21 Jul 2014 – Driven To Write

Theme: Facelifts – Leading by a nose

The re-definitive facelift: 1968 Citroën DS

Further to today’s piece on the Studebaker Starliner’s lamentable fall from grace, how on earth does one attempt to facelift a design of the Citroën DS’ magnitude? Continue reading “Theme: Facelifts – Leading by a nose”

Theme : Facelifts – Loewy´s 1953 Studebaker

You can’t polish a turd, but can you sully a diamond?

53 Studebaker Starliner Side — 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner

Once, whilst Europe was happy to go on producing the same identical model year after year, until the dies got too worn out to function, the US doggedly changed models every three years, with a facelift every year in between. Thus, any reasonable US car spotter will be able to identify the exact year of a Ford Thunderbird, first by the shape, then by the radiator trim or the rear lamps. Any manufacturer who didn’t come up with something new for each season was not going to be taken seriously.

Studebaker was not in a great position in the late 40s, but it tried making the best of things with good design. First Raymond Loewy’s studio came up with the influential 1947 models, Continue reading “Theme : Facelifts – Loewy´s 1953 Studebaker”

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