The automobile seemed like nothing else on the street. Its sharp strains, flat planes, and pointy edges made it a head-turning sight, but additionally a head-scratching enterprise determination. Would anybody really purchase such a bizarre geometric automobile?
If this sounds just like the sort of query one would possibly ask when seeing a Tesla Cybertruck for the primary time, it’s really only a rhyme of historical past. That head-turner/head-scratcher was the 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo, an outrageously pointy idea automobile that radically diverged from the teardrop designs of the day. It was arguably the beginning of a daring, if short-lived, new chapter within the historical past of automobile design: the wedge.
The Bertone-designed Alfa Romeo Carabo debuted on the 1968 Paris Motor Present. [Photo: LAT Images/Getty Images]
The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles explores this wildly experimental period in automobile design with The Wedge Revolution: Automobiles on the Reducing Edge, a brand new exhibition now on show. The exhibition options dozens of vehicles designed between the late Sixties and mid-’80s that used a blocky wedge form as their defining kind issue. They had been oddball designs on the time, and most didn’t make it previous the idea stage, however they heralded a rebellious period in automobile design that will simply be underway as soon as extra.
1977 UrbaCar [Photo: courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum]
Working example: the Cybertruck. “That’s why Franz was concerned within the present,” says Jonathan Eisen, a curator on the Petersen museum. The Franz he’s speaking about is Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, creator of the Cybertruck, who was referred to as in to cocurate the exhibition. “He’s very enthusiastic concerning the traditional wedge vehicles.”
Like his personal design, the wedge vehicles of the mid-Twentieth century appeared to have come out of nowhere. Eisen says the dominant design strategy on the time was both the teardrop-shaped coupes made in France or the bulbous, chrome-laden sedans from American carmakers. However as the principle designers behind these vehicles retired, a brand new era got here in able to strive one thing fully totally different.
“They went the other approach,” Eisen says. “They did away with all of the ornamentation. And as an alternative of easy, flowing strains they determined that they had been going to make use of sharp edges and flat planes and base the look of the automobile on the wedge.”
1976 Honda Civic Woman idea automobile [Photo: courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum]
Carmakers together with Chevrolet, Honda, BMW, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and Bertoni all dabbled in wedge-shaped automobile design. One idea automobile featured within the exhibition, the 1976 Honda Civic Woman, was an angular model of the Civic, probably the most standard compact vehicles of the period. With a wedge nostril and a station wagon tail, it confirmed off a mix of design and sensibility. Although by no means supposed for manufacturing, its DNA lived on for many years.
“When you then have a look at Hondas from the Eighties and even into the Nineties, you could possibly completely see that they return to this one automobile,” Eisen says.
1979 Aston Martin Bulldog idea automobile [Photo: courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum]
Different vehicles within the present are far much less smart, just like the batwinged 1979 Aston Martin Bulldog idea automobile and the 1977 UrbaCar, a dune buggy meets bumper automobile. On the intense finish, the 1971 Lamborghini Countach idea automobile got here to outline the sharp and wedgy form of Lamborghinis for many years.
1975 Lamborghini Countach LP400 [Photo: courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum]
These automobile corporations “weren’t afraid to place one thing on the market that perhaps isn’t historically stunning, however it’s nonetheless in contrast to anything on the street and can completely draw your consideration to it,” Eisen says. “A automobile doesn’t essentially should be fairly to achieve success. The way in which that SUVs are so standard is proof of that. “
The Cybertruck, then again? Eisen calls it the one true wedge automobile on the street at the moment, and probably the beginning of a extra adventurous period in automobile design, even when its success is questionable. “That automobile clearly has a really controversial design, and you could possibly even say that it’s been completely rejected by the mass public,” he says. “Perhaps folks aren’t prepared for it but. However finally, I believe we’ll see extra creativity.”
In current a long time, automobile design has been very secure, and guided by aerodynamics, effectivity, and, above all, advertising and marketing, based on Eisen. The heyday of the wedge was much less constrained and, arguably, extra fascinating. “I believe it’s price celebrating the truth that it’s okay to take probabilities,” Eisen says.
The Wedge Revolution is on show by way of September 2026.
