THE SINGLE MOST BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN CAR

Peter Morance, our art director, shared the sports car infatuation that Bruce McCall describes in this issue --- and indeed, shares it still. So it seemed natural to ask him to select the best-looking American car. Anguish: if we were talking about Britain, Peter said, it would be easy --- the Jaguar XK-E. America, though, with its Packards and Duesenbergs and such.... But he settled at last on the Cord 810/812, which made its debut in 1935, and is shown here in its Westchester Sedan model. "Look at the car in the context of when it was built", says Peter. "It was revolutionary. There's no other word. It broke all the rules. Everything was simple, everything was integrated. The hood with the grille, the headlights that retracted into the fenders --- and the proportions are perfect. It wasn't designed by committee --- it was the work of one man, Gordon Buehrig. In 1951, just sixteen years after it appeared, the Museum of Modern Art named it one of the eight greatest car designs of all time. And it still is. Look at all those rounded edges --- that's where car design is going today. The Cord is clearly an object of the 1930s, but it also looks absolutely modern. It is truly timeless."