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bulldogtrekker

Matinee: Styling and the Experimental Car, 1964

The search for beauty never ends. That's the appropriate last line of this Ford-centric tribute to the humble yet essential Automotive Stylist, a job title that garners the adoration of the masses (rarely) and scathing critiques of reviewers (regularly). We are encouraged to believe that civilization's entire history of art and technology led to the design of the Mustang and its contemporary concept car stable mates: A wee bit of a stretch, perhaps.

Ford Allegro concept

There is a video of these cars and more at the link below. Edited to 10 minutes, this would have been great. But it's 16-plus, and given numerous image breaks and soundtrack skips, this one will strain your patience. But gemstones are typically buried in big piles of dirt, so we're sure you'll get over it.

The fastback Cougar II GT was designed to rocket two passengers to 170 MPH.

The Aurora grocery-getter boasted a clamshell tailgate/liftgate for the rear-facing way-back, a thermo-electric combination oven and refrigerator (and beverage cooler) adjacent to a curved sofa seating three, and a fully swiveling front passenger seat.

- See more at: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2015/02/11/midweek-matinee-styling-and-the-experimental-car-1964/?refer=news#sthash.5XE6FfVz.dpuf

Brent Gair · Mission Specialist Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466

On a tangent...

I live in an older, lower-middle class suburban neighbourhood. There's a detailing shop about two blocks away from my house. I was walking by the shop one day and I was surprised to see this sitting there:

It's a mid 60's Iso Rivolta styled by Bertone.

Bud Brewster · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 4:16 pm Post subject:

Hot damn, I love the station wagon! I looks like what the Robinson's would have owned if they'd stayed home instead of getting lost.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

scotpens · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:50 pm Post subject:

The Cougar II was a styling exercise based on the AC Cobra racing car. I had a chance to see it at the Peterson Automotive Museum here in Los Angeles a few years ago, and it's even more beautiful close up and "in person" than in photographs.

Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:41 am Post subject:

scotpens · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:08 pm Post subject:

^^ The second, fourth and fifth pictures aren't of the Aurora -- that's a customized production 1969 Ford wagon with a modified interior and suicide rear doors.

Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:08 pm Post subject:

Sorry about that. It's what came up when I Googled it. Most of my life I couldn't tell one car from another. These days I usually don't even recognize a car. They look like animated shoe boxes.
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

Bud Brewster · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:30 pm Post subject:

Wow, Butch, thanks!

The interior of the Aurora is absolutely breathtaking. I went looking for more info about it. At the site the link imbedded in the image below will take you to is the following info.

The 1964 Aurora concept wagon had lots of features, including maybe the first "aerodynamic" headlights. Instead of 2 or 4 round lights, it used electroluminescent strips at the front and the sides.

It featured lounge seating, a steering yoke instead of a wheel, and a large sunroof with (get this) adjustable polarization!

It even had what could be argued to be the first dash mounted nav system.

These are the best shots I could find of the driver's side.

What an amazing car!
_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

scotpens · Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:28 pm Post subject:

Robert (Butch) Day · Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2015 8:36 pm Post subject:

And the most advanced circuitry was available only to the military, specifically to the USAF.

The circuitry used on the ICBMs was wired into the entire interior of their nose-cones!
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Common Sense ISN'T Common

Krel · Guest

This reminds me of something I heard on the radio in the early 90s. A brilliant high school student was given an internship at a high-tech firm. His first assignment was to write a paper on inertial navigation systems and why they are inaccurate.

He began the paper: Inertial navigation systems are inaccurate. This is why they are inaccurate. And this is how you fix the problem.

As you can imagine, the paper caused considerable excitement. The company offered to pay for his college education if he came to work for the company after graduation. It also caught the interest of the U.S. government, of course. That one paper assured his future. Laughing

David.

Bud Brewster · Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:21 pm Post subject:

Bud Brewster · Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:43 pm Post subject: