Page 4 - 1971 Stutz

In December 1963, Esquire published one of the most influential articles in the history of the magazine. In the article, four remarkable designs were presented by Virgil Exner, Chrysler’s charismatic ex-vice president of design. Exner was no run-of-the- mill Detroit car stylist. His One Hundred Million Dollar Look for the 1955 model year and the 1957 Forward Look designs had saved Chrysler from extinction. In association with Ghia, Exner had also been the originator of a number of fantastic Chrysler show cars in the 1950s, including two which made it into very limited production, namely Eugene Casaroll’s Dual-Ghia and later the Ghia L6.4.
Now, Exner wanted to demonstrate what a number of famous marques that had fallen by the wayside could be offering for 1964, “...assuming either that each manufacturer had pursued a policy of refinement and modernization of his cars’ identifying characteristics, or that each had decided to resume business after a thirty year lapse...what we are trying to do is capture the spirit of the older car design and body type in a modern package”. In this short text, what we now know as retro-styling was born. The designs exerted a massive influence, and without them, it is doubtful that the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado would have been styled as it was, or that the wildly successful Lincoln Continental MK III would have seen the light of day. Today, we see retro styling in cars from most major
manufacturers, such as the Mini, the New Beetle, the Fiat 500, the BMW Z8, the brand new Alpine and many more.
Exner’s supremely elegant 1963 designs quickly became known as his Revival Cars. There was a revived Mercer Raceabout, a Duesenberg Sport Phaeton, a Packard Twin-Six and a Stutz Super Bearcat. Shortly thereafter, Exner added a modern-day proposal for a Jordan Playboy, a Pierce Silver Arrow and a Bugatti Roadster. While all of these designs fed the dreams of young boys in the 1960s because they were made as model kits by Renwal, it was more difficult to get the cars constructed in real life. In 1965, the beautiful Mercer Raceabout design was built by the Carrozzeria Sibona-Basano as a one-off on a stretched AC Cobra chassis for the American Copper Development Association. Used extensively to promote the use of copper trim on automobiles, it became a very famous car.
Virgil Exner had purchased the very last Bugatti 101 chassis made by the factory. Also in 1965, he had this chassis shortened by Ghia who then built the Bugatti Revival design for his personal use. In 1966, a very revised Exner Duesenberg design was built by Ghia on an Imperial platform in a failed attempt to revive the marque that involved the participation of August Duesenberg himself. Today, these three unique cars survive in prominent collections. The only one of all these designs to go into limited production was the Stutz.
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˚ THE EXNER REVIVAL CARS˚
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