Annals of Design: Most Beautiful Cars, Part 2

Part 1 of this series was a review (okay, a grumpy critique) of James Cannon's list of the most beautiful cars.  Cannon never stated his selection criteria, so the reader was left with dozens of examples of "what" without any discussion of "why".  But industrial design, like architecture and music, is a body of knowledge, and it might have helped if we'd had a discussion of how that knowledge was reflected in the cars.

Cannon made a good choice in picking Gordon Buehrig's design for the front-drive 1936 Cord 810, and mentioned the hidden headlights.  But the 810, and the 812 that followed in 1937 (the red car above) was as significant for what it lacked as for what it had.  Along with hiding the headlights behind streamlined fender flaps, Buehrig got rid of running boards and the traditional vertical radiator grille fronting most cars.  Instead he wrapped horizontal chrome louvers around the nose, leading the eye around the side of the car, where it was confronted with clean flanks and teardrop fenders devoid of decoration.  On the supercharged 812, Alex Tremulis added chromed exhausts exiting the Lycoming V8 through decorative oblong vents (barely visible on the red Sportsman above) and this was a distraction from the purity of the original.  On the 810 sedan below the simplicity stands out.  Where details on the 810 occur, they serve to enhance, rather than distract from, the overall form.  Buehrig's instrument panel design was justly famed for the way if offered information and identified controls, as well as for the way it reminded us that the automobile is a machine.  Note also the simplicity of the flush circular tail lights, the way the roof curvature is carried into a trunk that is a simple unadorned opening, and the circular slots in the hubcaps.

The same year the Cord 810 showed up in Indianapolis, over in Paris Joseph Figoni designed a teardrop coupe on the sporty, short-chassis Talbot-Lago T150SS.  As with Buehrig's Cord design, details are conceived to emphasize the theme of the overall form.  In this case, oval grilles offer engine cooling and hide the headlights, oval side windows echo the reverse curve of the teardrop front fenders, and bumpers are reduced to thin-section chrome wing shapes that probably protect the design theme better than they protect the metal...

At the rear, we see the teardrop roof shape stated in elevation, section and plan, and restated in the half moon of the backlight, with its curved lower corners.  Rear fenders repeat the teardrop theme, their shape underlined by chrome edging, and the subtle chromed deck fin appeared on later Figoni & Falaschi bodies. The Museum of Modern Art identified this teardrop coupe design as a masterwork in its landmark Eight Automobiles exhibit in 1951, and the Cord 810 showed up there too...

A decade after that Figoni coupe, Pinin Farina designed and built the landmark coupe body below on a chassis built by the Cisitalia firm, which had formed after World War II to offer single-seat racers and sporty road cars powered by modified Fiat engines.  Despite the modest power offered by its 1100cc inline four and its high price, Cisitalia's 202 coupe attracted attention as one of the first visual statements of the design idiom that would become known as the Italian Line, with simple, unadorned contours to attract the eye and cheat the wind.  Note the way the ovoid grille shape repeats the downward curve of the hood, with the fender tops standing well above the hood surface, a very unusual feature in 1946...

The rear view shows how the roof form is carried through the deck, and how the rear fenders are formed to avoid the slab sides of some early-postwar cars, but are still integrated into an envelope body form, unlike the teardrop-fendered Cord and Talbot.  One thing the Cisitalia shared with those designs, though, was that MOMA selected it to appear in their Eight Automobiles show...

As with Bertone's Lamborghini Miura showcased in Part 1, the Mercedes Benz 300SL coupe that first appeared at the February 1954 New York Auto Show was a landmark example of integrating body design with chassis design and mechanical layout.  Here, Friedrich Geiger adapted the somewhat tub-like form of the Le Mans-winning 1952 racer to a production car* by extending the high door openings down so they just cleared the tubular frame along the flanks, which meant that as on the racer the doors were hinged at the roof, leading to the "gullwing" nickname that stayed with the car.  The leaned-over, fuel injected overhead cam inline 6 inspired the twin blisters in the hood.  The aero blisters over the wheel openings may have been there to smooth air flow. Along with the functional side air vents, they certainly led the eye along the form and made the car look lower. You've probably noticed the '63 Corvette coupe lurking in the background; Cannon had that car on his list too.  The reason we didn't quite agree is a story for later on...

Cannon also selected the original production Ford Mustang from 1964 for his list.  As "most beautiful" doesn't need to take into account practicality or affordability, we wondered why he didn't just pick the mid-engine Mustang I* show car from 1962 with its predictive side-mounted radiators.  But because Ford actually manufactured over a hundred of its landmark GT40, and even offered a road version for which there were a few takers, this is the Ford we picked.  Ford's mid-engine GT40, so named for its roof height of 40", was launched in 1964 as the centerpiece of Ford's effort to beat Ferrari...

Ron Bradshaw's body design appeared in long nose (above) and short nose (below) forms, on the the GT40 Mark I powered first by Ford's Indy V8 and then by the 289, and on the 7-liter Mark III, and was also offered on the road-going Mark 3 from 1966-'69.  Ford repeated the basic forms of this design on the Ford GT revival it began selling to the public in fall of 2004...

The body form by Ron Bradshaw did a good job of managing airflow, and signaled that with the air extractors above the front-mounted radiator, the two side air inlets behind the doors, and the turned-up tail spoiler.  The inward sloping section at the roof and tuck-under at the lower body did much to lower frontal area, but nothing to improve cabin space, and driver Dan Gurney had a famous "helmet bump" installed in the roof (into which doors opened) on his car.

And if one argues that a beautiful racing car is one that wins, the GT40 qualifies.  The 427-powered Mk. III (with its projecting upper side vents below) took 1-2-3 at Le Mans in 1966, and a 289 Mk. I won that race in '68 and '69, actually the same specimen car both years.  A Ford won in '67 too, but that was a Mk. IV with a different body design...

We agreed with the choice of the Alfa Romeo Type 33 Stradale from 1967, but wanted to talk a bit about why it was such a good choice.  The alloy body design of the mid-engine 2 liter V8, a street version of the Type 33 (thus the name) was built by Marazzi to the design of Franco Scaglione*, and reflects his usual themes with its repeat of parabolic shapes in the plan and section of the greenhouse, and his concern for aerodynamics.  Doors extend into the roof as they do on the GT40 from the same era, and the "tumble-home" and 'tuck-under" show that low frontal area was a goal.  Air intakes are carefully deployed while air dams and big spoilers are not (this was a "street" car).  Unlike on later production Alfas, there's no big triangular air intake; the Alfa shield at the front looks like a decorative afterthought... 

McLaren made the original "most beautiful" list, but with a somewhat generic-looking supercar from their current lineup.  Our pick was the F1 road car, the first series-produced McLaren built from 1992-'98, because the body form by Peter Stevens complimented the chassis layout by Gordon Murray.  First of all, the thing was light, only a couple hundred pounds heavier than a 1st-series Mazda Miata. The BMW V12-powered coupe was the first series-produced monocoque body-chassis in carbon fiber.  And the Stevens body design was especially compact, with short overhangs.  Space efficiency was higher than our other road racer examples, with the driver centered between 2 passengers.  The air extractors on the flanks enhance the body form while hiding the lower door shut lines, and provide a visual trademark compared with the current run of look-alike mid-engine exotics.  Also, the F1 design proved itself by being the last series-produced car to win the 24 hours of Le Mans, in 1995...

*Footnote:  Our other finalist among early Fifties production cars was Bob Bourke's Studebaker Starliner, which got its own post on February 20, 2021 in "Forgotten Classic: 1953-'54 Studebaker Starliner---Sleeping Beauty from South Bend". Ford's mid-engined Mustang prototype was featured in "The First Mustang: Ford's Forgotten Mustang I" from August 26, 2015, and designer Franco Scaglione got a retrospective in "Unsung Genius Franco Scaglione: The Arc of Success", in our archives for December 20, 2017. 

Photo Credits:

Top, 2nd & 3rd from top:  Mecum Auctions

6th & 7th from top:  Gogo Heinrich

2nd from bottom:  George Havelka

All other photos are by the author.

Annals of Design: Best Car Designs Ever? Well, Maybe Just the Most Beautiful...

Someone named James Cannon at something called Rush Experts recently posted an essay on the world's most beautiful cars.  Even though he claims expertise he got the photos wrong.  First off, he showed us a Series 2 E-Type Jaguar roadster, the one with the under-bumper tail lights that look like something from J.C. Whitney.  Then he compounded that error by claiming to show us a Series 1 E-Type coupe, but gave us a shot of a 2+2, with its high roof & long wheelbase, and compounded his mistake by choosing an early 2+2 with its too-vertical windshield.  For the sake of correcting the record, above and below are shots of the Series 1 E-Type roadster and coupe as designer Malcolm Sayer wanted us to see them...

Mr. Cannon praised Jaguar's XK-SS without noting that it was just a road version of the D-Type racer, here shown without the bumpers and full-width windscreen added for road use on the XK-SS, and with that famous stabilizing fin the XK-SS lacked.  

Not bad for something that appeared in 1954, a good seven years before the E-Type, and with 4-wheel disc brakes too.  Our experts could have noted the similarities between D and E, including the oval shapes repeated in plan, section and elevation, in the air intake and even in the shapes of the wheel cutouts.  This seems an almost hypnotic display of reinforcing an overall form with attention to detail.  

Our experts at Rush Experts wanted to tell us how much they admired almost 3 dozen cars for their beauty, but seemed to be in too much of a rush to tell us why.  Ferrari's GTO (Giotto Bizzarrini's design) apparently grabbed their attention because of its long hood and vents...

But several production model Ferraris like the GTB below have long hoods and vents too,  here with arguably a better integration of window shapes into that sloping roof. The GTO has the unsentimental directness of a racer, though, and gets more publicity when one sells for eight figures at an auction...

We're glad we ditched the idea of writing about the Best Car Designs Ever (which might've required including virtues like durability and practicality) and just decided to concentrate on beauty like Mr. Cannon  did.  That way, we get to include cars he somehow passed by, like the Lotus Eleven from 1956, one of the last great front-engined sports racers, relying on Frank Costin's aerodynamics and Colin Chapman's lightweight tubular chassis to stave off the mid-engined revolution already happening at Cooper and Porsche.

We can also include the Lotus Elite from 1957, designed by Chapman's accountant Peter Kirwan-Taylor and refined by Frank Costin.  The first car with a fiberglass unit body / chassis, reinforced here and there with steel, but maybe not quite enough...

The Type 14 Elite is another example of using details in ways that reinforce the overall form, like the side windows curving in plan to match the plan shape of the roof.  No, the side windows don't roll down; you add ventilation by removing them and stowing them in protective envelopes.  This shot shows the rear suspension towers that created high noise levels inside, and also what may be the first use of a flat, recessed tail panel for lights and number plate.

The experts admired the proportions of Marcello Gandini's Lamborghini Miura from a decade later, and mentioned the V12 power plant, but didn't get around to telling us the reason for those proportions.  The reason the Miura looks so balanced (at a distance, it's hard to guess where the engine might be) is that the V12 engine is mounted transversely behind the cabin and between the rear wheels.  It was an almost-masterstroke of integrating mechanical with visual design.  

Why an almost masterstroke? Because the Miura shared its crankcase oil with the transverse-mounted transmission, which happened to be a feature of the BMC Mini, a car that inspired it (well, from a mechanical concept standpoint anyway).  In the rear view, the louvers give a clue to the engine location.  Transmission oil was finally separated from engine oil on the last 96 or 98 cars, depending on whom you ask.

The photo below shows how the Miura opened up to allow access to the front-mounted radiator, and to that V12 behind the cabin, with luggage space behind the engine.

The colorful design riot went on inside the Miura as well, with Gandini avoiding the usual flat instrument panel, maybe in an attempt to keep up with (or distract driver and passenger from) the noise from Gianpaolo Dallara's mid-mounted 4-cam V12 engine, which had been designed by Giotto Bizzarrini.  We mentioned him before, right?

Those experts failed to mention the bracingly clean and original De Tomaso Mangusta that emerged in production the same year (1967) as the first Miura, so we will. Giorgetto Giugiaro's body design signaled the mid-mounted engine location with larger rear tires than at the front, and vents behind the rear side windows, with lots of "tumble-home" in the cabin section above a crease connecting front and rear wheel arches, and inward slope to the body section below it, emphasizing the wheels and tires. A Ford V8 sat behind the cabin and ahead of the transaxle.  

Ghia and Giugiaro wisely declined the temptation of front bumpers; the form stands out better that way (until someone backs into it).   None of the wedge-themed car designs that followed this one improved on its proportions or contours...

The experts suggested the BMW 2002 from the late Sixties was one of the world's most beautiful cars.  Hmm, I loved the sharp handling and reliability of mine, but thought the body design was a Corvair knock-off.  The Rush people liked the Turbo version from the early 70s best, but that may be a case of mistaking forward rush for beauty...

The experts scored better with their choice of BMW's M1, a Giugiaro design from 1978.  A more practical car than his Mangusta, but as we're talking beauty here the mid-engined, transverse inline six BMW bodied by Ital Design doesn't get the masterwork rating we'd give the Mangusta.  There are details aplenty, like the side vents, rear louvers, and flat, half-hearted version of the BMW twin kidney grille at the front, but they don't work together to emphasize the form with the same spare clarity as on the Mangusta.

No, if there's a BMW entry in the Most Beautiful lineup, for our money it's Albrecht Goertz's design for the BMW 507 roadster, produced from 1956 through '59.  Here details like the raised ridges extending past the wheel arches, and over the front fender vents, manage to emphasize the car's pared-down, sleek form. The BMW roundel fits into the curve of the fender vents.  The detachable hardtop looks a part of the body shape rather than an add-on.

The old twin-kidney grille received a rework by Goertz; it's now low in profile and vee-shaped in plan, a shape repeated in the shallow air intake atop the hood.  The flanks of the car turn inward below the speed lines topping the wheel arches, allowing the tires to protrude a bit beyond the flanks at the rocker panels.

BMW only managed to build 252 or 253 of this model before production ended; the alloy-bodied roadsters were expensive to make.  That means there are around 200 fewer of the 507 than of the M1.  A good place to end today's critical (okay, slightly grumpy) review.  In Part 2 we'll look at American designs, earlier Fifties designs, and designs from the interwar period.

*Footnote:   Some of these cars have been featured before on this blog. Here's a list, with dates in parentheses.

Jaguar E-Type (8-13-17 & 5-31-19), Jaguar D-Type (7-28-17), Ferrari GTO (11-30-20), Lotus Eleven (3-20-23), Lotus Elite Type 14 (7-31-16), Lamborghini Miura (7-11-17), DeTomaso Mangusta (7-24-23) and BMW 507 (10-20-19).

Photo Credits:

Top & 2nd from top:  Jaguar Cars

All other photos are by the author.

Close Encounters: Wild Animal Friends in the WUI

No; this isn't an image generated by artificial intelligence.  It was, instead, the product of a short-lived suspension of common sense. Campers in the mountains west of Boulder somehow forgot they were in bear country when they left dishes of food and water out for their little canine friend, who is probably unhappy that the large ursine visitor has left nothing but empty bowls. Amazingly, the campers managed to disentangle their pooch from this predicament without incurring injury to any of the creatures present.  Campers in Colorado's wildland-urban interface are advised to hang food from a tree (not close to the trunk) or to place food lockers securely in their vehicles.  Convertibles with food in view or scent may be transformed quickly into true ragtops.  We hosted a smaller black bear in our yard in the autumn of  2021.  I wasn't quick enough with my camera (on the safe side of a big window) but our neighbor snapped the shot below when he visited her tree.  

The ocean brings an amazing variety of wild creatures into sometimes incongruous proximity to stuff like suburban tract houses and artsy coffee shops. You can find all of these in Capitola, California, where I was paddling around waiting for waves one afternoon when something silvery turned over in the water about a yard away.  It turned out to be a curious sea otter; we also saw sea lions riding the waves and were surprised when a fin breaking the surface proved to be the first of a pod of dolphins making spectacular leaps.  This week is, by the way, Sea Otter Awareness Week...

Moose and elk frequent the higher elevations west of Boulder, and this female moose caught the attention of two cats in our friend's cabin in Alma, Colorado, the highest incorporated town in the US at just under 10,600 feet.  You can see elk there as well, and deer aplenty.  Despite what the locals say, though, none of these creatures seem as common as, say, sheep are in Scotland...

Sometimes, however, it seems like the deer in our back yard are as common as sheep in Scotland.  We've counted as many as 7 at a time.

If you accept the idea, though, that the first in line gets the best seats (like concert-goers waiting for Taylor Swift tickets) It turns out that deer are not intruding into our territory, but that we're intruding into theirs. This is because deer lived on this continent long before any humans even thought of showing up...

White-tailed deer, the oldest species, have lived in North America for at least 4 million years, while the related elk, caribou and moose only showed up after the last ice age, maybe 15,000 years ago. Native Americans, by the way, arrived before the last ice sheets retreated, meaning that they had white-tailed deer as company back then, but probably no moose or elk.

The endurance and persistence of the deer is enough to bring home the transitory nature of some things, like human settlements, set against the vast time scale of life on the only planet where we know it exists.  The image below, taken after the Cal-Wood Fire burned over 10,000 acres back in October 2020, connects somehow with this theme of wild survival. Domestic farm animals and inseparable friends, Ennis the donkey and Adam the horse ran for safety from a fire that burned 5,000 acres in the first 5 hours.  Their owner assumed they were lost in the blaze, but their instincts, after all, turned out to be more permanent than any of the barriers built to contain them.

Photo Credits:  

Top:  Photographer unknown, donated by Isaac Stokes

2nd:  Veronika Sprinkel

3rd:  Ocean Conservancy

4th & 5th:  Matt Kennan

6th & 7th:  Rhonda Hunter

8th:  Bob Poeschl

Bottom:  Eric Garner

10th Anniversary Post: Remembering Watson, the World's Best Dog

Some long stories begin as short stories.  When architect intern Ben Lochridge left our office for graduate school in 2008, he took his dog Buster with him.  I missed having a dog around the office to walk during breaks (not that I didn't miss Ben) and decided that while I was still too busy with work to adopt a dog, a substitute plan could be volunteering to walk dogs on Saturdays for the local Humane Society*.  After I walked dogs awhile, someone on the staff suggested I take special training and work in the recovery section of the vet clinic.  There I would take care of dogs and cats emerging from anesthesia after surgery.  I'd take their temperatures, clean out their ears, see if nails needed clipping, and calm them as they'd awaken.

Six months into my six years there, the staff plopped a pup into my lap named Monday because that was the day he'd transferred from Denver's Dumb Friends League.  The vet said he was a Treeing Walker Coonhound / Lab mix.  I looked up Walker Coonhounds and they just looked like tall beagles to me.  He wasn't available for adoption because of a skin rash and food-guarding issues.  Naturally, I had to have him, and took him home on Feb. 22, 2009.  Nine months after adopting the pup I named Watson Sherman he felt so much like family we made a Christmas card to send friends.  Watson's first name came from a beagle a pal had long ago named after Doc Watson, the musician.  Watson's middle name was a character from an old TV cartoon series about Rocky (a flying squirrel) and Bullwinkle (a moose).  Dogs need middle names so you can say, "Watson Sherman, get off that school bus!"  More on that later...

After this 2010 Christmas card, we face a year of misadventures.  Near Christmas, Watson hits a metal display at the hardware store, injuring his right eye, but a trip to the emergency vet at illegal speeds saves his vision with medicated goo. In the summer of 2011, we encounter a mountain lion when walking after dark on our block.  Watson stops and  looks up into a tree maybe 25 feet away.  Seeing the green glint of the eyes and the tail curling down, and realizing we don't have wild monkeys in Colorado, I pull him back and we walk home, while I turn around frequently to see if the big cat follows.  The next morning, we see what looks like a stuffed toy on the lawn across the street from the tree where we'd seen the lion.  Approaching it, I realize it's the remains of one of two fawns that had sheltered in our yard, and then call the Division of Wildlife.  Not long after, they catch a cougar near University Hill.  Just before Thanksgiving, Watson barks and barks at 3 AM until this writer (who sleeps like a hibernating bear) finally rolls out of bed and runs downstairs to discover someone trying to break open the front door.  When the fast-arriving police open the door, the latch falls out.  Score two saves for Watson (you count that lion, right?) and one for Papa (well, I did adopt him).

By this time Watson has acquired a best puppy friend in Lovie the Lab (background above) and we spend lots of time with Lovie's best human friend Isaac in the corner park.  Also, later in 2011 Ben finishes grad school and brings Buster to the office.  He's seated and looking angelic below, while Watson stands near a tennis ball he's demolished.  One day we have all three dogs at the office, running up and down the stairs, chasing the ball and making noise, and eventually Ben looks a little flustered.  I need to go meet an engineer, though, so I just tell Ben to call Animal Control if it gets too hectic around here...

California work continues, so Watson and I take road trips out to Monterey County, Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley.  When in Monterey, WS stays at Casa de Amigos while I visit construction sites.  He doesn't even look back at me as he goes through the front door, because Casa de Amigos apparently gives him a chance to be a leader of a pack...

One day I'm walking WS on our block and he decides to get on the school bus.  The kids start yelling, "Let's take him to school; we'll bring him back" and the bus driver just laughs.  I pull Watson off and he gives me a look of injured dignity.  He's pretending that he was there to cheer up the kids on their way to school, but I know he was mainly there to sniff the lunch boxes.  When we get home, he pouts for a good while...

Somewhere along the line I figure that humans must have been kind to Watson in his 2.5 months of puppy life before I adopted him, because he rolls over on his back and patiently waits for belly rubs even when he meets a total stranger.  Sometimes in a completely inappropriate place, like the middle of a driveway, for example...

Things are serene and peaceful on our California trips; maybe too serene for Watson.  In 2018 we need to rescue him when he jumps onto a roof.  In Los Gatos, we visit a friend to discuss a remodel, and WS dashes to the end of the driveway before I realize there's no guardrail to protect anyone from the 8-foot drop (a code violation, actually).  WS somehow sees the danger (or is lucky) and leaps across the 3-foot space onto the roof of a garden shed.  I yell at him to stay (unlike in obedience class, he stays) and we get a ladder to carry him down.  Later, at Lulu's Café in Santa Cruz, he celebrates his luck by fooling some admiring kids into thinking he's a puppy and giving him belly rubs...

One of Watson's favorite places in Boulder was Trident Booksellers and Café, where he could collect loving attention, including belly rubs and treats, from college students.  I could bring him to the Trident and get lots of work done on my computer, because he'd barely notice I was there...

WS had a kind of agelessness about him, and so much energy we nicknamed him the Permapup.  We'd play Special Ball in a usually-abandoned tennis court with a Kong toy (think of stacked doughnut shapes of decreasing size) and he liked guessing which way it would bounce.  Catching the ball on the first bounce yielded an extra treat; Watson learned that rule quickly.  When he got the ball, he'd huff and chuff and toss his head like a prancing pony... 

The photo below shows a sleepy nap on a California road trip when Watson was 11 years old.  I'd still get requests from complete strangers "to pet the puppy." I'd tell them that Watson was scamming them, and puppyhood was a decade behind him, but of course they could pet him. Before I'd get the words out, though, he'd be on his back, waiting and wagging.

The photo below was taken in summer of the same year, 2020, after the Pandemic arrived.  Watson managed to stay in fine shape because longer walks filled a vacant schedule. Four or five walks a day led to extra food, and I'd started cooking for him, which turned out to be cheaper than buying "premium" dog food...  

Watson was ready to take a ride in the old Jag to celebrate his 16th birthday back in December, on a day with oddly springlike conditions.  When springtime actually arrived, he kept on doing his job of making new friends.  One day, an RTD bus driver got off at our stop on Broadway, and I thought he was going to help a passenger with the lift.  But the driver introduced himself as Mike and said, "I see you walking all the time, and I just wanted to pet your dog."   In the summer Watson slowed down and we took shorter and slower walks in the shady gardens. Then he got some intestinal bug we fought with our vet's help for weeks, and last Friday night he heaved up his dinner and made some loud groans that I'd never heard from him.  I took him to the Humane Society vets the next day, and a vet who'd known us both from the beginning said, "If this were my dog I'd let him go today, because he's in real discomfort."  He ate some cheese treats with his usual enthusiasm, and I held him while he went to sleep for the last time.  Watson, it was a gift to know you.  I'll always be grateful to you for our 66 seasons of walks in all kinds of weather and landscapes, for improving my pitching arm, and for making me new friends in all those seasons. For the rest of my days, just hearing your name will be like getting a letter from home.

*Footnote:  

Our local Humane Society is the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, providing adoption services, offering classes, training volunteers and accepting donations at 2323 55th Street, Boulder, CO 80301, tel. 303-442-4030 and website boulderhumane.org.  We want to thank our friends there for taking such good care of Watson over the years, and also our friends at Left Hand Animal Hospital, 304 Franklin Street, Niwot, CO 80503, tel. 303-652-8387 and website lefthandanimalhospital.com.

Note to readers:  

This post, #402, marks the 10th year from the start of this blog, which has so far received over 340,000 visits. Though it is mostly concerned with subjects like car design, architecture, movies, painting and photography, a subject like adopting a dog (and not just a dog, but the world's best dog) seemed to fit under the Art of Living category.  

Photo Credits:  

All photos are by the author except for the following:

Top:  Helen Andrews

3rd from top:  Humane Society of Boulder Valley

6th from top:  Casa de Amigos, Monterey, CA

2nd from bottom:  Veronika Sprinkel