Howard Darrin Archives - Richard M. Langworth

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

18 April 2020 Comments 1 Comment

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.…

The Greatness of Alex Tremulis, Part 2: From Tucker to Kaiser-Frazer

4 April 2020 Comments 0 Comments

Continued from Part 1. My Alex Tremulis piece was published in full in The Automobile, March 2020.

Alex and Tucker

Like Bob Bourke’s famous 1953 Studebaker “Loewy coupe,” the 1948 Tucker was almost entirely the work of one designer. Of course many helped, and both Bourke and Tremulis gave them credit. But as near as one comes to designing a car by oneself, they did.

Alex set to work in a studio at Tucker’s large, ex-Dodge plant in Chicago. As chief designer he had to inject practicality into Preston Tucker’s enthusiasm. First concepts included a car with cycle fenders that turned with the wheels, a periscope rearview scanner, and vast expanses of compound-curved glass.…

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

31 March 2020 Comments 1 Comment

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.”…