Bernd Reuters' 1931 Streamliner Design

Bernd Reuters (1901-1958) was one of the best-known automobile illustrators of his day.  Today he's probably most remembered for his catalog images for Volkswagen that I wrote about here.

Reuters also wrote and illustrated articles for German magazines.  One such article dealt with streamlining, an automobile design matter that was gaining increasing attention by the early 1930s.  A recent book devoted to him ("Bernd Reuters - Wegbereiter der modernen Automobil-Werbegrafik" by Werner Schollenberger, Karren Publishing, 2021) cited that article and included two illustration he made for it.

One of those illuatrations was a profile view of his design.  It struck me as being similar to the 1935 C28 Aérosport design by Voisin.  The comparison is in the Gallery, below.

Gallery

Bernd Reuters' streamliner design dated 1931 that appeared in Sport im Bild (Sport in Pictures) magazine.  In the background is a shadow image of a conventional contemporary car.  The images are scaled so as to have the same wheelbase.

The closest comparison to Reuters' design is this 1935 Voisin C28 Aérosport - RM Sotheby's photo.  Was Gabriel Voisin aware of Reuters' design?

Also somewhat similar in feeling is the 1934-35 Voisin C28 Aérodyne -- unknown image source.

Another 1934-35 Voisin C28 Aérodyne -- seen at Pebble Beach, unknown image source.  These are four-door cars, as is Reuters' concept.

Low-Level 1930 French Headlights

Nowadays headlight heights above the road are regulated.  That didn't seem to be the case in France during the 1930s.  Whereas most French cars had headlights placed fairly high relative to their grilles and fenders, there were some cases where they were closer to the ground.

This styling fad ended around the 1937 model year, aside from some Puegeot lines.  Their 302s and 402s were essentially pre- World War 2, and 202s were built for a few years after.

Examples of French cars with low-mounted headlights are shown below.

Gallery

1935 Renault Nervasport
Here is an example of headlight placement on a Renault, the leading French manufacturer.  Compare to the automobiles pictured below.

1930 Bucciali TAV 30 La Marie Torpédo Sport Type Cannes by Saoutchik - Bonhams photo
Bucciali was an especially exotic French brand.  Here is an early instance of low headlights.

1933 Panhard 6CS Coupé
An early example, this by an important French manufacturer.

1935 Avions Voisin C25 Aérodyne - Gooding photo
Voisin was a builder of exotic, expensive cars.

1935 Peugeot 401 Cabriolet
An important French carbuilder.  1934 401s had normal headlight placement.  For 1936 the 401 gave way to the 402 that was clad "Fuseau Sochaux" style.

1937 Peugeot 302 "Fuseau Sochaux"
Peugeot 302s appeared for 1937 with the same styling theme as the 402.  Headlights were distinctively placed behind the grille for models 202, 302 and 402.  They are not as low as seen on the 401 in the previous image -- but they aren't very high either.

1935 Vivastella Grand Sport - factory photo by Robert Doisneau
Low-mounted headlights were on Renault's most expensive lines for the 1935 and 1936 model years.

Want to Look Sporty? Chop the Greenhouse

"Greenhouse" is a styling term referring to the part of a car's passenger compartment above the beltline where the windshield and other windows are.

Typically, the greenhouse is fairly tall, comprising more than a third of total body height.  This sort of proportion tends to work against any "sportiness" that stylists might wish to impart to a design.

An alternative is to reduce that proportion.  The price paid might be cramped headroom for passengers and reduced outside visibility for the driver.

Below are examples to serve as food for your thoughts.

Gallery

1953 Pegaso Z 102 Berinetta by Touring
This is an example of an expensive sporting car by a major Italian coachbuilder.  Its tall greenhouse proportions are fairly typical of Italian 1950s golden age styling.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray
General Motors' sports car also had a comparatively tall greenhouse.

1967 Chevrolet Camaro RS Z28 - Mecum Auction photo
So did the later sporty Camaro.

1931 Voisin C22
Now for examples of short greenhouses.  This Voisin had an underslung chassis and low lower body.  Its greenhouse proportion is low, adding to the racy appearance.

1935 Voisin C28 Aérosport - RM Sotheby's photo
This later Voisin features a more normal lower body height, but the short greenhouse imparts sportiness.

1952 Ferrari 340 Mexico by Vignale
Unlike the Pegaso, this Italian body has a low greenhouse.  Perhaps that's because it's an actual race car.

1952 Hudson Hornet
The famous-in-their-day "step down" Hudson sedans had racy looks due to shaping as well as greenhouse proportions.

2005 Chrysler 300C
Lower bodies were rather brick-shaped, but the low greenhouse counteracted that impression.  I owned one, and can assure you that the windshield was too low for easily viewing close-by stoplights.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible
I was in Hawaii recently (early 2022) and was struck by the racy, sporty look of the plentiful Mustang and Camaro rental convertibles I saw.  Blunt lower bodies are common nowadays thanks to rules by European bureaucrats.  But the extreme windshield rake and very short greenhouse oddly combine to enhance an aggressive, sporty appearance.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro Coupe
The same can be said for the fixed-top version.

Voisin C28 Aérosport and Nissan A34 Maxima

The image above is a cropped scan of page 92 from the French publication Automobila Hors-série No. 1, Toutes les vouitures françaises 1936, featuring the Salon de l'Automobile, Paris, 3-13 octobre 1935, published by Groupe Histoire & Collections, 15 October 1996.  The featured car is the Avions Voisin C28 Aérosport.

The author, René Bellu, complains in the second caption: "Ci-dessous. L'Aerosport vue de face (à gauche) et la plain profil.  Sous cet angle, on distingue parfaitement une erreur de courbure intervenue en tôlerie lors de l'elaboration de ce prototype: la ceinture de caisse forme une bosse disgracieuse à hauteur de la portière."  He refers to the break of the fenderline/beltline curve continuity at the A and B pillars as being disgraceful, even though he concedes the car is only a prototype.

Actually, the design was sensational, Gabriel Voisin's final, typically quirky, triumph before ceding control of his firm.  A bit of background can be found in this Car and Driver article dealing with an Aérosport to be auctioned by RM Sotheby's -- but withdrawn before the event.  It mentions that ten of these cars were built, but only two are said to survive.

Also dealt with in this post is the 2004-2008 Nissan Maxima A34 (scroll down).  I contend that its curved rear profile echoes the C28 Aérosport design.  Whether or not there was conscious borrowing, I do not know.

I do not have source references for the color images of the not-auctioned Aérosport.  Some might have been commissioned by RM Sotheby's or the prospective seller, others seem to have been taken at an outdoor car display.  Unless noted, images of Maximas are of cars offered for sale.

Gallery

Another view of the Aérosport at the 1935 show.  The awkward door shaping is evident the this side of the car too.

This "V 12" Aérosport briefly appeared at the 1936 Salon, then disappeared.  Only two photographs of it are known to me.  Its motor, which might have been more conjectural than actual, was two in-line six cylinder engines placed in tandem -- hence the long hood on the car.

The Aérosport not auctioned.  Its story is sketched in the Car and Driver link above, but the history of its body is unclear aside from that fact that the car was given a thorough restoration.  In any case, the fender line that bothered Bellu appears smooth.

Side view.

Very nice curves, but a deceptive view making the body seem more integral than it actually is.

Here we see that the rear fenders are separated from the central part of the body.  The backlight is positioned so low as to make rearward views from the driver's seat difficult.

Nissan Maxima from 2004.  The aft strikes me as being in the same spirit as the Aérosport's.  The backlight is framed by small sail-panels that allow the side roofline curves to be smoother, less cramped that if the backlight curve was followed.

Lack of ornamentation highlights the simplicity of the body shaping.

Side view factory photo.  Far more pleasing to me than the current jazzed-up designs from Nissan, Toyota and Honda.

Styling Variety: 1930s French Cars

During the 1930s General Motors' styling boss Harley Earl would travel to Paris to visit the annual Salon de l'Automobile.  It was a serious focus to what might seem to some a frivolous enjoy-Paris corporate junket.  That was  because fashion-conscious France was a hotbed of car styling ideas that Earl wanted and needed to be aware of.

And there were many automobile makers in France, even in the depth of the Great Depression.  For example, the mid-decade 1935 Paris salon had 27 firms exhibiting passenger cars.  Those 27 firms produced only about 170,000 cars that year, and 3/4 of those were from the "big three" -- Renault, Citroën, and Peugeot.  The remaining manufacturers averaged about 1,550 cars that year, which makes me wonder how they could afford to keep body designs even halfway fashionable.  The largest firm, Renault, produced around 58,000 cars that year, yet marketed ten lines of cars using what seems to be three basic bodies -- which also seems like a small basis for product renewal.

Regardless, French car styling from the 1930s was innovative and varied.  Admittedly, this was especially the so for custom-built bodies, but also was the case for factory models.  The images below are mostly of standard production cars.

Gallery

Bucciali Double-Huit - body by Saoutchik - Paris Salon 1931
This car was intended to astonish, something it still does 85 years later.  It has a underslung chassis, so it sits low.  The low stance is further emphasized by the large wheels and extremely long hood.  Not to mention the low-headroom passenger compartment.

Voisin C 20 - Paris Salon 1931
Many of Gabriel Voisin's designs also astonish.  His C 20 and C 22 models feature radically disaggregated components.

Voisin Aérodyne - Paris Salon 1934
This is a pre-production car, but essentially the same as the few that were built.  Here Voisin edges towards aerodynamic shaping on his way to the 1936 Aérosport.

Citroën Traction Avant - 1956
The Traction Avant line was introduced for 1934, and its design was virtually unchanged even by 1956, the year before it was replaced.  The body is low because it lacks a driveshaft and also a chassis, being of semi-unitized construction.  One French styling fashion in the late 30s was the belt line drooping towards the rear, as can be seen here.

1935 Renault Nervastella Grand Sport
Unlike the Citroën, this top-of-the-line Renault is tall.  And it also has a somewhat streamlined appearance that's negated by the formidable grille-hood combination.  Note especially the the highly-sloped, V'd windshield: advanced for 1935.

Peugeot 402 - ca. 1939
The 402 first appeared for the 1936 model year and, like the Renault above, featured a streamlined look.  The body aft of the cowling seems inspired by the 1934 Chrysler Airflow.  For me, the most intriguing feature is the headlamps buried behind the grille.

1937 Hotchkiss 686 Coupé Modane
By the mid-1930s Hotchkiss' were solid looking cars.  Attractive, slightly conservative styling for its bourgeoise clientele.  I am especially fond of the grille design that relates well to the fenders.

1937 Panhard Dynamic
The ancient firm Panhard et Lavassor developed styling senility in the early 30s with its Panoramique three-piece windshield design that progressed to the strange Dynamic model shown here with its central driving position.  "Creativity" does not necessarily produce good results.

Talbot-Lago T 155 SS by Figoni & Falaschi - ca. 1938
Finally a fabulous "Goute d'eau" (teardrop) Talbot-Lago custom that's marred by having spats over the front wheels.  Most similar Talbots had exposed front wheels.

Very Long Hoods

Once upon a time, stylists such as General Motors' Harley Earl favored long, high hoods on their designs because this suggested that a car was powerful.  This line of thought was based on the fact that many 1930-vintage luxury cars had large, powerful straight-eight, V-12 and V-16 motors that required long hoods.

As might be expected, 1930-vintage automobile company managers and designers fell to the temptation of gilding the long-hood lily.  The present post deals with some examples extra-long -- needlessly long? -- hoods and concludes with thoughts regarding why long hoods are seldom, if ever, found on production cars today.

Gallery

Daimler Double Six 50 Sport Corsica Drophead Coupé - 1931
Proportionally, this is one of the longest hoods I've ever noticed.  Daimler was best known for supplying cars for British royalty, but the Double Six series featured long hoods and the drophead example shown here is sporty, though in a cumbersome, almost unbalanced sort of way.

Voisin C 22 - 1931
Voisin seldom put long hoods on his cars.  But when he did, the results were spectacular, as with this C 22.

Bucciali TAV Double Huit U-16 - 1932
Bucciali built few cars, but they were even more spectacular those from M.Voisin.  As with the Voisin and Daimler shown above, the Bucciali's hood length was emphasized by the close-fitting front fenders.

Bugatti 41 Royale - c. 1931
Ettore Bugatti's Royale was intended to be sold to royalty.  His plan didn't work as intended, yet seven cars in the 41 series were built over a period of years.  All were huge and carried impressively long hoods, as can can be seen in this photo.

Bentley Speed Six Gurney Nutting Sportsman Coupé (Blue Train) - 1930
The Bentley Speed Six line included one that famously raced the famous French Le Train Bleu from the Riviera to Calais on the English Channel and then went on to London in less than the train's scheduled Riviera-Calais run time.  But as the link indicates, the Gurney Nutting coupé came later, and was named in honor of the Speed Six that actually performed Woolf Barnato's famous stunt.

As for the hood, it's physically shorter than those pictured above.  Yet it's proportionally long, extending about half the length of the car.

Cadillac Sixteen concept car - 2003
Cadillac's Sixteen show car (that in theory might have entered production) had two V-8 engines mounted on axis, making a unit about as long as classic-era V-16s and straight-eight motors such as the Royale had.  Yet the Sixteen's hood is shorter.  That is because production cars nowadays need to be aerodynamically efficient, and part of what it takes to achieve good efficiency is a sharply slanted windshield.  All the previously discussed cars have their windshields sitting atop their cowlings.  But the base of the Sixteen's windshield is set forward of the cowling so that it and the roofline are high enough to clear the driver's head.

Toyota Avalon - 2013
To illustrate this point further, here is Toyota's top-of-the-line Avalon.  Wind tunnel testing played an important role in establishing the car's general shape.  Also having an effect are current "packaging" requirements that include a usefully large trunk at the rear, and a compact power unit at the front.  The result is a passenger compartment with a slight forward bias.  This, coupled with the aerodynamics-dictated windshield slope, yields a stubby hood.

Gem of an Automobile Museum

A version of his article was originally posted on the Art Contrarian blog 11 May 2012.  I am re-posting it because I believe it will be of interest to readers here.

Automobile museums are all different, yet in many ways similar -- especially the Important Museums.   By that I mean car museums with large collections here in America seem obliged at have at least one Duesenberg, one Cord, a Ford Model T, an early 1900s antique of some description, a Packard from any era plus at least one car from the 1930s with either a V-12 or V-16 motor.

So it was with surprise and pleasure that I recently visited the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum, a gem filled with cars seldom seen here in the United States.   Moreover, the collection is built around a theme, whereas most car museums strike me as being filled with whatever nice-to-have vehicles that pop up on the market, creating a sort of random effect.  But the Tampa Bay museum's collection core is built around two poles.  One is cars with engines in the rear, the other is cars with front-wheel drive.  And those cars had to be from the era 1920-1950.  Because most cars with those characteristics were built in Europe in those days, I saw many cars that I've never encountered in person before.  (Sadly, I've visited few European Automobile museums; one does have to make travel compromises with one's spouse, after all.)

Let's take a look at some photos from my visit:

Gallery

Ruxton - 1929
Ruxton was an American front-wheel-drive car that reached the market when the Great Depression hit; only a few hundred were made.  The four-tone paint scheme was designed by Joseph Urban who also created a similar scheme based on blue.

Tracta E - 1930
Another low-production fwd car, this by Jean-Albert Gregoire (1898-1992) of France, father of numerous automobile engineering innovations.  I confess not to have heard of the brand before.

Aero - 1937
Another brand previously unknown to me. This fwd car was built in Czechoslovakia.

Tatra T87 - c.1942
The Czech Tatra firm built several series of rear-engined cars from the mid 1930 to the late 1970s. The one shown here is to me the archetypical version.

Tatra T97 - 1938

Tatra Tatraplan - late 1940s

Voisin C7 - 1927
The power train layout is the traditional front-motor-rear-drive. I include it because it's a Voisin and its body is constructed of wood and doped fabric of the Weymann type.

Panhard Dynamic - 1938
Some (many?) French cars are rather ugly, and this Panhard is near the top of the list.  The drive train is conventional.   But note the covered wheels and three-piece wraparound windshield.   And if you look closely, you'll find that the steering wheel is mounted at the middle of the dashboard -- neither right nor left.   In the 1930s, luxury French cars had right-hand steering while mass-market cars mounted the steering wheel on the left.   Traffic in France followed the German and American pattern, so expensive French cars were better suited for driving in Britain or Czechoslovakia.   Apparently Panhard wanted to split the difference.