The windshield and side glass look identical to that prototype I posted. Here's an interesting Toronado concept. It might have attracted a somewhat older and maybe broader gender crowd, showing more elegance and sophistication, over the end result put into production. But, if produced, it could have narrowed the market aimed at supplying gentlemens' sporty luxury cars. I wonder as to how they would get those headlamps through federal mandate restrictions, given that designs which have deviated from those mandated between 1957 and '8, transitioning from dual headlamp systems to quadruple, were never allowed registry
^^^ Did that particular concept vehicle have anything else going for it, other than the triple headlamps? I'm having trouble identifying it from a Google image search.
It's all here, in this following video. I sometimes wonder, as to how Oldsmobile Division was thinking up the names they would appoint their vehicles with. For example, the 4-4-2 muscle car intermediate. How was a potential buyer initially supposed to associate these numbers to any theme? Which was probably the main reason for the Pontiac GTO's sales success. The Starfire's badge was at least associated with the Air Force's first jet-propelled fighter, named likewise. They could have had instead badged the 4-4-2 option as the "Starfighter" which was Air Force pilots' favorite all-time fighter (Lockheed F-104), unjustly nicknamed "The Widowmaker", because of Germans repurposing these for what they physically weren't intended to do. Having done so was a repetition of the same mistake made loading down their Messerschmidt 262s with extra weight, when Uncle Schick ordered them to bomb instead of dogfighting and downing enemy aircraft. The Starfighter was the Air Force's hotrod whose vertical ascending velocity still remains unsurpassed, if you could equate it with a quarter mile race between cars. They were ready to name the following Toronado prototype after a snake, of all things:
A could-have-been Studebaker Hawk and an Avanti 4-door. Notice the top image's fuselage whose inspiration was indeed derived from an aircraft. The image below it has obviously the glass arrangement featured that went into production. It's rear wheel well appears modern, compared to that of the top image's which the latter's went into production. My personal choice would have been to produce the top and third image's fuselage with the third image's rear wheel well: Here we have an Avanti study which may have had export success, if purchased in numbers superseding the minimum required to cover production costs. For those who didn't know, the Avanti was built on a Hawk platform. Note the fuselage of this one paying a close resemblance to that of the Saab 99: https://www.theautopian.com/the-bes...sement-like-this-avanti-family-car-prototype/ Reviewing consumer preference between each design stage of end production models, a dramatic sales slump began in 1958, perhaps influenced by that year's recession or perhaps by news of Packard ceasing production or both?:
A four-banger OHC hemi wagon that almost was: https://avengers-in-time.blogspot.com/2015/09/1969-cars-nsu-vw-k70-nsu-that-became.html Sorry, no English language audio track available:
We can thank Buick Division for sparing us this frightening possibility for 1959. Imagine them making hearses from these
A '60 Cadillac. The designer had already applied such headlamps on an early '60s F.I.A.T.. Methinks, they sit too high and stick out too much on this prototype
