Raymond Loewy is a legend in design history, but the man who helped shape such iconic works as the Greyhound bus, spectacular streamlined Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives, Coke bottle, Lucky Strike cigarette packet, and one of the most beautiful American cars – the Studebaker Starliner – had strange aesthetic judgements when it came to restyling his own cars.
It takes a bold personality to think you can improve on such all-time beautiful sports cars as the Lancia Flaminia, BMW 507, and XK Jaguar, but the extrovert French-born industrial designer had different ideas.
For a man who criticised American car design as "jukeboxes on wheels" his range of gold-painted custom road cars seemed to contradict his studio's pure design philosophy.
Loewy's bizarre Lancia Loraymo has hints of the Avanti in its overall profile, but there's some very weird ideas about lights, spoiler, and unsightly extended grille. The car was debuted at the 1960 Paris Motor Show and, like all his personal cars, was then driven around Europe.
