What would the 1976 Fiesta have looked like without the sagging line at the base of the side-glass?
Alternative Fiesta
1975 VW Polo
It depends if you are a lumper or splitter, doesn’t it?
Micropost: Alternative Fiesta
What would the 1976 Fiesta have looked like without the sagging line at the base of the side-glass?
It depends if you are a lumper or splitter, doesn’t it?
Driven To Write 
Amidst all the world’s wickednesses, i have to say the slight sag in the Fiesta’s waist line has never caused me any upset. The fading pattern on the cover of my first edition LCIF bothers me a little more – thankfully I’ve never idolised books, but only retain them for their content.
Incidentally the 86C Polo, the one Anders Detlev Clausager did, has a similar sagging baseline to the window, but one induced rather more wilfully. The so-called ‘coupe’ is almost a clone of the Mk.1 Fiesta.
I agreee – among all the bad things in this vale of tears the sagging line on the Fiesta is very much down the list of evils. That said, if we are talking design it stands out. I find the alternative sketch I did much more natural and not anachronistic. The 86 Polo doesn´t have a sag so much as an upward flick of a straight line. It´s there to “make the side glass look like it flows around the A-pillar”.
Books: I take care of them but don´t worry about them. I write in them and if they get a bit scuffed in transit, so what. My copy of Bartlett´s book on medieval Europe got quite dog eared this summer in my cycle bags. That didn´t matter. I might be a bit more bothered about my nice books on the Citroen XM though.
The entire Polo 86C A-pillar / door / wing / scuttle / windscreen relationship deserves an exegesis by someone far more sensitive to these matters than myself.
Nothing else VAG did has anything like that detail. It flows very well, where other VW junctions of the time were abrupt and awkward. Possibly all the passion was spent on that area of the car. The remainder of the three bodystyles is less well resolved but – Derby apart – oddly un-Volkswagenish.
A good car, as long as you don’t subscribe to the oafish fixation with effective brakes.
Thanks for alerting me to that. It’s a good point which demands attention.