1973 GM Cars Re-Imagined: Vintage "Photo-Chops" Discovered

When GM’s new 1973 cars, especially the all-new “mid-sized” cars were introduced, my friend Paul Brown, an artist and fellow Bill Mitchell aficionado and I trotted down to Iowa City’s various dealers to experience them in the flesh. We found them to be somewhat over the top, and struggled to understand what Bill and his associates were thinking, or what someone had put in the Advanced Styling studio water coolers. Inspired by the the GM psychedelia, we loaded up on brochures, and went home and got out scissors and paste, and decided that we could “improve” on their imaginings. I wrote about it here before, but after writing yesterday’s CC on the Collonade Malibu, I realized that I still had some of our work (I tend to keep things). I’ve been a little shy about sharing them, but what the hell; it was a long time ago.

(click through twice to get full size view)

I’m more amazed than embarrassed that these exist, given how many times I moved in my early years. Some of them are worse for wear, and one of them was actually used as an envelope by PB to mail me something. I should point out that I have to give him the lion’s share of the creative credit for these. I know we worked on them together, but his artistic skills were well beyond mine. Or am I saying this in self-defense?

The tools (and results) may have been crude, but they still exist! How many digital photo-shops will folks be pulling up thirty seven years later?

Here’s proof that we didn’t just obsess on GM’s big barges: A 1974 Dodge Monaco.

I know that I didn’t have anything to do with this Gremlin that PB sent me, but I’m quite fond of that boat tail.

All right you car spotters: can you identify the two cars that were co-joined in this perspective-busting exercise?

I vividly remember being particularly inspired by Pontiac’s extravagant Grand Am. And I know we did a number of different takes on it. This is not my favorite, but it’s the only one still existent. Art: either one gets it, or one doesn’t. The quality of its expression may vary, but for some, its a way to try to make sense of the craziness of the world around us. And in 1973, US cars were pretty bizarre. How else should we have tried to understand what the designers were trying to tell us with their curious handiwork?