Photos by the author.
[Editor’s Note: Reader Joe Essid recently had the chance to visit coachbuilder/customizer Marty Martino on the occasion of the debut of Martino’s latest creation, the PsyClone, a Corvette-based tribute to the Cadillac Cyclone Motorama car. He sat down with Martino for a conversation on the PsyClone’s build, on Harley Earl’s influence, and on the PsyClone’s purpose.]
Marty Martino, owner of Martino Productions, has long had an eye for the lines of the Concept Cars of the 1950s, in particular sleek rockets like the 1955 GM La Salle II Roaster or 1956 Pontiac Club de Mer. What makes Marty different from the rest of us is that instead of dreaming about these cars, he has recreated or restored them. His Club de Mer replica, built on a 1959 Pontiac drive train and chassis, crossed the block at Barret-Jackson in 2009, selling for more than $100K. And after the La Salle’s remains were found in a parts yard, Marty set about rebuilding it. It appeared at Amelia Island in 2012.
Marty took on a new project to create a tribute car based on the Cadillac XP-74 Cyclone. Marty’s PsyClone, built on a modern Corvette drive train and with a soft top instead of the original’s bubble, will not just sit in a private collector’s garage – it’ll also take on charitable work. After a showing of the car at his rural central VA shop, I asked Marty about his design interests and the PsyClone.
JE: We all bond, at some point, the look of a particular era. You’ve worked to recreate lost GM concepts before. What first attracted you to these vehicles? And how does that influence your design philosophy?
MM: Being born at the cusp of 1951/2, my earliest complete memories are from 1954. By that time cars were like candy, brightly colored chrome-laden chariots with fascinating angles and rakish curves, becoming more severe each year until the early ’60s, when automobile styling started backing down from rocket-inspired jet age to a more organic form.
As I remember it, most kids were fascinated with new cars! During the golden years of the ’50s the “dream cars” were the ultimate expression of the designers’ fantasies. Many had features that would never make production, however they displayed a wonderful optimism of the future seldom seen since!
It’s rare that the creative design cues of the 1950s don’t influence my own custom vehicle designs to this day.
JE: You really got the shape of the Cyclone down. How did you go about building the body panels?
MM: I was fortunate to see and photograph the original de-finned Cyclone at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.
Using the straight-on profile shots that I had taken, I drew a set of scale plans. I then used a same scale profile shot of the C5 corvette on a light box to figure out how to modify the shapes necessary to adapt to the Corvette. The finished sketch was then enlarged to full-size paper. This was used to assemble a wood structure that I covered with foam.
Next came shaping the foam, using profile gauges and seamstress tapes to keep symmetry. I carved the shapes, keeping in mind how it was all going to fit to the Corvette chassis. After the foam was carved it was sealed and molds were pulled from which the actual body panels were cast in fiberglass.
My methods are considered “old school” in the twenty-first century, as computers, CNC machining and 3D printing have become the norm for doing this type of custom sculpture.
JE: What were the biggest design challenges to make the PsyClone both an interesting re-imagining of the Cyclone and a street-legal car?
MM: There were several, but the biggest was the rear deck. To keep the Corvette’s functional convertible top in place I realized that there was no graceful way to slope the deck/trunk lid in one piece from the tonneau cover down to just above the tail lights. My solution was a double deck that I designed with the rest of the car’s design in mind. It now features a lens with the Corvettes third brake light in the middle. I think Mister Earl would approve?
There were also challenges with the lights as I didn’t want to change any of them from the Corvette as to not disturb the body electronics.
JE: Aspects of the Cyclone made it into production cars. What is your favorite bit of Cyclone that ended up on America’s highways?
I would have to say the skeg (lower) fins that were used almost verbatim on 1961/2 Cadillacs. Those Caddys are among my favorites!
JE: Designers like Harley Earl had great creative control over the concept cars. If he were working today for GM, what do you think he might turn out?
MM: I have to answer the question with the hypothetical situation that Harley Earl would have the same power to demand and get what he wanted from management as he did during his reign!
General Motors design VPs haven’t had that kind of power since Earl’s successor, Bill Mitchell, retired. I think Earl would bring modern concept cars to production without the compromises that always seem to be made for the bean counters, such as concepts like the Cadillac Sixteen or the modern Camaro would be pillarless in production as they are in concept. It’s not due to safety, as Mercedes still builds pillarless hardtops, something GM pioneered for production under Earl. Proportions of modern GM cars would present a more aggressive stance. I think he would add to the front wheelbases of even front-wheel-drive cars, and I can’t imagine him allowing all the flat black details and gaping holes seen on many modern vehicles.
Of course all of this is moot, as he wouldn’t have the same power as he did over half a century ago. My hat is off to Ed Welburn, his current successor who has a much tougher job today than Harley Earl did during his decades as the czar of GM design. I’ve read that the original Cyclone was the inspiration for Mr. Welburn’s desire to design cars!
JE: Marty, what fascinates me most about your PsyClone is that it isn’t just going to sit in a private collector’s garage. Tell us more about the car’s future.
MM: The PsyClone’s future humbles me! The owner, Charles Keller, is the principal of the Colten Cowell Foundation, whose mission is to entertain kids and their families fighting illness and other hardships.
At the foundation’s facility there is a BatCave complete with a 1966 Batmobile. There are also various collector cars that are part of the hypothetical Bruce Wayne collection. Should a child be Intrigued by the PsyClone he or she is likely to go for a ride in it with a parent at the wheel!
Building the PsyClone for such a wonderful purpose has added icing on the cake.
JE: So what’s your next project?
MM: At this time I’m working on some personal projects along with a few small custom fab jobs. I’m also making plans for the major rebuild of another of the original Motorama cars to start sometime in 2016.
Joe Essid is a Richmond, VA native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a PhD at Indiana University Bloomington. He teaches in the English Department of the University of Richmond, where he offers a class about cars and “The Road” in American life. His students take an off-Interstate road trip for the class after reading Kerouac. In addition to his academic writing in journals and anthologies, he is a frequent contributor to Style Weekly. Other columns have appeared in Eighty One and RVA. His science fiction has appeared in the young-adult publication Labyrinths, 365 Tomorrows, Every Day Fiction, and in the British anthology Catastrophia. He owns, maintains, and regularly uses two classic GM vehicles and a stable of vintage farm tractors.
