car design thread

https://www.cardesignnews.com/cars/chevrolet-unveils-the-long-awaited-mid-engine-corvette/38740.article?fbclid=IwAR3mmzGCClp-FYVY_gjX7HD8ubtyWOyXJZQWSaQe4mcSby_p14_LWPEa2sU

 

And now for something completely different.
The design of the 1958 Oldsmobile:
1958 Oldsmobile Story
July 23, 2019Leave a commentBernie Smith
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An excerpt from the upcoming book, Dean’s Garage. Photo: Gary Smith

1958 Oldsmobile story
by Bernie Smith

In 1956, I was a designer working on the 1958 Oldsmobile design. Earl had become convinced that the American public wanted larger and larger cars with increasingly more chrome, or chromium, as he called it. Most of the designers resisted this movement towards more bright work but they knew that Earl would ultimately have his way.

We were struggling to get a design theme for the ‘58 Olds and Earl was really giving the Olds design chief, Art Ross, a hard time. I knew that Earl liked almost anything with a “bullet” shape so I did a very large rendering of a design with a reverse bullet shape that came off the headlamps and flowed back onto the front door. I used just enough chrome to attract his attention and rendered the car in black with the bullet shape accented in red, one of his favorite color combinations. You could say that I sold part of my soul to the devil, but we desperately needed a theme before he fired the entire bunch of us.

When I was finished with the rendering, I put it up by the studio entranceway, a choice spot that I knew would catch Earl’s attention as he walked by. I had no sooner gotten back to my desk when Earl popped through the door. Sure enough, he stopped and looked at the rendering for what seemed like a long time. Then he poked his head into the studio and asked where Arthur was. Art Ross was the Olds chief designer then and was my immediate boss. Art had been in his office near the entrance way with the door closed. He must have seen Mr. Earl through his glass window. He came bursting out of his office to greet Earl. Earl quickly led Art over to my rendering and said, “Arthur, you got the design right here under your nose and you don’t realize it.”

I was at my desk across the room, so I missed most of the rest of the conversation. Earl did most of the talking and I could tell that Art Ross was not a happy man. I had not considered the possibility that Mr. Earl would see my rendering before Art did. I had not been in Arts good graces anyway and I was sure this would seal my fate. On one hand, he should have been pleased to finally have a design that Earl liked. But on the other hand, I’m sure he didn’t like the idea of doing a design on which he had not passed judgment. The design was modeled in full-size clay and it became the central theme for the ‘58 Olds. Art gave me little say in the execution of the design and Mr. Earl kept adding more bright work.

A few samples of Bernie Smith’s Artwork

 

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Looks like it could be di-noc.
It’s a decal like sheet that is applied to a clay model to make it shiny and look like a real car.


What Qvb said

 

I've seen people pull on a doorhandle on a clay model thinking it was real.

 

Many!

 

Just to add several more examples

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What's happening in China

https://www.cardesignnews.com/shanghai-2019-overview/38681.article

 

Thanks for the B'Day wishes.
I would bet that complicated grille was milled in from computer derived data.
Ain't no one gonna model that thing by hand.

 

from Automotive News Europe
July 09, 2019 06:39 AM
Clay models stay relevant in era of virtual reality and 3D modeling
ANDREA MALAN

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Ferrari designers used CAD and physical models to create the SP1 Monza supercar. "There’s a continuous loop between virtual and physical," said Ferrari design chief Flavio Manzoni (left, leaning over the car).

Digital imaging, virtual reality and 3D modeling have improved in the past decade, but most designers and decision-makers are unprepared to approve new designs without physical models.

It's partly a technical issue, coupled with the need of managers and designers alike to touch a physical object before making key decisions. That's why carefully handcrafted clay models will not disappear anytime soon.

SangYup Lee, a Hyundai Motor senior vice president and head of design, said the automaker already has moved its commercial-vehicle design processes to digital and said top management is committed to moving passenger-car design there as well.

"Digitalization is key to making our design process faster and keeping up with the technology acceleration," Lee told Automotive News Europe. Today, he said, when a new car reaches the market, it is, in a sense, already old, because it has taken two years to design it. In contrast, a new cellphone comes out every six months.

The biggest hurdle along the road to digital design, Lee said, is that virtual-reality tools are not yet entirely up to the task. VR has to be as realistic as possible, and car designers are sensitive. Sometimes, success is a matter of 2 mm to 3 mm. Right now, 4K-resolution VR is unavailable. Moreover, projects involving multiple users require a lot of computer power, and VR technology is sometimes a little jittery, which can cause problems because precision become even more crucial when designers work together from different locations.

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In virtual reality it’s possible to see what a model such as the Range Rover Evoque looks like on the road long before a prototype exists.

VR drawbacks
Marco Ivancich, head of the Virtual Lab at Italian design and engineering firm Pininfarina, agrees that VR hardware instruments have not reached perfection yet. VR still lacks the sensory experiences -- primarily tactile -- that a physical model offers, Ivancich said. Another potential drawback is the possibility that with VR somebody suffers motion sickness. Despite these drawbacks, the move to VR is gaining. Ford Motor recently announced a cooperation with Gravity Sketch on its 3D VR tool which, Gravity Sketch says, allows designers to trade in their sketch pads for a headset and controllers to immerse themselves in virtual reality.

Imitating gestures through motion tracking replicates sketching with pen and paper. In general, physical models have been produced for a relatively long time using computer-aided design and 3D modelling.


Said Filippo Perini, who has headed design at Volkswagen Group styling specialist Italdesign since 2016 after working for 10 years at Lamborghini: "For all Lamborghini models currently in production, we had a number of physical models that were all derived from CAD. The main reason was that we never had enough time to use the traditional methods. We started in 2005 and never went back."
The same goes for most of Perini's competitors. Flavio Manzoni, head of design at Ferrari, said that at the automaker's headquarters in Maranello, Italy, designers use both CAD and physical models because each technique has its advantages. "CAS (computer-aided styling) helps us in the initial phase for the so-called 3D sketching -- i.e., trying different volumes in parallel," Manzoni said. "Later we work on 1-to-1 clay models. There's a continuous loop between virtual and physical. When we modify the physical model, we scan it to put it back into CAD -- sort of reverse-engineer it -- to verify the changes have not impacted the technical feasibility of the model." Ferrari followed that path in designing the recently revealed SF90 Stradale supercar.

3D speeds up process
One of the main advantages of 3D computer modeling is that it speeds up processes and enables designers to work on projects together from faraway locations. It also quickens the back-and-forth between design studio and customer. What's really cool about VR, said Hyundai's Lee, is that you can look at the car not only in the studio but also on the street, in daylight or during the night. He believes it's best to see a car outside, with other cars. The useful side of VR is that a designer can add the innovation during an early stage of the design.

Modern CAD and VR techniques can also help creativity. Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar and senior vice president of design at Volvo Cars, said he realized when working on the Polestar 1 concept coupe that "the software and the tools we had could easily enable such a variety and such a level of artistry that previously only a clay modeler was able to create with his hands."

Italdesign's Perini said these tools have been used for a while in architecture. Zaha Hadid was one of the first to use 3D Studio Max to generate the shapes of her buildings, he said. Some building designs are so complex that they could not be translated into a 2D rendering. Instead, they are managed within a 3D CAD system. In the car industry, these new instruments enable designers to create entirely new shapes and forms. This so-called generative design, Perini said, is currently used for some components, such as grilles. Designers take a much more conservative approach, though, when asked whether physical models in clay or epowood could be cut altogether from the process. In the final validation phase, most say, 3D and VR can't yet fully replace physical modeling.

It's not a matter of cost. A 3D design apparatus is cheaper than traditional clay modeling. Today you can start a design by spending 50,000 euros ($56,500) on computer hardware and software, Perini said. It is already technically feasible to do without physical modeling, he said. Italdesign did it with a number of one-off or few-off models, as their business case does not allow the same modeling process. "Our typical process for a production car took nearly two years," Perini said, "while it took just four to five months to design a one-off."

At Pininfarina, the final validation still goes through a physical model, said design chief Carlo Bonzanigo. "From a biological and sociological point of view, I believe we can achieve a higher grade of aesthetic experience through physicality that comes from the way our brain works," Bonzanigo said.

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All of Lamborghini’s current production vehicles, including the Urus, shown here in its clay form, came from physical models.

Polestar's Ingenlath thinks clay models are still necessary. As a designer, he said, making up your mind about the design is not something you can do while just sitting in a presentation. "You need time to reflect, to digest and form your opinion," Ingenlath said. "For that reason, it definitely helps to have a model standing there."

Some automakers are adamant in their attitude toward physical modeling. Mazda Motor, for example, leverages design to try to differentiate from the competition. That's why, although eschewing clay models is technically possible, Mazda does not think it can get the same emotional feedback it needs for its reflection-based surfacing or for the design quality it wants to achieve, said Mazda Europe's design director, Jo Stenuit.

In the relation between design studios and customers, the latter decide, most of the time, that they still want to watch and touch a physical mock-up of the product. That can also work the other way around. "Once, one of our customers wanted to save money on the interior design of a new truck," said Giuliano Biasio, design director at Torino Design. "But our team managed to convince them to go for the physical model aside the computer one." It will depend of the decision-makers themselves, Perini said, whether "it's clear that having a physical model gives a manager more confidence."

Douglas A. Bolduc and Luca Ciferri contributed to this report

 

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/1907-2020-corvette-exterior-design-manager-kirk-bennion-interview/