Virgil Exner and the art of Auto Whiffery circa 1963

[puddingwrestler]

Remember the not-completely-sucessful revivals of Duesenberg and Stutz in the 60s? Did you even know of the revival of Packard in the 80s? Do you even know what I'm talking about (it's the great 1930s American car companies which died out; although Duesenberg lives on in the phrase 'it's a doozy' according to linguists)?
Anyway, here's an interesting website I stumbled upon, which has photos and pics of what Virgil Exner, chief designer at Chrysler at the time and responsible for the 'Forward Look', 'Suddenly it;s 1960' look AND (kinda) the VW Karmann Ghia thought some of those marques would look like if they surivived into the 60s. Some elements made it into the revived Duesenberg and Stutz, but apparently Renwal marketed model kits of these designs! They were also the subject of an article in Esquire in 1963. Ah, the 1960s, when even famous men's magazines published learned treatises on whiffery!
Here's the link anyways
And an image to whet the appetite.


There have been other revivals and what-if they survived things floating about the interwebs. There's a rather tasty Duesenberg design from 2008 which was slated for porduction, but never seems ot have made it, and I've seen a Morris minor answer to the new beetle...
Any one know of any others? Or any other interesting bits of high-profile automotive whiffery (apart from Concept cars)

[raafif]

gee, the Mercer & Duesenberg (in yellow!) look nice -- the Bugatti is a bit strange, especially the front 

I think there is still a fair market for these cars (& kits of them) -- sad to see that modern model companies don't follow in the Renwal & Aurora etc ideas mold.

Holden Effigy in 24th please !!

[puddingwrestler]

I've gone through most of the site now (it's dedicated to the modern Stutzes) and it's fascinating! There are all sorts of cars I had no idea about on there, including a Stutz armoured 4X4 with factory machine gun option fitted!
There's also some pretty interesting history, and stuff about Les Dunham's 'Corvorado' line - a sort of cross between a Corvette and Eldorado. Also some original Exner design sketches which have not appeared elsewhere, courtesy of Exner Jr.
Definately worth a look and a read. Just be warned, the author seems to be German, so the English is a bit mangled in places, but you can still figure out what he's talking about (usually a Stutz!)
I'd love to see some models of these. Well, to be honest, I'd rather like to see 1:1, but that's a bit unlikely... sigh.

Oh, and Raafif, if you look further into the site, both the Bugatti and Mercer did end up bing built in 1:1, with some design changes. The Mercer was a one off, but there were apparently several Bugattis...

[raafif]

pity the new Stutz's had such an ugly front end
There was a Blackhawk here in Oz that a farmer cut the rear body off & used to carry haybales around in.  He has "restored" it (with repairs & paint) but looks a bit rough !!

from an old Ertl kit -- did they forget to paint in the front end or is it an articulated design ?


what Hot Wheels drew for TopGear -- a nice retro-Vette.  Have these two been produced ?


I got the remains of an original 1960s kit of that red one (a GM concept) in the background in a junk-buy once.

found these 2 sites but google didn't find much else ...
http://www.bradleisure.com/
http://whatifcars.com/

[puddingwrestler]

As an off-shoot of looking for more revived Packard pics, I have stumbled upon a nifty blog called 'Auto Fug', dedicated to really ugly cars. It's got a lot of dodgey custom jobs, some porduction cars, and, of course, a fair number of revivals.
It's not exactly so much use for finding auto whiffery, but it is good for entertainment purposes.
Auto Fug

[raafif]

wow, there sure are some fuglys there !  There were a few on the TopGear site too.

Here in Oz there was the Ford "Grinn" - a Falcon sedan with a grill that reminded one of those WW2 cartoons of a "grinnning Japanese" -- didn't go down too well (very few sales) so they had to palm them off to taxi companies & design a new grill half way thru the style season for the "buying" public.

Rinspeed did a very nice "Yello Talbo" -- based on a 1930's Talbot coupe.

Googling "lead sled" got me this site with some nice 1940s/50s mods that should have gone into production -- http://www.carnut.com/
There are many magazines that cover this still-current hobby.

In the US, Ford decided to re-badge Subarus & sell them as SAABs 

[puddingwrestler]

Are you referring to the infamous AU falcon? My dad had an AUII Futura, the one where they suddenly realised they'd hit edsel levels of ugly, and started slapping the Fairmont grille on all of the Falcon range, and then whacking a spoiler on the back to disguise how far down the boot slanted. They didn't look too bad in that guise, and it drove pretty well. I think I drove it once or twice when I was first learning to drive. One of his workmates had the Fairmont, and Dad borrowed it once. God the inside was ugly. All those wierd sweeping organic round shapes were picked out in wood grain!
He got a BA Falcon very shortly after (known as the Land Whale, cause he insisted on silver, over the protests of the family)

For those unfortunates who are not Australian, here are some pics.
This is the AU Falcon.

And this is the Holden Commodore from the same year.

You can sorta guess why the Commodore outsold the Ford...

[Old Wombat]

This is the AU Falcon.

Sometimes, also, referred to as the "Cockroach", due to its general resemblance to said insect.

Just some relatively minor changes to the grille, bonnet & headlights & you got the much-preferred BA Falcon.

[puddingwrestler]

Getting sort of back on track, I also found a nifty Fotki account which has hundreds of great pics of early concept art and clay mock-ups of 50s and 60s cars, incluidng tons of Edsel concepts! Some of which were attractive! And some of which... well, were insane.
The link
I'd post specific pics pf some of the more outrageous things here, but Fotki doesn't seem to like me doing that. Sigh.

[raafif]

A search for "fantasy garage" only returned a car-rental site that hires out Ferraris, E-type Jags etc, a few for garage doors & renovations .... and one where the only thing that gets serviced by the mechanic is the skimpily-dressed female customers

here's the Rinspeed "Yello Talbo"

I've seen a Morris minor answer to the new beetle...

got a pic

we've had Beetle, Mini & Fiat-500 revivals -- is this for an AUSTIN revival
reminds me of the Allegro


Morris / Austin / Leyland came up with some good designs ... the 1100, 1800 & P-76 -- pity the workmanship was so bad -- a family-friend bought a pre-production P-76 from the factory before they were on general sale & on a non-stop 2-day trip between cities the interior fell apart & electrics had a terminal failure - Lucas wasn't known as the Prince of Darkness for nothing  The P-76 was actually a good big-car design - it just came at the wrong time (1st petrol crisis), those that have been re-built by enthusiasts have proved to be safe, solid & reliable.

[puddingwrestler]

I've changed computers about four times since I found the minor pics, and I cannot find them again...
I have tried...

[raafif]

Rats !!
     a web-search only reveals that a guy in UK has tons of as-new spares for new bodies made in India - factory currently down due to the tsunami.

But a MinorRevival would be nice to see -- Woodie van anyone ?
I don't think BMW will do a new Mini Traveller as they couldn't even get the semi-"Van" right.

[Hobbes]

This one?



from http://www.mmoc.org.uk/index.php?page=61

[puddingwrestler]

Yup, that one.

[raafif]

interesting but the roof's a bit too "Beetlely" & not much else is different to standard

Can anyone have a go at drawing a modern woody-wagon (shooting-brake - does anyone still use that expression ) or cabrio ?