Re: Brown Bomber article

Posted by 58L8134 On 2016/4/14 13:19:38

Hi

The transition from separate body and fenders to full envelope configuration was a styling minefield. A company was just as likely to present a dud as a hit. That Ed Macauley didn't navigate it well, selected themes which aged quickly or were less than appealing, he wasn't alone.
As cited, the through-fender, fuselage configuration, which reflected the general styling trend proposals seen during the war years, were followed by all the independent carmakers and Ford Motor Company. More incremental approaches were practiced by GM with vestigial rear fenders and Chrysler actually retaining them as separate entities.

What will surprise many is Cadillac actually flirted with the full-fuselage treatment. The video is of a GM film made after production was in place for comparison of the 1947 and 1948 Cadillacs, a 1948 Hudson and the running prototype Cadillac C.O. (Commissioned Officer):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbmPrYhwsCA

In the discussion found in A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls, page 110:

"Before that, though, while Hershey was interim head of the Cadillac studio, he'd designed what came to be called the "Cadillac C.O." The C.O. was very much an expression of what GM had envisioned a postwar car to be: rounded, high, fat beltline, pontoon fenders, wraparound windshield, coved headlights. In 1946, Cadillac made a running metal prototype of the C.O. and tested it at the GM proving grounds near Milford, Michigan. While the C.O. performed well, Harley Earl and the Cadillac people weren't at all taken with the styling. What Earl didn't like was the high beltline. It made the body look overweight and bulky. According to Bill Mitchell as interviewed by C. Edson Armi, Earl came in one day and said, "To hell with that big, blown-up, thing [meaning the C.O.]." and he started in a totally different direction. "If he [Earl] saw something wasn't going," Mitchell told Armi, "he wasn't a diehard."

At some point, Ed Macauley stood at the same crossroads as Earl when it came to the Clipper restyle being prepared for their new 1948 line. His experience as head of Packard styling, his familiarity with industry trends, and his taste (or lack hereof) lead not only to the various 'Brown Bomber' styling iterations but also the decision to approve the proposed 1948 restyle developed in conjunction with Briggs. If he couldn't recognized the doughy, poorly-defined fender-lines of his 'Brown Bomber' giving a bottom-heavy look, then the Briggs styling clay which had that feature equally poorly-defined, certainly looked acceptable.
What Earl realized was owing to the relatively tall section height, in order to avoid the bottom-heavy, bulky look, one had to establish something of a visual ladder with long horizontals to relieve that undesirable affect. Although the approach wasn't as progressive as the full-straight-through-fuselage, it produced a very appealing look in the interim, one which also aged well.

Of the 'Brown Bomber' project itself, one wonders why Macauley didn't leave it as the Darrin it was, simply select a 20th Series Custom Super Eight Club Sedan as basis for his styling experiments? Who knows, maybe the results would have been much better....

Steve