'33 1247 Berline work-up

Inspired by the wonderful cars at the Gilmore gathering this past weekend, worked up an image mod of a 1247 to create a 5-pass club sedan style. With divider window might be referred to as a berline. Image is done in impressionist style... just wanted to give a hint at what it might look like.

Edit: impressionist style didn't show much detail so switched to a different style.

Beautiful concept. Because it looks vaguely European, supported by the Berline name, I suggest you try it with blackwall tires.

Thanks. It is indeed European-inspired, particularly Bentley and Jaguar. Also borrowed from American design renderings of the era that never quite made it to sheetmetal. Is it just me or did Pierce-Arrow not seem to benefit from the same amount of customs that Packard did? Packard seemed to have a more robust in-house custom effort going in the early to mid-Thirties and the independent coachbuilders seemed to make more extensive mods to Packard's than Pierce's.

It always struck me that not many sporty good looking bodies were built on Pierce chassis in the thirties. Most of them were kind of frumpy looking. I don't know why this was because they had plenty of speed and stamina as proven by their Bonneville records, for some reason when someone wanted a low speedy looking car, roadster etc they thought of Packard or Duesenberg before they thought of Pierce.

Duesenberg can be understood, the car was built for speed and all were custom bodied. Packard benefited from the boss's son running design, and Ed liked sporty cars. So did Vincent. Most of Packard's sporty customs seem to have been collaborations between the factory and the design houses. Pierce management seems to have chosen to promote sportiness in a different way, doing the Salt Flats runs and Silver Arrow. One thing that perhaps held them back was the tallness of their bodies.The '33 836/1236 were the only models to have lower grills competitive with Packard, Duesenberg and Cadillac. Had these been carried into '34 and beyond for all models, would have helped.

Have long felt that a truly sporty Pierce could have been had when Cord sold its dies after 1937. The Graham Hollywood showed how the body could have been modified to rear wheel drive, and while those models sat higher at the rear to accommodate an axle, Pierce could have at least done a nice 2 + 2 coupe based on the Sportsman body and simply cut the floor pan out where the axle was and covered the opening with a modified piece of metal. Will post an image work-up in a separate thread to show what was possible.

M'HONING, I take it back. Your Berline looks better with whitewalls, but thanks for trying. "Frumpy"!? Ouch, although there is some truth in that. A lovely sedan exception showed up at Minden NV for the recent PAS National Meet:

http://forums.aaca.org/f123/pictures-56th-annual-pierce-arrow-society-356019.html

Mahoning63 is showing us how LeBaron might have continued to develop those Salon designs from '31 if the market had been better and further bodies had been built after the initial run. Hugo Pfau wrote in his Cars & Parts series in the '70's that it took P-A until '34 to sell the last of those LeBaron bodies built in the white in '31. What a shame they didn't get to integrate a coupe-trunk onto a convertible sedan body.....creating a three-box, four door hardtop by 1934!

M'HONING, I take it back. Your Berline looks better with whitewalls, but thanks for trying. "Frumpy"!? Ouch, although there is some truth in that. A lovely sedan exception showed up at Minden NV for the recent PAS National Meet:

The stunning 1934 V-12 Pierce Arrow LeBaron club sedan in question is owned by a gentleman here in San Diego. He did all the restoration work himself, winning 2nd place in class against Jack Nethercutt at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concourse. Jack's 1926 Pierce-Arrow 33 Runabout was not as well prepared and had some visual flaws, but Pebble Beach politics gave the class win to Jack (well he owns a museum after all). Jack personally called the owner afterwards stated he should have won 1st instead. Even if the core body was leftover, the builders did a fine job of incorporating it into the '34 frame & bodywork (cowling, running boards, & fenders, and instrument panel). Putting it next to a production line '34 sedan, it has a slightly aggressive appearance with a slightly chopped roof line.

Rob M - thanks for sending the link... wonderful pics of this year's meet.

mcnewse - great pics, thanks. Too bad the concours resulted in that outcome, they are both winners. Recently "discovered" the 32/33/36s and 80s at a level of detail that woke me up to what they truly represented, and must say have caught the bug! But that doesn't detract from the 30s cars, particularly the 34/35s. To my eye the 34 in particular represented for Pierce the pinnacle of style. They weren't as roomy or well-handling as the 36s but in terms of proportions and details, they reached the same wonderful level of refinement that Packard reached a year earlier with its Car of the Dome and it is no wonder that car won the top prize for automotive style at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair expo. Cadillac's Sixteen arguably took the state-of-art one step further with its production Aero Coupe of '34-37.

Here's a what-if that I always wished Pierce had catalogued. Would have been nothing more than an assemblage of what already existed, just combined in a different way. Sits on the 1248A's 147" wheelbase, uses the convertible coupe's windshield and slightly cut down front doors, the club sedan's rear door window treatment and roof, and the 1248A's 5" wider front and 3" wider rear doors versus the 139" 4-door cars. Rear mount would have also been stock, giving a long flowing appearance. Club sedan roof and decklid are approximate because I started with an image of the standard sedan but you get the idea.

Here's a work-up of an actual '35 Club Sedan fashioned to represent a 1255 chassis. Extended the doors, removed the sidemounts and added a rear mount. Tried to show with a chromed V-windshield typical of LeBaron and other coachbuilders of the era. Many thanks to owners of car and image.

Hi Paul

Wonderfully elegant, almost all from the existing parts! The chrome V-windshield adds to the elegance of those proportions. Surely wish they'd taken advantage of the good bones they had to do custom bodies like this!

Steve

Thanks Steve. Here are two more variations, both darkened to make the car look black and with a more refined and raked V-windscreen. The first would have hid the spare in the trunk for an ultra-clean look. The second has side mounts; compare to Packard's less elegant offering for '34. Even with a production one-piece convertible windshield the Pierce would have looked more stylish, and imho had it over Pierce's own Brunn Metropolitan. It's only shortcoming would have been rear legroom; at best it would have only fit side-facing auxiliary seats and definately not fore-aft seats like the other cars.