Page 16 - The Kellner Affair Sample Pages

CHAPTER 5: MORE HASTE LESS SPEED
submitted, and on December 26, 1938 the third and nal versions of the Corniche design were delivered by Paulin. One of these styles was exactly as the car was built.
The nal design did incorporate the frontal treatment requested by Robotham, inspired by a combination of the rst and second generation Lincoln Zephyr. With its offbeat blanked-out main grille anked by narrow side grilles, and a cyclops center lamp in addition to the two faired-in Lincoln style headlights, it did an already dumpy body no favors. Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder as the hackneyed saying goes, but one cannot but wonder how bleary the eyes that beheld the result must have been – in this case Paulin’s and Robotham’s.
Others at Rolls-Royce were less pleased with the design. As James Fack has pointed out, Ivan F. Evernden who by then was responsible for coachwork design at Derby, sent a memo to Sleator with copies to Robotham, Robert W. Harvey-Bailey, head of the chassis division, and Bernard I. Day who was chief of the Chassis Design and
ABOVE: A Vanvooren promotional drawing from the Bureau d’Études of Carlo Delaisse, proudly displaying the nal and unfortunate Lincoln Zephyr-inspired proboscis of the Corniche. (Peter Larsen)
MIDDLE: Reality was no better. It gave the word hodgepodge a new meaning. And black is supposed to be slimming? (James Fack)
RIGHT: The heavy-handedness of the Corniche frontal treatment is underscored when compared to the lithe purposefulness of B27LE. (Rolls-Royce Ltd. Tom Clarke)
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