Master stylist Amos Northup called his striking design theme for the 1938 Graham the “Spirit of Motion.” The car-buying public named it the Sharknose.
The Graham Sharknose of 1938-40 wasn’t the first noteworthy collaboration between designer Amos Northup and carmaker Graham-Paige. As we’ve seen, a few years earlier Northup created the groundbreaking 1932 Graham Blue Streak. (See our feature on the Blue Streak here.) Unlike the Motor City’s major automakers, the small producers like Graham couldn’t afford their own in-house styling studios. So they turned to their body suppliers, including the Murray Body Corporation of Detroit, where Northup held the post of chief designer. While at Murray, Northup created exterior sheet metal designs not just for Graham but for Willys, Reo, and other clients.
With its dramatic, forward-leaning profile, as if captured at speed by a camera’s focal-plane shutter, Northup named his design the Spirit of Motion, and it was slated for production in 1938. But unfortunately, he never got to see the finished version of his Streamline Moderne creation. On the morning of Saturday, February 13, 1937, while out to buy a newspaper, he slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk near his home in the Detroit suburb of Pleasant Ridge, suffering a fatal head injury.
The ’38 and ’39 Sharknose are nearly identical, while the ’40 model received a minor facelift to the hood and grille. Dramatic though it was, the styling theme failed to revive the fortunes of Graham, which, like most of the remaining independent automakers in the ’30s, was fading fast. Only 4,139 cars were sold in 1938, 3,660 in 1939, and a mere 1,856 units in 1940. The company’s next product would be the Cord-based, ill-fated 1940-41 Graham Hollywood.
That styling to me is just provocative at best and way too bold. Figment of the Imagination gone wild. Definitely marking that period of time when there were so many other companies in the hunt only to give way to what the public would dictate as being more practical.
I think it look great, but that design would never make it off the drawing board today. Federal Pedestrian Impact Standards mandate the big, broad, flat, high beltline front ends which all new cars now have.
There are no federal standards for pedestrian injury.
The USA is a signatory on UN treaty “Agreement Concerning the Establishment of Global Technical Regulations for Wheeled Vehicles (1998)” and is obligated to follow this addendum to that treaty “Global Technical Regulation No. 9 – Pedestrian Safety(2019).”
http://www.interregs (.) com/catalogue/details/ece-gtr09/global-technical-regulation-no-9/pedestrian-safety/
NHTSA does not consider that a binding commitment to action and has not implemented the rule.
Indeed, it’s been said that it’s impossible to meet both the UNECE/EU pedestrian standards and the US 2.5 mph bumper-basher one with the same bumper system.
In doing some additional reading on Graham-Paige after seeing this article, I discovered a very interesting piece of information about the marque: As is the case with Studebaker, Graham-Paige didn’t go out of business – instead, it simply exited the business of auto manufacturing, leaving the corporate entity intact. Both of these corporations had other viable divisions and subsidiaries at the time they exited the car business, and because of various mergers and acquisitions over the decades one could argue that the remnants of both still exist, although some may see that as a bit of a stretch.
Also, I was always under the impression that sealed beam headlamps were required for 1940 model year automobiles in the U.S. if that’s indeed the case, how did Graham get around this requirement with the Sharknose?
Great post, thanks for sharing. The Graham brothers were what we would today call venture capitalists. They invested in all kinds of businesses. In 1940 sealed beams were allowed but not required.
Willys used composite headlights through 1942.
I love stories like that, thanks!
Worth noting that G-P’s auto people had second acts too – I think (Kaiser-Fraser co-founder) Joseph Fraser had been a top Graham-Paige man.
We have a 36 graham..good solid car. Not special,no shark nose, but runs great and looks so fine.
My dad bought one of these in war-ravaged England in about 1946 – I was only aged about 3 or 4 but can just remember it. My dad traded in a weary Ford V8 for it and it looked really space-age against English cars. He didn’t keep it for long – it had a buckled rear wheel and people kept yelling “Hey, mister – your wheels coming off!”. He traded it in for an Alfa Romeo limousine but that’s another story.
I’ve loved cars all my life, but the Graham Sharknose is in its own category – just completely, shamelessly, what-the-heck overboard with machine-age aero. The front is ridiculous, somewhere between a show car and a cartoon car brought to life.
In other words, cool as all get-out. Boy, if I had a small car museum, I’d love to display one.