The Aggressive Siata 208SC Berlinetta by Stabilimenti Farina

Siata automobiles can fetch more than one million dollars at auctions.  A snippet about the company is here.  In brief, Siata was a maker of hop-up equipment for Fiats that branched into making cars after World War 2.  Serious sports cars were built 1948-61 and all production ended by 1975.

I think the most interesting Siatas from a design standpoint were the 208SC barchetta and, especially, the berlinetta.  Fairly detailed information on Siata and the berlinetta can be found here and, especially, here.  The second source, the Bonhams auction house, has it that the actual designer is unknown, though it has been speculated that it was Giovanni Michelotti.

Siata 208SCs were initially built by Stabilimenti Farina (free translation: Farina Works) that ceased doing business in 1953 after many years as an important Italian coachbuilder.  Following the demise, 208 production was continued by Carrozzeria Balbo, another old Italian firm that folded soon after.  According to Wikipedia, only 56 208s were built.

Gallery

Here is a 208SC at the 1952 Mille Miglia start platform.  It failed to finish -- nothing unusual for the Mille.

Probably the same car seen a few days earlier at the Turin auto show.

A 208 barchetta from 1953.  Note the different grille pattern, the air vent on the front fender and the chromed patch on the rear fender.

Gooding auction photos of a 1953 berlinetta.  The grille is larger and has a grid pattern.  It too has a front fender air vent.  The chrome strip above the rear wheel opening is gone.  The front of the car has been slightly reshaped.

Front view showing the headlights when exposed.  This, and the images below are Bonhams photos of the Mille Miglia car.

Siata 208s are most interesting viewed from the front.  Especially striking is the composition of the grille and hidden headlights.  I can fantasize that this theme is an Italian take on the 1942 DeSoto frontal design that also featured hidden headlights and vertical grille bars.  Whoever did style this car really knew what he was doing.

The rear is more bulky looking, but aerodynamically useful.

When Giovanni Michelotti Might Have Been Inspired by Detroit

Giovanni Michelotti was a prolific Italian stylist, as is attested here.  In the 1950s he teamed with Enrico Nardi, helping to create two Lancia-based and Vignale-built concept cars, both named Raggio Azzurro (Blue-Ray).  Some information regarding the second car is here.

What I find interesting about both the 1955 and 1958 versions is how much they were influenced by American concept cars and styling fads of the time.  Not clear to me is how much Michelotti actually contributed in the way of design features.  That is because the American-inspired details are largely out-of-character for him.  I suspect that Nardi greatly influenced the completed designs.

Both Raggi Azzurro were on display at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, California when I was there in March.  Below are some photos I took.  Their quality is hampered by the fact that the cars were jammed close to others and because the lighting in the gallery consisted of many small spotlights that are reflected by the cars' surfaces.

Gallery

The 1955 Raggio Azzurro as seen in a photo found on the Internet.  Conspicuously American features include the greenhouse, the two-tone paint and jet fighter inspired rear fenders.

Here is the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car featuring the twin-bubble canopy theme that Michelotti seems to have borrowed for the greenhouse.  I have no information as to when in 1955 the Raggio was first displayed, but the Futura was announced around February (the March issue of Popular Mechanics Magazine, on news stands in February, has photos of it).  So there appears to have been time for the feature to be borrowed.

An interesting feature is the large headlamp mounted in the center of the grille.

The jet fighter (or space ship?) theme for the rear fender area is clearly seen here.

The bubble-type greenhouse viewed from the rear.  Note the right-hand drive, a feature of European luxury cars that was rapidly falling out of fashion in the 1950s.

The 1958 Raggio Azzurro probably photographed when nearly new.  No central headlight here; in its place is a Lancia shield.  The two-tone paint theme is close to that of the 1955 car, as are the character line above the rear wheel and the shape of the front fender.  The panoramic window is similar to those found on 1955-56 Chryslers.

Another early photo of the '58 Raggio Azzurro showing greater front end detail.

The '58 Raggio Azzurro has left-hand drive, making for easier driving in Italy and America.

The rear fenders are much more restrained than those of the 1955 car.  What we see here are fin-like extensions, yet another American cliché.

The main science-fiction aspect of the design is shown here.  I forgot to check if the apparent air vents at the rear of the B-pillar are functional.

Pinin Farina's Lancia Florida 4-Door Hardtop

For better or worse (for sentimental reasons, I'll side with "worse"), automobile styling is now pretty much internationalized.  That is, nowadays design students can cross borders for training by faculty members from several countries.  Styling studios usually employ designers from other countries along with native-born stylists.  Even design directors might be from elsewhere.  In addition, some car companies maintain styling studios in more than one country.

The internationalization process began in the 1930s when General Motors and Ford sent Americans to work at or manage design studios in some of their European subsidiaries.  But the phenomenon I'm thinking about actually started seriously at some indefinite time around, say, 1970.

Now consider the years around 1950.  Aside from Ford and GM subsidiaries and a few Detroit-influenced designs such as the Volvo PV 444 and Peugeot 203, cars tended to have a national look.  That is, French cars usually seemed French, English cars English, German cars German and Italian cars Italian.

But even in those days there were hints of internationalized designs to come.  This post's example is the Lancia Aurelia B56 "Florida" prototype cars of 1955 (short reference here).  It was designed by the Pininfarina carozzeria, but I'm not sure if Battista "Pinin" Farina himself was the designer or if the work was done under other hands.

Although the Florida is very much Italian-looking, it has some important features that are distinctly mid-1950s American.  These are (1) a wraparound windshield, and (2) having a four-door hardtop convertible body type.  The term "hardtop convertible" was used in the USA for cars with conventional steel tops, but lacking a passenger greenhouse B-pillar and thus having the breezy appearance of a convertible coupe with the canvas top raised and side windows rolled down.  For the 1955 model year, General Motors introduced four-door cars with the same feature, and other brands joined in as soon as they could.  B-pillarless cars left the market when strong rollover-related safety regulations appeared.

The first link above mentions that four Floridas were built.  Three had four doors and one was a two-door hardtop.

Gallery

Four-door hardtops were previewed at General Motors' 1953 Motorama by this Cadillac Orleans show car.  Like the later Lancia Florida, it features a wraparound windshield, four doors and no exposed B-pillar.

A poor-quality image of the Orleans seen from the side.  The rear doors are hinged by the C-pillar, but there seems to be a stub B-pillar to anchor the door latches.

As mentioned, production 4-door hardtops began to appear in 1955.  The example shown here (click on image to enlarge) is a Buick Special.  Unlike the Orleans, the rear doors are hinged on the stub B-pillar.

This is a four-door Lancia Aurelia B56 Florida from 1955.  It seems considerably larger than production Aurelia B10s and B12s, though the stretched B15 might have been about this size (though with a longer greenhouse and shorter hood).  An odd feature is the collection of lights at the front, especially those smallish ones on the fenders.

Side view.  The wheel openings are not classically rounded and remind me of those found on the 1954 Motorama Oldsmobile Cutlass and F-88 show cars, not to mention the production '54 Buick Skylark convertible coupe.

Interior view.  Note the complete lack of a B-Pillar.  Also the right-hand drive steering wheel position, a feature shared with production Aurelias.  As in France for many years, even though cars drove on the right sides of streets and roads, many luxury cars featured English-style right-hand drive.  A prestige or snob feature, I presume.

Rear three-quarter view.  The modest sail panels at the rear of the greenhouse blend into rear fender top-ridges.  This is emphasized by the two-tone paint scheme, yet another Detroit-influenced characteristic.  Those large tail lights suggest 1950s America and not Italy.  The recessed backlight is serviced by two wiper blades.

This is the sole two-door Florida.  Despite those major and lesser American touches, the overall design retains an Italian feeling.  Contributing factors include the basic proportions and the simplified major surfaces.

What Were They Thinking?: Pininfarina's Lancia PF 200 "Jet Fighter"

The saying goes that "even the best of them make mistakes."  Battista "Pinin" Farina (1893-1966), founder of the Pininfarina carrozzeria, is revered as a master automobile body designer.  I, however, tend to think of him as a stylist capable of the very best work, yet who often enough produced mediocre and even bad designs.  While it's likely that others at his firm had a hand in design, especially by the 1960s, Farina the padrone was ultimately responsible for product approval even if he did not do any of the work.

I am not aware of any book-length biography of Farina, so I can't be sure how active he was in the early 1950s when he was approaching age 60.  But my guess is that he was still heavily involved styling the cars his company built.

Which brings us to the strange 1952-55 Lancia Aurelia PF 200 (where PF = Pinin Farina), a Lancia model B52. A little background information can be found here and here.  It is pointed out that the PF 200's styling seems to have been inspired by jet fighters -- the almost-round grille opening looking similar to nose air intakes of the Russian MiG-15, the French Dassault Ouragan, the American F-84 Thunderjet and others.

Farina, it seems, was temporarily afflicted with the same disease as Detroit stylists.  Car design having evolved from collections of discrete items (separate headlights, fenders, trunks, hoods, etc.) to all-encompassing "envelope" bodies (the 1949 Ford, for instance), stylists began looking at jet fighters, science fiction space ships and even insects for inspiration.  At this time, Italian designers tended to treat automobiles as automobiles and not rocket ships.  However, they did stray from time to time, and the PF 200 is a good example of that.  At least only about half a dozen were ever built.

Gallery

This is a 1952 PF 200 Coupé.  Its wheelbase is long and the passenger greenhouse is comparatively short because the car only seats two people.  The wraparound backlight assembly seem to be inspired by 1947-52 Studebaker Starlight Coupes.  The trunk lid tapers in a boat-tail manner, though storage space might have been reasonably adequate, given that the sheet metal forward of the lid extends well into the greenhouse.  There is an odd decoration forward of the rear wheel opening.  It is associated with an air intake presumably for brake cooling, though its openings are mere slits.  In summary, the car is poorly proportioned and details are mostly odd and badly located.  What on earth could Farina been thinking?

Here is a PF 200 spider ("speeder," roadster) from about 1953.  The body is about the same as that of the lower body of the Coupé in the photos above.  The spider's windshield is not curved; rather, it is flat and can be pivoted down.  Note the different front protection arrangement (though neither car has more than sketchy frontal protection).

This set of photos shows a 1953-vintage PF 200 Coupé.  Internal grille details differ as does the front bumper arrangement (it's slightly improved).  No rear brake air intakes.

The main difference from the 1952 PF 200 is the treatment of the aft part of the greenhouse.  Rather than the Starlight Coupe- like backlight, we find a nearly-flat backlight nestled between sail panels that extend to the rear of the car.  Quarter window positions are blanked, though there seem to be four louvres to help exhaust cabin air.  The boat-tail trunk lid styling is also gone.  The poor-quality lower photo was taken at the 1954 Paris auto show.

Bloated Delahaye 135 by Guilloré

Guilloré was a French coachbuilder that specialized in creating custom bodies for Delahaye during the last 20 years of both firm's existence (1934-1954).  The Wikipedia entry on Guilloré is here, and in French only.

Some French carrossiers such as Chapron, Franay, and Faget & Varnet continued pre-war styling themes on Delahayes during the first few years after World War 2, but Guilloré was one of the firms that attempted contemporary styling.  This often did not work well because the proportions of pre-war Delahayes were not really suited for postwar styling themes.  I wrote about postwar Delahayes here, and included some Guilloré designs.

The present post deals with what I consider one of Guilloré's design failures, a pontoon-fender Delahaye 135 from 1949.

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1948 Packard Super 8 Victoria Convertible - sales photo
But first, here is an American design that might have influenced Guilloré.

1949 Delahaye 135 Béarn Cabriolet Bicolore by Guilloré
The two-tone (bicolore) paint scheme helps reduce the bulky appearance of the slab-sided pontoon fenders, but not by much.  Worse, the pre-war core of the 135 includes a high cowl and hood line.  It's a fairly tall car, as you can see by comparison to the woman shown about to open its door.The car in the upper photo has a staff attached to its front bumper.  It's not for a flag, however.  The Delahaye has the steering wheel mounted to the right in British fashion -- typical of high-price French cars prior to around 1950.  But one drives on the right side of the street or road in France, and the staff was intended to provide the driver a better sense of where the left-front corner of his car was so as not to drift into oncoming traffic.

1949 Delahaye 135 M by Guilloré - via clubdelahaye.com website
Shown here is a survivor.  It has bicolore paint, but the dark-light pattern on the sides is reversed from what is shown in the 1949-vintage photos above.  The small air vents or horn sound openings (I'm not sure which) below the headlights in the previous photos are absent here.  Either they were deleted or this indeed is a different car.  The latter case is more likely because Guilloré made several cars in this style.  At least one was a coupe, another was a six-window sedan, and yet another was a Delage cabriolet.  This car, like most similar examples, does not have spats covering the rear wheel openings which helps reduce the mass of the sides of what remains an awkward design.

Bentley R-Type Continental: Oldsmobile Styling?

In the 1953 Fawcett Book Sports Car Album, John Wheelock Freeman made the following remarks regarding the Bentley R-Type Continental:

* * * * *The Continental Sports [Saloon] is, frankly, a snob-appeal car.  From the first, its makers unabashedly publicized it as being for the rare discriminating owner who combines unlimited driving skill with an unlimited bank balance.  Production is limited to one per month, for export only, although this situation may change.  Bodywork is a two-door five passenger closed coupé, built in special light alloy by H. J. Mulliner, whose mother seems to have been frightened by a '51 Chevrolet shortly before H. J.'s birth.  The windshield is curved in the worst American style, is placed disturbingly far from the driver.  If you don't like this piece of work, you can take your chassis in a huff to the nearest Italian coachbuilder.
* * * * *
Freeman was a consultant for the 1953 Museum of Modern Art "10 Automobiles" exhibit -- but perhaps not for the famous 1951 8 Automobiles that featured an Army Jeep along with a Cord, a Cisitalia (lent by Freeman) and others.  And if you read his 1953 book, you might detect more than a whiff of elitism, if not snobbery.

For more on the car, built 1952-55, link here (scroll down).

But what of the connection Freeman made regarding Bentley Continental and General Motors styling?

Gallery

1949 Oldsmobile 98 Club Sedan advertising
Rather than the 1951 Chevrolet, I think the '49 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Club Sedan's styling is closest to the Bentley's.  Its design appeared for the 1948 model year and featured a horizontal chromed strip along the front fender and front door that aligned with the strip on the rear fender.  This was removed for 1949 98s, making for a better comparison to the Bentley.

1952 Bentley R-Type Continental (unknown photo source)
Perhaps the strongest resemblance is from the side.  The cars are 2-door models with fastback styling.  They feature a front fender that sweeps across the door, connecting to a separate rear fender.  General impression aside, details do not correspond.

1949 Oldsmobile 98 Club Sedan (unknown photo source)

1952 Bentley R-Type Continental - Fiskens sales photo
The front ends are considerably different in part because the Bentley retains its traditional grille along with headlamps placed close by.

1949 Oldsmobile 98 Club Sedan (unknown photo source)

1955 Bentley R-Type Continental - RM Auctions photo
Fastback styling differs considerably in that the the Bentley's back is a broad expanse, whereas the Oldsmobile's tapers towards the center with catwalks filling the space to the rear fenders.  The latter are raised over nearby sheet metal at the very rear in both cases, another superficial similarity.

Its sarcasm aside, Freeman's point has some validity.  The Continental, aside from the front ensemble, looks far more American than English, circa very early 1950s.