General Motors' Companion Cars (3): Buick and Marquette

This is the third in a series of posts dealing with General Motors' companion brands launched during the late 1920s.  The first post can be found here, the second here.

As I stated in the previous posts, a major factor in the rise of General Motors during the 1920s was Alfred P. Sloan's establishment of a price-prestige hierarchy for GM's various brands.  Over the 50 years from 1941 to 1991, when the Saturn brand appeared, the hierarchy from low to high was Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  But during the late 1920s so-called "companion" brands were introduced to fill what seemed to be price gaps in GM's line.  In 1930 the hierarchy was approximately (there was price overlapping in a number of cases): Chevrolet, Pontiac, Marquette, Oldsmobile, Oakland, Viking, Buick, LaSalle, and Cadillac.

Buick's companion, the Marquette, had far greater sales success than Oldsmobile's Viking dealt with in the second part of this series. That was in spite of the fact that Marquettes were marketed only in the 1930 model year whereas Vikings were offered for both 1929 and 1930. Around 7,200 Vikings were sold compared to nearly 42,000 Marquettes.

Unlike the Pontiac and Viking companion cars dealt with in the first two posts, styling detail differences from the host brand were more distinctive on Marquettes for reasons discussed below.

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Buicks featured distinctive brand-identifying upper grille framing and related hood sculpting, as can be seen in this "for sale" photo of a 1930 coupe.  Marquette, being a separate brand, was given different treatments in those areas.

The two images above are photos I took of a 1930 Marquette at the National Automobile Museum in Reno in January 2015.  Note the non-sculpted upper hood surfaces and grille frame shaping.  An even more distinctive difference from Buick is the 45-degree angling of the narrow grille bars -- Buicks had thicker, vertical bars.  A lesser difference is in the headlight mountings.  However, Buicks and Marquettes had nearly identical starter crank covers (at the bottom of the grilles).

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Bugatti Type 101: The Last Gasp

The final Bugatti version created by the original company was the Type 101.  The link lists eight 101s built, but I consider only six of those legitimate.  Of the others, one was a 1935 car converted by the factory.  Another, based on an altered 101 chassis, was a 1965 design by Virgil Exner, former Chrysler styling vice president.  The remaining six cars appeared 1951-1954, the time I consider Bugatti's last gasp as a car builder.

Founder and patron Ettore (Hector) died 21 August 1947 and his son Jean, who styled many important Bugattis, died while testing a Bugatti racing car 11 August 1939.  They were the key players during the company's heyday.  Jean's younger brother Roland attempted to keep the brand going, and the Type 101 was developed under his guidance.

Below are images of five Type 101 Bugattis.  Included are some photos I took at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles when it featured a large display of Bugattis from the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard.

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Publicity material from 1951 or '52.  These seem to be Gangloff designs, neither of which was built.

1952 Gangloff cabriolet that is now displayed at the Schlumpf Collection in France.

1951 Gangloff coupé , also at the Schlumpf Collection.

Yet another Schlumpf Bugatti Type 101, the only four-door version.  Body by Guilloré.  Rear is seen in the mirror.

Coupé by Jean Antem (1954).

Here is the 1952 Bugatti Type 101C cabriolet by Gangloff that I photographed.  It is essentially the same as the car in the Schlumpf Collection.

Side view.

And the rear.

Stylists had a difficult time when asked to create new designs incorporating both traditional brand visual cues and the integrated, "envelope" type bodies expected post- World War 2.  The most important and most difficult item to deal with was the design of a traditional grille.  At one extreme was Rolls-Royce, where traditional grilles were grafted onto more contemporary bodies with little change other than shortening.  Then there was Delahaye, which finally was distorting its traditional grilles almost beyond recognition by the early 1950s.  Packard's 1951 redesign retained key traditional elements while adding fashionable thick, sculpted chromework and reorienting grille profiles from vertical to horizontal.

The Bugatti designs shown above retained the tradition horseshoe grille shape.  The envelope bodies by Gangloff were simple designs where the usual bulky appearance of many slab-sided postwar cars was mitigated by being less tall than the afflicted cars.  If the unbuilt designs in the first image had materialized, they probably would have appeared dignified, but slightly old-fashioned thanks to the vertical grille and the narrow placement of the headlights.  Perhaps worse, such Bugattis would have lacked the flair of 1930s designs by Jean.

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General Motors' Companion Cars (2): Oldsmobile and Viking

This is the second in a series of posts dealing with General Motors' companion brands launched during the late 1920s.  The first post can be found here.

As I stated in the introductory post, a major factor in the rise of General Motors during the 1920s was Alfred P. Sloan's establishment of a price-prestige hierarchy for GM's various brands.  Over the 50 years from 1941 to 1991, when the Saturn brand appeared, the hierarchy from low to high was Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  But during the late 1920s so-called "companion" brands were introduced to fill what seemed to be price gaps in GM's line.  In 1930 the hierarchy was approximately (there was price overlapping in a number of cases): Chevrolet, Pontiac, Marquette, Oldsmobile, Oakland, Viking, Buick, LaSalle, and Cadillac.

The least-successful companion brand in terms of sales was Oldsmobile's Viking.  As noted in the Viking link, it was the only companion make priced higher than its established companion line.  Vikings were built for model years 1929 and 1930, but a few leftover 1930 cars were marketed as 1931 models.  The Wikipedia link has total Viking production as 7224 units.

Below are comparisons of 1929 and 1930 Oldsmobiles and Vikings.

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The top photo is a "for sale" image of a '29 Olds, the lower is of a Viking for that year.  Oldsmobiles all had six cylinder motors, whereas Vikings had V-8 engines and longer hoods that would have been necessary were the motors straight-eights instead.  Perhaps the greater length was to indicate Viking's higher price (and, GM hoped, prestige) than mere Oldsmobiles.  Other differences were in the headlight mountings (for some models), crank cap (below the grille), and tops of the grille frames -- Viking's badge is set off more distinctly than Oldsmobile's.

The situation was essentially the same for 1930.

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Dodge's Final Tail Fins

When tail fins first became an American styling fad around 1956-1957, one justification for having them was that they could easily be restyled to maintain a design's freshness from year to year.

Chrysler Corporation's styling boss Virgil Exner was the leader of the tail fin charge, first with tacked-on fins for 1956 models.  His redesigned 1957 line looked sensational and sold well.  From then into the early 1960s tail fins on Chrysler Corporation cars were restyled almost yearly.  In general, those new fin designs were not as good as the 1957 set, and sales faltered.

Exner suffered a massive heart attack in 1956 and his return to work was slow.  During his recovery, other stylists did most of the facelifting and fin restyling.  Exner remained partial to fins, and was disappointed when management ordered their deletion on some models.  In the early 1960s he was eased out of his job.

To illustrate some fin variations late in their heyday, this post deals with full-size Dodge cars for model years 1960-1962.

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1960 Dodge Dart Phoenix showing the brand's tail fin design five years into that styling fashion.  Photo from Barrett-Jackson auctioneers.

Dodge's 1961 facelift included a new front end as well as revised tail fins. as seen on this Dodge Dart Phoenix.  The new fins were something of an "old-switcheroo" where their profile was flipped front-rear.  The effect was that the fins became less fin-like, being shorter at the rear.  Possibly this was intended as a transition strategy to finless 1962 Dodge Darts.

Here is how those fins looked on a sedan, this a 1961 Dodge Dart Seneca 4-door model.  The more massive, less-graceful sedan greenhouse compared to the hardtop's in the previous photo makes the tail fins seem stubby, not really related to the rest of the design.

Rear view via Barrett-Jackson of a '61 Dodge Dart Phoenix Convertible.  This shows the touch of sculpting tying the aft end of the fin to the side trim.

A 1962 Dodge Dart four-door hardtop sedan.  These redesigned cars were smaller than the 1961 models and tail fins were shorn from the styling package.

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General Motors' Companion Cars (1): Oakland and Pontiac

A major factor in the rise of General Motors during the 1920s was Alfred P. Sloan's establishment of a price-prestige hierarchy for GM's various brands.  Over the 50 years from 1941 to 1991, when the Saturn brand appeared, the hierarchy from low to high was Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  But during the late 1920s so-called "companion" brands were introduced to fill what seemed to be price gaps in GM's line.  In 1930 the hierarchy was approximately (there was price overlapping in a number of cases): Chevrolet, Pontiac, Marquette, Oldsmobile, Oakland, Viking, Buick, LaSalle, and Cadillac.

The first, and most successful, companion brand was Pontiac, introduced in 1926 as the companion to the sagging Oakland brand.  Pontiacs, being considerably lower priced than Oaklands, quickly out-sold the established brand that was phased out in 1932.  Pontiacs continued into the 2010 model year.

This short series of posts dealing with GM's companion brands focuses on styling differences between the established brand and the newcomer -- especially differences in the design of the grille, the chief recognition feature for most brands.

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We begin with the 1926 model year, Pontiac's first.  The first image, from a car sales site, shows a '26 Oakland, and the lower photo is a Barrett Jackson image of a Pontiac for that year.  The main grille differences are at the top, where the Oakland has a narrower chromed frame and a bulge holding the brand's crest.  The Pontiac's frame is wide at the top with some sculpting by its badge.  Radiator mascots differ, Pontiac featuring the head of Chief Pontiac, a feature it will retain through 1954.

Now it's 1929.  Both brands feature divided grilles.  The Oakland in the upper "for sale" photo has slightly more rounded curvatures at the top where the frame blends with the central chromed vertical divider.  The car also has a different hood louvre pattern than the Pontiac's shown in the lower photo.  Beltline trim and mascots also differ.  Nevertheless, as in 1926, differences are pretty minor.

Oakland's final model year was 1931, when the Great Depression was further driving sales downward. Comparing the Oakland in the upper, Mecum auction, image to the Pontiac in the "for sale" picture below, we find the main brand-identification difference aside from mascots is in the badges at the top-center of the grille frame.  So the Oakland phase-out is almost complete.

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Triumph Dolomites Wearing a Hudson Fencer's Mask

A flash styling fad in America that lasted roughly 1935-1937 was the "fencer's mask" grille that I discussed here.  Such grilles had bowed out, convex shapes that suggested fencing equipment to enough observers that the term can still be seen.

Most such grille designs were fairly sensible and modestly attractive, as you can see if you scroll through the above link.  The strangest design was found on the completely restyled 1936 Hudsons.  Descriptive terms that come to my mind include: fussy, complicated, mannered, awkward and outrageous.   Hudson management, perhaps influenced by feedback from potential buyers, saw to it that the design was toned down for 1937 and replaced in 1938.

Not everyone got the message.  A grille design almost surely inspired by Hudson's appeared about a year later on 1937 Triumph Dolomite 14/60 automobiles.  This Wikipedia entry states that this new Triumph line's design "was overseen by Donald Healey and featured a striking new design of radiator grille by Walter Belgrove."  Belgrove surely was aware of 1936 Hudson styling because Hudson was a well-known and respected American brand in England in those days.

This is documented in the images below.  While the Dolomite grille is not identical to Hudson's, the Hudson theme is clearly used.

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A photo I took of a 1936 Hudson featuring the grille.

The grille on a 1939 Triumph Dolomite 14/60 Drophead Coupé, auction photo.  Hudson similarities include the wedged waterfall central element and flanking areas with a contrasting pattern.

Another view of the same car, providing more context to the grille.

Lacking crossbars and other non-ventilating parts on the waterfall element of the 1939 grille (that first appeared for 1938) is the grille on this 1937 Dolomite 1 1/2-Litre Saloon (Bonhams photo).

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1956 Pontiac Club de Mer Concept

Golden Ages seem pretty common.  That is, there are plenty of them  -- golden age of illustration, of comic books, of etc.  So I might as well add one more to the pile: Golden Age of General Motors Dream Cars.

I place that about 1954-56 when a good many interesting designs appeared in GM's Motorama traveling shows.  Today's subject is the Pontiac Club de Mer that appeared in the 1956 Motorama (Wikipedia entry here).  The car itself has little if anything nautical about it, but GM publicists took care to show it in seashore environments for non-studio photos (note the photo above and two of the photos below).

The Club de Mer's styling is actually a kind of blending of aircraft and racing car themes in the form of impractical details.  Examples include a small tail fin mounted atop where a trunk lid would be (there was none), and dual streamlined windshields that would probably stream wind directly into the driver's and passenger's faces (note the height of the windshields compared to the position of the model in the photo above).

But, Hey!, the Club de Mer was just a show car.  And a rather fun one at that.

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Studio publicity photo of Harley Earl (left) and a Club de Mer clay model.  In the background is an airbrushed profile view.

Publicity photo showing the Club de Mer by la mer, probably in Florida.  This, and most of the photos below indicate how low the car was: Wikipedia has it as 38.401 inches (975 mm).  But it was drivable, so perhaps the car's main value to GM apart from publicity was in the engineering steps taken to make it work.  Note the low air intake -- something this extreme not seen on mid-50s American production cars.  Also, the familiar Pontiac "streaks" have been reshaped and merge with air intakes near the cowling, a nice touch.

Another pose near water.  Some relief is found in the (possibly non-functional) air outlets on the door and the character line that wraps to the rear.  The little four-pointed stars on the side are another Pontiac brand cue.

Even though the Club de Mer has a relatively simple, rounded-off shape, GM's stylists were able to impart enough of a sense of tension to eliminate a flabby look.  Being a show car, no front bumper was needed.

Another view indicating how low the car was.  The symbol above the Pontiac name was a brand identifier that didn't appear on production cars until the 1957 model year.

As the Wikipedia entry states, the Club de Mer was destroyed, though a scale model survived.  Eventually an enthusiast had this replica created.  I include this Barrett-Jackson photo to show what the rear end looked like.  Clean, aside from that silly fin.  And there is a rear bumper of sorts.

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Mercury's Unpublicized 1955 D-528 Concept Car

There might be other cases like Mercury's 1955 concept D-528, but I suspect there are few of them.    After all, what's the point of designing and building a running concept car using more resources and cost than a non-running "pushmobile" -- and then never formally showing it to the public?  Apparently Ford Motor Company management thought that creating the D-528 was an engineering research "investment" that was worthwhile without the need for any additional benefit of the publicity it might generate if revealed to the public and sent on the auto show circuit.

Unlike many concept cars from the 1950s, the D-528 was never destroyed.  I saw it in the spring at the Petersen Auto Museum in Los Angeles.  The museum's web site's page devoted to the D-528 is here.  It describes the D-528 as follows:

"The D-528 was built to test advanced concepts in seating, lighting, air conditioning, and front frame design. The hinged rear fender bulges were functional, concealing a spare tire on one side and a gas tank on the other. Such a design gave the car adequate luggage capacity despite the need to accommodate a large air conditioning system. Although it boasted design features such as a pillarless windshield and Ford’s first reverse-sloping retractable rear window, it was an in-house research vehicle that was never shown publicly. “Beldone” [as it is sometimes called] was a stage name selected by Paramount Pictures for the car’s appearance in the 1964 Jerry Lewis movie, The Patsy, not an official Ford designation."

Below are some photos I took of it.

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The D-528's styling was probably largely completed in 1954.  Elaborate two-tone paint schemes were already in production on General Motors' redesigned Oldsmobiles and Buicks, but still rare industry-wide.  Chrysler Corporation was two years away from launching its tail fin styling, and quad headlights were even farther in the future.  Perhaps these considerations help explain why the D-528's styling is comparatively clean.  Note that the windshield is somewhat panoramic, but the objects amounting to A-pillars lean backward in the fashion Chrysler used on its 1955 and later models, and not the vertical orientation Fords and Mercurys were given for that model year.  My main complaint about this aspect of the car is that the front fenders are too rounded, providing a heavier-than-necessary appearance.  Oh, and there seems to be too much overhang in front of the wheel opening for a rear-wheel drive car.

The front overhang seems less objectionable in this side view.  Note the thin, flat roof -- a feature Chrysler used in its sensational 1957 redesigns.  The fenders also seem too heavy from this perspective: the sides needed to be flattened a little bit.  And then there are those rounded lumps at the rear....

The quotation above explains the purpose of the lumps, but there is no getting around their awkward appearance.  The trunk lid has a blob-like shape.  It might have been improved by being flatter and by having a more squared-off aft -- something that would have added more carrying capacity.  The taillight housings do not seem to blend well with the bulges.

The most interesting feature of the dashboard design is the central section that intrudes into the passenger compartment.  Unusual for its time, but somewhat prophetic of what can be found on todays' cars.

It's possible that the reason why the D-528 was never formally introduced to the public was that it wasn't all that attractive due to the odd features noted above.

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Minerva: Belgium's Luxury Car

Belgium does not come to mind as a factor in the automobile industry, but until the mid-1930 a significant builder of luxury cars was based there: Minerva.  Some background can be found here.

In this post, I present some images of Minveras over the period 1927 when car styling was becoming an established practice and 1934 when Minerva was merged with another Belgian car maker.

As the link mentions, Minervas were imported to the USA.  A striking Minerva bodied by the  New York state Rollston firm can be seen below.

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1927 Minerva AFS Roadster by D'Ieteren, Gooding auction photo.

1929 Minerva Type AE cabriolet in a photo I took at Autoworld Brussels a few years ago.

1930 Minerva AL Three-Position Cabriolet by Van den Plas, Gooding photo.

1930 Minerva AM Dual-Windshield Convertible Sedan by Hibbard & Darrin, Gooding photo.  This car in need of restoration sold at Pebble Beach in 2017 for $484,000.

1930 Minerva M-8 Type AP Sedan.  I presume this is a factory body: please correct me if I am wrong.

1930 (ca.) Minerva 40 CV Cabriolet Impérial by D'Ieteren.

1931 Minerva AL "Windswept" Convertible Sedan by Rollston, Bonhams photo.

Same car, side view.

1933 Minerva M-8 25 CV Rapide.  The traditional Minerva grille seen in the 1929 Type AE photo is slowly being modernized to suit evolving body design conventions.

1934 Minerva M-4.  Due to the Great Depression, it seems that Minerva launched this smaller, cheaper 2-litre sedan to boost sales.  As the link above mentions, sales were disappointing.

1934 Minerva M-4 that I photographed at Autoworld Brussels.

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