Part B

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Look at some newer cars.  The '49-'51 Frazer Manhattan evolved from the
Kaiser Virginian.  One was called a "four-door hardtop" but neither its
window frames nor its central glass pillar would retract; the other was
called a "four-door convertible" but it converted no more than would a
Rambler Landau.  Should K-F have called them its "panoramic sedan" or its
"skyview coach" models or perhaps its "semi-collapsible six-window landau"
cars instead?  Whatever they were called, they were beautiful and
underappreciated.  Only 131 soft- and 152 hard- final Frazer tops were
built.  "The Pride of Willow Run" was about to be sold to General Motors ---
for $26 million in 1953.

The so-called Kennedy Continentals technically were pillared hardtops and
[pillarless] convertible sedans; how their doors were hinged (and that's a
choice that was far less proscribed in earlier eras) doesn't matter --- the
one-off 300 Chrysler showed in Geneva is the same body style.  At the depths
of the Depression (which were the heights of the Classic Car era), some
makes catalogued dozens of unique body styles: Cadillac fanciers had 30+
choices in the early '30s; Packard buyers as well.  Remember how many senior
Nash factory bodies were offered (and remember how many more Super Great
Hudson chassis were coachbuilt); a lowly Model A came in lots of choices,
from cheap to cheap times five.  A leatherette-topped, landau-barred,
twin-sidemounted (merely painted, not chromed; that would be too much)
Fordor could be the Town Car of your dreams.  If your dreams were even
bigger, Brewster would build a Model A Limousine.  Some of America's truly
rich (back when money was real and not today's illusion), including Mrs.
Cunningham of Rochester (descended from the beyond-Cadillac-and-Packard
Cunningham carriage-to-car family), took heart [if you really know old cars,
you get the joke] in a simple Ford body.  Looking rich was not always a good
thing.

Were Cunninghams built now, they'd compete with Maybach and R-R Phantom;
Miss Pickford would make Misses Aniston, Berry, Kidman and Roberts look like
misses with G-Wagen, Range Rover and Escalade truckin' lifestyles.  Those
who found a Cunningham too showy (or too show-biz) had many other ultra-luxe
marques to choose from --- and an endless choice of bodies on those frames.
Virtually every one an individualized masterpiece; hand built to levels of
perfection that only the computer age would be able to exceed.  And
virtually every make --- including virtually every firm that bodied them ---
would disappear before the onset of World War II.

There were "closed" and "open" coupes back then; the one Mercedes 500K
Autobahn Kurier built for 1933 Berlin looked as incredibly modern --- and as
unique --- as the one Cadillac Aerodynamic and the one [of five] Pierce
Silver Arrow built for 1933 Chicago.  (The one Packard [a sedan] was equally
unique (and beautiful); only it was far more conservative.)  The American
streamliners were two-door sedans; the German was a closed coupe.   The
difference was in "size" and "speed" of post and fastback.  In 1933, the
most beautiful, elegant and aerodymanic coupes and sedans were coachbuilt by
most creative firms.  Figoni & Falaschi, Hibbard & Darrin, LeBaron,
Letourneur, Saoutchik, Touring and --- ring your AMC bells --- Pinin Farina
--- saw a future for automotive style.  See an Alfa 8C 2900 and you'll
see/hear it as well.

The closest corporate America came to selling such cars were the few
timeless concepts that spun on turntables in GM's courtyard; the few finest
Chrysler show cars that Exner had built by Ghia; the very few one-offs that
weren't over the top of the Ford Pavilion (as was the '56 Mystere); the few
independent efforts that weren't weird (the six '54 Edwards Americas were as
beautiful as anything Detroit built); and the few one-offs you could connect
to AMC: '53 Pan America, '54 Panther Daytona (early "pony" car?), '57
Lincoln Packard, and the pack of '66 concepts.  Some saw production; some
didn't; all were leftovers from an earlier way of doing things.     

In 1951, Lincoln's Cosmopolitan "Sport Sedan" didn't differ much from a K-F
"hardtop" --- a Cosmopolitan Capri had even more of a hardtop look: thin
chromed window frames and completely covered "vinyl-leather" (yes, that's
the official Ford word) roof, but technically a "four-door six-window sedan"
and a "two-door four-window sedan" they were.  Fool-the-eye "close-coupled"
appearance they had also; something that made lead-sled Fomoco sedans the
coupes to customize.  For 1951, neither Lincoln nor Mercury had true
hardtops, while Ford debuted -two- later in the model year.  Its new Custom
Victoria hardtop (which was not a victoria) at $1925 outsold Chevy's new Bel
Air hardtop (which had been introduced earlier) at $1741, leather [interior]
included!  Almost $200 was a lot of money back then.  The Ford body was
designed by a man who would later own an AMC Pacer and who had earlier
designed today's most sought-after Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs.

In 1950, all five [!] semi-unique [[!] GM divisions offered pillarless
hardtops (called "coupes" back then); so did two of Chrysler's four [!]
lines.  None of the independents (Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, Packard, K-F,
W-O, etc.) did: was writing on the wall?  Plymouth got its Belvedere (as
part of the Cranbrook series) in '51; Packard got its Mayfair (250) that
year, also.  Lincoln and Mercury were all-new for '52; Hudson Wasp had a
pillarless two-door in '52, too.  Nash Rambler went to the Country Club and
Studebaker saw a Starliner in its Commander State.   As fast as they could
move, the competition moved faster.  Nash's '53 Healy LeMansd Sport Coupe
(108" wheelbase) looking like a hardtop went for only $6399.

For a Nash???  A Packard Caribbean convertible cost $5210; a Cadillac 62
convertible, $4144; the top Chrysler New Yorker DeLuxe convertible only
$3495 (and only 950 were sold): was Nash crazy or self-destructive then? 

To be continued