The streamline style is somewhat a visual artistic reflection of the technological innovations and developments that burst in the beginning of the XXth century. Admiration of new fast moving aircrafts brings the concept of the optimal airflow down to the vacuum cleaners and toasters. Everything is trying to look like it is going to take-off in a minute. This concept appealed to everyone.
Industrial design started affecting new fields of products bringing the streamline everywhere.
Although simple and not expensive products were most in need of the professional designers' services, Major companies such as Pennsylvania Railroad, Sears Roebuck and Studebaker Corporation having the resources tested validity of the new style. In 1939 Loewy was put in charge of styling for the Studebaker.
"When these 1946-7 Studebakers appeared, there were brief jibes from the skeptics who maintained that it was impossible to tell whether the cars were coming or going, but it did not take long for the world to be sure that this utterly novel styling was the coming thing: within a few years, it was commonplace for ordinary saloons to feature a 3-box, turret-top composition in which the rearmost box (the luggage boot) was as substantial as the foremost or engine compartment, and in which the area of glazing to provide vision to the rear was almost as great as that at the front of the turret within which the passengers were lodged. It was a re-proportioning that struck at the very roots of car styling and engineering, one which was perhaps more fundamental and successful than any since Maybach's 1901 Mercedes and Budd's 1916 Dodge, or before the 1959 Mini of Issigonis. With its unaccustomed symmetry and its wrap-round glass, the Studebaker set fashions that persist today. For a while Studebaker prospered, but it was not for long. It may even be questioned whether that brief prosperity was of Loewy's making, for as Alfred P. Sloan wrote in his outstanding book My Life with General Motors: With the resumption of production after World War Two it was necessary because of shortages, particularly of steel, for the industry to operate under material controls. These allocations favored the smaller manufacturers (Kaiser-Frazer, Nash, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard) whose product presentation at that time was concentrated in the medium-price range, with the result that the proportion of the market accounted for by their cars increased sharply. Competition in this period was largely con- fined to production - that is, whatever a manufacturer could make, customers were waiting to purchase. In the years after 1948, normal competitive influences began to reassert themselves in some areas of the market, and the sales of the smaller manufacturers in the medium-price group declined."(1)
Loewy's car designs created a great impact on the whole car industry with its loud echo into the present days. Unfortunately Studebaker Company could not be saved even with such a great design masterpiece as Avanti of 1962. The car had ergonomically- integrated controls and functionally-coherent shape. Avanti as a model was saved for a limited production which lasted for another 10 years.
(1) Coachbuilt.com (source) "Raymond Loewy 1893-1986", http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/l/loewy/loewy.htm
Industrial design started affecting new fields of products bringing the streamline everywhere.
Although simple and not expensive products were most in need of the professional designers' services, Major companies such as Pennsylvania Railroad, Sears Roebuck and Studebaker Corporation having the resources tested validity of the new style. In 1939 Loewy was put in charge of styling for the Studebaker.
"When these 1946-7 Studebakers appeared, there were brief jibes from the skeptics who maintained that it was impossible to tell whether the cars were coming or going, but it did not take long for the world to be sure that this utterly novel styling was the coming thing: within a few years, it was commonplace for ordinary saloons to feature a 3-box, turret-top composition in which the rearmost box (the luggage boot) was as substantial as the foremost or engine compartment, and in which the area of glazing to provide vision to the rear was almost as great as that at the front of the turret within which the passengers were lodged. It was a re-proportioning that struck at the very roots of car styling and engineering, one which was perhaps more fundamental and successful than any since Maybach's 1901 Mercedes and Budd's 1916 Dodge, or before the 1959 Mini of Issigonis. With its unaccustomed symmetry and its wrap-round glass, the Studebaker set fashions that persist today. For a while Studebaker prospered, but it was not for long. It may even be questioned whether that brief prosperity was of Loewy's making, for as Alfred P. Sloan wrote in his outstanding book My Life with General Motors: With the resumption of production after World War Two it was necessary because of shortages, particularly of steel, for the industry to operate under material controls. These allocations favored the smaller manufacturers (Kaiser-Frazer, Nash, Hudson, Studebaker and Packard) whose product presentation at that time was concentrated in the medium-price range, with the result that the proportion of the market accounted for by their cars increased sharply. Competition in this period was largely con- fined to production - that is, whatever a manufacturer could make, customers were waiting to purchase. In the years after 1948, normal competitive influences began to reassert themselves in some areas of the market, and the sales of the smaller manufacturers in the medium-price group declined."(1)
Loewy's car designs created a great impact on the whole car industry with its loud echo into the present days. Unfortunately Studebaker Company could not be saved even with such a great design masterpiece as Avanti of 1962. The car had ergonomically- integrated controls and functionally-coherent shape. Avanti as a model was saved for a limited production which lasted for another 10 years.
(1) Coachbuilt.com (source) "Raymond Loewy 1893-1986", http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/l/loewy/loewy.htm
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