Was the Raymond Loewy K4 Torpedo a original design?

Could be? The original Todd Protectograph was rather plain. 

Protectograph name was used by other firms using differing designs.

The G.W. Todd company wasn't listed as one of his clients on a reference that I have.

However, he took many contracts early in his career and designed them. The lucky Strike logo was done on some scrap paper or a napkin. He would list those client's on a invoice a sit may have been a one time job.

So, it is possible.

These were the prime movers behind streamline design:

(Raymond Loewy, Walter Dorwin Teague, Gilbert Rohde, Norman Bel Geddes)

So, I would definitely say that Loewy's designs were original.

Loewy's first job at the Penn was.....A waste basket (no kidding) and then he got the K4s you're all familiar with.   Makes you wonder if there was anything in between we don't know about !

Yes, the Pennsy figured they would get rid of him and they liked the waste can when they seen it lol.

It is probably more coincidence than anything else.  From The Streamlined Decade we have the following:

 "Raymond Loewy designed the first Pennsylvania Railroad engine of the torpedo type in 1936. A single K-4 Pacific engine was remodeled after more than a hundred wind-tunnel tests at New York University on clay models indicated a 33.3 percent reduction in wind resistance was possible."

Possibly, but the resemblance for 20 years earlier down to a spot where the headlight goes is strange. It could be possible the date 1918 on the advertisement could have been a misprint for 1938? I remember the late Chester Holley had one in his train store and I think he was still using it in the 1980s.

This site has a copy of a page from the magazine Business: A Magazine for Office, Store and Factory, Volume 31 with the date of July 1913 and you can see your machine illustrated in the upper right hand corner of the ad.  In 1913 Lowey was still living in France and had yet to serve in WWI and emigrate to the U.S. (1919). Under these circumstances it doesn’t seem likely that he would have had anything to do with the G.W. Todd machine.

https://books.google.com/books...ctograph&f=false

I'd say it's possible. these guys get their ideas from somewhere.

We can't rule anything out at this point, but I suspect it's just coincidental.

Oh that's just crazy what a similarity there is! 

Well smd4, I guess you and I have volunteered to take the opposite sides of this discussion. 

  Obviously, if one wants to hold out hope for the “G.W. Todd effect” on a Loewy design one is welcome to do so but at this point I don't see anything in the published record which would support that view. Here’s what I have to offer:

1. The G.W. Todd machine was in existence in 1913 – Loewy was still in France and, at that point had just a single notable design to his credit (a model airplane – Ayrel - 1909). He didn't make his way to the U.S. until 1919 and wouldn't achieve his first success in industrial design until 1929.
2. It’s true, ideas do have to come from somewhere and, in the case of the “torpedo in the cradle” look, the source was Otto Kuhler’s 1928 published concept drawings of streamlined locomotives (see page 158 – My Iron Journey). Those drawings were wildly popular with the public (not so with the railroad owners who preferred the “zephyr shroud” look – Hiawatha, Commodore Vanderbilt, Crusader, etc,) and they were known to Loewy. It wasn’t until the mid-1930’s that Loewy, Kuhler and others were able to sell the idea of the torpedo look to the railroad executives
3. The Pennsy engine styling was the end result of wind tunnel research at New York University which was done on a series of 28 clay models.  The final design was one of the 28 variations tested.  There is a picture of one of the clay models on page 170 of Staufer’s book Pennsy Power and the lineage is obvious.
4. The fact that the Todd machine has a dot in the center of the hemisphere is interesting (by the way, what is it – the end of some kind of rod or other part of the internal mechanism?) but I think the Kuhler drawings would be the source of inspiration for that choice since Kuhler drew the headlights for all of his torpedo designs in that position. 

  In the interest of keeping this civil please understand this post is offered in the spirit of discussion and not confrontation .

Again, I think it's all coincidental.

The headlight location (center) on an aerodynamic hemisphere is the natural location. One wouldn't place the headlight at the top or bottom of the boiler.

The hemispherical front on a boiler is also a natural shape, if one is looking for aerodynamics.

The rod end on the check writer is simply form following function.

Of course, until that memo in Loewy's handwriting is discovered in the back of an old painting from a garage sale that says, "Hmmm...that Todd Check Writer sort of looks like a locomotive...I wonder if I could borrow the design for my latest project for the Pennsylvania Railroad?"  we will have absolutely zero evidence either way that the K4 design was even inspired by the Todd machine.

And Raymond Loewy's first job was at Macy's as a window dresser.... then progressed doing fashion illustrations for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar Magazines....

I dunno, these looks more like the Protectograph  than the streamlined K4...

Rusty