History Pre-Streamline Art Deco coachwork

a big Opel Regent, looks very unGerman and stylish. But I couldn't find any other photos of it.

 

a tiny Walter Junior with a Sodomka body


Tatra 70/80- Sodomka body too, some styling similarities

 

that's art nouveau your thinking of. not art deco.

 

I googled this car and read where whoever owned the car in the seventies chopped it up. Here is the quote from the article:

"By the seventies the roadster had made its way to Colorado where maintenance on the race-spec engine and Dunbonnet suspension became a nuisance. The owner then choppped out the entire front section of the chassis to fit a GM Toronado system which was front wheel drive."

A Toronado front wheel drive set-up?! You have got to be kidding me!...That guy must have been a member of the Dumas (pronounced dumb ass) family. At least the car has been restored to its original glory. It makes you wonder sometime what people are thinking.

 

Note the landau irons on this:

though it was more the grille that had me thinking Art Nouveau.

 

How about this 1931 German newspaper carrier? It has the transitionary shapes of vertical grille with slab sided pontoon style fenders - think WW 1 tank....

 

And if it has not been covered on this thread previously, the 1921 Rumpler Tropfenwagen which shows an embryonic curvilinear form incuding curved glass. The Austrians, Czechs and Germans certainly has some interesting stuff going on....

 

Another photo of the front-wheel-drive Rumpler LKW:



In the course of looking for that I came across this:

Rather similar to the one Sylvian posted above.

Szawe, 1920:

 

Walter Otto Wyss's W2:


Thanks to Rikster, who posted about Wyss on Facebook.

 

1930 Tracta by Henri Lemoine.

 

Freestone & Webb:

 

awesome thread w/ some rolling beauties

 

Doesn't take a lot to cue that Freestone/ Webb C-pillar elsewhere, it's very GT;

It's vestigal influence perhaps also apparent in Monte Carlo/ GNX 25 years ago

 

I just did an article on the Walter Wyss W2, streamlined hand built car from the early 1930's. Walters plan was to "mass" produce this car... Sadly that never happened.

Lots of very interesting photos from the well documented Walter Wyss Collection in the ARTICLE

 

Such a badass fresh perspective on some obviously significant automobiles of days past

 

1921 Farman Torpedo:

 

That is epic. The flat topped roof and the mixture of lines and curves really flies in the face of what you´d expect to look right, but it really works. I love seeing things like this, that I´d never have thought of doing.

 

FWIW Ned, that 1921 Farman Torpedo lives here in Metro Detroit...it's owned by local concrete magnate Peter Ministrelli of Novi, Michigan; I used to work with his cousin Jim in the car industry of course. If you ever find yourself in Detroit for the Concours at St Johns, he brings it out quite often.

http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/223637,9155/1921-Farman-A6B-Super-Sport_photo.aspx

 

Don't forget the Chrysler Airflow!

 

Thanks, RetroSteel, but the Airflow isn't quite Pre-Streamline. Depending on the definition you use you might say that it isn't really Art Deco any more (though according to another definition it's the definitive example of Art Deco.) By the time it happened Art Deco had become something quite different.

Not to be contrary, but I must admit that I don't like the Airflow much. It's too far up the corporate technological agenda of the time, to Enclose the motor industry. It's where the crap we have now comes from.

 

I would like to have seen more interior and instrument panel shots. Thousands of examples of common everyday fittings embellished interiors of the times sought here. Perhaps the fact that one's eyes became quickly accustomed to their use and look in daily driving some of that is left aside. Sadly I don't hav many interior shots that work, in fact perhaps none, but considering the panels housed in the likes of Pierce Arrow, Packard, and in fact some of the coolest and clean usage were in the lowly Dodge/Plymouth/DeSoto/Chrysler lines. Numbers and letters were free game for artisits of the time. I recall some Buick gauges as well that really struck a chord.

 

Current state of the Ruxton project. With a little help from some friends.

 

I saw these cars at the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum in St Petersburg, FL last month. The museum is actually a private collection of the Alain Cerf family, open to the public.
http://tbauto.org/

This is the most accommodating car museum I've ever been to. Just ask to see an engine or interior and the guide will pop the hood or open the door and let you stick your head inside for a better look!

1923 Avion Voison - Chastness / 1926? Hanomag Kommissbrot / 1930 Ruxton

1930? Tracta E / 1936 Panhard Dynamic (OK, Streamline, but too cool not to include!)

 

Here is one more: the fabulous radiator ornament from the Voisin.

 

This was posted on Facebook today by banjeaux bob:

An unidentified coupé with snakeskin-covered body.

 

I don't know how I missed this thread. What I would call 'pure' Art Deco is my favorite Deco. I'll just put this 1925 Amilcar CGS3 here...


Geometric shapes, the use of wood, metal and color. Doesn't get much better.

 

you still looking for a painter ?....i can contact my buddy down in clarkston that had his camaro painted...one of the finest paint jobs ive ever seen...i can get his number for you, if your interested...im assuning your from around detroit area, because you had redford tool do some machining for you....i love the woodlites, would like to get a set for my shay A...not exactly enamored with the ones from the guy on ebay....no lenses and no glass and no mounts...let me know if you need a painter, oh and btw, he gurantees his paint jobs, but only when he does them from scratch including the body work and primer....Mike

 

Another find stumbled across in the course of looking for something else:

Isotta-Fraschini

 

From that peculiar era when Art Nouveau was becoming something else:

 

Six pages in, but to everyone who is struggling to get a handle on the "Pre-Streamline" bit, what I'm looking for is the automotive manifestation of this: