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Coke bottle styling
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Coke bottle styling is a style of automobile bodies with outward curving fenders with a narrow center. Notable automobiles with this style include many muscle cars such as the Pontiac GTO, Chevrolet Camaro, and Dodge Charger. As tailfins were influenced by jet aircraft of the 1950s, stylists such as Ford stylist Bill Shenk who designed the 1970 Ford Torino were inspired by supersonic aircraft.
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Encyclopedia
Coke bottle styling is a style of automobile bodies with outward curving fenders with a narrow center. Notable automobiles with this style include many muscle cars such as the Pontiac GTO, Chevrolet Camaro, and Dodge Charger. As tailfins were influenced by jet aircraft of the 1950s, stylists such as Ford stylist Bill Shenk who designed the 1970 Ford Torino were inspired by supersonic aircraft. Aircraft such as the F-102 were designed with narrow waists and bulging forward and rear fuselages to conform to the area rule to achieve supersonic speeds..
Chevrolet first tried the coke bottle look on Bill Mitchell's 1963 Corvette Sting Ray as a styling theme since the area rule does not apply at road speeds. By 1966, A-body sedans and the Chevelle got a mid-riff pinch. The 1968 Corvette looked even more like a bottle bulging at both ends and a narrow middle. Intermediates such as the Pontiac Tempest, Dodge Charger and Ford Torino in the muscle car era soon followed suit, as well as compacts such as the Ford Maverick and Plymouth Duster. Japanese, European and Australian sedans also adopted this style during the 1970s.
Not all cars displayed the full "plan-view" Coke bottle styling, with the waist narrowing. Some of them, like the British Ford Cortina Mark III achieved a similar "muscular" look in profile (i.e. side view) with the front wing curving up over the front wheel area and a much more pronounced curve over the rear wheel arch. The 1969-70 Mustang is another example of this rear wheel arch kick-up.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, cars like the Ford Fairmont and Chrysler K-cars moved towards straight lines. The Audi 5000 and Ford Taurus led towards functional aerodynamic styling without gimmicks derived from supersonic aircraft. The revived Dodge Charger and similar Dodge Avenger does not have a complete Coke bottle body, but they have a rear fender line evocative of the 2nd generation Dodge Charger.
List of cars with Coke bottle styling
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