Cadillac XLR: A Flat, Short-Lived Sports Car

General Motors' Cadillac Division marketed (1987-1993) a Pininfarina-designed sports car called the Allanté.  I wrote about it here.  The Allanté was not a sales success.   Undaunted, and seeking to reposition the brand's failing image, Cadillac management decided to launch another sports car for the 2004 model year, this time embodying the brand's new Art and Science faceted styling theme.

The new sports car was called the XLR (Wikipedia entry here).  It was marketed over the 2004-2009 models years with modest success.  GM's bankruptcy might have been a factor in its demise, but slow sales and the fact that it was based on an old (1997-2004 Corvette C5) platform were equally likely factors.

Given the constraints of the C5 layout and the angular, faceted Art & Science styling theme, Cadillac stylists did about as well as might be expected.  That is, the XLR in my opinion was not a styling success.  Seen on streets and highways, XLRs have the appearance of a flattened, almost Roman style brick.  I don't think sports cars should look like bricks.

Gallery

1997 Corvette C5 group
A collection of C5 Corvettes to illustrate what Cadillac stylists had to work with.

2004 Cadillac XLR - front 3/4 view
Most publicity photos of XLRs are shot from an unnaturally low point of view (see images below).  I include this photo because it is taken from something close to normal eye-level.  Compare to the Corvettes in the previous image.

2005 Cadillac XLR - front 3/4 sales photo
The grille / front ensemble is nicely done, combining Cadillac themes and the low body.  But see how flat the hood is.

2004 Cadillac XLR - rear 3/4 view
A somewhat flattering photo due to the camera position.  It makes the car seem taller and less flattened than it actually is.

2005 Cadillac XLR - side view
In profile, the XLR shows off its slightly wedged appearance.  Room is needed at the rear for luggage and the retractable top.  The hood line is so low that the front wheel openings create a pinched fender area above them despite being slightly offset by the thick lips of the openings.

2005 Cadillac XLR Euro - rear view
The trunk top, like the hood, is nearly flat.  With the top raised and given the shallow Vs of the bumper, license plate ensemble, and especially the central brake light, the trunk comes very close to having a dished-in appearance.  I would have been tempted to either slightly raise or lower the rear fenders and tail lights to offset the effect of the broad, nearly-flat plane.  Other small deviations from a brick-shape also might have helped the design.

Boat-Tail Echoes

A small styling fad of the 1920s that continued into the 1930s was the boat-tail rear end.  That is, the rear of the car body was curved, tapering to a point or an almost-point.  In plan view, this resembled the bow section of a boat when seen in plan view or maybe the bow end of an upside-down boat.

Boat-tailed cars were sporty looking due to that style as well as because usually they were roadsters or convertible coupes that tend to be intrinsically sporty.

A major problem with boat-tailed cars was lack of space for luggage; non-boat-tail roadsters and convertibles were more practical, and sold better.  So the style died out.

But a few echoes of it appeared now and then on American cars.  In these cases, the cars' rear ends didn't have boat shapes.  Instead, the aft part of the passenger greenhouse or perhaps sheet metal sculpting on the trunk featured convergence in a sort of tribute to the boat-tail.  Below are some (perhaps most of the) examples.

Gallery

1935 Auburn Speedster advertisement
This exaggerated, aerial view of the Auburn Speedster proclaims the boat-tail's spirit.

1935 Auburn 851 SC Speedster - Auctions America photo
The actual car was a lot shorter, but very attractive.  It was a facelift designed by the great Gordon Buehrig.

1936 Auburn 852 SC Speedster - Mecum Auctions photo
Rear view of a 852 Speedster showing its boat-tail.

1952 Studebaker Starlight Coupe - McCormick Auctions photo
The Studebaker Starlight Coupe first appeared for the 1947 model year, creating a sensation due to its then-futuristic appearance.  Note the converging raised area extending from the passenger compartment over the trunk.  Not a boat-tail, but the spirit is evoked.

1949 Buick Super Sedanet - Mecum Auctions photo
The upper part of this Buick fastback converges considerably, though not to a point -- yet another boat-tail echo.  General Motors fastbacks of the late 1940s lacked the trunk room of GM bustle-backs, so the style was dropped in the early 1950s.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray Split Window Coupe - Barrett-Jackson photo
Bill Mitchell was head of GM styling starting in 1958, and the Sting Ray was one of his pet projects.  The greenhouse converges to a point in plan view, much in the boat-tail manner.  Note that the rear fenders do the same.

1971 Buick Riviera
Another Mitchell-inspired design.  Here there actually is a boat tail, stubby though it might be.  The overall design is awkward, however.

Cars Seen in California, March 2016

Time for a brief break from styling critiques.

I recently returned from an extensive visit to California where from time to time I would encounter an interesting car.  On occasions where I had my camera handy, I took photos, a few of which are shown below.

Gallery

2016 Corvette
This was at The Gardens on El Paseo, a shopping area in the city of Palm Desert.  This part of California is where affluent people either winter or retire to permanently, so expensive cars are common.  The Corvette pictured here is on a place where car dealers display their wares for passers-by to contemplate.

McLaren 650S
Parked a few blocks away was this McLaren.  Dealers sometimes simply park a fancy car by a curb to entice potential buyers.

Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder
Not far away was this Lamborghini.  Its status is unclear.  Gallardos ceased production in 2014, yet this example has no license plate.  Perhaps a dealer still had it on hand and was hoping to find a customer for it.

2016 BMW i8
I saw this i8 on display at the Blackhawk shopping mall in Danville.

1932 Studebaker Dictator
Palm Springs has an aviation museum.  Under a B-17 bomber was this entry-level '32 Studebaker.

Fisker Karma
Back to the El Paseo street scene.  Here is a Fisker Karma, one of about 4,500 built from late 2011 to late 2012.

Angled Four-Eyed American Cars

Quad headlights, despite whatever technological improvements they embodied, had a negative impact on automobile aesthetics -- something I've always believed.  The reason is that the front of a car is its face.  Insects and a few other creatures excepted, we expect to see only two eyes, not one or four or more.  Four eyes or headlights seems unnatural.

Quads began appearing on some 1957 model U.S. cars and were common by the following model year.

A reader reminded me in an email that some quad headlights were arranged in a slanted manner rather than being placed vertically or side-by-side, and thought that might be a good subject for a blog post.  He was right, and this is that post.

Gallery

1958 Chevrolet Corvette
I think the quad-headlight facelift of 1957 Corvettes was a design-destroying event.  The side-by-side positioning seen here is the most common quad arrangement.

1956 Lincoln - Mecum Auctions photo
Let's now follow Lincoln headlights for model years 1956-1960.  The 1956 Lincoln in the above photo has conventional headlights.

1957 Lincoln
Lincolns were given a major -- unsuccessful -- facelift for 1957.  Quad headlights were introduced, and stylists gave them a stacked arrangement.

1958 Lincoln - Auctions America photo
1958 saw a complete redesign for Lincoln that resulted in a huge, unitary body.  Stylists apparently decided that side-by-side and stacked quad headlights were not very creative solutions to the four-headlight problem.  Their solution was to place them at an angle with the uppermost lights closest to the body's edge.

1959 Lincoln - Mecum Auctions photo
The 1959 facelift retained the angled arrangement, but include the headlights in the grille ensemble.

1960 Lincoln - Barrett-Jackson photo
1960 was the last year for this Lincoln body and the front end was lightly facelifted.  Redesigned 1961 Lincolns got side-by-side headlights.

1959 Buick - auction photo
Buick used slanted headlights only on its 1959 line.  This design is busy, but more successful than the others shown here thanks to the chromed strip along the front of the hood that continues along the sides of the car.

1961 Chrysler Newport - Barrett-Jackson photo
Chrysler went to angled headlight for 1961 and 1962.  Unlike the 1959 Buick, this design is uncluttered.  But the slanted lights created some unfortunate fussiness in the form of the oddly-shaped parking lights.

1961 DeSoto - RM Auctions photo
1961 was the last model year for DeSotos, and few were built.  The bumper, headlight positioning and parking lights are the same as that for the Chrysler in the previous photo.  The overall front ensemble is an ugly mess largely due to the odd upper grille element.  What a sad way for a fine brand to die.

1962 Chrysler Newport - sales photo
The main front-end change from 1961 is the grille detailing, though the headlight assemblies have darker background panels.  A more important change is the elimination of tail fins.

1962 Dodge Polara - Barrett-Jackson photo
Dodge stylists got "creative" with angled headlights for the 1962 Polara model, pulling an Old Switcheroo by having the highest headlights inbound and the lower ones at body's edge.

1963 Dodge Polara - Auctions America photo
The following year Polaras went to the conventional angle arrangement.

Thus more or less ended the American romance for slanted quad headlights.