Engine Punk

By way of a break from Impish little cars, here's something from the other extreme of Chrysler's automobile range, the 1970 Chrysler 300. A car this size has presence. It turned up at the Launceston show The Chrysler 300 non-letter cars traded on the performance image of Chrysler's letter series 300s. These started in 1955 with the C-300 and finished up with the 1965 300L but the less sporty 300 non-letter range sidled up to join the letter range 300s in 1962 and promptly outsold it. Being cheaper helped in the sales war but I can't help thinking that some people may have bought a 300 by mistake when they really thought they were getting a 300H. Enthusiasts claim that the new non-letter 300devalued the 300H and marked the latter out as a specialist performance automobile. I say, what's wrong with that? But the marketing men seem to have known what they were doing, I'm sorry to say. Sales of the lower-spec 300 non-letter cars were always greater and...

I experimented a lot with my cover illustrations but found myself drawn to a couple of artists in particular. Probably my favourite artist of all is Terence Cuneo. He was obviously in love with the steam engine and captured their speed, power and weight with such accuracy he made it look easy. But in reading a book specially purchased as background for my project, I learned how much hard work went into each commission. He was up ladders, on bridges and skulking in tunnels, sketching in all weathers and ignoring threats to life and limb in his determination to capture the essence of the Flying Scotsman or a broken down goods engine. His ellipses are perfect and I find his treatment of midtones and light and shade inspirational. Syd Mead is a very famous industrial designer who worked for Ford before going freelance. He designed the props for Blade Runner when I was a student but before that was well known for beautifully executed conceptual visions of the future. There is no dys...