Custom Pontiac Destroy-It-With-Firebird

Found via eBay, this beauty - believe it or not - is fitted with a custom body kit. Penned by the skilled hands of the world's foremost toddler car designer, it's vaguely reminiscent of a Ferrari Testarossa with the front end of a Cavalier.  Randomly applied rectangular bump strips on the front and rear protect roughly 10% of the car from dings.  The front end features a RAM Air hood and an innovative 4L gas tank sitting precariously in the grill.  Crash test results pending.

The interior features trimless doors for weight savings, and a 6" slab of a leather sofa haphazardly glued to the dash for the occupants safety in the even of a crash.

Gh-Gh-Gh-Ghia!

Chrysler and Ghia's show car partnership of the 50's produced some of the more elegant designs of the 50's. The US automotive world was just beginning to see these flights of fancy, as previous to Buick's Y-Job of 1938, no one really made them. However, because the stylists were new to this unrestrained artwork, the end products were usually extreme works of automotive fantasy bordering on garish, with lots of chrome, flares and fins.

The scene in Europe at the time, however, was much different. Independant coachbuilding firms like Bertone, Pinin Farina, Ghia, and Figoni & Falaschi were taking cars ranging from the pedestrian to the extremely expensive and transforming them into works of art, and had been doing so for a while. These firms arguably pushed automotive styling into the future, with a certain elegance and often times a lack of flourish usually absent on American cars of the same period.

1954 Chrysler Ghia Special GS-1

Chysler witnessed this first hand when invited by Fiat to Italy to give American insight to aid in their volume manufacturing techniques. Chrysler president K.T. Kellar was inspired, and set to work producting the series of show cars featured in this post.

The outcome was a bunch of remarkable similar concept cars, each refining the lines and design themes of the last. Their signature organic curves, the rise in the shoulderline over the rear wheels, inset headlights and narrower, "egg crate" style grille make for instantly recognizable cars. They were popular enough that they even sold some in production guise (the images included in this post are both production cars).

Built by Carrozzeria Ghia in Italy, many assume that they were designed by Ghia was well, given their restrained European looks. However, they were the product of Virgil Exner, then a fledgling automotive desinger at Chrysler. Somewhat ironically I suppose, as he was resposible for the fantastic fins of the "Forward Look" Chryslers of the late 50's, and nearer the end of his career he was producing some rather strange an ungainly designs that have been featured here before.

Which brings me to the ugly part of the story - this car.

Uh oh - the front is melting.

Although I haven't found much info on this car, it appears to be a one off production car from 1954, designed by Virgil Exner in the vein of the rest of the Chrysler Ghia coupes of the period. All the cues mentioned above are in place, except for one noticable difference - the headlights. Where the other cars have single round headlights placed slightly inboard of the fenders, this car has inset quad headlight place so low on the front end they look like an early experiment for fog lights. The featureless expanse of bulging sheet metal above makes the car look ungainly, even larger than it already is, and to be honest a little sad and defeated. What were elegant lines begin to look more like a depressed block of soap.

The sole ugly sibling in a family of supermodels. Must be rough.