JET AGE MOTORING
As automobile sales were just gaining speed in the roaring ‘20s, closed body styles featured rather sizable window areas. It was the Jazz Age; people enjoyed seeing and being seen. Simultaneously, architects at the Bauhaus were incorporating vast glass areas Continue reading
Thirty years before McDonald’s introduced Supersizing, and thirteen years before the Marx Big Wheel tricycle; Ford introduced their amply sized Jet-Tube taillamps. This crucial element of the 1960s automotive landscape began when Ford designers added a pair of large-scale circular taillights to the rear Continue reading
Many fashion trends were born in the 1960s, one of which was the Loop Bumper, a wraparound unit physically and stylistically incorporating the headlamps and grille. A very early antecedent of the loop bumper appeared on the 1942 Oldsmobile which featured a Continue reading
From the 1920s to the 1990s, when you entered most General Motors cars you first had to step over a turquoise-enameled Napoleonic coach; the hallmark of a Body by Fisher. Fisher supplied automobile bodies for GM for over eight decades. The Continue reading
In the first of a nine-part series, yours truly sits down with Koop Kooper of Cocktail Nation radio to discuss seminal post-war sporting cars. This month; the MG TC.
Like the paradox of Schrödinger s Cat, simultaneously alive and dead, the Oldsmobile division of General Motors introduced a wheel option for their 1964 Starfire and Jetstar I models that was both real and unreal. First; a bit of history. Wire-spoke wheels Continue reading
Is fabric automotive upholstery finally ready for a triumphant return after decades of leather fetishism? I recently received word that the new BMW 7-Series is available with woven textile upholstery; not just any fabric, but cashmere. This follows on from Maserati, Continue reading
It’s hard not to notice how exhaust tips have evolved into fetish items over the past decade-and-a-half. Overly stylized and comically oversized, they have become carbuncles defacing the stern of the majority of mid and upper-range vehicles currently on offer. Continue reading
Metallic automotive paint finishes, around since the 1920s, became extremely popular in the U.S. during the 1960s. The then-new thermoplastic acrylic lacquers made an ideal showcase for metallic finishes as their low application viscosity allowed time for a majority of the Continue reading
It could be argued that the first automobile designs to seriously address efficient space utilization were the prewar Fiat Topolino, and the postwar Fiat 600 and Citroën DS; both the latter introduced in 1955. The designers of the Citroën, André Continue reading