The jet-age styling of the 1950s produced some of the most memorable automotive designs ever, but we have a hard time recalling ever seeing a hood ornament such as this, which reader William J. Dubiel recently sent us photos of, hoping to find out a little more about it. He claims that Ford, Cord, and Tucker designer Alex Tremulis designed the ornament, which seems plausible: Tremulis sketched what is considered the first-ever flying saucer conceptual drawing, and he’d presumably take on some filler work such as this to pay the bills between big clients. All we know is that we’d like to see some ’50s car roll up to one of our cruise-ins sporting one of these.
UPDATE (31.July 2009): William found a design patent (164,461) on the hood ornament that proves that Tremulis did indeed design it. The patent was issued September 4, 1951 and assigned to Peter S. Pagratis & Associates in Chicago, a partner of Tremulis’s.
UPDATE (24.September): More on the tale here.