1947 LIFE MAGAZINE SECTION LLOYD CASSEL DOUGLAS THE ROBE PARIS SHOW AUTOMOBILE

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1947 LIFE MAGAZINE SECTION LLOYD CASSEL DOUGLAS THE ROBE PARIS SHOW AUTOMOBILE :
$13.48

1947 LIFE MAGAZINE SECTION LLOYD CASSEL DOUGLAS THE ROBE & PARIS SHOW AUTOMOBILE DESIGN

10 ¼” x 13 ½” doubled when magazine opened, halved when folded up. P71 – 90.

USED: Taken out of a LOOK magazine. Folded & kept neatly.

ISOTTA FRASCHINI steering wheel is plastic, has a clock in center and functional handgrips. Speedometer ( above clock ) is sensibly placed on dash where the driver’s eyes may scan it with least deviation from the road.

REAR ENGINE, clean and uncluttered in design, has eight cylinders, drives Isotta Fraschini sedan at 100 mph.

PLEXIGLASS ROOF of new two-seater, $1,100 Dolo, helped make this new “poor man’s” car popular at show.

LUSH LEATHER upholstery, liquor and make-up kits in this Delahaye typify the costly European car fittings.

THREE HEADLIGHTS adorn front of a rear-engine Czech Tatra. Hood holds luggage. Seats fold to make bed.

FRENCH GIRL SMILES PROUDLY ON AN ORANGE DELAHAYE WITH NATURAL LEATHER UPHOLSTERY WHOSE FENDERS WOULD COMMAND THE RESPECT OF ANY TRUCK DRIVER. UNAVAILABLE TO FRENCH, IT COSTS FOREIGNERS $22,000.

PARIS SHOW It sets a new high for rich and splendid cars

The 34th annual Salon de l’Automobile in Paris last month brought together the first important assemblage of automobiles (90 makes, including 21 American; 900 models) since Hitler marched on Poland. The European cars divided into two groups: long, flaunting creations ( above ) produced in small numbers, with handmade bodies, costing as much as $35,000, or imaginative but anemic little road-bugs designed for the “poor-man trade” ( of which Europe actually has none, only the middle class being able to afford even the cheapest cars like the Dolo at right or the Citroen).

Both groups were studied with avid interest by the more than one million spectators who attended. Prominent were such features as the molded Plexiglas roofs, the rear engines and the bar kits with which some tonneaus were equipped. The visitors also saw such stunning creations as Georges Irat’s magnesium-bodied sport car, a two-seater Maserati racer in peacock blue that cost $11,600 and the 115-mph, silvery-blue Delahaye for which the Aga Khan paid $33,600.

Four Frenchmen, however, the show was a frustrating experience. Temporary laws prohibit them from buying foreign cars, particularly the coveted American ones, and at the same time channel almost all French auto production to export markets.

EUROPEAN vs. U.S. DESIGNS

Foreign aim is beauty for beauty’s own sake while U.S. stylists stick to practicality.

FOREIGN DESIGN IS GAY, IMAGINATIVE, RADICAL

U.S. DESIGN IS CONSERVATIVE, SOLID, SENSIBLE

TRIUMPH roadster epitomizes the small, popular English sport car, well-suited to the narrow, winding English roads, racy and lively in appearance. It seats three in front, has an old-fashioned rumble seat and a folding windshield for rumble passengers. Engine develops 16 European hp ( 65 U.S. hp). The price in the U.S. is $4,150.

DELAGE ( above, French ) Victoria has a raspberry-red body built by Figoni and Falaschi, famed European custom body makers, and a six-cylinder motor. Its natural-leather seats hold four passengers. Price: $15,000. Coupe body by Giuseppe Farina ( shown with car below) on an Alfa Romeo sport chassis won a beauty prize in Italy.

ROLLS-ROYCE is the conservative, elder statesman of British motoring. Its radiator silhouette has changed only slightly since the first Rolls appeared in 1904. Because of superb workmanship, it is commonplace to find Rolls-Royces operating after 30 years’ service. They cost from $18,450 to $19,200, are owned by kings and rajas.

LINCOLN CONTINENTAL by Ford has low, clean silhouette, firmly drawn fenders and functional, compact rear deck. The late Edsel Ford helped to design it. Despite its rather excessive grille, many designers regard it as the most beautiful U.S. car. The convertible model (above) seats six, has a 120 hp V-12 motor, costs $4,900.

SUTDABAKER carried on a postwar trend toward blending fenders into the body and afforded ample rear vision with big windows. Coupe ( above ) seats five, has luggage space, costs $1,942. New Hudson ( below) achieves low center of gravity by making the body and frame one unit so passengers sit between wheels. Price: about $2,000.

The two small pictures at the top of these pages illustrate the divergent trends in European and U.S. automobile styling. The sketch at left is a composite of the present outstanding trends in British and Continental and auto design; the sketch at right synthesizes current U.S. designers. The U.S. pattern is stanch, blocky and commodious ( three cars, right). The European pattern is fleet, graceful and narrow ( three cars, left).

European designers care little for the dictates of production-line manufacture. Prizing originality and distinction, they use lines, masses and highlights as does a sculptor: for the sheer sake of beauty. They have the advantage of designing cars intended chiefly to carry their wealthy sportsman owners and a few friends in regal luxury. The results are lithe, hand-tooled vehicles, sure-footed and sensitively responsive to controls.

The U.S. designer, asked why he does not create cars on the European pattern, smiles wryly. He knows well that while Americans like such cars when they see them, they actually buy just what they need. What they need is a car that will carry an entire family and its possessions – groceries, camping equipment, suitcases – over long distancs. So the U.S. produces such cars in great numbers through mass production, and they have a uniformly high efficiency in performance. But in appearance they merely have a high uniformity. Production men balk at major factory changes that radically new models necessitate, business offices shrink from the expense of retooling, sales managers quake at the thought of what an unsuccessful experiment will cost in sales. Instead Detroit pontificates, “Good cars develop not by revolution but by evolution,” an expression which, translated into steel, means “No major changes this year.”

U.S. Automobile designers themselves, whether staff men or free-lancers, want racier, “sexier,” automobiles. Europe’s desperate and determined drive to sell its cars in this country for dollar exchange may, by familiarizing the U.S. public with more radical ideas, eventually create a demand for them. When that demand becomes large enough, U.S. auto makers will certainly strive to meet it. The real answer to the question of “Why can’t we design cars like Europe’s?” is “We can” ( next page ) and “We have” ( Lincoln Continental, top right ).

NEW SPORT CAR developed by Gordon Buehrig, designer of the old Cord, will be built on Mercury or Packard chassis. Pilot model (above) has a special body by Derham, biggest U.S. custom body builder. Production plans call for 100 to 500 a year, selling at $7,500. Gleaming radiator cowling acts as bumper. Plexiglas roof panels are removable.

CROSLEY, one of first U.S. ultrasmall-car builders, now makes a four-passenger station wagon at $929. It will make about 1,500 a month. Left: president Powel Crosley Jr.

WILLYS has added to its jeep line a sport phaeton, fire-engine red and seating five, at $1,400. The versatile wartime jeep helped popularize small cars in big-car-loving U.S.

NEW DARRIN, by California custom body builder, has plastic body for tests, is prototype of proposed $3,000 car.

EXPERIMENTAL BUICK was built in 1940 for Harley Earl ( at wheel), GM vice president in charge of design. It has the first wrap-around bumper, a power top and shows how far advanced U.S. ideas were even then.

EXPERIMENTS U.S. makers try a few.

Despite U.S. maker’s emphasis on evolution, mutterings of revolution are currently being heard. In the immediate future U.S. cars will simply grow lower, wider, have less chrome, lower grilles. But the rear engine, promising new lines, greater roominess, looms on the horizon. Ultrasmall cars are appearing (bottom). Ace designers have built handsome test models ( right).

While the recent history of automobile innovation in this country is dismal, 1948 will see a new crop of experiments by independent makers. What they do to U.S. design will depend in the last analysis on what the public does about them.

AIRPLANE STYLING of new Buehrig car is especially noticeable in body lines, cockpitlike instrument panel.

KELLER, another newcomer, has a station wagon at $1,095. In other models it offers a buyer a choice of front or rear engine. The new Tucker car will also be rear-engined.

EXPERIMENTAL PACKARD “Phantom” was built in 1940 by Designer Edward Macauley (at wheel). It has “mouth organ” grille, lines like ’48. Experiment’s findings: fog lights too high, button door handles impractical.

PLAYBOY, which weighs 1,900 pounds, will be produced in only one model, seating three. It will cost $985 f.o.b. Buffalo, has an all-metal top and is wider than it is high.

DAVIS, another new small U.S. car, a pilot model of which rolls here along a Los Angeles street, seats four in its one, wide seat. It has only three wheels, two in the back and one in the front, but the very low center of gravity makes it almost nontippable. When production begins next year it is expected to sell for $995 on the West Coast.

GENERAL ELECTRIC CLOCKS:

CANDELIGHT, THE ADAMS, MORNING GLORY, GAY HOUR, HERALDER, THE ADAMS, RIDGEFIELD, RHAPSODY

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Tie Klip

Belt Buckle

Cuff Links

Cravat Chain

Straight Knife

Extension Key Chain

SCHOOL FOR AIR HOSTESSES

Girls learn how to take care of drunks, diapers, and double chins

FOUNDER-PRESIDENT of the McConnell Schools is Zell McConnell, who runs a school for models.

ON BALANCING BOARDS

IN CONGA LINE

To get a job as a hostess with a U.S. airline a girl has to meet some tough specifications. She must be young (21 – 26), unmarried, pretty correctly shaped and the right height (5 ft. 2 in. – 5 ft. 8 in.). She must have the equivalent of a year of college or nurses’ training, even teeth, a nice smile. If she qualifies, she can go to an airline-hostess school. If she gets through school, she usually gets the job.

Unfortunately, for the airlines these specifications are just what the average bachelor has in mind, so every year about half of the 8,000 U.S. hostesses leave aviation for marriage. To take care of the shortage Zell McConnell, who runs a school for models, opened a hostess school in Minneapolis two years ago. Now she has another in Kansas City, 200 students and 1,500 applications for admission every month. At the McConnell Schools the candidates, who are carefully screened before admission, take an eight-week, $325 course preparing for almost everything that could happen to a pretty hostess. They learn how to keep their figures trim (right), how to change diapers and how to handle drunks at high altitude. Every one of the McConnell Girls is promised a job as flying hostess on graduation. But the shortage continues. Half of the girls on these pages will probably be married and grounded by the end of next year.

HANDLING A DRUNK is taught in classroom in cutaway airliner. First, hostess politely takes bottle ( top) and then tilts seat so drunk will go to sleep.

BOWLEGGED STUDENT looked awkward (left) before school taught her how to stand (right). Students can also learn how to camouFlage knock-knees.

HOW TO CHANGE DIAERS is taught with a practice doll. Most planes now carry throwaway diapers for use in emergency when the plane is in flight.

HOW TO SQUAT in narrow aisle without hampering passengers is shown by model. At top, she bothers male passenger. Below: she uses correct procedure.

HOW TO GET READY FOR BED is elaborate ritual learned at school. Here student brushes hair correctly – a hundred times with head at heart level.

THREE STICKS OF GUM should be chewed nightly to avoid any trace of double chin. Students are forofferden to chew in public or smoke in uniform.

NIGHTLY BATH with special attention to back of arms, elbows, knees and shoulders is taken while clothes hang near tub to steam out any wrinkles.

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THE ROBE

Novel of early Christianity has become a popular classic

One day about seven years ago Hazel McCann, a department store clerk of Canton, Ohio, was reading a Biblical account of the crucifixion of Jesus. In John 19:23-24 she read: Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be…

This account aroused Mrs. McCann’s curiosity. She wanted to know the rest of the story. According to St. John, Jesus had worn the Robe, and after he was nailed to the cross the Roman soldiers in attendance had gambled for it. But what had happened to it? She decided to ask her favorite novelist, Lloyd C. Douglas ( Magnificent Obsession, White Banners), who, in addition to being a successful writer of fiction, was a Lutheran minister with 26 years of experience in the pulpit.

Dr. Douglas could not answer her question, but it aroused his curiosity too. Certainly, he reasoned, the Robe was an undoubted relic of the Savior. Probably it had had a subsequent history. Since no one knew what that history was, it might be possible to invent one…and Dr. Douglas’ fictional mind began to take over.

The result of his mental speculations, set down in 208,280 words and 508 pages, was a novel called The Robe, which was published in 1942 by Houghton Mifflin Company and immediately took up a lengthy residence on the best-seller lists. In the following five years The Robe sold 2,075,000 copies and still is clicking along at the very satisfactory rate of some 3,500 copies a month. These figures have been exceeded by few other novels, and both author and publisher believe that The Robe has the kind of appeal that will keep it in public favor for years.

The novel’s hero is a young Roman named Marcellus, who, according to Dr. Douglas, commands the soldiers charged with crucifying Jesus and wins the Robe in the dice game on Golgotha. Soon afterward Marcellus begins to detect a spiritual power in the Robe and feels constrained to investigate the life of the man who once wore it. He travels extensively in Greece and Asia Minor, talking to men who knew Jesus. Under their influence he becomes a Christian himself and undergoes many of the sufferings which Imperial Rome visited upon early followers of the new religion. Ultimately Marcellus is confronted with the choice of disavowing his beliefs or dying for them. With the Robe still in his possession to give him strength, he chooses death and is led away, inwardly triumphant, to become one of the earliest Christian martyrs.

Few literary critics have found a great deal of merit in this story. Many of them have been inclined to write it off as merely an inspirational popular novel. This does not bother Dr. Douglas, who thinks most critics are frustrated novelists anyway. Now 70, he lives in Las Vegas, Nev., eschewing the local gambling hells but enthusiastically attending meetings of Rotary. Currently in progress is a sequel to The Robe, which he plans to call The Big Fisherman. Its central figure will be the Apostle Peter, who appears in The Robe and is the last man to possess the sacred garment.

On the following four pages LIFE presents a group of pictures illustrating Dr. Douglas’ novel. They were painted by Dean Cornwell, who was commissioned to do the job jointly by the publisher and by RKO, which will release the movie version of The Robe. As yet the studio has set no date for making the picture, which will be an expensive one, principally because Tyrone Power and Gregory Peck, either of whom would be an ideal Marcellus, are both committed to other companies.

Allthese brochures were found in my uncle\'s / grandmother\'sattic.

My uncle began collecting these from dealers about age 13.

Combined items reduces total shipping cost. I will combine into a 1 package weight shipping.

I use a sheet of cardboard so these don\'t get bent.