car design thread | Page 109 | FerrariChat

car design thread

Discussion in 'Creative Arts' started by jm2, Oct 19, 2012.

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  1. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    Bill Schmidt was indeed a designer.
    He worked at Chrysler & I think Packard.
    His connection to the MkII Lincoln is a mystery to me, because I don't remember him being at Ford. My Ford Design History book is packed away for our upcoming move, but when I get a chance I'll try to locate it and see what the Ford Design History says.

    The Engle '60's suicide door Lincoln was for me the quintessential Lincoln along with the Mk II
     
  2. Jeff Kennedy

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    The Engle Continental started as a losing design for the rocket tail Thunderbird. The Continental is one of the all time greats.
     
  3. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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  4. jm2

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  5. Jeff Kennedy

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  6. 330 4HL

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    yes, and generally pretty sloppy.
    - the Lotus Elan is shown as the fastback which wasn't a Lotus version.
    - the TR-5 and not the TR-4 which came earlier and was demonstrably the same (& Italian to boot)
    - and I'm not exactly sure how the Gordon-Keeble, Morris Marina, Jensen-Healey, XJ220, Triumph Stag, or a host of others "changed the face of Auto Design"

    harrumph...
     
  7. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    :) like I said.........according to the author...
    Always fun to read these concocted lists
     
  8. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    It just occurred to me there must be 10,000 car designers in the world but I am not sure what media they check to see who's moved to which company, etc. There is Auto & Design, an Italian magazine, and Car Styling, from Japan in English, both hardly ever seen on newsstands in the U.S., but what more immediate source is there to see who's gone where, etc.? For instance it was only by accident I found out Bangle is now designing yachts, or that Bentley's styling chief went to Hyundai (maybe that was planned before he blasted Ford on Facebook for copying a Bentley design in a Lincoln Continental prototype). The popular magazines I think only Motor Trend has a column who management changes. Anyhow, love to hear about it (I critique designs on occasion but am not a designer)
     
  9. Jeff Kennedy

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    http://www.cardesignnews.com/
     
  10. bitzman

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    #2710 bitzman, Jul 10, 2015
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2015
    BOOK REVIEW
    Title: Car Design Europe:Myths, Brands, People
    Author Paolo Tumminelli
    Publisher: Te Neues
    ISBN: 978-3-8327-9459-0
    Format: 19,4 x 24 cm

    Paolo Tumminelli is a Germany Processor of Cultural Sciences in Cologne. He seems intent on looking at car design all over the world and is putting out a series of hardbound books on car design, each summing up the subject by region, such as Car Design Europe: Myths, Brands, People, Car Design Asia:Myths, Brands People and Car Design America, Myths Brands , People
    Now as a fan of car design and follower of certain famous designers, I was eager to see one of his books and was sent one for review.
    The printing is very good, the color very well done, but it uses an odd combination of very big pictures (full page) and then very small postage stamped-sized pictures. I’d rather have the small pictures be about ¼ page and the bigger pictures smaller. Still some of the two page spreads, like that of the prototype Mangusta, are to die for.
    Also the book doesn’t narrow in on sports cars, luxury cars, or family sedans but sweeps through hundreds of models, mentioning this one and that one in no particular order.
    One flaw to the book(s) is their decision to have three languages on each text page which means that, though it is over 392 pages, you only get one third of the text useful to you if you speak English, German or French.
    I’d rather have it be all one language or another in order to get 2/3rds more words.
    Secondly the English translation uses some mighty strange phrases, making me wonder if it was Google translated.
    I appreciate his zeal to find rare pictures, even from old films, and also the showing of economy cars lets us Americans see cars that were never brought to America but which contributed to car design in the rest of the world.
    Overall the contribution of these series of books is that, for the newcomers to car design, those with fresh degrees from Art Center, CCSI, etc. these give a good background and show what trends have swept through car industry, for instance at one point he says one automaker blacked out the chrome and pretty soon everybody was doing it. Then one automaker had an added on spoiler and that spread too. You get the impression that car designers are as frivolous as dress designers deciding to change once again the height of madame’s skirt hem for the next season.
    There’s plenty of mention of individual car designers like Chris Bangle and Giorgetto Giugiaro but I would have preferred even more, maybe “biographical boxes” with a head shot and five or six cars they are most famous for.
    In short the book is not everything I hoped it would be but it’s a start and they give a broad picture of car design for those just coming into the industry. I think if I was making my career as a young designer I would buy all three (I saw a group offer on the net for $134) and read them frequently so I could cite different designs (“Well, Fred, as you can see on the front spoiler design of the SD1 Vitesse in 1981…”)
    I found two of them on the net for $38-$45.
    Do any car designers, having read any of them, have an opinion? I am only a historian so I can’t pretend to comment on their usefulness from a designer’s POV.
     
  11. Jeff Kennedy

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    Wally,

    Should have mentioned that Car Styling is defunct. It was great though because it regularly showed the evolution process inside the studio.

    There have been some discussions here on how much history of design is actually relevant to a student. It is interesting for some but the necessity of knowing all the details of history to make forward progress is debated. You will also find some of us here very much anti-retro design. Admittedly retro does require understanding at least the source material for the warmed over redesign.

    Jeff
     
  12. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    What he said, but word of mouth is very effective as well.
    It's a small profession and everyone knows everyone else
     
  13. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    I personally like retro though in the recent returned Thunderbird the interior was boring, too much like the original, the porthole on the hardtop were too much homage. I can see where a designer forced to use a lot of design cues from the past will chafe because that wipes out his or her chance to create a new design that, if the public like sit, they will be famous for (at least within the industry).

    That being said, I am waiting to see the new Bentley SUV in person because the only way to make that big Explorer-shaped thing we've seen spy pictures of look Bentley-ish (Bentleyesque?) is to put on the same old grille and maybe headlights , front fenders and bumpers used on previous Bentleys. Reminds me of the approach on the Porsche Cayenne which still looks to me like the aftermath of a Porsche 911 flying off a freeway and landing atop a van that was driving below it! Still it probably grossed half a billion dollars for Porsche, leaving them plenty of money to make new sports cars as well.
     
  14. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    I'm out of town now so I don't have access to my library, but I have both books you refer to.
    Unfortunately I don't have much positive to say about them. His comments and theories were way off base in some instances. But for me both books were a waste of money.
    You're better off with the Holls, Lamm book for a historical look at car design.
     
  15. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    I believe most designers would eschew Retro for any number of reasons.
    For me it's just too limiting. Once you go full retro where do you go design wise?
    Where does the New Beetle go design wise now?
    How about the Mini?
    It's a design deadened as far as I'm concerned.
    The future is in the windshield not the rear view mirror.
     
  16. bitzman

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    I even ran across the original new MINI designer, who is now working for McLaren and he was pessimistic about what has happened to the new MINI, the way it keeps morphing into bigger and bigger mis-shapen designs, while desperately trying to retain the design cues (think if Diana Dors physical transition through the decades). Ditto the new Beetle, that locks you in so tight, there is no way out to another model.

    Still, there's certain marques you expect a certain design cue, the RR grille, the Bentley grille, the Aston grille, if it doesn't have that you don't have that marque.
     
  17. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    Besides the Mangusta with the leather nose trim, I only know of the Lincoln Continental Mk. III with four fake exhausts coming from a rectangular port on the front fenders--looked very phony baloney compared to the Mako Shark's side pipes. That was painted candy apple red. Did he have a whole raft of cars modified by Styling so when he parked in his special parking place, everybody would know "The boss is in."

    Is there a story on the net about his personality? I know I saw a picture of him at a concours wearing an ascot. I don't think I've ever met an American who wears an ascot, I was just wondering if he fancied himself a British gentleman of sorts (I read that Henry Ford II also thought he was a British gentleman toward the end, coached by the PR man he had over in the UK who gave him pointers on how to live like A Lord of the Manor) Virgil Exner Jr. in a conversation at Monterey, told me he was quite the martinet. (Boy, there's a word you don't see in print that often...)

    Why do I care? Because I am a historian and like to hear about the personalities that shaped car design--I only knew a handful of them while growing up in Detroit.
     
  18. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    But as a book reviewer, I'd like to think there's some utility to the Professor's books. The trouble is when you try to encapsulate a given subject like European Car Design or American car design between two covers, it is just too big a subject to be anything but hit and miss.
    If he narrowed it down to something like two seater sports cars, or convertibles, he could at least make some more valid comparisons.

    And I agree he makes some inane (and insane) conclusions. I think this is a case where the publisher believes, hey, the guy is a professor, he knows what he is talking about, but something must have been seriously lost in the translation from German to English so what The Professor says is more of a layman's point of view--I could ask, say, my barber, and get more intelligent comments.

    All that being set, since the set of three is only about $125, I think every car design studio should have a set on the shelves of the studio to be able to look back for inspiration at past designs. Still, it is sad to say that this "car design commentator," Prof. Paolo Tumminelli , this distinguished professor, is actually accomplishing nothing, wasting a lot of trees cut down to print his books.
     
  19. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    #2719 jm2, Jul 13, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    There is no doubt about things like grille openings and shapes. Don't consider it retro to retain a 'face'
    BMW, RR, Mercedes, Bentley, Aston, Cadillac are masters of retaining their 'faces'
    What's interesting is how BMW's grille shapes have morphed from twin verticals to twin horizontals over the years
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  20. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    I apologize that I can't get my hands on the Lamm/Holls book at the moment, but I believe he did an overview of G. Bordinat.
    I worked at Ford for several yrs right out of college, and Bordinat, D. Ash, B. Grizinger (sp?) were all larger than life characters. They were all right out of 'Mad Men' in their attitudes and lifestyles, with alcohol being a part of their everyday work life. At Ford however, they were obsessed with whatever GM was doing. They had GM cars parked in the studio right alongside the Fords that were being designed. That for me was a real eyeopener! :eek:
     
  21. jm2

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    I do own 2 of the books, but as I said I was very disappointed as to what he chose to focus on and what he omitted. But you're correct, every studio should have them among their libraries.
     
  22. Jeff Kennedy

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    I was told of a King Tut Mark IV that Bordinat had done up.

    Automotive Oral Histories
    Read the various interviews of Bordinat, George Walker and other of the Ford designers. A picture will emerge.

    When Bill Mitchell was in his last days at GM he did an interview with Automotive News. He said nice things about Dick MacCadam, complimented Dick Teague on what he was able to accomplish with limited resources but when it came to Bordinat he refused to say anything. That was his way, and it was very clear from the writing that he had zero respect for the man.

    There was an interview in Collector Car or one of those a couple years ago with Don Delarossa. It also paints a picture of Bordinat from one of his closest people.

    Have even seen stories where Henry II admitted that Bordinat was an accomplished butt kisser more than anything else.

    When Bunkie went to Ford there was a concerted effort to get Chuck Jordan to go to. That would have meant that Henry II was willing to jettison Bordinat if it had of gone through.
     
  23. Jeff Kennedy

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    There is the other book that was by a US professor that came out about the same time as the Holls/Lamm one. It told more about the non-GM stories. I found it quite worthwhile.
     
  24. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    Was the author Edson Armi?
    The art of American car design
    Book by C. Edson Armi
    Americans have come to take the car for granted. Buying, driving, and keeping up our cars are simple facts of modern life. ... Google Books
    Published: 1988
    Author: C. Edson Armi

    Very controversial guy if that's one and the same. I think I recall him getting thrown out of the VP's office at the time :eek:
     
  25. Jeff Kennedy

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    Yup. The story read that he wasn't throw out of Chuck's office but that Chuck walked out.

    He didn't get it all correct but he amazingly did get a whole lot right for a non-designer.

    Jeff
     

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