Cars are my passion, just as they are yours, but I also have more than a passing interest in architecture – a distinct product of growing up in the home of a successful architect. In fact, I was interested in the design of buildings before I was interested in the design of cars. This is clearly why my early interest in the automotive realm was purely visual aesthetics. Since those early days, I’ve come to appreciate the mechanicals, engineering, and motorsport aspects as well, but I haven’t lost my sense of the visual.
Architecture has long been the realm of expression for wealthy individuals, communities, and empires. Cities once competed with one another to design and build the most extravagant church or the largest town square, all so they could puff their chests with pride. Now, individuals can buy Rolls Royces and Aston Martins to exert the same effect. But long before there was the système Panhard, there was architecture. It was through architecture that peoples expressed themselves, albeit as a group and without the individuality that we now enjoy as owners of cars. We can still see remains of these bygone eras of large-scale expression in the Pantheon in Rome, the Great Wall of China, and the Pyramids at Giza.
Most recently, in the last century or so, cars have burst onto the design scene, thus providing a novel and more accessible form of self-expression. Cars and architecture now provide alternative and interacting routes of wordless communication; each lithely playing off the other to inspire thought, awe, and wonderment. The most recent period of significant architecture was the Art Deco period of the early 20th century. This period was characterized by lavish attention to detail, cutting-edge materials such as glass and stainless steel, and a distinctive sense of optimism – all of which was in direct contradiction to the bleak reality of the Great War that preceded. This optimism and the post-war pursuit of the American Dream spilled over into cars as well, although automotive design was, and still is, a few years the laggard of architecture. Still, with such Art Deco designs as the 1936-38 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, the 1938-40 Cadillac Series 90 Sixteen (as in 16 cylinders!), the 1939-42 Nash Ambassador Eight, and the 1934-37 Chrysler/DeSoto Airflow cars made their enduring mark.