Since our recent immersion in both the 1959 Cadillac and Pininfarina, this “hybrid” caught my eye as I was flipping through my “Dream Cars” book. So that’s how it could have been. Hmm…Tasty. But those wheel covers are all wrong. And I wouldn’t have spent thirty minutes gazing into this one’s grille.
I always thought the Headlight bezels, and the way the headlights jut out looked too much like the 1958 Edsel.
It does resemble an ill formed Edsel from the front, but those sleek lines are timeless.
Obviously way ahead of it’s time in many respects.
The rear end tailight treatment is used in cadillacs to this day with the slope to wedge trunk. From the front, it starts out in the 50’s and morphs into the 70’s or even 80’s in the rear. It is like seeing 30 years of design evolution from front to back in one vehicle. From the grille and lights, it starts out very masculine and agressive and ends up very feminine and elegantly tapered in the rear. And no fins! Chunky up front, sleek in the back, a real dicotomy.
My first thought on the front-end was Checker cab with a custom wrap-around grille.
The rest of the car reminds me of something from Chrysler or AMC, but I can’t quite place it. Definitely not a Cadillac look. The hubcaps look out of place because they’re the only visible thing on the car that wasn’t altered! 🙂
MMMM Humber SuperSnipe front, Consul Capri roof, dorky hubcaps lucky it wasnt meant to be popular
It was trying to be a lot of things to a lot of people, design wise.
Sometimes when you try to be all things to all people, you end up meaning nothing to nobody.
There are still some very interguing elements to this car that has footprints in the past and tailights in the future. One is tempeted to drive it backwards into the future.
The front clip has is a certain resemblance to the 1965 Nissan Cedric 130, also designed by Pininfarina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:130Cedric.jpg
This was at the beginning of the period when quad headlights were de rigueur. It’s a shame because simply replacing them with a set of dual headlights (and getting rid of the aforementioned wheelcovers) would have made a world of difference in the car’s appearance.
After looking at the picture for a while, and doing to online pic searching, I opened the comments thread to mention the headlight design… and discovered a common theme.
I see mixed elements which later showed up on the 62 Corvette, the 67ish Lamborghini 400GT, and the 65 Ferrari 330GT 2+2
The “Jacqueline” was a much better Pininfarina effort.
MOST BEAUTIFUL CAR EVER BUILT