What do the Studebaker Avanti and Air Force One have in common? They owe their appearance to the same person. In 1962, French-born designer Raymond Loewy collaborated with President John F. Kennedy to create the design that has become the signature livery for Air Force One. (The term "Air Force One" can refer to any plane carrying the president, but it's employed here to describe vehicles officially equipped for presidential transport.)
Loewy's résumé suggests he was both a jack of all trades and
a master of many. After starting his career as a fashion illustrator, he pivoted to industrial design and has been credited with a range of successful designs for products including, but not limited to, refrigerators, Lucky Strike cigarette packaging, Coca-Cola bottles and vending machines, and of course, cars and planes.
Loewy was designing cars as early as the 1930s, decades before he hatched the idea of overhauling the presidential plane's appearance. His studio first assisted with designs for the Hupmobile, and after World War II Loewy provided designs to Studebaker for several of its cars with the help of Virgil Exner, his chief automotive designer. Loewy and his team are directly responsible for the unmistakable look of cars like the Studebaker Avanti and Starliner, among others. The uniqueness and striking nature of these designs foreshadowed Loewy's future success in co-redesigning another iconic transportation device: the president's Boeing 707.
Read more: These Movies And TV Shows Have The Best Car Casting
A Livery For A Leader
From his home in Palm Springs, California, Raymond Loewy could see planes landing at the nearby airport. In 1962, during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, Loewy witnessed the landing of the presidential plane. "I was unimpressed by the gaudy red exterior markings and ... the amateurish graphics of Air Force One," he is quoted as saying in Andrew Cohen's 2016 book, "Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours that Made History."
Loewy communicated his utter distaste for the design to his well-connected friend and aide to President Kennedy, Air Force Gen. Godfrey McHugh . McHugh then informed Loewy that a new Air Force One was about to be constructed. Impeccable timing.
Loewy offered to provide designs for a new Air Force One for free and the president, known for his intentionality in curating his image, accepted. Loewy generated sketches with the goal of making the aircraft more distinguished, modern, and sophisticated — in other words, fit for a leader — and the president provided significant design input as well. Kennedy asked that the color scheme be blue (for his favorite color, and for the Democratic Party) and the font be Caslon (to emulate the Declaration of Independence's title). Loewy artfully wove these requests into the first version of the Air Force One livery we know today, which went into service that year.
The Loewy Legacy
Loewy's design for Air Force One was widely praised upon its release in the 1960s and has remained relatively unchanged in the years since, though it should be noted President Donald Trump has proposed more substantial deviations to the original design, both during his first term and in 2025. The livery's lifespan thus far demonstrates Loewy's penchant for creating memorable images; despite the Studebaker Avanti and Air Force One having few explicit similarities, his design involvement in each seems to have cemented both as transportation legends, at least from an aesthetics standpoint.
Though Studebaker ultimately collapsed, the cars it's known for live on as iconic visuals and one could argue this is largely due to Loewy's instantly recognizable shapes and angles. The Avanti is striking, quirky, and downright weird, but it's also unforgettable. Its long nose and stubby trunk were design influences for later cars that used similar shapes, like the Mustang. Loewy even believed the Avanti's design inspired a homemade streetcar found in Moscow, though this is up for debate.
Loewy's ability to captivate through design transcends industries, products, and even time. The breadth of his expertise has given us reasonable grounds to relate the president's personal jet to a weird little car, and that in itself is enough to certify him as a legendary automotive designer.
Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox...
Read the original article on Jalopnik.
