  One can characterize it as panoramic or wraparound -- terms in use at the time, though "wraparound" was what most people seemed to call the fashionable panoramic windshields in those days.

GM continued that style through 1959 and 1960, then included it for some of its redesigned 1961 cars.  Then it was was abandoned on facelifted 1962 models due to declining 1959-1961 panoramic backlight sales for brands such as Oldsmobile and Cadillac.

Today's featured car is the entry-level version of that roof/backlight style.  It is a 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne two-door sedan listed for sale.

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1961 Cadillac Deville 4-window hardtop sedan - car-for-sale photo
But first, an example of a panoramic backlight on a fancier GM car.  The roof/backlight treatment is more refined than on the Chevy below.  As should be expected.

1961 Chevrolet Biscayne two-door sedan photo set
GM's 1961 redesign was a huge improvement over the 1959-60 cars.  Styling boss Bill Mitchell and his crew had more time to move on from Harley Earl's mostly unfortunate 1957 and 1958 creations.  The new designs included A-pillars having a curious little curve at their roots.  Perhaps a farewell gesture to the wraparound windshield era.

Initial "flying wing" rooflines had mouldings linking the upper rooflines across C-pillars.  That feature is missing here.

Upper backlight frames are actually a bit higher than side window upper framelines.  This slight discontinuity was absent on GM 4-door, 4-window hardtop sedans that lacked the heavier door framing seen here.  At any rate, this discontinuity degraded styling.

Panoramic backlights might have provided all-round exterior visibility for drivers and passenger.

But such visibility was almost never needed under normal driving conditions.

Wheel openings are racey towards their rears, but the passenger compartment greenhouse rear isn't.

Note the extent of window glass in this frontal view.