Aston Martin Lagonda 2: Too Long, Too Low?

Lagonda was a British maker of sporting, luxurious cars whose products reached their apogee in the years prior to World War 2.  After the war, the firm was purchased by David Brown and then consolidated with his Aston Martin operation.  Production dwindled to an end in the late 1950s.

Nearly 20 years later, Aston Martin revived the brand in the form of the extremely expensive Aston Martin Lagonda (Wikipedia entry here).  A Series 1 design was soon replaced by the Series 2 styled by William Towns and produced in limited numbers from 1979 to 1985.  Later, facelifted series were then introduced, but production ended in 1990 following continued low sales.

The Aston Martin Lagonda (I'm referring to Series 2 and later) was controversial.  One problem was the incorporation of advanced (for the time) electronics that suffered from reliability problems.  Styling was also controversial, and I'll deal with that here.

During the 1970s a major automobile styling fashion was stark, nearly flat body panels.  Greenhouses featured large areas of glass, and roofs were thin.  The overall effect was a trim, angular, simple, rather classical appearance.  This fashion came to an end during the 1980s when automobile companies had to make their cars more efficient aerodynamically.

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Although the AM Lagonda has interesting styling details, in my judgment the design suffers because of the dimensions of the "package."   The car is simply too long and too low; its proportions would make almost any styling seem wrong.  This is most evident in the side view above, but also can be seen in the upper image.  Notice that top of the front wheel housing opening comes so close to the top of the front fender that the fender seems pinched off at that point.  This effect is exaggerated by the long front overhang that adds visual bulk to the front of the car.   If the fenders, roof, hood and trunk had been raised even two or three inches (5-8 cm) and the overhang was reduced perhaps six inches (15 cm), the car would have been better proportioned.  And it would have looked more conventional, less distinctive.

The Wikipedia entry states that only 645 of the Series 2-4 cars were built.  Given that even the newest ones are now nearly 30 years old, AM Lagondas are seldom seen.  Lucky me, I encountered one while driving on a motorway in England last summer between the Lake District and York.  Low and angular it was.

Plymouth Belmont, a Briggs Design

Briggs Manufacturing for many years had been an independent firm building bodies under contract to various automobile companies.  But in 1953 it was purchased by Chrysler Corporation.  That year Briggs created two show cars with bodies made of fiberglass, a material of great interest at the time. One car was the Dodge Granada which I discuss in a separate post. The other was the Plymouth Belmont. Although both were displayed under Chrysler brand names, their styling was created outside the influence of the corporation's styling staff which at the time favored elegant Italian-influenced designs.

The Belmont's styling was by Bill Robertson working under the direction of Briggs' Al Prance.   Both the Granada and Belmont were two-passenger "sports cars" built on passenger car chassis and running gear.  Both had high, rounded cowlings and similar, perhaps identical, windshields.

Like the Granada, the Belmont was confusing to some car fans because its styling was at such great variance from the Italianate concept car themes by now (1954, when the Belmont and Granada where first shown to the public) expected from Chrysler.

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The Belmont's styling is in keeping with they way sports cars were expected to look in the early 1950s, in particular its flowing fender line.  However, the Belmont was longer and wider than real sports cars of the day, as the rear view I found on the Internet suggests.

As for specific criticisms, I think the rear fender kick-up is too extreme, too high.  I think the sides look a little too puffy, but that opinion can be fairly debated.  The high, rounded cowling might have been necessary for engineering reasons, but adds a little heaviness to the design.  The bumpers were stock Plymouth items, and therefore not part of the stylist's intent.  The air intake vent on the hood was a styling cliché of the early 50s.  It does add interest to the hood area, but added interest could have been accomplished by other kinds of panel sculpting.  The headlamps seem small for the times, so I would have liked them a little larger.  Plus, the chromed "frenching" (a 50s term) around them gives the car's face a a strange appearance.  The front could have been better composed had the stylist been allowed to design a bumper that harmonized with the grille shape and content.  Overall, the Belmont's appearance might be classed as "clean," but heavy looking; not a successful design.

Vauxhall's Concave Accents

In the early days of the automobile industry, a number of manufacturers tried to establish stylistic iconography so as to make their cars instantly recognizable.  Examples include Rolls-Royce's "tombstone" radiator/grill ensemble and Packard's red hexagons on wheel hubs and hubcaps.  This worked fairly well from around 1910 into the early 1930s when automobile hoods, headlamps, bumpers and fenders were the major visual elements of the car's front end, and they were physically distinct.   Blending of these elements began in earnest starting around the 1934 model year, and by 1950 most cars had so-called "envelope bodies" where all those bits except the bumpers were integrated into one mass.  This usually made it difficult to maintain distinguishing iconography.

A case in point is the British brand Vauxhall (Wikipedia entry here).  Before 1910, Vauxhall came up with the idea of placing tapered, concave depressions on each side of the hood where it transitions from horizontal to vertical.  Visually, these seem to be scooped out from the hood mass.  British car styling being conservative and World War 2 having dealt a serious blow to the economy, Vauxhall cars didn't receive fully envelope-styled bodies until the early 1950s.  Nevertheless, these concave streaks continued on Vauxhalls until the 1957 model year began their disappearance.

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1909 Vauxhall

1920 Vauxhall D Type

1927 Vauxhall Type 30-98
These Vauxhalls are from the era when exterior components were separate units.  The tapered depression is clearly seen on the 1920 and 1927 vehicles.

1936 Vauxhall Big Six

1939 Vauxhall advertisement
By the mid to late 1930s, Vauxhall bodies were becoming increasingly rounded, yet stylists still had no difficulty incorporating the traditional hood accents.

1948 Vauxhall Wyvern or Velox
Vauxhall's first post-war body retained a tall hood that could support the accents (which were embellished by chrome plating).  But there was now a disconnect with the grille which was horizontal and low.

1955 Vauxhall brochure cover
Another complete body restyling appeared in the mid-50s, the transition to the envelope type being completed.  The hood was now lowered, leaving less room for the accents.  Another complete restyling came in the form of the 1957 Vauxhall Victor whose hood was lower than the fender tops.  There being no place for the accents, they finally disappeared.

Ugly Car: Nissan Juke

The Nissan Juke, a vehicle occupying the cloudy space between sport-utility (SUV) and hatchback, was styled at the company's British design center and refined in Japan. Then Nissan styling supremo Shiro Nakamura must have signed off on it, for reasons I find hard to fathom.

Actually, I can imagine a likely justification from some of the younger folks in Nissan's marketing and product planning groups.  Expressed in American English, words such as "edgy," "funky," "provocative," "postmodern" and "countercultural" and others might have been bandied about conference tables or infested emails and memoranda.  For the Juke seems to have been slotted into a market segment of young buyers with just enough extra money to indulge themselves with a vehicle that makes a statement.

I'm note sure how large this market might be, world-wide, but Nissan hedged its bet by building the car on the Nissan B platform shared by a number of other Renault-controlled brands including the Nissan Leaf electricity powered car (which has a slightly longer wheelbase than the Juke).

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The Juke does not have much brightwork, yet nevertheless is a "busy" design due to the elaborate sheet metal bulges and creases, especially those on its stubby sides.  Such sculpting might be expected these days on standard-size cars, but everything is jammed onto the Juke.  This is not to say that the Juke's shaping had to be austere and bland; but a compromise such as having the fenderlines flow a little more might have helped.  The really off touches are the taillights and front turn-signal and auxiliary lighting fixtures set atop the fenders.  They enhance the stubby appearance and generally clash with the rest of the design, such as it is.  I find the use of round headlamps a nice touch, though their placement on the front strike-panel is both odd and risky.

This side view clearly shows the strange roofline.  It is nearly flat, which makes me wonder about its aerodynamic usefulness.  But its most serious defect is that it slopes to the rear, pinching off potential carrying capacity for objects placed in the trunk area.

A view of the lumpy rear.  The most interesting feature here is the wraparound backlight (rear window).

These views from above provide more detail as to how the body was shaped.  I would have placed the front auxiliary light ensembles right above the grille opening with the hood cut-lines as their inner edge.  But I suppose that wouldn't have been funky enough for the target market.

Whither Dodge's Grille Design

Grilles can be a strong brand identifier -- or not.  Some car makes such as Cadillac with an egg-crate motif since the late 1930s and (especially) Rolls-Royce follow thematic consistency.  Others change grille designs often, leaving brand identity to carried by a trademarked symbol (Ford, for instance).  I'll have a lot more to say about this in a forthcoming e-book.

One brand that has used a consistent grille theme for nearly 30 year is Dodge, with its crossed bars or "gunsight" nested within the radiator opening.

This motif has been used on Dodge's trucks as well as its cars. But a few years ago the truck line was spun off as a separate brand called Ram.  The name "Ram" was chosen because Ram was a line of Dodge trucks.  Back in the period roughly from the early 1930s to the early 1950s, Dodge vehicles used a ram (bighorn sheep) as its hood ornament.

When the Ram truck brand was established, someone at Chrysler insisted that Ram would still be Dodge-related and the symbolism would be retained.  A brave statement, that, but will it hold for the future as the Ram brand continues with its own staff who might not want to carry the Dodge symbolism for all time.  Or might the Dodge people decide to let Ram retain the theme and have Dodge do something different?  Are there any clues?

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1985 Dodge DiplomatHere is one of the earliest instances of what became the traditional Dodge grille motif.

2013 Dodge ChargerIt can be seen on Dodge's largest current sedan line.

2013 Ram 1500Thanks to its bold, simple design, the cross pattern works well on large, aggressive looking trucks.  I suspect Rams will continue to use it.

2013 Dodge DartThis smaller dodge is based on Alfa Romeo components.  Like many cars these days, the main radiator airflow opening is set low and is a rather anonymous hole.  The small slot above the bumper is part of the grille ensemble, but not really needed for radiator airflow.  The cross pattern is retained here, but only in a stylized manner.  It's too soon to tell if it is a harbinger of future grille symbolism for Dodge.