[Leica] IMG: American Styling

[shino at panix.com (Rei Shinozuka)]

Jim, very good points.

Chevy had passenger Fuelies in 1957, one year after Mercedes
Benz introduced it.  The Chevy version could be had in the 
Corvette, down to your mom's grocery-getting station wagon.

http://www.57classicchevy.com/1957-chevrolet-fuel-injection.html

World's first turbocharged passenger cars, Olds F85, in 1962 and
then Chevy Corvair Monza, 1962.

http://www.tctc.com/~park/mph/pageCLIP/page62JET/62jet.htm
http://www.corvaircorsa.com/vance.html

The 1963-66 Chrysler gas turbine program, where 203 test drivers used
the turbine powered vehicle for 3 months.  It's kind of hard to believe
they did this 45 years ago.

http://www.turbinecar.com/misc/History.pdf

And Americans have long had a love affair with aluminum engines,
even before they were practicable.  AMC had one in 1961, Chrysler
had a slant 6 in the early 60s, Buick famously had an aluminum V8,
Chevy had the Aluminum ZL1 427 engine in 1969 and then the ill-fated
Vega engines.  Now of course, everybody does it.

Here's an interesting look at aluminim's future from 1958:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,868612,00.html

-rei


On Jun24 11:11, Jim Shulman wrote:
> At the same time that that the US was covering all sorts of design excess,
> it was also creating
> 
> 1. Disk brakes (available on the '51 Chrysler)
> 2. Fuel injection (available from GM on various Chevrolet models from the
> mid-50s onward; Chrysler briefly introduced an electronically governed fuel
> injection system in 1957)
> 3. Front wheel drive (introduced in 1929 in the L-29 Cord, and revived in
> the mid-30s Cord sedans. GM and Packard also build experimental front drive
> cars in that era.  Unfortunately, with the technology of the time front
> drive required excessive maintenance.)  US production cars from the 1960s
> included front drive (1966 Olds Toronado and 1967 Cadillac Eldorado), well
> before the first front-drive compact cars appeared in the US.
> 4. Torsion bars (in all Chrysler Corp. cars in 1957 and thereafter.)
> 
> We could go on with US engineering innovations, including the Trinitron
> (patented by RCA in 1951).  
> 
> What the rest of the world did VERY well was figure out how to 
> commercialize
> US engineering innovations, making them less expensive and more reliable.
> In many cases, such as front drive and the Trinitron, there were interim
> leaps forward in technology between the innovation and mass
> commercialization.
> 
> Jim Shulman
> Wynnewood, PA
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-bounces+jshul=comcast.net at leica-users.org
> [mailto:lug-bounces+jshul=comcast.net at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of 
> George
> Lottermoser
> Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:55 AM
> To: Leica Users Group
> Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: American Styling
> 
> While the rest of the world engineered:
> disk brakes
> fuel injection
> front-wheel drive
> torsion bars
> etc, etc
> 
> The US designed:
> fins
> hood ornaments
> grills
> ridiculous names
> and
> hyperbolic advertising
> 
> Regards,
> George Lottermoser
> george at imagist.com
> http://www.imagist.com
> http://www.imagist.com/blog
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist
> 
> On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:25 PM, Jim Shulman wrote:
> 
> > There are many things that helped to kill the US auto industry,  
> > well above
> > the styling excess of 50s and 60s cars.
> 
> 
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> 
> 
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-- 
Rei Shinozuka shino at panix.com
Ridgewood, New Jersey