Giugiaro's Mid-1970s Production Cars' Theme

Master stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro (Wikipedia entry here) designed concept and production cars in a variety of styles over his career.  During the early-mid 1970s and thereabouts his theme for production cars emphasized a near-universal shape for rear side windows along with tall, airy passenger compartment greenhouses.

These similarities likely had to do with maintaining brand identification because those production automobiles were almost entirely from only three carmakers: Volkswagen, Alfa Romeo and Hyundai.  However, to some degree his designs were for competitive models, so brand image consistency was a casualty to fashion at times.

These are discussed below.  Most images are from the manufacturers.

Gallery

1971 Alfa Romeo Alfasud
The Alfasud ("South Alfa") had to do with a government project to stimulate economic growth in Italy's south.  Alfa Romeo built a factory in the Naples area to produce the new design.  Note the tall passenger greenhouse.

Rear quarter view.  The aft side window features a small frame reversal ("dogleg') on its rear edge.  In this case, it was related to the functionally necessary shaping of the rear side door.

1973 Alfa Romeo Alfasud Ti
But the dogleg was retained when a two-door Alfasud appeared.

1973 Volkwagen Passat
Giugiaro used that shape again when he styled the aft end of the Volkswagen Passat.  (The front half of the car was existing styling from an Audi model.)

Rear quarter.  This design is angular, a Giugiaro sub-theme seen on some of the designs pictured here.

1975 Volkswagen Golf
The Golf marked VW's departure from rear mounted, air-cooled motors.  Golfs and later Volkswagens had front-located fluid-cooled motors and front-wheel drive.  The Golf's shape is "thicker" than the more airy Passat, but the greenhouse is tall and there's that window dogleg in softened form.

1974 Volkswagen Sciroccos
Giugiaro continued his Passat theme of crisp surfaces.  As usual, the greenhouse is tall, but the dogleg profile is missing for once.

1974 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTs
The sporty Alfetta has a softer lower body, but Giugiaro's greenhouse theme remains.

1975 Hyundai Pony
This car can be considered a "thinner" Golf thanks to its flatter side sculpting.

1976c. Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint
This sporty Alfasud  comes off as a smaller, more angular Alfetta.

1981 DeLorean - BaT auction photo
A somewhat later design in the mould of Giugiaro's 1970 Posrche-based Tapiro concept, it retains the theme elements discussed above.

Gull-Wing Doors: Mostly a Market Failure

Why does there seem to be such a fixation by automobile marque-creators and certain stylists for gull-wing doors?  The strongest rational argument for that feature is that such doors can be opened in a confined space, whereas conventional doors need to be swung out a certain distance to allow one to enter or leave the car.

Downsides include increased likelihood of rain entering the passenger compartment when a door is opened, and a similarly increased likelihood of bumping one's head when entering or leaving.

A short review of the best-known production cars with gull-wing doors is below, in the form of images and captions.

Gallery

That's Mercedes racing engineer/supremo Rudolf Uhlenhaut posing ca. 1953 with a 300 SL rennwagen.  This racing coupe was highly successful and soon led to a production version.  It introduced gull-wing doors and lent them considerable prestige as a design detail.  The reason for that door design was functional: Racing 300 SLs had a tubular space-frame "chassis" that would have been substantially weakened if door openings extended down to near the lower sides of the body (see photo below showing the space-frame).

Here is a production Mercedes 300 SL from around 1955.  Total production over 1954-1963 was 3,258.

A Bricklin SV-1.  Its doors drop farther down the sides because it was built using a conventional chassis.  I recall the Bricklin fiberglass body as appearing a bit crude, having thick-seeming panels.  If others got the same impression, that might have affected sales.  1974-76 Bricklin production was 2,854.

That's John Z. DeLorean posing with his new baby, the DeLorean DMC-12.  Around 9,000 were built during 1981-83.

The DeLorean DMC also featured gull-wing doors that extended almost to the lower edge of the body.  This made entry and egress easier than was the case of 300 SLs. Much of the styling was by ace stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro of ItalDesign.

Clearly, cars with gull-wing doors were never very successful in the market. The 300 SL was very expensive, which held down sales.  But it lent significant prestige to Mercedes-Benz during its recovery after World War 2.  Bricklin and DeLorean, like most automotive start-ups, were under-funded, which was probably the most significant factor in their failures.  The gull-wing doors might actually have been a plus, because the cars were sports cars and buyers of such cars tend to more tolerant of inconveniences than those wanting more practical conveyances.  The DeLorean had better build-quality than the Bricklin plus a lot more media buzz thanks to the charisma and General Motors background of DeLorean himself.  Malcolm Bricklin's previous automotive experience had to do with being the first to import Subaru cars to America.