Mercedes-Benz Postwar Type 220 (W187)

One error I made while writing How Cars Faced the Market was calling the 1951-1955 Mercedes-Benz 220 (W187) a facelifted pre- World War 2 design.  It was actually a new design that happened to look that way given the angle from which my reference photo was taken.

My comment was to the effect that the "facelift" was an effective modernization of an old design.

On the other hand, the 220's styling was a lot like that of some other prewar Mercedes', so I just possibly might not have been that far off the mark.  Let's take a look.

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1951 Mercedes-Benz 220 brochure cover, illustration by the great Walter Gotschke.

Here is the photo I used in the book.  From the cowling aft, it really does look like a prewar Mercedes -- basically a mid-1930s appearance.  The teardrop shaped front fenders with integral headlights are on par with most 1939-vintage American cars (aside from General Motors which retained detached headlight housings).

But seen from the side, the 220's design doesn't seem quite so antiquated.  Note that the trunk is integrated with the main body and not the sort of attachment common in the 1930s.  The roof of the passenger compartment has large-radius curves in the C-pillar area.  This heaviness is nicely offset by the thin A and B pillars.

Another view of a 220.

The 220's rear seen in a for-sale photo.  This shows the integral trunk.  It also shows that this 1951-vintage design has a number of archaic features.  These include a "suicide" rear-hinged front doors and external door hinges.  The body tucks under slightly, partly exposing running boards.  The rear fenders are definitely pre-war styling.  The windshield (see previous image) is a flat, one-piece affair common on early-30s cars.

Compare the 220 to this 1940 Mercedes-Benz 230 (W143).  The spirit of its design from the cowling aft was retained on the 220.

The same might be said regarding this 1938 M-B 260 (W138).  The passenger greenhouse is not far removed from that of the 220, even though its top is not all-steel.  The trunk is not visually part of the main body.

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.

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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.

1940 Dodge's Segmented, Dual-Symmetrical Grille Design

While gathering images for my book How Cars Faced the Market, I noticed an unusual characteristic of the Dodge grille for the 1940 model year.  It was doubly-symmetrical with its four segments clearly defined.

Of course, simple geometric shapes can be symmetrical along two orthogonal axes.  A circle, for instance.  Or ovals, squares and rectangles.  Grilles with these shapes can be found -- especially the non-circle variety.

But the 1940 Dodge grille does not have a simple outline.  That, and the segment dividers are what make unique, or nearly so.

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Just for scene-setting fun, here is an advertising spread illustrated by Arthur Radebaugh (1906-1974), a guy who made many World of Tomorrow type images from the 1930s into the 1960s.

And here is what seems to be a factory photo of a '40 Dodge.

Now for that grille.  There is side-to-side symmetry if the axis of rotation is the prow of the car.  That is, the left and right sides have the same two-dimensional design.  Most automobile grilles can make this claim.  But then there is that painted metal running across the middle of the grille.  The parts above and below it (again from a two-dimensional, flattened perspective) can be pivoted on that axis bar.  This and the non-geometric outline of the grille are the unusual features.  Photo from Mecum auctions.

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.

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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.

1955 Oldsmobile 88 Delta Concept

What were called dream cars were exciting back in the 1950s.  Usually General Motors' annual traveling cars and entertainment show, the Motorama, could be expected to have a good crop of them.  As far as I'm concerned, 1953-56 were the best years for Motorama.

It's usually not wise to evaluate the significance of a dream or concept (today's term) car when first shown.  It can take five or more years before the concept design can be compared to features appearing on production cars.  The 1955 Motorama is long gone, so I thought it might be interesting to put one of its dream cars into a proper context.

The car I have in mind is the Oldsmobile 88 Delta, a hardtop (pillarless) coupe, a popular body type back then.  I last mentioned it here when writing about odd dream car wheel openings.  Oldsmobiles were redesigned for the 1954 model year and due for a 1957 restyling.  The 88 Delta was probably designed during 1954 when the production '55 facelift was largely established and the basic body forms (though not all details) of the redesigned 1957s were known.

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This is a 1955 Oldsmobile 98 Holiday Coupe, the model current at the time of the Motorama.  It shared its body with Olds 88s, though details varied slightly.  The top has a large-radius curve above the side windows, the grille opening is close to being oval, and the wheel openings are wider towards the rear, having a half-teardrop shape.

And here is a publicity photo of the 88 Delta.

Its grille is not not oval, but the headlight assemblies are.

The roof is very similar to that of the 1955 production car, though the A-pillar is vertical instead of slanted.  The hood is lower relative to the fender line which has a dip where it passes the passenger compartment.  The car's design has a theme of roundedness, something appearing on other '55 Motorama cars such as the Chevrolet Biscayne and Pontiac Strato-Star.

The rear of the 88 Delta continues the rounded theme.  Exhaust pipes are part of the bumper ensemble and are oval like the headlight assemblies.  If the too-large Olds ringed-planet symbol was eliminated, this would be a tasteful design.

Compare this view of the 88 Delta to the car below.

Here is a 1957 Oldsmobile 98 four-door hardtop with one of the redesigned GM bodies that did not sell well.  The A-pillars are thin like the 88 Delta's, but retain the slant of previous production Oldsmobiles.  The grille opening is even more oval than the 1955 model's and wheel openings are in the same spirit as before.  Another carryover from the 88 Delta is a low hood, and the car seems a  little more rounded looking than the '55 model.  But it also seems that the 88 Delta did little in the way of anticipating restyled 1957 Oldsmobiles.

This makes me wonder what the point of the 88 Delta dream car design was.  It wasn't way-out futuristic, one of those styling staff showoff jobs.  Instead, with some changes to make it street-practical, it was basically what a future GM production car might have been.

Perhaps it, the Strato-Star and some other '55 Motorama dream cars represent a direction Harley Earl had in mind as his final designs before his 1958 retirement.  Such cars would have appeared in the 1959 or 1960 model years.  But the taut, finned, commercially successful 1957 Chrysler Corporation line provoked a rebellion in Earl's staff and GM styling took a direction different from that of the 88 Delta.

Felice Boano's Classic Lancia Aurelia B20

I am far from alone thinking that Italian automobile design was at its zenith during the late 1940s and most of the 1950s.  One fine example is the Lancia Aurelia type B20 coupé built 1951-1958.  (Italian Wikipedia entry here -- you might need to have your computer translate.)

Styling was by Felice Mario Boano (1903-1989) whose career is dealt with on this Italian Wikipedia page.  As best I can tell, he was associated with Ghia at the time the B20 was designed, but since series production was planned, Ghia personnel were not involved beyond the prototype stage.  Before long, production was handed over to the Pininfarina firm.  Some minor modifications were presumably made later by Farina and not Boano.

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This is Boano's 1951 prototype B20.  A nice, trim Italian design that nicely blends the traditional vertical Lancia grille with the modern, "envelope" body.

The later 1951 Pininfarina pre-production prototype looks the same from this front three-quarter angle aside from the Farina badge on the front fender.  Some tail light details were changed from the Boano version.

Side view of a 1953 B20 berlinetta GT 2500.  The side window profile is yet another demonstration that BMW's famous shape was far, far from original.

Front view of a 1953 B20 berlinetta GT 2500.  The turn indicators are too close to the auxiliary air intakes that, in turn, should not have been so rectangular.  The edges of the openings nearest the grille should have been angled to match the grille's curves nearby.  The turn lights could then have been made square and placed at the outer edges of the intakes to form a unified composition.

Rear three-quarter view of what looks like a 1953 vintage B20.  What we see is basically a fastback design.  However, it ever-so-slightly flows in the manner of 1941-1948 Chrysler Corporation cars.  Very subtle: a unitary-curve fastback would have made the car look heavier if the trunk height at the rear was the same as shown.

Lexus NX = Toyota RAV4 Huge Facelift

Toyota's Lexus Brand has done well for many years with its RX series crossover SUV.  But management felt there was room in the brand's lineup for a smaller, less-expensive crossover.  Voila!! the 2015 Lexis NX crossover (more information here).

In order to create this new model economically, Lexus went to Toyota's RAV4 to form the basis for the NX body.  The result is a SUV with the same wheelbase as the RAV, but slightly longer, wider and higher.  Also, as many of Lexus' new styling theme details as possible were crammed onto the RAV's basic structure.

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Two NXs are shown here sporting the spiky, angular look Lexus deems necessary for brand identification.  I find it an overly-contrived visual mess of superficial detailing.

This is a 2013 Toyota RAV4 posed almost the same as the NX in the previous image.  The windshield and cut lines for the hood, front strike panel and front door are the same or very nearly so for both cars.

Here we see various creases and cut-lines converging on the tail light assembly.  This is a sensible way to tie design elements together, but I think there are too many of those elements.  The side treatment of the tail light assembly is well into cliché territory, looking very similar to that of the current Nissan Maxima, for instance.  Sculpting on the trunk panel repeats the double-L (for Lexus) theme of the grille, an especially awkward bit of styling.

The additional length and height of the NX, as compared to the RAV, can be seen in these rear views.  The RAV has less overhang and its roofline is more curved.  The NX has a higher belt line, resulting in smaller side windows.  Rear doors and the gas filler doors are in the same positions in both cars, though cut lines differ.

This NX side view features the sheet metal folds and planes that catch and emphasize light originating above the car.  Because there are so many of these light-catching details, the overall impression is busyness.

The RAV4 looks dull by comparison, and could have used a higher belt line anchor at the front and perhaps a horizontal character line about two-thirds up the doors.  Otherwise, it's a superior design to the frantic NX.