car design thread

glad to see, Pininfarina still in there with Paolo ....their Sergio concept shows they still have it!

 

John,

Peter seems to want that there be more design oriented shows. I believe that one of the criteria needs to be aesthetic design as Design cannot dictate or control the build quality or if it is even a "good car". Here are some themes:

1. The underappreciated good designs. I propose the Chevy Beretta is one.

2. The cars that introduced technical solution that would go on to be adopted by everyone. I propose curved side glass with the 1957 Chrysler, bonded windshield by the Lancia Beta Montecarlo.

As a story of design process, how about: Designing when you/the whole studio knows that the car is a turd. The studio proposed far, far better at every step of the way but "management" made the wrong choice every time they were given the opportunity.

That can then tie into the death spiral of GM Design as the ability to control access into the studios and Design to dictate design to the corporation. "The ghost of Harley Earl".

Jeff

 

My thought on the bad designs isn't about getting to put them as a marker against the designer but as a rebuttal to "the great unwashed" that complain of no talent automotive designers in Detroit. These are the people that fail to grasp what is happening in the process where wonderful designs were repeatedly proposed by those "no talent designers" but everyone else is making the design decisions. At a point all the studio designers resign themselves that they will do the best they can but it is going to be a turd because of the direct decisions that non-design management made at each step of the way. The follow on to that is what the feeing of the designers is when that is going on.

Everyone looks at the GM show cars of the 1950s and 60s. Yes, there was some really spectacular work under Earl and Mitchell but how about what Exner did? A lot less recognized; might have to do with the palace revolt that put Engle in place (aka mini-Walker).

Jeff

 

Were they designed by Ghia or built by them to Exner designs? At assorted times GM used Pininfarina to build GM designs.

Did you ever ask Kip which came first - the DLO shape on the Wankel Monza or the GTC/4?

Jeff

 

Exner - the more I now the more interesting he is and that his accomplishments were so worthy. Seemingly did not succumb to trying to copy GM but to instead have his own path for Chrysler. Ford on the other hand was known, in the day, to regularly bring GM cars into the studio so they could create their Fordized copy.

Monza/C4 - Mark told the story differently way back in an early semester. The rotary Monza show car was constructed by Pf. Pf liked the DLO and used it.

 

But who did the rotary show car design? I am thinking Kip but it could have been Jerry instead. Did Car Styling or Style Auto do a feature on the design process for the rotary Monza? The dated clays would be good evidence.

Jeff

 

Tucker Talisman concept (1952), design by Alex Tremulis
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initially I figured the Ferrari of choice used as influence would be the 365 GTB/Daytona, just given the proportions, long hood/down-swept rear deck, but then it wasn't out until 1968, so instead the 275 GTB ....curious to read in article was the 330 GTC ....the resulting Toronado certainly isn't as compact as the 330? but I understand they didn't want to go through building an entirely new platform for the car

 

LOL the proportions in the rendering certainly are exaggerated a "tad"
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LOL no fair, it's just like my drawing! ...I couldn't resist!


made me think of the remarks given before, about your colleges making the coolest/sexiest illustrations, to gain the managements attention most

 

Amazing !!!

Man those would have been the days to be in the industry.

 

Now that digital outputs are so easy to come by do you foresee an end to clay models ?

 

Hippest thing ever when I was 15 but now difficult indeed to keep a straight face.

 

Sounds like the toy industry.

Ive found that when I use digital modeling I almost always have to output the figure twice. First when it appears to be perfect looking at it on a screen, then again, after we review the first output and see all the problems that we couldnt see on the screen.

its frustrating and until I have some kind of immerse holographic projector to review models on I dont see another solution.

Two years ago i switched my studio to all 3D modeling...now we are moving back to ~ 25% clay/75% 3D I would have never guessed that would have happened two years ago.

Love the pics.