Tag: Howard Darrin

Alex Tremulis
Alex Tremulis (left) and Romeyn Hammond with their radio-controlled Ford La Tosca, 1955. (Ford Motor Co.)
The Greatness of Alex Tremulis, Part 3: Streamlining and Speed

The Greatness of Alex Tremulis, Part 3: Streamlining and Speed

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Con­clud­ed from Part 2. My Tremulis piece was pub­lished in full in The Auto­mo­bile, March 2020. 

Alex Tremulis in the 1950s

When Kaiser left Wil­low Run, Alex Tremulis decid­ed it was time to work for a com­pa­ny with a future. In Dear­born, Ford Chief of Design George Walk­er hired him with an unchanged job descrip­tion: chief of advanced styling. There he joined Bob Thomas, who wrote warm­ly of him in 2008. “Alex thought he was back in the Army Air Corps, turn­ing out scores of 3/8th scale mod­els of futur­is­tic things like fly­ing cars and nuclear-pow­ered vehi­cles.…

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Tremulis
The Greatness of Alex Tremulis: A Car Designer from Another Era (1)

The Greatness of Alex Tremulis: A Car Designer from Another Era (1)

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My Tremulis piece was pub­lished in full in The Auto­mo­bile, March 2020. 

“That was a dif­fer­ent time,” Alex Tremulis told me, recall­ing his hey­day in car design. “The For­ties through the Sev­en­ties. Back then a sin­gle per­son could often influ­ence the shape of a car. Some­times the whole car. Of course, lots of our ideas were sheer rub­bish. But now and then, by luck or force of per­son­al­i­ty, we put some­thing good into production.”

Many famous auto­mo­tive designs did have whim­si­cal begin­nings. Bill Boy­er put port­holes on the rear roof quar­ters of the 1956 Ford Thun­der­bird to recall “the coach­work her­itage.”…

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Kaiser-Frazer
“Safety-Glo” taillights, a feature of the ’54 Kaiser, trumped every other car by being visible from virtually any angle, even from above. The full-perimeter bumper (a Brooks Stevens idea) comprised stainless steel panels running along the lower body sides. It’s 1954, of course, so she’s smoking a cigarette….
Kaiser-Frazer and the Making of Automotive History, Part 2

Kaiser-Frazer and the Making of Automotive History, Part 2

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Transcript of a speech to the Kaiser-Frazer Owners Club, 30 July 2015. Continued from Part 1. Delving in

While I received no extra pay for writ­ing the Kaiser-Fraz­er book, I did have the use of an expense account for trav­el. That was where Bill Tilden came through again. He helped me track down and inter­view many of peo­ple respon­si­ble for the cars Kaiser-Fraz­er built. Oth­ers were locat­ed through the deep ten­ta­cles of Auto­mo­bile Quar­ter­ly, its many con­tacts in the indus­try. We also searched for archives, large and small.

Our great­est archival find was at Kaiser Indus­tries in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia: the Kaiser-Fraz­er pho­to files, placed on loan for AQ’s use.…

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Kaiser-Frazer
“Constellation”: Darrin’s original full-scale airbrush proposal for the 1951 Kaiser.
Kaiser Capers: Memories of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 3

Kaiser Capers: Memories of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 3

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Kaiser-Fraz­er, the post­war won­der com­pa­ny, pre­sent­ed Dutch with many opportunities—and as many frus­tra­tions. Con­clud­ed from Part 2…

Part 3

Excerpt: For the com­plete arti­cle and illus­tra­tions, refer to The Auto­mo­bile, May 2017. 

Postwar Kaiser and Frazer

Dutch had an earthy vocab­u­lary, and his meth­ods of work were forth­right with a touch of reck­less­ness. He need­ed these qual­i­ties when, after the war, he pre­sent­ed him­self to his old friend Joe Fraz­er, father of the wartime Jeep, to offer designs for the all-new cars Fraz­er was plan­ning, in part­ner­ship with Hen­ry J. Kaiser. His basic lines were accept­ed, but mod­i­fied on the way to pro­duc­tion.…

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Darrin
Patti and Dutch in later years, with one of his Packards, a ’41.
The Packard Adventures of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 2

The Packard Adventures of Howard A. “Dutch” Darrin, Part 2

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A chance met­ing with Dar­ryl Zanuck brought Dar­rin back to America—at exact­ly the right time. The cus­tom coach­build­ing busi­ness was wan­ing, semi-cus­toms were in, and Packard need­ed a new body style. Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

Part 2

Excerpt: For full text and illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of Packard Dar­rins, see The Auto­mo­bile, May 2017. 

Dar­rin fre­quent­ly hob­nobbed with the Good and the Great. One day in 1934, at the Paris Polo Club, a club direc­tor approached: “There’s an Amer­i­can out on the play­ground with a horse and polo mal­let; please see if you can help him.” Dutch went out and met film pro­duc­er Dar­ryl Zanuck—who invit­ed him to Hol­ly­wood.…

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