Cool "Car Art" Illustrations

1954 Chevrolet
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1956 "Take your pick" ... What some thought today might look like 60 years ago. Styling way off, but self-driving cars are here ... sorta

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I asked the Midjourney bot on discord to imagine a 1967 Dodge Monaco 2dr hard top. This is what it came up with (I'm not impressed).

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1961 Pontiac Bonneville "Bubble Top" (one year only for Bonnville and Catalina)
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So called "bubble top" given shape of roof/backglass/C pillars. The B body Chevrolets/Pontiacs/Oldsmobiles had them, but so did the longer GM C's (Buicks, Cadillacs, etc) had then but didnt call them "bubbletops"

All that money, for mostly one-year only design. Chevy kept one for 1962 then they were gone from GM's cars. Wonder how they did in rollover testing with those skinny A, no B, and C pillars?

sources: 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Bubble Top | S1.9 | Kissimmee 2018 | Mecum Auctions,
https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/features/car-of-the-week-gm-bubble-tops-of-1961
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1961 Chev Impala
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1961 Buick LeSabre
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1961 Pontiac Bonneville "Bubble Top" (one year only for Bonnville and Catalina)
View attachment 581316

So called "bubble top" given shape of roof/backglass/C pillars. The B body Chevrolets/Pontiacs/Oldsmobiles had them, but so did the longer GM C's (Buicks, Cadillacs, etc) had then but didnt call them "bubbletops"

All that money, for mostly one-year only design. Chevy kept one for 1962 then they were gone from GM's cars. Wonder how they did in rollover testing with those skinny A, no B, and C pillars?

sources: 1961 Pontiac Bonneville Bubble Top | S1.9 | Kissimmee 2018 | Mecum Auctions,
https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/features/car-of-the-week-gm-bubble-tops-of-1961
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1961 Chev ImpalaView attachment 581372

1961 Buick LeSabre
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rollover safety or not, still the best looking roof of the era...
 
The 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire. A turbo-charged, 231 V8, that needed a "special" fuel blend to perform else it wouldnt and detonation would damage the engine.

Lasted only two years, dying under an avalanche of customer complaints .. customers who would NOT operate the car as designed.

Taught GM a lesson. Technologically advanced cars - as this one was in its time - have to be easy for average people to take care of. Otherwise they wont.

source: https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2013/04/18/yesterdays-car-of-tomorrow-1962-1963-oldsmobile-jetfire

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"Oldsmobile's Turbo Rocket Fluid was a mixture of distilled water, methanol and a corrosion inhibitor, and today we'd recognize the system as fluid injection, used in high-performance engines to cool the combustion chamber and prevent preignition.

For motorists in 1962, it was the stuff of science fiction, helping to deliver impressive acceleration on demand as long as the Turbo Rocket Fluid tank was topped off.

Run it dry (and ignore the indicator), and the turbocharger was bypassed to prevent potential engine damage

The other high-performance V-8 in the F-85 lineup, the four-barrel 215-cu.in. Cutlass 185 V-8, made 185 horsepower and 230-lbs.ft. of torque. '

The Jetfire's Turbo Rocket V-8 easily bested this with 215 horsepower (an impressive one horsepower per cubic inch) and 300-lbs.ft. of torque at 3,200 RPM. Road tests of the day showed a zero-to-60 MPH time of less than nine seconds, on the way to a top speed of 110 MPH.

In its own brochure, Oldsmobile described the car's performance as "nothing short of spectacular," with "exceptional" low-end acceleration and "downright sensational" thrust "from there on up."


Though the Jetfire was innovative for its time and boasted the first fluid-injected turbocharged production engine, as well as the first production turbocharged V-8, it lasted just two years in the market.

Oldsmobile sold 3,765 Jetfires in 1962 and 5,842 in 1963, but problems (many of them owner-related) plagued the car."
 
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