We like bears, having seen one in our back yard here in Boulder, where we also have a museum* full of AC cars, so we're beginning this survey with the brass bear radiator cap made by the AC company for one of its early motor cars. In the design, our shy teddy bear motorist peers attentively through the gaps in a giant steering wheel encircling the letters "AC", which first stood for Autocars and then Auto Carriers, the delivery vehicle the company first offered to the public in 1904. The designer is not listed, but we wonder if engineer John Weller, who designed the pioneering overhead cam six AC released in 1919 (same year as the SOHC Hispano-Suiza six) may have sketched it in his spare time. Our bear mascot, like all of the color images presented here, is featured at the Revs Institute* collection in Naples, Florida.
Robert the Policeman was designed in the 1910s by British cartoonist John Hassall, and named after British P. M. Sir Robert Peel, who had actually founded the London police force. The whimsical cartoon cop was available through S. Smith & Sons in London, an early purveyor of automotive accessories. The figure's proportions and graphic design of that red face seem predictive of cartoon characters that would appear decades later.
The Crossley Lady, adopted by Crossley Motors, shows another side of the British approach to visual design. It is as concerned with expressing motion and grace at speed as Robert the Policeman is with expressing a kind of well-meaning haplessness. The Lady appeared on the 20.9 (taxable, not actual) hp model in the late 20s and early 30s. Crossley, which was no relation to the American Crosley, made cars from 1904 to 1938, and military vehicles from 1914 to 1945. Bus production continued from the mid-20s until 1958.
Two figures above highlight the Eqyptian obsession from the 1920s, with titles like "Winged Egyptian" and "Egyptian Archer." The Egyptian fad extended to the design of movie theaters and public buildings, as well as fashion and visual arts. The heroically posed "Indian with Snake" from 1920 reflects a fascination with America's original inhabitants that, like the Egyptian fad, did not extend deep enough to offer much beyond decorative visuals. "Mr. Jorrocks", shown riding to the hunt below, was a comic character rendered in a realistic rather than cartoonish way. Jorrocks was created by sports writer Robert Surtees, and sculpted as a mascot in 1922 by watercolor painter Charles Johnson Payne.
Despite the privations of wars and depressions, the knack for whimsy never seemed to desert the Brits, at least not as evidenced by their radiator cap mascots. Artist W.K. Windridge came up with the delightful skiing penguin below in the 1930s. The silver-plated bronze casting depicts a very determined penguin heading down a mound of snow attached to a radiator cap.
Penguin car mascots were popular with designers, perhaps because these birds symbolized a hardy spirit able to survive harsh conditions. The one below is from American painter Arthur Faber, who described it as a stylized penguin...
Below we see a blocky sculpture of a horse from 1925-30 and a more slender and graceful version of a stork as designed in August 1919 by the young French sculptor Francois-Victor Bazin. The stork ornament adorned the radiator cap of the new Hispano-Suiza H6 that appeared at the 1919 Paris Auto Salon. The stork was a fitting symbol for a car with engine design inspired by Hispano's V8 aero engines, featuring a single overhead cam and aluminum engine block in its inline six. The H6 was the first car with power-assisted four-wheel brakes, a system later licensed to Rolls-Royce.
The stork was a fitting symbol for another reason. Aviator Georges Guynemer had adopted the stork for his French Air Corps squadron as it symbolized Alsace Lorraine, which had been under German control since the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Many of the planes in Guynemer's squadron were powered by Hispano-Suiza engines known for reliability. Sculptor Bazin had volunteered to serve in the Aeronautique Militaire as well, and had received his pilot's license a year before designing this elegant radiator mascot.
The designer of the Flying Mascot radiator cap below was not noted, but the mascot received a favorable notice from Britain's The Autocar magazine in 1910. The design was based on that of a 7-cylinder rotary Gnome aero engine; the bronze propeller and cylinders rotate around a fixed central shaft.
The designer of the rabbit mascot below was not noted in the display, but the appealing exaggeration of features on this circa 1925-30 hare, like the rendering of the cartoonish policeman mascot, anticipated approaches to cartoons and animations that emerged decades later...
The Belgian make Minerva may be remembered as much for its radiator cap ornament as for its smoky sleeve-valve engines. Minerva was the Roman goddess of war strategy as well as wisdom and the arts. The chrome-plated bronze ornament shown below was the winning entry in a 1921 design contest for sculptor Pierre de Soete, and became the official radiator cap for the marque from 1922 to 1933.
De Soete produced numerous mascot designs during this period including the Aigile (like "Aigle", the French for eagle but with an extra "i") below, designed for the Belgian Ford Automobile Club and offered through its magazine, Le Fordiste. The silvered-bronze bird seems ready to launch into space from the half-globe atop the radiator cap, and is modeled in an angular Deco style that creates a vivid impression of movement. In this it is unlike the Bentley mascot below it, which somehow never quite takes off...
British sculptor Charles Sykes designed the Bentley Flying B Single Rear Wing mascot in 1933, over 2 decades after designing a mascot for Rolls-Royce, which became the owner of W.O. Bentley's car firm in the Depression year of 1931. This mascot was only used on the 3.5 liter Bentley for one year, and we suspect it looked a bit clunky to the Thirties audience that was increasingly interested in streamlining. The small, single wing is unconvincing juxtaposed with the scale and blockiness of the B. There was also a B ornament with 2 wings, but it wasn't much more graceful. Luckily, Sykes had turned in a more elegant performance when he'd designed an ornament for Rolls...
Four years before World War I, Rolls-Royce Managing Director Claude Johnson was concerned that R-R customers might want to mount undignified hood ornaments on their cars (no cartoon cops or skiing penguins for him) and commissioned the same Charles Sykes to design something elegant. The silver plated bronze sculpture, titled "The Spirit of Ecstasy", first appeared early in 1911, and was modeled on the figure of Eleanor Thornton, who had worked at The Car Illustrated Magazine. In the pose that became famous, the lady's gown billows behind her in the wind, like angel wings. It was a more graceful and memorable symbol than the boxy flying B Sykes created for Bentley after that make was acquired by Rolls-Royce, and what could be the best-known hood ornament ever seems a good place to conclude our survey.
*Footnote: This blog surveyed the Shelby American Museum's collection of AC Cobra and Ace cars in "Roadside Attraction—Shelby American Collection Part 1: AC and Cobra", posted 12/28/17. Our survey of the Revs Institute's wide-ranging collection of cars began with "The Revs Institute, Part I: First Impression", posted 3/6/17. The posts on AC cars include "AC Part 4: Shelby's Cobra Was a Hard Act to Follow" posted 8/20/17, "AC Cars Part 3: The Shelby AC Cobra" from 1/9/17, "Forgotten Classics—AC Part 2: There Was Life Before the Cobra", from 12/25/16, and the first piece, "Happy Accidents with Bristol Power: AC Ace & Aceca", from 12/24/16.
Photo credits:
All color photos were generously provided by Kelly Anderson.
All color photos were generously provided by Kelly Anderson.
The monochrome shots of the Hispano-Suiza stork ornament, and of the Rolls Royce Spirit of Ecstasy ornament, are from Wikimedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment