Annals of Design: Cisitalia 202 and Jaguar XK-SS, Essays on Sportscar Form a Decade Apart

Pinin Farina's body for the Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport was enough of a stunner in 1947 that it got the obscure, Fiat-powered coupe onto the list of contenders for the first breakthrough car design after World War II.  Walking around the car gives some clues about why...

This light alloy shell, credited to designer Giovanni Savonuzzi and mounted on a multi-tubular chassis powered by a 1.1 liter Fiat engine, introduced several themes that would be repeated on other postwar cars.  Note the way the front fenders peak well above the gently sloping hood line, and the way the slab-sided look of other early postwar designs has been avoided by continuing the front fender curve down and past the window sill, until it meets the subtle, separate curve of the rear fender.  The inward curve at the base of fenders and sill sections avoids the flat, static look of slab-sided cars.  Also, the general lack of decoration is striking.

In the context of that lack, the overall handling of form becomes more important, and details like the headlight trims, hubcaps and delicate, curved grille bars stand out.  The way the contours of the rear fenders blend seamlessly into the sloping roof form was new in 1947, and distinct from most prewar designs, with their separate fenders riding outboard of narrower passenger cabins, often with running boards.  The phrase "GT car" was not in common use in 1947, but the Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport served as a template for the forms of many GT cars that came after it.

Many of those cars, including offerings from Lancia and Aston Martin, would in the next decade offer around twice the power of the Cisitalia in the same price class; the U.S. sticker on a 202 Gran Sport was $6,800, but the 67 cubic inch Fiat engine with Cisitalia head made only 60 hp. This was enough to make Cisitalia competitive in small-bore road racing, especially their lightweight racers, but it was the Gran Sport design that got the attention of wealthy enthusiasts, and landed it in the 1951 exhibit, 8 Automobiles, organized by Museum of Modern Art curator Arthur Drexler.

A decade later, well-heeled US road racers in the SCCA started salivating when Jaguar announced their intention to offer a series-production version of their Le Mans-winning D-Type endurance racer to customers. The promise was that the new car would be a true dual-purpose sports car, offering enough comfort, weather protection and convenience to be practical as transport, while offering something like the D-Type's performance to weekend racers.  In reality, the plan was to start by converting 25 unsold D-Type chassis to the road-going specifications.

The new car shared the D-Type's stressed-skin central chassis tub, comprising the cockpit, front and rear bulkheads in elliptical section, and side bulkheads, largely formed in sheet aluminum.  As on the D-Type, a tubular subframe attached to the front bulkhead and this carried the dry-sump XK engine and front suspension, along with rack and pinion steering.  D-Type body designer Malcolm Sayer prioritized low frontal area along with strength and light weight, and his concerns with aerodynamics were reflected in the repeated elliptical shapes of the riveted aluminum shell, an almost musical composition of ovals in section, plan and elevation...

Practical concerns didn't have so much sway.  The tiny door openings resulting from the deep structural sills made access awkward, especially with the top erected.  Side windows wouldn't open, but could be removed. The bumpers functioned more as bright trim than as body protection. So the XK-SS, as it was named, placed emphasis more on effectiveness as a weekend racer than practicality for commuting or even weekend touring.  As a piece of rolling sculpture, though, it was hard to ignore...    

And the promised performance was really there.  Tested in 1957 by Road & Track, the 2,230 pound, 250 hp car recorded a 5.2 second 0-60 time and hit 100 in 13.6 seconds, with the best quarter mile run in 13.9.  As with the D-Type, 4-wheel disc brakes provided ample stopping power, and the stated list price of $5,600 seemed a bargain.  But a disastrous fire at Jaguar's Coventry factory in February 1957 destroyed 9 of the chassis, putting the whole program in doubt.

That fire has been blamed for the early demise of the XK-SS, but there may have been other factors.  The riveted aluminum body construction was unsuited to mass production, and the tiny doors, cramped cockpit and sketchy weather protection were not in line with the practical virtues of the then-new XK-150, also introduced in 1957.  As a result, only 16 specimens of the XK-SS found customers.  And though it was extremely rare and a design landmark, the XK-SS, unlike the Cisitalia 202 Gran Sport, never made it into the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. That honor would be reserved for the E-Type that went into large-scale production four years after the XK-SS project was cut short.

*Footnote:   This blog surveyed the history of the Cisitalia marque in "The Etceterini Files, Part Eleven---Cisitalia: Fiats as Fine Art", posted April 22, 2017, and traced the design origins of the D-Type Jaguar, the road racer that provided the basis of Jaguar's XK-SS, in "Shipshape, From an Aircraft Point of View:  Jaguar D-Type", posted on July 28, 2017.

Photo Credits

Top and 2nd from bottom:  Gogo Heinrich 

All other photos:  Art Heinrich 

All photos were taken at the Petersen Automotive Museum at 6060 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA 90036.  Their information line is 323-930-2277.

Springtime at Boulder Coffee and Classics

Springtime, rain-washed and cool, has unfolded with pleasant and unusual laziness this year in Boulder.  Plenty of rare cars have shown up at the Sunday Boulder Coffee and Classics events in recent years, but this 1938 Carlton-bodied Lea-Francis* at the April 28 show may be the rarest, because it's the only one bodied by Carlton.  It was in immaculate condition, and would have scored extra points if Coffee and Classics had a "cars you've never heard of, but probably want anyway" category...

Just what is a Lea-Francis, anyway?  It fits into the group of British specialist makes that thrived between World Wars 1 and 2, and was thinned out by bankruptcies and mergers after the second great war.  Think of Alvis and Lagonda, for example.  Unlike some of the other independent makes, Lea-Francis concentrated on small, sporting cars, and made its own engines, building 185 of the Hyper Sports model before being bankrupted by the Great Depression.  After a reorganization, the company announced a new model in 1937...

This had engines designed by Hugh Rose, an engineer who had designed a twin-cam engine for Riley.  For Lea-Francis, Rose designed a similar engine with twin cams on the sides of the engine block, and rocker-operated valves in hemisphercal combustion chambers. Nicknamed the "underhead cam" engine, in 12 hp form (that's taxable, not real hp) it had 1.5 liters displacement.  There was also a 14 hp at just under 1.8 liters.  Only 83 of the new "LeaFs" were built before WWII stopped car production in England.

This car, license plate FYW 622, appears to be the same car that was shown in pre-restored condition on an auction website, and featured in our blog post* on Lea-Francis.  It appears that the restoration crew has had an epic success with this car...

A Renault Turbo 2 showed up to confound and amaze.  The mid-engined 1.4 and 1.5 liter turbocharged rally cars were based upon the Renault R5 front drive 4-seaters and featured body design by Marc Deschamps and Marcello Gandini at Bertone.  The homologation specials, built as the Turbo from 1980-82, featured wild Bertone interiors with red and blue color schemes.  The "production" Turbo 2 built from '83-'86 had a tamer interior without the special Bertone seats and instruments.  These were real production cars, with over 1,300 of the Turbo, and over 1,800 of the Turbo 2 built.

The mid-engined Turbos sacrificed 2 rear seats for that engine placement, and predicted the obstructed engine access on modern mid-engined GTs like the Porsche Cayman...

The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile showed up to contest the crowd-pleasing style and rarity of those sports machines.  It's powered by a small block Chevy V8; acceleration figures were not quoted by the Oscar Mayer crew...

...but nobody else was offering hot dog samples, and that counted for something.

Alfa Romeo fans showed up at the April event in strength, with a silver GTV6, a rare (in the US) Type 916 front-drive roadster in yellow, and a Milano sedan tricked out for racing.  

This Lotus Evora showed up at the May 19 event.  Built from 2010-21 to contest the mid-engined GT category dominated in the US by the Porsche Cayman, the Evora was powered by 3,5 liter Toyota V6 engines available with supercharging.  Transmissions offered were 6-speeds, in manual or automatic form. 

This Triumph GT6 Series 3 was offered from late 1970 through the end of 1973, and was a sort of fastback version of the green Spitfire roadster parked just beyond it, with a 2-liter inline six replacing the Spitfire's four. Both cars shared the same Michelotti styling and all-independent suspension with swing axles at the rear.  

No Coffee and Classics would be complete without a Citroen, or some Ferraris.  Here a DS 21 is flanked by a red Testarossa flat-12 and a silver V6 Dino 246. 

This Alfa Romeo 4C mid-engined coupe, a lightweight competitor to the Porsche Cayman and Lotus Evora with 1.75 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder power, was offered in coupe form from 2013-19 and as a spider from 2015-20.  It's relatively rare in the US, but over 9.000 cars were built.

The Austin-Healey* 100-6 was built by BMC with 2.6 liter inline six from 1956-59, while its older brother, the 100-4 to the right, was built with 2.6 liter inline four from 1953-56.  Curvy, low-slung styling was by Gerry Coker.  

The 100-4 was the last Healey to have the fan-shaped grille; the racing 100S model featured disc brakes and an oval grille with vertical chrome bars in place of this fan shape.

The "Big Healeys" showed up in strength at the May event; this one flanks its little brother, an Austin Healey Sprite, nicknamed Bug Eye for obvious reasons, built from 1958-61.  Also a Gerry Coker design, it was planned for retractable headlights, but BMC cut the budget for those, giving their entry-level sports car plenty of character. A 948 cc inline four provided power; this car has been upgraded to 1,275 cc, as in some Mini Cooper rally cars.  The Porsche Turbo with Slant Nose option takes a different approach to design, with the somewhat anodyne sloping front (similar to 80s wedge designs like the Mazda RX-7) at odds with the curves and ellipses of the 911 body shell.  

The Big Healeys show off their tidy rear contours.  Rear ground clearance was so scant that the cars were famous for scraping exhausts on steep driveways...

This BMW 2800 CS appeared in spotless, original condition, including original alloy wheels.

The car had been upgraded, though, to a 3.5 liter inline six, and disc brakes from the later 3.0 CS replaced the rear drums.

This Triumph was one of a quartet of the British sports cars to show up at the May event.  A Spitfire, it's been modified with a vented hood with covered headlights in the style of the Spitfire Le Mans racers, and that hood covers a Honda VTEC 2 liter four making around 240 hp.  The builder replaced the Spitfire swing-axle rear with a fully-independent setup.  This car was very much in the fun spirit of the event.  For the schedule of Boulder Coffee and Classics event and an interview with organizer Mike Burroughs, you will want to visit fuelfed.wordpress.com. 

*Footnote:  

Our survey of Lea-Francis history appeared under the title "Forgotten Classic: Lea-Francis, the Underdog with the Underhead Cam Engine", on June 15, 2023.  We surveyed Healey history in "Forgotten Classic: Healey, Before and After Austin", on October 17, 2022.

Photo Credits:

All photos are by the author, except the 5th from top, which is from bonhams.com.

Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza Xenia: Futurism on Wheels at the Petersen Museum

This 1938 Xenia, built for aperitif mogul and inventor Andre Dubonnet on Hispano-Suiza's H6B chassis, may be unfamiliar to many (after all, there's only one), but may seem a bit like an old friend to frequent readers of this blog, because it's been featured here 5 times in the last 9 years*.  We could have made it an even half dozen if we'd included it in our feature on the first modern car*, but we'd limited that roundup to production cars, loosely defined as cars made in at least 100 specimens. When, as the subtitle of that search suggested, we rounded up the usual suspects, Dubonnet's spectacular, futuristic Xenia got left out...

Though inheriting the aperitif business had provided him with influence, Dubonnet volunteered for service in what was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and was decorated for shooting down 5 German planes by war's end.  Like fellow aviator and auto pioneer Garbriel Voisin, he was inspired to apply lessons from aviation to car design. He went to Jean Andreau, who'd also served in the French Air Service during WWI, to design something aerodynamic on his Hispano-Suiza chassis. They employed the streamlining from their Ford V8-powered Dolphin* of 1935, but not its rear midships engine location, dorsal fin, or the front-facing entry door that predicted the Isetta bubble car. They decided to use Dubonnet's Hyperflex coil-spring independent front suspension, which he'd licensed to firms like GM (which called it Knee Action) and Alfa Romeo, and applied it to the front and rear of the H6B chassis.  Braking by hydraulically-operated aluminum drums was from the H6C, as was the engine, an aluminum block, 8 liter, SOHC inline six.  The gearbox was by Hispano-Suiza, but with 4 speeds instead of their usual 3.  What really stunned crowds at auto shows, though, was the car's light alloy body shell, formed by Jacques Saoutchik*.  There were no straight lines in plan, section or elevation. Side windows curved into the roof.  Doors were mounted on Saoutchik's favorite outrigger hinges so they could slide back parallel to the car.  The windshield wrapped around the dash in a single, uninterrupted arc, predicting American wraparounds of the Fifties.  In a long, tapered tail foreshadowing Le Mans streamliners, fitted luggage occupied the wedge-shaped trunk compartment...

Though Dubonnet, Andreau and Saoutchik were aware of the finned, teardrop-profile streamliners from the Czech Tatra company and French designers like Figoni and Pourtout, there was nothing in this period quite as futuristic as the Xenia, named after Dubonnet's wife, who had died in 1936.

The front view is perhaps the most conventional one on the car, owing to the front location of the long, tall engine. The front fenders are integrated seamlessly into the front elevation, emerging at the sides as separate teardrop forms.  At the rear, though,  fenders merge into the car's flanks aft of the doors, anticipating the forms of Bonneville speed record cars and endurance road racers.  

Reviewers have noted the aircraft influence on the transparent bubble of the greenhouse.  The only problem with this analysis is that only top secret airplanes looked like this when the car was designed in 1937. In sketching out these plexiglas curves, Dubonnet and Andreau seemed to be anticipating the first jets, which would first fly 2 years later, as war again descended on Europe.

Instruments and switchgear were arranged in linear fashion across the curved dash. Steering was on the right, as on most upper-crust French cars during this period, though popular cars like Citroens were LHD. This view shows the transparency of the forward view from the cockpit, better than modern cars with their foam-padded A pillars.  Xenia was hidden soon after the Nazi invasion, and only appeared again in 1946 for a parade.  Purchased postwar by a French Hispano collector, she eventually landed in Peter Mullin's collection in Los Angeles, and is now at the Petersen Automotive Museum in the same city...

Before the present century was 2 decades old, a modern Hispano-Suiza revival was launched in Barcelona, focused on the all-electric Carmen, named for the granddaughter of the original company's founder.  The rear view is the car's best, and emulates the pointed deck and skirted rear wheels of the Xenia.  Like the Xenia, it provides plenty of torque; electrics offer up all their torque when you first press the accelerator. But Carmen really excels in the horsepower department, with over 6 times the Xenia's 160.  Like the Xenia which allegedly inspired it, the Carmen is not cheap, with a price of $1.7 million for the coupe, while the Boulogne roadster goes for $1.9 million.  Plans call for 2 dozen cars in total.  It remains to be seen whether the launch of this electric supercar reflects the same kind of overoptimism that surrounded the Xenia, which, like the Carmen, was launched as clouds of war began to drift into the skies over Europe...  

*Footnote:   Xenia's first appearance here was on Sept. 7, 2015, in "One of One: A Brief History of Singular Cars"; the second was in "Roadside Attraction: Rolling Sculpture at the North Carolina Museum of Art" on Dec. 31, 2016.  Xenia appeared again in "Hispano-Suiza: Swiss Precision, Spanish Drama, French Style" on Sept. 25, 2017, and was included in an overview of coachbuilder Jacques Saoutchik's work on March 8, 2020 in "The French Line Part 4: Jacques Saoutchik---A Talent for Overstatement".  And a survey of candidates for the honor of first modern car appeared without the Xenia on Sept. 26, 2020, entitled "The First Modern Car? Round Up the Usual Suspects..." The 1935 Dolphin designed by Dubonnet and Andreau is interesting enough to get its own post, and that will happen soon.

Photo Credits

All color photos:  Art Heinrich 

Monochrome photos (3rd and bottom):  hispanosuizacars.com