Paris-born designer Raymond Loewy shook up the American car industry in 1934 with the radically styled Hupmobile Aerodynamic.

By the early 1930s, the Hupp Motor Car Company of Detroit was in serious trouble.  Robert C. Hupp’s original Hupmobile Model 20 in 1909 had been a sensation, but he left the company soon after. Hupmobile’s four-cylinder models were well received into the ’20s, but the six-cylinder models introduced in 1926 never found favor. Hupp’s ill-timed 1929 acquisition of the Chandler Motor Car Company in Cleveland accomplished little, and corporate raider Archie Andrews would soon be harrassing the automaker’s board and senior management.

In association with Amos Northup, the 1932 Hupmobiles were styled by Paris-born Raymond Loewy, and for 1934 the famed industrial designer was again brought in to breathe some life into the struggling carmaker’s products. The result was the  Hupmobile Aerodynamic, as the design became known.

From most any angle this new car was startling in appearance, delivering a shock to the car-buying public. As if to hedge its bets, at the same time the company introduced a low-priced car with more conventional styling, which shared its basic body shell with Ford, oddly enough. (See more on the Hupmobile-Ford connection here.) The previous 1933 models were carried over as well, producing a complicated product lineup for a company of Hupp’s limited volume.

In this phase of his career, Loewy’s designs were deliberately intended to push the envelope: His personal slogan was MAYA, short for for “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable.” Aerodynamics was the recurring theme in his work, though there was little actual airflow science involved. Here, “aerodynamic” could just as well mean “streamlined” or “modern.”  Loewy even created a steamlined pencil sharpener. With its severe teardrop shape, it probably boasted the lowest drag coefficient of any desktop appliance.

The new Hupmobile’s lines were rounded and swept back in accordance with the current theories on streamlined shapes, but where the car most radically diverged was in its front end treatment. The headlamps were integrated into the sides of the hood, captured in streamlined fairings that stretched all the way to the cowl. Another distinctive touch was the three-piece semi-wraparound windshield.

The advances in the new Hupp were more than skin deep. The engines (inline L-head sixes and eights were offered with up to 120 hp) were pushed forward in the chassis while the cabin was moved forward in the body shell, reducing pitch motion to provide a more stable and comfortable ride. The Chrysler and Desoto Airflows, also introduced in 1934, employed a similar layout, and the development spread across the Motor City as the 1930s progressed. But in most other ways the Hupmobile was a conventional Detroit product with a ladder frame and parallel leaf springs supporting beam axles front and rear. Hupp never did adopt independent front suspension.

The Aerodynamic (often rendered as Aero-dynamic) models were offered in two wheelbase lengths, 121 and 127 inches, in the standard variety of closed body styles. For the 1934 introduction and onward, prices ranged from $1045 to $1245, placing the streamliner in direct price competition with Buick, DeSoto, and the Packard One Twenty. But realistically, Hupp wasn’t in the game, especially considering its small and marginalized dealer organization.

In retrospect, it appears that Loewy’s aerodynamic styling didn’t help or harm the Hupmobile cause. The boldly radical design certainly didn’t give the company the boost it desperatedly needed, as sales continued to flatline at around the 6,500 level—far too little volume to sustain the carmaker. In early 1936 the factory shut down for 18 months and the remaining Aerodynamics were sold off as 1937 models. When production resumed for 1938, the Hupmobile was sporting totally generic styling, but it didn’t sell, either. The final Hupp automobile was the poorly conceived, Cord-bodied Skylark of 1940-41.