Fender Skirts --- Thumbs Up or Down ?

[Crusty Trucker]

Which cars do you think look better with factory or accessory skirts? I'm thinking particularly of cars that have styled or finished rear wheel openings. Not like many Cadillacs and others that had skirts that were lncluded as part of the quarter panel design.

 

[1937hd45]

I think it is an "Ohio Thing" but fender skits on late model Pickup Trucks just look strange. 

[Walt G]

Depends upon the car but late 1930s early 1940s cars can look good with them, especially 1941  Cadillacs. Airflows from Chrysler also look great with them IMHO.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Walt G (see edit history)

[The 55er]

A very subjective topic but fender skirts should never be installed on 1954-1957 Buicks.

[Marty Roth]

While a 1941 Cadillac sedan

looks better to me without the skirts,

my 1941 Cadillac Convertible seems better with the skirts-

 

The 1937 Roadmaster 4-door convertible seems better without skirts-

an all-black car with wide whitewalls, the rear tires exposed seem more pleasing,

not too heavy as the skirts would affect . Black tires and skirts on the black Buick - the whole thing would seem to disappear.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Marty Roth (see edit history)

[Andy J]

I wasn't too keen on skirts,but they are going back on my '51 Pontiac Chieftain because they were factory(I think) and the car looks like something is missing without them.

[Marty Roth]

24 minutes ago, Andy J said:

I wasn't too keen on skirts,but they are going back on my '51 Pontiac Chieftain because they were factory(I think) and the car looks like something is missing without them.

The same was true many years ago for my 1952 Chevy 4-door,

and for my red 1949 Pontiac convertible, 

as well (I think) as for the 1954 Mercury and Ford convertibles .

 

Both my 1956 Crocus & Onyx (Yellow & Black) Bel-air convertible,

and my white 1958 Impala convertible,

came to me, 2nd hand, with skirts and a Continental -

I left them that way and enjoyed it -

but that was pretty much the fashion in the early 1960s

Edited November 29, 2022 by Marty Roth (see edit history)

[1937hd45]

I don't want to see these cars without skirts. 

[28 Chrysler]

I had a 63 T Bird that never looked right after the fender skirts were stolen. The lip around the wheel opening looked a bit unfinished.

[zdillinger]

How long is a piece of string? How tall is a building? I think the answer is it totally depends on the car and, unlike with "continental kits", no sweeping denouncement or acceptance of fender skirts is possible. 

[58L-Y8]

I come down in the "never fender skirts on the front wheel wells".  Too much exposure to 'bathtub' and Airflyte Nashes as a youth....

[Marty Roth]

3 minutes ago, 58L-Y8 said:

I come down in the "never fender skirts on the front wheel wells".  Too much exposure to 'bathtub' and Airflyte Nashes as a youth....

Agreed !

 

Dad had both a 1950 “bathtub “ Statesman,

and a 1952 Statesman “Airflyte” sedan. The semi-skirted front wheel aerodynamic May have seemed Modern for the era. The appearance of diminished restrictive air turbulence has muted ties to the elegant Delahaye design, although executed in a more mass production manner .
 

Indeed, several real improvements are not immediately recognized by the general public, becoming “passé “.  They then become a footnote to automotive anthology, recognized much later.

Today, most vehicles look like a melting ice cube

[Walt G]

In England a piece of hard candy is referred to as a "sweet" , a friend there who is also a pre war car type guy told me on my last visit that "modern cars look like half sucked sweets"

 

[Pfeil]

Some cars were designed for a skirt, others were not. Mistakes are made when marketing or aftermarket thinks otherwise with a customer not schooled in car design.

Lets look at a 1942 Buick Roadmaster that has "Air Foil body styling". The flowing line of the car starts at the front and exits through the end of the skirt. The car would look incomplete without it.

 

Looking at a 49-52 GM "A" body you will notice that the wheelhouse opening has a double lip. That double lip is for the skirt to fit up to and make the skirt flush with the fender even though the skirt was an option on those cars.

>nice & flush

 

When Oldsmobile introduced "Sweep Cut" fender styling in 1954, it was designed as a "feature" and not designed for a skirt. Sweep cut fenders have a raised rolled lip which creates a shadow line under it if you put a skirt on it.

 

1954 olds 56 Chevrolet 

59 Pont.

 

A 59 Cadillac Eldorado Seville however was MADE for a skirt and like that 42 Buick the body side moldings go up to and flows through the skirt

Skirts should be used when appropriate. The house below would not look good with columns of antiquity 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[Pfeil]

1 hour ago, Walt G said:

In England a piece of hard candy is referred to as a "sweet" , a friend there who is also a pre war car type guy told me on my last visit that "modern cars look like half sucked sweets"

 

Oh yeah!

[Rusty_OToole]

I like them and most cars look better with skirts. But I agree they do not suit all cars.

[Colin Spong]

My newly restored RHD 1938 Lincoln-Zephyr Convertible Coupe type 760 ( Two Seater) The only known survivor of just 12 produced with 2 shipped  to England and 10  to Argentina. 

[Marty Roth]

15 minutes ago, Colin Spong said:

My newly restored RHD 1938 Lincoln-Zephyr Convertible Coupe type 760 ( Two Seater) The only known survivor of just 12 produced with 2 shipped  to England and 10  to Argentina. 

This Zephyr would look great both with, or without the skirts, especially with the convertible top lowered, and the matching (boot/well) cover in place.

[Skvitt]

I think mine will look ridiculous without them. Oh, and it will look ridiculous with some sort of modern chrome rims, but that is discussion for another thread

[kgreen]

Seems that Buick was 50/50 on "wheel shields" for the convertibles.

 

[Matt Harwood]

Official policy in our shop: unless they were factory installed and part of the original design, all fender skirts are removed and stashed in the trunk (and mud flaps go in the trash). This Galaxie was an interesting case--ordinarily I'd have removed the skirts, but they're on the original window sticker so they stayed.

 

 

 

I'm of two minds on my '41 Limited, which had skirts as standard equipment. I genuinely don't like them. They're a hassle to work with and they make it look frumpy, not sleek. But now that I've been looking at it for the better part of a decade, it just looks unfinished and plain without them.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, we couldn't ditch these skirts because they were held in place by big protruding brackets at 10 and 2 o'clock that couldn't be removed without cutting them out. I'll remove skirts, but I'm not cutting vehicles to get rid of them. This truck was virtually unsellable due to the skirts, despite being an insanely expensive, beautifully built machine.

 

And no. Just no:

 

 

[Crusty Trucker]

3 hours ago, Walt G said:

In England a piece of hard candy is referred to as a "sweet" , a friend there who is also a pre war car type guy told me on my last visit that "modern cars look like half sucked sweets"

 

In my neck of the woods, we say modern cars are influnced by the "Suppository School of Design".

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Crusty Trucker (see edit history)

[JamesR]

A fair number of early to mid '60's cars seemed to have fender skirts as an option, but with some exceptions, I generally think they look wrong on that era of car. I even feel that way about skirts on many mid to late '50's cars, too. Some look good...some don't. When I see them on a '55 Chevy, for example, I often think it doesn't look right, unless maybe it's a convertible with high end trim.  The 15 year span from the late '30's to early '50's is the best era for fender skirts, in my humble opinion.

 

I started thinking more about fender skirts when I bought a '65 Thunderbird a few years ago. At first I liked them on the car, then I decided they looked a little too formal. I took them off when doing some work around the rear wheel wells, and realized that the car - without skirts - had a slightly more sporty vibe. However, without skirts, the rear wheels had that "sunk in" look that I don't like. But it just so happened that I was putting a couple of 1-1/4" spacers on the rear wheels to deal with some exhaust/radial tire clearance problems, and that resolved both the clearance and visual issues nicely. 

 

At least ninety percent of 4th gen hardtop T-Bird owners keep the skirts. It's not a bad look...just not for me. Most of the time they're removed to accommodate wider aftermarket wheels. People will also take them off to give convertibles a sportier look. Here are a couple of pics to illustrate the skirt/no skirt difference (not my cars):

Edited November 29, 2022 by JamesR (see edit history)

[rocketraider]

If skirts are "designed in" to a car's styling (think Cadillac, 60s/70s Olds 98, Pontiac and Chevrolet full-size, and Buick Electra) I'm good with them and actually think those cars look kinda nekkid without them. Leaving them off also sometimes exposes unfinished parts of the wheel opening.

 

No car with a rolled lip wheel opening should ever wear skirts. I sometimes make an exception for my 1964 Olds Starfires because the pair of stainless Foxcrafts I have for them don't look out of place against all that lower fender diecast chrome trim. Same for 59-61 Fords with washboard trim. Fords seem to have put a little more thought into their factory option skirts than others did.

 

Mid-30s thru early 50s cars can wear them IN CERTAIN BODYSTYLES.

 

I have never understood people who will put fender skirts on a pickup truck.

[CHuDWah]

5 hours ago, Walt G said:

In England a piece of hard candy is referred to as a "sweet" , a friend there who is also a pre war car type guy told me on my last visit that "modern cars look like half sucked sweets"

 

Yeah, but they don't know that:

 

a bonnet is a woman's hat,

 

a boot is a man's shoe,

 

and a dickie is...well, not a seat! 🤣

[CHuDWah]

It depends on the car.  I prefer skirts, as opposed to no skirts, if they look good on the car.  And they look best on late-30s to early-60s.  The worst look I've seen was skirts on a Model A. 😬

 

Umm, no...

A car needs to be streamlined for skirts to work - the A is too tall, short and boxy.

Edited November 30, 2022 by CHuDWah (see edit history)

[nzcarnerd]

They certainly look the part on 1965-onwards Pontiac Bonnevilles.

 

 

[nzcarnerd]

Here in NZ they were a popular accessory on the E series Vauxhalls of the 1952-57 period.

 

First photo from 1957 showing how cars were loaded onto the interisland ferry.

 

The other photo taken at Milford Sound in the 1970s.

 

 

[nzcarnerd]

Fender skirts were also a popular accessory for the 1949-52 Chevs that were sold new in NZ. The cars were sourced from Canada, and locally assembled. There was only one model available - a four door sedan that fitted somewhere between the US Special and Deluxe models. At a time when cars were still in short supply, mainly due to currency restrictions, and most buyers were forced to buy small English cars, the Chevs were highly valued for their strength and ruggedness. Only about 2,300 were sold here over the four year period.

 

 

[nzcarnerd]

17 hours ago, 1937hd45 said:

I don't want to see these cars without skirts. 

Thye do tend to look a little odd from the front though - 

 

 

This is a recreation that my son has done quite a lot of work on at his employer's shop for an overseas client. My son built the chassis from scratch and a lot of the structural bits. If you look closely at the top of the radiator there is a photo of what the car will look like. The mechanicals and electrics are all mid 2000s V8 BMW. Expected to be completed next year I think. My photo from a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

 

[58L-Y8]

The essential problem with front wheelhouse fender skirts is the functional sweep of the wheels must be accommodated.  To do so, the front tread width either has to be narrow (1949 Nash Statesman & Ambassador: 54 11/16" front; 59 11/16" rear) or the fender skirts have to be bulbous.  As shown by the Delahaye, the appearance reminds one of a portly lady with her skirt sides well out beyond her leg stance.

 

For rear fender skirts, if the designers included stamped-in wheelhouse flairs, fender skirts don't integrate with the sweeping panel plane which are their essential purpose. Some overlain fender skirts do work visually if the skirts have relatively little offset from the surface to which they are applied.

[Captain Harley]

"Skirts are for Women and not Car Fenders"

 

Capt. Harley😉

[Pfeil]

I think a car like a 65 Pontiac can have it both ways. Some full-size Pontiacs were still regarded as performance cars, and performance cars usually aren't associated with skirts unless they are salt flat cars.

Bonneville>   

 

 

>65 Pontiac 421 2+2Apparently the factory chose to show it>

 

 

0-60 3.9sec.  1/4 mile 13.8@ 106mph on street tires. 

[Pfeil]

There is no way around some Cadillac's because of the structure behind the skirt.

1961 here

 

Still, most of the 57-58 Cadillac line was all about sweep cut, so much so they put wheel well molding on them to drive home the point. My favorite GM 57 car.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[rocketraider]

Look at Pontiac's 65-68 rear wheel opening mouldings on cars without skirts and you'll see a lot of thought went into that design. The mouldings were flush with the sheetmetal and the opening itself had a slight bevel that the moulding fit into. Classy!

[PhillyFordGuy]

To my eye, they look just right on a Shoebox Ford coupe.

[Paul Dobbin]

I like anythng in skirts, especially women and old carswith whitewalls.

[SC38dls]

Paul, I agree. I met my wife 54 years ago when she walked in a bar with a short skirt and great legs. Love at first site. 
dave s 

[Gunsmoke]

Fender skirts fall into the same category as white walls, sidemounts, spot lights, fancy radiator ornaments, mud flaps, port holes, spoilers, mag wheels, fog lamps, racing stripes, etc etc etc (except for a few rare cars designed specifically to wear them). Accessories not part of original design concept in 99% of cases and added on by owners who want to be a leg up on their neighbor. Fender skirts never became a long term fad because they are mostly impractical. Their latching mechanism typically failed after a few years, and changing a flat was always made more difficult. They were also an easy item to steal, let alone falling off if not properly latched. So, go ahead and applaud for them if you like, but just remember they are an accessory same as spotlights,, and if you think they are necessary to make a car look good, then it must be a poor looking car to start with. 

[rocketraider]

1 hour ago, rbh3rd said:

To my eye, they look just right on a Shoebox Ford coupe.

Club Coupe yes, but why do they make the 49-51 sedans look so frumpy? Amazing what a slightly longer rear deck can do for styling. Think 30s Lincoln-Zephyr coupes, which btw also look fantastic in skirts.