Jets vs. Sharks: Pinin Farina Cadillacs

The phrase "Italian Cadillacs" may conjure visions of some hapless gangland underling from a Mario Puzo novel going to the lake in the trunk of a 50s or 60s Fleetwood, but here we are considering bodies bestowed upon Cadillacs by Italians, not bodies stowed in Cadillacs by Italians. The two Ghia Cadillacs from 1953 were featured in our post from May 9, 2016, and we promised to discuss the Pinin Farina efforts in a future story.  Well, here it is…

The first Pinin Farina body on a Cadillac was this spectacular boat-tailed roadster on a V16 chassis in 1931.  It was built for a maharajah.  The streamlined era had not yet begun at PF (indeed, it had barely started anywhere), so what we have here is a confident restatement of classic 1920s themes, with elegant articulation of distinct elements: vertical radiator grille, conical headlight and spotlight units, outrigger fenders standing proud of torpedo fuselage, and those spare tires with the rear-view mirrors on top.  The contrasting red swage connecting the prow to the tight cockpit, and the covered rear seats forward of the boat tail, are jaunty touches.  Here car design is still referring to the horseless carriage era, but exudes character.  Apparently it didn't exude enough, however, to lead to any other commissions for Cadillacs before war put a stop to the whole business.

In 1954, Pinin Farina built a convertible on a new '53 Cadillac chassis for jazz record producer Norman Granz.  PF had entered the jet age in 1952 with a series of special bodies on Lancia Aurelia chassis designated PF 200, and these all featured round or oval air intakes recalling the era's fighter planes.  The PF design for this car was essentially that of the "jet" Lancia, with the addition of Cadillac bumper bullets, the near-vertical fender projection (a GM Cadillac reference) kicking up over the rear wheel, and size.  Lots of the latter...

This "jet" Cadillac proved to be a one-off until a quartet of designs which Pinin Farina built on Cadillac chassis starting early in 1958.  The first was the Skylight coupe, which was followed by a Skylight convertible later in the same year.  This was, even in Italy, a period of square-rigged, sometimes over-chromed design, and in that these first two Caddies resemble the Michelotti Corvette from the same period; see "The Italian Jobs" in these pages for 2-24-16.  Also the sheer scale seems to have flummoxed PF; on the coupe in particular the proportions suffer from the vast acreage of sheet metal…Still, for anyone who can remember the mainstream GM cars from 1958, these two efforts are a model of restraint.

But the PF design staff found more focus on the next attempt, the Starlight coupe from 1959.  By this time Studebaker had abandoned that name, and it likely seemed appropriate for a car with a vast plexiglass roof. Here two divergent lines frame a shallow indent running along the car's flanks, and reduce the apparent mass as well as the apparent height. The rear resembles a scaled-up version of the then-new Fiat 1200 spyders, also from PF.  

GM, possibly impressed with this effort, gave PF the production contract for the 1959-60 Cadillac Eldorado Broughams.  But the design came from David Holls and Chuck Jordan at GM, so the '59 (black car below) managed to look like a preview of the 1960 production Caddy (but with a 1963 roofline) and the 1960 version introduced a timid preview of the sharklike fins that appeared on the bottom of the 1961 car.  Like the World of Tomorrow at Disneyland, these cars did not age well. They never looked different enough from standard Caddies to justify their $13k price tags, and somehow that Jetsons world of private helipads and atomic home heat never quite materialized. What did materialize in fall of 1960 was Elwood Engel's new Lincoln Continental (see "When the Sixties Really Began" in these posts for Nov. 15, 2015), and it immediately made the shark fin Caddies, and also the grotesquely be-finned 1961 Imperial, look like cartoons.    

Only 200 Broughams were made over 2 years, and so PF went back to the drawing board...

On PF's final attempt during this era, the Jacqueline (named for the new First Lady) from 1961, the wraparound grille is gone, and the shallow indents along the flanks lead to a horizontal ledge over wraparound tail lights.  By 1965, Pininfarina (by then with compound name), who never discarded a good idea, had transferred most of these compositional elements to the pint-sized Peugeot 204. This huge, non-running, 2-passenger show car was only outfitted with running gear decades later. By then, Pininfarina would finally have gotten a contract to design and produce a Cadillac, also a 2 seater, the Allante.  And while the team at PF had changed, the team at GM hadn't changed enough to make the car a real success.

Postscript:  If you enjoyed reading about the Pininfarina Cadillacs, you may also want to have a look at our 4-part series on Italian-bodied Corvettes, by Pininfarina as well as Vignale, Ghia Aigle and Scaglietti.  The series began with "The Italian Jobs: Corvettes in Italian Suits" on 2/24/16 and ended with "Saved from the Crusher" on 3/13/16...

Photo credits:

Top: 1931 Cadillac V16--- pinterest.com
2nd thru 4th:  1931 Cadillac V16--- Lt. Jonathan Asbury, USN (photos added 5/25/20)
1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham front view:  George Havelka 
1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham rear view:  gminsidenews.com
1960 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham rear view:  auctionsamerica.com
All others:  carstyling.ru