Happy 128th birthday to the guy who designed the Coke Bottle (and a whooole bunch of other stuff)

November 5th, 1893, Raymond Loewy was born in Paris, France. After moving to the United States, he began a successful industrial design career.

Some of his hits include:

The Coke Bottle

The Air Force One livery

The Greyhound Scenicruiser bus

The bullet-nose Studebakers

The '53 Studebakers

The Studebaker Avanti

A whole bunch of stuff for the Pennsylvania Railroad, including the S1, the T1, some streamlined K4s, the trashcans at Penn Station, the livery on the GG1 electrics.

The Missouri Pacific livery

The Northern Pacific's two-tone green passenger livery

The Baldwin "sharknose" carbody

The Coldspot refrigerator.

The Lucky Strike cigarette package and logo

And a whole lot of other stuff. The guy's reponsible for a lot of design influences that we encounter pretty frequently. He was also a pretty big car guy and restyled a lot of his own cars. I wouldn't call all of them a success, but you do have to appreciate the mindset of a guy that buys an E-Type Jag, looks at it and goes "I can do better" and completely reworks it.  

Also, I don't know every word he ever said, so if he ever said anything offensive or controversial, I'm not lionizing him because of that. Felt like I need to get that out of the way in light of other recent threads.

In reply to NickD :

My FB memories just popped up a post I made a year or two ago, wishing Mr. Loewy a happy birthday and celebrating his influence on modern design.  It was not as lavishly illustrated as yours, though.

In reply to Duke :

Some of his designs are still pretty wild today, but I have to wonder what it was like to behold some of the stuff like, say, the Avanti when it was brand new. That thing had to have looked like a spaceship.

Art Institute of Chicago.   Challenging my young daughter whether this was art or some workers left their lunch garbage.   
 

Raymond Lowey was a brilliant business man and promoter. He designed a few things himself, but it was his employees who designed the Studebakers pictured. The bullet nose and the 1953 were drawn entirely by Robert Bourke. The Avanti was a team effort which Lowey did possibly influence the rear window, and did issue a formal approval. Draw them he did not.

Lol crazy that I think everything pictured above is hideous minus the fridge? 

In reply to yupididit :

I have those kitchen cabinets in my garage.

Honestly, I think his Studebakers are hideous but most of his other stuff is great. 

Yes, he redesigned the E-type but have you actually seen it?

Pretty cool. This week I drank a ton of Costa Rican Coca Cola con azucar from a glass bottle. Delicious. 

Datsun310Guy said:

Art Institute of Chicago.   Challenging my young daughter whether this was art or some workers left their lunch garbage.   
 

I think it's wonderful that it could be both.

In reply to ShawnG :

Nope, none of that is doing it for me. 

And that e-type 

I like the coldspot in the original post though

'53 Studebaker is gorgeous.

I actually like the E Type.

It just fails at being an improvement over the original.

But if that was an Italian coach built one-off from the early '60s it would be pretty cool.

Indy "Nub" Guy said:

'53 Studebaker is gorgeous.

And look at other cars from '53, and then compare them to the Stude. All your other cars of that era were very tall and upright and used the 3-box layout. The '53 Studebaker is low and slinky and has the greenhouse better integrated into the body. I wonder if the grille design was inspired by Loewy's mustache

Duke said:

I actually like the E Type.

It just fails at being an improvement over the original.

But if that was an Italian coach built one-off from the early '60s it would be pretty cool.

It has some early Ferrari cues to the grille and headlamps. And the transparent spoiler on the roof is pretty wild.