Photopourri, Early August

Garden Deviled Eggs—I made up a quick "recipe" for deviled eggs using fresh ingredients from my vegetable garden. I picked a San Marzano plum tomato, basil, dill and parsley. I added a tiny dice of celery and onion (from the store), some celery seed and a bit of stone ground dijon mustard (with the seeds) and Hellmann's mayonnaise. They were colorful, zesty and quite good to eat!

Seen recently in town, this 1961 Chrysler 300G was a really special treat to behold. I can't find production figures right now, but I don't think Chrysler ever sold more than 1,000 per year, and probably less than that. They can sell in the 6-figure range these days. 

One of my sunflowers bent over at a 90-degree angle in May. I taped the stem, and then splinted it, and really tried everything to keep it going. It grew to about 6 feet tall before it just started to die above the injury. I finally cut it down and I've been seeing if it will bloom indoors. I don't give up on my plants easily! Even if it doesn't quite blossom, I love the shape of the buds. They remind me of a stylized sun, even more than the flowers themselves do.

Chrysler 300 Nassau V10 Coupe

Pillarless construction and a lengthened hood would be just a couple of the new features of this new Chrysler coupe if I had my way. Click on image to enlarge.

C H O P — The Chrysler 300 Nassau coupe enters the market with an updated V10 powertrain from the Viper sports car. Electronic all wheel drive ensures the more-than-ample power is available under any circumstance. The 300 sedan's upcoming hybrid drive will also be available in this flagship pillarless coupe, and rumors persist that owner Fiat will utilize this new coupe's platform for a revived Lancia Gamma Coupe. 

Seen in Town Today. And at Home.

Walking around town today, I came upon this Chrysler Crossfire coupe. These cute little sports cars were built on the first generation Mercedes Benz SLK platform, from 2004-2007, and in my opinion, one of best fruits of the now-dissolved Daimler-Chrysler merger. The enthusiast press was never thrilled with the Crossfire, and I've never driven one personally, but I find them very desirable. I've had a small one at home for several years, and in the same color as this real one! (OK, truth be told, I have a few Crossfire scale models in various colors, lol). The name Crossfire came from the side swage line just below the window line. It changes from a convex line to a concave one and at the point it changes, just about midpoint on the door, was deemed to be the "crossfire." Some say the name also referred to the two company's rather strained "cooperative" effort, lol. The Crossfire was built in Germany, by the famed Karmann body builders, and was eventually also available as a soft-top convertible.

• For more on the Crossfire, click over to Wiki.

• The gallery I showed my work in for almost a year, in 2007-08, was in the pale yellow building in the center of the photo of the rear of the Crossfire, Sweet Janes' Gallery. It was owned by two local artists named Jane, and they gave me a lot of exposure, the first gallery to do so.

My 1:24 scale model Crossfire by Motor Max, ©2003. I must have bought this just after the Crossfire was introduced. Or the Chinese company got the copyright date wrong, lol.

Suddenly It's 1960—In a Good Way!

Twelve Page Full Color Insert for Chrysler's '57 Finned Wonders Appeared in the Nov. 3, 1956 Issue of The Saturday Evening Post

The 1957 Plymouth's front end came in for a mid-year "correction" as complaints came flooding in regarding those original open vertical cooling slots in the bumper seen above. Apparently birds, small animals and tiny babies were being sucked into them, lol, and by mid-year, slim chrome vertical bars had been added to the previously open slots. Ink "bleed-through" appears on all of the pages in this 63 year old magazine. I've noticed this quite often in the Post's pages, and rarely in Life or Look. I'd say the paper choice is the culprit, but at a  cover price of fifteen cents for a 148 page weekly magazine filled with quality original writing, money had to be saved somewhere.

M Y   C O L L E C T I O N — Chrysler Corporation's entire 1957 lineup was redesigned from tires to roof. Virgil Exner pulled out all the stops and shocked the entire automotive industry with his low and svelte and breathtaking automobiles. It would take the industry leader, GM, a couple of very busy years, working overtime, to field competitively designed cars. Chrysler's ad campaign, "Suddenly It's 1960," a further extension of his Forward Look begun in '55, has gone down in history as one of the most effective car ads ever. Had Chrysler actually waited a year however, and gotten its production capabilities in order to build these cars, perhaps Chrysler would have fared better in the late '50s and early '60s. Production quality took a huge hit producing these cars as quickly as management wanted them to.

"Swept-Wing" Dodges, with their seemingly separate cut-back fins, offered great two-tone possibilities. "Jet tube" taillights complemented the fins beautifully. 

Though DeSoto would exit stage right just after the 1961 models were introduced, this '57 Fireflite with "Flight Sweep Styling" had seemingly nothing but blue skies ahead of it. Those slim roof pillars and shockingly thin roof seemed as optimistically futuristic as space flight itself.

Chrysler's place in the world was clear by the artwork accompanying this red-and-white New Yorker hardtop sedan: mink stoles, tuxedos, chandelier earrings and elegant evenings under the moon and stars.

 "Imperial—the finest expression of The Forward Look" according to the ad copy, and who could possibly disagree with it? Curved sideglass made its first appearance on a production car with this Imperial. The newly-lowered roof, which made that large expanse of metal visible to most buyers for the first time, was detailed with an arching and "V-eed" piece of chrome trim, available in body color, an accenting hue, brushed stainless steel or a new matte and grained finish, giving the look of a fabric roof years before the vinyl roof became a ubiquitous option.

The five double-page spreads were preceded by this black-and-white introductory page touting the "Newest New Cars in 20 Years!" not exactly hyperbole.

Closing out of this 12 page ad insert was this single, full color page describing Chrysler's state-of-the-art Torsion-bar suspension. Chryslers of this time not only rode very well, but had exhibited roadability unmatched by the "Big Three." 

Old Chops Never Die. Or Rust.

I'm going to revisit this concept as a chop soon. This is the late and unlamented Tbird roadster, made much more classic than the one Ford produced. I set the cab further to the rear to improve the proportions. I also changed the porthole roof, which is an idea that worked in '56, not 2006, with a sharper edged removable top with triangular quarter windows—a more classic Tbird styling trait. Overall, I tried to "butch" it up a bit more than the production car as well. I would like to start over with a better original photo one of these days. This chop dates to 2007 I believe.

A tongue-in-cheek look at the future of über luxury cars if we ever see $10/gallon gas, lol. This is the Dodge Hornet concept with a Chrysler Imperial front clip from that brown luxury concept of a couple of years ago. I was more concerned with the overall coloration of this piece, and I still love the pastel lavenders, teals and greens. The car, well, it is what it is! I think this is from 2008.

A slightly more svelte Smart ForTwo, the ForTwoPlus. I lengthened it slightly, enough for a few grocery bags on a shelf behind the front seats. I changed the trim, gave it better wheels, and added a whole bunch of small LEDs outling the front airdam, grille surround and center bar. I think it looks less like a grocery cart here. Hopefully it would somehow get better mileage than the real one, which is really disappointing considering how tiny it is.

How about a Yaris coupe? This was chopped from a photo of one of the Autoweek and MotorTrend 'regulars' back in the day, a kid named Brian. This was his mother's new Yaris in 2008 I think. Brian is a really talented musician that is probably going to hit Nashville any day now. He has several CDs he's produced already. For this chop, I wanted to see if I could  make the Yaris lower and wider, a la Harley Earl's mantra, but keep the Toyota-ness of it. I added chrome to the grille's center bar, and modified the headlights, although I don't remember just what I did to them, lol. Chromed door handles, and a glass roof add a suitable upscale touch to this little economy car. I think this is the first chop I made from a personal photo rather than a PR piece.

Finishing the Domestic Luxury Car Trilogy

Having recently chopped a black 2012 Lincoln MKS and an equally dark new Cadillac Seville, I'm rounding out the traditional domestic Big Three luxury cars with a dark charcoal Chrysler 300C. I love the current 300 but having been introduced in 2005, it's time for a change, as Chrysler will actually be doing shortly. I've used the more rounded greenhouse and more contemporary detailing of Chrysler's 200C concept car, coupled with the now-traditional 300 front end treatment, re-proportioned taller and bluffer, with a new lower fascia. I think it has a sleeker yet still-sinister look, and would be more aerodynamically efficient and contemporary in every way, while not tossing out  any of its well-deserved street cred. A longer wheelbase and slightly tidier overall length will be a boon to European sales.

The base photo for this chop was a presser for the 200C concept from last year (year before, by now?), and I made a 300 out of it. In retrospect, it would have been less work to start with a 300 and add the concept's details, but at least I know the "platform" of my chop will be up-to-date, too.  : )

The Last "Real" Chrysler Imperial

The 1975 Imperial LeBaron Coupe. Chrysler sold cars with the Imperial nameplate after this huge sedan and coupe, but I feel this series is the last true Imperial. The others were smaller and not true luxury cars in the old-school sense of the term.

Six foot wide button-tufted crushed velour —can only be the 1970s!

The LeBaron sedan. Impressive, almost arrogant styling. I only wish the rear window was a bit smaller like the '69-73 LeBaron's were. Their limousine-like rear window was SO elegant, imho!

Not Corinthian leather, that was reserved for the Cordoba, but this glove-soft leather was a step-up. Reclining seats were just making their way into domestic cars in a big way, although they were optional on American cars going back a couple of decades. Nash, in fact, pioneered reclining front seats all the way back to the 1930s.

BTW:

This 1975 Imperial catalog was photographed a couple of years ago on one of my half-finished pieces of art, the background paint striping for "My Country 'tis of Thee." You can see the detailing and work that goes into the background for one of my pieces. I estimated there were between 3,000-4,000 individual stripes in every paint color I had at the time.

 

My Country 'tis of Thee—Fifty squares symbolizing the United States. They are red, white and blue, in the place where those colors feature on the flag, the blue background of the stars and the red and white stripes of the real flag. Several squares are blackened out, symbolizing the rot in America, the haters and those that try to vote the rights of minorities away, such as NOM, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and many others. The black squares also symbolize the government's inaction and seeming inability to rectify the situation. The multi-hued, intricately painted background symbolizes the most interesting part of the country, those colorful individuals living under this oppressive grid that make it all worthwhile. 27 x 16 inches on three joined pine panels. 

I first wrote about this piece back in April, before many people had found my blog, lol. Sometimes I don't mind repeating myself!

A Few More from the Exner/Engel Period

Mythical 1962 Fury Commando Sport two-door hardtop. This was a base two-door post coupe, and I chopped it into this svelte pillarless coupe. Though there was a hardtop in the lineup, it looked nothing like this. I based the greenhouse shape of my Commando Sport on photos I've seen of clay models in Exner's studios of the time (thank you Collectible Automobile!) Apparently they were 'watered-down' quite a bit on the way to production, so I've just 'restored' the dramatic clay appearance... Instead of being considered one of his 'oddities' I think it could very easily have been one of his best. Just look at the way his fender bulges work perfectly when the rest of the car is purely styled. I think this could have been a cut-rate Thunderbird type car for Plymouth. I think a true test is that it looks impossibly elegant even with blackwall tires and steelie wheels/hubcaps! "Commando Sport" refers to the name of the top engine in this Fury.

A slightly resto-modded '62 Dodge Dart sedan. This is something like what Chip Foose could do with a simple Exner-bodied Dodge, one of his last 'pure' designs. I think 18 inch whitewalls with 'steelies' and dogdish hubcaps might be a new look! Ex's bodyside sculpting always competed with the extra chrome doodads that Marketing insisted on. Once you remove that stuff, Ex's pure forms are revealed, and they make total sense. I love the slight rise at the cowl. It took Engel a few years to get the money to flatten out this cowl design, a look he hated. The slight rise of the cowl on these Exner cars was meant to evoke the lines of classic speedboats and I think is a very classy touch.

Twelve years before the disco-era Cordoba was introduced, 1963, Chrysler could have made a long-hood, short-deck coupe to combat the Grand Prix, Thunderbird and Riviera in the burgeoning personal luxury coupe market. This was a New Yorker coupe to begin with, and I changed the proportions and simplifed the chrome trim a bit, in a nod to the simpler bodyside fad begun with the '62 Grand Prix. I think this series of large Chryslers is very underrated. They had a two-year-only body, with traces of the fuselage styling that would come in '69. They also had traces of the stillborn S series of large cars, the last styled by Exner as Engel was taking over. By adding the more classic-era proportions of a longer hood, shorter deck and slightly reworked formal C pillar, I think Ex's lines work even better. 

Not Sure About These Two . . .

Spanning almost the entire width of the car, my BTS's eggcrate grille takes on different proportions than it's domestic stable mates.

C H O P S — Cadillac BTS. Slightly smaller than the CTS and is a five-door hatch primarily for the European and Asian markets. Full-hybrid drivetrain standard, with a similar rwd-biased electronically controlled all-wheel drive as new Audis. The USA will receive the smaller rwd ATS instead of this BTS.

The Newport nameplate is revived for the five-door, mid-cycle LX update and facelift. Shown is the Chrysler Newport Tourback in St. Regis Blue Pearl.

Chrysler Newport Tourback.  Could have been an additional bodystyle at the mid-cycle LX bodies' refresh. Instead of the full wagon, the euro-market 300 might have been available in this 5 door version, the Newport TourBack. Domestic sales would have followed if there was demand for it.

I'm not really sure how I feel about either one of these chops. Some nights you have it, and some nights you don't. Started working on some old wood boards today, so my mind might be wandering away from the digital requisites and into the 'analog' phase again . . .

1964 Imperial Continental coupes. Huh?

Imperialista—production Imperial Continental?

C H O P S — I've always loved the Chrysler Imperials of the fifties and sixties, both the flamboyant Virgil Exner designed fifties flagships and the slightly more tailored Elwood Engel sixties versions. This is a 1964 Imperial coupe, Engel's facelift based on the same chassis Imperial had used since 1957. Engel had been hired away from Ford in the early sixties to replace Exner, and this is his first 'real' Imperial. Fresh off the classic '61 Lincoln, Engel really brought as much of a Lincoln Continental feel to the Imperial that he could, with cleaner bodysides, a squared off Continental trunk 'bulge' and a tasteful use of chrome highlights. Far from a fresh-sheet-of-paper design, needing to use the same wraparound windshield and 'hard point' from the formerly finned wonders, I think this series of Imperial is as striking as Exner's. There were awkward parts of the design, an overly tall roof and greenhouse, and the equal-length hood and taillights don't work for me, but overall they were quite tasteful and luxurious looking.

For the first chop above, I moved the cabin backwards on the body, to create a longer hood and shorter deck. I shortened the front overhang a bit as well, lowered the roof a bit and created Continental-type C pillars. This would be the 'volume' production version of an Imperial Coupe. The bespoke Crown Coupe is below. Much more drama to be had there!

A not-very-common 2 door limousine, the Crown Coupe.

This Crown Coupe takes the Imperial back in time in a way, creating an ultra luxurious Limousine Coupe, a bodystyle last seen (and very rarely at that) in the Thirties. The C pillars are huge, providing privacy for the two very special rear seat passengers. I've fared the bumpers into the body in a much more custom way, deleting much of their chrome and replacing it with mere outlines, also enhancing the 'propeller' motif and squared off Continental bulge of the Exner rear bumper. The rear bumper side 'bombs' are lengthened to balance out the C pillar, and I've slammed the roof down as much as possible to enhance the 'sinister' feeling. The LeBaron's already-small rear windshield was widened a bit but narrowed in height, better in keeping with the overall roof shape. Small 24KT gold "Crown Coupe" nameplates add the de rigeur snob appeal, tastefully, well as tasteful as gold nameplates can be. I've parked the Crown Coupe in front of a Frank Lloyd Wright home I found online, which is exactly the clientele Chrysler would have been striving for.

N O T E —  I'll be done with the book project by tonight. Back to work now!

Honey, Let's Take the Convertible Today

Chrysler hasn't produced a factory Imperial Convertible since 1968. This didn't stop me from creating one. Click to see this long, luxurious Crown Convertible in all of it's glory.

C H O P S — I don't chop convertibles very much at all. Convertibles are always a striking ride, but I find myself working on cars that somehow personally mean something to me, ie pillarless coupes, suicide door sedans, woody wagons. As huge a car fanatic as I am, I've only ridden in convertibles twice that I can remember. The moment I saw the current 300's styling however, a new Imperial appeared in my mind's eye, and a convertible just seemed a natural step beyond that.

When I was born, my parents owned a pink and black 1956 Ford Sunliner, recreated below, but I have zero personal memories of that car. I rode in my college friend Annie's lime green 1969 Pontiac LeMans convertible once, way back in the 1970s at Vassar. Then sometime around 2005, I rode in the tiny back seat of my friend Susie's gorgeous blue Porsche 911 convertible. Yes, I said Back Seat. With the top up, lol. To use the cliche 'packed in like a sardine' would TOTALLY not work, as that would imply it wasn't pleasant. ANY ride in a new Porsche 911 is a journey well worthwhile. Frankly, I would have enjoyed being strapped to the hood like a prized deer if that was my only choice, lol.

But I digress. Though my personal experiences are limited with convertibles, I love the bodystyle and wish there were more of them still being produced. Open cars, "ragtops" to some, herald back to the early origins of the automobile. They feature in the multitudes of vintage movies I love to watch. They're just sexy—they make the lucky drivers and passengers seem sexy and smart, and in on one of life's best-kept secrets—the joy of being out on the open road with the sun at your back, 'somewhere west of Laramie' to use Ned Jordan's classic tagline for his Playboy roadster of the 1920s. 

This Imperial Crown Convertible was made from the 300 sedan, and dates back to 2007 or so. I changed the bodysides to ape the 1969 Imperial, one of the last Imperials I still covet. This was the year that the Imperial was folded back into the regular Chrysler lineup, losing it's status as a separate marque, and losing much of it's unique sheetmetal, but I've still always loved the long, clean lines of Chrysler's fuselage styling of that vintage.

The lap of luxury, my Imperial Crown Convertible is idling outside, ready for my early Spring Saturday drive in the country . . . See y'all later! : )

This is a photoshop re-creation of the car my parents drove when I was born. They bought a pink-and-black 1956 Ford Sunliner right before they were transferred to Germany, and had the car shipped over for them. As fifties a color choice as there ever was, my Dad liked the fact that from the drivers seat, all he could see were the black front fenders and hood. The interior was black and white with nary a pink accent. The car's striking Salmon paintwork was only used below the Fairlane's now-classic 'checkmark' chrome trim and this hue was a one-year only color choice. The pinks that came before and after this '56 were more of a cotton-candy pink, without the subtle peach or orange undertones of this Salmon. I found this photo of the correct model and year, in black and white, and I 'painted' it in the correct colors in photoshop. I added a stylized background showing the Alps of southern Germany where I was born, and the frequent backdrops from family photos of that time. I filtered the entire piece to have it 'shimmer' as memories often do—neither sharp nor out of focus, but somewhere in between. Click to enlarge.

U P D A T E — I just checked my online source for Ford paint color names/choices, here, and interestingly, black/pink doesn't appear in the list for available '56 Ford regular production. The color, Sunset Coral, is listed as a Thunderbird-only choice. The two tone options for the Sunliner with black on the upper surfaces lists only Snowshoe White or Fiesta Red for the lower accent color. Was my father's car a special-order? I remember my mother telling me that their new convertible cost more than my father's yearly Army salary, close to $3300, which would indicate a fully-optioned Sunliner as the V8 convertible's base price was closer to $2600. I know it was equipped with the "Thunderbird Special" 312 V8, as opposed to the 292 V8 that came standard, so perhaps my Dad, or the dealer, had it painted with a Thunderbird hue as well. It does explain why I've never seen a pink/black Sunliner at any car show or Hemming's Motor News want ads. Let the research begin!