...clearly states that Ex worked on the design.
I know from my own work that I've unearthed info that put history on its ear so I'm open to the idea. It does strike me a bit odd that Stude would've credited Ex's mortal enemy for the design but Stude was known to do odd things like blow out designers who took their ideas to Ford for the shoebox.
Bourke did get credit for the design, but if you know the history of Studebaker and Raymond Loewy you should be aware that Loewy always surrounded himself with talent and took name credit on the finished product.
Yeah, that's how I knew the car as a Bourke design.
Here is the drawing done by Exner in 1948. My opinion is this is even better than the final product and was really "swoopy" for the time. Exner was the American design genius that is just now starting to be appreciate by the world.
The second scan is the 1953 D'Elegance car done by Ghia for Exner and based off of his drawings. This was to later become the VW Karman Ghia.Looking at Exner's later work with Chrysler I think it is clearly visible that the Stude design was strongly his.
I'll grant you that. The first of the letter cars look like blown-up Studes--particularly through the grilles. Then again, those designers were stealing from each other all the time. Chop, shorten, and hardtop a Kaiser coupe and it looks uncannily like a Karmann Ghia along the flanks. I've seen such a thing.
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