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1963 Pontiac Grand Prix at Monaco's Hotel de Paris Arthur "Art" M. Fitzpatrick (1919-2015) is famed in illustration circles for his classic 1959-1972 series of illustrations for Pontiac made in collaboration with Van Kaufman.  Fitzpatrick rendered the cars and Kaufman furnished the settings and people.  There was some overlap in that settings and people might be reflected on the cars. I previously wrote about him and the Pontiac illustrations  here .  Also, I met him about 15 years ago at the Pebble Beach Concours and still have his business card. Fitzpatrick's Wikipedia entry is here .  An interview of him is here , and includes the following regarding his way of working on Pontiac ads such as that shown above: "I photographed a car [for General Motors testimony at a congressional hearing] … same position/view with 3 different lenses, 35, 50, and 120mm. Photographers, for reasons that continue to escape me, were using long lenses, which shorten a car, making th...

American automobile production ceased in February 1942 on orders from the government due to the USA's entry in World War 2.  Before that time and even during the war years carmakers contemplated postwar offerings. This post deals with Chrysler Corporation styling models from that era . The photos of styling studio models presented below suggest that Chrysler was thinking of offering a major facelift rather than a complete redesign once production could resume following hostilities. Thanks to the postwar pent-up demand for new cars, most American car builders indeed marketed facelifted prewar designs until around the 1949 model year. The images of styling models below are interspersed with production Chrysler Corporation cars so as to strongly suggest that the models were based on prewar rather than totally new bodies. Gallery Styling model from December 1941 that has a grille with some postwar Dodge detailing.  Compare the basic body with that shown in the following image. 1...

First called the Asymmetrica, Chrysler Corporation's 1960 Plymouth sports car concept was renamed the Plymouth XNR after Virgil Exner , the Corporations's styling vice president.  Some authoritative XNR background by Ken Gross can be linked here . The Asymmetrica label was appropriate, thanks to some body shaping only on the driver's side of the car.  I have no objection to this in principle: it depends on how it is done. For example, above is a 1963 Studebaker Avanti that I photographed in Baltimore many years ago.   Note the raised part of the hood positioned in front of the steering wheel.  This asymmetrical solution works well. And what about the XNR's asymmetry?  Let's take a look at some factory photos. Gallery Seen from behind, the asymmetry is emphasized by the cross-shaped rear bumper.  This was a show car feature not likely to have survived had the XNR ever entered production.  That is, the upper vertical element has little realistic protecti...

The Studebaker Champion featured in the advertisement above debuted for the 1939 model year.   Its Wikipedia entry is here , and mentions that styling was done under the supervision of Raymond Loewy. The Champion was designed with the goal of being a light-weight car in the main American entry-level marketplace.  Here are some statistical comparisons.  Its wheelbase was 110 inches (2794 mm), whereas Chevrolets and Fords had wheelbases of around 112 inches (2845 mm), and Plymouth wheelbases were longer yet by about the same margin. A four-door Champion weighed about 2300 pounds (1035 kg), while Ford, Plymouth and Chevy four-doors weighed in the neighborhood of 2850 pounds (1282 kg).  Champion motors had the least horsepower (78) while the others were Chevrolet (85), Plymouth (82 or 86), and Ford (60 or 80, 80 being the norm).  Ratios of pounds per horsepower are: Champion (29.5), Chevrolet (32.9), Plymouth 86 (33.7). The Willys Overland, in the next smaller size...