Was Peter Szymanowski German? I can't find a confirmation in the web articles I've found about him.
Yes! I had the same doubts but then found out that it's a 'German designer of Polish descent'...and more important it's the name I was looking for!
Those were two of 3 totally different designs for the BMW 501.
Per the commitment made elsewhere at AP, I arrived at this guess as follows:
- First I made a guess based upon the general look of the cars, one of which had some attributes of a 50's Nash. Of course, I was well off the mark.
- Second, I followed the puzzle as others proffered their guesses. In time, the following was asked, and was confirmed:
Design for a German car?
BMW?
German designer?
From there, a Google word search of
BMW and
Designers led to a marque fan site that contained mini-biographies of BMW designers through the years. Looking within the time period the drawings suggested, it was time to guess BMW designers that had not already been guessed:
Albrecht Goertz?,
Wilhelm Hofmeister?.
As I could not determine Peter Szymanowski's place of birth, I posted the question.
Interestingly, from what I read, Szymanowski felt challenged with how to keep up with the increasingly modern designs that were appearing in the 1950's, and decided to connect his design to that of pre-war BMW's, with the upright "kidney" grilles. I guess the illustrations show what might have happened if BMW had taken a modernist approach..
