History Pre-Streamline Art Deco coachwork

Mention the term Art Deco in an automotive context to anyone, and the first image to pop up will probably be a Chrysler Airflow or Lincoln-Zephyr. Yet, when those cars appeared Art Deco was already becoming something else. It was already halfway to the Streamline look that eventually morphed into the jet-age/Googie look of the '50s. The Airflow and Lincoln-Zephyr really came at the end of Art Deco proper.

In fact Art Deco was already in full swing by the time of the Paris exhibition of 1925 that gave the style a name. Examples that can arguably be called Art Deco date from as early as 1910. And between c.1925 and 1932 there were automotive examples very different in style from the later Streamline. That's what I'd like to see in this thread. I'll start with the obvious, 1930 Ruxton:



What else can you guys dig up?

 

bttt?

 

Is that really the original paint scheme on that Ruxton?

 

Yes it is, but I believe it was a salon show car.


"Pre-deco" is tough. You could almost call all of the interiors pre-streamline deco. Gauge panels and interior lights were pretty stylish but the cars were almost all the same basic gig differing more in size than style. Not many stood out, but the L-29 Cord was probably in there along with the 734 series Packards.

 

When you say Deco, I think of a lot of the highly floral designs, like Alphonse Mucha and co. Does it really apply to cars?

 

I believe that this Bugatti qualifies but I have to confess that, for me, the line blurs between art deco and streamline design as it applies to cars. Maybe someone here can provide early examples of each and point out the distinction between them.

 

For JamesD...Art Deco by definition is a series of geometric or asymetric shapes to create a pleasing look to the subject. It can be applied to furniture, buildings, art, and of course, cars. What we normally refer to as an "art deco car would be something like a Lincoln Zephyr, some of the 35 and newer Studebakers, and the grandaddy of all at deco cars, the Airflows in the DeSoto and Chrysler car lines. If you do a google image search you'll see some pretty amazing stuff.

 

I suspect that this is going to open a whole can of worms as to the definition of Art Deco Arts Decoratifs) in an automotive context. To me the cars of the 1920s tend to be Baroque - somewhat heavy and cumbersome in comparison to the streamlined later periods. It would seem that the 1933 Chicago World Fair may have been a pivotal point of the transition form Art Deco to Streamline Moderne.

For an informative look at the origins of Art Deco look no further than Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco


Art Deco in it's purest from uses geometric shapes and to me the purest Art Deco car would have to be Peter Mullin's 1934 Voisin Aerosport C27 coupe which I had the pleasure of inspecting thoroughly and photographing in person earlier this year....

 

Ned,

Thanks for bringing this up !

Almost nobody loves Art Deco as much as Posie & myself ! I've collected a lot of Art Deco pieces over the last 35 years, and truly believe it's one of the best styles ever created...visually stunning.

BELOW: The 1938 Hispano-Suiza & Posie's "Extremeliner"...




To see a visual "Art Deco Mini Time Line Primer" that I created and hear Posie's "Extremeliner" Story about puttng together his version of a Classic Coach Built Car just go to this Link:
http://www.legends.thewwbc.net/about12.html

Posie's a Master Craftsman and I learned one heck of a lot from his explanation of the build ! Enjoy !!

JK www.legends.thewwbc.net

 

1925 Roll Royce Phantom



1937 Bugatti



1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom Jonckheere Aerodynamic Coupe

 

Excuse me - sez who??? The emphasis being "almost". My cars are, in their humble way, Art Deco or streamline moderne and have been for decades.

If this is true and you have not already been, you and Ken F. need to get your asses over to the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, CA which not only has the world's finest collection of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne cars but also a magnificent collection of the best of the best of Art Deco artifacts and furniture as well as a world class collection of furniture designed by Carlo Bugatti - father of Ettore.

The 1925 Rolls Royce was rebodied in 1934 by Jonckheere.

And as I suspected the can of worms has opened and the lid will not go back on. Ned Ludd was specific in his request for photos of pre Streamline Moderne cars and yet examples of Streamline Moderne are already showing up - such as the Delahaye and the Hispano - not that I mind in the slightest, but just saying....

 

oh man.....this should be good.

 

Pass the popcorn.... or should that be grey poupon..

 

You beat me to it Weasel! That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.

Apparently that Hispano is a '32 that was rebodied in 1938 (I'm speaking under correction). The four-door saloon body it had before is more what I'm after. Unfortunately that is currently very poorly documented: I don't believe any photographs of the rear of the car exist. And indeed, finding anything on the old body on the Internet is more easily said than done. Here's the best I could find:

 

Well we could certainly split hairs on "moderne" vs "deco", but why bother. Let's just say it's kool. I'm in. I like it a bunch. I probably appreciate architecture and furniture more than the cars because I've seen so many different cars over the years. "Baroque"? Boy doesn't that nail it. So many of the early cars, especially customs, really fit that catagory. Perhaps one of the most blatently baroque interiors was Alvan Macauley's Brewster Packard. Pierce Arrows sort of hit both ideas with some of their designs. A mixed up salad of deco/moderne/baroque appointments and styling both inside and out. Here's Macauleys passenger compartment in the Brewster Formal Sedan. Wild, huh?

 

I love Art Deco stuff, but I'm too Baroque to afford it!

 

I'm Neuvo Baroque.

 

Here's a few contributions for the thread. First is the Van Vooren bodied Bugatti, the Pugeot Eclipse from Portout, Delahaye 135 by Figoni & Falaschi, a '38 Pontiac from the factory, a '36 DeSoto detail, the '41 Chrysler Thunderbolt by LeBaron, and Louis Delage's personal show car by Portout. (I hope the pictures show up in the right order. Sorry if they don't).

Art Deco, or streamlined styling, was not limited to cars. The designer Alex de Sahknofsky created the famous Labatt's trucks to circumvent that country's ban on alcohol advertising.

 

Just as I'm appreciatin' some serious automotive art history some smart - ass makes me spit Coke all over the keyboard! That's f*&%n' funny

 

Great thread and awesome quote.

I think my newly acquired 1932 Chrysler 3 Window coupe is as close as I'll ever got to an Art Deco masterpiece.

 

More of the round door and window system.. These two details are all that I can see when I look at this car. Gorgeous...





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Corsair

Scarab

 

And yet people still wonder where Chet Herbert came up with the Beast 3 idea!!

 

That would be Art Neuveau- very organic, yet clean and crisp lines and organized designs.


I think of 20's Deco as being more geometric and Egyptian inspired, 30's got more rounded and eventually became Streamline Moderne by late 30's

 

It's blowing my mind that the black Rolls with the round door and the green Rolls with the full skirt fenders are 1925! Maybe re-bodied later? Especially the green one-

 

Art Nouveau was influenced by the organic with wispy flowing lines mirroring what you would see in nature.

Art Deco was the "machine age" with a style that was more geometric and formal in shapes.

That being said I see something like the body of the Saoutchik Delahaye as more Nouveau in style although it was made late in the Deco period - 1949. Interior classic Deco.

One on my Deco fav's is the Cord 812

 

Bingo Keith, right on mark

 

The definitive geometric form of Deco Style would have to be the ziggurat which also shows up as lightning bolt motifs often.

Even Deco seems to have an early and late period. In architecture the early stuff was almost "gothic" art deco then later it changed into cleaner forms, less adorned that were closer to streamlined. The difference between the Chrysler and Empire State building shows this quite well.

What I really like about Deco is that it celebrated the "new technologies" and showcased transporation, energy and industrial motifs in its forms while blending them in with and as art.

 

I agree Virgil. It amazes me how aircraft and autos seemed to feed off each other in those periods. Excuse me if I've gone off topic but it sure seemed to go hand in hand. Lippy

 

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1929 Dupont Speedster




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