Hmmn, is there additional parking in the rear

 

when pininfarina got into cadillac...

 

1964 Apollo GT 5000

 

a fastback 1963 tbird

 

when cars looked like cars... 1947 CADILLAC SERIES 62 CONVERTIBLE

 

1 more, from italy with love:


1947 cisitalia 202 coupe

 

A real beauty!

 

and the cisitalia 202 cabriolet:
this belonged to Evita and Juan Domingo Peron

 

First car in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) collection is a red 1946 Cisitalia.

 

.........the 2 air scoops differ from Phil Alvirez’s post just above......can’t find out why

((Hemming’s ))
The production 202-series berlinetta, also powered by a 60-hp Fiat 1100 engine, received a very sleek body designed by Pinin Farina. That car caused a sensation and was immediately hailed as a design icon, which took it from the routes of the 1948 Mille Miglia to the picture rails of the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1951, via the Concorso d’Eleganzo Villa d’Este and the Palazzo del Arte in Milan. Indeed, from its first appearance to the present day, the Cisitalia 202 continues to be displayed as artwork, akin to the Mona Lisa. But, just like some great work of art from the Renaissance studios, it trails in its stylish wake the inevitable mysteries surrounding its origins and the identities of its true creators, including Alfredo Vignale.

 

that's because it is the sports version

 

I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And I think I like Italian cars. From the 40’s to the 60’s. So I googled Italian car design and got a couple of sources from Road and Track and MotorTrend that might explain why........
“Style is part of the bedrock of Italian culture. There’s a philosophy, fare bella figura. Directly translated, it means “to make a good figure”; in practice, it’s more like, “make an effort to be noticed” or “nail the first impression.” This is the nation that took something as universal as an evening stroll and elevated it to la passeggiata, a daily ritual of well-dressed, leisurely flaunting and flirting. “Just holding a pencil in this country makes you feel more creative,” says Bangle, BMW’s chief designer.

The culture is also permeated by a reverence for aesthetics. “I think [Italians] have respected art and design probably longer than any other country,” says Callum, vice president of design at Ford. Early in his career, Callum worked at the Ford-owned design house Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin. He felt a major cultural difference almost immediately: In Italy, his chosen career held a place of honor that he’d never experienced growing up in Scotland. “Being an industrial designer in the U.K. is not seen as a really high, important job,” he says. “Whereas I think in Italy, they see the art side of life as being very, very important. I think that element of where you are in society really helps.”

It goes back generations. Italy’s carrozzerie, independent styling houses that designed and built bespoke automotive bodywork, grew from a tradition of horse-and-buggy coachbuilding. Trace the craft even further, and you end up in the Middle Ages, when Turin had a reputation for turning out the world’s most beautiful and stylish suits of armor.

“Metalworking has always been a primary craft there,” says Peter Stevens, designer of the McLaren F1 (and dozens of other cars). In his current role, teaching at London’s Royal College of Art, he emphasizes how Italy’s past helped to elevate the work of coachbuilding and, eventually, car design. “Unlike in other countries where metalworkers were seen as… the grumpy guys at the end of the village that you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry, in Italy that was seen as a really stylish thing that a family would be very proud of,” he says.

Thus was born the glorious 1945-'75 period when Italian car design came to lead the world in terms of aspirational vehicles. Today the greatest Italian design houses are either pale, foreign-owned shadows of what they once were or merely sub-brand names, like Ghia or Vignale, or even worse — like Bertone — gone forever.
We summed up the declining Italian era: "People will always remember the great works of Pininfarina, Nuccio Bertone, Luigi Segre of Ghia, and the great creators they employed, but the passion, the drive, the intensity has gone. We can regret, lament, celebrate the past, but there is no foreseeable future for Italian car design." Since then, we've seen magnificent new Ferrari and Maserati models, even an attainable Alfa Romeo two-seater, so it seemed not just reasonable but also necessary to take another close look at what's happening in Italy. Yes, Fiat is inconsequential, Alfa Romeo is near death, and Lancia barely exists. But Leonardo da Vinci's creative spirit has lived in Italy for centuries and, as we have pleasantly confirmed, hasn't yet disappeared.

[size=13px]As to why the era of style, form, and function ended, some say Socialism....and [/size]If you put these data together, the picture that emerges is that of a country with a large economy and very good potential but burdened by a high public debt -legacy of excessive spending in the past decades- and slow growth, which is in turn due to a combination of unfavorable demographics and several structural issues (high taxes, inefficient bureaucracy, widespread corruption etc.). Also if you look at Debt/GDP ratio, Italy is the 4th worst country (after Japan, Lebanon and Greece) at around 132%

Or just maybe Socialists can’t ever make a decent Mona Lisa.

 

and then the boat tailers...
1928 Auburn 8-115 Speedster

 

the 5300 GT was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro with refinements by Piero Drogo of Carrozzeria Sports Cars. Powere d by the Chevrolet small block V8

 

Wami Lalique Spyder more pics here: https://www.secret-classics.com/en/a...alique-spyder/

 

1971 pontiac pegasus

 

The transition from Europe’s dismal Dark Ages to the brilliance of the Renaissance was ignited in Italy, in Florence but also in Venice, Genoa, Milan and other cities. It was in Florence that the Medici family supported the artistic work of da Vinci and Michelangelo, and even the scientific discoveries of Galileo.

Indeed, it was during this period that Leonardo da Vinci sketched out the design for a self-propelled vehicle, a cart driven by tightly wound springs that turned gears that turned wheels. Think of a watch mechanism that moves a vehicle instead of clock hands.

Da Vinci’s cart might be considered the first concept car, as well as the first vehicle designed in Italy. But as car collectors and enthusiasts through the ages would confirm, it wasn’t the last great and artistic vehicle design from the boot-shaped nation.

Italy has a long history of pleasing automotive aesthetics that traces directly back to the Renaissance and the country’s artistic heritage.





https://journal.classiccars.com/2018...an-car-design/

 

My 1973 Lincoln Mark IV

 

NICE ride! They sure don't make them like they used to... Too much 'nanny' crud for 'whatever' reason. People cannot 'DRIVE' their vehicles any more. Engineering colleges should teach a more simpler way of design practices (KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid). Want to screw up a good product, give it to an engineer to 'improve' it (I know, delt with engineers most of my adult life).


.

 

Thank you for the kind words.
I store it in the winter and avoid the rain, but besides that, she is a regular driver and meant to be driven.
Contrary to what people think about older cars, she is super cheap and easy to work on!