rapidtrans
Senior Member
The letter cars are the epitome Exner cars. The 60 with the pointy fins is my fav.
Fuselage Styling History?
- Thread starter 71newport
- Start date
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
Yeh some of those cars have more fins than some fish.
Yep, its "styling" alright, THAT we are in complete agreement with. Exner's philosophy: graft giant fins and huge, pointy chrome bumpers on a chassis......"and suddenly it's 1960". Impressionable public will come into the showroom in droves.
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
Yeh, sorry perhaps to you. To me its drunken tackiness at its eye ball searing heights. Says much about his state of mind. I won't post any pics to prove my point, I'm sure all know what fuselage cars look like.
I wonder what your beautiful Newport is worth compared to the 300C in the photo, and why?
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
Wow. Gonna make it personal now, huh. Says much about you.
AND yeh even if my Newport had to pulled along by a donkey with three legs and a wheel as the fourth I would STILL take that of any car with huge fins and garish colors. Hell, Id even talk a 70 Toyota Corona over an Exner monstrosity 24/7.
Being in kindergarten when "fins were IN", I kind of like them. Even the Ford and GM versions. I find them much more stylish than the current "floating roofs" on many smaller SUVs currently on sale. Just as back then, gotta do something different, even if it's just a patch of black paint on the D-pillar!
Guess you forgot about the "B-58 Buick" of 1958? Everything was abouit the "space age", somewhat epitomized by the "Rocket Ship" Cadillacs. In an expanding economy, which was fueled by the expansion of the Middle Class in "good paying" factory jobs, typically. At a time when the majority of cars built in China were the tin toy versions of USA cars (usually earlier '50s Buicks), by observation. And this happened in an environment with higher tax rates than we've seen in decades! How'd that happen?
Enjoy!
CBODY67
Guess you forgot about the "B-58 Buick" of 1958? Everything was abouit the "space age", somewhat epitomized by the "Rocket Ship" Cadillacs. In an expanding economy, which was fueled by the expansion of the Middle Class in "good paying" factory jobs, typically. At a time when the majority of cars built in China were the tin toy versions of USA cars (usually earlier '50s Buicks), by observation. And this happened in an environment with higher tax rates than we've seen in decades! How'd that happen?
Enjoy!
CBODY67
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
"Being in kindergarten when "fins were IN", I kind of like them. Even the Ford and GM versions".
"Guess you forgot about the "B-58 Buick" of 1958? Everything was abouit the "space age", somewhat epitomized by the "Rocket Ship" Cadillacs".
- I wasn't around during those days but you kinda make the point of what I was alluding to in the first place.
;Exner appropriating "rocketship" or "space age" language to design cars. Hell ya It was great marketing accumen on the part of Chrysler, but it also produced UGLY as HELL cars...jarring design IMO. In a nutshell Chrysler exploited the consumer by creating desire for garish rolling monstrosities to sell cars. A car is NOT a rocketship, no matter how many tick tacky doodads you glue to the fenders and hood, nor will tue size of the fins make it such. Terrible, just absolutely terrible.
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
B58. Style simply for the sake of style?
Not really intended to be personal - it was just that your Newport is one of the nicest ones I have seen in some time.
So I will ask the question another way, if you took the best 1970 Newport you could find what do you think it would be worth compared to a well restored 1957 Chrysler 300C and why? I also have a similar 1971 Newport coupe but I know why it is not worth nearly as much.
Most folks like the Forward Look cars and you don't, so your view is certainly known but I doubt widely shared.
Maybe this is a good time to end the discussion............................
71newport
Member
I appreciate everyone's input. I didn't mean to start any arguments. The beauty of any automotive style, like the beauty of women, is in the eye of the beholder. I personally appreciate them all (and many women for that matter). Each has a beauty of its own.
I was simply moved by the lines of my '71 Newport, and wanted to learn more about its styling genesis. Our Mopars are all works of art- from the '57 Chrysler to the '61 Plymouth (yeah- I said it!) to the '66 Monaco and so on. I love them all!
I was simply moved by the lines of my '71 Newport, and wanted to learn more about its styling genesis. Our Mopars are all works of art- from the '57 Chrysler to the '61 Plymouth (yeah- I said it!) to the '66 Monaco and so on. I love them all!
The Forward Look and the Fuselage cars couldn't be more different. Engel's approach is all about arranging volumes and is essentially architectural. Exner is much more decorative, I would say sculptural. The deco tends to hide the volume, therefore the complaint that his cars seem shorter than they actually are.
Comparing the results of these design approaches is like comparing apples with pears. Much more to the point is the comparison between Exner's designs and the 1958 Buick. And now Exner carries the day: the Buick is clumsy and tacky.
Comparing the results of these design approaches is like comparing apples with pears. Much more to the point is the comparison between Exner's designs and the 1958 Buick. And now Exner carries the day: the Buick is clumsy and tacky.
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
Feel free to bow out anytime. This is no place for wearing insecurities on ones shirt sleeve.
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
You did not start any argument. It's just some folks can't handle descenting opinions about thier precious (insert whatever, in this case automobiles). Thier opinions can be the ONLY valid opinion. When challenged they loose it.
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
Yup, you've pretty much nailed it. I simply wanted to point out how the car companies (FMC, GM, ChryCo) deployed almost "subversive" marketing practices to sell (or push really) cars with what was percieved as "rocketship" and/or "space age" language onto consumers. The strategy was obviously successful as history tells us people gobbled these things up. Yet, IMO it wasn't so much about how handsome they were as it was about the desire for them being artificially created. They (car companies) didn't give a wit about if the cars were attractive or not...obviously.
There have been books written that examine and outline this in detail. This still occurd today, and is not specific to automobiles either - it is not a "fifties" thing.
In my eyes Virgil Exner & Elwood Engle were diametrically opposed. Exner attempted to capture the "enthusiasm" (yeh, I'm putting it kindly)
of the newly burgeoning space age; Engle was the return of thoughtful rationality and logic and this ethos continued along with fuselage cars.
I really don't know whose designs out sold whose but I'm willing to bet it was the fin cars that sold more (yet this had more to do with the ingenuity of Chrysler marketing - the way in which the public was manipulated during Exner's reign, than it did good design).
In some ways it is comparing oranges to apples, BUT in other ways it isn't. As I said earlier IMO fuselage cars were atonement (either by design or inadvertently) for the balls to the walls exuberance (being kind again) of the Exner period. Compare side by side B58 (or any big Chrysler of the period) to fuselage era (69-73) the differences are glaring.
Thanks for the engaging discussion.
"Subversive marketing"??? Please understand that EVERYBODY in the middle and later '50s was practicing something of that nature in almost every consumer product. Everybody wanted to prove their product was better than the competition. Hence all of the various names for "power steering", "power brakes", "two-tone paint", "factory a/c options", etc. What sold was "glitz and glamour", unless engineering advances were readily visible to the naked eye.
You also have to understand that NO "answer" to another competitor could happen immediately, especially out of the normally scheduled platform refreshes/upgrades! Which is why the '59 GM cars were "answers" to the '57 Chrysler products. Rushed into production by GM, based on styling more than engineering.
Back to the B-58 Buick . . . for '58, Buick had a much-improved Triple-Turbine DynaFlow, at a cost of about $3M, which would sell for about $50.00 as an option over the normal DynaFlow. People bought more "chrome" than that better transmission. After three years, that transmision vanished. As some upgrades to the normal DynaFlow were made at NO cost, or hidden in the yearly price increases from the customer. As "clumsy" as they might have been, the '58 Buicks did have some good styling in them, by observation. BTAIM
In order to better understand the car industry, you HAVE to look at things with respect to how things were in the nation when they were desisgned AND then came to market. Car styling and such usually somewhat reflect the state of the nation. Plus being positioned against economic outlooks, too. Admittedly, the '69-'73 C-bodies might have hit at the wrong time, but they still presented an "upgrade" for many buyers, from the past, whatever "past" it might have been, while also transitioning into the middle '70s.
Even great designs can fall upon poor economic times, considering that the cars were on the drawing board 4 years before they might appear. Lots can change in that short time!!!
They're all GOOD!
CBODY67
You also have to understand that NO "answer" to another competitor could happen immediately, especially out of the normally scheduled platform refreshes/upgrades! Which is why the '59 GM cars were "answers" to the '57 Chrysler products. Rushed into production by GM, based on styling more than engineering.
Back to the B-58 Buick . . . for '58, Buick had a much-improved Triple-Turbine DynaFlow, at a cost of about $3M, which would sell for about $50.00 as an option over the normal DynaFlow. People bought more "chrome" than that better transmission. After three years, that transmision vanished. As some upgrades to the normal DynaFlow were made at NO cost, or hidden in the yearly price increases from the customer. As "clumsy" as they might have been, the '58 Buicks did have some good styling in them, by observation. BTAIM
In order to better understand the car industry, you HAVE to look at things with respect to how things were in the nation when they were desisgned AND then came to market. Car styling and such usually somewhat reflect the state of the nation. Plus being positioned against economic outlooks, too. Admittedly, the '69-'73 C-bodies might have hit at the wrong time, but they still presented an "upgrade" for many buyers, from the past, whatever "past" it might have been, while also transitioning into the middle '70s.
Even great designs can fall upon poor economic times, considering that the cars were on the drawing board 4 years before they might appear. Lots can change in that short time!!!
They're all GOOD!
CBODY67
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
This one is for you, Gary.
rapidtrans
Senior Member
As James Dalton said, “Opinions very”. And yours is only one. And a very minor one at that.
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
Thanks Stan
70_NPORT
Well-Known Member
As is yours, I'm sure you already know.
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