O.K. some on needs to do some photoshop side trim etc on it and send the pic back to the manufacturer......
Tman, I didn't say it was OVERFLOWING with class, I said it HAD class, granted, it isn't a Stutz Bearcat, but ANY Rambler of any year beats any econobox/ SUV in the class dept. any day, as far as I'm concerned.
What a rip-off, Right down to the kick down on the roof behind the rear door. Do you think the new one will last 50 years?
What's old is new again...auto designers have been ripping off old styling ques for years...think there's really anything new under the sun? Nope, won't last 10! R-
[ QUOTE ] Good analogy. You still suck for nat making KCSP [/ QUOTE ] you don't know how bad i suck.... i'm skipping KCSP to see Jerry Sienfeld... yeah i do suck, deal with it.
Did they copy the let down seats. I had a 59 rambler in 64 and all my friends wanted to swap cars on friday and sat nights. most fathers would not let their daughters go out with some one who had one of those ramblers.
Yep, They copied the front end too. It's got a turn signal on each fender and two headlights, one on each side of the grill.... But does it have the extruded BILLIT ALUMINUM window frames with the double weather strips and does it come in two tone pink and white? Wait a minute, the Rambler doesn't have that back door handle in the "C" pillar.. Nope, doesn't look any more like it than it does an old SAAB. I see some 70s Trans Am racing style fender flares on there too. Boy they just copied and copied, bet they even put a gasoline burning engine in it too just like Henry Ford did in the Model T.... It looks like a car, it's got a front end and a back end and a windshield and four doors and it's a stationwagon looking thing... Mercedes stole those fins off that Rambler back in 1959... So it's not the first time something looked similar. Does a split Pontiac grill look like the trademark BMW grill? Does the "Orca" Chevy Caprice Classic of ate look like a '50s Nash?
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Good analogy. You still suck for nat making KCSP [/ QUOTE ] you don't know how bad i suck.... i'm skipping KCSP to see Jerry Sienfeld... yeah i do suck, deal with it. [/ QUOTE ] I saw him last Friday, and he rocked!
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Good analogy. You still suck for nat making KCSP [/ QUOTE ] you don't know how bad i suck.... i'm skipping KCSP to see Jerry Sienfeld... yeah i do suck, deal with it. [/ QUOTE ] And here I used to respect you. Sienfeld's not even funny. damn dude yer lame.
I think Im with DrJ on this. The history of cardesign is a long row of back and forth theft of ideas and design cues. However I see a pretty bad detail on that SUV. Its a fourdoor, but look at the doorhandles. The one in front is chromed and very "doorhandle" looking, but the one in the back is painted and hidden, sorta, to make it look a little more two-door-ish. Now that idea doesnt have to be dumb. The first (and only other?) production car that has this is Alfa Romeo 156. On the Alfa it works fine (see pic) and looks a little tongue-in-cheek. On the SUV it just looks like two different types of handles. The design is way to crude to make it look any good.
[ QUOTE ] ... The history of cardesign is a long row of back and forth theft of ideas and design cues... [/ QUOTE ] Yep, and the "nostalgia" designs actually got big back in the late 60s and 70's. Which ironically, is when the whole "nostalgia" thing we are still experiencing got really going. The most blatant thing was American Grafitti which was "nostalgia" for the good ole days, of what, ten years previous? As far as car design goes, except for Cadillac, most (American) car design had moved completely away from the Hood-Radiator(shell)-Fenders look during the 50's. Ford was first in '49 actually, while the great '49 Merc was still stuck in the 40s with it's hood and fender bulges. I think the '58 Edsel was the last mass produced Ford product to have a "radiator shell" look to the front end that significantly bulged up into the hood. (The MarkII Lincolns still had it) Buick retained a "lump" of a hood all the way up to the '59 model, and Chevy got rid of the "lump" in '59 also. Through the 60's most cars had flat hoods with corner to corner grills, not showing any of the "buggy spring" styling of old. Then cars like the second generation Pontiac Grand Prix put a "radiator shell" and a "hood line" back on the car. ('65 Pontiacs returned to the raised hood lines, but not the central "radiator".) and Olds Toronado which was very modern looking pulled a retro look by putting a Cord-like Coffin nose on their cars. So today we have PT Cruisers that blatantly look like a '46 Dodge sedan with a '34 Plymouth grill, and Prowlers, and VW copying VW. and the Mazda Miata copying the Lotus. I just wish they would copy the '57 Desoto, one of the prettiest cars ever made. In order for that Nissan to look like the Rambler, to me, it would have to be longer in the 1/4 panel so the 1/4 glass looked lower and the window frames would have to be that shiny separate part, which by the way was Rambler copying Bill Mitchell's original design '38 Cadillac Fleetwood "convertible look" window frame in the first place. Like Sailor said, they all copied each other's current and past styling ideas. In the past they usually only copied there own "styling theme" like the Packard and BMW radiator grill shells going on for ever, even after the "hood" line went away. I think this part of what Warpigg is suggesting is happening a lot today today. The current stylists are borrowing (stealing?) older lines from cars that are not from their own brand. The designers don't know, or care, to stick to the history of the brand they are working on. They just don't have any gasoline in their veins I guess. Remember the '59 Pontiac had the first Pontiac split grill then in '60 they got rid of it again, only to return to it in '61 fairly permanently? Then a year later Ford put a chrome version of the '59 Pontiac grill on the Edsel? Accident, or spy work? The Studebaker was one of the first to dump the "radiator shell" in '53, only to bring back a Mercedes-like shell on their Hawk models a few years later. Remember how almost all the companies extended the "skirt" of the front fenders down behind the front wheel in '33? Packard did it in '32, no doubt they copied from some European coach built designs. It's nothing new, Pablo Picasso copied from the Africans, and Miro copied from 3 year olds. That thing's got running boards on it too... Did they copy them off a '40 Ford? I like that square sailed full rigged "Pigship"!!!!!! It's cool!
This stuff is pretty interesting. The way I see it there is a difference between just being late as Doc mention with the 49 Merc (I could add a lot of british designs from the sixties), and looking back on history to find inspiration to create something all new, -like the Toronado. Bill Mitchell considered the "Great Gatsby-era" the greatest in american carhistory and picked up all sorts of hints and cues from Cord, Auburn etc. I think it really started with the 65 Cadillacs. Thats the first with hints of Cords "coffinnose". On the 67 Eldorado he went all the way. That design even went through a few V16-stages before they settled for V8 and fwd. I think the fwd-idea was developed for Cadillac first, then put to use in he Toronado in 66 and then in the Eldo. I dont know if the whole fwd-thing was part of this fascination for Cord, but the final design for both the Toronado and the Eldo includes lots of little Cordclues, like the Toronados hidden headlights and the Eldos special wheeldesign. Neither of the designs can be said to be "thirties" or oldfashioned in any way, though. They were both very modern, and at least to my eye, at his finest (like in these two designs and the 63-65 Riviera) Bill Mitchell managed to create designs that equal the best of the thirties. At least if one take into consideration that these were all mass-produced cars. To me this seems to be the first wave of "neo-classism" in car design. Before this it was all about looking as modern as possible. But like all such "isms" in architecture, it developed into parody in the end. Early to mid seventies; laundaubars, operawindows, fake radiators... (The ultimate example got to be Stutz Blackhawk). Just thinking out loud again..
Key word is "did"... the "class" spoken of must have rusted away too! "Sorta" having class is like being "sorta" pregnant or "sorta" gay...SUV's and Ramblers are undeniably GAY! Maybe with this retro movement they can make a total failure come back...the Edsel! I can see a rambler and edsel SUV hang'n with PT losers and HHR's! Cannot wait!
Not exactly. Hudson beat everyone to the punch when the '48 Stepdown cars were released for sale in September 1947. While the Shoebox Fords are a neat car, it took Ford until then to get out of the transverse buggy spring suspension, and to have any style at all. And the Merc is a good copy of the Hudson body design - notice people have to chop Mercs to get them to look as good as Hudsons do stock!
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