car design thread | Page 493 | FerrariChat

car design thread

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

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  1. NeuroBeaker

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  2. jm2

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    but, but, but.........they are getting better. :rolleyes:
     
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  3. energy88

    energy88 Two Time F1 World Champ
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  4. jm2

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    Now you’re talkin’ !
     
  5. Edward 96GTS

    Edward 96GTS F1 Veteran
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    why do all these designs(some ferraris included) look like flags waving in the wind?
     
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  6. anunakki

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  7. anunakki

    anunakki Seven Time F1 World Champ
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    Actually it does improve it! Now it looks like it came from the 70s Buck Rogers tv show which is much cooler
     
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  8. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    Design review of the 296
     
  9. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    And now for some history. Remember these abominations?
    High-End Haunches: The Luxury Bustlebacks of 1982
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    The bustleback trio: Imperial (left), Lincoln Continental (center), and Cadillac Seville.

    When it comes to automotive styling trends, few movements match the thickly padded vinyl half-roof movement of the late Seventies and early-to-mid Eighties.

    Confined to American-brand vehicles, the padded-roof fad become so popular that makers were selling vinyl-roof-specific models in many linups. Trim levels including Salon, Landau, and Brougham often included unique roof treatments along with a nice set of faux wire-wheel covers.


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    As a design trend, the thickly padded vinyl-roof movement was widespread. A 1982 Lincoln Mark VI is seen here.

    Unlike the padded-roof craze, which included vehicles in multiple classes and body configurations, the bustleback (BB) movement was far more tightly focused. Indeed, the BB phenomenon was limited to just three cars, each of which were about the same size and price, and each of which served as flagships for their respective brand or companie.

    We chose 1982 for this list because it was the first model year all three bustleback models would be available at the same time. As the Imperial would disappear after 1983, these three uniquely styled luxury rides would only coexist for two model years, after which the Seville would live on in bustleback form through 1985, and the Continental through 1987.

    Note that the Imperial was NOT officially a Chrysler-brand vehicle this go round. Instead, the car was treated as a brand unto itself, positioned in price and content well above vehicles in that lineup.

    As always, we invite any comments you might have regarding time spent with these vehicles. The place for comments is underneath the last vehicle below.





    Cadillac Seville
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    1982 Cadillac Seville Ad

    Base Price: $23,433

    Most-Expensive Option: Elegante Package ($3095)

    1982 Sales: 19,998

    Base Engine: 125-horsepower 4.1-liter “HT4100” V8

    Optional Engine: 125-horsepower 4.1-liter V6 ($165 credit)

    Optional Engine: 105-horsepower 5.7-liter diesel V8 ($351)

    0-60 mph (with 4.1-liter V6): 16.8 seconds



    Unlike the Imperial and Continental, the Seville featured a front-wheel-drive layout. Also unlike the other two cars on this list, the Seville could be had with any of three available engines. Standard for 1982 was Cadillac’s 125-horsepower “HT 4100” 4.1-liter V8. Though smooth, the smallish V8 was not especially potent, and proved less than reliable. The Seville tested by Consumer Guide for 1982 came equipped with the optional 4.1-liter V6. A $165-credit option, the big V6 proved no less capable of moving the Seville than did the V8, and was slightly more fuel efficient according to the EPA.

    Also available was General Motors’ 5.7-liter diesel V8. This engine had been the standard Seville powerplant for 1981, but buyer resistance to the noise and slow-revving mill bumped it to the options list for ’82.





    (Chrysler) Imperial
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    1982 Imperial Ad

    Base Price: $20,998

    Most-Expensive Option: Frank Sinatra Edition ($1078)

    1982 Sales: 3466

    Base Engine: 140-horsepower 5.2-liter V8

    Optional Engine: None

    0-60 mph: 16.5 seconds



    The 1980 Imperial (not Chrysler Imperial this go-round) was meant to reassure the American public that the financially struggling company was still capable of designing and building great cars.

    Indeed, the Imperial was packed with modern and high-tech equipment. Instrumentation included digital readouts and a trip computer, and the familiar 5.2-liter (318-cubic-inch) V8 was fitted with cutting-edge digital fuel injection.

    Unlike the other cars on this list, the Imperial was a coupe. The rakishly handsome Imperial featured the least committed bustleback treatment, with less rake to the rear sheetmetal. That said, well-placed diagonal rear-fender creases go a long way towards enhancing the overall bustleback effect.

    The Imperial is by far the least common of the bustleback trio. Sales of this luxury coupe totaled just 12,385 during its 1981-1983 run. Running examples today are most likely equipped with a 4-barrel carburetor in place of the digital fuel injection. Sadly the injection system proved problematic, and the factory would eventually recall the cars and swap the setup for the more reliable carbs.





    Lincoln Continental
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    1982 Lincoln Continental Ad

    Base Price: $21,302 (Signature and Givenchy trim levels listed for $24,456 and $24,083 respectively)

    Most-Expensive Option: Power glass moonroof ($1259)

    1982 Sales: 23,098

    Base Engine: 126-horsepower 5.0-liter V8

    Optional Engine: None

    0-60 mph: 13.5 seconds



    Like the Cadillac Seville, the Continental was positioned as the flagship of its respective brand. As such, the Continental must be considered a success, averaging more than 22,000 sales annually over its 1982-1987 run.

    Like the Imperial, the Continental was available for 1982 with a single V8 engine. The Conti’s 5.0-liter V8 cranked out just 126 horsepower yet produced the best 0-60 mph time of the bustleback trio.

    High-end Signature and Givenchy trim levels brought the Continental near $25,000. Loaded with every available option, the Continental Givenchy listed for a cool $26,717, a lofty price for an American passenger car in 1982.
     
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  10. Edward 96GTS

    Edward 96GTS F1 Veteran
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    what accounted for the huge price increases from 1973 to 1982?
     
  11. jm2

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    Inflation? Jimmy Carter?
     
  12. Jeff Kennedy

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    I was in the studio when the Imperial was there. It was a Cordoba clay proposal that management would not let be broken down. Its treatment of the bustbac was far better than what Ford did.

    The whole bustleback reverts to the 1st generation Seville. It was a Bill Mitchell driven proposal trying to capture that look from Daimler limousines. The entire industry knew about as it was published and discussed in Car Styling. It did not win as a 1st generation Seville but Mitchell was able to resurrect the theme for the 2nd generation.

    I'm no fan of the 2nd generation Seville and believe that it alienated what the 1st had been able to achieve - conquest sales in So Cal to people that would have otherwise been MB/BMW buyers. The bustleback reverted to the design excesses that had turned previously, and then did again, those buyers off.
     
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  13. jm2

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    I got transferred into the Cadillac Studio just as the ‘bustle back Seville’ was introduced.
    I couldn’t believe it. Mitchell had a thing for those older Brit cars and he made it happen. Then he retired and left before it came out. Thanks, Bill!:oops:
     
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  14. Jeff Kennedy

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    Mac talked about having been with Billy Boy talking about the 1st generation Seville. Even then Mitchell really had wanted the bustleback.

    I thought the Eldo worked but the Seville was one of Mitchell's lesser moments. But do give credit to the GM clay modelers, they did a perfect job of surfacing.

    From when I was at Chrysler one could see why their body surfacing could not be as good. ChryCo did not model to minimum bend radius. They used gut for the line and then modified the scan tapes. That means that maybe there should have been times when it should not have been at minimum radius or some other alternative resolution.
     
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  15. jm2

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  16. jm2

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  17. NeuroBeaker

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  18. energy88

    energy88 Two Time F1 World Champ
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  19. energy88

    energy88 Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Maybe one young Chris Bangle was unduly influenced as a youth by that bustleback thing? :eek:
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  20. Jeff Kennedy

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    https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-design/what-makes-good-car-design-an-industry-insider-peels-back-the-studio-curtain/?utm_source=SFMC&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Wednesday_DailyDriver&hashed_email=b5473b72ad66a27848d06bdeef5e1407714441babb728e98f0d8a94d25a583b7

    Hello there! My name is Adrian Clarke. I am a professional car designer, earning a degree in automotive design from Coventry University and a Masters in Vehicle Design from the Royal College of Art in London. While I was there, one of my tutors was J Mays. (He used to bring in doughnuts.) I worked for several years at a major European OEM before the pandemic knocked the world into a cocked hat. In a previous life, in the Nineties, I daily drove a 1979 Ford Thunderbird while living in London.

    If, when you think of a car designer, what comes to mind is a fellow in funky glasses dashing off a few arty doodles of a car from on high, armed with an edict to “build this!” before returning to look at classic wristwatches online, that image is only partly true. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which part. Reality is messier. It takes hundreds of talented people to turn an arty doodle into something a customer can actually buy and drive. But how does that happen? Why do some cars look terrific and some look like the crumpled up box the car came in?

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    Land Rover
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    When we talk about car design, we are talking about a specialized form of product design, with a bit of fashion and sculpture thrown in. If you want to draw a designer’s ire, call them a stylist; these people spend years creating a design, then tweaking it to the satisfaction of managers, board members, various engineers, parts suppliers, and marketing wonks all doing their very best to have their own way. Win this fight and you get an Audi TT. Lose and you get a Pontiac Aztek.

    A great design creates an emotional response, making the owner think the manufacturer put thought and care into this expensive collection of parts. Premium manufacturers mostly strive for a family resemblance—features and callbacks that represent a house style cultivated over generations. More mass-market manufacturers prefer instead to make their vehicles stand out within the target segment (hello Nissan Juke) or follow trends (like the current rage for flying C- and D-pillars and blacked-out roofs). Think of it like this: you’ll recognize something from Hugo Boss whether it’s a suit or a pair of boots, or say a pair of shades from Prada. You won’t know where someone bought an item of everyday clothing, be it from Gap or Forever 21, but it will be similar to what everyone else is wearing that season. “On trend”, to lean on on awful phrase.

    Not all customers like the same thing—if they did, this business would be a lot easier. But “creativity is subjective!” I hear you cry, “it’s all in the eye of the beholder!”. Except that’s not really true; assemble a bunch of car designers in a bar and pretty soon you’ll have a consensus about what cars are great and those that should never have left the sketchpad.

    So now we know what makes a great design, how do we go about creating one?

    The following things are necessary: The right platform, great proportions, good stance, strong feature lines, and considered details—each one building on the other in turn. If the platform is wrong, everything else will be wrong. Given the minivan platform basis, no amount of facelifting could save the Aztek: it was doomed before the first clay model was milled. And if you’ve ever wondered why the current range of Minis look like a small bag carrying a large bag’s worth of groceries, it’s because they’ve been stretched to fit over a platform shared with front-drive BMWs, which are cars from the next size up.

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    Mini
    Coupe crossovers look ungainly because they’ve got the raised stance of off-road ruggedness, with the low roof of sportiness and style—two opposing ideas fighting over the same sheet metal. Many hours will be spent at this stage churning out simple clay models with no details until the basic outlines of hood, passenger compartment and trunk (if there is one) look right. Don’t put a long hood on a FWD car for example, because they’re more about maximizing the room for people and stuff. Likewise you wouldn’t put a short hood on a RWD car, because it would force the noisy oily bits into the passenger compartment. Creating a new urban runabout? Make it more upright because getting in and out while juggling a handful of Starbucks and pastries is more important than high-speed stability. Something more practical and family orientated? SUVs and station wagons should look like they have enough space to separate squabbling children or can hold the contents of a successful afternoon touring antique shops. Shooting brakes and fastback wagons should look speedy enough to make the dog vomit, because their raked glasshouse ensures nothing else is fitting in the back.

    After you’ve nailed the proportions, stance comes next. How does the thing sit on the road? Wheel size and wheel to wheel arch relationship are crucial to making a car look stable and planted, and not like it’s bouncing around like a Tamiya buggy. If you haven’t got the room to pull the wheels out and give your bodyside a touch of wheel arch flare, then give your wheels some dish.

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    Polestar
    Don’t make the wheels too big for the sake of looking good (like all parts of design, nuance is key). A senior designer once commented on one of my sketches that “it looks cool, but you’ve over-wheeled it a bit!” Even in the initial creative part of the design, you need to keep it realistic. Wheel spokes should never protrude outside the wheel rim. It looks knock-kneed, but under-wheeled makes the rims easy to damage.

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    Ford
    Once you have the overall volumes and stance, you can start to think about the surfaces. Feature lines, or the bones of the car, help to define the outline of the body and enable the sheet metal to hold its shape when stamped. Done well and the result is subtle curvature and tension with good highlights. Go crazy, adding lines that go nowhere and serve no purpose and the bodywork looks like it’s gone ten rounds street parking in New York before leaving the showroom.

    Lastly come the graphical elements, like lights, grilles, apertures for aero or cooling, exhaust tips and any trim pieces. How you combine these at the front is really important in establishing the car’s face. Manufacturers put a lot of effort into this: I once came up with a new front graphic that was well liked, andI was promptly asked to come up with more variations of the same theme. Like The Dude’s rug, these elements tie whole car together and provide visual interest, something alluring to look at. But they need to be used subtly. As Coco Chanel said, take off the last accessory you put on.

    So, a great design will make sense visually, be logical and useful to its intended purpose, and make its owner feel good about purchasing it, using it and being seen in it. Great cars have an inherent sense of rightness about them, that like pornography is hard to define but easy to spot. They also need to be seen in context. The Fiat 500 sold well in Europe because it has bags of emotional appeal and is perfect for bustling European cities. It fared terribly in the U.S. because enhanced passenger room wasn’t one of the option packages. Stick one on the interstate and it looks ridiculous. The new F-150 Lightning is confident, modern, unashamedly American, and its toned-down grille treatment make it arguably the pick of the range. It’s going to look terrific gliding silently through heartland U.S., but less so threading its way through an English country village.

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    Stellantis
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    That’s a solid overview of the ingredients for good design, but just as important is how these main aspects tie into the overall look of the car. In the next article, we’ll look at how a designer comes up with those flashy sketches, and what it takes to turn them into reality.
     
  21. jm2

    jm2 F1 World Champ
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    Yup, pretty much nailed it. Hard to argue with his statements.
    Talking about design and doing it are not always aligned.
     
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  22. jm2

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    Remembering the Great Auto Design Talent of Bill Schmidt
    By Robert Tate, Automotive Historian and Researcher
    Images Courtesy of Automotive Sculptor and Historian Ron Konopka, Ford Motor Company Archives
    Published 7.14.2021

    Image Unavailable, Please Login A 1950 Lincoln front end image (Ford Motor Company Archives)

    William Schmidt was considered by some automotive historians as a creative genius. Schmidt was a part of the auto industry design community during the 1950s.

    His career started when he joined Ford Motor Company in 1940. Schmidt attended Ford’s old trade school before moving to the Lincoln and Mercury styling studio. His first assignment was to redesign the 1950 and 1951 Lincoln front end facelifts, which included an updated new front grille along with some side and rear end design changes. The resulting 1950 and 1951 Lincoln models featured more clean and functional lines than the previous year’s cars.

    Ford introduced many great looking models during the 1950 and 1951 model years. The Lincoln models were successful from a sales standpoint. Schmidt said at the time: “It was a very exciting time. Originally, it was a fairly small group unrestricted by layers upon layers of management. I was able to carry out some pretty radical styling and advanced engineering plans.”

    Image Unavailable, Please Login 1955 Lincoln Futura show car (Ford Motor Company Archives)

    For many years, Schmidt worked with Edsel Ford, Bob Gregorie, George Walker, chief engineer Earle MacPherson, and many other talented Ford designers. Schmidt was also involved with the great looking 1953 XL-500 show car, but many historians have said that he was always quite modest about his automotive achievements.

    Image Unavailable, Please Login An illustration of the 1956 Lincoln Premiere (Ford Motor Company Archives)

    Perhaps one of Schmidt’s greatest styling achievements was the design of the 1956 Lincoln Premiere models, along with the extremely popular Lincoln Futura show car, later turned into the “Batmobile” for television by George Barris.

    Image Unavailable, Please Login 1956 Packard Predictor on the cover of Car Life magazine (Ron Konopka)

    In the late 1950s, Schmidt left Ford for Studebaker-Packard, where he and Dick Teague designed the popular Packard Predictor show car. It was hoped this design shift would save the Packard name plate. This car is now on display in the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana.

    Image Unavailable, Please Login Bill Schmidt pictured in a magazine ad (Ron Konopka)

    After Studebaker-Packard, Schmidt moved to Chrysler from 1957 to 1959, where he was involved with many great looking designs under the leadership of the great Virgil Exner and his creative design staff. He also established William M. Schmidt Associates on January 16, 1956. The company was an industrial design and engineering firm, comprised of product designers, graphic and packaging designers, and, most importantly, automotive designers. In the ensuing years, Schmidt would become the designer that many automotive manufacturers would go to for special futuristic automotive projects.

    William M. Schmidt Associates was located on Harper Avenue in Harper Woods, Michigan. His firm not only helped automotive companies but many other manufacturers as well. For example, Vlasic Foods was also a client. Vlasic created a line of pickle products with eye catching graphics that would result in great sales. Other clients included the Admiral Corporation and the United States Department of Labor. Schmidt headed the company management team as president, with Stanley E. Thorwaldsen as executive vice president and associate and George M. Krispinsky as director of automotive design.

    Image Unavailable, Please Login The Gashopper concept vehicle (Ron Konopka)

    The company designed an unusual vehicle called the “Gashopper,” a practical vehicle for the future. Other projects included building full-size prototypes for various boat manufacturers, such as 16 and 18-foot boats for Donzel Marine. They also designed complete exhibit systems for TRW, Simmons, United States Steel, National Steel, McLouth Steel and many others. The company also had many international clients, including the Paris Air Show and many other global companies.

    Image Unavailable, Please Login A Syd Mead illustration of the Innovari II

    An extremely popular vehicle designed and created for United States Steel Company was the Innovar II. The model was completely new, could seat five passengers and was considered a fully operable taxicab.

    My good friend Ron Konopka worked for William M. Schmidt Associates and has many great stories to tell. Unfortunately, Schmidt died of a heart attack at his winter home in Florida in February 1990 at age 68.

    In conclusion, although Schmidt is no longer with us today, he left a lifetime of great and creative designs that will always be a part of our automotive culture for many years to come.


    Bibliography

    Schmidt, William M. “Fifties Lincoln Mercury Stylist.” Special Interest Autos #136 July/August 1993 pg. 49.

    Schmidt, William M. “Packard Projector: Tomorrow’s Luxury Car.” Car Life, February 1956 pg. 24-25.

    Howley, Tim. “1956 Lincoln Premiere from the Longer, Lower Wider School of Design.” Special Interest Autos, December 1980 pg. 12.

    A special thank you to automotive historian and sculptor Ron Konopka, who helped to make this story possible.
     
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  23. jm2

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