We are all used to the shape of cars as they have been for about sixty years. But back in the day, before World War II, cars looked very different. They were high, with loose fenders and a nearly vertical rear. That changed after 1945. In a period of more than five years, the car industry made the switch to the pontoon body.
It is June 1948 when a new car is presented at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York. Less than three years earlier, the Second World War had come to an end. And already two of Henry Ford’s grandsons, Benson Ford and Henry Ford II, are unveiling a completely new model. In the preceding months, the curiosity of the American public has been piqued with playful advertisements in newspapers and magazines. Because there in that hall in Manhattan a car is introduced that is completely different on almost all fronts. There are various variants of the model on a turntable, while next to it is a chassis of the car on a podium. The 1949 Ford Custom breaks all convention. No more high body with loose fenders, but a low, smooth shape. The fenders are completely integrated into the body, there are no more running boards. It looks like the car has been smoothed out with an iron. The sides are smooth because the doors are in line with the fenders. As a result, the interior has become considerably wider. The engine is further forward, making the interior more spacious. The driver is now in ‘midship’, as Ford calls it. The rear seat is no longer mounted on top of the rear axle, but against it. So lower. And crucially: a pronounced luggage space has been created at the rear.
Ford Custom
Technically, the changes are not even that spectacular. Well, the new Ford has independent coil spring front suspension and leaf springs in the rear. But the V8 side-valve is practically the same as in the previous, now hopelessly old-fashioned-looking model. However, because the new Ford is lower and lighter, it still delivers better performance than its predecessor with the same engine. The glass area of ​​the new Ford has increased by 88 percent compared to the old model. The luggage compartment is 57 percent more spacious and the car is 21 centimeters lower than its predecessor. The floor of the car is also lower. The newcomer is watched in amazement by the audience. Due to the smooth shape and the trunk, it is nicknamed ‘shoe box’. The official name for this architectural style is ‘pontoon’. Because what is a pontoon if not a large shoebox made of steel?
Hanomag 2/10
Ford is not the first to put the pontoon shape into practice, as the very first pontoon body is from Bugatti. That brand entered the Grand Prix of Tours in 1923 with a streamlined body for the T23. That smooth body runs over the full width of the wheels and the car is nicknamed ‘the tank’. A year later we see a similar shape at the German car manufacturer Hanomag in the model 2/10, a two-person car with a 500 cc single-cylinder engine in the back. This is the first regular passenger car with a pontoon body. The doors are in line with the wheels, maximizing the seating space for the passengers. The deviant shape is reason for the German public to give this cart its nickname: Kommisbrot (commiesbrood, known from the army). In the late 1930s, several prototypes and sports cars were designed that already incorporated the pontoon shape, including the 1937 Alfa Romeo Aerodinamica Spider, a one-off based on an Alfa Romeo 6C. That year Pinin Farina draws the Lancia Aprilia berlinetta aerodynamics coupé and in 1936 we see the BMW 328 Mille Miglia.
These are all exclusive cars, one-offs and prototypes. We see the very first production cars with a pontoon body in 1947, that is the Studebaker Champion and the Starlight coupé derived from it. Kaiser-Frazer, the American car brand that was founded after the Second World War, also starts with the four-door pontoon body of the Kaiser. And the 1948 Hudson also has pontoon-like features. Yet Ford is the first global brand to embrace the new architectural style.
Studebaker Champion
Following the 1949 model launch in the United States, Ford is implementing the new build at its Dagenham plant in Britain. In October 1951 the new Ford Consul and Zephyr are presented at the Earls Court Motor Show in London. The new models have interfaces with the old-fashioned Ford Anglia and Prefect on the one hand, and they resemble the eight-cylinder Ford Pilot on the other. A journalist on duty for the British magazine The Autocar is surprised that the new Fords are so low. Boarding is no longer a matter of ‘ascending’, but of descending. Fortunately, there are handles in the car that you can pull up when you get out… And there is more that the press is noting. Because this car has a luggage compartment with a hood-like flap, writes The Autocar. Until then, most cars have a rear that slopes down steeply. And now there is suddenly a car that has almost as long a ‘nose’ at the rear as it does at the front. The new British Fords are among the first batch of cars in Europe to have the pontoon shape.
Renault Fregate
In the same year, 1950, we also see the presentation of the Fiat 1400 and the Renault Frégate. In the following years, almost every car brand comes on the market with a pontoon body. And when Citroën launches its DS in 1955 as a replacement for the Traction Avant, there is hardly a car manufacturer left that still produces bodies in conventional, pre-war style. The car has matured.
This article originally appeared in AutoWeek Classics issue 3 of 2017.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl