11 weird and wonderful Z-back cars

Like me, the characterful Citroen had seen better days but still functioned and managed to raise a smile with its many idiosyncratic foibles; its Z-profile reverse rake rear window being just one of them. Travelling in the rear of the Ami 6 occasionally, the advantages of a reverse slant rear windscreen soon became apparent. The slope-away glass allows for more headroom for rear occupants, with the glass also immune to gathering rain and road debris, thus enabling a clearer drivers’ view behind in the rear view mirror.

Surprisingly, this distinctive ‘Flash Gordon’ Z-back styling feature made its debut on a European car. That most respected and influential of vehicle styling houses – Pininfarina of Turin – was first to build adrivable car with a reverse rake back screen. Detroit inevitably picked up on this design feature, with Ford and its various divisions hogging the debatable Z-back profile. Here are eleven of the best Z-back cars.

1955 Pininfarina Fiat 600 Coupe

Much to everybody’s surprise, as part of its mouth-watering 1955 Geneva Salon display, Pininfarina presented a new and unique coupe coachwork for the popular rear-engined Fiat 600. This coupe featured an unusual roof profile with a Z-profile and slanted reverse rake rear windscreen that pre-empted the most familiar of the European cars to be produced with a similar profile; the Ford Anglia and Citroen Ami 6. Pininfarina had hoped to sell a few examples of its radical and influential Fiat coupe, but the car remained a one-off, possibly due to its design proving just too advanced for the general public to come to terms with at the time.

1955 Vignale Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Limousine

The unmissable star of the large Vignale stand at the 1955 Turin Motor Show was the coachbuilder’s one-off Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Limousine, commissioned by American industrialist tycoon Joseph J. Maschuch. Styled by Carrozzeria Vignale’s favoured designer Giovanni Michelotti, this special Silver Wraith was thought at the time to ‘interpret British traditionalism with exquisite Italian grace.’

Today this is somewhat debatable as the styling of this imposing Z-backed Vignale creation has to be one of the least resolved Rolls-Royces of all time, even if it was the first to combine four-doors with a reverse rake back windscreen! Among the unique features of the long wheelbase Royce were all-round electric windows, air conditioning, a cocktail cabinet, TV and telephone, plus a gold-plated toilet that doubled as an ice bucket for the champagne.

1956 Packard Predictor

With America’s most prestigious car maker on its knees by the mid-1950s, the equally troubled Studebaker stepped in to merge with failing Packard. By 1956 Packard was desperate to illustrate an optimistic future to the world. With no new models on offer, this it did with the wild Predictor show car. First displayed at the 1956 Chicago Auto Show, with no resemblance to any other Packard model, previously or future, the low-slung (54 inches high) Predictor had an extreme space age wrap around windscreen that curved into the roof, with roll back doors and an opening fold down rear window, mounted in a Z-shaped reverse C-pillar, a first for a North American car.

Although the Predictor never made it beyond the concept prototype phase (just like Packard’s earlier Z-back Balboa X concept coupe), Packard presented the show car as ‘a forerunner of a styling direction which will be followed by future automobiles.” As it happened, Packard’s prediction proved to be correct. Desperate for funding, it sold its exclusive Z-back reverse rear screen idea to the Ford Motor Corporation for its future use, and nothing was ever seen of the Predictor again.

1958 Lincoln Continental Mark III/Mark V:

Once Ford had bought the rights to a reverse raked rear screen from the ailing Studebaker-Packard Corporation, it wasted no time in putting this novel new styling detail to use on it comically ridiculous 1957 Ford La Galaxie sedan show car. The Le Galaxie to simply too prosperous to ever be made, so Ford gave this innovative idea to its luxury Lincoln division for the first mainstream American production car to feature a reverse rake rear window. The Packard design rights to the reverse slant window had also appeared on the concept Lincoln Diplomat.

The 1958 Model Year Continental Mark III was released in late 1957 though as Lincoln’s range-topping model in two and four-door pillarless hardtop Z-back configurations. Possibly one of the most challenging of all post-war American car designs (which is saying something), the striking Continental Mark III was no beauty contest winner, with the emphasis more on luxury than style. Ford’s top drawer Lincoln division persevered with the same bold Z-back 1958 style for threes seasons, right into the 1960 Model Year Continental Mark V. Never a strong seller by Lincoln standards, the hideous Z-back Mark III and V models were replaced by the uncommonly elegant reworked Continental of President Kennedy assignation fame for the 1961 Model Year, with his classically restrained model built – largely unchanged – right up until 1969, which was unusually long by Detroit standards of the day.

1959 Ford Anglia 105E

Ford of Britain’s modern successor to the quaint but outmoded Popular/Anglia 100E models, the Z-back Anglia 105E was launched at the same 1959 Earls Court Motor Show as the Triumph Herald and BMC’s technically advanced Mini. Against such stiff new competition in the small family car segment, the Anglia needed a rememberable party piece to make it stand out from these better new rivals. Its pricing was keen and its trusted old fashioned layout, with a lively, over-square OHV engine, contributed to the Anglia’s popularity, but its real stand out future was its reverse slop rear window. Eventually replaced by the pan-European Escort in 1968, the Anglia proved its metal as a successful racer that was never held back by its unconventional love it/loathe it trans-Atlantic styling.

1961 Citroen Ami 6 Berline

In the best Citroen traditions, the Ami 6 was quirky and tres francais to say the least, but its proven 2CV front-wheel-drive chassis, more powerful 602cc air-cooled engine, supreme ride comfort and handling prowess made this characterful model an instant success in its native France, where amazingly it was the County’s best selling new car by 1966. Styled by Flaminio Bertoni – Citroen’s designer of the iconic Traction Avant, 2CV and DS – the startling Ami 6 was his favourite design, with the concave rear window being a preferred feature that he incorporated into various other still-born Citroen prototypes during the his time to give the interior a more airy feeling with an extended roof line adding length and proportion to the car.

Citroen’s favoured coachbuilder Chapron also experimented with a reverse rake rear window for its Presidential DS Limousine design proposal. By the time the Ami received its facelift in 1969 Bertoni had sadly died, so the subsequent Ami 8 did away with the controversial Z-back in place of a more conventional fastback. For its C4 Coupe of 2005, Citroen gave a slight nod to its Ami 6 heritage though with a very subtle reverse slant to the hatchbacks rear end.

1961 Ford Consul Classic 315

Arguably the ugliest mass-produced British car ever made (by some margin), the ungainly Ford Consul Classic 315 drew on the success of its smaller Z-back Anglia sibling, but its awful Detroit-influenced design didn’t translate as well into a larger family saloon format. Available with a choice or two of four door (plus the more successful and elegant Consul Capri fastback coupe), the vulgar Z-back Consul Classic already appeared too dated and fussy for conservative British tastes when it was unveiled at the 1961 Earls Court Motor Show.

Unsurprisingly its controversial appearance failed to attract many buyers (just over 110,000 were built, exceptionally poor by Ford standards) and the model was put to death less than two years after its launch, to be replaced by the game-changing Cortina and Corsair. Ford of Britain’s answer to its parent’s disastrous Edsel, the Classic was anything but, as an appalling parody of obsolescent American styling.

1962 Mazda Carol P360

Having introduced its very first Mazda passenger car model in February 1960 – the pert rear-engined 2+2 R360 Coupe kei car, – Toyo Kogyo (as Mazda was commonly known back then) presented its second model in prototype form as the rear-engined 700 small four-door sedan at the 1961 Tokyo Motor Show. A three-box saloon, the 700 prototype featured an in-vogue Z-back reverse rear window to preview the look and feel of the later definitive Carol P360 production kei car in February 1962.

The Z-back Carol continued to be built in two and four-door form until 1972, when the Mazda model was replaced by the more modern front engined/front-drive Chantez. Mazda revived the Carol name for its kei cars in 1979, with the badge still in use today for its tiny hatchback entry models, all with regular rear windows. Inspired by the tiny Mazda, in the mid-60s kei car rival Suzuki also presented a Z-back Fronte 360 concept at the Tokyo Motor Show to gauge the public’s reaction to the car, which was not favourable. The car was never seen again.

1963-64 Mercury Monterey Hardtop

When Ford acquired the rights from Packard to the reverse rake rear window, it equipped its gaudy 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser models with a vague hint of the concave backlight, with disappointing buyer uptake. Fast forward to the early 1960s and Ford’s posher Mercury Division was in urgent need to a full size family sedan model to differentiate its once strong-selling Mercury Monterey from the more affordable (thus less profitable) sister Ford Galaxie 500 range. To achieve this, Mercury offered its top line Monterey sedan with a ‘Breezeway’ pillarless hardtop body option.

The Breezeway had its own Z-back profile and roof line, with three panes of glass and an electrical motor to raise and lower the centre pane for the drivers’ seat to aid ventilation. When the Monterey Breezeway was introduced in 1963, only around 35 per cent of all American cars were equipped with air conditioning, so the Breezeway’s. Opening rear ventilation system was a welcome feature, especially in the warmer States. The concave rear window would also keep dry in wet conditions and keep the sun out on brighter days. Breezeway proved to be such a popular choice that 76 per cent of all large Mercury models were sold as a hardtop with the feature. Not offered on the equivalent Ford Galaxie base car, the oddball but useful Breezeway remained available for much longer than planned, up until the 1968 Model Year.

1963 Reliant Regal 3/25-3/30

In line with its chief three-wheeler rival – the Bond 250 G – the glass fibre saloon body of the tripod Reliant Regal 3/25 reflected the-then fashionable concave rear window. Powered by Reliant’s own in-house descant 600cc engine, the Regal was later updated in 1967 with a more potent 701cc unit in the updated 3/30 model. Its Z-back bodywork was retained, however. Reliant’s preferred design house Ogle of Letchworth – styled a four-wheeled version of the Regal for the Sabre Carmel, a Ford-engined concave black window saloon built under licence to Reliant in Israel.

1999 Toyota Will V

Ordinarily the least daring and adventurous of the Japanese car makers, in late 1999 Toyota shocked the world. It bucked the trend by launching a retro-styled saloon model as part of its new ‘Will’ lifestyle brand initiative, selling special low-volume Will passenger car models along side other Will branded products from like-minded young consumer brands, such as Kiki, Panasonic, Asahi Breweries, Kokuyo Co. (office furniture), and so on, via its more niche-orientating Vista stores. Based on existing Yaris mechanicals, the automatic-only Will V was the first of three distinct Will models made until Toyota ended its Will initiative in 2004. What made the Will V particularly distinctive was its unique four-door saloon styling, as the model revived the Z-back slanted rear window, the first car to do so since production of the Reliant Regal ended way back in 1973.

Niche 1960s sports car makers Swiss Enzmann and South African GSM offered optional reverse rake hardtops for their respective 506 and Delta open top models, as did ‘60s US dune buggy builders Bushwacker and Spatz. This briefly fashionable styling quirk was also seriously considered for the prototype pre-production Tatra 603 X-3, Fairchild Safety Car and Triumph Zobu, the latter finally rejected in favour of the more sober Michelotti-penned Triumph 2000 saloon. For its Japanese domestic market, Isuzu managed to incorporate the Z rear roof on its Bellet pick-up, and within the microcar sector, Bond standardised a Z-back roof for its 250 G three-wheeler, as did the French electric CEDRE Midinette 1000, plus the tiny 1994 Fiat Zic concept car. Whether we will ever see a return of the reverse rake rear window, only time will tell, but in the meantime don’t hold your breath, as somehow I have my doubts…