Tag Archives: 1950’s

Italian Cars: “1952 Siata Daina Farina Cabriolet”

1952 Siata Daina Farina Cabriolet Classic DriverThe Siata Daina is an Italian car produced by Siata from 1950-1958. The Daina was available as a coupé or a convertible and had custom bodies by Stabilimenti Farina, Bertone and other coach builders.

From 1950 to 1958 there were approximately 50 Daina Series cars produced. However, only a few of the Series were produced after 1953. About 20 Daina Sport (coupes) are thought to have been built, only six are known to exist today. A cabriolet version called the Gran Sport comprised most of the Daina Series cars. The Gran Sport had a steel body with an aluminum hood designed by Stabilimenti Farina (3 all aluminum bodied Gran Sports 1952 Siata Daina Farina Cabriolet trunk Classic Driverwere made as well) but when they closed in 1953, Bertone took over production with a coupe model of their own design called the “Sport”.

The most well known Dainas were the Gran Sport (convertible) versions used in racing, with many calling it the “little Ferrari”. The car was built to take part in the International Grand Prix and the Mille Miglia. The Daina’s most notable finish was at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1952 when Dick Irish and Bob Fergus piloted a 1,500 cc Daina Gran Sport to first in class and third overall.

Read more at Wikipedia

Rare Classic Cars: “1953 Fiat 8V Supersonic” By Ghia

1953 Fiat 8V Supersonic by Ghia Interior RM Sotheby'sThe Fiat 8V (or “Otto Vu”) is a V8-engined sports car produced by the Italian car manufacturer Fiat from 1952 to 1954. The car was introduced at the 1952 Geneva Motor Show. The Fiat 8V got its name because at the time of its making, Fiat believed Ford had a copyright on “V8”. With 114 made, the 8V wasn’t a commercial success, but did well in racing. Apart from the differential the car did not share any parts with the other Fiats (but many parts were made by Siata and they used them for their cars). The 8V was developed by Dante Giacosa and the stylist Luigi Rapi. The engine was a V8 originally designed for a luxury sedan, but that project was stopped.

Ghia Supersonic

Ghia designed and produced a limited run of cars named ‘Supersonic’, with special ‘jet age’ bodywork. Ghia had recently been sold by Boano to Luigi Segre, and a one-off Alfa Romeo 1900 had been built for a wealthy entrant in the 1953 Mille Miglia race. The car was displayed at the Turin show same year and the reaction inspired Segre to plan a limited production of cars based on the Otto Vu, aimed at the American market. Only eight were completed, after mechanical issues ended the project. Several of the cars were purchased by Americans; some were heavily customized and received engine transplants. An original un-restored car sold at a Scottsdale, Arizona Gooding and Company auction in January 2011 with a gavel price of US$1.55 million ($1.7M including buyer’s premium). Ghia would later use its basic body shape on Jaguar XK-120–based vehicles as well as Aston Martin. Design of ‘Supersonic’ is credited to Giovanni Savonuzzi.

From Wikipedia

Performing Arts: “The Letters Of Cole Porter” (New Yorker Review)

From a New Yorker online article review:

The Letters Of Cole Porter Yale University Press November 2019Beneath his smooth, genial, almost inhumanly productive and evasive surface, there were turbulent waters. His very name, for all its air of Ivy League ease, represents a burdened legacy. The Porters were his difficult, scapegrace father’s family; the Coles were his mother’s rich and ambitious Indiana family. He was a Porter by birth but, if his mother had anything to do with it, would be a Cole for life.

Certainly, Porter’s ghost could not ask for better care than he has been given in “The Letters of Cole Porter” (Yale), edited by Cliff Eisen, a professor of music history at King’s College London, and Dominic McHugh, a musicologist at the University of Sheffield (and the editor of Alan Jay Lerner’s letters). Laid out with a meticulous scholarly apparatus, as though this were the correspondence of Grover Cleveland, every turn in the songwriter’s story is deep-dived for exact chronology, and every name casually dropped by Porter gets a worried, explicatory footnote.

Read New Yorker Article

Classic American Cars: “1957 Ford Thunderbird”

1957 Ford Thunderbird Interior Classic DriverFord Thunderbird (colloquially called the T-Bird) is a nameplate that was used by Ford from model years 1955 to 1997 and 2002 to 2005 over eleven model generations. Introduced as a two-seat convertible, the Thunderbird was produced in a number of body configurations through its production life, including four-seat hardtop coupe, four-seat convertible, five-seat convertible and hardtop, four-door pillared hardtop sedan, six-passenger hardtop coupe, and five passenger pillared coupe, with the final generation produced as a two-seat convertible.

The Ford Thunderbird began life in February 1953 in direct response to Chevrolet’s new sports car, the Corvette, which was publicly unveiled in prototype form just a month before. Under rapid development, the Thunderbird went from idea to prototype in about a year, being unveiled to the public at the Detroit Auto Show on February 20, 1954. It was a two-seat design available with a detachable glass-fibre hard top and a folding fabric top.

Classic Driver logoThe Thunderbird was revised for 1957 with a reshaped front bumper, a larger grille and tailfins, and larger tail lamps. The instrument panel was heavily re-styled with round gauges in a single pod, and the rear of the car was lengthened, allowing the spare tire to be positioned back in the trunk. The 312 cu in (5.1 L) V8 became the Thunderbird’s standard engine, and now produced 245 horsepower (183 kW). Other, even more powerful versions of the 312 cu in (5.1 L) V8 were available including one with two four-barrel Holley carburetors and another with a Paxton supercharger delivering 300 horsepower (220 kW). Though Ford was pleased to see sales of the Thunderbird rise to a record-breaking 21,380 units for 1957, company executives felt the car could do even better, leading to a substantial redesign of the car for 1958.

From Wikipedia

Vintage: “1955 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible” (Classic Driver)

From Wikipedia:

1955 Cadillac Eldorado Interior Classic DriverThe Cadillac Eldorado is a premium luxury car that was manufactured and marketed by Cadillac from 1952 to 2002 over twelve generations. Competitors and similar vehicles included the Continental Mark series, Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado and Chrysler’s Imperial Coupe.

The Eldorado was at or near the top of the Cadillac line. The original 1953 Eldorado convertible and the Eldorado Brougham models of 1957–1960 had distinct bodyshells and were the most expensive models that Cadillac offered those years. The Eldorado was never less than second in price after the Cadillac Series 75 limousine until 1966. From 1967 on, the Eldorado was built in high volumes on a unique two door personal luxury car platform.

Classic Driver logoFor 1955, the Eldorado’s body gained its own rear end styling with high, slender, pointed tailfins. These contrasted with the rather thick, bulbous fins which were common at the time and were an example of the Eldorado once again pointing the way forward. The Eldorado sport convertible featured extras such as wide chrome body belt moldings and twin round taillights halfway up the fenders. Sales nearly doubled to 3,950.

Website

 

Lyrical Essays: “Return To Tipasa” By Albert Camus (Poetry Channel Podcast)

Albert Camus’ lyrical essay… where he found In the midst of winter, there was, within himself, an invincible summer.

Excerpt from “Return To Tipasa” by Alber Camus

Albert Camus Lyrical and Critical Essays Return To Tipasa bookYou have navigated with raging soul far from the paternal home, passing beyond the sea’s double rocks, and you now inhabit a foreign land.

–Medea

For five days rain had been falling ceaselessly on Algiers and had finally wet the sea itself. From an apparently inexhaustible sky, constant downpours, viscous in their density, streamed down upon the gulf. Gray and soft as a huge sponge, the sea rose slowly in the ill-defined bay. But the surface of the water seemed almost motionless under the steady rain. Only now and then a barely perceptible swelling motion would raise above the sea’s surface a vague puff of smoke that would come to dock in the harbor, under an arc of wet boulevards. The city itself, all its white walls dripping, gave off a different steam that went out to meet the first steam. Whichever way you turned, you seemed to be breathing water, to be drinking the air.

1950’s English Sports Cars: “1956 Austin-Healey BN2”

From Wikipedia:

1956 Austin-Healey BN 2 100 BN2 Le Mans ‘ M’ Interior Classic DriverThe Austin-Healey 100 is a sports car that was built by Austin-Healey from 1953 until 1956.

Based on Austin A90 Atlantic mechanicals, it was developed by Donald Healey to be produced in-house by his small Healey car company in Warwick. 

Healey built a single Healey Hundred for the 1952 London Motor Show, and the design impressed Leonard Lord, managing director of Austin, who was looking for a replacement for the unsuccessful A90. Body styling was by Gerry Coker, the chassis was designed by Barry Bilbie with longitudinal members and cross bracing producing a comparatively stiff structure upon which to mount the body, innovatively welding the front bulkhead to the frame for additional strength. In order to keep the overall vehicle height low the rear axle was underslung, the chassis frame passing under the rear axle assembly.

Classic Driver logoLord struck a deal with Healey to build it in quantity; bodies made by Jensen Motors were given Austin mechanical components at Austin’s Longbridge factory. The car was renamed the Austin-Healey 100.

The “100” was named by Healey for the car’s ability to reach 100 mph (160 km/h); its successor, the better known Austin-Healey 3000, was named for the 3000 cc displacement of its engine.

Apart from the first twenty cars, production Austin-Healey 100s were finished at Austin’s Longbridge plant alongside the A90 and based on fully trimmed and painted body/chassis units produced by Jensen in West Bromwich—in an arrangement the two companies previously had explored with the Austin A40 Sports. 14,634 Austin-Healey 100s were produced.

The 100 was the first of three models later called the Big Healeys to distinguish them from the much smaller Austin-Healey Sprite. The Big Healeys are often referred to by their three-character model designators rather than by their models, as the model names do not reflect the mechanical differences and similarities well.

View more photos at Classic Driver

Classic Cars: 1954 Ford Crestline “Skyliner” Featured A Glass Roof

From a Classic Driver online listing:

1954 Ford Crestline Skyliner Classic DriverIn 1954, Ford added a new niche model to the top-of-the-line Crestline series : the Skyliner. The car had a glass roof section over the front seats, made of blue-green tinted acrylic and letting a diffused yet filtered light through. Ford claimed that 60% of the sunrays were filtered out.

The Skyliner offered a very light interior, with a soft green glow : the perfect car for the drive-in cinema, and a a great view of the future’s past, developed in an era obsessed with Jet Age design features. The Skyliner was only in production for one year, and in total 13.144 examples were sold.

Read and view more

American Cars: “1959 Plymouth Sport Fury Coupe” (Classic Driver)

From Wikipedia:

1959 Plymouth Sport Fury Coupe Rear View Classic DriverIn 1959, Plymouth introduced the Sport Fury as its top model, and the Fury as its second from the top model to replace the Plymouth Belvedere at the top of the Plymouth line-up. The Fury range was now available as a four-door sedan and station wagon, as well as a two-door hardtop and sedan. The Sport Fury series had only a two-door hardtop and convertible. The Sport Fury was dropped at the end of 1959, but was reintroduced in mid-1962 and discontinued in 1971.

Classic Driver logoThe Plymouth Fury is a model of automobile which was produced by Plymouth from 1955 to 1989. It was introduced for the 1956 model year as a sub-series of the Plymouth Belvedere, becoming a separate series one level above the contemporary Belvedere for 1959. The Fury was a full-size car from 1959 to 1961, then a mid-size car from 1962 to 1964, again a full-size car from 1965 to 1974, and again a mid-size car from 1975 to 1978. From 1975 to 1977 the Fury was sold alongside the full-size Plymouth Gran Fury.

More photos from Classic Driver

 

Top Graphic Designers: 88-Year Old Seymour Chwast “The First Postmodernist”

Excerpts from The Revolutionary Seymour, By Steven Heller:

Seymour The Obsessive Images of Seymour ChwastSeymour’s art was postmodern long before the term was coined. Yet it was resolutely modern in its rejection of the nostalgic and romantic representation, as in the acolytes of Norman Rockwell, that had been popular in mainstream advertising magazines at the time. Instead of prosaic or melodramatic tableau, Seymour emphasized clever concept. What makes the very best of his art so arresting, and so identifiable, is the tenacity of his ideas—simple, complex, rational, and even absurd ideas.

Illustrator Seymour Chwast Archives

The illustrations for magazines, posters, advertisements, book jackets, record covers, product packages, and children’s books that he created after founding Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel in 1954 directly influenced two generations (statistical fact) and indirectly inspired another two (educated conjecture) of international illustrators and designers to explore an eclectic range of stylistic an conceptual methods.

To read more: http://seymourchwastarchive.com/about/seymour/