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Design excesses
Photo Essay
Old-fashioned Skamania may have anticipated the automobile’s future
How small is the hamlet of Skamania? So small that its focal point appears to be a general store that doesn’t have much food, there is only one gas pump, and the restroom consists of […]
Links
Knudsen’s favored 1972 Mark IV design borrowed from the Eldorado
(EXPANDED FROM 8/5/2022) A few years ago Dean’s Garage posted a fascinating story about the battle over the 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark IV’s styling. Jim and Cheryl Farrell (2022) described how a design proposal championed […]
Design Notes
Early indications of Toyota embracing its inner Virgil Exner
(EXPANDED FROM 10/25/2021) The above photograph shows the beginning of Toyota’s embrace of sci-fi styling. In the foreground, the second-generation Sienna minivan (which was produced from 2003 to 2009) had simple but attractive styling (Wikipedia, […]
Design Notes
1963-66 Plymouth Valiant inched away from Virgil Exner’s styling quirks
(EXPANDED FROM 5/4/2022) One of my stylistic pet peeves is the 1963-65 Plymouth Valiant’s front fenders, which had weird, hairpin-shaped character lines. They undercut what in many respects was one of the cleaner compact designs […]
Quotes
Virgil Exner Jr.’s oral history discusses Studebaker Lark and 1962 Chryslers
I checked out David Crippen’s (1989) oral history of Virgil Exner Jr. to see if he offered any useful factual details about two lingering historical debates — why the Studebaker Lark as well as the […]
History
1956 was an odd transition year for Ford’s Mercury brand
(EXPANDED FROM 3/3/2023) The 1956 Mercury represented the end — at least for the next four years — of Edsel Ford’s original conception of the brand. Since it was introduced 1939, Mercury had been positioned […]
Quotes
Automotive News: Late-50s one of the best eras for U.S. car design
Only rarely will Automotive News publish a historical piece. One such occasion was when it ran a feature about former Chrysler design head Virgil Exner. The thing I find most striking about this article is […]
Links
How long will automotive styling be dominated by brutalism?
Question-of-the-day features tend to be vapid, so I usually ignore them. However, I must admit to getting drawn into a Jalopnik query about what are the ugliest cars on the market today (Bellwood, 2025). The […]
Design Notes
Which looked better: Exner’s 1966 Duesenberg or 1971-87 Stutz Blackhawk?
(UPDATED FROM 9/20/2021) A few years back Hemmings published a for-sale ad about a 1966 Duesenberg prototype designed by Virgil Exner (Stohl, 2017). The car shared major styling themes with another one Exner subsequently designed — […]