Slinkin' Lincoln II

1970 Lincoln Continental sedan, chopped roof, "fixed" door handles, chrome rocker panel trim added, dog-dish hubcaps with embossed Lincoln "star" created... This very subtle custom would feature the dark gray metallic paint matching the '85 Town Car I drove for years, as would the single red coachst ripe, hand painted of course. The aqua and red trim color scheme derives from Tiffany's Christmas packaging, something the "highbrows" would already know as my Slinkin' Lincoln cruised past them. The interior would feature woven leather strips in aquas, reds, and grays. Blackwalls and painted steel wheels, in this case, custom made 18-inchers, round out my current aesthetic taste!

I did a chop many years ago which I named Slinkin' Lincoln. It was also a '70 Lincoln. I can't find an image to link to right now but it was pretty crude, lol. Probably dates to 2006.

In Honor of the Emerald Isle

Just a bit of last-minute fun. Hey, everyone repaints their concepts for various shows, lol! This is my Eldorado Biarritz in its new Emerald Firemist livery. Roof cap is textured and polished stainless as before. I hope everyone had a nice St. Patrick's Day!

Silent Sportscar: 2015 Corvett-E

My 2015 Corvett-E, the hybrid sportscar of the future

Rarely do I try to "improve" or "fix" production cars with my chops. I really just try to bring my own taste to the cars I Photoshop. An exception these days is the new C7 Corvette. Every time I Photoshop one I AM trying to fix it, lol. There are some nice things about it and some ghastly things about it. The problems I see range from the small, ie too many black vents, louvers, and crap, to the large, ie, that rising beltline, rear quarter window and awkwardly shaped rear hatch glass. I still don't care for the taillights either, but I've done several renderings with the proper quad circular units, so I've let that go, lol.

For this latest rendering, I created a plug-in range-extended Corvette coupe, the Corvett-E. Yes, a very powerful Volt-type powertrain for GM's halo sportscar! To that end I was able to delete all but one set of body vents, and I toned down that front venter gash with body color and chrome. Extruded and polished aluminum rocker panels point to the new alloy "tub" used for the batteries. The body is a mix of carbonfiber and aluminum for light weight. Note the "gas cap" has been moved to the front fender, is now a wonderful polished aluminum, and covers the charging unit outlet. Instead of the quad circular taillights I prefer, I've modified the current ones covering them with bright grilles, "hiding" the lights in a very Bill Mitchell-esque way. These fine chromed louvers exactly match the new front fender vent trim.

Quick Programming Note : )

I've just started a Facebook page for my art, "casey/artandcolour," including my beloved Photoshopped cars. Please join me over there if you're on Facebook!

Colorizing the Colorized

I recently went through my file of colorized photos and found this series. They're all photographs I shot in 1980 with my trusty Nikon film camera. They were taken at car shows, used car lots, and wherever I found cool cars. Originally colorized a few years ago, some of these images I had limited myself to just two colors. This time I refined all the images with countless shades and colors. I think they're going to be great to print out and then cut up and used in my future wooden pieces. Cut into squares they'll be great parts of some checkerboard paintings I'm working on. Reposting from my other blog: We can all use a dose of color right now!

Instrument panel of the 1959 Edsel. And this was toned-down from 1958!

Postwar Studebaker Starlight coupe.

Postwar Cadillac 75 Formal Sedan trunk logo.

The front fender of the postwar Caddy 75 Formal Sedan.

The front doorstep on the Cadillac 75.

Mid 1950s Mercedes Benz 300 SL trunk lid trim.

 Early Thirties Auburn hood ornament. This was a boattail speedster.

Step plate for a mid 1920s Buick.

 

Hood trim on a 1956 Ford.

1950 Ford coupe. 

 Very rare Hudson Italia coupe—red, white, green, and blue.

 1955-56 Packard senior interior. Note the pushbutton transmission quadrant on the dash.

 Early 1930s Packard windshield decal.

 1953-54 Studebaker hood with V8 trim piece Beautiful design!

Playing around I placed my Cadillac's loose chrome script on the grille of my Celica. Photo taken in '83.

2015 Ford Galaxie: RWD Large Ford Returns

Will Furnish Platform for Next Town Car

Clean, rectilinear styling returns with the first domestic full-sized rear wheel-drive Ford sedan of the 21st century. The 1965's square-rigged and futuristic styling is remembered with vertical rectangular light "boxes" front and rear recalling the stacked headlights and vertical taillights of those mid-Sixties Fords. The famous "Galaxie Roof" is reprised with parallelogram-shaped C-pillars and features classic C-pillar ribbed trim, in this case functional venting for the HVAC system. Front end styling would include a low, wide grille connecting vertical "pods" on each end for the LED lighting system. The hood includes a low, wide functional hoodscoop, similar to those on early Sixties Thunderbirds, Farilanes, and Falcons. Rear styling would feature similar pods for the LEDs and a connecting panel reminiscent of the grille shape. A polished aluminum full-length upper body molding is joined by a single hand-painted red coach line from hood to tail lid.

And, yes, that is a genuine fabric-covered roof on this uplevel model. For the 21st century, the waterproof leather-grained fabric is bonded to carbonfiber roof panels and structure eliminating the old "trapped water vs. metal panel" problem. In addition it's lighter and stronger than the standard steel panels and lowers the center of gravity in this very well-handling sedan.

Interior options would span from the standard Galaxie, with multiple hued leathers and fabrics, to a traditional  step-up optional LTD package, and a top-end Thunderbird Brougham interior which comes with a special "Thunderbird Special EcoBoost" powertrain. Cars equipped as such are identified by the classic Thunderbird and crossed-flags used on vintage Fairlanes and Galaxies packing the 312 "Thunderbird Special" engine.

Platform will be stretched 6-inches for the next Lincoln Town Car and shortened 6-inches for a new Ford Starliner coupe and Continental Mark IX.

Mid '60s UK Zodiak-sized Lincoln Continental Coupe

Beginning as a tongue-in-cheek project, I've found changing all the proportions of a 1966 Lincoln Continental 2-door coupe gives us an interesting compact-sized luxury car. I liken it to the handsome British Ford Zephyrs and Zodiaks of the 1960s. Perhaps a Ghia-built coupe based on Lincoln's lines but built on a Zodiak chassis may have looked something like this. I think it looks a bit like those great Lancia and big Fiat coupes of the late Sixties and early Seventies. I added a skyline from Australia, Perth I believe, a likely market for this car had it been offered. If you "squint" I think it has a bit of an early '70s Rolls Royce Camargue look to it.

My Andy Rooney Moment

Niche Marketing Knows No End Apparently

BMW is killin' me! Model proliferation is out of control: No niche is too small or too obscure. Recently, BMW removed the coupes—the 2-doors—from the 3 series and renamed them the 4 series. Henceforth, all 3 coupes are the new 4s. Fine. Not necessary, but fine. Not that the 3 sedan is lonely in the showroom. Besides the perennial bestselling sedan, there's the X3 crossover, a tall 5-door. There's the 3 Gran Turismo, a 5-door hatchback taller than the sedan but lower than the X. Don't forget the 3 wagon, another 5-door with a slightly longer roof at sedan height. The 3 series has one 4-door and three 5-doors. I may be forgetting one.

But just introduced at Geneva? A new 4-door in the 2-door 4 series, the 4 Gran Coupe. A couple of years ago, BMW came out with the 6 Gran Coupe, a 4-door 6 series coupe so this follows the pattern. I'm pretty sure the new 2 series will include a low-roofed 4-door as well, 2 Gran Coupe. Rumored next, the X4 5-door crossover—a fastback version of the X3 5-door crossover—much as the X6 is basically a fastback X5. Not to be confused with the 5 Gran Turismo, a 5-door hatchback taller and frumpier than the 5 series but not as "utiliarian" as the X5. I may be forgetting one. Or two.

So many 4-doors, so many 5-doors. Coupes with 2 doors, coupes with 4-doors. Hatchbacks, crossovers, tall wagons, low wagons. The Ultimate Driving Machine was best with the least number of models. Concentrate on the important stuff, BMW! I'd bet the next generation will be reined in depending on what sticks to Munich's walls this go 'round.

Thanks for listening!

Update

When I wrote the above screed, I didn't realize the "rumored" X4 was so close. It was introduced today at the Geneva show. And yes, it's a fastback, 5-door version of the X3, looking almost exactly like a slightly smaller X6. 

I created two X4s in 2011, but I gave them only 3 doors, hoping BMW would give it a unique bodystyle, but they didn't.

• One of my 3-door X4s, here. 
• And the other, here.

1961 Plymouth Fury—Cleaning Up the Details

Late Exner styling had some great "big picture" features, but I've always found the details strange and overdone. For this chop I started with a basic Fury 4-door sedan. I changed it into a pillarless hardtop sedan, a favorite bodystyle of mine. I've straightened out some body character lines, deleted some odd chrome trim pieces, and changed the "microphone" taillights into subtler horizontal units bisected by chrome strips, almost "nerf" bars in appearance. The biggest change was opening up the rear wheel wells. These changes give the car a lighter look, almost European in some ways. Perhaps Ghia's influence on Exner's styling comes through more with my edits.

Not my first stab at reworking a '61 Fury, I rendered a Fury coupe from the front, here.