1935 SCARAB AD ART DECO STREAMLINED EARLY MINIVAN DESIGNED BY WILLIAM STOUT GD

Description

For collectors of wonderful old car advertisements, up for auction is a single page ad, I believe from the November 1935 issue of
Fortune
magazine, for the William B. Stout-designed Scarab, a very cool streamlined precursor to the minivan that was designed in Dearborn, Michigan, in the 1930s but never mass-produced (most sources state that only nine models were made).
The ad, which was quite carefully removed from a publication (not by me – I sourced it as a single sheet) -- though there is a jaggedness to the right side of the sheet -- measures 10-1/2 inches wide by 13-1/2 inches high and has a Thanksgiving-season ad for Seagram's Whiskey on the back (indicating it was a November issue). I believe that the ad appeared in the year 1935.
There's an Ancient Egyptian-inspired scarab beetles drawn above the stylized white-on-black name "Scarab" under the vehicle, and you can also see there's a scarab at the far right of the automobile, located at the center of the front. The phrase "A CHALLENGE AND A PROPHECY" are printed under the word "Scarab."
The text proper, under which is the facsimile signature "Wm. B. Stout,” reads:
THE CHALLENGE: Created after a decade of aircraft and automotive research, the Scarab rear-engine motor car comes as a friendly but direct challenge to the necessary conservatism of the big-production motor car manufacturers. The Scarab expresses Vision vs. Conservatism; Functional Design vs. Traditional Design; Individuality vs. Standardization; Fine Craftsmanship vs. Mass Production. Produced by a group whose soundness of experience and engineering finesse is thoroughly established, the obvious "rightness" of the Scarab design is it greatest challenge.
THE PROPHECY: The new Scarab will set all future styles in motor cars. The following features now exclusive to the Scarab, will be adopted by all makers of fine cars within three years. These features mark the final departure of motor car engineering from all horse-and-buggy tradition:
Engine in the rear ·  Unit body -- no chassis  ·  Inside floor area -- 7'6" x 5'7"  · Running board and hood space usable inside body  ·  Loose chairs, adjustable to all positions  ·  Rear davenport seat convertible to full-length couch  ·  Card and dining table  ·  New, full-vision driver's position  ·  Thermostatically controlled heat  ·  Forced, draftless ventilation, with rain, dust and insect filter  ·  Fully insulated against sound and temperature  ·  Smooth body lines minimizing wind noises  ·  Concealed, recessed rear window  ·  Grill-enclosed headlights  ·  Electric door locks -- no projecting handles  ·  Flush-type hinges  ·  Exceptionally long wheelbase for overall length (no overhang)  ·  Minimum unsprung weight  ·  Soft, individual springing of all wheels  ·  Less weight on front axle -- for easier steering  ·  Maximum brakes at rear -- not front -- for safe, rapid deceleration  ·  Slanted windows, no reflections.
Production for 1936 will be limited to 100 cars  ·  Priced from five thousand dollars, f. o. b. Dearborn, Michigan. Demonstration upon invitation only.
STOUT MOTOR CAR CORPORATION
DEARBORN, MICHIGAN
Here's most of the Wikipedia article on the Scarab:
The
Stout Scarab
is a streamlined 1930–1940s American car, designed by William Bushnell Stout and manufactured by Stout Engineering Laboratories and later by Stout Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan.
The Stout Scarab is credited by some as the world's first production minivan, and a 1946 experimental prototype of the Scarab became the world's first car with a fiberglass bodyshell and air suspension.
BACKGROUND. William B. Stout was a motorcar and aviation engineer and journalist. While he was president of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Stout met Buckminster Fuller at a major New York auto show and wrote an article on the Dymaxion Car for the society newsletter.
Contemporary production cars commonly had a separate chassis and body with a long hood. The engine compartment and engine were located longitudinally behind the front axle, and ahead of the passenger compartment. The front-mounted engine typically drove the rear axle through a connecting drive shaft running underneath the floor of the vehicle. This layout worked well, but limited the passenger space.
In contrast, the Scarab design eliminated the chassis and drive shaft to create a low, flat floor for the interior, using a unitized body structure and placing a Ford-built V8 engine in the rear of the vehicle. Stout envisioned his traveling machine as an office on wheels. To that end, the Scarab's body, styled by John Tjaarda (1897-1962), a well-known Dutch automobile engineer, closely emulated the design of an aluminum aircraft fuselage. The use of lighter materials resulted in a vehicle weighing under 3,000 lb (1,400 kg).
The short, streamlined nose and tapering upper body at the rear, foreshadowed contemporary monospace (or one-box) MPV or minivan design, featuring a removable table and second row seats that turn 180 degrees to face the rear — a feature that Chrysler marketed over 50 years later as "Swivel ’n Go."
Although reminiscent of the Chrysler Airflow, streamliner, and the slightly later (1938) Volkswagen Beetle — other aerodynamically efficient shapes, the Stout Scarab was generally considered ugly at the time. Decades later, its futuristic design and curvaceous, finely detailed nose earn it respect as an Art Deco icon.
INNOVATIVE FEATURES. The Scarab's interior space was maximized by its ponton styling, which dispensed with running boards and expanded the cabin to the full width of the car. A long wheelbase and engine placement directly over the rear axle moved the driver forward, enabling a steering wheel almost directly above the front wheels. Passengers entered through a single, large, common door. A flexible seating system could be easily reconfigured (except for the driver's seat, which was fixed). The designer anticipated the seating in modern minivans, such as the Chrysler Voyager and Renault Espace; a small card table could be fitted with the passenger seats as needed. Interiors were appointed in leather, chrome, and wood. Design elements also worked in a stylized ancient Egyptian scarab motif, including the car's emblem. Visibility to the front and sides was similar to that of an observation car, although rearward vision was negligible and there were no rear-view mirrors.
The innovations did not end with the car's layout and body design. In an era where almost everything on the road had rigid axles with leaf springs, the Scarab featured independent suspension using coil springs on all four corners, providing a smoother, quieter ride. The rear-engine-induced weight bias coupled to the coil spring suspension and "Oil Shock Absorbers" endowed the Scarab with "Smooth Riding and Easy Steering on Rough Roads," if not very good handling and traction. The rear swing axle suspension with long coil spring struts was inspired by aircraft landing gear. The Scarab suspension inspired the later Chapman strut used by Lotus from their Lotus Twelve model of 1957.
The Ford flathead V8 drove the rear wheels via a custom Stout-built three-speed manual transaxle. The engine was reversed from its normal position, mounted directly over the rear axle and with the flywheel and clutch facing forward. The transmission was mounted ahead of this, reversing and lowering the driveline back to the axle. This unusual layout would later be repeated by the Lamborghini Countach.
PRODUCTION. A drivable prototype of the Scarab was completed in 1932, probably the first car to have an aluminum spaceframe unit-construction body. Some frame parts were steel. The second prototype was ready in 1935, with some styling and mechanical changes. The headlamps were set behind a fine, vertical-bar grille, and at the rear, narrow chrome bars curved from the back window down to the bumper, giving the car its Art Deco appearance. The body was changed to steel to reduce cost.
Stout stated that the car would be manufactured in limited quantities and sold by invitation. Up to a hundred a year were to be made in a small factory at the corner of Scott Street and Telegraph Road (US 24), Dearborn, Michigan. Although the Scarab garnered much press coverage, at ,000 (equivalent to ,000 in 2010), when a luxurious and ultra-modern Chrysler Imperial Airflow cost just ,345, very few could pay the hefty premium for innovation. Nine Scarabs are believed to have been built. The vehicles were never produced in volume and were hand-made, with no two Scarabs identical.
Immediately following World War II, Stout built one more prototype Scarab, called the Stout Scarab Experimental. It was exhibited in 1946 and was more conventional in appearance, although still equipped with a rear engine. It was a 2-door, featured a wraparound windshield and the world's first fiberglass body. Like its metal counterparts, it too was a monocoque, built up out of only eight separate pieces and featured the world's first fully functioning air suspension, previously developed in 1933 by Firestone. It was never produced.
Stout owned and drove his own Scarab, accumulating over 250,000 miles in travel around the United States.
Up to five Scarabs are reported to survive today. A 1935 Scarab in running condition was on display for many years at the Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls Head, Maine, but was returned to its lender, the Detroit Historical Museum. The Detroit Historical Museum's vehicle was scheduled to be returned to the museum's storage on August 21, 2016, when another car would be rotated into the exhibition.
And here's the designer's Wikipedia entry:
William Bushnell Stout
(March 16, 1880 – March 20, 1956) was a pioneering American inventor, engineer, developer and designer whose works in the automotive and aviation fields were groundbreaking. Known by the nickname "Bill," Stout designed an aircraft that eventually became the Ford Trimotor and was an executive at the Ford Motor Company.
EARLY YEARS. William Bushnell "Bill" Stout was born March 16, 1880 in Quincy, Illinois. He graduated from the Mechanic Arts High School, in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1898. He then attended Hamline University, and transferred in his second year to the University of Minnesota, being forced to quit due to extreme eye problems. He married Alma Raymond in 1906. Stout was interested in mechanics, especially aeronautics, founding the Model Aero Club of Illinois. In 1907 he became Chief Engineer for the Schurmeir Motor Truck Company and in 1912, he became automobile and aviation editor for the
Chicago Tribune.
In the same year he founded
Aerial Age
, the first aviation magazine ever published in the United States. He was also a contributor to the
Minneapolis Times
under the pen name "Jack Knieff."
AUTOMOTIVE CAREER. In 1914, Stout became Chief Engineer of the Scripps-Booth Automobile Company. His "Cyclecar" had caught the attention of Alvan MacCauley who subsequently brought Stout to Packard Motors in Detroit. He had become General Sales Manager of the Packard Motor Car Company and in 1916, when they started an aviation division, they asked Stout to become its first Chief Engineer. In 1919 he started the Stout Engineering Company in Dearborn, Michigan, complete with a research section and later built the prototype Stout Scarab car in 1932. In 1934 he founded the Stout Motor Car Company. The "beetle-like" Scarab featured an all-aluminum tubular airframe covered with aluminum skin, with the engine compartment at the rear, a sealed storage compartment in front of a passenger compartment with reclining aircraft-type seats. The front or nose of the vehicle contained the spare tire. Only nine Scarabs were ever built and although advanced, the public never appreciated the innovative features of the vehicles.
In the mid-1930s, Stout, in co-operation with L.B. Kalb of Continental Motors, a major manufacture of lightweight air cooled aircraft engines, and did some extensive research and pre-production development into rear engine drive automobiles which were powered by aircraft engines. Stout even commissioned the well known Dutch auto designer John Tjaarda to design some streamlined car bodies, although none of the car designs ever reached production.
In the last years of World War II, Stout, in co-operation with Owen-Corning, began what was called
Project Y
to build a one-off car for evaluation of ideas like a frame-less fiberglass body, belt drive rear wheel drive, a suspension which kept the vehicle from leaning into turns by adjusting the suspension using compressed air, and push button electric doors. When the vehicle was made public in 1946, Stout picked the name
Forty-Six
for that year. Some firms considered producing the Forty-Six, but as Stout stated he doubted there would be much of a market for a ,000 dollar car, the estimated price if it had been mass-produced.
AVIATION CAREER. Stout's aviation career began as a result of his success in his automotive efforts. He began to build a number of all-metal aircraft designs, which, like the earliest aircraft designs of Andrei Tupolev in the Soviet Union, was based on the pioneering work of Hugo Junkers. In February 1923, newspapers carried stories of the test flights of the
Stout Air Sedan
with Walter Lees as the pilot. In 1924 his company, the Stout Metal Airplane Company, was bought by the Ford Motor Company.
Stout developed a thick-wing monoplane, and his design of an internally braced cantilevered wing improved the efficiency of aircraft. This led to the development of the famous "Batwing Plane" and the all-metal "Torpedo Plane." After his career at Packard Motors, he left for Washington to serve as the advisor to the United States Aircraft Board.
Stout developed an all-metal transport aircraft for mail use, the Stout 2-AT. His three engine follow-on, the Stout 3-AT, was underpowered, and did not perform as well, leaving Stout out of the engineering role in his company newly acquired by Ford. The redesigned 3-AT did form the basis for the popular Ford Trimotor aircraft.
In August 1925, Stout inaugurated Stout Air Services, which operated the first regularly scheduled airline in the United States. Stout also built the Liberty-powered all-metal monoplanes to initiate this service. Later, between 1928 and 1932, the airline flew passengers and Ford cargo between Dearborn, Chicago and Cleveland. In 1929, Stout sold Stout Air Services to United Airlines.
After the Great Depression in 1929 reduced sales of the Trimotor aircraft, Stout left Ford in 1930. Although no longer with Ford, he continued to operate his Stout Engineering Laboratory. Stout also invested in the short-lived Wichita, Kansas based Buckley Aircraft Company, developing the all-aluminum Buckley LC-4.
In 1930 Stout said: "Aviation in the U.S. has been stagnating for two years. We are all copying. Aviation has shown no progress ... comparable to that made in radio and talking pictures. Think how many copies have been made of the plane Colonel Lindbergh used on his flight across the Atlantic ... of other famous planes. None of us are building the plane that the public wants to buy, and that proves we are standing still."
In 1943 Stout sold the Stout engineering laboratory to Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, becoming the Stout Research Division of Consolidated. He was named the director of Convair's research division through World War II. While at Consolidated, Stout promoted three designs for postwar production, including a flying car using a Spratt wing.
Stout's other innovations included the
Skycar,
an automobile/airplane hybrid and a Pullman Railplane and Club Car. He is also known as the originator of prefab housing and the sliding car seat. All of these innovations were modern in design, incorporating many features new in both appearance and function, features not yet available in vehicle design.
DEATH. Stout retired to Phoenix, Arizona, and died on March 20, 1956, four days after his 76th birthday.
PUBLICATIONS. Stout self-published a small booklet (15 pages) of poems, circa 1936. Two of the poems were in the form of letters:
On Receiving Word that Stan Knauss Was Joining the Air Corps
(September 18, 1918) and
On Stan Becoming a Father
(December 4, 1930). His autobiography,
So Away I Went!
, was published in 1951.
LEGACY. Stout is remembered for his engineering credo, "Simplicate and add more lightness." This would later become best known as the adopted maxim of Colin Chapman of Lotus Cars. It actually originated with Stout's designer Gordon Hooton.
William B. Stout Middle School in Dearborn, Michigan bears his name.
The overall condition of this single-sheet old magazine advertisement is good. There's some minor creasing, corner-bends, edgewear, etc., but there are no annotations, scribbles, or other human-made markings on it, nor any damage or flaws in the way of tape repairs, large tears, water or other liquid damage, etc. The ad has neither a musty nor smoky odor.
This hard-to-find vintage advertisement for the Stout Scarab is being sold AS IS, AS DESCRIBED ABOVE AND PICTURED WITHIN. I am setting what I feel is a reasonable starting price for the auction, and there is NO RESERVE. I am also including a Buy It Now price, which will of course disappear once a bid is made.
Shipping and
handling for the item, which will be sent in a rigid mailer: to U.S. addresses (via Media Mail) and to Canada and to Europe, Japan, Australia, South America, and elsewhere in the world (the latter two via First Class International Mail, aka Air Mail, which is now the CHEAPEST method possible abroad).
I recently discovered that some countries, such as Australia and South Korea, are actually a bit more expensive to post packages to than Europe, but at this point in time I'll keep all the non-domestic and non-Canadian prices the same and swallow the difference myself -- unless it turns out to be or more, which I doubt, and in which case I'll ask the buyer for additional money for shipping -- since so few outside the States buy my items, though of course I'm always so pleased when they do!
If you want the item sent more quickly to you (e.g., via Priority or Express Mail), you must request this asap after winning or purchasing it (or beforehand, if possible), and I will adjust the amount accordingly.
I will do my best to send the old advertisement out to you no more than 2-3 business days following receipt of payment (that is, when eBay informs me that your payment has been posted to or otherwise cleared in my account).
If you are the winner or buyer of this wonderful old Stout Scarab advertisement, which would look so wonderful matted and framed, PAYMENT IS EXPECTED WITHIN TWO WEEKS (14 DAYS) FROM THE PURCHASE DATE. If you cannot pay within this time frame, please contact me asap so we can work something out. I'm very flexible and understanding, but I would appreciate communication from you one way or another.
PLEASE NOTE THAT RETURNS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED NOR REFUNDS MADE FOR THIS ITEM, SO PLEASE READ MY DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY, LOOK CLOSELY AT THE PHOTOGRAPHS I’VE UPLOADED, AND ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE ABOUT THE SIZE, CONDITION, ETC., OF THE ADVERTISEMENT. THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING!
Thanks for looking, and please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions about this wonderful old ad for the streamlined Art Deco harbinger of the minivan, the Stout Scarab.
PLEASE NOTE THAT I WILL COMBINE SHIPPING FOR MULTIPLE ITEMS BOUGHT OR WON BY YOU -- JUST MAKE SURE YOU TELL ME, SO I CAN REVISE THE INVOICE WHEN YOU'RE DONE BIDDING / BUYING!
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