GearPatrol.com is a compelling website with a compelling motto: “Spirt of Adventure, Passion For Gear.” One recent post, Ten Great Art Deco Cars, features stunning images and succinct, informative descriptions of cars long gone and some that only existed as concepts.
Two of the cars featured in post, a 1948 Timbs Buick Streamliner and the Phantom Corsair, a concept, were particularly stunning were included in a timely connection with the current movie The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Describing the Buick Streamliner, the site writes in part:
A mechanical engineer named Norman E. Timbs designed and built this sleek number with mostly aluminum on top of a steel chassis. At a cost of $10,000, the Streamliner took more than two years to build.
The slick aerofoil shape and Buick Super 8 engine allowed the Streamliner to hit 120 mph, pretty quick for its day. The design was actually very simple, free of any gaudy, over-designed adornment. To keep the shape clean, no doors were cut out of the body. You simply stepped out of the cabin onto the protected part of the fender.
And writing about the Phantom Corsair, GearPatrol said in part:
The Phantom Corsair was svelte and ferocious. It was designed by Rust Heinz of the H.J. Heinz fortune. As futuristic as things got back in then, the Phantom Corsair really looks like a film noir armored car with its shrouded wheels and smooth but menacing grille.
The doors operated with electric pushbuttons instead of door handles, making it even more streamlined in appearance. As long as the car was, the more shocking dimension was the 6-foot-plus width that could accommodate four people in the front row, one to the left of the driver. Rust Heinz died prematurely in a car accident in 1939 and the car was never produced.
To read the complete article, visit: Ten Great Art Deco Cars
Article Last Updated: May 21, 2013.
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