Duesenberg revival brochure rendering, courtesy Nolan Pahud.
It’s hard not to look at Virgil Exner’s 1966 Duesenberg revival, either in rendering form (above) or in real-life, and come away convinced that Exner – through the Duesenberg – singlehandedly initiated Detroit’s brougham epoch of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, while Exner proved influential in many aspects throughout his career, the story of how Detroit designers became infatuated with neo-classics goes beyond just one car.
On the face of it, crediting Exner seems a sound argument. A number of commenters in our most recent story on the 1966 Duesenberg pointed out how Seventies luxury cars like the Continental Mark III, the Thunderbird, the Pontiac Grand Prix/Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Chrysler Cordoba, AMC Matador, and others (not to mention the Stutz Blackhawk, another Exner design) seemed to take styling cues from the Duesenberg. Peter Grist, in his Exner biography, Virgil Exner: Visioneer, even argued as much, noting that Exner invited some of Detroit’s best and brightest to a showing of the Duesenberg at his Detroit studio shortly after its Indianapolis debut:
One hundred top automotive executives and members of the local press were invited to the showing and reception. When word got around, they had nearly three hundred guests arrive including key design managers from Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors…
The car did have a major influence on some makers, especially Ford. Henry Ford II was one of the visitors to the Exner studio and adored it, so it was no surprise when the Continental Mark III arrived in 1969 looking very much like a 1966 Duesenberg, but it wasn’t just Ford. Ex’s neo-classic look came to dominate Detroit in the seventies, with almost every full-size car featuring a long hood/short deck and sporting formal grilles, opera windows, trunk straps, landau bars and sculpted fenders, including Cadillac’s Eldorado and Chrysler’s Imperial.
Doubtless, the baroque look came to define Detroit’s mid- and full-size cars throughout most of the Seventies. Lincoln seemed to get the most mileage out of it and the designers of the Continental Mark III and Mark IV likely did purloin the upright grille and hidden headlamps of the from the Duesenberg. Where most full-size cars from the 1960s seemed to emphasize box-like looks and aircraft carrier decklids, the equivalent cars of the Seventies focused on more sculptured bodysides and football field-length hoods. Words like landau, brougham, salon, and custom got recycled from the era of Full Classics and coachbuilt cars, oftentimes inaccurately, and Pontiac even appropriated the original Duesenberg’s SJ and SSJ monikers.
But, not to diminish Exner’s exploits, can we really pin all this on him? Just because two cars from different manufacturers shared some design cues – or as much as a design philosophy – doesn’t necessarily mean that one influenced the other. Take, for instance, the (tenuous) link we once drew between Ken Spencer’s Ford Volcano concept and Bob Bourke’s Studebaker Starliner/Starlight coupes. Or, more relevant here, the link between Pontiac’s prow-like and upright grille/bumper combination and Ford’s rather similar grille, both of which have been attributed to Larry Shinoda, Bunkie Knudsen, or both, who jumped ship from GM to Ford in 1968, right at the time both Pontiac and Ford were developing those designs.
Brochure images courtesy OldCarBrochures.org.
We actually see a number of elements of the 1966 Duesenberg that some point to as influential already in use among other manufacturers in 1966 and the years preceding. The Lincoln Continental, for instance, already had used suicide rear doors back to 1961. Formal roofs could be found all over the place in 1966, from Imperial down to Studebaker. Sculptured bodysides made the 1967 Buicks stand out, and hidden headlamps and landau bars appeared on the 1967 Ford Thunderbird, both of which surely were in the works before Exner’s Duesenberg made its first public appearance.
What’s more, we see certain 1966 Duesenberg elements in both the Oldsmobile Toronado and Buick Riviera, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Both cars leaned heavily on the Full Classics – the Toronado from the Cord L-29 and the Riviera from the La Salle – not only for overall inspiration, but for certain details. Indeed, many have noted the 1966 Duesenberg’s front fendertips seem lifted wholecloth from the Riviera, and Exner’s side sculpturing of the 1966 Duesenberg springs from the same attempt to evoke separate fenders as do the bold flares and knife-edge fender tops seen on the Toronado.
It’s also worth pointing out here that the Riviera debuted for the 1963 model year, the same year that Exner and his son came up with the initial revival designs. In fact, as Grist pointed out, the Exners rendered their designs on the behest of Diana Bartley, a writer for Esquire magazine who contacted them “asking where they thought car design was headed, and how did it relate to the latest fashion for older classics from the thirties.” Though Grist doesn’t mention which cars Bartley had in mind, the Riviera – along with a number of Brooks Stevens designs, including his Studebaker Hawk/Lark makeovers and his Excalibur – likely figured into that conversation.
So can we draw a direct line from the 1963 Riviera to Detroit’s brougham period? Not really. Can we blame the baroque excesses of the Seventies on the 1966 Duesenberg revival? Perhaps, in part. But as we’ve seen time and again in automotive history, successes have many fathers and overarching movements tend not to spring up overnight. Rather, these trends incubate and evolve over longer periods of time and the whole story often proves more complex and fascinating than the simple explanations.
UPDATE (31.January 2014): James Kraus at Auto Universum recently wrote up his own take on how the brougham epoch started.
