1958 Continental Mark III V12 coupe

This is a serious stab at creating a true follow-up to the gorgeous Mark II of '56 and '57. I've done an earlier version but that one was tongue-in-cheek, here. This version was created with an eye toward full production... Biggest change beyond the new proportions are the restyled rear fenders. I modified the front fender "scallop" motif for these new, shorter rear fenders, tying the side together in a more cohesive way than the way they were. I also kept the rear wheelwells open instead of skirted, to more closely align this III with the II and to keep the car as light appearing as possible. The "T-Bird" style roof with flat, inset rear window would include a powered center section, sliding down behind the rear seat and a small, stainless steel visor powers out from the roof when the backlight is lowered.

That long hood points to the first production postwar V12 in the American luxury class. The lowered body and roofline, as in the '58 Thunderbird, would mean a raised driveline "hump" necessitating a full length console front-to-rear and four bucket seats. Leathers and fabrics would rival the crosstown competition, the '58 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.

The roof of this example is clad in dark-tinted brushed stainless steel panels which perfectly complements the dusty rose metallic body color. Pink-and-Gray were my college's school colors and I'll consider this an homage to my recently missed 35th Reunion!

Oldie But Goodie: Fifties 300SL Gullwing Touring

I really think an original 300SL Gullwing Touring model, with fitted luggage and a useful rear hatch, would have made a great fit in the Fifties grand touring market. Aerodynamics may have been even better with the smoothly rounded back ending farther back on the body. Supple Italian leather luggage with aluminum fittings securing it in the rear hold is fitted below the shoulder line for a clean appearance and maximum driver visibility.

I chopped this a long time ago but I think it's holding up pretty well : )

1960 Cadillac Series 52: First Senior Compact?

Yes, Silliness Ensues

My rendering is comical and meant to be, but the idea was an interesting one. I wondered what Cadillac would have had to do if given the edict to offer a "compact" car in 1960. I thought about what the marque would have to give up to meet the size and cost restraints, and how they'd make the best of them. 

• Shorter, taller body for maximum interior room
• Flatter sideglass and backlight but a complicated front windshield would be engineered to keep a strong resemblance to the larger cars
• Dual instead of quad headlights
• Bodyside argent two-toning, to not only differentiate from the senior models but to camouflage the cheaper-to-produce painted grille insert
• Fewer body stampings, no fender skirts

I think a Cadillac version of the '61 Tempest/Special/F85 would have been the more appropriate styling direction, but I knew from the start I wanted this to be a fun rendering. Maybe I'll do a more serious one in the future...

Colorizing the Colorized

I recently went through my file of colorized photos and found this series. They're all photographs I shot in 1980 with my trusty Nikon film camera. They were taken at car shows, used car lots, and wherever I found cool cars. Originally colorized a few years ago, some of these images I had limited myself to just two colors. This time I refined all the images with countless shades and colors. I think they're going to be great to print out and then cut up and used in my future wooden pieces. Cut into squares they'll be great parts of some checkerboard paintings I'm working on. Reposting from my other blog: We can all use a dose of color right now!

Instrument panel of the 1959 Edsel. And this was toned-down from 1958!

Postwar Studebaker Starlight coupe.

Postwar Cadillac 75 Formal Sedan trunk logo.

The front fender of the postwar Caddy 75 Formal Sedan.

The front doorstep on the Cadillac 75.

Mid 1950s Mercedes Benz 300 SL trunk lid trim.

 Early Thirties Auburn hood ornament. This was a boattail speedster.

Step plate for a mid 1920s Buick.

 

Hood trim on a 1956 Ford.

1950 Ford coupe. 

 Very rare Hudson Italia coupe—red, white, green, and blue.

 1955-56 Packard senior interior. Note the pushbutton transmission quadrant on the dash.

 Early 1930s Packard windshield decal.

 1953-54 Studebaker hood with V8 trim piece Beautiful design!

Playing around I placed my Cadillac's loose chrome script on the grille of my Celica. Photo taken in '83.

1968 Cadillac Lineup Grows by Ten Models!

Sixty-One, Sixty-Two, Sixty-Three, and Seventy model names Revived

I recently found scans of a 1968 Cadillac brochure at the Old Car Manual Project website. They're the fairly typical heavily airbrushed renderings, pointedly out of proportion to make the cars seem even longer than they were. I thought I could do something with them and soon enough, I was working on ten "new" additions to the 1968 lineup. 

For the type, I kept the advertising agency's original Futura font for my new type, and kept the same brochure look for all of these renderings. I used to sit and dream I worked at agencies that would have made these brochures, like Darren Stevens on Bewitched did, lol, and by working on these renderings I sort of fulfilled that childhood dream. I've deleted the "DeVille" name and used a version of their prewar nomenclature instead. The Series 61 becomes the Sixty-One, the Series 62, the Sixty-Two, the Series 63, Sixty-Three, and Seventy for the Fleetwood. There was a late '30s Series 70 with bodies by Fleetwood, so I'm not just going willy-nilly here, lol! 

It was also great fun creating colors and naming them. Working with color is what I love the most and even though no one ever knows it, I name the colors I use in my books to set the tone of if for me. For these Cadillac names, I've used everything from places I've visited, like Siasconsett, Nantucket, to old Cadillac model names like the Allanté, even my late great aunt Melba's name. I hope you have as much looking at them as I did imagining and creating them.  All images clickable thumbnails to enlarge or save as always.

Above, my "entry level" Sixty-One sport coupe. It's a full size Caddy but uses the GM B-body roofline from that period. I've done a couple of renderings of this idea in the past, and it never fails to look "perfect" to me, lol. For this one, and for most of these renderings, I've also changed the front end. I've kept the grille line completely horizontal, saving the original higher central only on Fleetwood models. I think it looks cleaner and simpler, something Cadillac strove for many times in their history. The blue sedan is my "Sixty-Two Park Avenue" pillarless sedan. It's a "short-deck" design, something Caddy itself did in the early Sixties on a few sedans. The idea was that much of Caddy's buyers were aging, and they most likely had prewar garages, often measuring less than 20 feet long. By making the trunk (rear deck) 6- to 8-inches shorter, the cars were more manageable and fit in those garages. I've seen a few, but they weren't big sellers. In MY alternate reality though, the short-decks proved very popular and I've created a full lineup of them. To compensate for the shorter rear quarters, I've opened up the rear wheelwells on them. Perhaps a younger clientele would have appreciated their looks and slightly smaller mass.

Short decks in both convertible and hardtop coupe models. I've used a more formal roof than the Sixty-One coupe because of the shorter trunklid. I think it's a very pretty and proportional coupe!

I would have added a factory station wagon to the Sixty-Two lineup. I think Cadillac may have gone the "Packard" route and called it the Station Sedan, and the pillarless wagon bodystyle had been gone since 1964, but I think it's a very elegant and cohesive design. No wood would have been offered to keep the car sedan-like and Cadillac-like! The bottom car is a revived Series 63, or Sixty-Three, here. It would have been available only as a 6-window pillared sedan, and would have featured optional "Formal-Tone" two tones in classic combinations. It would have been the final step up before the luxurious Fleetwood Seventy models.

For the top Cadillac, I've brought back a prewar moniker, the Seventy, or Series 70 prewar. I would have made Fleetwood an entire series, with sedans and coupes. The top one shows the "base" Seventy coupe. The windows are large and airy, showing off the top-shelf leather interiors, and a nice cleanly sloped notchback roof. The bottom one shows the ultra luxury model, the Brougham coupe, and features an almost blind rear roof panel, and a heavily padded grained vinyl roof. The interiors would have mirrored the largest Seventy Brougham sedan with adjustable footrests in the rear, fold-down writing tables, and an optional "Car Office" similar to what Imperial offered in '67 and '68. Colors for Fleetwoods would have reflected fine jewelry, and the ads would have used expensive jewelry in a nod to Caddy's fabulous Fifties advertisments.

Finally, I would have added two models to the unique front wheel drive Eldorado: A sleek "Aerodynamic Coupe," using the name of a limited production Depression-era Caddy, and a revived Brougham sedan complete with stainless steel roof and Arpege atomizer like the late Fifties super luxury sedan of the same name. I've added fender skirts to the Eldo's massive wheel openings, and in the sedan, completely eliminated the rear fender kickback for a very, very smooth bodyside. I kept the beltline contour just below the side windows, and trailed it back into the rear quarter panel. As much of an icon this original Eldorado is, I was astounded at how "right" these completely different versions looked if I do say so myself, lol!

1961 Cadillac 4-window with Calais Package

As much as I love the 1959-60 wraparound rear window of GM's 4-window hardtop sedans, but the '61 Caddy was a bit more awkward. Besides my beloved wood paneling, I subtly changed the C-pillar. I widened the painted portion, and lowered the greenhouse a bit. The rear window is now a Mercury/Lincoln-like 3-piece affair, with a central section that lowers a few inches. I did this imagining that the 3-piece window became a fin-like fad after Lincoln's '58s, and by '61 Caddy would have fielded one.

Daily Driver: 1961 Cadillac Brougham by Pininfarina

Sometimes my pixel pushing just doesn't quite come in line with my visions. I like this mythical Pininfarina-bodied '61 Caddy Brougham, following on from their '59s and '60s. Besides deleting the fins, something all manufacturers were beginning to do by '61, I widened the greenhouse, the glass and roof structure. I did that to lessen the shoulder width, to give it more of an Exner-like early fuselage look, like the '60 Valiant and '62 B-bodies. The finless and sloping trunk now look a lot like the beautiful '61 Oldsmobile, but I'm pretty sure Caddy would never have gone with it. On the other hand, it has the look of the '57-'58 Eldorado without the fins.

I think that's where I got this chop wrong. I extended the wheelbase from the donor Series 62, and the straight-edged upper window line looks wrong. It should be more of a graceful arch. I'm pretty sure Caddy would have insisted on the straight upper though. I created a bit of chrome trim near the taillights, pretty much leaving all "jewelry" associated with the rocket exhaust taillights , bumper, and lower skegs.The center-opening door handles line up with a '60 Eldorado-like chrome-edged and paint-filled full length molding. A gold Cadillac crest adorns the roof's sail panel.

Daily driver, so I didn't clean the whitewalls, lol.

• Bobf, this was done a few days before I read your last commetn out doing an Eldorado with a modified rear end. Great minds and all that, lol. I'm going to do a coupe or convertible though, a true Eldo next, per your suggestion.

1963 Cadillac Series Sixty One Coupe

Another stab at creating an entry level Cadillac for the 1960s, this time a 1963 coupe. Cadillac was soaring high in the '60s and in no way needed a reprise of its 1940s and '50s Series 61 line, but I like to think of what they may have looked like. "61s" were the least expensive and a bit more "youthful" perhaps, with a slightly sprier look than its more expensive siblings, replacing the LaSalle after 1940.

Above, the coupe. For this year I've spelled out "Series Sixty One" on the bodysides and trunklid, and given this example optional two-toning. The rear fascia has been simplified, deleting the expensive to produce chromed upper bumper "grille" trim and adding a simple sheet metal extension to the trunk lid. The look works perfectly with the already simple and elegant side trim.

• The '68 version from a few years ago.

Fifties Mercury "Sportscar" Unearthed-Needs Work

The late 1950s was a tumultuous time for Ford Motor Company. They were gung-ho on matching General Motors almost car-for-car, leading to the introduction of the Edsel, larger 4-seat Thunderbird, and the largest unit-bodied car built at that point, the glorious and gargantuan '58 Lincoln lineup. Following up on that would be the upsized and upmarketed Mercury lineup. Perhaps in the heady days of fall '57 when it became apparent Edsel was doomed and the bigger Tbird had yet to begin its meteoric sales climb over the '57 2-seaters, perhaps Mercury designers were called on to do a quick "sportscar" based on the new-for-'59 Mercury chassis. Cut down to about a 115" wheelbase, it still would have had the prestige of the Mercury nameplate. It would have had 2 small fold down rear seats and the Tbird's front bucket seats for true 2+2 seating. Using as many production components as possible, this Marquis coupe could have gone on sale in the first quarter if '59 if necessary, if the 4-seat Tbird had bombed.

Yeah, all this is fake, but I have fun reimagining the past! I really like the way this one turned out. It has a bit of late Loewy 2-seater designs in the greenhouse and the rocket motif works well on a sports coupe. I think it could have been the drivers' car of the day.

If I don't get back before then, I hope everyone has a great new year! I, for one, am very glad 2013 is coming to a close and I hope it doesn't kick me in the ass one more time before it's history, lol.

1961 Cadillac Eldorado Calais V12 Sport Coupe

Meant to evoke a vintage PR/Marketing post card, the altered proportions of my 1961 Eldorado Calais V12 Sport Coupe really show off the new-for-'61's tailored sheetmetal and gorgeous lower skeg fins perfectly balancing the upper tail fins. I added a bit of unique front fender trim meant to celebrate the first postwar V12 developed by a domestic automaker.

 

Quickie 2-hour project tonight . . . 

1961 Cadillac Eldorado Calais V12 Sport Coupe—What if Caddy had entered the personal luxury coupe/Thunderbird market segment a generation earlier than it did? What if Pininfarina's beautiful "Jacqueline" coupe had been a ruse to throw off any actual "coupe rumors" from leaking out of Cadillac?

I propose the '61 Eldorado could have been reborn as a super-exclusive and super-expensive V12 2+2 coupe replacing the previous Pininfarina Brougham sedan as the pinnacle of Cadillac's showroom. A full two-feet shorter than the standard Series 62-based Eldos of recent years, the V12 coupe would have seating for two. The rear compartment could be outfitted with occasional rear seats or  fitted luggage for a truly European Grand Touring experience. 

Although the front clip is extended to house the domestic industry's first postwar V12, at 115" the wheelbase is a full 15 inches shorter than the standard convertible. A shorter rear deck contributes to its overall 24 inch length reduction to approximately 200 inches.The roof is brushed stainless steel and the slightly broader, equilateral rear pillars hint at the new rooflines coming from Cadillac across the board for '62.

What if. . . Mark II Slantback?

The 1956-57 Mark II coupe is a tours-de-force. It is elegance personified with its formal roof and clean lines. It is one of the cleanest cars of the Fifties decade.

With this chop, I'm exploring what the car may have looked like without the severely formal and close-coupled roof.  I gave it a faster roofline and backlight. I straightened out the classic body contour kickup in the rear quarters and, obviously, gave it rear fender skirts and chromed rockerpanel trim.  Smaller details include moving the exhaust outlets down from below the taillights to below the bumper, thus extending the "tubular" rocker panel trim. I filled in the former exhaust pods and glassed-over the license plate recess. 

I'm not in any way "improving" the Mark II with these changes, that would be impossible! But I think this look could have been developed into a stunning car by the Mark's stylists had they gone in this direction!

If I Been There . . . Rendered 1948 Packard Ad

My take on a print ad for the 1948 Packard Super Eight Touring Sedan, done as if I was in the automotive community back in those heady, early post-war years in Detroit. I gave it a new tagline as well, "Your Day Has Arrived," referring to the optimistic post-war boom in the economy from the previously war-weary public.

"Your Day Has Arrived"

C H O P — The base image for this piece was a scan of an illustration of a '48 Super Eight from one of Packard's sales/dealer brochures. I found the jpg online, I believe at that awesome Old Car Brochures site, here.

While I didn't change the profile of this regal sedan one bit, I changed all the detailing on it and gave it a two-tone finish. Changes include the rear taillights, fender skirts, rocker panels, side spear and other trim. One of my friends, the esteemed Palm Springs Automobilist, blog link here and on my Blog Roll, told me my changes resembled what Bill Mitchell's studios might have done, high praise indeed!

Once I was done with the car I "lifted" it from its period layouts and stylistically placed it at the shore. Color matching created a very special and "eye-catching" ad if I do say so myself. Finishing it off was an optimistic new post-war tagline I created for this Packard: Your Day Has Arrived.

• I've reworked a couple of 1954 Studebaker ads, creating sedans from their lower, longer coupe bodies. It's posted at my original blog, casey/artandcoloujr. I didnt' realize it wasn't also posted here. Enjoy! Link, here.
  

Continental for 1958

Opalescent Pistachio Point Green lacquer perfectly highlights the lines of this Wixom-built '58 Continental coupe. Altering the new-that-year unibody Lincoln, I changed the proportions for more of a personal coupe appearance. The hood length looks back to the Classic era consisting of almost half of the length of the car. The four passenger interior would have been based on the '58 Thunderbird, itself brand new that year and also built at the fabled Wixom plant. The roof would have been available in linen-covered steel or brushed stainless to match the front fender coves.

And, yes, I started out with the regular Lincoln that year, not the upscale Continental. This mockup would have been early in the process and trim was still being mixed and matched and developed...

I also left off the spare tire hump... Rocketships don't need no stinkin' spare tires, lol.

Second Generation Tunnelback XL, 1972

1972 Ford XL SportsRoof, courtesy casey/artandcolour.

C H O P — Ford's 1971 redesign of its full-sized car line reverted to a single coupe style, a severely formal-roofed pillarless coupe with a C-pillar at least three-feet wide. This chop restores the second, "faster" roofline choice, or SportsRoof in Ford parlance. It also restores the "XL" nameplate which was unceremoniously dumped after the 1970 model year. The '69-70 Sportsroof was a flying buttressed, tunnelback, full sizer with almost perfect proportions. The roofline was shared with Mercury resulting in the now-classic Marauder coupes.

For this second generation tunnelback, I greatly enlarged the side windows of the production formal coupe. I gave the C-pillar the look of the '67 Galaxie XL, but with the '69-'70's inset rear window. I left virtually everything else "production" on this "XL," the extra-cost spoke wheelcovers, the bodyside rub strip, the proper width whitewall tires.

And having grown up with a '72 LTD Brougham coupe in high school, LIght Gray metallic with a black vinyl roof, I can verify that those optional spoked wheelcovers are HEAVY but meticulously crafted.

1961 Dodge Lancer GT—Hardtop Coupe

This rendering shows what a dedicated 1961 Dodge Lancer coupe have looked like. The pillarless coupe Dodge produced was hamstrung in the looks department by the beancounter decision to use the exact same roof stamping as the sedan. This meant an additional, stationary window was needed in the C-pillar, which just looked odd with the pillarless glass in front of it. My coupe shows what they could have done if they had OKed a second, sportier, dedicated coupe roofline. It almost hints at sister division Plymouth's Barracuda coming up for '64. With bucket seats front and rear, this Lancer GT would have looked great next to that year's Corvair Monza sport coupe and would have predated the Mustang by three and a half years. Falcon wouldn't have a hot pillarless coupe until the '63 model year.

About the early sixties Lancer in general, it's clear that it's a sister to the original Valiant. I'm convinced that in '61 though, Dodge pulled off the better looking car. I didn't change anything in the front of this rendering, and look at those awesome lines! The grille is expensive looking, the and fender blisters work perfectly with the headlights and hood. With the windshield laid back a few degrees and the roofline lowered a couple of inches, my reversed C-pillar accentuates the rear fenders. It was suggested by an actual stamping in the production car's fenders.

Not My First

This is't the first early sixties Dodge Lancer I've rendered. This road warrior/daily driver sedan was done a couple of years ago. As in the chop at the top, I changed the C-pillar to include that reversed kink. There is a little pressed indentation in the production Lancer's and Valiant's doors (or fenders on coupes) that looks like it would lead to this pillar. The actual production C-pillar doesn't relate as well. I also gave it suicide doors just because I think they're cool, lol. The Lancer in the base photo was in better shape than "mine." I did all the battle-scars and aging in Photoshop.

Not My First
I just realized this is my 100th post here. Time flies! I just wish I could do new ones every day!

Imperial Convertible, 300 Sport Wagon. Past Retro.

A mid 2000s 300 front clip, an extended wheelbase and a '69-'71 fuselage era-inspired Imperial body combine to make this very elegant 2008 Imperial Crown Convertible.

S H A M E L E S S   S E L F - P R O M O T I O N — My two little blogs clicked over 400,000 combined hits recently. Yeah, lol! To "celebrate" here are two more retro-inspired Chryslers I've created. These were done in my early days of rendering cars in Photoshop, 2005 or 2006, and the quality is a bit rough, but I love these two cars. Thanks to everyone that checks out my work and makes this blog-thing worthwhile!

An original '55 300/Imperial front clip is mated with a restyled 2005 Magnum sport wagon body. I also added typical Exner-period chrome rocket taillight tubes in the rear. I would love to see this car on the road, lol.

1964 Imperial Crown LWB 5-passenger Sedan

Inspired by the 5-passenger Mercedes Benz 600 of the mid 1960s, I've smoothed out Elwood Engel's '64-'66 Imperial's styling for this long wheelbase Crown sedan. I think it's the poster child for mid-century coolness and modernity.

C H O P S — And now for something completely different from my exuberantly elegant Exner Imperial redux, the dark blue '62, here...

... Elwood Engel's '64 clean-lined Imp elongated and smoothed out for this long wheelbase owner-driven Crown sedan. The cabin is enlarged and extended rearward for maximum second row accommodations. The color palette is "subtle Turbine car" with a much darker copperfire hue for the body and a lighter gunmetal gray for the vinyl roof and leather-and-broadcloth interior. Pulled up next to an appropriate mid-century house, this Imperial is ready for an early morning, high-speed run out to Palm Springs with four jet-setting friends and their perhaps, dubious, luggage.

B  O N U S   P I C :

I've also chopped this Imperial Crown Coupé 2-door limousine. This would be an ultra smooth, long wheelbase chopped roof luxury express.

1962 Imperial Lebaron Southampton: Facelifted

This chop of a 1962 Imperial LeBaron 4-door hardtop, or Southampton, is a facelift that might seem pretty minor unless you were to see them side-by-side. After Exner's classic 1957s came out with their sculpted-in-form lengthy rear fins, which put the emphasis on the rear of the car, he began thinking about his "next" look. This next look, as previewed by the 1960 Valiant, would have gone back to classic proportions with a long hood and short rear deck. There was an emphasis on fender forms, as evidenced by the Valiant and the '62 Fury and Polara. "Ex" suffered a major heart attack before these cars could be finalized, the so-called "S-cars," and his successor, Elwood Engel, took things in a different direction.

"My" Imperial, above, takes the '57'-63 chassis and body, but changes it in some ways to more closely replicate this new emphasis on the front. I lengthened the hood and wheelbase around six inches in front of the windshield, giving a more classic steering wheel:axle proportion. I shortened the rear deck by about the same amount, giving a forward rather than rearward "motion" to the car. I also gave this imposing sedan rear fender skirts. I'm not really positive Exner would have, he was very much moving into a classic look with full wheel cutouts, but I like skirted rear wheels. I like to think I might have been able to talk him into it, at least for one year, lol. I left the amazing separate chrome front- and rear lights, but I lowered the roof about three inches for a bit more of a custom look. I also "finished" the chrome rocker panel trim behind the now-skirted rear wheels, the entire bottom of the car now edged with chrome.

1958 Lincoln Premiere Coupe Pickup

Just the thing for the "Gentleman Farmer" of 1958—the Lincoln Coupe Pickup.

C  H O P S — While "chatting" on FB today, in a post about the original '57 Ranchero and '59 El Camino, I mentioned that I liked both of thm, but that I'd like an uplevel interior in them. The Fairlane 500 and Impala trim would have been nice to be able to choose, but then again, in that time period, both of those car-based trucks were considered pretty "fancy" anyway, even with their bargain basement interiors. I began to wonder what a similar period Lincoln or Cadillac car-based pickup would look like. At the time, I thought the Lincoln Mark's reversed C pillar would look great on a pickup. I had a few minutes tonight to relax, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I soon realized that I preferred the "regular" Lincoln Premiere's wraparound rear window. It would give a bit more space behind the front seats, perhaps to enable them to recline, and it also gives a nice symmetry with the front windshield. And it's not as if the car needed an extra foot of cargo space, lol, this first series of unit-bodied Lincolns was almost 19-feet long to begin with! I "painted" the car in a period salmon-beige with a white roof and Photoshopped a new background in that complimented those new colors. I also added some of my flowers, lol. I think this worked out a million times better than expected. At least! : )

1966 Thunderbird Speedster Showcar

"If I Had Been There"

Quick Study: Loyal blogreader, "Bobf," suggested I try a Speedster version of the mid '60s Thunderbird. This is what I came up with, in the manner of a period '66 Ford showcar, complete with Cragar wheels, whitewalls, cut-down windshield and redesigned side glass. I "welded" the rear fender skirts into the body, removed the doorhandles and nameplate, added the sidepipes and a modified '66 Mustang scoop trim piece, all things they might have done in the Ford studios of the time. I wouldn't mind taking a country drive in this Tbird! I started with a base photo from a website called Bold Ride, found a background image at a wallpaper site and did the rest with the magic of Photoshop.

B T W :

This car inspired me... I'd love to see a TV show based on the automobile industry in Detroit, circa 1958-71. It could be a Mad Men-ish look at a major automotive design studio, and its execs, designers, clay modelers, and their wives, boyfriends, affairs, drinking and swearing habits, their custom cars, rushed clay models, weekends at the Grosse Point Yacht club, hijinks, shenanigans, their personal relationships... You know, but with a heavy emphasis on the cars and how those cars affect their lives, professionally and personally. There could be a 10-minute Epilog at the end of each 80 minute episode; an historic "sidebar" of an actual show car and short history and sexy trivia.

B T W :

Marty Martino, a new reader to casey/artandcolour, but a long-time car builder and afficionado, mentioned the '63 Thunderbird Italien when commenting about my Speedster. A long time ago, I did a chop of what a square-edged '64 'Bird might have looked like with a fastback, hence my '64 Italien 2. I think this chop is about 5 years old. I'll take another stab at a factory Tbird fastback one of these days.

 

A full length brushed aluminum lower body side strip was added, too.