Is This a Tremulis Design?

[Tuckerfan1053]

Google Translate says that it is, but it also seems to indicate that its recent which is a bit difficult. http://tinyurl.com/tremulisdesign

[Tuckeroo]

As a matter of fact, yes...one could even say it's the newest Tremulis-designed car built. Though this Ford X2000 was designed by him for 1958, it was only a scale model. This faithful full-sized running recreation was actually built by enthusiast Andy Saunders between 1994-1996 from a 1962 Mercury Monterey.

http://www.carstyling.ru/en/cars.1958_Ford_X2000.html

[John K.]

Hmmm... I would have guessed that Alex Tremulis DIDN'T design this car. Looks like too many "space age" elements tacked on to the main body design. The basic shape is appealing to me, but the ornamental what-nots detract from the overall look. It reminds me of what Fuzzy Fruzyna's Tucker (No. 1048) looked like after he added his special touches to it.

[Tuckeroo]

Admittedly this is outlandish even for my tastes, but many of the Ford show car concepts of the 1950s were in my opinion. Chrysler's show cars were more understated, usually Italian designed. I think I prefer the GM Motorama show cars: not too outlandish but not too understated.

[John K.]

One of the most fascinating show cars from the Big 3, in my view, was the Lincoln Futura. When George Barris got hold of it, he created one of the all-time greatest TV cars, IMHO. The original TV Batmobile! I've never gotten over that design. In fact, a model of that car sits right here on my shelf. Beautiful lines!

[SuperFleye]

I actually saw that Andy Saunders "Concept Car" at a Norwegian indoor show several years ago... cool car, but there are so many other much cooler concept cars he could have built instead.

John K, do you like the Batmobile of the Futura? Myself I''m a huge fan of the futura. If I ever got my hands on the Batmobile I think I would have restored it back to the Futura
There is a guy named Marty Martino, who recently recreated the Pontiac Club De Mer:


Who has started to also make a recreation of the futura:



But I think that project is on ice, since he is currently working on recreating the Chrysler Norseman:

[TuckerCar]

They had a fiberglass recreation of the Future at the Mecum St Charles auction in October. It was rough but definitely cooler than the Batmobile - Batmobile replicas are becoming all to common. For some reason there's no photo on there website but it was red.

[streamliner]

I'm still on the fence as to the original designer of the X-2000. I'm going through dozens of original studio photos from the mid to late '50's like the ones shown below. Most have signatures attached, but some do not. Many are of the Ford styling students' work. They go from the mild to the wild. If I can find something close to the X-2000, I'll post it. It may be that Alex Tremulis had his name associated with this car just because it came from his advanced styling studio.

I tend to agree with the previous posts - there were so many other Ford designs that really did look great that also made it to 3/8ths scale models. With the amount of time and effort involved to produce such a car from scratch, why not choose one with more widespread appeal? But then again, maybe that was Andy Saunders' cars-as-art point. As Benjamin Franklin stated, "Beauty, like supreme dominion, Is but supported by opinion..."

[SuperFleye]

Streamliner, here is a Tremulis design in use and "driven" in Belgium:



Link to the hemmings blog post: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2010 ... ent-623707

[streamliner]

SuperFleye,

It's great to see the hood ornament being used exactly as it was intended to be used...

Here's a list compiled by Alex and Chrissie in 1988. It was sent to the then-current owner of the "XM Turnpike Cruiser" who wanted to know more information on it as well as the other Ford concept cars of the 1950's. The question was: "Do you know who designed the following cars?" Some of the car dates are off by a year or two, but then again, these may have been the Ford internal dates for the projects' start dates, not the public showing dates. Anyway, it appears that either Alex didn't know or didn't remember who did the X-2000. The list seems to be fairly accurate, so I'd say that he didn't recall the designer of the X-2000, and that it was probably more Bill Balla than anyone else. But it probably wasn't an Alex Tremulis design. I'm still going through the Ford styling studio pics...

[streamliner]

So far, here's what I've found: From the book: "Ford Design Department - Concept and Showcars 1932-1961" by Jim & Cheryl Farrell, it appears that the X-2000 was indeed an Alex Tremulis design. The Farrells spent over 10 years in researching and interviewing who did what at Ford and the stories that went along with the dream cars, so it looks to be an accurate account. They credit (or blame) both Tremulis and Bill Balla for the design. At the time of the design both Tremulis and Balla were put into a group that was to build the show cars and the X-2000 came out of their venture together.

[589]

Interesting how similar many of those designs are to the aborted '57 Packards and Studebakers. Always thought the '58 Lincolns looked an awful lot like what the '57 Packard would've been...I see the hand of Bill Schmidt!

[589]

One of the most fascinating show cars from the Big 3, in my view, was the Lincoln Futura. When George Barris got hold of it, he created one of the all-time greatest TV cars, IMHO. The original TV Batmobile! I've never gotten over that design. In fact, a model of that car sits right here on my shelf. Beautiful lines!

Truth be told, George didn't entirely build the Futura based Batmobile (although his shop did build the successors). It was Bill Cushenberry who did the majority of the work. George had been storing the Futura for years and eventually "bought it" for $1 from FoMoCo. There's a lot more to this story and I've already gone too far off topic, so if anyone is interested I suggest they google "Futura Batmobile" and they'll find nearly as many websites on this topic and there are porn sites ;

[JWK]

They had a fiberglass recreation of the Future at the Mecum St Charles auction in October. It was rough but definitely cooler than the Batmobile - Batmobile replicas are becoming all to common. For some reason there's no photo on there website but it was red.

Is this the one you're thinking of? Beautiful!

[589]

That is definitely a Futura (clone or otherwise). About 10 years ago a plastic model kit of the Futura was re-released (it had originally been made in the 50's) and many people took to kit-bashing it into Batmobiles! Art imitating life LOL