As stunning cars go, it’s basically impossible to beat this Ghia Steamline X concept. The Italian prototype is a gorgeous and significant today as it was in 1955 when it set the auto world on fire.
As if the looks weren’t enough, it innovated with a jet engine underneath. The sound that the engine produces today — even aside from the power — is enough to attract gawkers from block away.
The car is 17 feet long, but only 34 inches high, says its owner, Scott Grundfor of San Luis Obispo, Calif., who tells us about “Gilda,” as it also was known, for our Tell Us About Your Car video series. We talked with him last month at the Rodeo Drive Concours d’Elegance in Beverly Hills. It’s also wider in front, tapering to the rear.
“It literally looks like something that could take off for outer space,” Grundfor says.
The car was all about streamlining, as the name in implies. It was introduced in an age when jet fighters were the technology icons and tailfins in cars were just being introduced. The Steamline handled both developments with class and taste, as opposed to some of the garish — but enormously fun — designs that would follow in later years.
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