Intrepidation

Can't even keep it civil in trivia thread can we?

I'm well aware of the many twin vertical stabilizer aircraft in existence, however Harley Earl and Bill Mitchel credited the P-38 Lightning, hence why its the answer. Since design is subjective, its perfectly logical to assume that in their eyes, the P-38 was the best/prettiest plane to draw inspiration from. Argue all you want, but you're arguing with two dead guys.

I guess we won't be doing one of these again anytime soon.

NICE JOB.

Well I think its been long enough. The answer is the Lockeed P-38 Lightning.

Quote

In the 1950S, General Motors design became a fantasia of fighter-plane imagery: canopy-like wraparound windshields, simulated jet intakes, afterburner exhaust ports and enough towering tail fins for an entire wing of United States Air Defense Command interceptors.

We can trace many of those cues back to a day in 1941, when GM styling vice president Harley Earl took a group of senior stylists to Michigan's Selfridge Field, home of the Army Air Corps' 1st Pursuit Group ( Fighter), to see a remarkable new aircraft. To Lockheed, it was the Model 22; the Army called it the P-38 Lightning.

Unless you were a dedicated aircraft spotter, most contemporary fighters looked more alike than different, but the P-38 could have flown out of the pages of “Buck Rogers.” It was an imposing and unusual sight, with its cockpit in a narrow pod between two turbo-charged Allison V12 engines, mounted in distinctive twin booms with short vertical fins.

It's a sign of Earl's influence (and perhaps the fact that former GM president William Knudsen had recently been appointed director of production by the undersecretary of war) that his stylists were able to study this new, still-secret airplane, which they did with enthusiasm. The P-38 had many interesting details, including the fins and radiator air intakes on each boom, but Cadillac chief stylist Bill Mitchell, who was there that day, said later that the designers were equally taken with the way the twin booms created a unity of line from nose to tail.

From inspiration to execution

Among the designers who visited Selfridge was Frank Hershey, then the head of GM's special projects and exports studio. Although Hershey would depart to become a naval officer, he didn't forget about the P-38. Both before and after his Navy service, Hershey's studio developed various design studies incorporating P-38 themes, including a 1944 proposal Hershey and Ned Nickles developed for Vauxhall, whose rear fenders had simulated chrome air intakes and stubby fins with integral taillights.

Hershey did a stint as interim head of Cadillac design in early 1945, but the fender and tail-fin treatment he and Nickles devised in special projects didn't find its way onto a production Cadillac design until later that year, after Mitchell returned from the Navy and resumed his previous role as Cadillac studio chief.

In late November 1945, GM was virtually shut down by a UAW strike. During the labor stoppage, Hershey, who knew the Cadillac team had just started work developing the all-new 1948 models, invited Cadillac stylists and modelers to continue their work at his 60-acre farm outside Detroit.

The renderings and scale models that emerged over the next four months from the studio in Hershey's basement all sported P-38-inspired fenders and tail fins. Hershey said later that the fighter also influenced the front end, but that connection is harder to see, overshadowed by Cadillac's tombstone grille. In any case, the fins added a rakish touch to a handsome car.

Unlike some later GM designs, the Caddy's aircraft origins weren't obvious, but the '48 Cadillac looked sleek, streamlined and sporty. As a bit of design continuity, it even incorporated a concealed fuel filler beneath the left taillight, a Cadillac feature since 1941.

Trouble at higher altitudes

The tail fins were a stylist's touch and met considerable resistance from Cadillac management and engineers. Nicholas Dreystadt, the division's general manager, had serious reservations about the fins, as did chief engineer Jack Gordon. Earl wasn't fond of the fins, either. They were considered a bit gimmicky—not only that, they were risky in what was a conservative market segment; the disastrous Chrysler Airflow just a decade earlier had demonstrated the potential consequences of outpacing the public's tastes.

According to Hershey, at one point Earl angrily insisted that Hershey remove the fins, which he mulishly refused to do. When Earl returned a few days later, however, he was relieved rather than infuriated to find out that Hershey had ignored his order: GM president Charlie Wilson and chairman Alfred P. Sloan had liked the fins, concluding (correctly) that they would be another signature styling feature for Cadillac.

Development of the full-size clays continued throughout the summer of 1946. Gordon, who replaced Dreystadt as general manager in June, still wasn't happy with the fins, and although he didn't dare order their deletion, he indeed pushed Mitchell to make them less prominent. Mitchell eventually tricked Gordon into thinking that the fins on the clay model had been lowered by raising one fin to make the other appear shorter.

There had been a similar battle over the 1938 Sixty Special, which some executives had worried was too advanced for Cadillac customers. Those fears had proven to be unfounded, and so would Dreystadt and Gordon's concerns about the tail fins. Buyer response was extremely favorable and the '48 Cadillac sold well, despite a late introduction and a short model year.

Rise and fall

By the time the public got a glimpse of the Cadillac's fins, their inspiration was on its way out: Only a handful of Lightnings remained in service by 1948. The P-38 had racked up an impressive number of kills in the Pacific, but newer fighters made it obsolete.

The era of the automotive tail fin was just beginning. Dynamic styling helped Cadillac become America's No. 1 luxury brand from 1949 on, and the tail fin's close association with Cadillac undoubtedly contributed to the feature's booming popularity. By the mid-'50s, it was the executives who were pushing for fins, over the stylists' protests.

Cadillac's tail fins began to grow in 1955, reaching a delirious apogee in 1959. Cadillac designers actually considered abandoning the fins for the limited-production 1959-60 Eldorado Brougham, but Earl vetoed that idea, saying that Cadillac was not Cadillac without them.

Earl retired in late 1958, and after that, GM's air force was swiftly grounded. The wraparound windshields and “Flash Gordon” gewgaws disappeared by the mid-'60s; the fins receded and then went the way of the P-38 that inspired them—a symbol, like the P-38 itself, of an idea whose time had come and gone.

Read more: http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/radical-fighter-kick-started-cadillac-design#ixzz4JGDjVXc8

Its worth noting that Cadillac still uses tail fins in a very subtle way with their tail light lenses. In this small way the P-38's legacy as an automotive inspiration lives on.

Hope you had fun with this!

I'm very much enjoying all of the aircraft photos! I suppose when everyone's given up I'll reveal it.

The exhaust thing is a neat comparison to make actually.

You're confidence in your wrongness is well placed.

Nope.

• I am indeed referring to the P-51's era.
• 20 years (give or take) way further back than the 90's

Surprised @balthazar hasn't chimed in, this is usually his forte.

You're in the right era, but not there yet.

Nope, further reaching than the Mustang. It didn't inspire one car, it inspired the industry. Right era though.

The F-117 did inspire Lamborghini, but this design trend was industry wide in the US.

This aircraft inspired more a decade of automotive design and is still used to this day by one marque in a subtle manner.

22 hours ago, dfelt said:

@Intrepidation

How do you play it as I see it, but cannot play it to listen to it. 

19 hours ago, ccap41 said:

Yeah same here...

Must have something to do with Unicode.

▶ ◎──────── 00:14

My new machine is as follows:
 

• Corsair Graphite 600T
• ASUS Z87-Pro Motherboard
• Intel Core i7 4790K
• PNY CS2211 480GB SSD
• EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-2978-KR 4GB FTW GAMING w/ACX 2.0
• NZXT Aperture M Card Reader
• ASUS CD/DVD Combo Drive
• EVGA Supernova 750 G2
• Cooler Master Seidon 120M CPU Cooler in Push/Pull using a Corsair SP120 pusher and the 120mm fan the case came with as the puller.
• Windows 10 64bit Home Premium

Did you know the new version of C&G supports voice messages? Now I can tell you exactly what I think of this thread and its 3rd grade bickering.

▶ ◎──────── 00:21

Since at least some of us are tech savvy and enjoy PC building, what do you have for a rig?

This was mine until I finished building my new PC earlier this year and was my second ground up build. When when I first built it in 2006 it had the following specs:


Raidmax Sagitta Case
Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS 320GB HDD
Foxconn C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H Motherboard
Foxconn GeFore 7950GX2 GPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4 GHz Dual Core CPU
Corsair XMS2 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800 RAM
Silverstone ST60F 600W PSU
Samsung DVD/CD Combo Drive
Lite-On CD Burner
Windows XP 32 Bit

Its gone through a few major upgrades including:

ASUS PCE-N13 Wireless Adapter
2x LG GH22N550 DVD Burner
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P Motherboard
AMD Phenom II 925 Deneb Quad Core CPU
Western Digital WD1001FALS 1T HDD
G.Skill Ripjaws 16GB (4x 4GB) DDR3 1600 RAM
EVGA 896-P3-1262-AR GTX 260 Superclocked

For a little while it ran with the pictured GTX 970 which was the first component I got for the upcoming build. Big performance jump just by doing that.

Check Passmark and see if the performances gains are worth it.With that said, I'll be the third voice to say save up and buy intel.

I say this as a longtime owner of AMD products. My first build was an AMD Athlon 64. My second build, and the one I used until this year was an AMD Phenom II 925. They both served me well, but in the years since AMD has fallen so far behind the curve. Their Bulldozer CPUs get shown up by dual core Intel chips. I saved up and built my first all new machine since 2006, running an Intel Core i7 4790k. To put it into perspective just how big the quantum leap in performance is, a 2 minute 1080p video took over two hours to render on my old computer with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. Now it takes about 15 minutes.

I see the second generation Audi A7 is coming along well.

Now with shiny new logo!

The voice of experience?

ProTip:

That was sarcasm.

Wrapped the faded pillars with 3M Vinyl Wrap Series 1080.

Super easy to put on and the results take years off of the car.

Both cars are due pretty soon. Have teh oil lined up, just have to get a chance to do it.