When we observe automotive design today as represented by the production vehicles in our midst, we are witness to the result of a compromise between the engineering constraints imposed by government safety and fuel efficiency requirements and a shift in societal tastes trending toward ecological considerations. Visual appeal is of less importance. Cars are designed now with an eye toward functional form over style. It wasn’t always so.
A trend toward more visually appealing consumer products including vehicles began during the Art Deco movement of the nineteen twenties as exemplified by the work of the designers Raymond Loewy, Norman Bel Geddes, Walter Teague, Henry Dreyfus and others. The momentum of this trend was temporarily put on hold with the advent of World War II . Stylish consumer products had been created and accepted in the twenties and thirties, and in the automobile category, Harley J. Earl became a pioneer, creating custom car bodies at that time for the few who could afford them. The rest of the public accepted the fact that with rare exception, only mildly altered versions of horse drawn vehicles would be available to them from year to year. Because of Earl’s influence, the approach to the design of automobiles would change, and in the postwar era, they did so in a way that was more radical than anyone could have imagined. The designs utilized in aircraft and rocketry from this period would become components in the trends in shape and styling that would be applied and presented to a public eagerly awaiting something fresh after the wartime years of rationing of car production, and lack of change in styling, during those years.
The artistic examples presented on this site were created at a time in America when American car companies were in competition for the hearts and minds of mostly young and upwardly mobile consumers. New cars being offered to eager customers were available in a variety of styles and colors as never before and in a booming postwar economy, they were affordable.
Americans were also at no other time before or since so closely connected and considered by themselves and by each other by their appearance as projected by the automobiles they drove. Cars were conceived and built as an extension of ones personality and aggressively advertised and sold to particular market segments. New lightweight and inexpensive materials would allow more versatility and application in shape and were heralded on magazine covers of the time depicting supersonic and streamlined automobiles and other forms of transportation operating at incredible speeds and taking to the skies or even under water. There was a voracious appetite and real need for new consumer products, especially cars, and they had to look new too – and the big three; Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, under the influence of their own design divisions’ lead, found themselves in competition for dominance of the consumer market. It was declared that well designed products would win the race for public favor. It was in this context that a “golden age” of car design would be conceived.
General motors was the first car company to consider that the appearance of a motor vehicle could motivate sales and had created its own studio system where young talent would be recruited and promoted through the ranks based on their ability and the acceptance of their ideas. The Art and Colour section which Earl would lead, recruited new designers from their own Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild and from the best schools of design in America; The Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York and The Art Center School in Los Angeles California, most prominently, to facilitate the need for getting fresh ideas out to the awaiting public. Ford and Chrysler would soon follow suit.
Beginning in the late nineteen forties, within this innovative environment, whole styling groups were formed in house using the best designers to create concepts beyond, way beyond, what would ever reach the production floor. These groups of car designers were encouraged to dream and take risks and draw experimental and concept cars which were first rendered on artists board or paper. Some components of these conceptual ideas eventually passed through the filters of corporate approval and found their place – at first in clay models and then on actual production vehicles. A few exotic styling exercises were also carried through to one of a kind concept vehicles that were exhibited at automobile shows and other events across the country to an eager reception and lots of publicity. Also during this time, revealing of the latest production models each fall was shrouded in secrecy until announcement day. Unveiling of new cars was an event – with their arrival under cover, dealerships having public and press receptions, and magazine articles featuring descriptions of the latest offerings from Detroit. This was the industry to consumer climate during the golden age of car design in America, and for those years, whether or not they lived up to it, the promise of delivery of the cars of the future, here now, created an air of excitement and anticipation at a far greater level than had been seen ever before or since.
As consumer tastes evolved over years, many of the styling exercises, as presented here, although conceived as innovative, tasteful and modern at the time, were deemed impractical, excessive or already tested or applied. As a result, the artwork retained in the design studios on paper, having already been considered, was routinely discarded . Hundreds of these illustrations, pushing the boundaries of public sensibilities, risky, outrageous, always well executed, but nonetheless rejected, were replaced in favor of fresh ideas. We are fortunate that relatively few were somehow retained and survive. They provide a unique view into the world of automobile styling as it once existed.
Cars In Design presents an opportunity for you to see and enjoy some of this historic artwork and an opportunity for ownership as well, as all of the original works presented here are for sale. I welcome you to spend some time here contemplating a unique period in America where we dreamed of great accomplishments, reached for the stars and went to the moon, and we drove home from school or to the drive in movies in the cars created by these same talented designers, in something as mild as a Rambler or as wild as an Eldorado, but always built with an eye toward the appeal of our visual sensibilities.
F. Walton
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