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I'm going to 'paint outside the lines' a bit here with a moto. I love bikes and have had multiple 'air heads' but this one by Takashi Nihira is exquisite Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login https://www.bikeexif.com/custom-1990-bmw-r100rs?omhide=true
I never realized Porsche designed other products. Image Unavailable, Please Login https://www.androidcentral.com/phones/porsche-design-honor-magic-v2-rsr-review?utm_term=23B2908A-6314-4E46-AA39-82E51DB98209&lrh=8e43f6a5abf43ff70e0771781e4993de6c08fd1510eadb1414b4ce6b84c34e12&utm_campaign=6759021A-D895-43A9-94B3-C28A5FCE0BD6&utm_medium=email&utm_content=E2A7BCEC-FFB0-452C-A312-E2F8843DD98B&utm_source=SmartBrief
Can't say if it is still true but back when Porsche Design and Porsche cars were different entities. Going off of long ago memories Porsche Design was run by a Porsche family member. Butzie is a name coming to mind but that could easily be wrong.
Hagerty has a fresh article out about the Opel GT. IMHO, it was a victim of bad timing. 1969 was near the peak of Muscle Car Mania. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/cars-that-time-forgot-opel-gt/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MED_UN_NA_EML_UN_UN_DailyDriver_Friday&hashed_email=8e43f6a5abf43ff70e0771781e4993de6c08fd1510eadb1414b4ce6b84c34e12&dtm_em=8e43f6a5abf43ff70e0771781e4993de6c08fd1510eadb1414b4ce6b84c34e12
Yes since the 1970's. I believe they started with sunglasses. One of my Art Center classmates worked for them after graduating from school.
Porsche Design was founded by Butzi Porsche in 1972. In 1972 there was a decision to not have Porsche and Piech family members in key positions at Porsche. Ferdinand Piech went to Audi and headed development and Butzi created PD. Anatole “Tony” Lapine took over as head of Design at Porsche with a few ex-Opel designers (Wolfgang Mobius, Dick Soderberg and Peter Reisinger). Porsche Design became part of Porsche when Butzi Porsche passed away.
Today's WSJ on Tesla design VP Franz von Holzhausen Tesla TSLA -0.25%decrease; red down pointing triangle Chief Executive Elon Musk told his top designer he wanted to make an electric pickup that would have good driving dynamics and a covered bed—and “feel like the future.” It was up to Franz von Holzhausen to decipher what his boss meant. “My job is to take the few words and turn them into many,” said von Holzhausen, a 15-year veteran at Tesla, in a recent interview. The 55-year-old von Holzhausen, whom Musk poached from Mazda in 2008, is among the longest-serving executives at Tesla, where he has led design for nearly all the company’s models. He’s reported to Musk longer than just about anyone else at the carmaker. Over the years, he has built a reputation for combining minimalist, tech-forward interiors with modern-looking exteriors with a touch of pizazz, such as retractable door handles or panoramic glass roofs. He helped demonstrate electric cars could be cool and aspirational, not just better for the environment. Now, von Holzhausen is facing his next big test: Tesla is getting ready to release a more affordable EV that is intended to enhance the company’s mass-market appeal and target buyers on a tighter budget. Today, Teslas start around $39,000 in the U.S. The company’s next generation of vehicles will debut in a very different marketplace than the one Tesla first entered more than a decade ago. Rival automakers are catching up and flooding showrooms with battery-powered models of their own, putting more pressure on Tesla to stand out. Consumers have been displaying less enthusiasm for EVs than many carmakers expected, and Tesla has cautioned of “notably” slower growth this year. As Tesla design chief, von Holzhausen converts Musk’s at times vague ideas into physical lines, surfaces and vehicle silhouettes. The Cybertruck, a pickup with hard angles and flat, stainless-steel panels, has been a polarizing design. It is a departure for von Holzhausen, whose earlier creations were defined by curves and fluid lines. “Most designers, they find it hard to believe that Franz actually designed that car, because it’s not really his aesthetic makeup,” said longtime automotive designer J Mays, who worked with von Holzhausen in the 1990s. The back-and-forth on the Cybertruck was particularly arduous, dragging on well into 2019, people who worked on the truck said. Image Unavailable, Please Login Musk told von Holzhausen that his design for the Tesla Cybertruck, above, needed to ’feel like the future.’ PHOTO: ROGER KISBY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL In reviews, Musk’s comments weren’t necessarily “tangible” and von Holzhausen had to make certain interpretive leaps, said Dave Morris, von Holzhausen’s longtime deputy at Tesla. “Elon was hot and cold. One day he would be really into an idea and pushing a direction, and then we would tease it out and he’d come in, he was like, ‘Ugh, it’s not what I was thinking,’ ” von Holzhausen recalled. Come midsummer, von Holzhausen took a flier and made one last-ditch effort. He drew a truck with a triangular profile that was unlike what his team had been showing Musk. The idea clicked. Those who’ve worked with von Holzhausen described him as decisive, hard to fluster and open to new ideas, qualities that have helped him form a close bond with Musk and thrive at a company known for high executive churn. Around lunchtime, he can often be found leading workouts in a parking lot behind Tesla’s Los Angeles-area design studio—sessions that started with a CrossFit trainer years ago and have evolved into what some have taken to calling FranzFit. “I don’t like to lose. Maybe it’s a good outlet for that,” von Holzhausen said of the workouts. Musk lured von Holzhausen away from Mazda on the promise of fulfilling Tesla’s mission to accelerate the auto industry’s transition away from oil and gas. He has reported to Musk from day 1. He now runs a team of roughly 300 employees, including designers and sculptors responsible for transforming two-dimensional images into models made of clay. Most of them work out of the Los Angeles-area design studio, an open-floor office located in a converted airplane hangar next to the headquarters of Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. For years, Musk visited von Holzhausen nearly every Friday to review the team’s latest ideas. Today, those visits are less frequent, with Musk juggling more companies and Tesla’s headquarters relocated to Texas. Musk remains “very involved” in the design process, von Holzhausen said. Sometimes, the CEO sends von Holzhausen ideas he saw on X, the social-media platform Musk bought in 2022. Other times, von Holzhausen, who prefers to talk through design ideas in person, catches Musk where he can. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Von Holzhausen and his now-wife, Vicki, collaborated on the Pontiac Solstice, top. He worked on the exterior, she the interior. The Tesla Model S, above, was an early design from von Holzhausen, who is among the longest-serving executives at Tesla.ZUMA PRESS; ASSOCIATED PRESS Von Holzhausen, who grew up outside of Hartford, Conn., was drawing at an early age and sketched his first car at the age of two, said his father, Frank von Holzhausen, an industrial designer. The younger von Holzhausen joined Volkswagen ’s design group after graduating in 1992 from ArtCenter College of Design, outside of Los Angeles. As a junior designer at VW, he was tapped to help out on the concept for what would eventually become a revamped, bubblier version of the company’s iconic Beetle car. Advertisement - Scroll to Continue He later joined General Motors , where he met his wife, Vicki, a fellow car designer. The pair worked together on the curvaceous Pontiac Solstice, with von Holzhausen focused on the exterior and Vicki on the interior. The two-seater won Automobile Magazine’s design of the year award for 2006. The couple, who live in the Los Angeles area, have two boys. At Mazda, whose California studio von Holzhausen led after leaving GM, the designer’s team earned a reputation for tackling challenging assignments, said Laurens van den Acker, Mazda’s design boss at the time. There, von Holzhausen worked on a line of concept cars inspired by movement in nature and intended to showcase Mazda’s design trajectory. “They were the ones who wanted to jump on new projects, and if it was difficult, they loved it,” said van den Acker of von Holzhausen’s team at Mazda. Outside of Tesla, von Holzhausen is perhaps best known for accidentally smashing the window of a Cybertruck prototype with a metal ball at the pickup truck’s 2019 unveiling, a stunt with Musk intended to show the vehicle’s toughness. Around the office, he works through design problems with a pen and paper in hand, jotting down ideas on scraps of paper that he leaves lying around in conference rooms or on people’s desks for inspiration. Image Unavailable, Please Login At the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, von Holzhausen admired this 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom I. ‘It just feels like it’s been pulled and stretched by the wind.’ Like many at Tesla, he often wears a black T-shirt as his work uniform. Von Holzhausen also has been known to bring Musk around to his way of seeing things. For example, he was among those who persuaded Musk to revive plans for a lower-priced electric car that would extend Tesla’s reach into the mass market, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk. The Tesla CEO had been focused on making a fully autonomous, dedicated robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals. On a recent walk through the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, the designer stopped next to a car he said has inspired him as he thought about Tesla’s future vehicles. The coupe—a 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom I—had been customized with large, swooping fenders and signature round doors that opened to reveal a red interior. Von Holzhausen said, marveling at the vehicle’s ability to convey a sense of motion, “it just feels like it’s been pulled and stretched by the wind.” He compared Tesla’s forthcoming affordable car to VW’s Beetle or Ford’s Model T—“a product for the masses,” he said, albeit one that “feels like it’s a continuation of the idea of the future.” YOU MAY ALSO LIKE Tesla CEO Elon Musk delivered the company’s first Cybertruck pickups to customers at an event in Texas on Nov. 30. Photo: Tesla Write to Rebecca Elliott at [email protected] Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 Appeared in the February 17, 2024, print edition as 'He Turns Elon Musk’s Musings Into Reality'.
GM Motorama makes its way to the Petersen Automotive Museum Six original GM Motorama cars to be displayed at Petersen Automotive Museum courtesy of the Joe Bortz Collection. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/news/gm-motorama-makes-its-way-to-the-petersen-automotive-museum
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