The Svelte 1994 Dodge Ram Pickup

I seldom write about trucks here, only doing so when something really interests me. Such is the case with the redesign of the Dodge pickup truck line for the 1994 model year.

The 1981 first-generation Dodge Ram design was typical of pickup styling in those days -- a squared-off body sporting a bold grille.  The Wikipedia entry on "Ram Pickups" notes how the redesign for 1994 came to be.

What Chrysler stylists did was create a more rounded, more graceful shape.  One might expect that this "feminized" effect would run counter to expectations of trucks having rough 'n' tough "masculine" personalities.  What made the design truck-like was the bold, Dodge "gunsight" grille that served to counteract the curves.  The result was a huge sale success, an increase of about six times between 1993 and 1996.

General Motors and Ford eventually redesigned their pickup lines and Ram sales levels retreated.  Future Ram styling moved in a more powerful, less graceful direction.  That evolution does not detract from the 1994 Dodge Ram's important place in transportation design history.

Gallery

Front view of the newly designed for 1981 Dodge Power Ram Royal SE W150.  Note the rectangular headlights and the strong, rectangular theme of the frontal styling.

The same truck as seen from the side in this public relations photo.  Very rectangular and very pre-aerodynamic.

The 1994 Dodge Ram 1500.  More rounded with a suggestion that the design might have had some wind-tunnel testing.  Headlights are similarly rectangular.  But though the frontal theme remains basically rectangular, this has been softened.

What struck me when the '94 Rams appeared was the fadeaway front fender crossing over onto the door.  It reminds me of front fenderlines on 1946-48 Dodges, DeSotos and Chryslers.  There is a slight fenderline echo in the sheet metal above the rear wheel opening.

Early 1970s U.S. Bumper Standards and Car Styling

The 1970s were especially difficult times for the American automobile industry.  As the decade began, engineers were dealing with regulations concerning emissions.  Following the petroleum crunch in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, fuel economy became an important concern.  All this while and into the far future, state and federal governments piled regulation upon regulation on the industry.  But the worst of it was in the 70s when major changes had to be made quickly.

Regulations that affected car styling the most in the first half of the decade had to do with bumpers.  This link mentions a 1971 regulation taking effect for 1973 models that dealt with collision damage, and bumper designs had to be adjusted to protect more parts of cars.   The next year, regulations dealt with placement of bumpers and the impacts they had to be designed to deal with, requiring even larger protection systems.

These regulations could have been more easily dealt with if designers were allowed to implement them when a new design was launched.  Unfortunately for stylists and engineers, designs already in production had to be modified.  The result often was heavy, awkward-looking bumpers placed on designs originally featuring far less protection.  As time went on, bumper impact criteria became more easy to accommodate, and protection systems on today's cars are hardly noticeable.

Below are some examples of Detroit cars and how they coped with the new rules.

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1973 Chevrolet Camaro Z28.  The bumper guards in front of the grille were in reaction to the first regulation.

The 1974 Camaros received a much more massive bumper whose styling wasn't quite a design theme destroyer.  Other parts of the front end were restyled to accommodate this change.

This is the newly designed 1972 Ford Torino produced before the regulations took effect.

This Ford press release pictures the 1973 Torino with a massive front bumper that anticipates the regulations to be in effect for the 1974 model year.  Again, other parts of frontal styling were modified.

A pre-regulations 1972 Mercury Cougar.

Like its Ford stablemate, Mercury went straight to the heavy bumper required for the following year.

Mecum auction photo of a 1972 Dodge Dart with its pre-regulation bumper.

Like Ford, some Chrysler Corporation models such as this Dart got large bumpers that didn't easily fit the existing styling theme.  Barrett-Jackson photo.

Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger: Last Pairing

Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger were model names assigned to American compact-type cars during the period 1995-2014.   They shared platforms to some degree 1995-2000 and totally for their last versions: 2007-2010 for the Sebring and 2008-2014 for the Avenger.  For more details on their histories, click here for the Sebring and here for the Avenger.

Despite the sports car racing suggestion the word "Sebring" offers and the dramatic tone of the word "Avenger," neither brand amounted to much more than ordinary transportation in the versions featured in this post.  (An earlier Sebring model was popular because it was a convertible, something hard to find in its day.)

The 2007-10 Sebring and 2008-14 Avenger are interesting due to the considerable effort expended in making the sedans different even though they shared the same basic unit body.  The Avenger sold reasonably well, averaging some 75,000 units per model year.  The Sebring's quirky styling was probably the reason its sales were less, about 58,000 per year and on a much shorter production run, though price might have been a consideration.

Gallery

Front 3/4 views, the Sebring in silver, the Avenger in red.  Similarities include the shape of the roofs and windshields, the door cuts lines, hood slopes, and front overhang.  The Dodge has large lips on its wheel openings, not to mention expected grille differences.  The Sebring's sides are comparatively flat.  An odd feature is the inverse ribbing on its hood.

The identical door cut lines are clearly visible in these two photos.  The Avenger has a distinct rear fender whereas the Sebring's fender line rises relentlessly towards the rear.  For some reason its rear overhang (and trunk space) is less than the Avenger's.  The Avenger's side window profile is more conventional and thereby perhaps more pleasing than the Sebring's more harsh, faux- Euro-functional version.

Seen from the rear, the Avenger's larger trunk is obvious.  And, as suggested in the previous caption, the Sebring seems like a modernized version of 1930 theory-dictated styling.  The problem centers on the sheet metal in the C-pillar area.  Its curve that echoes the roof profile does not work well with the stubby trunk.

How "Pregnant" was the 1929 Buick?

Once Harley Earl had been hired as General Motors' styling director, an early major project was to produce a design for the forthcoming 1929 Buick's new body.  When the cars reached dealers for the first time, there was a strong negative reaction to a slight bulge along the belt line, below the side windows.  That was because other brands featured body sides whose belt lines initiated curves that slightly tucked inwards as they fell away downwards.

Larry Edsall in Automotive News goes into more detail here.  According to most stories, including Edsall's, Earl reacted by claiming that body engineers altered his staff's design.  He used this (along with his friendship with Alfred P. Sloan) to gain final sign-off on future designs from his Art & Colour section.

I am a bit skeptical.  So far as I know, there is no visual evidence of the designs Art & Colour prepared for various Buick body types.  If this is so, then the matter cannot be resolved.  My guess is that Earl's design did have that bulge.  Checking with the styling history bible, "A Century of Automotive Style" by Michael Lamm and David Holls, I notice on page 91 that former Chrysler Corporation stylist Jeff Godshall is of the same opinion.  I base my case on the reasoning that body engineers, a conservative lot, would never think of making such a major departure from strong conventions of the time unless they were under instructions to do so.

We begin with four images of 1929 Buicks.  The notorious bulge is along the belt line.

Gallery

Now compare these Buicks to some other cars of its vintage ...

A 1929 Chevrolet.  Its body was designed around 1926-27 for the 1928 model year, so it has no real Harley Earl influence so far as I can tell.

A 1929 LaSalle.   Earl's first styling project with General Motors was the 1927 LaSalle line.  Its sides are typical of the times.

A 1928 Chrysler.  Chryslers competed with Buicks, and potential buyers of '29 Buicks would have been familiar with cars such as this.

1929 Dodge.  Its design probably pre-dates Chrysler's 1928 acquisition of Dodge.  I include this image to provide some more non-GM design context.

So yes, that Buick bulge was definitely out of the American car body design mainstream during the 1929 model year.

Concept to Production: Oldsmobile to Dodge ?!?

The 1992 Oldsmobile Anthem was a concept car that is little known today and was not very noteworthy in its time.  Supporting this contention, there are few Internet links dealing with it.

I came across an image of it while researching another Oldsmobile concept car and was struck by how closely its design theme reminded me of early 1990s Chrysler Corporation LH automobiles, especially the Dodge Intrepid that first appeared as a 1993 model.

Many concept cars are thinly disguised versions of soon-to-appear production models.  But the Anthem seems like a case where one company's concept car previewed another company's production job.

I don't think that's what happened intentionally.  But still ...

Gallery

1992 Oldsmobile Anthem side view.

1993 Dodge Intrepid side view.  The cars seem most similar when seen from the side.  The greenhouse fenestration is strikingly similar, minor details aside.  Even the front and rear designs are fairly close, though the Intrepid has more overhang.  Note the relationships of the backlights (rear windows) to the rear wheel openings.  Especially note how the rooftop interacts with the C-pillar on both cars.

Anthem front.

Intrepid front.  Concept car grilles often differ from production versions, so we see that here.  But the headlight housings are similar in spirit.

Rear view of the Anthem.

Rear 3/4 view of an Intrepid.  Again, differences can be expected here.  The quality of the Anthem image is poor in the area of the backlight, but the trunk/backlight design is not far from the Intrepid's.

American Business Coupes

Wikipedia deals at some length here with the coupé (in America: coupe) body type.  A few lines of the link deal with the business coupe: "A coupé with no rear seat or a removable rear seat intended for traveling salespeople and other vendors who would be carrying their wares with them."

The American business coupe was part of the product mix for many brands from the late 1920s into the early 1950s.  Most were advertised as business coupes, but some coupes had more general names, yet could be used for business purposes.

The logic of using a coupe for traveling salesmen, consulting engineers and many other business activities requiring road travel was that coupes were: (1) usually inexpensive to buy; (2) had a usefully minimal seating capacity; and (3) had small cabins but also the long wheelbases of large-cabin cars so that there was room for a larger than normal trunk for carrying stuff.

Below are examples of this long-departed type of automobile body in chronological order.

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1929 Buick Master-Six Business Coupe
An early example.  The trunk is fairly small, so this body might also have had a rumble seat version.

1934 Hupmobile Aerodynamic Coupe
This is probably a rumble seat coupe.  I show it because of its very small cabin that seats two (or perhaps three in a pinch) and its long trunk area.  The rear-mounted spare tire would have made this an inconvenient business coupe because it would have interfered with loading.  A business coupe version would have been possible if the spare tire was repositioned.

1936 Oldsmobile Eight Business Coupe

1936 Buick Special Business Coupe
Two General Motors business coupes from mid-range marques.  I suppose these were offered for salesmen or business representatives requiring a more substantial image than that offered by entry-level brands.  The cars shown here used the same basic body.

1936 Packard One-Twenty Business Coupe
Another example of a mid-range business coupe.  Surprising, given that it was from the maker of luxury cars, but Packard had to enter a lesser market range in order to survive the Great Depression.

1937 Graham Cavalier Series 95 Business Coupe
A business coupe from a minor brand.  Note the illustration showing how the spare tire was stored, providing more convenient trunk space.

1939 Plymouth Business Coupe
A business coupe from Chrysler Corporation.  Like the Graham, it is a four-window coupe, something becoming common for business coupes by the late 1930s.

1939 Chevrolet Master Deluxe Business Coupe
This publicity photo shows a business coupe being loaded.

1939 Graham Combination Coupe
The text (click on the image to enlarge) mentions that a business version of this coupe was available.

1940 Chevrolet Master 85 Business Coupe
I include this brochure page image because it shows storage variations.

1941 Dodge Luxury Liner Deluxe Business Coupe
A nice example of a small cabin on a long-wheelbase car with the resulting large trunk.

1941 Oldsmobile Special Business Coupe
Yet another view of business coupe storage.

1949 Dodge Wayfarer Business Coupe
Business coupe production continued post- World War 2.  This one has Chrysler Corporation's redesigned postwar body style.

1951 Studebaker Champion Business Coupe - Mecum Auctions photo
Perhaps the flashiest business coupe of the lot, though that 1939 Graham comes close.  These small-cabin Studebakers have always fascinated me.

1950 Chevrolet Styline Business Coupe
Even General Motors continued business coupes into the early 1950s.

UPDATE: Further research shows that Chrysler Corporation's Plymouth brand offered business coupes as late as 1957.