A continuation of where I left off. 

5. The Hudson & AMC Hornet

Hudson Hornet produced 1951-54

AMC Hornet produced 1970-1977

Okay, so I'm cheating a little here. The Hudson Hornet is a bona fide classic, its AMC successor...not so much. Hudson's iteration was a grandfather of the muscle car; it had a huge six cylinder engine and in the early 1950's dominated NASCAR--as any child who's watched the Pixar movie Cars can tell you, thanks to "Doc" Hudson, voiced by the late, great Paul Newman.

AMC's revival of the Hornet is on here because this was my mom's car growing up, one that looked almost exactly like the photo above.  It drove me to school almost up till high school, and thanks to a non-functioning driver's side door on ours (the legacy of being sideswiped by a drunk driver) the driver had to scoot across the bench seat up front to get behind the wheel. This quite probably played a role in my mother's water breaking the day of my sister's birth. This car was also freakishly durable; aside from surviving two wrecks it made it well over 300,000 miles. It was still running in 1984 when we sold it to a family friend as-is for the princely sum of $75, and in the end it was the body that gave out.

Thoughts: AMC doesn't get a lot of love and they were no more immune to bad decisions than the Big Three were in the 1970s, with misadventures like the Pacer. And the Hudson Hornet illustrates the problem now faced by Detroit, in that the Hudson Hornet's sales tailed off because Hudson Motors couldn't afford the styling updates its larger competitors could. Depending on what happens with Chrysler's restructuring, the Hornet could see its third incarnation...as Dodge's first attempt at a subcompact.

4. "Modern" Stutz Bearcat

Designer: Virgil Exner, Sr.

Year Produced: 1979 (12 or 13 built)

This is on here as a tribute to Virgil Exner, one of the geniuses of American automotive design along with Raymond Loewy. In fact, Exner and Loewy worked together (not particularly well) at Studebaker, with one result of their collaboration being the iconic "bullet-nose" design of the early '50s Studebakers. Other Exner designs include the Chrysler 300 and the Chrysler Imperial, with their distinctive forward-look front ends. This was Exner's updating of an old classic, the original Stutz Bearcat, produced from 1912-1916 and is probably best-known as the preferred ride of C. Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons and using a Pontiac Bonneville chassis.

Thoughts: Once again, a look at what might be possible without re-inventing the wheel, no pun intended. The Bearcat II managed a distinctive look while using existing GM components. If it was good enough for the Sultan of Brunei...

3. VW Karmann Ghia

Designed by Luigi Segre

Produced 1955-1974

Consistently recognized for its distinctive design in its time, I've always had a thing for this car. It's just cute, darn it! This, like the Kaiser Darrin, would make a great base for an all-electric two-seater coupe. In fact, I've seen at least one Karmann Ghia used as a "donor" car for a gas-to-electric conversion project.

Thoughts: The Karmann Ghia is proof that if you combine a distinctive design with good engineering, you get great results. Nearly 450,000 Karmann Ghias were sold during the model's production run, its buyers willing to forgo sports performance for the reliability of the Karmann Ghia's Beetle components. Compare that with Chrysler's approach, which took a great design with the PT Cruiser and made it a heavy gas-guzzler with a crap engine and bad transmission.

2. 1950-51 Studebaker Commander/Champion

Designed by Raymond Loewy and Virgil Exner, Sr.

Loewy and Exner collaborated on this design, as they had on a number of classic Studebakers, but Exner left soon after the "bullet-noses" came out. Though they did collaborate on the next generation Champion and Commander cars (the "Starlight" and "Starliner" models), with Exner's departure Loewy got sole credit. The Champion saved Studebaker in the late '30s, becoming an economical and stylish entry-level model. The Commander, especially from 1950 onwards, was a slightly bigger version of the Champion with a V8 engine, instead of the 6-cylinder engine in the Champion.

Thoughts: Yet another classic design that still pops up in movies, from The Muppet Movie (where I first saw and fell in love with it), to a turn as "the loaner" in The Mask. I see echoes of the Loewy/Exner bullet-nose design in some of the new Toyotas. Once again, one has to wonder what we are doing in this country to find the budding talents that could deliver distinctive, instantly classic designs.

And the top spot goes to...

1. Studebaker Hawk

Produced 1956-1962

Designed by Raymond Loewy, re-design in 1962 by Brooks Stevens

The original Golden Hawk had a design inspired by Mercedes (to which Studebaker owned U.S. distribution rights at the time), was a proto-muscle car, sporting a 5 liter Packard V8 engine. It was second only to the Chrysler 300 when it came 0-60 acceleration time. The Silver Hawk was a less expensive, less powerful version of the Golden Hawk. Brooks Stevens did an incredible re-design of the car for the 1962 model year, and it was produced as the Gran Turismo (or GT) Hawk.

Thoughts: I saw a Hawk on the streets of Austin last week--probably a Silver Hawk, since Golden Hawks are fairly rare now. It was a beautiful sight, and with a slightly different color scheme (the one I saw was red and white), and without tail fins, it wouldn't look too out of place among newer models. In fact the Stevens GT Hawk--which did lose the fins--is strikingly contemporary. On top of that, the GT Hawk even won its class in the Mobilgas Economy Run, with a stock model getting nearly 23 mpg. Not bad for a car with a 286 cc, V8 engine. What does a current Ford Mustang or Dodge Challenger get?

Concluding Musings: In his press conference last night, President Obama talked a lot about wanting to reinvigorate the American spirit of innovation and make sure new technologies and their associated jobs stay in this country. This is admirable. While geniuses like Raymond Loewy, Virgil Exner and Brooks Stevens don't come along every day, one thing the president could encourage with future education initiatives is to encourage adding design classes and maybe even engineering magnet schools to ensure a pool of talent available to American car makers, be they the Detroit Three or companies we may not have even heard of yet.