Cars of the 20's and 30's

[sidhartha]

Anybody know why do most cars from the 20 s and 30 s look so much alike? Did Briggs and Murray build bodies for other manufactures besides Ford?

[Mike V. Florida]

I think most cars today look alike.

[P.S.]

Originally Posted by Mike V. Florida

I think most cars today look alike.

Agreed! Jellybeans with wheels.

[Joe K]

Originally Posted by P.S.

Agreed! Jellybeans with wheels.

This true except where they can bring in the "Transformers" look.



I must be getting old. Such a look has NO appeal to me. IMHO mere marketing hubris and born out in P.T. Barnam's immortal quote.

The salemen must laugh as something like this pulls out of the car lot.

Joe K

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by sidhartha

Anybody know why do most cars from the 20 s and 30 s look so much alike? Did Briggs and Murray build bodies for other manufactures besides Ford?

The short answer is Yes, they were coachbuilders however one also needs to remember that Ford's engineers set the initial design in motion as to what they wanted their bodies to look like. Also remember that often times, the design details were hinged around the stamping presses that the manufacturer had at their disposal. With low production poorly funded manufacturers, they were more likely to produce simplistic designs.

[Chuck Sea/Tac]

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I think design trends and copying had a lot to do with the similarities. Look at 33/34 almost all brands have the same style of grille. Jmo

[steve s]

I think that contemporary cars have always pretty much looked alike, with a modest exception during the 50's. There have been a few exceptions over the years, like the Stout Scarab, but none have ever done very well, for some reason. Modern creative stylings have been a mixed bag, like the Pontiac Aztec, PT Cruiser, and Honda Element and its ilk.

[MikeK]

Perhaps it has something to do with our seeing 20's & 30's cars mostly in B&W photos. When I go to a large collection auto museum and see them in their original color schemes that perception diminishes. If you took all the cars on the road today and painted them shades of gray, how would they look?

[CarlG]

At a stoplight a while back, there were 2 cars side-by-side in front of me. Same color (white) and for all practical purposes were identical -- until I noticed a bow tie on one of them and a blue oval on the other one.

[BrianBurkert]

I recall that Chrysler was also a big Briggs customer for a good part of the 1930s.

[newshirt]

Mainstream buyers expect products to look a certain way, in any age. Step outside the box and sales volumes drop. So the 20's cars looked the same, just as they look the same today.

[SLPreston53]

I always heard that the Chrysler Airflow models didn't do so well mostly because they just simply looked different from contemporary expectations of car look/shape.

[amishman]

I think I read that Murray produced bodies for Dodge and Pierce Arrow. Looking at the back of my 1930 Townsedan, it does look similar to a 28-29 Pierce Arrow.