Similar Aft: Ford Fusion and Chrysler 200

A year ago I posted regarding how the need for wind-tunnel testing for reasons of fuel economy has resulted in cars with highly similar profiles.  One result of this similarity is increasingly baroque sheet metal ornamentation along with a fad regarding angular shapes for headlight and tail light assemblies.

Even such detailing can wind up surprisingly similar for cars from different makers.  Here we consider the rear aspects of Ford's Fusion and Chrysler's 200.

2014 Ford Fusion

2015 Chrysler 200
To me, the Fusion and 200 look pretty much the same at first glance.  Aside from the similar basic body shape, we see that the side and rear window shapes are nearly identical, as are those lips at the lower edge of the bumper / strike panels.

Remaining design features differ in detail, but not by much: they are styled in the same spirit.  These details include the shape of the tail light assemblies, the lower side character shapes extending aft of the rear wheel openings and the depression where the license plate is housed.  The Chrysler has less sculpting at the top of the trunk lid and alongside the backlight, but these are minor in the context of overall appearance.

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.

New Book: How Cars Faced the Market

My latest e-book has just been released at Amazon.com.  That's the cover above.

It deals with automobile grilles and other details of the “face” or front end of a car.  Facial appearance has long been an important consideration in the automobile industry because it is a major means by which people – especially potential buyers – identify makes of cars.

Over the years, different brands (actually their management, stylists, marketing and advertising personnel and consultants) have taken varying approaches to continuity of styling themes for fronts of their cars.  The degree of such continuity is the theme of this book.

More than 30 brands are dealt with here, some sketchily, others in detail, depending on the points I think need to be made.

In most cases, there is considerable model-year coverage for American cars from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.  That is because this was the time when styling evolution largely ended, when cars received so-called “envelope” bodies where fenders and other items were no longer the clearly distinct objects they were before.  Therefore stylists began to grapple with new themes that were more fashion-related than having to do with goal-related lines of body development.

Chapters are ordered alphabetically by brand, so readers are urged to first read the Introduction and then skip around the chapters depending upon their interest in the various makes of cars.  The format of the chapters can be characterized as a series of captions to the images presented.

Brands covered are Rolls-Royce, Plymouth and Volkswagen (in the Introduction), followed by in separate chapters: Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Bugatti, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Chrysler, DeSoto, Dodge, Ford, Honda (Civic), Hudson, Imperial/Chrysler Imperial, Jaguar, Lancia, LaSalle, Lexus, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Mercury, Nash, Oldsmobile, Packard, Pontiac, Saab, Studebaker and Volvo.

Thanks to Amazon's automated conversion-to-Kindle processing, the illustrations are not as large as they were in my Word draft.  Therefore, for people buying the book, I suggest downloading it to their device with the largest available screen.

But thanks again to Amazon, if you have a desktop computer or a laptop with a reasonably large screen, they have a free Kindle App that displays the book and lets you size a page so that the images are as large as they were originally.  Of course, you need to have already purchased the book and downloaded it to your iPad, Kindle or other device before you can access it via the app.

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.

1942 Buick: Front and Rear Fenders Meet

Led by styling vice-president Harley Earl, General Motors set the pace for the appearance of American cars from the late 1920s to the mid-1950s.  Other car makers' stylists were more than willing to implement their own ideas during that time, but they and company management had to think carefully regarding producing any designs that departed very far from what GM (which had about half the industry's sales) was doing.

One of Earl's biggest fans in GM management was Harlow "Red" Curtice (background here), who is given credit for saving Buick during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Because of their friendship, Earl did Curtice a number of favors styling-wise.  One example was the 1938 Buick Y-Job concept car, perhaps the first of its kind by a major manufacturer.  Another Earl favor for Curtice had to do with the fender line of certain 1942 Buicks, the subject of this post.

In my book on automobile styling (see sidebar) and elsewhere, I've contended that automobile styling went through an evolutionary period from around 1930 to around 1950.  There was a strong trend away from separate elements such as headlights, fenders, spare tires and such to streamlined-appearing bodies that integrated most of the previously distinct elements.  Part of this meant the elimination of four separate fenders either by making them low-relief parts of the main car body or merging them into a single slab on each side -- "pontoon fenders" as some call this.

Fender evolution reached the "suitcase" stage by about 1940, where fenders were squared off or puffed-up shapes residing fore and aft of passenger doors.  The next step was extending the trailing edge of the front fenders over part of the front doors.  GM did this on 1939 Opels in Germany, 1941 Cadillac 60 Specials, and on almost all of its 1942 line.

The final step was for the extension of front fenders until they touched the rear fenders.  This was commonplace by 1947-49 on American cars.  But for practical purposes it first happened on a few 1942 Buick models -- a favor to Curtice by Earl to enhance the brand's image.

Gallery

There weren't many 1942 models made.  This was due to the U.S. entry into World War 2 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.  By 22 February, in response to government orders, automobile production in America had essentially ceased.  Shown above is the last pre-war Buick coming off the now-empty assembly line, 4 February 1942.  It is one of the models with the extended front fender.

A wartime advertisement segment showing a Buick similar to the one in the previous image.  The only Buick models with this fender line were Super and Roadmaster fastback two-door "sedanets" (their marketing term) and convertibles.  All other Buicks had front fenders that partly overlapped front doors.  Buick had other 2-door fastback sedanets, but they were Specials (the entry-level Buick) or Centurys (small-body, large motor) that used a different GM body.  Recognition feature: the Super and Roadmaster sedanets had a vertical B-pillar whereas the Specials and Centurys, plus Chevrolet and Pontiac equivalents, had a B-pillar that leaned forward.

This is a 1942 Buick Roadmaster.  Top of the Buick line that year was the Limited series that used stretched, limousine-type bodies.  As noted, the fenders are typical of GM's 1942 styling.  For most buyers, Roadmasters represented the practical line topper.  1942 Roadmasters and Supers received GM's new C-body.

Publicity photo of a '42 Super or Roadmaster.

A 1942 Buick Special convertible auctioned from Chip Foose's collection.  Compare this to the convertible shown below.

American Auctions photos of a 1942 Buick Super convertible with its extended front fender line.  Note the poor fit of the body panels.  Hard to say if this was poor assembly quality or the result of years of wear and tear.

Chevrolet's Last (for now?) Monte Carlo

According to its Wikipedia entry, Chevrolet's Monte Carlo model was introduced for the 1970 model year and went through six generations, the last one for 2000-2005.  It is the subject of this post.

Allow me to admit that I've become somewhat jaded regarding model names that marketers and management dream up.  Consider "Monte Carlo."  A few people might associate it with the Monaco Grand Prix race, even though Chevy Monte Carlos were coupes and not Formula 1 race cars.  If those Chevrolet people were hoping to come up with a name with sporting associations, then more potential buyers might associate "Monte Carlo" with the Monte Carlo Rally, though few, if any, Chevrolet Monte Carlos could be considered serious European rally machines.  Moreover, that event is little-known in the USA.  The Wikipedia link above states that the name simply had to do with Monte Carlo municipality, a part of Monaco.  That would imply a ritzy gestalt of some sort, a common theme for American car models over the years.  Or maybe the name had to do with the Monte Carlo Casino, the famed Côte d'Azur gambling den.  After all, finding a reliable American car during the 1970s when Monte Carlos first appeared was more of a gamble than it is now.

The Monte Carlo launched for the 2000 model year was based on the same platform as Chevrolet's Impala sedan.  It featured a curiously short, cramped-looking passenger compartment and, when viewed from certain angles, a pronounced bustle-back trunk.  I always considered this Monte Carlo variation awkward-looking.


Gallery

Front three-quarter view.  From this perspective, the passenger cabin seems quite short and the trunk area quite long.

Seen in profile, the can looks better-proportioned, though the rear seat area seems a bit cramped.

Rear three-quarter view.  Compare to the 2000 Impala in the image below.

Both cars had a 110-inch wheelbase, though the Impala's length was two inches (5 cm) longer than the Monte Carlo's.  In these views we can see that aside from the small Monte Carlo greenhouse, the strongest visible differences were in the trunk / rear bumper area and some side stamping details (flatter sides and some character lines for the Monte Carlo).  The doors are longer for rear-seat access, though hinged like the Impala's front doors.  Wheel openings and gas filler lids are the same.

Given General Motors' increasingly precarious financial position around 2000, the tooling differences between the Impala and Monte Carlo seem to me surprisingly large for a car that had been selling at the rate of around 70,000 units per model year.  However,  total production was around 380,000, about the same as for the fifth-generation Monte Carlo, so perhaps tooling costs were amortized over the entire production run.

It will be interesting to see if Chevrolet ever revives the Monte Carlo model name.

Patrick Le Quément's Renault Mégane II

As this Wikipedia entry mentions, Renault has been producing a series of cars with the Mégane name since 1996.  The Mégane of interest to this post is the retroactively named Mégane II, in production from 2002 into 2009.

The Mégane II's design is one of those I strongly associate with Renault's powerful styling boss Patrick Le Quément (Wikipedia entry here).  It is quite similar in spirit to the Vel Satis concept car, and somewhat less so to the production Vel Satis.  I dealt with them here.

Le Quément in the early 2000s was trying to have Renaults look French, not as knockoffs of the increasingly internationalized style that was robbing cars of their origin-county identities.  He even made a point of hiring non-French stylists who he thought might understand a French look better than native French stylists -- analogous to fish not really understanding their watery environment.

Le Quément's French-look experiment eventually faded, and the 2009 Mégane IIIs had less quirky styling.  Nevertheless, the Mégane II (along with the Vel Satises) was an interesting approach to automobile design, as can be seen in the images below.

Gallery

This view from above shows the Mégane's unusual shape most clearly.  The distinctive features are at the rear, and are the similar curves of the rear window, the strike panel (bumper) and character fold towards the bottom of the hatch.  These curves are not functional in a mechanical sense, instead functioning in a marketing sense.  That is, they are highly distinctive; I can't offhand recall anything quite like this on any other non-Renault production car.  (Some cars such as SUVs with station wagon (break) type bodies have rear ends that are curved in plan-view,  but in profile they are essentially vertical, unlike the Mégane II.)

The Mégane IIs front combines a curved overall shape with crisp details.  The lower air intake is disjointed from the above-the-bumper features.

Rear 3/4 view of a four-door Mégane II.  The aft side window, being part of the door ensemble, works much better here than in the two-door version shown in the image below.

The aft side window on two-door Méganes does not tie into the overall theme while seeming to somewhat restrict outward vision for rear-seat passengers.  For some inexplicable reason, Honda used a similar design on its 2007 CR-V crossover SUV line.

Another rear view.  A problem here is that the curved parts mentioned above do not blend very well with the rest of the car.
It happened that I rented a Mégane II in the fall of 2003, driving various places from Paris to Vienna and back.  Yes, it was quirky, but it did a good job.