1948 Buick Streamliner - The Baddest Buick Ever!!!

[Paul Pless]

[Scott Rosen]

The profile looks like a boat stuck in its own bow wave. But it sure is an interesting car. Never would've guessed it was a Buick.

[Ian McColgin]

Essentially hand built by one guy. Totally amazing.

[Ron Williamson]

Stock?
R

[Soundbounder]

Road & Track reported that it took Mr Timbs 2 1/2 years to create the car at a cost of $10,000 USD. The body was created entirely in aluminum by Emil Diedt for $8,000 alone. The shape was formed by hand over a traditional wooden buck.At first the Streamliner was only used on the show circuit until Jim Davis of California bought it in 1952. He used it in and around Manhattan Beach, California and let Motor Life photograph it for a feature article.The car was discovered in the desert pretty much intact in 2002. It was bought at auction and restored by Dave Crouse at Custom Auto, Inc. in Loveland, Colorado for owners Gary & Diane Cerveny of Malibu, California. After its “complete and exacting” restoration, it debuted at the 2010 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance in a class reserved for Motor Trend Cover Cars.


http://www.supercars.net/cars/4688.html

[PeterSibley]

Really beautiful in a bent sort of way ! I wish I could work aluminium !

[Phillip Allen]

I recognized it from cartoons... really!

[purri]

There's quite a bit of Auto-Union thinking in that.

[Paul Pless]

There's quite a bit of Auto-Union thinking in that.

I agree. I think despite the W186 being a front engine car there's quite a lot of influence from the big Mercedes land speed car as well.

[Bobby of Tulsa]

I got a 48 Buick and it's olive green.

[Paul Pless]

open for business

[ron ll]

. Never would've guessed it was a Buick.

Not finding it on Google right now, but didn't Buick create the original prototype for the Corvette or something like it? Help me here Paul.

[Paul Pless]

Oldsmobile F88 Concept

[B_B]

Looking at that incredible car makes me wonder about something I've been wondering for a long while now.

Nobody denies that the mechanicals and the electronics of modern cars are a wonderous thing. You can buy a brand new car these days and, 9 times out of 10, drive it for 75,000 miles before you need any kind of repair, and only minimal maintenence...

....but the body shape is just sheet metal, and it costs as much to bend it into a beutiful shape, as it does to bend it into a really ugly shape.

So, why do auto manufacturers choose the latter, rather than the former? While I don't expect production cars to look like that Buick (I expect any car I own to have actual doors, a top, and a trunk), why aren't they hiring designers to make that sheet metal beautiful... instead of buttf#$K ugly, like MOST new cars?

I do see a few cars, now and then, which demonstrate a little bit of artistic beauty in the shape. The new Chrysler 300, for example, has a lot of classic styling which appeals to me (although the car itself does not). I see various Mercedes and Audis that manage to look better than the average middle class car......

...but the run-of-the-mill middle class auto is pretty damned ugly. Special offender, IMHO, is Chevy.

-Cost of sheet metal and forming might be the same, but the cost of shipping and assembly is probably higher.
-what's hot to you might not be hot to what the focus groups agree is hot
-where's McCosh when you need him

[ron ll]

Oldsmobile F88 Concept

Must be what I was thinking of but not quite how I remembered it. Really thought there was an early fifties Buick that looked more like the first Corvette, but I sure can't find it now. One of those childhood memories that gets warped out of shape somehow. Maybe it was a plastic model in a cereal box or something.

[Scott Rosen]

Norm, I think aerodynamics and fuel efficiency are behind a lot of the current design trends. Plus, a straight fore and aft run on a body line uses less metal than a curved one. The wave-like form in the OP would create a lot of turbulance and drag. Imagine the underbody of a boat in that shape.

There are other consideration like interior room, ease of access for maintenance, exchangability of parts from one model to the next, etc. Most car buyers aren't middle-aged white guys on either end of a mid-life crisis who would pay a small fortune for aesthetics and nostalgia.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

[Henning 4148]

Wow, a goddess. If only the corrosion protection had been in line with the technology and the looks - and if only the technology had been robust ...

At least in Germany, some independent garages refuse work on defect hydropneumatics. It can be a bit like chasing rust around a steel boat, the moment you are finished with repairing everything, you have to start all over again - so the customer comes back again and again and complains, that the repairs do not last.

Had a (much later model) GS once ... But not for long. The hydraulics ... and the rust holes ...

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Yeah - but achingly beautiful.

Ran a Xantia for a few years - with the green sphere suspension and it worked pretty well - one repair in 100K miles - best ride and brakes ever - too much the efficient machine and not enough soul..

The CX Pallas was the last of the really elegant Citroens

[bobbys]

Nice looking cars but unless it can haul at least 2 square of roofing its a girly mans car!

[Steve Paskey]

Thank goodness you don't understand design and foresight, doogie ...

That car in 1948 ... let alone 2008, is a stunner ...

WOW!

I understand design better than most, and I'm with Doug -- I don't find it attractive. To each their own.

[John Meachen]

Yeah - but achingly beautiful.

Ran a Xantia for a few years - with the green sphere suspension and it worked pretty well - one repair in 100K miles - best ride and brakes ever - too much the efficient machine and not enough soul..

The CX Pallas was the last of the really elegant Citroens

Marvellous cars,I had a CX Pallas for 100,000 relaxing miles.Most comfortable seats I have ever experienced,household examples included.Just the right number of spokes in the steering wheel too.

[Dan McCosh]

FWIW--What GM was doing in 1938 with Buick:

[Nicholas Carey]

I think the Delahaye takes the cake for purty:

[johnw]

Norm, I think aerodynamics and fuel efficiency are behind a lot of the current design trends. Plus, a straight fore and aft run on a body line uses less metal than a curved one. The wave-like form in the OP would create a lot of turbulance and drag. Imagine the underbody of a boat in that shape.

There are other consideration like interior room, ease of access for maintenance, exchangability of parts from one model to the next, etc. Most car buyers aren't middle-aged white guys on either end of a mid-life crisis who would pay a small fortune for aesthetics and nostalgia.

Yeah, but it's so much better looking than this concept car from Buick:

[Dan McCosh]

One problem with styling/design is that the fantasy of aerodynamics is much prettier than the reality. This has made both race cars and sailboats less pleasing than when you simply had to look streamlined.

[Paul Pless]

One problem with styling/design is that the fantasy of aerodynamics is much prettier than the reality. This has made both race cars and sailboats less pleasing than when you simply had to look streamlined.

Jim Hall understood this before almost anybody else. No one ever accused Chaparrals of being pretty. . .

[skuthorp]

Bugatti made tis in 1939

and this in 1935. the Art Deco influence was alive and well still just before the war.

[PeterSibley]

Well, I'm not looking for anything radical, so I fail to see why assembly would be any different. Given the constraints of efficient assembly, the styling could still be a LOT better.



That presumes that what the focus group is shown includes beautiful styling. Perhaps it doesn't.

Most of the small Japanese and European car look pretty similar these days ,the current small car designs are material efficient and more especially have very low drag .This Corolla probably has a drag coefficient of .35. It's frontal area is small and the car is light . The result is good performance and very good fuel economy from not having to fight the air around it .Good design ,if unexciting .

and apologies for posting picture of a Corolla on this thread !

[Nicholas Carey]

Norm, I think aerodynamics and fuel efficiency are behind a lot of the current design trends. Plus, a straight fore and aft run on a body line uses less metal than a curved one. The wave-like form in the OP would create a lot of turbulance and drag. Imagine the underbody of a boat in that shape.

There are other consideration like interior room, ease of access for maintenance, exchangability of parts from one model to the next, etc. Most car buyers aren't middle-aged white guys on either end of a mid-life crisis who would pay a small fortune for aesthetics and nostalgia.

Yes. The wheels got moved out to the very corners of the car to maximise usable interior space. The wheels are essentially big disks that fill the wheel wheel to minimize rotation drag/turbulence. A transverse engine, front drive configuration lets the power train snuggle in between the front wheels, again maximizing usable interior volume.

And finally, they figgered out a while back, IIRC, that tapered back ends create more turbulence than a truncated back end (seems not intuitively obvious to me, but then I don't hang around wind tunnels much). As a result, back ends got chopped off to minimize turbulence as well, so cars resemble in profile a teardrop.

This



has more to do with this



than one might realize.

But once you implement the requirements to maximize interior volume and make it slippery, the designers have a rather limited scope of what they can play with stylistically.

[Paul Pless]

And finally, they figgered out a while back, IIRC, that tapered back ends create more turbulence than a truncated back end (seems not intuitively obvious to me, but then I don't hang around wind tunnels much). As a result, back ends got chopped off to minimize turbulence as well, so cars resemble in profile a teardrop.

Not so worried about turbulence as they are clean separation of the air from the back of the vehicle, they just want the air gone!

[johnw]

Not quite right, Nick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammback
While the realities of fluid dynamics dictate that a teardrop shape is the ideal aerodynamic form, Kamm found that by cutting off / flattening the streamlined end of the tear at an intermediate point, and bringing that edge down towards the ground, he could gain most of the benefit of the teardrop shape without incurring such a large material, structural, and size problem.

Sort of like why I built my centerboard with a taper to a square back. A sharp taper would be slightly better, but way too fragile.

[Blowtorch]

This is from 2000, compared to the first one it looks like an old shoe. Nice but not in the same Categry.

[24hacker]

Now that is what you call "cab forward"!