My Concept for Pebble Beach this Weekend!

The famed Pebble Beach Concours is this weekend in the Monterey, California area. It's often the site of new car launches. I've created a flagship station wagon, a full-sized plug-in hybrid, the 2014 Buick  Electra Estate Wagon. In addition to the trademark brushed aluminum-and-chrome Sweepspear and microveneer wraparound woodgraining, each front fender carries a platinum metallic circular access hatch highlighting the new TriColor Buick shield logo. Their design is a nod to the dual sidemounted tires so popular in the prewar period. The driver side panel opens to the plug-in circuitry. The passenger side opens to reveal four custom carbon-fiber cloth umbrellas, one for each well-cossetted interior passenger. Center opening side doors are powered as is the rear hatch and tailgate, the former's opening comprising fully 1/3 of the roof before it slides forward along roof rails.

This year at Pebble, I have a friend showing his '56 Mark II convertible in the Continental display, and another friend is there sheparding a pristing '65 Cadillac Coupe DeVille in the Cadillac display.

Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing Longroof

Click photos to enlarge, as always, here at casey/artandcolour.

Looking through my earlier work, I realized I haven't yet posted this mid 1950s Mercedes Benz 300 Gullwing Tourer on this blog. I chopped this up in 2007 or so. All the cool people that collect station wagons these days refer to them as "Longroofs" and that's certainly true of my version. I don't believe this change would have added too much weight to the original coupe and with that rear hatch and additional loading space, might have made this incredible sports car just a bit more useful for Grand Touring.

The New Gullwing 

My primary reason for modifying the current SLS, the newest Gullwing, was to change the window graphic. The new one has a solid B/C pillar instead of having rear quarter windows as the original. I just don't think the car looks right without them. I'm sure the blank quarters add torsional rigidity, but I'm also certain that Mercedes/AMG engineers are brilliant enough to overcome any loss with added windows. Above, my "South Beach" edition is metallic gold with additional strakes and silver trim. You just can't be "bling" enough for South Beach! Below, additional work was done to shorten the very long hood. I wanted this Gullwing to be a hybrid, and to be as lightweight as possible to I changed the proportions accordingly. I still think it's a beautiful car and could be the Hybrid to end all Hybrids if produced. 

Note:

My friend Woody Thompson's car site has a new URL now: woodyscarsite.blogspot.com. The old links won't work for it. Please adjust your bookmarks and head over there today!

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.

Rolls-Royce Phantom Silver Brake: Limo Wagon!

Just the ticket for those high-speed, mid-Winter runs through Europe to Gstaad, this Rolls-Royce Phantom Silver Brake is ready to hit the cobblestoned roads of the ski slopes of the über rich. I've intentionally moved away from the Phantom's formality with a greatly enhanced glass area and extra-large rear hatch window—the better to keep an eye on those proletariat Mercedes Benz 4Matic wagons in its rear view mirror. As luxurious and as "over the top" as this large wagon seems to be in 2012, it really has exactly the same proportions as the full sized family wagons of the 1960s and '70s, the Country Squires and Kingswood Estates of our youth. I  tried to create a version of this Shooting Brake with wood on the sides, but just couldn't make it work!