I ran across this image while researching Loewy, and have no idea who the customer was for the pictured design. Doubt that it was ever built.
Anyone have any details/info?
Thanks in advance
http://www.art.net/Lile/loewy/images/bureuloc.gif
(I really don’t think it was the C&O M-1)
Raymond Loewy was considered to be the “Father of Industrial Design” he was durning the 1930’s to 1950’s the creator of many designs, from the paint scheme used on the Air Force’s Presidential aircraft (starting with Kennedy’s 707, and on to the current 747), the coke bottle, and most of the Pennsylvania RR’s streamlined locomotives,
the K-4 Pacifics [see this web site] http://www.steamlocomotive.com/pacific/prr/
He also designed the S-1 and the T-1 streamling features, not to mention the styling features of the Pennsy’s " Broadway Limited" .
If you “Google” Raymond Lowey there is all kinds of information, and photos on this man.
He was to the Pennsylvania Railroad, what Otto Kuhler was to the New York Central RR.
Sam
He also designed the Northern Pacific Railway’s 1954 North Coast Limited
color scheme-two-tone green with a white separator stripe-forever immortalized
as the “Loewy NCL Scheme”.
No, this isn’t even a turbine! It seems to be a cab forward coal burning duplex (the two sets of cylinders are visible near the drivers, with a coal bunker carried forward of the cab, (like the M-1). The stack is equipped with a streamlined casing, and somewhere beyond that it merges into a streamlined tender (presumably for water only).
Now who could possibly consider such a locomotive? Wait, there looks to be a name down the side - maybe “Pennsylvania”? It’s not that clear, but the last few letters do look like “A-N-I-A”
As a friend has said to me, “what could possibly go wrong!”
The lettering is very similar to more conventional Loewy duplex sketches shown in “Pennsy Power III”, and I think I’ve seen a slightly different version. There might be a large Keystone just obscured on the rear of the tender.
M636C
I believe Loewy also designed the Studebaker Avanti automobile as part of an effort to save the company. He did some other autos for Studebaker as well. There’s a very active collector group and I believe there are plans to bring it back one more time, should you want your very own Loewy design.
Gotta give you credit, “Pennsylvania” is probably the most likely possibility.
Although the characters that would be the Ns do not look identical, and the characters that would be the “Y” and “V” look more like “T” to me, the rest of your observation is very persuasive.
He also did the Lucky strike “red dot” cigarette pack, the shell oil logo, the exxon logo where the X’s share a common cross, and the Greyhound bus “vista dome” among many other things.
Here is an excerpt from Loewy’s personal note pad I found interesting:
An eastern road attempted a cab forward design simular to SP’s by building a backwards duplex using coal not oil. Since it looks to be a duplex PRR is a possibility. They built a prototype but found problems with debris damaging pistons and seals facind wrong direction. It was unsuccessful. I do not think it was ever given a final model #. I do beleive they changed the design to turn the drivers in the accepted direction but am not sure it was ever even built. By then diesels had too firm a hold. This model appears to be what the finished engine would have looked like with the forward coal bunker behind the nose. Notice the resemblence to early diesel designs.
Good news. They’re back, and you can buy one for your driveway. New owners bought the company and started manufacturing the Loewy design again – around 2000.
About three years ago I toured the assembly plant, which is west of Atlanta in Villa Rica, Georgia. They crank out something like 250 cars a year, and when I was there they were priced in the $75,000-$80,000 range. They’re produced only a few at a time, and each one is hand-crafted to perfection. Here’s more info:
I am totally mesmerized by the Streamlined style, as it was applied to trains.
In an effort to apply a soul and character to complex machines, Streamlining incorporated sweeping aerodynamic forms and visually-stimulating implications of speed to autos and trains. The industrial designer’s role was especially important during the Great Depression, when companies relied on designers such as Henry Dreyfuss, Otto Kuhler and Raymond Loewy to turn around the economy and stimulate consumer demand for autos and train travel.
Let’s also not forget the inestimable Harley Earl, who for GM in the 1950s and beyond designed some pretty cool automobiles – and the AeroTrain, which was an operational disaster, but had its fans (me included) who loved the sleek, innovative locomotive design.
Let’s not forget Lowey"s finest (IMHO) effort, the 1040’s Lincoln Continentals.
Loewy was a giant of a talent…! I loved his designs…Almost all of that I’m aware of him doing. Even trash cans in the Late Great Pennsylvania Station in NYC. Don’t forget the Carlings Black Label beer bottle label. And speaking of Studebaker…Yes, he had a major effort in helping to save the company…Long before the Avanti. The “way ahead of everyone” 1947 models of Studebakers. One of the first redesigns of American autos after the war…The only other at the time was the brand new Kaisers. All the rest of the “big three” were warmed over models from 1942.
I think Loewy was a genius in his field. I simply loved his designs…they seemed to fit right in with the way I thought stuff should be shaped.
There is a long list of products that he designed their appearance.
His 1947 design of the Studebakers probably added 10 or 15 years to the companys existence. It was the design people commented of not knowing which way the car was going…Large wrap around rear window on some of the coupes. I have a die cast model sitting right besides me here in a collection…the Studebaker Starliner Coupe…still a beautiful design {In my eyes today].
AntiGates: I opened the pic you provided with the address and really can’t do much with it…I enlarged it and put a magnifying glass to it and this is all I can get out of it…
_ L _ L _ T L T _ A I A
I blew it up so big each dot looked to be as big as and “o”…Still this is all I could get. Does anyone else “see” anything in what I’ve listed…?
PS: A side bar to the Avanti…The lab I worked in developed the 4-speed transmission that was used in the Avantis for a period of time. We even had a Lark test car with the Avanti V8 solid lifter engine {no supercharger}, to car test units.
Didn’t know about the Carlings black label bottle guess I shouldn’t be surprised though, I thought that was sharp even when I was a kid.
The “Bullet nosed” studebakers always had a special place in my heart, even before i knew that the guy responsible for the design was famous.
I always thought that Gordon Buehrig should have attained greater acclaim than he did. Probably limited himself by being content to work for others instead of making a name for himself.
I agree with your thoughts on Buehrig. If he would have been doing work perhaps with one of the big three maybe we would have seen a lot more from him.
Item: My brother had just returned from WWII and had a 1946 Chevrolet convertible on order and it was taking for ever to get it so he put in an order for a 1947 Study convertible but they were so far back ordered there was little chance to get one so he waited and took the '46 Chevy which was delivered way late…Every thing was pent up demand due to the automotive production being shut down from mid 1942 to the '46 models.
I wasn’t that happy with what I could read on the side of the model, but it is likely at the period that Loewy would have used a then “modern” or art deco font that did not reproduce well in the particular photo due to reflections on the model and the camera angle. But can anyone think of any other operator that would bother with such an extreme steam locomotive that also had a long single word road name, apparently ending in “A”. The big numbers on the nose and the light colour (certainly not PRR “dark green”) were used on several Loewy “T-1” styling studies.
M636C
Let’s not forget Loewy also designed the styling for the Famrall (International Harvestor) letter series tractors.
AFAIK, Otto Kuhler’s most famous RR streamlining designs were the A class Atlantics and the F7 Hudsons for the CMStP&P in the '30s. I’m unaware that he did anything for the NYC. Henry Dreyfus was famous for the 1938 design of the streamlined NYC J3 Hudsons. IMO, Loewy’s S1 design for the PRR is the epitome of Art Deco design.
This looks very much like a PRR turbine that Loewy designed for Westinghouse and PRR. There were sketches of it in an article about proposed but never built locomotives in Trains some 20+ years ago. The real give away that it is PRR is that GG1 styled nose and cab. IIRC it was designed after the C&O turbines and before the N&W.
In the same design series was a smaller gas turbine. It had the same nose but ran on a pair of C trucks. So it is quite possible that Loewy also designed a duplex with similar styling.