Product Code Database
Richard Henry Arbib (September 1, 1917 in Gloversville, New York – February 22, 1995 in Manhattan, New York City) was an American industrial designer.
He was a design consultant known for working on many products and services. His focus was on automobiles. Arbib created a unique look for the Hudson line that was to share the senior 1955 Nash Motors body as well as his vision of what an automobile would look like in the year 2000, the Astra-Gnome "Time and Space Car."
Richard Arbib was married to Audrey Schulz and they were divorced in 1952 in Volusia County, Florida. Audrey later married Associated Press photographer Baron Hans Ferdinand von Nolde (born Berlin, Germany, died November 9, 2002, at 77 years of age). Richard later married Helen W. He dated model Bettie Page in the 1950s.
Arbib was an armament specialist during World War II working for Republic Aviation. He returned to Detroit and worked for the Harley Earl Corporation on a variety of product and service designs that included tires, watches, cameras, and railroad car interiors. Arbib moved to New York and started his independent design consultancy.
Arbib also provided design consultancy for Packard. He crafted a pillarless Packard "Monte Carlo" show car, based on a Custom 8 chassis.
Arbib designed the Packard "Pan American" for the International Motor Sports Show held in New York City at the Grand Central Palace on March 29, 1952. It was based upon a 1951 Packard 250 convertible that was lowered and smoothed into a two-seat luxury roadster featuring a transparent roof. The Pan American won the first-place trophy for the most outstanding design at the show. It was an effort to restore the glamour of the Packard name and got the attention of executives at Packard, who ordered Henney to build five more Pan Americans to display at auto shows in the United States and abroad.
The sales decline at Packard affected Henney which had an exclusive contract with Packard since 1937. Packard discontinued chassis for the professional-car business and Henney closed the Freeport plant. One of the last assignments for Arbib was for an ambulance based on the 1955 Ford Thunderbird.
The design theme was to correspond with AMC starting to build its V8 engines to replace the Packard V8 it was using in its Hudson and Nash models. While Arbib was effective to "balance conflicting objectives and present an acceptable finish products," the production 1956 Hudson has been viewed as "badly-compromised styling."
Arbib also designed, and Andrew Mazzara built, the Astra-Gnome "Time and Space Car" concept car that included a "celestial time-zone clock permitting actual flight-type navigation." The design was influenced by space travel forms. "Arbib Company", p. 48. The vehicle was based on the Nash Metropolitan and was Arbib's vision of what an automobile would look like in the year 2000. The Astra-Gnome attracted attention at the 1956 International Automobile Show in New York, and was also featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine's September 3, 1956 issue.
He designed boats for the Century Boat Company in the 1950s, including their most successful and expensive models, the Coronado introduced in 1959.
|
|
