(first posted 11/11/2011) The one universal and infallible truth about the automotive design business is that everyone copies. Now obviously, someone has to innovate from time to time for others to copy from, and in the fifties, Pininfarina played that role more than anyone else. But that’s not to say they were immune to the outside influences either, as this concept for a 1955 Fiat 1100 wagon shows all to clearly. And before you point out the similarities of the rear fenders and taillights to those of a 1954 Ford, keep in mind we’re talking about the 1954 Nomad Concept, not the final production car. And its rear end looked like this:
Now about that rear-slanting B Pillar on the Fiat…guess he didn’t want to be too obvious. Well, that and the fact that it was a bit of a PF trademark at the time. And the Fiat’s chrome side spear ends a few inches sooner. Can’t be to blatant.
Now watch someone come along and show us an earlier Pininfarina design that the Nomad cribbed.
Related: CC 1955 Chevrolet Nomad – Stealing The Thunder From The High Priced Cars
I wonder if this car was the starting point for the greenhouse of the gen1 Valiant wagon?
I’d sure like to see a two-door Nomad version of that Valiant. Steven? 🙂
Ok, I’ll get to work on that, but I’m also doing a Mercury style two door hardtop wagon while I’m at it.
How’s this Mike? I took this photo at Moparfest in Ontario, Canada in 2011
Considering that the ’55 Chevy was heavily influenced by Farina Ferrari designs (particularly the grille), I guess what goes around comes around…
Paul, have you been watching Kirby Ferguson’s excellent “Everything is a Remix” series of short documentaries on the nature of creativity? I think you’d enjoy it:
http://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/
I love when manufacturers copy just because it gives you a vauge “WTF+deja vu” feeling you get looking at the design. Without the captioning on the Fiat based concept I would have thought it was a later evolution of the Nomad concept.
I wouldn’t call it copying or cribbing. I’ve said it before about the give and take between GM:s design studio and Pininfarina in particular, but all of that was built on a profound mutual respect for each other. See them as musicians instead. Everything is variations on a theme, but there’s also a lot of outright theft. I would look at this particular interplay as Pininfarina trying out a new rhythm. “Hmm, I wonder what that would sound like with a heavy rhumba beat behind it”. Fads come and go, new dances are all the rave for a while, just to be substituted by something else. And there were no people that had their ear closer to the ground than these people. It’s just a play, and they’re playing with themes to see what happens. Once in a while they come up with something that either breaks new ground or becomes a hit…
Superb analogy Ingvar.
The wide B pillar on the 55 Nomad can also be found on the 55 Ford Crown Victoria. One being a wagon and one being a coupe but both sharing such a unique styling feature.
I wouldn’t call it copying or cribbing…. but there’s also a lot of outright theft.
So which is it?
I made it very clear in the first line or so that everyone was doing it. And you can turn it into a music analogy, but in music, folks have been sued for taking someone else’s rhythm and not giving credit.
This is what it is: an obvious case of cribbing or copying. Nothing unusual, except for that it more often went the other direction. Well, until the ’60 Corvair came along.
As always, there’s really no defining line, it’s a a moving scale from one end to the other. And if anybody wanna be sure where the line is drawn, there’s usually a lot of lawyers involved. And I don’t think anbody cribbed as much off each other than Pininfarina and GM. But they were also some of the most trend sensitive people in the entire business. To use the music analogy further, i’d call them the automotive equivalent of Quincy Jones and Giorgio Moroder. These were the people that actually started new trends…
Damn that analogy just gets tighter and tighter. Let us not forget Maurice White and Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards. Giorgio did seem to initiate the bouncing ‘four-to-the-floor’ with Donna, though. And Q smoothed it into Off the Wall and Brothers Johnson. But where do we place Hamilton Bohannon and the Blue Notes’ original version of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’?
Here’s a Russian crib of Mr Earl’s LeSabre:
Great pic. I’ve got a pic of the starting line of a Russian ‘grand prix’ with this car or something very similar in the lineup. I’ll dig it up when I get home.
We’ve done a post on it: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/does-this-russian-car-look-a-bit-too-familiar/
Thanks. CC rules yet again! The pic I’ve got has about 5 or 6 cars lined up.
And a Russian crib of GM’s “advanced designs” for ’59.
There’s reason to believe that these were authorized. The company that later became ZIS hired Harley as a consultant in ’32, and continued to create Buick-based designs. No firm evidence that the contract continued, but these ‘insider’ copies tend to support the idea.
There’s no way Earl did any consulting or sent anything to the Russians after the war. Joe McCarthy would have crucified him, among other things.
All those post-war ZIS and prototypes were just designed after they saw the American production cars that they were based on. Copying; pure and simple.
That Red Buick crib is the ugliest car I`ve ever see. Hope I don`t have a bad dream tonight.
As a friend of mine said when we were studying architecture: “Amateurs borrow; professionals steal”.