An older design article from non other than the NYT. DESIGN Sketches of Optimism From Detroit’s Glory Days Image Unavailable, Please Login A futuristic Pontiac drawn by Roger Hughet.Credit...Photographs by Mary Yates By Phil Patton Aug. 26, 2007 GROWING up in Detroit during the muscle car years as a daughter of a Chrysler executive, Kay Grubola can remember attending a party at the house of her father’s boss. What made the event so memorable were the drawings on the walls, striking colorful works by automobile designers dreaming up the cars of the future. She never forgot the power and excitement of those drawings. When Ms. Grubola, now the curator of the Louisville Visual Art Association in Kentucky, learned last year that a legendary General Motors designer of that period, William Porter, was one of the city’s natives, she was inspired. Mr. Porter, 76, had created some of the most magical drawings of the era that had fascinated Ms. Grubola. Designer of distinctive shapes like the 1968 Pontiac GTO, Mr. Porter went on to head the Pontiac and Buick studios. The connections have resulted in a show, “Designing an Icon, Creativity and the American Automobile,” for which Mr. Porter was adviser. The exhibit, which opened Friday, will be on view until Nov. 10 at the Visual Art Association’s unusual Water Tower building, which resembles a lighthouse. Ms. Grubola learned that Mr. Porter had not only grown up in Louisville but had taken the free children’s art classes for which the organization is locally famous. “I drew mostly airplanes with bullets shooting out of them,” Mr. Porter recalled. That, he said, “turned out to be just the vocabulary of imagery at General Motors in the 1950s.” What Ms. Grubola did not know, but Mr. Porter did, was that the drawings she saw as a youngster were among the few seen outside the Detroit design studios. Strict security measures kept the images of future models inside; only a few executives took it upon themselves to bring samples home. Mr. Porter said the designers were warned never to take their work from the studio. Most drawings were simply destroyed as time went on and the studios were cleaned up, he said. That is why, when he was asked to help assemble a show, Mr. Porter was skeptical. He had searched for design drawings before, in the early ’80s, when he and the late Dave Holls, a G.M. designer and recognized historian of the profession, helped to organize a museum show in Detroit. “We only found a handful at that time,” Mr. Porter said. But Mr. Porter is respected by his peers as one of the most articulate and accomplished designers of his generation; making phone calls among his friends in Detroit, he discovered more drawings. He loaded them into his Chevrolet van and drove to Louisville, where Ms. Grubola began to sort through the material. She ended up picking about 100 drawings and a half-dozen models for the show. Mr. Porter said he thought the exhibition was the first to concentrate on future concepts. The designers whose works are in the show, mostly from G.M. but also from Chrysler, Ford and other automakers, include Wayne Kady, known for his Cadillacs; Elia Russinoff, who signed his work simply Russ; Roger Hughet, who created the theme for the third-generation Camaro; and Jerry Brochstein, a favorite of Mr. Porter. A sequence of drawings by Dave McIntosh tells the story of a single sports car concept from the first impulsive sketch on vellum all the way to the views prepared for presentation to company executives. The Louisville show follows others in making the case that auto design drawings are important art: at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, the Detroit Public Library and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Researchers like Hampton Wayte and collectors like Frederic Sharf have helped to establish the drawings as worthy items to collect. On Sept. 16, Mr. Porter and Chuck Jordan, former chief of design at G.M., will be among designers discussing the art of automobile design in Louisville. Details are at www.louisvillevisualart.org. When he sketched one idea for a future Buick, Mr. Porter recalled, it seemed far out and futuristic to him. So, he said, “I painted a gray, snowy background to bring it down to earth and make it seem realistic.” Designers became specialists according to their styles. Some were visionary, others more practical. “Phil Garcia was good at drawing things to convince the guys at Livonia Bumper that the shapes could really be built,” Mr. Porter said, referring to a metal-forming plant. Designers’ styles were their calling cards. One designer was known for his deep black Pluvius 352 pencil. Mr. Porter favored Prismacolor pencils on French-made Canson Mi-Teintes paper. “You could run the pencil at an angle to shade areas while using the point to achieve sharp lines,” he said. The paper had the right tooth, or texture. Some designers made their drawings more dramatic by using colored paper. A red car on black paper could be striking. Black paper was a tradition that went back to Mitchell in the 1930s. Many designers have declared that the shape of the finished car owes a lot to the medium in which it is first sketched. The three-dimensional sheet metal of a car imagined in bright colored markers, which became popular in the 1980s, is likely to be very different from one conceived in charcoal or pastel. Some critics argue that felt tips had a lot to do with the softer car shapes that appeared in the mid-1980s. Drawing styles were also the means by which young designers distinguished themselves in competing for the few jobs that opened up. “If you couldn’t draw pretty well, you didn’t make the first cut,” Mr. Porter said. This is still true, said Rita Sue Siegel, who recruits designers for auto companies around the world. “Any creative endeavor has to have elements of the head, the heart and the hand,” she said. “For the designer’s hand, drawing is still important.” This still holds true, she added, even if the drawing is more often done now with markers or a digital stylus and pad linked to a computer.
Car Design Review 7: Stefan Sielaff, Bentley Motors By Car Design News21 December 2020 Stefan Sielaff, design director of Bentley Motors, reveals details of his early influences and his career as a young designer as well as his current role One often hears of car designers who were sketching from an early age, some as young as three or four. I was not one of those children. I was interested in cars, but I focused my efforts during high school in the fine arts, namely painting and sculpture. I never put the two together – my artistic passion and my love for cars. It was only when I began to study product design at Hochschule Munich University in the 1980s that I began to understand that there was such a thing as a car designer. The turning point for me came when two young designers from Opel gave a lecture about car design. The two designers in question, Chris Bangle and Gert Hildebrand, presented car design project in their lecture. This was the ‘wow!’ moment for me; I knew I had found my calling. It was at this time in my product design studies that I got heavily involved with Audi and it sponsored me to go to the Royal College of Art in London for a two-year Masters degree. Audi was my starting point, first as a student and then as a junior designer. I learned there what good car design was. I then worked for three years at Mercedes-Benz, learning a different design culture and a different way of designing cars. Then I moved back to Audi and to a more strategic role at Volkswagen and now I am at a brand that has a very strong identity, Bentley. “The EXP 100 GT concept is a lighthouse project for the future of Bentley and the future of automotive luxury” Being here at this century-old brand with its rich heritage, has definitely had a strong impact on my career. Over the years, I have developed a working design philosophy that serves me well. I strive for timelessness, an aesthetic that is about ‘less’ rather than ‘more’, and in complex times like these, a design that is clean and clear. Image Unavailable, Please Login Interior sketch of the Bentley EXP 100 GT concept I have also developed what I see as an ideal design process. First, you must start with a fundamental understanding of the brand identity. This understanding must be combined with a clear, well- defined brief and knowledge of your customer – their preferences for both today and tomorrow. You must conduct a detailed analysis of all this input. Then, once this is presented, you must give the designer a great deal of freedom to interpret the design brief in a creative way. I work with a small design team. We have about 25 designers, 25 modellers, and a total design team of slightly less than 100. This size of team allows the director to personally lead the team. It becomes much like a family. Above 100 you are supervising the team, but not working in the team. I personally think that smaller, highly dedicated teams are more efficient and flexible and produce greater results. At Bentley, some of the key design characteristics of our brand are a strong stance and dynamism, especially at the rear wheel. It needs to look like the car is ready to spring forward, like a tiger. The design should express the power of pushing the car forward. There is a high shoulder line to draw the eye along the car. At the front, the classic grille is prominent, as is the ‘human face’ seen in the headlights. Then there is a short overhang at the front and a long overhang at the rear. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login 1/4 SHOW CAPTION Within the interior we emphasise the cocooning gesture of the design, enveloping the driver and passengers. There should be expressions of quality, strength and craftsmanship in all of the elements, something you can only get from human beings, not a machine. There is a sense that this is not a car to just get you from A to B, but a work of craftsmanship and art. The design of a Bentley must deliver more than a product, more than a technological machine. It should deliver a journey and an experience that is a part of any Grand Touring voyage – the experience of the landscape, fine food, fine art – part of a complete way of living that is focused on essential values and beautiful experiences. It is important for us to maintain a strong brand identity because there is much good work being done in the luxury sector right now. With Rolls-Royce on the traditional automotive side, and Aston Martin and Lamborghini as well as other makers in the supercar and SUV segments, there are multiple players advancing the idea of luxury. As we look at luxury in the future, we see that society and the customer are evolving and expressions of luxury are changing. For many years it was about the projection of wealth, glamour and ostentation. But in the future, I imagine luxury will be more complex in its expression. Luxury may become a bit more introverted, a bit more focused on true values. It will not be about making a statement or acquiring a status symbol. Or maybe if it is a status symbol that symbol will reflect a more holistic eco-consciousness. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login 1/4 SHOW CAPTION Sustainability and social responsibility will be on the minds of the affluent, as will a sharp focus on the essentials. Local sourcing of materials and craftsmanship will be priorities, as well as measuring the carbon footprint of materials and processes. Although we all seem fascinated with technology right now, a certain yin/yang relationship between traditional craftsmanship and the digital will develop, as our understanding of luxury moves to balance technology and craft. How does all this translate into a vehicle? The Bentley EXP 100 GT concept introduced last summer is our answer. It is a car that previews our future, giving the answer of what we want to achieve with Bentley as a brand and at Bentley design. It is literally an expression of all the issues that I have spoken about here. Classic Bentley design cues, sustainability, local sourcing and many new ideas. It is a lighthouse project for the future of Bentley and the future of automotive luxury. This article first appeared in Car Design Review 7. The Bentley EXP 100 GT concept was covered in the Autumn 2019 issue of Interior Motives magazine.
Noted designer Pierre Cardin has died at age 98. He dabbled in some automobile special editions- Javelin and Cadillac. Mostly interiors. Here are a few photos grabbed off the web: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Unfortunately I thought he should have stuck to what he did best. Don’t think autos were part of that talent. But hey, if you liked that kind of look, have at it.
Cardin/Sbarro ‘Stash’ https://64-media-tumblr-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/64.media.tumblr.com/33e3e2d693bdd9d231aecbd98dea6009/tumblr_oa8087osJR1ti77kbo1_640.jpg
This! I was just discussing the potential of coach building with a friend the other day. Seems as though at some point, a platform will be offered (skateboard) with easily varied dimensions allowing for a body to simply be placed on it. GM designed such a thing 5 or 10 years ago, I believe. Or, another route mat simply be the ability for coach builders to insert battery/motors into a custom platform but all made easier by "plug & play", i.e, brakes, steering, throttle all via wire, and maybe a simple a/c systems and window, wiper controls via the same plug system. I'm quite sure I'm daydreaming it to be simpler than it is, but would think this could lead to a coach building renaissance.
2002 to be exact Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login https://www.autoblog.com/2010/09/24/forgotten-concept-2002-gm-autonomy/
a visit down memory lane, the Pontiac Stinger Story of the Week Remembering the Great Looking 1989 Pontiac Stinger Show Car By Robert Tate, Automotive Historian and Researcher Images Courtesy of General Motors Media Archives Published 12.30.2020 Image Unavailable, Please Login The 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car at the beach (GM Archives) One of the most popular and best-looking show cars that came from the talented GM Design staff during the late 1980s was the 1989 Pontiac Stinger. It was a great design developed and created under the direction of Chuck Jordan. I remember the Pontiac Stinger when it was introduced to the public at the Detroit Auto Show, as well as the response from visitors. One person I overheard said the concept model was “stunning.” Image Unavailable, Please Login 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car design sketch (GM Archives) The Stinger was designed for both business and leisure. Ed Benson, who was director of marketing and product planning for Pontiac in 1989, said the following: “We looked at the marketplace and the increased interaction between small sporty vehicles, fun-to -drive, outdoor vehicles. There is an emerging interest in the young group primarily 35 and under for special sport vehicles that fully express their unique lifestyles.” Image Unavailable, Please Login 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car rear view (GM Archives) Some automotive historians have called the 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car one of the long lost concept cars. During the 1980s, demographic changes indicated the younger market wanted more driving excitement and to use their vehicles to explore the country and experience fun outdoors. In response, GM designed the Stinger concept for the younger generation. Since younger buyers liked to spend time at the beach, the Stinger likely would have been very popular in Florida and California. Image Unavailable, Please Login 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car side view design (GM Archives) Chrysler’s Jeep models were immensely popular during the 1980s, as sport utility vehicles were really beginning to take a great hold on the consumer market. Pontiac’s marketing theme was “We Build Excitement” during the late 1980s and early 90s, and much excitement was designed into the 1989 Pontiac Stinger concept. Image Unavailable, Please Login 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car at the beach (GM Archives) The Stinger was so different from other vehicles of the era. It offered a great looking open top, along with a dune buggy-influenced design. The sleek nose front end design was awesome and paired with a great looking neon green color. Image Unavailable, Please Login Interior Designer Marietta Kearney Ellis speaking with 2 unidentified GM designers (GM Archives) I remember having a great conversation many years ago with GM designer Marietta Kearney Ellis, who designed the interior for the 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car. She was extremely excited about the contributions she made to that vehicle. The Stinger concept came equipped with an Iron Duke-based 3.0 liter four-cylinder engine. It offered a great deal of storage space, a cellular phone and a CD player, a camping table, biking begs and a garden hose for that outdoor adventure. The interior was great looking, with many new and exciting innovations like electric memory seats and steering wheel, and a stylish control panel. The seats were made of a new wet suit-type material, along with a removable cushion that could turn into great looking beach chairs. The roof panel was removable, along with new great looking raised up rear seats for the passengers. The Stinger was a great all-purpose utility design different from most comparable vehicles at that time. Image Unavailable, Please Login 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car (GM Archives) While the 1989 Stinger was unique, it could still be recognized as a Pontiac model and part of General Motors design family. The active-lifestyle concept model featured familiar Pontiac styling cues. 1989 Pontiac Stinger show car interior design (GM Archives) In conclusion, the Pontiac Stinger show car was never manufactured for the consumer market. It has been displayed more recently at car shows like the POCI convention, as well as the popular “Eyes On Design” classic car show held annually on Father’s Day. The Pontiac Stinger and its unique design will always be remembered as a great looking sport utility concept. Bibliography Keefe, Don. “The 89 Pontiac Stinger - Department X Pontiac Concept Car.” “Pontiac Designs the SUV We’re Still Waiting For.” Hot Rod Magazine. August 22, 2007.
I remember that sketch--simple but very expressive at the same time. I tried to replicate it many times.
Dave and Kirk were our instructors. They came down from Detroit every Saturday to teach. Great, talented guys and two of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I still remember Dave showing us how to do that type of sketch using Bestine for the background wash.
Designer Larry Shinoda People Know your designers: Larry Shinoda Brendan McAleer 28 March 2019 Share Image Unavailable, Please Login Mako Shark I and II at the GM Tech Center. Tino Rossini Born: Los Angeles, California, March 25, 1930 Early plans: During WWII, the U.S. government held Shinoda’s family at a war relocation camp in Manzanar, California. Larry brought just a few things with him to the camp, including a notebook and pencils. In the camps, he built a pair of reclining chairs and other furniture using wood scavenged from crates. His family moved to Colorado after the war, but Larry eventually returned to Los Angeles, where he enrolled in the Art Center College of Design. Discovery: Gene Bordinat, who later became vice president of Ford’s styling division, met Shinoda through an instructor at the art school in 1954 and offered him a job. Just in time, because Shinoda had just been expelled. Biggest hits Image Unavailable, Please Login Mako Shark I and II at the GM Tech Center. Tino Rossini 1956 John Zink Special: After working with John Z. DeLorean at Packard, Shinoda joined racecar builder A.J. Watson’s Indianapolis 500 team for a season. He designed the car’s sleek, cigar-like body and wild pink livery in addition to working on the crew. Pat Flaherty drove the car to victory, giving Watson one of his six career wins at the track. 1959 Stingray Racer: A blend of Peter Brock’s fully streamlined, spaceship-like Q-Corvette concept, mated to Zora Arkus-Duntov’s open-topped, wide-grille Corvette SS experimental racing machine. The car won the 1960 SCCA Championship, and was later driven on-screen by Elvis Presley in the 1967 movie Clam Bake. 1962 XP-755 “Mako Shark I”: Shinoda drew inspiration for this gorgeous Corvette concept from the mounted shark that hung in the office of GM styling boss Bill Mitchell. 1963–1967 Sting Ray Corvette: Translating racing concepts into a production vehicle was no small task, but the Sting Ray was a triumph. No longer was the Corvette a cheery, chrome-laden roadster, but a sharp-edged sportscar with pop-up headlights and a silhouette that screamed speed. Ever since, the Corvette’s been a world-beater. 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Gabe Augustine 1965 “Mako Shark II”: The follow-up to Shinoda’s earlier eye-popping design added more curves, exaggerated fenders, and a hulking hood bulge. The Mako II inspired the styling of the third-generation Corvette that debuted in 1968. 1969 Ford Boss 302 Mustang: Shinoda tapped his hot-rodding roots to convince Ford to ditch its initial chrome-heavy design for the company’s answer to the Camaro Z/28. Beyond giving the car its iconic hockey stick stripes, he helped hone the car’s handling. Lasting influence Image Unavailable, Please Login CERV I prototype GM Heritage Archive Beyond his talent for designing cars, Shinoda was an irrepressible hot rodder. He started building cars after arriving in Los Angeles, and legend has it he landed the job designing Corvette concepts after an impromptu street race with Mitchell (Shinoda’s hopped-up Ford trounced Mitchell’s blown Pontiac.) While the curving, streamlined look of his designs defined the Corvette’s aesthetic legacy, the mechanical aptitude revealed in his sketches can’t be overstated. Shinoda’s impact on the cars he designed went beyond how they looked. During his stint at Ford, he lobbied the brass to retune the engine in the Boss 302; he loaded company execs in a plane so they could spy on Roger Penske’s Trans-Am team at GM’s proving grounds; and he even found the money to repave Ford’s skidpad. Other Notable Automotive Work Image Unavailable, Please Login CERV II GM Heritage Archive GM 1960 CERV-1 1962 Corvair Super Spyder 1962 Monza GT 1962 Monza SS 1964 CERV-II 1965 Chaparral 2C 1967/68 Astro-I, II Ford 1970 Torino King Cobra Shinoda-Williams 1990 Rick Mears Special Edition Corvette Image Unavailable, Please Login Larry Shinoda and a clay model of the Corvair Monza GT, 1962 at GM Tech Center Courtesy of General Motors Design Biggest Bomb: Shortly before his death in 1997 at age 67, Shinoda drew a single illustration of a C5 Sting Ray Concept. The idea took classic ideas and grafted them to the then-new fifth-generation Corvette. Retro design made vehicles like the PT Cruiser initially popular, but Shinoda’s best work was done relentlessly advancing into the future, not retreating into the past. He made the Corvette a shark, and a shark has to keep moving forward to breathe. Best Oddball: General Motors toyed with the idea of a rear-engine Corvette in the early 1960s, and asked Shinoda to design a test vehicle. The XP-819 looks a bit like the front of a C3 Corvette grafted to the back of Ferrari 250LM, and isn’t an unattractive car. The design prompted Corvette engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov, who steadfastly insisted a rear-engine Corvette could never work, to ask, “Where did you cheat?” The concept, entirely custom built and truly 1 of 1, handled like an oil tanker, but it performed flawless wheelies. Other Design Work: It is only fitting that Shinoda designed the logo for the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
It may not look like much, but the 1928 Dodge Victory Six could be the most important car in the history of coachbuilding By Hemmings contributor on Dec 31st, 2020 at 8:15 am Image Unavailable, Please Login The 1928 Dodge Victory Six started a new era in the history of automobile manufacturing. It was the first car with the body designed to make full use of the inherent properties of steel. It was the first sedan that didn’t have the body panels attached to a framework. The panels were taking part of the stresses and the car was a forerunner to the unit-body cars that came onto the market in the 1930s. Photo courtesy Dodge Club archives at the AACA Library. Comments: 1 In This Article Category: Featured posts Make: Dodge [Editor's note: Per Ahlstrom's research into Budd Manufacturing has fostered a greater understanding of modern automotive construction. That research continues in this examination of Joseph Ledwinka's contributions to the Dodge Victory Six and to the cars we drive today.] Few people regard the 1928 Dodge Victory Six as a revolutionary car. It looked about the same as other cars of the era and it was in most respects a very conventional car. But the way it was built was truly revolutionary. The 1928 Dodge was the first car to make a clean break with the auto body building traditions carried over from the days of horse-drawn carriages. It was the first car with a body designed to make full use of the properties of sheet steel. It was the first car to be built with the technology that made the modern, mass-produced automobile possible. From the very beginning, Dodge had all-steel bodies made by the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia. Budd and his engineering team, led by his chief engineer Joseph Ledwinka (not to be confused with Hans Ledwinka of Tatra), pioneered the all-steel bodies, and developed and patented welding and stamping methods that gave the company a factual monopoly on the manufacture of all-steel bodies throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Image Unavailable, Please Login Joseph Ledwinka was a hands on inventor and engineer. He actually built cars and machinery with his own hands. Photo from the archives of Robert Masciantonio. Before the appearance of the Dodge 1928 Victory Six, the basic design of all-steel bodies didn’t really differ much from the conventional composite bodies, where sheet steel was nailed onto a wooden framework. For the all-steel bodies, the wooden framework was basically copied in steel profiles and had the body panels welded on to the steel framework. The steel pieces were placed in jigs and welded together. Image Unavailable, Please Login The production of all steel sedans was difficult in the 1920s. There was so much welding that the bodies warped out of true when they were taken out of the jigs. This made it difficult to fit the doors, which also were warped. Budd photo. These all-steel bodies didn’t offer that much of an advantage over the composite bodies. The tooling for the many stamped parts was expensive and it was more difficult to fasten the upholstery. The main advantage was that the painted all-steel bodies could be baked, to make the paint dry faster. This was important, as it otherwise could take up to 10 days for the paint to dry. The drying cars took up a lot of space and also tied up a lot of capital. Another advantage was that the all-steel bodies held up better to vibrations and thus were quieter and longer lived than the composite bodies. But the majority of auto companies did not think that the advantages of the all-steel bodies outweighed the drawbacks. One of the major drawbacks of the all steel bodies was that the bodies warped from all the welding when they were taken out of the jigs. Adjusting for the warping wasn’t all that difficult in the flexible open car bodies, but when the Budd company started to build all steel sedans, they were saddled with a nightmare. Ledwinka described it like this: “When the closed or sedan body came into use, we got into real trouble. Customers insisted we make the contours of the steel bodies as nearly as possible like those of the wooden bodies and we did, joining the many parts together either by gas or electric arc welding. The parts were assembled and clamped in large jigs and welded together while clamped into place. When we removed the bodies from the jigs they tended to spring out of true, because there was so very much welding. The door openings could not be kept accurate so when fitting the doors, which themselves were none too accurate in size, it can be seen what a heartbreaking job we had. This started in the period between 1919 and 1922 and went on.” Image Unavailable, Please Login Sheet steel, thin enough for use in automobile bodies was a novelty in the beginning of the 20th century. The sheets were pulled back and forth between rollers that had the gap between them narrowed for each passage. The production was labor intensive and expensive. The dimensions were uneven and the sheets were often wavy. Photo courtesy American Rolling Mill Co. At this point in time the steel industry could only produce thin steel sheets that were a couple of feet wide. The quality of the sheet steel was uneven, as it was produced in small rolling mills where the metal was passed back and forth through the rollers. The gap between the rollers was reduced for each pass, to make the sheets thinner and thinner. In the final stages of rolling the sheets were doubled up and rolled to achieve the desired thickness, then pulled apart again. No two sheets were exactly the same, and no sheets were big enough to press much more than half a car door in one piece. Ledwinka realized that the existing method of producing all-steel sedans was unsustainable. Something radical had to be done. In time I saw we could not continue in this manner, and by 1924 or 1925 I developed much better ideas as to how a steel body should be built. Leaving off sharp corners in door openings and windows would enable us to draw these corners in the presses. Pressing the whole side in one piece complete with the door openings would assure accurate and unvarying door opening sizes. Also doors drawn in one piece complete with window frames would be accurate in size and would fit the accurately sized openings without trouble. In short, I concluded we must forget simulation of wooden body construction and design the steel structure to make best uses of the qualities of the material itself. I talked to Mr. Budd about these ideas and he thought more steel would be required, especially larger sheets of steel which the steel mills were not rolling and perhaps could not roll. After several months I talked to Mr. Budd again, telling him I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind, that I must try it to satisfy myself. Mr. Budd then agreed that I should ‘go ahead’. First I made a Dodge sedan by hand and Mr. Budd’s interest was keenly aroused. This was about 1926.Ledwinka patented the rounded off corners of doors and windows and also a method for butt welding two sheets of steel together, hammer the weld and then heat treat it, to make the wide sheet pliable enough to draw in a press. He also applied for patents of designs that could do away with the heavy gauge frames and which made the chassis form the body threshold. It was in fact an early version of a unit body. These inventions made it possible to radically reduce the number of body parts and to stamp a whole side or back of a car in one piece. This reduced the number of welds and thus the warping. The doors, also pressed in one piece, now could be fitted with a minimum of adjustments. Image Unavailable, Please Login The 1928 Dodge Victory Six was the first all steel sedan engineered to make full use of the inherent properties of steel. The number of body components was greatly reduced and the body panels were part of the load carrying structure. It was the first car that truly broke off from the traditions of carriage building that prevailed in automobile manufacturing. Photo courtesy of the Dodge Club archives in the AACA library. The first car to be produced with Ledwinka’s new method was the 1928 Dodge Victory Six. The bodies of the new Dodge Sedan looked conventional, but the way the body was made was completely new to the industry. The tooling was much more expensive than tooling for the conventional steel-on-wood bodies, but in mass production the new method of producing car bodies was superior in every way to the composite bodies. The new bodies were much cheaper to produce in large numbers and they were lighter and stronger. Image Unavailable, Please Login The first continuous rolling mill for sheet steel was built in Ashland, Kentucky. The old mill at Ashland produced 500-600 tons of sheet steel per month. By 1927 the new continuous mill produced 40,000 tons per month. By 1940 the American steel industry had built another 26 mills of the same type. As the production went up, the price went down. In the beginning of the 1920s high quality sheet steel cost $135 per ton. In 1940 the price was down to $60 per ton. Photo courtesy American Rolling Mill Co. About the same time as Budd Manufacturing introduced the new stamping technology, the steel industry invested in continuous rolling mills that could produce large quantities of sheet metal in high quality and at much lower prices, making the all-steel bodies even more economical. The first rolling mill that could roll steel wide enough to press the whole side of a car body in one piece came on line in 1932 in Indian Harbor, Illinois. The new way of building all-steel car bodies changed not only the structure of car bodies, it changed the structure of the whole automobile industry. Up until now the investment necessary to start a new car industry or car model had been comparatively low. The marginal cost for increased production was also low. It was a labor-intensive industry with fairly low capital intensity. The introduction of a new model might cost a few tens of thousands of dollars. Ledwinka’s new approach to all-steel bodies, introduced on the 1928 Dodge, changed all that. The tooling for a new model and investment in gigantic presses required millions of dollars. The marginal cost for increased production also became very high. When a production line reached full capacity it was expensive to add new tooling to make more cars. The all-steel bodies forced automobile manufacturers to use clay modeling to try out new designs. When adjusting the shape of a composite body it had been fairly easy to adjust the wooden framework where needed. This was no longer possible, and designers and modelers were hired to make sure that the cars were pleasing to the eye, before management took the decision to invest in tooling for the new models. Another invention by a Budd engineer, George C. Kelley, made the new way of building all-steel bodies even more competitive. He devised a method for deep-drawing sheet steel, making it possible to rapidly and economically press steel into very advanced shapes, shapes that were impossible or extremely expensive for the coachbuilding industry to copy. Suddenly the expensive custom-built luxury cars looked dated compared to the designs of the mass-produced Chevrolets and Fords. The Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company had a unique position in the auto industry. Its patent portfolio covered practically every aspect of the production of all-steel bodies. All major auto manufacturers, both in the U.S. and Europe, were customers of Budd, either for licenses, body components or whole bodies, This enabled Budd to introduce the new technology to the global automobile industry in a way that no other could have done. The demise of the coachbuilding industry and the small (and some not so small) independent car manufacturers has mostly been seen as a result of the economic depression in the 1930s. It is no doubt this was a major factor in the radical structural changes the automobile industry went through in the 1930s, but there is also no doubt that the new all-steel body technology was a major factor in the dramatic changes. The big three, GM, Ford and Chrysler, could make full use of the new technology. They had the capital necessary for the upfront investments in machinery and tooling. They produced cars in numbers that made it possible to pay off the expensive tooling in a very short time. The smaller manufacturers had no way of competing, as their cars became outdated before the tooling was paid off. Some of them, especially in Europe, where small manufacturers were protected by high tariffs on imported cars, managed to keep the same basic model in production for many years, spreading the high cost of tooling over a long time. But the coachbuilders and most of the smaller car manufacturers had to give up when the composite bodies no longer were competitive. Image Unavailable, Please Login Joseph Ledwinka at the drawing board. Here he drew up plans that revolutionized the automobile industry. He was a prolific inventor and held 276 US patents in his own name. One of the patents was US Patent No 2.000.000, which he was awarded at a ceremony on May 6 1935. From the archives of Robert Masciantonio The Budd/Ledwinka/Kelley inventions also made the modern mass production of automobiles possible. The stamping and welding methods they introduced lent themselves to automation in a way that would have been impossible for composite bodies. The body technologies developed by the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company had as far reaching, if not more far reaching, consequences for the automobile industry as the Ford assembly line did. Ford changed the way labor was organized to build cars. Budd changed the way cars were built. The 1928 Dodge Victory Six therefore ranks as one of the most important cars in automotive history, right up there with the 1886 Benz, the 1892 Panhard, the 1908 and 1912 Cadillacs, the Model T Ford, the 1934 Citroën Traction Avant and the 1959 Mini – the cars that changed the course of car design and manufacturing.
Yes, I found it interesting how what we take for granted as construction techniques was a hard fought technical challenge. I do find the statement about clay modeling misleading. Harley Earl had been using clay since before he went to GM.
It was also a big advancement when GM introduced the 'turret top' all steel roofs in 1935. https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/1935-gm-introduces-the-all-steel-top/ 1935—GM Introduces the All-Steel Top Posted on July 26, 2020 by MCG Image Unavailable, Please Login The auto industry took a big step forward in 1935 when General Motors and Fisher Body introduced the one-piece steel roof panel. Well into the 1930s, American car bodies featured a strange anachronism that dated back to the horse-and-buggy era. Partly due to tradition, partly due to the limits of steelmaking at the time, cars did not have metal roof panels. Instead, the major portion of the roof was filled with a piece known as a top insert, a rickety assembly of hardwood, wire mesh, fabric, seals, and paint that leaked, squeaked, was time-consuming to manufacture, and added little to the structural integrity of the body shell. As car bodies became more sleek and modern every year, the old wood-and-fabric top insert was a curious throwback. The opportunity for change arrived in 1932, when Inland Steel of East Chicago, Indiana installed its first 76-inch wide rolling mill. Finally, sheet metal was available in sufficient width and quantity to produce roof stampings in one piece. But first the entire body industry would require readjustment, too: larger, more powerful stamping presses, bigger trucks and rail cars to handle the materials. For the 1935 model year, General Motors and its Fisher Body division were able to offer the innovation across all five passenger car divisions, from lowly Chevrolet to princely Cadillac. Aggressively marketed as the Turret Top, GM’s all-steel roof was quieter, tighter, far stronger—and ultimately, faster and cheaper to make than the old wood-composite construction. Naturally, the rest of the automakers followed along as soon as they could. Image Unavailable, Please Login To promote the Turret Top, the Chevrolet division and its favorite filmmaker, Jam Handy, produced a movie called It’s the Top, which we include here. Like many Jam Handy films of the era, It’s the Top employs what we have called the “first, the earth cooled” method of storytelling. It runs a bit long on the setup, which was more suitable to ’30s moviegoers than to the audience of today. If you want to jump forward to around the five-minute point when the actual automotive material begins, that’s fine with us. But if you’re prepared to enjoy the whole film, that’s okay too. Overall, the film does a good job on the engineering. Video below. Please take a moment to click and subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we host a few hundred historic videos and other great content. There’s no cost or obligation, and it helps to keep us in business—thank you!
Speaking of the mid-1930s, Chevrolet accidentally created the Great Grandaddy of the El Camino back then- Introducing the 1936 Chevrolet Standard Coupe Pick-Up. 3,183 were produced. Installed an extended bed in the trunk area of a coupe and threw away the deck lid. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Mr. Sketchmonkey talks about design trends that need to die. For the record, I don't agree with all his choices.
I agree with the Sketch Monkey on his criticisms. This is the ultimate example (2021 Avalon) of large grills and fake venting: Image Unavailable, Please Login
Looks like the front end was damaged in a little accident and the replacement parts are on backorder...
This FIAT 2300 special was just posted on Routeclassiche. Looks almost like a UTE from Australia, but another view shows in has a trunk. I was about ready to give the Italians credit for another design idea Image Unavailable, Please Login
