Last month Indie Auto made fun of articles written with artificial intelligence by running a fake piece about the 1950 Studebaker (go here). The infamous bullet-nosed car deserves more attention than that, so let’s take a look at how two magazines covered it.
Popular Science writer Devon Francis lauded the car’s new front end as a “radical departure from conventional design” on par with Studebaker’s first postwar cars three years earlier (1949, p. 98).
Raymond Loewy, whose consulting firm designed the Studebaker, explained the rationale for the new look. “We felt that it was time to get away from the ‘forehead hood’ that had been used on practically all automobiles for years. We wanted to break up the boxlike appearance that has been common to all postwar cars” (Francis, 1949, p. 99).
More rounded nose required changes to radiator
Making the Studebaker look as light and fast as an airplane wasn’t the only reason for the new front end — aerodynamics were also supposedly improved.
One practical downside of the more rounded shape of the fascia was that the radiator needed to be canted slightly backward and cooling-air baffles had to be added.
The new design also increased the Studebaker’s length by roughly five inches. The wheelbase was stretched an inch to 113 inches for the Champion whereas the Commander and Land Cruiser stayed the same (119 and 123 inches, respectively).
Francis wrote that the bullet-nosed Studebaker was first considered for production two years earlier but senior staff decided that “it wasn’t time yet for that design” (1949, p. 100).
Popular Mechanics weighs in on the new styling
Popular Science wasn’t the only magazine that gave Studebaker a high level of visibility. Popular Mechanics featured the brand along with the 1950 Buick in its September 1949 issue.
Writer Wayne Whittaker suggested that the Studebaker “answers a question which had been uppermost in the public’s mind: Would they rest on their laurels as postwar pioneers or plunge ahead another step with daring innovations?” (1949, p. 118).
The thing that was most striking about these magazines’ coverage of the 1950 Studebaker was the degree to which the brand was presented as an industry leader. There was some truth to the hype, both in terms of the design risks that Studebaker took in the postwar years as well as its early investments in a V8 engine and an automaker transmission.
Bullet nose was controversial within Studebaker
Richard M. Langworth noted that the bullet-nosed Studebaker didn’t reach production without controversy within the automaker. For example, he quoted long-time executive Harold Churchill as “not ecstatic about it, but they sold very well” (1979, 1993; p. 43-44).
Even Loewy distanced himself from the design by later telling Langworth that whereas early concepts were “racy looking,” the car that reached production was a “bulbous, rather clumsy, fat automobile” (1979, 1993; p. 44).
While I would agree with Loewy’s assessment, expecting a more substantial redesign in 1950 strikes me as asking too much. Studebaker had already taken a big financial risk by redoing its lineup for 1947 when it could have squeezed a few more years from a pre-war body. Thus, expecting to give its cars another major redesign in 1950 — after only three years — was too soon.
NOTES:
Specifications from auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Francis, Devon; 1949. “Studebaker’s New Aero Nose.” Popular Science. September issue: pp. 98-104.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1979, 1993. Studebaker 1946-1966: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks International, Osceola, WI.
- Whittaker, Wayne; 1949. “First of the ’50 cars.” Popular Mechanics. September issue: pp. 118-121.
Readers might be interested to know that regarding the vetoed third headlamp on the Studebaker, in the late 1940s when Rover were developing their first post war sedan they bought and did a tear down on a 1947 Champion to help them work out how to do modern bodywork. They even took the body off and fitted it to their own development P4 chassis and this mule became known internally as the’Roverbaker’ Some of the nuances of the Lowey design found their way into the Rover P4 notably the door arrangement. And Rover went the whole hog and fitted a third headlamp in the centre of their new style grille – quite a departure for an otherwise conservatively-inclined company. Customers loved the P4 75 but were perplexed by the third lamp, so from 1951 Rover replaced the grille with an updated version of their pre-war radiator which was retained in various shapes until the end of Rover days. I cover this in my book High Performance, When Britain Ruled the Roads https://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Britain-Ruled-Roads/dp/1471168484 .
Did J. C. Whitney or another aftermarket outlet offer a fake “propellor” / whirligig for the “needle-nose”?