Electel Blogspot

A body type fashion that began in America for the 1955 model year was the four-door hardtop sedan which lacked a visible B-pillar when windows were rolled town.  This was an extension of the hardtop coupé concept that General Motors first mass-produced for the 1949 model year.  The idea was to market a design with a fixed metal roof having the grace of a convertible coupe/sedan. It took European manufacturers slightly longer than GM's major American competitors to produce four-door hardtops (Ford and Chrysler marketed theirs for 1956).  Today's subject is the Mercedes-Benz 300d ( werknummer W189) launched in August, 1957. The W189's Wikipedia entry is here . I wrote about the closely-related W186 large Mercedes 300s here . About 3,100 W189s were produced 1957-1962.  Their styling was close to that of the W186s, aside from the "pillarless" feature.  Unless noted, the images below are factory-sourced photos. Gallery A 1960 W189 with windows rolled up.  Asid...

The 1953 DeSoto Adventurer show car was one of those attractive Ghia-built Chrysler Corporation show cars of the early 1950s. It was designed by Virgil Exner , who later became head of Chrysler styling.  During the early 1950s he was greatly interested in the styling of sports and sport-touring cars by Italian coach builders such as Ghia, Pinin Farina, Vignale, Touring and Zagato.  He felt that Italian designs were closer to what automobiles should be than the jet fighter and spaceship design features that were starting to appear on American cars and that were evident in some dream car designs, especially those from Ford. The Adventurer's design was a favorite car of Exner's, who drove the car for a few years following its car show duties.  It was based on a shortened DeSoto chassis and powered by the DeSoto Firedome V-8 motor. Exner was at the top of his game in those days, so who am I to gainsay his belief that the Adventurer was a very fine example of the stylist's ar...

A popular body style in America from the late 1940s through the 1970s was the "hardtop convertible" -- at first a coupé without a B-pillar.  That is, no pillar was visible when the side windows were rolled down.  The result was a sporty-looking car without most of the advantages and defects of a true convertible. I wrote about General Motors' pathbreaking hardtops here , and hardtops from competing manufacturers here .  Read those posts for some background information if you aren't familiar with that body type which was phased out for reasons of rollover protection. This post deals with a Chrysler Corporation hardtop, the 1951 DeSoto Sportsman. Chrysler was a successful firm from the mid-1920s until the very early 1950s when it began to falter. In my opinion that decline was due to a mistaken styling theme for its first post- World War 2 redesign, its 1949 models.  The entire line from Plymouth to Chrysler Imperial was rather tall, stubby, and boxy compared to compe...