I actually thought about posting a pic of that car, chose the Terry/King Cobra instead. Didnt want to swamp the thread with can-am cars, so I picked one.
A couple of my Favorite's, the big Round Door Rolls Royce from the Petersen Museum and my 1941 Ford Coupe!
I just can't get enough of the swoopy cars the fluid movement of the body work is just plain cool. Thanks for posting pics of these great cars and keep them coming Here is one it might not qualify as as gracefull desin. Bob Sorrell built
I started this thread, but I did a piss poor job of moderating it. I think a lot of you who responded got the swoopy part exactly right, but relatively few caught the swoopy/athletic combination. Permit me to get back in, and I'll make some comments to what has been posted. Ah. Too bad your pictures didn't show up in this quote, Algon. You showed a couple of shots of a hot rod Healey, and I think that's a great choice. They offend hot rodders and sporty car guys alike, but I think they end up with a great combination of graceful lines and implicit power -- which, of course, they have. Here's a nice one: The A6GCS Maserati (your 10th picture -- I think I got the model right) is right up there with the Ferrari TR as a wonderfully swoopy/agile sports racing car, too. Deuces, I think that Camaros have these qualities in spades, and I would love to do a Camaro some day. I like '67-69 Barracuda fastbacks, too, but they are definitely not the subject of this board. Oh, yeah. The Figoni Falaschi Talbot is certainly one of the great swoopy cars of all time, and they are actually quite agile, too. I saw Phil Hill drive one at Monterey years ago, and he was haulin'! I wonder what one would have looked like with un-skirted rear wheels and a little longer wheelbase? Maybe a little more tire at the rear? No question, Mr. Timbs got the swoopy thing down cold with his special. Doesn't much qualify as agile looking, though, in my opinion. I'm with you there. By coincidence, I worked as a gofer for Frank Costin briefly in 1961. He had almost no sense for aesthetics; he was what you might call a "pure engineer", but many of his cars turned out quite beautifully almost by accident. He was a genius, though, absolutely! I thought about Can-Am cars when I made my original selections, but forgot about them before I finished. I particularly liked this version of the McLaren and the Lola T70: I agree with this one, too. Got to see it run at Marlboro in 1958, and thought it was gorgeous. Gonna go eat dinner now. I'll be back with more later.
Tony, can I play? '54 Kurtis KK500..... '66 GT40 MKI..... Ferrari 330 P4..... '58 Sadler.... Lola T70 MK3B..... Jaguar XJ13.....
Ferrai 400..... Bizzarrini P538 Barchetta..... Porsche 962..... Ferrari 250TR..... Shelby Daytona coupe..... Scarab MKI..... Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder.....(not "swoopy" just one of my favs.) (top down.)
Welcome aboard, Rick! You have great taste and a huge photographic library, so I'm delighted to see whatcha got. All of what you've shown are sports racing cars (except the California), which I love too, but can you think of any more HAMBish cars that have these qualities?
To resume my commentary/pontification about the comments added to the thread, starting with page 2: Again, too bad the pictures didn't show up in the quote, but I second your inclusion of the Lotus Elite and the original E-Type coupe. Zephyrs, swoopy but hardly agile. Arrrgggh -- no picture. But the TDF Ferrari, clearly the inspiration for the Scaglietti Corvette, is a great choice. In my opinion swoop is pretty scarce among the mechanical-looking cars of the early '30s, but Alfa and Bugatti were the most likely to have it. I already acknowledged both of these -- I agree with you, of course. Yes! Some of the prettiest front ends EVER. The Alfa 8C2800B could be the poster child for swoopy/agile. Not only were they incredibly beautiful, they were the fastest road cars of their day. They were, after all, GP cars with road bodies on them. A long time favorite of mine. I actually went looking for the original car in the late '60s with an eye to buying and restoring it; I was crushed to learn that it was destroyed in a trailering accident. Kudos to Terry Baldwin for re-building the car. Well, sure. Streamliners actually are what swoopy is trying to be. I like Mitchell's designs a lot, but I'm not sure I know this car. Can anybody post a picture? Well, sure, again. This was certainly the inspiration for the Ralph Schenck car. I love this thing. Ya know, Ford V8's have some of the qualities I'm talking about, right out of the box -- and '39-40 coupes probably are at the top of the list. Unfortunately, we all know that in terms of handling/cornering, they aren't very agile in stock form. Amazingly, I once worked with a guy who bought that car off a used car lot in Denver. And he was NOT a car guy! Yeah, nice. Enough for now.
Ahhh Tony, you're gonna make me dig deep huh? Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound...... Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic Coupe.... Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona..... Lamborghini Muira S...... How about a Muntz Jet..... Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta...... THIS is the car I would trade my wife and 1st. born male child for..... Ferrari 250 GT Lusso (Steve McQueen brown, of course.)
Can't say how "agile" this is, but it'll kick ass on the Autobahn...... Mercedes Benz 540K Autobahn Kurier...... DeTomaso Pantera GTS..... BMW 328MM Touring Coupe..... ATS 2500 GT..... Toyota 2000 GT..... Bugatti Type 57C Aravis Cabriolet..... Ferrari 250 GTO.....
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The Jalopy Journal
