VIVE L'AERO! Petersen Museum celebrates the age of the teardrop.(Revs)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

Consider the shape that a drop of water or, if you want to be a romantic, a tear makes as it falls. Now apply that shape to four fenders, a hood, cowl and tail of a car. That image is featured at French Curves: The Automobile as Sculpture at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles through Jan. 23, 2005.

There are about 40 cars in all that will rotate through the big room on the museum's second floor over the next six months. The beauty and elegance of these cars come out of the maelstrom of Europe in the 1930s.

The world was pretty much falling apart then-markets were crashing, famine gripped Russia and evil was growing stronger in Europe and Asia. Yet this time also produced some of the most beautiful automobiles the world has ever seen, cars with names like Letourneur et Marchand, Pourtout and Franay, as well as more well-known names like Delahaye, Delage and Talbot-Lago.

Flight was all the rage in the 1930s, and the aerodynamics of flight soon spilled over into the shapes of automobiles. Devoid of computer controls, variable runners and VTEC, engines could be coaxed to make only so much horsepower. So to get the speed the wealthy few so ...