“. . . We (started facelifting) the ’51, which was a terrible looking spinner job. It had a transparent, plastic spinner inside, and, God, they were terrible looking cars. . . . I remember how that transparent spinner started out. Somebody thought it would be neat to have a light behind it, and I talked them out of that, and we painted it with opaque silver, because they were ready for production. It would have been really crazy. I think that was brought about by the fact that somebody was impressed with the Tucker or a Cyclops eye — a single headlight on a locomotive.”
— Bob E. Bourke
RE:SOURCES
- Crippen, David; 1986. “The Reminiscences of Robert E. Bourke.” Automotive Design Oral History Project of the Automobile in American Life and Society. Conducted October 23.
Also see ‘Bullet-nosed 1950 Studebaker was called futuristic when it was introduced‘
Ok, so Bob was just objecting to the proposed transparent “spinner” cover over a light installed behind it. The light may well have drawn too much attention to the already darned prominent spinner design and been the “straw” that “ruined” the front end aesthetics. Right. l’ll go along with that, l guess. After all, it was under Bob himself, who was then the head of Loewy’s Studebaker account, that the spinner design was brought to fruition for the previous model year.
Many in Studebaker’s management were very concerned (horrified even!) at the beginning of the 1950 model year, that such a wild, different front end design was going into production. But, thankfully, Stude’s spinner sold super successfully! (Say that fast ten times!)
A lighted spinner for ’51 would not likely have moved the sales needle much – in any direction.
In case anyone is thinking of taking Bob’s comment out of context – “they were terrible looking cars” – please look in your old car library at the test of a ’51 Commander Starlight Coupe (SIA issue #116) and THEN judge if “terrible” was a proper term for a ’51 Stude. Ok, distinctive, but not terrible. Remember the context of the times.
He didn’t mean the whole car was hideous, right?