Italians are renowned for their obsessive attention to the aesthetics of pretty much everything. As a result, the country enjoys a reputation for style and flair that the marketing teams of brands like Alfa Romeo or Maserati waste no opportunity to exploit to their advantage.

Yet, few would argue that, when it comes to car design, that reputation was mainly established between the 1950s and the 1980s, the golden era of the Italian “Carrozzieri.” These were a handful of small firms located around Turin that, at the height of their creative powers, managed to exert an outsize influence on the aesthetic development of the automobile worldwide.

But it’s plain to see that those days are gone. Bertone is no more, ItalDesign is an outpost of VW, and if you want your new car to come with a Pininfarina badge, your only choice is the Battista hypercar.

So, what went wrong?

The question may be simple, yet the answer is anything but. The downfall of Italy’s famed design houses wasn’t triggered by a single event or circumstance. Instead, it was a gradual process characterized by multiple contributing factors. But to understand what knocked the likes of Pininfarina and Bertone off their perches, we first need to look at how they got there in the first place.

The postwar years weren’t kind to the European coachbuilding industry. The sector’s traditional client pool was dwindling, and as the continent’s automobile industry embraced unibody construction, so was the supply of suitable donor chassis to work on.

By 1955, many prestigious Italian names from the pre-war era, such as Castagna and Stabilimenti Farina, were gone. The few coachbuilding firms that survived this tumultuous period were those with closer ties to the local automakers. These were the strongest, most resourceful outfits that could work with unibody structures and take care of small production runs—all while serving as actual design partners, too. Genuine one-stop shops that, on short notice, could ease the pressure from an automaker’s factory and design office.

That’s because while the switch to chassis-less construction made for lighter, more efficient cars, it also made tooling up for low-volume derivatives like coupès or convertibles significantly more expensive. And that’s where companies like Pininfarina and Bertone entered the picture. Outsourcing their design and production allowed Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo to offer sporting derivatives of their regular models without investing in additional production capacity. This became even more critical by the second half of the 1950s, as a booming Italian economy sent the demand for new cars through the roof.

By the mid-’60s, these lucrative contract manufacturing arrangements had transformed Pininfarina and Bertone into small industrial empires. Both companies built car bodies by the thousands, yet their fortunes depended as much on ideas as they did on sheet metal. Being perceived as the cutting edge of automobile design was crucial to keep commissions coming in, so wowing the crowds at the Turin, Paris, or Geneva motor shows with sensational show cars was an integral part of these firms’ business. And the results were as spectacular as the cars themselves: Design commissions came pouring in from France to Japan and everywhere in between. It seemed the Turinese masters could do no wrong, but their success was due in no small part to favorable circumstances.

As we intend it today, car design was practically invented in Detroit in the late 1920s when GM established its “Art & Colour” section. It didn’t take long for each of the Big Three to have a well-funded and fully-staffed design department. But, strange as it may sound to our modern ears, during the ’50s and ’60s, most European automakers had yet to realize the essential role design played in market success. If they had an in-house design team, it was often understaffed and placed under the engineering department’s thumb. Management frequently had little understanding or appreciation for design matters and, lured by their flashy dream cars, didn’t think twice about handing the job to the Italians.

Of course, that’s not to say these people weren’t good. Unencumbered by the internal pressures the home teams were subjected to, the Italian studios repeatedly delivered the freshest, most original proposals. Sometimes, when one particular automaker was stuck in a dangerous creative rut, that outside input—think Giugiaro’s work for VW in the 1970s, for example—could even prove vital. But nothing lasts forever, and as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, dark storm clouds were already looming on the horizon.

The first cracks began appearing right in the contract manufacturing business that had served Bertone and Pininfarina so well. Quality standards across the industry increased, while more advanced, flexible production methods allowed different cars to be made on the same line. As a result, automakers lost the incentive to outsource the production of lower-volume models. Moreover, if an international customer faltered, falling back on Fiat’s shoulders was no longer possible. Italy’s former industrial giant was all but broke heading into the turn of the new millennium and could no longer offer the support that had been so crucial four decades earlier. Few things can dig a larger hole in a company’s finances quicker than an idle factory, but the problems didn’t stop there.

By the time the last 747 full of Cadillac Allantés left Turin’s airport, design culture was much more widespread worldwide. Automotive executives were now acutely aware of design’s importance, and wanted to keep tighter control over it. Consequently, manufacturers invested heavily in their own design studios and often had multiple ones on different continents. With that, any incentive to involve third parties in the process was gone.

Especially when said third party counted most of your competitors among its customers. In an excellent biography published a few years ago, the legendary designer Ercole Spada shared a poignant anecdote from his time at BMW. He recalled how the company routinely asked each of Turin’s most prominent studios for proposals despite not intending to pursue any. But, since Pininfarina, Bertone, and ItalDesign all worked with BMW’s rivals, having these companies “compete” against its own design studio was, for the Bavarian firm, an indirect way to get a glimpse of its rivals’ general direction.

Last but certainly not least, complacency set in. There may still have been a space for Turin’s storied design firms in the modern era if they had kept their foot hard on the accelerator and their gaze locked on the horizon. Perhaps even more than in their 1960s heyday, being at the forefront of automobile design was a matter of life or death. Yet, one look at Bertone’s post-2000 output is enough to see why their phone stopped ringing.

Of course, Pininfarina is still around. Its latest work, the lovely Morgan Midsummer, shows that the company hasn’t lost its touch. But the days in which every Ferrari and every Peugeot on sale was a Pininfarina design are gone, never to return.

Nevertheless, it can be argued that what was created all those years ago in Turin continues to wield a certain influence on automobile design today. As a part of our shared cultural heritage, it’s in the back of every car designer’s mind, providing inspiration and being reinterpreted in novel ways. There are many examples out there, but the best one may be Hyundai’s brilliant Ioniq 5. It’s a resolutely contemporary and highly distinctive design, yet its design language’s roots are in Giugiaro’s “folded paper” cars from the 1970s.

Ultimately, the tale of Turin’s fallen design giants is as much about their amazing cars as it is about the fleeting nature of success. Left behind by the industry they once ruled, what’s left of the Italian “Carrozzieri” currently faces an uncertain future. What is certain, however, is that their massive legacy will stay with us for a very, very long time.

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“I believe it’s important for us to make things our customers can dream of,” said BMW Group global design chief Adrian van Hooydonk last weekend on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como. The occasion was the ritzy Concorso d’Eleganza, a magical little car show on the grounds of the historic Villa d’Este Hotel, and the dream car he was referencing is the BMW Concept Skytop, a gorgeous champagne-colored confection built on the platform of the existing M8 convertible.

Dreams can become realities, particularly when money is no object. BMW, a major presence at the Concorso since it was resurrected in 1999, started introducing design concepts here about a decade ago. In 2022, the 3.0 CSL that debuted at Villa d’Este was so well received by the well-heeled attendees, BMW hand-built 50 of them—to commemorate 50 years of its M division—and had no trouble finding buyers at 750,000 euros (about $800,000) apiece. Van Hooydonk and other BMW officials made it clear that a similar path could be followed for the Concept Skytop.

If BMW, encouraged by informal polling of affluent collectors, indeed decided to pull a few 8-series ragtops from the regular production line at its Dingolfing, Germany, plant and give them the Skytop treatment in a dedicated workshop, deliveries could likely commence in 2025 for about $500,000. “Some people came up to me last night [after the car’s debut],” remarked Van Hooydonk. “They said they definitely want one, and from a technical point of view, it’s very, very feasible.”

He further explained that it’s much easier for BMW to accomplish a very limited production run of a car like the Concept Skytop, something that requires only a few dozen buyers, than to scale up a few thousand examples of a special edition that must be run through the company’s global sales and distribution network. And if the Concept Skytop doesn’t make a lot of money for BMW? He shrugs.

“If you look around here [at the Concorso], you see a lot of fantastic cars,” he said. “And if you dig deeper into their history, often they didn’t sell a lot of them, they were incredibly hard to make, and commercially, they were not very often a success.”

The car is unlikely to be offered officially in the United States, as BMW would be required to submit five examples, or ten percent of likely production, for crash testing. But a keen buyer could potentially import it here under show-and-display regulations, a loophole which, BMW tacitly admits, several buyers of the 3.0 CSL have taken advantage of. 

Although the Skytop is adorned with the slimmest slashes of state-of-the-art LED headlights and taillamps, they are, Van Hooydonk stresses, entirely road-legal and not just styling flourishes. The Skytop’s shark-nose front end nods strongly to BMW tradition, and van Hooydonk cites both the 503 from the 1950s and the Z8, which incredibly is a quarter-century old, as inspirations for his design team. (Consider that the Z8 was itself inspired by the 507 of the late 1950s….making the Skytop a tribute to a tribute, in a fashion.)

In the spirit of the Concorso d’Eleganza, which celebrates the beauty, elegance, and handcraftsmanship of the automotive past, the Concept Skytop is a design and desirability exercise rather than an expression of high performance. Not that anyone will scoff at the twin-turbo 617-hp 4.4-liter V-8 borrowed from the M8 Competition model. BMW artisans wrapped nearly every interior surface with rich, reddish-brown leather, then continued the hides over the roll bar, which contains a power-operated window, and the removable roof panels. As the roll bar structure meets the trunk lid, the leather color continues into the paint, gradually fading away toward the rear of the car. A stunning detail.

Van Hooydonk clearly relishes the opportunity to use the Concorso to introduce cars that might someday appear at similar events. “You feel like this [event] is sort of an island,” he mused during a roundtable discussion with U.S. media. “It’s like it’s not connected to the real world, but for two or three days, it’s okay. Then we go back to solving the world’s problems.” 

Spoken like a man who is one of the principal executives at a carmaker that is, like all carmakers, struggling to plan products for five, ten, and twenty years in the future at a time of technological upheaval and great uncertainly in the global marketplace. “I think, for the brand and also for our customers,” Van Hooydonk continues, “it’s nice if there are some things floating around where they go, ‘I can’t afford it, but it’s nice that the company is doing it.’ So it’s something for [BMW fans] to dream of.”

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Wheels are like shoes. A good set can make everything else in the ensemble pop, but ugly ones can flush loads of effort elsewhere right down the toilet. Enthusiasts love to make their cars look just so, and because wheels are so interchangeable, they’ve been among the most popular vehicle modifications for decades.

In the modern era, there are a lot of boring wheel designs, a lot of polarizing wheel designs, and then some that make you feel absolutely nothing. But occasionally, designers get the stock wheels so right that there’s no need to look to the aftermarket. Our team got to discussing what OEM (original equipment manufacturer) wheels nail the brief.

We’re not big rules people here, but we did all agree to set a time frame of 2000 to now. We covered some of the more classic designs like Minilites and Fuchs here—that conversation was all about the best wheels to come out in the last quarter century. Below are nine nominations from our staff for the best modern wheel designs. Who got it right? What’d we leave out? Who needs a wellness check based on what they offered up? Let us know in the comments.

Cadillac V-Series 10-Spoke Wheel

First introduced on the previous-generation Cadillac performance sedans, the CTS-V and the ATS-V, this 10-spoke design is fantastic. (The updated version looks nearly as good on the new CT4-V Blackwing, too.) But as cool as they are on a road car, they’re even better on Cadillac’s older, DPi-V.R IMSA race cars. A nice little brand parallel between the road and race cars lends even more credibility to just how gnarly these cars are when you thrash them. These got the vote of managing editor Eddy Eckart, and it’s not hard to see why.

Saab 9-5 Turbo 3-Spoke Wheels

Our executive editor Eric Weiner chimed in with a nod for these Saab wheels. While the now-defunct automaker had a thing for unconventional rollers, this design takes the cake. Although Saab no longer makes cars, we’ll always have an affinity for the company that took much of its design ethos from its “Born from Jets” tagline.

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Fan Blades

Remember how bad wheels can sully a car’s good design? Well, sometimes the opposite is true. Great wheels can lift an otherwise, erm, interesting design. That was just the case for those nominated by editor-at-large Stefan Lombard.

“I love the smoked 15-inch Desert Runner wheels fitted to certain early 2000s Nissan Frontiers (I put a set on my Xterra) but I think I’ve got to go with the fan blades on the 2004–10 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Ironically, they are the best-looking part of the whole car.”

Cadillac Tech Bronze Snowflakes

I mean, it’s a fact that no good wheels were designed after the ’70s, but if I had to choose a modern wheel … I’ve got a thing for the wheels they’re slapping on these performance Cadillacs. (That sound you’re hearing is two of our racing experts—Cam and Eddy—in violent agreement.) The brushed satin gold/bronze tone on these things is just fantastic, and I love the amount of sidewall you still get with these wheels. — Cameron Neveu

Chevrolet Silverado HD Alcoa Aluminum Wheels

Trucks don’t usually get highly stylized wheels. It’s always function first, then form. But as resident DIY guru Kyle Smith points out, sometimes the two marry up nicely. And of course, being the wrench-master that he is, he has personal experience with these things.

“The Alcoa aluminum wheels that Chevrolet specced on the heavy-duty lineup from 2000 to 2010 have aged gracefully and are one of the rare affordable options for those looking to add some flair to their eight-lug trucks without resorting to chrome 20-inchers or painted steelies,” he says. “After finding a set locally, I had them blasted and powder-coated for a great OEM+ look. They actually helped the handling of my big red Express since the aluminum wheels are so much lighter than the factory steel ones. The ride is a lot better, which might be a low bar with an ex-plumber van, but better ride and better look? That’s about as good as it gets.”

Land Rover Defender and Ford Maverick’s Modern Steelies

Modern adaptations of vintage ideas don’t always work, but when they do, they’re pretty special. Senior editor Grace Houghton laid out a compelling case for a wheel design that we’d otherwise overlook entirely.

“I’m a huge fan of steel wheels, whether OEM or aftermarket,” said Houghton. “This pretty white one is from the Land Rover Defender, a luxury-minded off-roader, but you’ll also find them on new vehicles as humble as the Ford Maverick. Burly yet handsome, and so functional … and don’t get me started on the powder-coated steel beauties made by Detroit Steel Wheel Company … no street-rod truck would be complete without a set.”

Tesla Cybertruck Wheel Cover

We were all scratching our heads when senior editor Sajeev Mehta nominated the shoes on the Cybertruck. However, in true Sajeev fashion, he took the idea of “favorite” and pivoted it to mean “favorite wheel design to laugh at.” Score one for loose rules! Here’s his explanation: “The Cybertruck wheel covers prove that you can try to ‘Silicon Valley’ your way into reinventing the wheel, but you’re just gonna embarrass yourself in the process with a design that goes past the rim and eats into the tire.”

Alphard Wheels from Mid-2000s Mercedes-Benz SL600

Associate editor Chris Stark decided to bend the rules a different way, celebrating a wheel design not for how it looked on the car that wore it originally, but for how the design would look on other cars. It’s Friday, so we’ll allow it.

“I’m partial to the optional Alphard wheels that were available on the mid-2000s Mercedes SL,” he said. “They look fine on the cars they came on, but like the Corvette Sawblade wheels, they look way better on slammed VWs.”

Morgan Super 3 Disc Wheels

Who doesn’t love a good set of discs? They’re similar in design to the aeroblade wheels of IMSA fame, but with a smidge of functionality pulled out in favor of a little more curb appeal. Our resident U.K. correspondent, Nik Berg, had this to say about the shoes on this very British Morgan Super 3:

“They’re very big. On a very small car. Look almost like military hardware on this otherwise quite dainty oddball.”

No notes. Hard to argue with that.

Surely, there are plenty of modern wheel designs that we overlooked. Do you have a few in mind? Sound off in the comments below!

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Alexander Calder was best known for his sculptures, not for his painting, but near the end of his career some of his paint jobs were hard to ignore. In 1973 he was contracted by Braniff Airways to paint one of its four-engine DC-8 jets. The bright, cheerful result was dubbed “Flying Colors.”

In 1975, Hervé Poulain, a gentleman race car driver, commissioned Calder to use his imagination and paint a BMW 3.0 CSL that Poulain would race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year. It became the first of 20 official BMW Art Cars. It was also one of Calder’s last works; he died in 1976.

BMW Art Car number 20 debuted on Tuesday at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Designed by New York-based contemporary artist Julie Mehretu, the 640-horsepower BMW M Hybrid V-8 racer will compete in the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 15-16, carrying the number 20. Drivers will be Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and René Rast.

Mehretu, 53, was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020. Last October Mehretu, who was born in Ethiopia, broke the auction record for an African artist at Sotheby’s Hong Kong when her piece Untitled sold for $9.32 million.

Mehretu attended the Rolex 24 at Daytona last January, and watching the BMWs race provided some inspiration. “Designers, engineers, aerodynamicists and so many other creative minds are working on taking this vehicle to its extreme,” she says. “When it goes out on the racetrack now, so many dreams will be fulfilled.”

The car’s abstract visual form is the result of digitally-altered photographs, which are superimposed in several layers of dot grids, neon-colored veils and the black markings characteristic of Mehretu’s work.

“In the studio, where I had the model of the BMW M Hybrid V-8, I was just sitting in front of the painting and I thought: What would happen if this car seemed to go through that painting and becomes affected by it?” Mehretu says. “The idea was to make a remix, a mash-up of the painting. I kept seeing that painting kind of dripping into the car. Even the kidneys of the car inhaled the painting.” She employed 3D mapping to apply the artwork to the contours of the car.

Art Car artists are chosen by a panel of international judges. Perhaps the most famous BMW Art Car is number 4, created when artist Andy Warhol applied the paint himself, rather than do what most Art Car artists do: Paint a model of the car, and have the full-sized BMW colored separately. “I attempted to show speed as a visual image,” said Warhol, who died in 1987 at the age of 58. “When an automobile is really traveling fast, all the lines and colors are transformed into a blur.” Warhol took the speed aspect literally, as he applied 13 pounds of paint to the BMW M1 in just 28 minutes. The car went on to finish sixth overall at the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Indeed, the first four Art Cars all competed at Le Mans, a trend broken in 1982 when Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs painted flames on a stock BMW 635 CSi for Art Car number 5. The Le Mans tradition was revived for Art Car number 15 in 1999 when American artist Jenny Holzer, known primarily for her words, applied some to her artwork. The BMW V-12 LMR went to Le Mans with PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT emblazoned on the top of the race car, LACK OF CHARISMA CAN BE FATAL on the rear wing, and THE UNATTAINABLE IS INVARIABLY ATTRACTIVE on the driver’s side bodywork.

Leading up to this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Mehretu’s Art Car will make an appearance at the Concorso d’Eleganza at Villa d’Este in Italy’s Lake Como on its way to the track in France. As part of the exhibition for historic vehicles organized by the BMW Group and the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este, Mehretu herself will present the 20th edition of the BMW Art Car Collection.

It will be on the grounds of the Villa Erba, also on Lake Como, together with the BMW Art Cars by Calder (1975), Frank Stella (1976), Roy Lichtenstein (1977), Warhol (1979), Holzer (1999) and Jeff Koons (2010), which all made their race debuts at Le Mans.

For a look at all the BMW Art Cars, click here.

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Out of all the world’s automobile brands, British boutique manufacturer Morgan might be the last anyone would associate with cutting-edge design. Fundamentally, the company’s cars have looked more or less the same for nearly a century. So I’m sure I wasn’t the only one caught off-guard when, last November, the firm announced it was partnering with the famed Italian design house Pininfarina for a future vehicle project. That partnership birthed the Morgan Midsummer barchetta (which Hagerty covered here).

As a former vehicle designer, I was intrigued by what could result from such an unlikely duo, so I must admit that I found the new Morgan Midsummer somewhat underwhelming at first glance.

However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that my mild disappointment had little to do with the car itself but rather stemmed from my unrealistic expectations about it.

This is a relatively simple and pure sports car built by a niche manufacturer steeped in tradition. The Midsummer is the kind of “fun” project that would have had me jumping in excitement back in my car designer days: few requirements to satisfy, only a handful of people to please, and none of the bureaucracy that comes with a regular automaker’s various layers of management. Sign me up!

But make no mistake: designing for a manufacturer whose annual production tally would be a rounding error on Toyota’s balance sheet is fun, but it comes with its own unique set of challenges.

What you gain in creative freedom with a vehicle like this you lose in resources. Morgan makes between 800 and 850 cars per year, largely by hand. This puts clear and very stringent limits not only on what the company can do in terms of technology and facilities but also on how much it can spend to get there. And, with an annual turnover of around 35 Million, Morgan likely spent less on the Midsummer project than GM does maintaining the Tech Center’s coffee machines.

Once I approached the Morgan Midsummer in this light, I finally started to appreciate the subtle brilliance in Pininfarina’s work here.

The first significant limitation that Pininfarina’s designers had to deal with is evident at first glance: the Midsummer isn’t a brand-new car, but rather a comprehensively remodeled Plus Six.

I must now confess that, although I’ve always liked a good ol’ classic Morgan roadster, the latest crop of models based on the “CX” platform has so far left me cold. Yes, the classic look is still there. But the proportions always seem to be ever so slightly off, and some detailing, particularly the front valance and the air outlets behind the front wheels, look downright jarring.

The Midsummer, though, is on a completely different level.

Cynically, one might consider it little more than a rehash of the Plus Six. But thanks to Pininfarina’s deft tweaks to the vehicle’s proportions, sculpture, and detailing, the Midsummer has gained the kind of grace and panache the rest of Morgan’s range could only dream of.

Let’s start with the proportions. The youngest stylists in Pininfarina’s studio may not remember who Harley Earl was, but they sure know how to apply his old mantra, “longer, lower, wider,” to the best possible effect.

First, designers eliminated the windscreen, creating an unbroken horizontal beltline that emphasizes the car’s length and transforms its proportions compared to the Plus Six. Second, they lengthened the Midsummer’s rear overhang, balancing out the long front end and allowing the tail to taper much more gracefully than that of the Plus Six.

Once it fixed the vehicle’s proportions, Pininfarina gave the Midsummer a lovely new set of fenders. Compared to those of the Plus Six, the Midsummer’s fenders have a sharper, more contemporary surface treatment and extend deeper at the front to neatly integrate with the redesigned, full-width front valance.

Then there’s the detailing, in which Pininfarina evidently took inspiration from yacht design. After all, most owners will likely use their Midsummer to drive to and from the posh marina of a suitably exclusive coastal town, so leaning on that aesthetic makes perfect sense.

The chrome trim on the lower portion of the Midsummer’s body is clearly part of this “nautical” theme, but that’s not its sole purpose. In fact, giving the lower part of a car’s body a different finish is a classic designer’s trick. It visually elongates a car by slimming down the painted surface on the bodyside. At the same time, the exposed marine-grade wood that contours the cabin further underscores the design’s marine theme while paying homage to Morgan’s long tradition of using this material in its vehicles.

Last but definitely not least, the Morgan Midsummer has a killer stance. Its chunky wheels sit flush with the arches, and there’s so little space between the low-profile tires and the fenders that the rubber almost kisses the body—just as in a designer’s sketch. 

Moreover, I really dig the minimalist design of its 19-inch rims, which makes them look even larger and nicely complements the car’s overall design. After all, the Midsummer is far too elegant a conveyance to show off its brake rotors and calipers, and these rims’ visual weight contributes to making what ultimately is a tiny car look more substantial.

In conclusion, the Morgan Midsummer is the best-looking thing to come out of Malvern in a long time.

If there’s one thing I would have done differently, it’s the doors, which have been carried over unchanged from the Plus Six. I would have doubled down on the yachting theme and deleted them for a cleaner look. The average age of Morgan’s customers may not be the lowest in the business, but the Midsummer seems to sit low enough for most people to step over its sides without embarrassing themselves or pulling a muscle.

Nonetheless, the Midsummer is perhaps the first Morgan I’d like to own. That will never happen, of course, given that the planned run of 50 cars is reportedly sold out already, at around $250,000 a pop. But if I were in Morgan CEO Massimo Fumarola’s shoes, I’d waste no time letting Pininfarina work its magic on the rest of the marque’s catalog.

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Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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How the almost-mighty have fallen.

It was a different time then, in 1990: Auto shows were at the peak of their popularity, and manufacturers, from the smallest to the largest, recognized the value of putting their best foot forward in front of the massive audiences and prodigious media coverage that the shows received.

The car companies typically had a separate budget for the four major U.S. car shows, which were, and still are, in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago. And part of that budget usually included show cars—from barely-disguised upcoming models, to fanciful ground-up concepts designed to test out new ideas in front of what was often one of the world’s largest focus groups. Some concept cars made it to production, and some were forgotten almost as soon as the show’s doors closed.

That was the fate of the Cadillac Aurora, a sedan that was presented to the audience of the Chicago Auto Show. Founded in 1901, the Chicago show may have lacked the global credibility of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which was inevitably bolstered by its proximity to Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, but Chicago, in terms of crowd size, has long been the country’s largest.

The fact that the Cadillac Aurora was assigned to Chicago in February, instead of the Detroit show a month earlier, may have demoted it a bit in the eyes of the attending media, but it guaranteed that it would be seen in person by the most attendees.

The Aurora concept was a car taken very seriously by Cadillac. In a series of GM-sourced photos available on Carstyling.ru, the entire design process is chronicled, from the initial freehand sketches of the car, to the full-sized clay model created to see what the Aurora would look like in the flesh.

Unlike many concept cars of the era, which may have had darkened windows because the manufacturer didn’t take time to design a proper interior, or be displayed with the hood closed because they used some generic powertrain, the Cadillac Aurora was presented as though it was ready for the showroom.

The engine was a 200-horsepower, 4.5-liter V-8 that was mounted longitudinally to better package an all-wheel-drive system, complete with advanced traction control. The clean, functional interior was decidedly ahead of its time. The tapered rear is awfully busy and dates the car, with lights that extend from one side of the car to the other, contained in 30 separate horizontal bars, atop dual exhausts.

Its exterior styling eschewed the angular, now-dated look of multiple GM sedans from the period. It recalled a variety of GM influences that both post- and predate the 1990 concept, from the EV1 electric car to European Opels to the 1992 Oldsmobile Achieva, which shared the horizontal body line across the top of the rear wheel, even more pronounced on the Cadillac Aurora. Its prominent world debut occurred atop a revolving platform at the Chicago show, beneath a sign that read “Cadillac Style.”

Though the Aurora name was subsequently deeded over to Oldsmobile for the handsome sedan that would become the brand’s four-door flagship upon its debut in 1994, none of the prominent styling cues from the Cadillac Aurora would carry over.

We mention all this because a series of photos surfaced this month that show the Cadillac Aurora in line at a junkyard, presumably waiting its turn to be crushed. Manufacturers were turning out concept cars at a prodigious rate in the 1980s and ‘90s, and if a concept wasn’t important enough to merit a place in a museum, there was a good chance it would be destroyed, rather than take up warehouse space. The Aurora was obviously treated roughly: It’s scratched and dented, has a big hole in the driver’s side door, and sits on a nearly flat left rear tire.

The Cadillac Aurora did at least get a brief post-show moment in the sun, when it was a bit player in the 1993 film Demolition Man, the Sylvester Stallone police pic that was set in the future. A photo posted on Imcdb.org shows the silver Cadillac Aurora, right down to its stylish custom wheels, in a background shot in the movie, and it does indeed look futuristic for the time.

And now, even with its haphazard placement in the junkyard, squeezed in next to a Buick LaCrosse and a Chevrolet Malibu, this show car still evokes an emotion: Sadness. But we guess you can’t save ‘em all.

***

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“For the Suprematist, the proper means is the one that provides the fullest expression of pure feeling and ignores the habitually accepted object.”

– Kazimir Malevich

The perfection of bare geometry popularized by Russian avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich has arguably created some of the most controversial paintings of all time. Take, for example, the one that looks like he painted a white square on a white canvas.

People often revile such minimalism, especially when it comes with a similarly radical price tag: I’ve lost count of how many people think they can replicate suprematism with a can of white paint, display it in a gallery, and get chumps to buy it for insane prices. Except these haters (as it were) never woulda considered doing it in the first place had it not been for artists like Malevich. And I reckon they weren’t already immersed in abstractionist theory, ensuring art remains unbounded and unrestricted by human constructs.

Automotive design is significantly different, as it can only take a pure form so far before things like safety regulations, functional requirements, and manufacturing constraints come into play. The suprematist design of the Tesla Cybertruck threaded that needle shockingly well, much to the beholder’s delight/dismay. So let’s run it over the vellum and see what conclusions come to the surface.

Tesla’s design team and their controversial CEO likely didn’t have Russian suprematism on their minds when fashioning the low-resolution Cybertruck. The front end has a unique stainless-steel face and light signature that resembles the mask of a superhero, with a strong neck (bumper) below and a monolithic mane of glass shooting back from an impossibly flat hood.

Headlights lie between the “mask” and the neck below, and searching for them is almost unnecessary. It takes away from the sheer joy of the hard lines of the fenders and windscreen, which share a vanishing point that is easier to explain than on any other automobile in production.

I am terrible with sci-fi references, but this cloistered space for sensors and cameras reminds me of some spaceship’s appendage from a Star Wars movie.

The perfectly flat, trapezoidal shape of the Cybertruck’s windscreen is part of the vehicle’s radical signature, as it blends seamlessly with the hood. It’s reminiscent of design studies from Italian studios in the 1970s, or Trevor Fiore’s Citroën Karin from 1980.

Part of the windscreen’s appeal comes from the lack of a cowl to house the wiper blades and fresh air ducting for the HVAC system. Here, the only functional element of the cowl is the oddly shaped footprint for the base of the Cybertruck’s massive wiper arm mounted at the lower right. Singular, because the other side is just unadulterated glass.

Just below the seemingly non-existent cowl is one of the most understated, distraction free hoods ever to grace a pickup truck.

The only issue is how the stainless steel fenders and hood butt up against each other. Looking more like unfinished construction than a mass-produced machine is almost part of the equation, however: A case can be made that these are akin to blade fenders on older luxury vehicles. That case may be poppycock, but it’s convincing in person.

Appalling panel gaps aside, the superhero mask makes more sense from this angle. The front fascia, fender, hood, and lighting strip all look like items you’d see on a “normal” vehicle, but they’ve been reduced to their most basic forms, like a full-face helmet on a motorcyclist.

But when you step back and admire (as it were) the whole design, you see how Malevich’s suprematism is contorted into cyberpunk transport for elitists escaping a dystopian future: There’s a cab-forward cabin, angry angles and slashes, a squinty light bar under a furrowed brow, and headlights that are forced out of the equation.

That squinty light bar took a fair bit of surfacing to come to fruition. While the hood is close to flat, its outer contour makes the lights’ general shape. Below is the front fascia in stainless steel and a black plastic(?) textured filler panel. That filler panel allows the radically angled light bar to make sense with the far flatter stainless steel face (with only two bends on its profile). Panel fitment between the light, filler panel, and fascia is surprisingly good.

The Cybertruck takes to the next level the modern designer’s mantra of hiding headlights in places normally reserved for understated fog lights. This is pure architectural excellence, worthy of an office building or a high-end living space.

Below the front license plate bracket lies a rather ordinary, almost HVAC contractor–grade grille. Which is a nice throwback in an era of overdone grilles on modern vehicles, and there’s even a shutter mechanism to seal off the system and reduce aerodynamic drag.

The civil engineering references continue elsewhere on the bumper, as the plastic trimmed tow hook and its garage door–like background remind me of a loading dock in some Robocop-ian action scene. To the right of the hook is a front valance with clever angles that make the light dance on its body.

The Cybertruck’s frunk is nothing to sneeze at, but the hexagonal washer fluid reservoir cap and the contrast of the stainless steel hood against its aluminum substructure are fascinating in their presentation of geometric supremacy.

The transition to the side view is challenging. The vertical fender looks uncomfortably static against the downward slope of the wheel arch, but it makes more sense when stepping back and seeing the A-pillar blend with that arch.

And what an A-pillar this truly is. It’s intentions are fully realized by the hood and front fender, much like on a Ford Aerostar. Except Ford’s minivan wasn’t clad in stainless steel, with this material’s minimal surfacing requirements. The harsh angles and semi-reflective finish make the sunlight and shadow absolutely dance on the Cybertruck’s profile.

But the rest of the body doesn’t necessarily appreciate or believe in the A-pillar’s sleek overtones. There is conflict at every point below the A-pillar, and that challenge continues down the body side. In fact, this is a vehicle that challenges you from almost every angle, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing.

But geometric surprise and delight lie in the details, especially how the angular fender arches complement the harsh bends present in the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel cladding. And the triangular carve-out for the camera is abstractionism worthy of an art gallery.

The wheel arch bends in harmony with the crease in the stainless steel, but it makes no such effort to do the same with the charcoal-colored rocker cover below it. The intersection feels like a primitive cave, or the lair of a Batman-like hero.

A big problem with this design stems from the wheel arches and the bespoke Goodyear tires each being designed with geometric flair in mind, but the structural wheel doesn’t want to abide. Tesla made an angular wheel cover that fit into the recesses of the tire’s sidewall, but it quickly proved to dig into the rubber in real-world driving. We are left with this unfinished wheel design instead.

Goodyear likely worked hard to make a sidewall worthy of a Tesla wheelcover, to the point of adding its Wingfoot logo where the cover ended at the sidewall. There are talks of a new wheel cover in the works, with spokes that won’t not extend into the sidewall. And with those covers comes a far more conventional tire, allegedly.

If true, that has the potential to make this Goodyear the rarest of rare tire designs on the planet.

Above the wheel arch is where the Cybertruck’s remarkable look has more merit: The body-side crease turns into a sharp, angry triangle thanks to the A-pillar and a daylight opening (DLO) that extends far ahead of the front door.

You don’t necessarily remember that the Cybertruck’s minimalist cowl area lacks a VIN plate. So it’s instead placed on the A-pillar, behind the windscreen.

The intersection of tinted glass and brilliant stainless steel feels right, but the weatherstripping’s fade-away action at the top of the A-pillar is a bit disconcerting. (The vehicle was dead slient at speed during my time with it.)

This is such a strange combination of black trim, glass, rubber, and metal (stainless steel) in an automobile. It feels more like interior design for a high-end dressing room, not an automobile.

That’s just the start of automotive design intersecting with architecture and interior design. A pyramid-shaped truck with stainless-steel cladding worthy of the poured concrete aesthetic of brutalism does not make for a conventional assessment normally found here at Vellum Venom.

Tesla wisely stuck with a front DLO made entirely of glass, leading to a side-view mirror mounted to the door. But since this is the Cybertruck, the mirror body is also pyramid-like, with a base that varies in thickness to keep the design from looking static at any angle.

The front door glass is as terrifyingly triangular as the side-view mirror, sporting a steep rake at the A-pillar, a modest amount of tumblehome, and an awkward door aperture with a rounded weatherstrip seal. Not having any section of the roofline parallel to the ground is beyond unconventional for a truck, but this application works: Most folks will be able to enter the Cybertruck without their heads getting anywhere near this pyramid-shaped top.

The B-pillar is remarkably conventional, as even a pyramidal roof needs an upright support. The verticality is complemented by the strong bends in the sheetmetal, complete with a door cut line that adds a forward-thrusting element to the design.

The rear door is a bit more conventional, with a radical downward slope but a more conventional-looking four-sided polygon as a sheet of glass. The shape cheats your eye at a quick glance, as the stainless steel roof cuts off at a different point than does the window’s glass. Tesla added a black plastic insert (with electronic door release) after the window glass, but for some reason this DLO FAIL makes sense as a functional door release and not just a fake vent window.

No such complications when looking south of the Cybertruck’s belt line, as there’s a single crease in the sheetmetal, with an almost conventional rocker cover underneath.

The rear wheel arches suffer from the same incongruity as the front (thanks to a lack of blocky wheel covers) but make for a great place for a battery-charging door. The angularity also allows for a logical transition to an integral flap at the base of the rocker panel.

If only the wheel design was as angular as the rest of the body, as this C-pillar takes what we saw with the Chevrolet Avalanche (i.e. flying buttress) and turns it into a razor-sharp arrowhead that loves to play with sunlight and reflections.

From a lower, more head-on view, the Cybertruck loses its arrowhead levels of sharpness. The tall, upright cladding becomes far more like a conventional truck.

But there’s nothing conventional about this truck, as no truck has ever considered the boldness of just a few lines run across its entire body. The most obvious example is the crease that runs from the top of the front end’s light bar, to the top of the rear lighting assembly.

While the pyramidal roof has more initial bite, the Cybertruck’s flavor profile comes into full view while digesting this endlessly long crease.

Much like the front end’s negative space reserved for headlights and turn signals, the space between the bed and the bumper is perfect for a side marker light.

Like a large shop window facing a street, the red lense extends around the side and to the rear, where it’s greeted by a minimalist bumper that looks like a deconstructed Ranch Hand bumper.

And much like a brutalist building that faces a main street, the Cybertruck’s bed (and tailgate) sliced off the bottom right angle to reduce the visual weight above the red “shop window” in the bumper.

That massive array of quadrangles comprising the bumper make plenty of sense with a flat, rectangular rear tailgate that fully extends to the Cybertruck’s corners.

Due north of that stainless-steel tailgate is one of the Cybertruck’s more impressive design features, a smoked panel with parking and brake lights. Both it and the stainless steel have chamfers to add visual tension to an otherwise flat and boring posterior. Add in the blade fenders (as seen in the front) and you have a posterior that accentuates this lighting feature.

The only fly in the ointment is that the minimalism promised here isn’t present when you tap the brakes and realize very little of it illuminates. It’s best to leave the parking lights on (the whole thing illuminates) and never touch the brakes. Well, in theory.

The entire panel might not be a brake light, but building a triangular footprint for the rear camera integrates well with the rest of the Cybertruck’s angular theme. The triangle’s 3-D shape also makes it easier to aim the camera correctly, without the need for amoebic tumors used on other vehicles for correct camera orientation.

Open the Cybertruck’s bed and you’re rewarded with a redundant red reflector, a deep storage well à la Honda Ridgeline, and handy power outlets, both hidden from view until needed. The onboard power is certainly appreciated but falls functionally flat compared to the plethora of outlets available in the bed/cabin/frunk of the Ford Lightning EV. The Ford also has more ergonomic outlet covers, but ergonomics were clearly not paramount in the Cybertruck’s design. (Remember, this vehicle lacks a functional rearview mirror when the tonneau cover is unfurled.)

Speaking of that tonneau cover, it operates quickly and effortlessly behind all this easily stained plastic cladding. Considering how well this stuff aged on the Pontiac Aztek and aforementioned Avalanche, the Cybertruck is going to be an automotive detailer’s nightmare. This could be just as bad as the stain-creating steel chosen for the body, but it’s certainly an exciting piece of industrial design when in perfect condition.

With the tonneau cover closed, the Cybertruck has an impressive contrast of plastic, glass and stainless steel, all meeting up like an edgeless infinity pool. The details (i.e. weatherstripping) aren’t necessarilty as elegant or weathertight as one would hope, but this isn’t a mass market vehicle.

Never forget, this contrived and polarizing design cannot appeal to everyone like a functional/practical Ford or Chevy truck, no matter what Tesla said back in 2019.

Although the build quality on this example was better than what the Internet might lead you to believe, the gaps around this panel between the tonneau cover and the glass roof clearly leave something to be desired.

Which is truly a shame, because the transition between bed and roof is otherwise perfect. It looks expensive. It even feels expensive, because nobody else would have the nerve to make truck with a one-piece glass roof.

Nor would anyone else dare craft a bumper of brutalist, concrete-looking blocks arranged to both play with light and mask its functionality (center step, receiver hitch cover) so effortlessly.

Even the backup lights are recessed deep within the rear bumper, much like many an iconic brutalist building.

But sadly, the Cybertruck as a whole cannot delight like the individual details do when examined up close. The overall design lacks refinement, something normally resulting from months of surfacing treatments by car design teams within a manufacturer. This design was meant for quick consumption on par with a meme or shitpost, not for a loving embrace with longform content in a video or a white paper.

Nothing brings this lack of detail home like a Tesla dealership that uses packaging tape to install a paper tag. Yes really: Above, that is packaging tape on the back of a luxury vehicle that someone spent/financed $102,000 to purchase. This adds a new wrinkle to retailing concerns seen elsewhere at this company.

Never before have I come across a design that so delights in details, yet ultimately fails in the fundamentals. These feel like the mistakes a freshman design student will make once, and only once.

The minimalist cyberpunk theme has validity to some, though it brings about equal parts excitement and cringe to yours truly. The Tesla Cybertruck is a luxury good for a unique audience, likely a demographic that mirrors those who sided with Kazimir Malevich and his artistic suprematist followers back in the day.

But this is a product made in volume, not a controversial work of art. All vehicles (especially trucks) are primarily designed to be appealing in function and form. Even a Lamborghini Urus or Porsche Cayenne can be a soccer-mom SUV, but the Cybertruck doesn’t exist in the world of fleet managers, off-roaders, or family-oriented crew cab trucks with normal things like metal roofs and durable exterior finishes.

Instead, it feasts on the social media buzz that is so important to this company’s controversial CEO. Perhaps functionality is overrated, as its worked quite well up to this point. (Just don’t tell that to some Wall Street types.) The Cybertruck is the unobtainum minimalist wedge that was the Lamborghini Countach’s exclusive territory a few decades ago. Except it’s even more polarizing, and not necessarily for the best reasons. Thank you for reading, I hope you have a lovely day.

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We love talking about concept cars of every era, but the 1990s have a special place in our heart. It was a good decade for automotive diversity, especially for enthusiasts: SUVs were emerging as a hot new segment, true, but none of them purported to be a coupe or track star. Sport sedans thrived. So did hot hatches. The Miata debuted in 1989, kicking off the roadster craze. Chrysler was, for most of that decade, just Chrysler—not some confusing multinational conglomerate with a name that no one remembers.

Even the automotive ideas that didn’t make production had pizzazz—in a few cases, as you’ll see below, perhaps a little too much pizzazz. We’ve covered ’90s concepts before, but after a spin through the treasure trove that is Alden Jewell’s catalog of car brochures on Flickr, we decided it was time to focus on the concept cars from the U. S. of A., rather than the European contingent that dominated that last list.

Step back in time with us to an era when Buick was thinking of wild sedans, Pontiac was still cool, Mercury … existed, and Dodge was high off the Viper.

1999 Buick Cielo

If you thought Buick’s newest concept car was unorthodox, prepare yourself: The Cielo is much, much more out-of-the-box. (Despite that throwback grille texture, which is very Y-Job.) A four-door convertible, with retractable headlights and voice-operated doors? You’d never know this thing was based on a highly modified Regal GS. The top, complete with its rear glass, stowed beneath a panel at the back thanks to a cable system hidden in the two arches that frame the “roof.” Power came from a supercharged 3.8-liter V-6 making 240 horsepower.

Judging by the much tamer concept of the same name that Buick showed off the following year—and marketed as a possible limited edition—the automaker thought the convertible four-door idea had legs. In Buick’s words, the Cielo “proves just how broad and flexible and contemporary the idea of a premium family car really is.” Little did Buick know that, 15 years later, the only premium family car the people would want was an SUV …

1997 Mercury MC4

Motortrend got rather excited about the MC4 when it debuted in 1997: “The MC4 is for Mercury what the Viper Roadster was for Dodge nine years ago.” Yes, it was far more interesting to look at than the blob-like Mystique or the softly contoured Mountaineer … but no one knew that, 13 years later, Mercury would stop producing vehicles, its sales cannibalized by parent company Ford.

In 1997, however, Mercury’s star shone far brighter. The MC4 wore the edgy, minimalist look characteristic of Ford’s New Edge design language, initiated by the GT90 concept in 1990 and most familiar to folks on the 1999 Mustang. A trapezoidal grille and emphasized wheel arches are common to both that Mustang and the MC4, which actually started life as a V-8–powered ’96 Thunderbird. Unlike the T-Bird, the Mercury concept boasts four doors and a rear cargo area accessed by a pair of gullwing doors. It had style, space, and, of course, a healthy dose of tech that hadn’t quite been readied for production: video cameras instead of side- or rearview mirrors, nickel-chrome plate bedazzling the interior, and heated and cooled cupholders.

1997 Pontiac Rageous Concept

In 1997, Pontiac had four-door cars, and it had V-8–powered cars, but it didn’t have any V-8–powered, four-door cars. The Rageous, with its 350-cubic-inch small-block and vestigial set of rear doors, aimed to fix that. It could carry four people, but the trunk was accessed via a top-hinged hatch, making this more of a hatchback than a sedan. The Rageous had a six-speed manual transmission and a heavily vented, pointy schnoz that put that of the contemporary Firehawk to shame.

1994 Dodge Venom

If the Dodge Venom reminds you of a Neon, you’re on the right track: This 1994 concept was built on a version of the Neon’s platform. Unlike that compact, however, the Venom was rear-wheel drive. Compared to the sportiest Neon, the SRT-4, the Venom boasted an iron-block six-cylinder engine with 24, rather than 16, valves, and more power: 245 rather than 215 horses. The Venom looked like the perfect little brother to the Viper, which it honored with that side-scoop and squinty headlights atop a four-section grille. The concept even made the cover of Car and Driver‘s March 1994 issue, accompanied by the question: “Dodge’s pony car of the future?”

We wish such an affordable, spunky two-door had made production: Dodge wouldn’t have a direct competitor to the Mustang and the Camaro until the Challenger, which hit the streets 14 years later.

1995 Chevrolet El Camino SS Concept

It may remind GM fans of a Holden, but the El Camino SS Concept ute is a GM B-body at its core. GM’s Advanced Vehicle Development Center in North America built this ute out of a Caprice station wagon in just 16 weeks, grafting onto that people-hauler the nose of an Impala SS. Many of the steel body panels were made by hand. Power came from a 300-hp version of the LT1 V-8 found in the Corvette and the Impala SS (in different tunes) and was channeled to the rear wheels via a 4L60E Hydramatic transmission. Unfortunately, the platform that gave it birth spelled its doom: GM killed the age-old B-body at the end of 1996. RIP.

1994 Plymouth Expresso Concept

Would you believe us if we said this was a Plymouth? Maybe not, because the Expresso is more interesting than anything Plymouth made in the ’90s … until the Prowler arrived for the 1997 model year, at least. (That retro-mobile debuted in concept form the year before the urban runabout Expresso debuted.) The Expresso was built on the shortened frame of a Neon, to be sold under both the Dodge and Plymouth brands, and used the compact’s 2.0-liter four-cylinder to power its front wheels.

The four-door bubble would never reach production, but its name stuck around in the Plymouth lineup as a trim package on the Neon, the Voyager, and the Breeze. Be prepared to explain yourself if you mention this concept in front of a coffee snob: This weirdo’s name really is EX-presso, not Espresso. The proper pronunciation would be too … well, proper.

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Last week, Ferrari gave us yet more proof that whoever coined the phrase “Money can’t buy happiness” has probably never been anywhere near one of its showrooms.

Of course, most, if not all, Ferraris are special cars, almost by definition. Yet Maranello’s latest creation, the 12Cilindri, is perhaps an even more fascinating object than usual.

On the one hand, it’s a genuine technological tour de force. It’s got active aero, independent four-wheel steering, plus a whole host of performance-enhancing electronic systems. But on the other hand, it’s also a delightfully old-fashioned proposition. After all, it’s a big front-engined, rear-wheel-drive grand tourer with a bonnet large enough to have its own zip code, and the only battery in sight is there to start up its massive engine.

And what an engine it is.

A 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V-12 that can rev up to 9500 rpm is simply Ferrari doing what it does best. And with such a glorious, unapologetic tribute to the gods of internal combustion under the hood, it’s no wonder Ferrari elected to give the engine top billing, even if that meant testing its international customers’ mastery of the Italian language.

The new 12Cilindri picks up right where its predecessor, the 812 Superfast introduced in 2017, leaves off. But it also marks a significant and welcome step up in the aesthetic department.

In the recent past, Ferrari’s Centro Stile hasn’t been immune to the odd slip-up, and in my view, the old 812 counted among those. But over the last few years, Flavio Manzoni’s crew in Maranello really seems to have hit its stride.

Beginning with the SF90 in 2019, the Prancing Horse’s styling team has knocked out a sequence of genuinely outstanding designs, from the gorgeous 296 and Roma up to and including the impressive Purosangue. The new 12Cilindri definitely is no less accomplished a design, but to fully comprehend what makes it so captivating, let’s start from the fundamentals.

As I’ve already stressed in previous articles, beauty in car design is, first and foremost, a matter of proportions. But I have to say that, in this case, Ferrari’s designers have had it easy.

Being a wide, low-slung two-seater packing a large engine placed well behind the front axle, the Ferrari 12Cilindri is the automotive equivalent of a supermodel: naturally endowed with attractive proportions. With such a technical package, Ferrari’s stylists already had all the makings of a pretty car before drawing a single line.

Still, even such a big head start won’t count for much if you don’t know what you’re doing, and one has to look no further than the Mercedes-AMG SLR to see what I mean.

Thankfully, the folks at Maranello rose to the challenge and created a perfectly sculpted volume that reminds me of one of my favorite Ferraris, the Monza SP roadster, but with a sharper, more contemporary feel. For example, I love the way the lower bodyside’s surface twists in a well-controlled manner from the front wheel arch to the rear, creating an interplay between light and shadow that visually “lightens up” the car.

I also appreciate that Ferrari’s stylists kept the car’s volume remarkably clean. In car design jargon, a “character line” is a crease on the car’s volume serving no purpose other than aesthetics. There are precious few on the 12Cilindri’s curvaceous body, and the main ones are the two running parallel and “breaking” the door’s surface just above the handle.

However, by deftly tying these lines to graphic elements such as the shutline of the clamshell hood and the front and rear lights, Ferrari’s designers have created a continuous line that “guides” our eyes around the car and puts it all together into a cohesive whole.

But, without a doubt, what stands out the most about the new Ferrari’s design is its rather bold graphics. That’s the term vehicle designers use when referring to everything that “cuts” into the car’s volume, like shutlines, air intakes, the glazing’s contours, and lights.

At the front of the car, Ferrari’s designers made a wise decision by using a clamshell hood instead of having unsightly shutlines cutting through the 12Cilindri’s voluptuous fenders. The trapezoidal headlight units are visually connected by a black trim piece, which certainly isn’t a novel idea but is used to great effect here, paying a tasteful homage to the full-width acrylic panel used on the legendary 365 GTB/4 Daytona.

By contrast, Maranello’s stylists’ approach to the 12Cilindri’s rear-end design is decidedly more radical. The two active spoilers get a black finish to visually merge with the rear window and create an arrow-like graphic on the roof. That won’t be to everyone’s taste, and it does render the 12Cilindri very color-sensitive: Spec yours in black or any other dark shade, and it’ll all become nearly invisible.

Still, if you really don’t like it, Ferrari has you covered.

In a surprising break from usual practice, the company presented the spider variant alongside the coupe. When closed, the retractable roof panel fits seamlessly with a pair of flying buttresses to give the 12Cilindri Spider a similar profile to is hardtop stablemate. The two active rear spoilers and the small decklid between them still get a contrasting black finish, but the effect isn’t nearly as convincing as on the coupe.

Italians are known to take great pride in Ferrari and its successes. And, being a citizen of this small country in the middle of the Mediterranean, I’ll confess that I’m no exception. Moreover, as an enthusiast who has witnessed the near-terminal decline of Italy’s volume car industry over the last few decades, the fact that there’s still a small company in Maranello building some of the world’s finest rides does indeed give me some solace.

Just like nearly everyone else, I’ll never own any Ferrari, let alone a 12Cilindri. But I’m glad it exists, and rest assured that when one of these roars past me in traffic, you’ll find me smiling and gazing longingly at its curves while I think: “We’ve still got it!”

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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“Collecting” can mean a lot of things when it comes to car-related artwork. It could be a 12-year-old boy with two Ferrari posters on his wall or a multi-millionaire with a warehouse full of Grand Prix posters and hood ornaments—passion is passion. Auto art can be had at any price point. It also doesn’t take up much room, nor does it require any real upkeep the way a real car does. If you have limited space, you can even switch up what you’re displaying at any given time. That’s probably what we’d do with this group of period Bertone blueprint drawings, currently up for auction online in Italy.

According to the listing the 1/10-scale drawings, printed on semi-transparent acetate tracing paper, came from a long-term Bertone employee who kept them in his own collection before giving them to the seller’s grandfather about 40 years ago. They are each supposedly one of only three prints made from a paper master, and they range in size with the largest ones roughly four feet wide.

The group totals 14 drawings and features various (mostly Italian) cars and designers. Two of the largest illustrations show the Lamborghini Miura and Lancia Stratos (both by Marcello Gandini at Bertone). Other Bertone-designed pieces include a Citroën GS, Fiat Dino Coupe, and ISO Rivolta GT. A Lancia Delta (by Italdesign) and an Alfa Romeo Junior Z (by Ercole Spada) are included as well. Finally, there are two renderings of the short-lived postwar Bugatti 101, both signed by Giovanni Michelotti at Ghia.

Different cars, different designers, different sizes. Sounds like a great way to kickstart an automotive art collection. Bidding for the 14 drawings ends on Tuesday, May 7. What they’ll sell for isn’t easy to guess, but that’s the beauty of auctions like this. We’ll find out what it’s worth once people stop bidding.

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April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

We know how big of a splash the 1965 Ford Mustang made upon its introduction, from its debut at the New York World’s Fair to 22,000 units sold in its first day on the market. The Mustang created the formula for the pony car genre, offering the classic long hood, short deck proportioning of a grand touring car from Europe for the approachable asking price of $2368.00. The base models weren’t outstanding performers, and that’s why many of us know the options that made this pony a real sweetheart.

There were V-8 engines, four-speed manual transmissions, a special handling package, and preferred equipment groupings like the “GT Equipment Group” that added the right amount of flash to go with that hardware. But the Mustang’s interior has an interesting story to tell, one that you likely haven’t heard yet.

This first “pony” car was accessible to many drivers, and its style was crucial to the vehicle’s success. Credit some of the Mustang’s instant popularity with its ability to provide more rungs on its ladder, appealing to Ford Falcon buyers and well-heeled shoppers alike. Going upscale with unique sheetmetal and structural underpinnings is difficult, but the move is quite easy to accomplish with interior trappings. Take the optional floor console, from the Mustang’s extensive options list.

Nobody needs a console, but Mustang owners with bucket seats had an opportunity to add more storage, an ashtray for rear seat occupants, and a ton of flash in a space normally reserved for a carpeted driveshaft tunnel.

For a reasonable(ish) $51.50, this courtesy-light-equipped console gives the affordable pony car a sense of luxury in the Thunderbird tradition. Just look at how it integrates the offset floor shifter while complementing the dash’s chrome accents. But the coolest feature is the “edgeless” rear courtesy light, and how it interfaces with the carpet on the transmission tunnel. It’s like sitting in an infinity pool that merges concrete ground with a stunning backdrop with water as its visual glue. (Or light, in the case of the Mustang.)

Making the Mustang’s interior look like that of a Thunderbird—a vehicle that was twice the asking price of the Mustang—is an impressive transformation for the equivalent of $506.33 in today’s dollars. But we haven’t covered (as it were) the optional wood veneer for these consoles, as that’s where our story kicks into high gear.

While Ford referred to it as the “Interior Decor Group,” the upgrade presented above is colloquially referred to as the Pony Package. The name comes from the horses embossed on the package’s uniquely crafted two-toned seats. While the console was a standalone option, the simulated wood trim on the Pony Package’s console was designed to blend with the wood-effect bits on the steering wheel and dashboard.

Unique door panel inserts with Thunderbird-style handles and courtesy lights were also part of the deal, as was the Mustang GT’s fancy gauge package. Unique kick- and quarter-panel covers with carpet/vinyl coverings and stainless steel trimmings rounded out the Pony Package’s preferred equipment. This is a fair bit of equipment at any price, for any vehicle.

While the Pony Package was a not insignificant $107 hit to your wallet, that $1051.98 spent today can’t even buy the blackout wheels/trim/spoiler combo in the 2024 Mustang’s Night Pony Package. Is black paint and plastic really worth more than all this wood, chrome, ornate trim, and pressed-on ponies?

Very few interior upgrades for a modern Ford can match the bang for the buck of the Pony Package; A Mustang so equipped is more akin to a Black Label Lincoln Continental. The original Mustang might not be crafted like a Jaguar of the era, but that didn’t stop around 27,000 customers (out of 559,451) from choosing this upscale splash of style back in 1965. Clearly, there was a market for a premium Pony Car, and the Mustang’s future competition was foaming at the mouth for a piece of that action.

The Pony Package’s attainable luxury offerings were also part of Pontiac and Mercury’s plan for their pony cars, as those upscale brands traditionally offered more than a mere Ford. Take the Jaguar-esque Cougar XR-7 for 1967, a vehicle which took the now-defunct Pony Package’s game to the next level with extra functionality (more lights and switches), acres of faux burl trim, and decadent leather seating surfaces.

So, consider the oft-overlooked Pony Package to have an enduring legacy on par with that of the Mustang GT: the package had an impact far beyond its two-year lifespan as a factory interior upgrade. This option package gave the masses a shot at personal luxury before the genre even existed, giving the pony-car class an even broader appeal.

Back in 1965, you could get a mere car for $2368.00, or you could have a Mustang. You could also spend $4500 to $6000 for sleek two-doors like a Thunderbird or a Jaguar XKE, or you could have the nicest Mustang in town and save a ton of cash to go with all that flash. (I’d recommend purchasing some of those wild Eames Chairs and a HiFi system for your living room with that extra scratch.)

The purchase scenarios above are brilliant moves at market segmentation, and the Pony Interior shows how important enlightened interior design can be for an entire class of car.

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April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

The word “iconic” is misused to describe mundane or obscure cars all too often. In the case of the Ford Mustang, there’s no question that the term is warranted. Over the car’s 60-year history, it has been a whopping sales success, a cultural trend setter, and a motorsports champion. If we boil the essence of the Mustang down to just one image, a single icon if you will, it has to be the galloping Mustang emblem that’s graced every generation of Ford’s famous pony car since its inception. It’s hard to imagine it any other way, but the emblem, styled by Ford’s Waino Kangas, could have been much different. Here are several iterations that were tried before the winning formula was discovered.

1962 Mustang I Concept

The public’s first look at a running Mustang emblem came in October 1962 when the Mustang I concept was first shown. The Chevrolet Corvair had a lot of influence on this concept, which was powered by a mid-mounted 1.6-liter Ford Taunus V-4 engine, the same engine that saw widespread use in Ford’s European models and a few Saabs. Ford hoped the production Mustang would capture some of the youth market that had been quick to scoop up the sporty, affordable trims of the rear-engine Corvair. However, as Ford would soon prove, the engine location was nowhere near as important as the sporty appearance and affordable price tag. Early emblem designs, while still galloping Mustangs, weren’t a side profile of a horse, rather one running slightly toward the viewer.

Ford Cougar

It seems like a foregone conclusion that Ford’s two-door, sporty compact would be named Mustang. This internal photo from Ford shows that the earliest iteration of the model that eventually became Mustang with a different genus of pony car emblem entirely. Ford tasked its designers to envision a sporty four-seater, and more than a dozen versions were created. The design that would become the Mustang was initially dubbed “Cougar” by Gale Halderman, the designer responsible. That magnificent feline wouldn’t go to waste, however, as the lanky cat would show up on the production Mercury Cougar in 1967. Halderman did influence the Mustang’s emblem though. Note that the above Cougar is enclosed by a ring around it—this would be adopted by Mustang and become known as the “corral.”

Stalemate

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but you don’t have to be from the future to know that there were better options for a sporty car emblem than this square badge. Is it a chess piece or a Pepperidge Farm cookie representing the same? Perhaps it was left over from the Willys Knight. Hard pass.

Mustang II Concept

Showing considerable evolution toward the final product, the Mustang II concept was first revealed to the public on October 5, 1963, at Watkins Glen. While the steeply raked windshield was not intended for production, the general shape of the roof was there and its flanks were getting very close. Up front, the headlights were radical, although the grille was almost dead on. This was the first time the public had seen a running Mustang enclosed in its corral.  

Uncanny Valley

To prove just how iconic and specific the galloping Mustang iconography is tied to the Mustang, look at how unsettling it is when one simple detail is altered. We’ve got a feeling there’s a universe where Ford picked this version and detective Lieutenant Bullitt drove a Firebird, the Miracle on Ice never happened, and Seinfeld was canceled after the pilot.

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The post The Mustang’s Iconic Galloping Emblem Was No Accident appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

On the cover of its January 6, 1967, issue, TIME magazine featured not one person but a whole generation: 25-and-unders. Approximately 76 million Americans were born over the two decades following the end of WWII, and by 1966, people aged 25 and younger had become a demographic force to be reckoned with. This new “baby boomer” generation was closely observed by their parents, market researchers, and the state, yet it seemed hardly any of these elders truly understood them.

Well, anyone except Anthony Lido “Lee” Iacocca, who had just given them exactly what they wanted.

By the beginning of 1967, when TIME put the Mustang’s target demographic on its cover, Ford had already sold well over a million Mustangs. Of course, not every one of those buyers was in their 20s. However, as the old auto industry adage goes, you can sell a young person’s car to an older person but you can never do the opposite.

Many more Mustangs have since followed, and although most are rather handsome, none seems to have quite the same enduring, almost universal appeal of the 1965–66 original. It simply looks, for lack of a better word, “right.”

A design like this occupies an elusive aesthetic sweet spot, as difficult to express in words as it is to achieve in the metal. Yet it is immediately apparent to the eye. Few car designs hit that mark, much less projects like this one.

I’ll elaborate: The stories that we car buffs love to celebrate often involve bold, daring designs stemming from the unique vision of larger-than-life individuals. Yet the Mustang’s origin story couldn’t be more different from that romanticized ideal. An extensively researched corporate project that can’t be credited in its entirety to any single individual, the Mustang’s design wasn’t out to innovate or polarize. The roots of its enduring appeal are much more subtle. Brilliant execution had more to do with the car’s success than with the idea itself.

Design work on the Mustang commenced in late 1961, under the direction of Ford’s newly appointed design vice president, Gene Bordinat. By then, Detroit’s stylists had all but left behind the previous decade’s decorative excesses to embrace simpler volumes and large, unbroken surfaces. With its pin-sharp lines and sheer surfaces, the Mustang fit right into this mold, leaving proportions and detailing to set it apart from anything else in its price range.

To make the “Special Falcon” (as the Mustang was being referred to during development) a car that, in the words of Joe Oros, Ford’s head of car and truck styling at the time, “would look like fun,” Ford’s stylists gave it the proportions of a European sports car. That meant a long hood, short deck, and a hop-up on the rear fender to give the Mustang a slightly crouched, ready-to-pounce stance. It has a trim, lean volume whose deftly modeled surfaces have just the right amount of crowning to take away most of the severity such a boxy shape might otherwise evoke.

The mission to give the Mustang the appearance and character of a much more expensive sports car was then completed with particular details. Note the the nerf-blade front bumper and the now-iconic large “mouth” above it. The latter was inspired by period Ferraris, while the idea of fitting a big die-cast emblem inside it came from the large trident badge found in the Maserati 3500 GT‘s grille. Interestingly, the design department’s original intention for the Mustang’s signature side scallop was to feature a functional intake to feed air to the rear brakes. However, since the additional ducting required would have added about $5 per car in production costs, it became a merely decorative item. Similar cost reasons also led the six individual taillights initially envisioned by Ford’s stylists to be grouped into two bezels.

Still, a neatly executed design and a perfectly timed launch can only go so far in explaining the original Mustang’s staying power. In fact, I believe there’s one more aspect of its design that, although rarely discussed, has been key to making it such a perennial favorite.

As Oros recalled years later, “We talked about the sporty car [referring to the Mustang] not being too masculine, too macho. It had to appeal to women as well as to men. We agreed that it had to be sporty and personal, that young people would enjoy driving it.”

That decision is what sets the original Mustang’s design apart from the ones that followed. The car looks dashing and sporty even in its most basic form, and the effect is care-free and unintimidating. Even in its hottest, “Shelby-fied” GT350 spec, the first iteration of the Mustang has a purposeful look rather than an outright aggressive one.

As we all know, it didn’t stay that way for long.

Caught up amid Detroit’s late-’60s horsepower war, the Mustang put on muscle and a whole lot of fat in the space of a few years. Although that resulted in some genuinely epic machines, the Mustang’s customer base ended up shrinking year-on-year, until Ford reversed course with Iacocca’s “little jewel,” the controversial Mustang II.

The current Mustang is the best ever made by every on-paper metric, but it, too, represents much more of Bunkie Knudsen’s vision of the model than Iacocca’s. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, and things probably could not be any different, especially in a world where pretty much every car and truck is styled as if it’s out for blood.

Still, there’s something to be said about a design that not only remains just as coveted now as it was 60 years ago but looks like it will be for the foreseeable future. Despite being very much a “design by committee,” the original Mustang is also the definition of a design classic. On the one hand, it epitomizes the era for which it was conceived, yet on the other, it is utterly timeless. Just as timeless and universal is the message the car radiates. Whether it’s a straight-six on hubcaps or a loaded 289 Hi-Po, a 1965–66 Mustang always looks like a good time.

And who doesn’t like a good time?

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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April 17 marks 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

When Ford opened the gate to the Mustang’s corral, few people knew just how much interest it would garner, or how quickly. As with any cultural phenomenon, there’s value in finding the early artifacts that shaped the future as we now know it. That combination has led to an interesting subset of Mustang enthusiasts who seek out early production Mustangs, or 1964.5 models. (Even the earliest Mustangs are technically 1965 model-year cars, but they are commonly referenced as ‘64.5s to distinguish their early build date.) Even if it’s not your muse, it is always interesting to look at how rapid production increases affected how the cars were built and the parts that were used. Here’s what to look for when spotting an early Ford Mustang.

Production for the Mustang began in March of 1964, and like anything that makes the leap from idea to physical object, there were some adjustments to the parts and process along the way. Some were likely due to nothing more than ease of assembly, or a change in supplier for the parts, or just subtle changes from the same supplier. The exact dates on a few changes will likely be debated forever, but even if the timing of the shift is imprecise, we know these are typical features of what is commonly called a 1964.5 Mustang.

The VIN

The first digit in the vehicle identification number on Fords of this era is indicative of the model year for the vehicle. That alone is not particularly helpful as all early Mustangs are 1965 models. The second digit in the VIN calls out the production location: “F” for Dearborn, Michigan and “R” for San Jose, California is common for early cars.

Under the Hood

There are a few key components in and around the engine bay that point to an early build. First, we head to the passenger side of the compartment.

Generator

The charging system of a car is critical to long-term functionality, and historically there have been three systems for powering the electrical needs of an automobile: Total loss, generator, and alternator. Total loss is uncommon, and the difference between a generator and alternator is simply which part of the operation spins.

Early Mustangs were equipped with generators, which are slightly less efficient than alternators but still functionally fine for the car. Typically, the generator is visually different from an alternator, making this an easy spot with the hood open. Also different, and related to the generator, is the radiator core support that has pressed vents to allow airflow to cool the battery and generator, along with a longer dipstick to make it accessible through the generator bracket. Later cars moved the dipstick to the driver’s side of the engine block.

Horns behind radiator

Horns might not have been legally required, but just like today, buyers have expectations of being able to convey a one-tone message to those around them in traffic. For the early Mustang this came by way of a pair of horns mounted behind the radiator on the frame rails. Later cars had the horns mounted to the radiator core support.

Hood hinges

The hood hinges would be painted gloss black on an early production car.

Hood stiffener and headlight

This is also known as the “improved” hood, as it comes down to a change in manufacturing after the first run of hoods was produced. The early production featured a hanging “skirt” of sorts from the leading corners of the hood. Later cars had this edge rolled in and flattened. This additional material on the early hoods also required a tapered edge on the headlight nacelle. This means there is the possibility to have one or the other, or both, as cars can get parts swapped on and off for any number of reasons.

Brake light switch mounted to the master cylinder

Dual circuit brake systems were not yet widespread until 1967, so the single-pot master cylinder is not a tell in and of itself of manufacture date. Instead, it is the brake light switch location that can denote an early parts arrangement versus that of the later car which mounts the switch separate from the master cylinder.

In the interior

The steering wheel is unique to early production cars and is a great place to start in dating the car. Also on the steering column is the turn signal stalk which changed as production ramped up in later 1964. The fresh air knob on some early cars was stamped with an “A” while many had a black knob with no markings. Some very early production cars had a passenger seat that did not adjust.

The lock knobs on the doors also changed between early and standard production, going from being color-matched to the interior to being generic chrome for all models.

One of the borderline obvious bits in the interior is the change of “GEN” warning light to a “ALT.” This of course matches with the generator or alternator under the hood, but if a car has been engine-swapped or missing its engine, this light might remain unchanged for the sake of convenience.

The trunk is technically the interior, so be sure to take a glance under the truck lid to see if the taillight wiring is the correct pigtail-style for early production or has no connections like a later first-generation car.

Exterior

Is it a fastback? If yes, then it’s not a 1964.5. Fastback production did not begin until August of 1964. Also of note is the change in the gas cap. The early cars had a three-spoke style cap that had no retention to the vehicle, while later cars had a round cap that also had a security cable that prevented it from being accidentally left atop a gas pump or falling off while driving.

The above is not an entirely exhaustive list, as it is difficult to nail down the timing of many changes for early production Mustangs. That said, these easily spotted items are good indicators. It’s always possible that with time and age, prior owners may have tweaked a feature or two to their liking on a car that has been restored, so if you really want to be sure, follow the old adage of trust but verify. Consult a Mustang specialist to discuss these and other items that can be signifiers of an early production car.

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

Once upon a time, industrialists and educators came together to form a national organization for the advancement of artisanal craft skills among young boys. It was heavily promoted in high schools, youth groups, auto shows, and car dealerships across the country. It annually paid out thousands—and then millions—of dollars in college scholarships, and it grew to become second only to the Boy Scouts of America in membership. Its board of directors included the most powerful and influential industry leaders of the day, and invitees to its annual awards banquet in Detroit were flown in first class and chauffeured around in limousines.

And all a kid had to do to take a shot at securing his educational future was to build a miniature model. Not a plastic job out of a box, as most of us have attempted at one time or another, but an exacting replica of an ancient carriage or a wholly unique creation of their own design, conceived, sketched, measured, clay-modeled, and then constructed entirely from scratch. No help from Dad allowed.

From 1930 until 1968, the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild, so named for the coachwork firm that became a General Motors division in 1926, ran an annual nationwide talent search disguised as a model-building competition. The goal was to identify from among America’s teeming ranks of teenage youth the truly exceptional, the kids who had the artistic eye, the crafting skills, and the stick-to-itiveness to complete a phenomenally rigorous craft project.

Regional competitions fed winners to a national finale in Detroit, where a four-day pageant culminated in the awarding of scholarships that topped out at $5000 for the overall winners, a mighty sum in the era. The event also exposed the top echelon of young model builders to the wonders of the American auto industry at a time when it was at its imperial zenith. Naturally—and in accordance with the plan—many of those kids returned as college graduates to work in that industry.

It’s hard to imagine in the modern age when most people spend their day tapping keyboards or swiping screens that at one time, there were enough boys aged 11 to 19 in America willing to create thousands of model cars every year entirely from scratch. “When I look at my model today, I think, ‘How the hell did I do this?!’” said 1961 junior national winner Tony Simone, now of Bartlett, New Hampshire. “I have to give the Guild credit for giving us skills to use in life. Even today, that attention to detail is still with me.”

“The people who won had mastered discipline before the age of 20,” said Robert Davids, who was a 19-year-old Venice, California, pinstriper and surfboard shaper when he won the 1963 senior national award and a $5000 scholarship by carving a dramatic three-seat bubble-top coupe out of yellow poplar wood. For a year, Davids said, there was no girls, no dates, not even haircuts, only work during the day and then the model at night, typically until 3 a.m. “Every single disciplined person who entered was going to do OK in life, but the winners excelled at an early age.”

Then, as now, there was free money around if you could throw a ball or converse in mathematical theorems. Sports and academic scholarships have long been familiar avenues for teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds to access the realm of higher education. The Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild stood apart by being a scholarship program based mainly on manual skills of the type one learned in the shop classes that were once commonplace in high schools.

“Here was a take-home, industrial arts aptitude test that identified teenagers with innate artistic ability, creativity, imagination, spatial relationship acuity, manual dexterity, aesthetic eye, good taste, a propensity for perfection, and high intellect,” wrote John Jacobus, a Guild member in the 1960s whose later historical research for the Smithsonian Institution resulted in a book on the subject, The Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild: An Illustrated History (upon which our story is heavily dependent). The skills that the model competition prioritized, he added, “were all qualities sought after by the auto industry.”

The inspiration of William A. Fisher, one of the seven Fisher brothers who had transitioned the family carriage business into a hugely successful vehicle-body supplier, the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild launched on August 25, 1930, with radio and print ads and large posters plastered to the windows of Chevrolet, Buick, Viking, Oldsmobile, Cadillac-LaSalle, and Oakland-Pontiac dealerships. The posters as well as promotional booklets lured boys with the promise of a share in the unimaginable sum of $75,000 (about $1.3 million today). Nearly 150,000 signed up the first year, just over 400,000 the second, records Jacobus.

The need was great. The Great Depression was already beginning to grip the country following the October 1929 stock market crash. The ranks of the unemployed were swelling, and fewer and fewer families had the means to offer anything more to their children beyond a life of hardscrabble toil from the earliest age. Amid the bread lines and the whispers of worker revolt and communist revolution, big ideas floated around about the very nature of work and the role of individuals in societies that were rapidly urbanizing and industrializing. “It is the sincere desire of the builders of Bodies by Fisher,” extolled a 1930 ad for the Guild in The Saturday Evening Post, “that tomorrow shall see this country peopled by men to whom honor can be given for their ability to design well and build soundly whatever their generation may require.”

The competition’s challenge was as daunting as the prizes were lavish. Early competitions required entrants to produce a detailed wood-and-metal replica of the ornate Napoleonic carriage that appeared in the “Body by Fisher” logo (ubiquitous on GM cars produced from the 1920s through the 1980s). Builders had to construct an 18-inch-long, 10-inch-high scale model complete with metal filigree, opening doors, and upholstery-lined interior using only blueprints and a 25-page instruction booklet that the Guild provided. It’s believed that two master models were produced over six months by craftsmen at Fisher’s Pennsylvania-based Fleetwood Metal Body division and that their time estimate to make a copy from the plans was 1600 hours.

Which helps explain why out of the millions of boys who signed up to the Guild in those early years, receiving their free pamphlet, membership card, and diamond-shaped Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild pin, only a few thousand coach models were ever actually produced. Enterprising model companies developed kits to speed the builds, but even those were crude by today’s standards—just a few blocks of unshaped wood and some metal—and they still required enormous skill and patience to turn into viable entries. By the time the coach idea was dispensed with entirely in 1948 (the Guild paused its activities during World War II), it’s thought that only around 7000 carriage models had been built.

As it happened, the contest that replaced it wasn’t much easier. It asked entrants to build a 1/12th-scale concept-car model entirely of their own design. Believed to have been heavily pushed by GM’s first and renowned styling chief, Harley J. Earl, the concept category debuted in 1937 and the Guild fully pivoted to it in 1948. According to the late Charles E. “Chuck” Jordan, who won the 1947 competition and went on to become vice president of design at General Motors, the coach project was handicapped by the fact that “no individualized characteristics or personal creativity were sought—the coach was in the strictest sense a craft project, with no variation sought or accepted, saving excellence in detail or finish.”

That was fine in 1930 when, as the author Jacobus notes, car bodies still employed lots of timber as well as hand-finishing. Originally, the Guild was created to ferret out promising pattern- and toolmakers. But as the industry evolved, stamped-steel mass production took over and styling rose in importance. The talent need shifted away from an increasingly low-skill and automated production floor and toward the newly created styling studios, where designers and clay modelers were tasked with envisioning tomorrow’s vehicles. It’s no mere coincidence that the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild turned its attention to futuristic concepts almost at the same time Earl unveiled the industry’s first concept car, the 1938 Buick Y-Job.

In an age before the time sucks of television and computers, when more families made their living doing manual labor in factories or on farms and college seemed like a faraway dream, plenty of kids were willing to gamble their free time and their sweat on a long shot like the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild. And it was indeed a long shot. Though the posters advertised the riches available to winners, fewer than 400 scholarships were awarded over the 34 years the Guild was active (though smaller prizes were distributed at the regional level). During that time, 10 million American boys signed up—girls were allowed only in similar programs run by GM’s European and Australian subsidiaries—from which about 33,000 models were produced.

Despite the odds, it was worth it to kids who saw little opportunity elsewhere. “My father was a machinist and a toolmaker during World War II,” said Tony Simone, the ’61 winner. “One night, he came home and told my brothers and me to come to the dinner table, and he said, ‘I can put a roof over your head and food on the table, but I can’t afford to send you to college.’ [The Guild] was a lifeline, and I’m just one story out of thousands and thousands.”

Davids, the ’63 winner, was born the son of a soybean sharecropper in Franklin, Missouri. “My mother told me, ‘You don’t have a chance. People like us don’t win things like that.’”

Keenly aware of the challenges facing its members, the Guild produced a booklet called “How to Build a Model Car” with illustrated step-by-step instructions, starting with the basics of vehicle design. Cartoons showed readers how a low, curved roof and a long wheel-base was more aesthetically pleasing than a short wheelbase under a tall, boxy roof. It encouraged doodling of headlights and taillights, of fins and windshields and different types of exterior decoration such as hood ornaments and faux jet exhausts. It gave instructions on how to make a clay model, a wood model, or a plaster model from your drawings, how to get the wheel-to-fender clearances right, how to curve a piece of translucent plastic to make a windshield, and the best ways to apply paint. It included plan drawings of coupe and sedan/wagon cockpits, giving builders an accurate size template to sketch around.

In addition, a bimonthly newsletter, called the Guildsman, was full of tips as well as profiles of working designers and interviews with past winners. Typical headlines: “Four Hundred Pleasant Hours of Work: How Ken Kaiser built a $2000 Winner.” And, “Use Proper Plaster—Avoid Breakage; Hydrocal and Dental Plaster Good.”

“Headlights can be made from the ends of small, inexpensive screwdrivers,” read one how-to column from 1959. “The end of the handle is sawed off, filed, and mounted. The parabolic shape of the end looks much like an actual headlight.” To make things easier, aspiring builders could send to the Guild for a free set of prefinished wheels (sans hubcaps, of course, as those were up to the builder). The newsletter reminded builders not to forget rule No. 7 of the 13 compulsory rules, which required the models to have provisions for license plates front and rear.

David Courtney, now of Lomita, California, remembers as an aspiring car designer in small-town Illinois reading in the Guildsman a tip that taillights could be cut from the ends of toothbrushes there were made out of transparent red plastic. “I had those red toothbrushes for years,” he said. But like a lot of aspiring entrants, Courtney never completed the two models he began, one of which, an attractive Camaro-like roadster crafted from wood, he still has. “I had a handsaw, a file, a drill, and a 4-inch vise. That was it. As a result, my designs were pretty limited, and how to go about making it, I had no idea.”

Davids, the ’63 winner, attributes at least part of his success to knowing some past winners personally, and to obtaining a mailing list of others so that he could write them. Thus, he learned before starting the high standards that were expected. “One of the things you heard was detail, detail, detail. And you had to be authentic; you can’t polish aluminum until it looks like chrome. It has to be chrome.”

Most kids didn’t have ready access to chrome shops or much else that was needed to build a winning model from scratch, so the Guild encouraged its teenage members to be resourceful. Davids knew he wanted to put a fully enclosed bubble-top roof formed from 1/16th-inch-thick plastic over a fully finished interior, a feat that had never successfully been attempted in the competition. Not only that, but in his design, the car’s rear had a dramatic duct-like channel molded into the roof that carried through the rear glass into the trunk, an absolute showstopper—if he could pull it off.

To make a roof from his hand-carved molds, Davids needed a vacuum former, but having no money, he hit the scrapyards and salvaged an electric motor from an old refrigerator and a surplus vacuum pump from a B-52 bomber, kluging a working machine together. “I made 20 to 24 attempts to make the roof, from which I got two, one that was perfect and one that was almost perfect. I put the perfect one on the shelf and used the almost perfect one to build the model around. When I was ready, I finished the model with the perfect one.”

Ron Pellman, who entered four competitions from 1956 to 1960, the final year taking second place and a $4000 scholarship, remembers scouring his native Buffalo, New York, for materials. A local lumberyard was willing to plane him some 7/16th-inch-thick poplar boards into which he cut, piece by piece, the rough outline of his car in sections. He then glued the sections into a multilayered sandwich, dripping india ink into the glue so that the seams would help act as guides as he began chiseling, planing, and sanding the model to its final form.

Finding a chrome shop willing to finish Pellman’s tiny bumpers to competition standard proved fruitless. Finally, a tradesman in a shop down by the Niagara River that did hard-chroming of engine parts for Great Lakes freighters was willing to give it a try—and spent a solid week chroming, filing, filling, and re-chroming the parts until they gleamed with smooth perfection. Recalled Pellman with a chuckle, “I asked him what I owed him, and he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Son, you could never afford it.’”

The Guild had a few family dynasties, including Simone’s who, with his two brothers, entered a total of 15 models, winning a combined $10,000 in scholarship money. He credits part of his win to getting insider intelligence from his older brother, who was treated to a tour of GM’s design studio while attending the 1959 awards. “He came home from Detroit and said, ‘Forget the tailfins—they’re gone.’”

In order to ensure a geographic and age distribution of winners, the Guild divided the nation into regions and its entries into junior (11–14) and senior (15–19) divisions. In order to be eligible for the national scholarship competition, you had to do well in the region, then box up and mail your model to Detroit—instructions were included in the newsletters on the best way to safely crate it for shipping—to be judged for the national competition on a points system that split the criteria between the quality of the design and the workmanship of the execution.

Special telegrams notified the 40 finalists for the scholarships—20 each in the junior and senior divisions—who were invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild National Convention and Banquet. Parents were not allowed; the Guild members traveled from the far-flung corners of America on their own, with GM personnel detailed as escorts to help the kids transit at layover airports and train stations.

Simone vividly remembers his trip in 1961 from his home in Rhode Island. “I have to admit, I was in shock. I didn’t know nothin’, I was 15 and had never been out of Providence before.” He flew in a small plane to the old Idlewild Airport in New York, where a GM representative met the wide-eyed teen and walked him to his next flight. “The Boeing 707 had just come out, and they put me on a brand-new 707 jetliner—and here’s the kicker: We went first class.”

Following a dinner of filet mignon, they flew to Detroit, where Simone was directed to a Cadillac Fleetwood limousine that whisked him and some other arriving Guild members to the downtown Book-Cadillac Hotel. There, the group was intercepted by a team of tailors that measured the kids with military efficiency. “Overnight,” remembered Simone, “they made me a whole suit with the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild logo on the jacket.”

The next day, after a sightseeing trip around Detroit, the finalists were ushered to the banquet hall where Fisher Body gathered around 800 managers from GM’s vast design, engineering, and manufacturing organizations as well as top scientists, newspaper writers, politicians, and celebrities. Guild members in their matching new jackets sat in rows on a long, terraced dais while the event was presided over by emcees who were luminaries of the day, including Father Knows Best actor Robert Young, broadcaster Lowell Thomas, and TV newsman Walter Cronkite.

Seated in the crowd were typically some of the towering figures in GM history, including Alfred P. Sloan and Charles F. “Boss” Kettering. Judges included Harley Earl, his successor Bill Mitchell, Chrysler design director and tailfin czar Virgil M. Exner (a Guild winner himself), and rising young design star Chuck Jordan. The evening culminated in the scholarship awards for the top three models in the junior and senior divisions plus five honorable mentions each, usually announced by the president of GM or his second-in-command to uproarious cheers from the audience.

For the next few days (as GM photographers quietly snapped detail photos of every model to be studied later for possible inspiration), the young Guild members were squired around the region, visiting GM’s gleaming Technical Center, touring its design studios, and seeing and touching the dream concepts they had only read about in magazines. Dinners were lavish affairs at local country clubs. Pellman remembers going to a furniture factory and taking a Detroit River cruise to the Boblo Island Amusement Park. There were informational presentations by officials from the FBI, visits to Fisher Body assembly plants, and trips to the nearby Selfridge Air Force Base to sit in jet fighters and meet their pilots.

“If you won, you were on a roller coaster ride for a week,” said Davids. Winners were interviewed in newspapers and on the radio, and even appeared on TV talk shows. Their high schools received their own towering trophy, and their models went on a national victory lap of dealerships, corporate offices, and exhibitions, at times aboard GM Futurliners that once roamed the country touting the corporation’s industrial exploits. Many builders didn’t see them again for two years.

“It opened up a lot of doors for me,” said Davids, who went on to live a number of lifetimes, including fabricating body panels for Craig Breedlove’s 526-mph Spirit of America land-speed car, earning several college degrees, doing a stint running GM’s experimental design studio, operating a casino, launching a company in the late 1970s to design and manufacture some of the first hand-held electronic games sold in toy stores, and starting a winery specializing in pinot noir.

Other Guild alumni, like Jordan, Exner, Richard Arbib, who worked for years at GM as Harley Earl’s right-hand man, and Pontiac, GMC, and Hummer design chief Terry Henline, forged long and successful careers in the auto industry, often after Guild-funded degrees from the famous ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles. Still others went to work in aerospace, academia, product and packaging design, and varied pursuits in engineering and manufacturing. William A. Fisher’s plan to seed the American economy with capable, tenacious, hands-on thinkers had worked brilliantly.

However, even in 1963, the end of the Guild could be predicted. “It was a happy moment,” said Davids, “but the Beatles came out the year after I won, everything was changing, and kids were getting kind of crazy. There just weren’t enough who were disciplined.” Entries dropped precipitously through the 1960s, records Jacobus, from more than 4000 in ’63 to fewer than 2000 in 1967. Model quality also declined. Besides the social changes, which included more distractions and time demands on young people, GM was eyeing the multimillion-dollar costs of the program as new safety and emissions regulations threatened to squeeze Detroit in a financial vise.

And so, along with the fading of the program’s originator and patron, William A. Fisher, who died in 1969, the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild expired as well. A reunion of Guild members at the ArtCenter College in Pasadena in 2016 led to an effort by former members to conserve as many models as possible, and there are now permanent displays in several museums around the country (see below).

As time thins the ranks of the Guild’s surviving members, it’s worth remembering an era when so many teenagers dreamed of a career designing cars. And when the auto industry was clever enough to devise a productive scheme to harness and focus that youthful energy, simply because it recognized that its future, as well as the nation’s, depended on it.

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On Display: Where to See a Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild Model

Petersen Automotive Museum

30 models, 1 coach

Los Angeles, CA | petersen.org

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Gilmore Car Museum

50 models, 1 coach

Hickory Corners, MI | gilmorecarmuseum.org

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AACA Library & Research Center

26 models, 1 coach

Hershey, PA | aaca.org/library

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Piston Palace

20-plus models, 1 coach

Warwick, RI | pistonpalace.com

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National Route 66 Museum

8 models, 1 coach

Elk City, OK | elkcity.com

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National Automotive & Truck Museum

5 models, 1 coach

Auburn, IN | natmus.org

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National Museum of Transportation (Coming Soon)

10-plus models, 2 coaches

St. Louis, MO | tnmot.org

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The post Model Kids: Decades Ago, GM Put a Call Out For Young Car Designers. Thousands Answered appeared first on Hagerty Media.

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

Little Nash Motors up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, came roaring out of World War II with some pretty far-out ideas. Its cars became sleeker and more interstellar, the wheels all but disappearing within wind-smoothed bodywork. The company defied convention by building a premium car that was actually small. The Rambler of 1950 was America’s first legitimate attempt at a compact alternative to the road-conquering Goliaths then in fashion. And Helene Rother, a pioneering female designer whose own story reads like an impossibly dramatic screenplay, played a key role in making it happen.

Rother’s might not be a name with which you’re familiar, but at a time when men universally ruled the auto industry, she was part of a small female vanguard that was destined to quietly put its fingerprints on American car design in the 1940s and ’50s. Notwithstanding her recent induction into the Automotive Hall of Fame, Rother’s achievements are mostly forgotten today. But in an era when small cars were not popular, her interior design for the Rambler was incredibly forward-looking and helped make this car fashionable—and, for a time, successful.

Which is why we took the opportunity to borrow an early Rambler from owner Scott Keesling in Beverly Hills, California, and, er, ramble around the city’s leafy canopied streets for a day. This joyful little car wasn’t made for speedy 0–60 times, nor did it perform aggressively around corners. Its name, Rambler, certainly doesn’t suggest quickness. Instead, it feels genial and easygoing, like spending time on a warm, sun-filled afternoon with an old friend.

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An unlikely automotive designer, Helene Rother spent her early life a million miles away from Beverly Hills, in Leipzig, Germany, surrounded by books and art. After receiving the equivalent of a master’s degree in 1930 from the Kunstgewerbeschule, an arts and crafts school, in Hamburg, the newly married Rother began a career in visual arts and graphic design. After her daughter was born in 1932, Rother’s husband, a known Trotskyist and a member of various anti-Nazi organizations, soon became persona non grata in Hitler’s Germany and fled to France, leaving Rother and their daughter, Ina, behind.

Rother continued working in design and art, even finding some success in jewelry design before the situation in Germany became untenable. Her connection to her husband put her in danger, and she decided to take her daughter and flee. A group of Americans who had formed the Emergency Rescue Committee shortly after France fell to the Germans sent Rother an alias, counterfeit identification, and $400 to get her to Marseilles. With travel from France to the United States severely restricted, Rother and Ina made their way to Casablanca, just as the refugees did in the famous film of the same name, to await safe passage to New York.

As the war raged on, Rother never quite settled into living in New York City. Still, she found a job as an artist and started designing geometric-patterned textiles in the style of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus, a school of European minimalism that produced architecture and objects that were practical and devoid of traditional baroque flourishes. She wrote and illustrated many children’s books that were never published and drew illustrations for Marvel Comics.

During the war, everyone did their best to get by, including car companies. With a former refrigerator salesman and car man by the name of George W. Mason running the show at Nash-Kelvinator, the company did its American duty. Instead of building powertrains for its moderately successful Ambassador Eight and Ambassador 600, it got to producing supercharged radial engines for naval aircraft. While automotive production was put on hold, in anticipation of the inevitable return to normal, Mason—a known risk-taker—never stopped new car development during those war years, including a $20 million project for a compact sedan that eventually became the Rambler.

In 1942, Rother heard about an opportunity in Michigan to work for Harley Earl, the first vice president of styling at General Motors. Though the General had never hired a female designer before, much less one with radical ideas, Earl was a visionary who was seeking out like-minded creatives, regardless of their gender. According to MaryEllen Green, another of Earl’s so-called Damsels in Design—a group of female designers whom he hired after bringing Rother on board—some GM suits wanted to keep secret the hiring of any women above the secretarial level, fearing that bringing them into such a masculine industry would be a failure and an embarrassment for GM. Regardless, Rother got the job and moved to Detroit with her daughter.

“I earned less than the men I supervised,” Rother is remembered as once saying to a group of stained-glass artists. Despite her dissenters, Rother put her artistic mark on the interiors of Cadillacs, Buicks, and Pontiacs, to name a few.

Rother turned contemporary interiors once dreary shades of black, gray, or tan into explosions of color, elegance, and convenience. “I have a long list of gadgets for use in cars beginning with outlets for heating baby bottles and canned soup, cigarette lighters on springs, umbrella holders, and so on,” Rother once wrote. Collectively, the Damsels, the pioneering women of car design, incorporated intuitive innovations, everything from improved gauge positioning to tissue dispensers. They spiced up cabins with flashy finishes and textured fabrics in the kaleidoscopic colors of an Elizabeth Arden cosmetics portfolio. As more women worked, drove, and were involved in the buying of cars, the Damsels helped GM move with the changing times.

In 1947, while still at GM, Rother started her own design studio, opening the door to her consulting for other automakers including Nash, who went on to become her main client. Rother designed seats, molding, garnish, trim pieces, and fabrics. She did extensive work on all the interiors of the revolutionary Airflyte models. The Statesman was her triumph, as she used artistic design elements incorporating color, fabrics, and texture throughout.

Statesman buyers could choose from 21 color combinations with well-considered trims and finishes. The Statesman’s interior drew particular interest for its revolutionary seating configurations. The right front seat reclined into a comfortable daybed. Fully reclined, it became a twin bed. With the addition of the driver’s seat fully reclined, the cabin became a private sleeping car. Sales skyrocketed.

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As her work gained more recognition, Rother’s prominence in the automotive industry grew. In November 1948, she became the first woman to address the Society of Automotive Engineers with a paper titled, “Are we doing a good job in our car interiors?” She inherently knew that part of the pleasure of driving a car was a driver’s interaction with the cockpit. “The instrument board of a car,” she wrote, “shows above anything else how well-styled the car is. Here the driver is in real contact with the mechanics, and here is the greatest test of good coordination between the engineer and stylist.”

Always on the hunt for what came next, Mason had been captivated by the stylish but practical designs of Italian coachbuilder Pinin Farina, as seen on the likes of Lancias, Alfa Romeos, and Maseratis, as well as the compact Cisitalia 202. This small, unfussy, yet elegant sedan likely piqued Mason’s attention, reinvigorating his $20 million wartime development idea. The time was finally right for a smaller car in the Airflyte’s lineup.

When it came time to design the body of the Rambler, there was no exterior team to speak of, as a proposed deal with Pinin Farina had not yet borne fruit. So, the company’s longtime engineers—including Nils Erik Wahlberg, who didn’t even believe in the compact car project, plus Ted Ulrich, and Meade Moore—were put to the task with only some loose design studies to work from, submitted by an independent design firm. These engineers put together a workable exterior that cribbed elements from the opulent Ambassador only in a scaled-down and more utilitarian way. At the same time, they improved mechanical issues with novel design solutions, including side air scoops to cover the connection between the fenders and the cowl. In testing, they found that the battery was 3 percent cooler than it had been previously, as it sits on the driver’s side just below the new air vent.

The Rambler, which was strongly supported by both Georges—George W. Mason and his newly hired protégé, George Romney—finally came along in 1950. As America’s postwar economy boomed, Mason and Romney saw an opportunity to put a second car in every garage. Smaller than the traditional family car but no less stylish, the Rambler was brilliantly marketed as a luxurious purchase. Certainly, there was nothing compact about its official name, the Nash Rambler Custom Convertible Landau.

Although it was smaller, the $1800 Rambler was priced several hundred dollars higher than its nearest competitors at Ford or Chevrolet. This strategy was put in place to make buyers feel as though they weren’t simply settling for a cheap, small car. Customers got a good deal for their money. In addition to Rother’s stylish interiors—which Nash promoted heavily as the work of “Madame Helene Rother of Paris” to make her sound more European—the all-new Rambler was initially only offered as a convertible and featured many standard amenities, including a radio, a heater, and whitewall tires.

The two-toned, brightly colored orange and white of the example I drove—not original—made an excellent effort of recreating what might have been an available Rother colorway. But Rother’s design was not merely stylish. The glass over the center gauge, for example, was concave, a shape that redirects light to a center focal point, which makes the driver’s information easier to see while at the same time reducing glare—rather important for a convertible. The Rambler’s interior not only looked pleasing, there was inventive purpose in every detail.

Passersby stopped to ogle the delightful Rambler as we took photos, some calling out the small charmer by name. Men and women alike beamed at what for the time would have been a diminutive pipsqueak on highways packed with rolling automotive giants. Nash’s largest car at the time the Rambler went into production, the Ambassador, is a prime example, stretching 210 inches with a 121-inch wheelbase. That’s the size of the current Cadillac Escalade. Beside modern cars, the Rambler doesn’t feel so compact as it scoots about town. It stretches longer than a modern Toyota Corolla by 3 inches, and its bulging fenders, upright greenhouse, and squared-off roofline give it the visual illusion of a more substantive car.

The Rambler’s interior asserts its Teutonic design aesthetic with clean lines and spartan ornamentation. What does exist subtly marries function and beauty. A singular, unembellished gauge using a crisp midcentury typeface displays only crucial information. (The car’s current owner added two additional gauges for vitals important to those who drive classics.) Chrome doesn’t overwhelm but rather underscores the boldly colored dash. The Rambler’s small clock sits atop a centerpiece speaker grille that could only be described as the interior’s statement jewelry. No fluffery exists, but there is art to the simplicity of it.

The bench seats are broad and comfortable, something I imagine Rother would have insisted upon. Though a small car, it can fit three abreast on the front bench and two comfortably in the rear. However, I wouldn’t want to be sandwiched between two people up front for any length of time.

The Rambler sports an inventive front suspension, one that helps explain the car’s unusual styling. The coil spring is mounted above the upper control arm to sit on top of the knuckle, attaching to the inner fender instead of a pad on the frame. This spring-above-knuckle configuration, made possible only by a high fender line, small wheels, and a casual disregard for keeping weight low, means that the springs take direct impacts from the wheel load and additionally help mitigate body roll. Also, “The lower control arms in particular are no longer subjected to vertical bending loads and hence can be made lighter, with less unsprung weight,” said Meade Moore, chief engineer at Nash at the time of the Rambler’s launch. Because this configuration stands quite tall, it limited exterior styling and design choices, helping give the Rambler a face rather like a chipmunk with its cheeks full of acorns.

Mason and Romney wisely leaned into the lifestyle of their targeted customers (mainly women) for the Rambler. One wonders if this were influenced by Rother and her belief that style meant a great deal to buyers and that women of the time liked gadgets. Images of women driving the car using its additional standard features, including the glove drawer, filled the pages of glossy magazines of the era. Marketing brochures featured the varied interior colors and textiles customers could purchase with the tagline, “There’s much of tomorrow in all Nash does today.” Ads assured potential buyers that despite its convertible top, it was just as safe as a sedan.

Initial sales of this petite econo-luxe oddball were impressive, spawning iterations of the nameplate in the form of a wagon and a hardtop. In 1950, its first production year, Nash sold over 11,000 cars. That climbed to 57,000 for 1951 with the addition of the hardtop. Although the gross national product had ballooned from about $200 billion in 1940 to $300 billion by 1950, it was accompanied by rampant inflation, housing shortages, and a scarcity of raw materials caused in part by the Korean War (one reason the Rambler was launched as a convertible was that it used less steel than a hardtop).

Rother’s growing frustration at the wholesale dismissal of women as both automotive designers and customers became apparent during a speaking engagement in Detroit in May 1952 commemorating “Get the Dents out of Your Fenders” month, which was a nationwide campaign to promote car repair in the face of dwindling new-car inventory. Barbara Tuger, a reporter with the Detroit Free Press, quoted Rother as lamenting, “Once a car is sold, little is said about how (the female buyer) should care for it.” In fact, she declared, “Less is done in this country to attract the woman buyer than in Europe.” But even Tuger seemed to belittle and even mock Rother’s accent with her article’s headline, “Oo, la, la, Zose Dents by Women Drivers.”

Rother went on to describe new cars being presented as fashion in France. “They are used as a background for a style-conscious life, and more than half the visitors at an automobile exhibition are women. Here, it is mostly the teenaged boys who come,” Rother said.

As sales started to decline in 1953, the Rambler got the long-awaited Pinin Farina magic touch. The chubby hood and fenders were stretched and slimmed by the Italians, becoming more graceful and elegant in the European mien. But neither the new looks, the launch of a less expensive two-door sedan version, nor using both Rother and Pinin Farina in advertising campaigns could help the decline in sales. Nash merged with Hudson in 1954 to form American Motors, providing Nash with a massive dealer network. Nevertheless, not even that nor the subcompact Metropolitan, now highly collectible, could save the company from its inevitable downward slide.

After leaving Nash, Rother went on to work with clients including Goodyear Tire, BFGoodrich, Magnavox, and International Harvester. Some of her stained glass still graces cathedrals around Detroit. Later in life, she dedicated herself to her own work and her horses, but her legacy quietly continued, even if it was temporarily unrecognized.

The automotive community has not showered either that first Rambler or Rother with accolades or credit where it was due. But all you have to do is look to American interior styling of the 1960s and ’70s in the Chevrolet Corvette, the Lincoln Continental, or the Pontiac Trans Am, with their flashy colorways and innovative features and design, to see the influences. The modern compact Cadillac CT4 and electric Chevrolet Bolt come with luxuries and conveniences that include smartphone connectivity and heated leather gravity seats—modern gadgets like those Rother knew drivers craved. Some full-size trucks even have optional center-console coolers. On some levels, all these vehicles can look back to the Nash Rambler and Rother’s interiors and find their DNA.

As more women entered the contemporary automotive arena, Rother’s name, among others, was resurrected. In February 2020, a well-overdue 21 years after her death at the age of 91, Rother’s significant contribution was duly acknowledged, and she was inducted posthumously into the Automotive Hall of Fame (in the same class as our own Jay Leno). No doubt it was thanks in part to the stylish collision of a freethinking designer and an innovative automaker, both a bit ahead of their time.

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BMW has revealed a new SUV version of the concept family called “Neue Klasse,” which previews the automaker’s design language moving forward into the electric era. The Neue Klasse X is, according to BMW, an “SAV” or “Sports Activity Vehicle” but you can clearly see the crossover SUV shape here, so we’re going to call a spade a spade.

“Together with the BMW Vision Neue Klasse, the BMW Vision Neue Klasse X showcases the breadth of our future BMW model line-up,” said Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG.

In the Neue Klasse X, we can see hints at how BMW plans to stylize its X (read: SUV) models, which in the current automotive market are sales superstars. The pared-down design language of the two-box SUV features a long wheelbase, short overhangs, and plenty of glass to bathe the interior in natural light.

The signature—and somewhat divisive—BMW kidney grille stands front and center, though it’s much smaller here than it is on current models, which is a welcome change. BMW says its designers reimagined the grille as a 3D sculpture with the help of backlighting. Like the Neue Klasse Sedan, the lighting elements are vertically oriented both front and rear, though at both ends the elements reach farther into the car’s centerline than anything we’ve seen on current production Bimmers.

Strong, geometric wheel arches shroud snazzy-looking wheels that are indeed pushed out to the edges of the silhouette. The crimped spoiler off the back and the upright body lines have whiffs of the BMW XM performance SUV. The “Coral Silver” paintwork plays with the light to really accentuate the different surfacing of the exterior.

BMW’s signature “Hoffmeister Kink” at the rear of the greenhouse shows up inside of the rearmost window, rather than on the bodywork itself, via a “reflective print” that, according to BMW, “forms a transparent or reflective surface, depending on the viewing angle.” Tricky.

The interior is remarkably minimalist, with a thin screen spanning between the A-pillars and a smaller, central control screen tucked below it. The former looks like something you don’t touch on the regular, only there to display multitudes of information. The latter feels like the nervous system of the cabin.

The textured seating materials pop in a coral tone that feels like it gets visibly warmer when hit by sunlight. As expected, the flat floor and elongated wheelbase make the cabin area feel remarkably spacious. Those second-row seats with throw pillows look like great places to take a load off.

The Neue Klasse family of concepts previews BMW’s sixth-generation eDrive technology. Key among the updates for the new electric platform are new electric motors, as well as a new battery cell design. Previous eDrive platforms used prismatic battery cells, but BMW says the new version will utilize round lithium-ion cells, which offer better volumetric energy density (more than 20 percent better, says BMW) than the outgoing design.

Paired with a new 800-volt electrical architecture, the new platform promises to improve charging speed by up to 30 percent, says BMW. Customers should be able to charge the batteries enough to cover a 300-kilometer (186 mile) trip in just ten minutes. (That’s assuming they can find a charger that can dole out that much juice, though, which isn’t a given currently.) Thanks to aerodynamic improvements, better tire designs, and a new braking system for electric vehicles, overall vehicle efficiency should improve by 25 percent, ultimately boosting range by up to 30 percent, says BMW.

BMW’s Neue Klasse series of vehicles is slated to start production at the group’s Debrecen plant in Hungary as early as next year. Though it’s unclear whether the sedan or the X pictured here will start production first, the smart money would say the latter gets first dibs.

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When discussing the halcyon days of Italian automobile design, I don’t hesitate to define the years between 1950 and 1980 as Italy’s second Renaissance. That may seem like hyperbole, but it’s a more fitting analogy than your art history teacher might like to admit.

Much like 15th-century Florence, a unique set of circumstances in the mid-20th century turned Turin into a hub of intense creativity. This time, however, at the heart of this creative explosion was not literature or the arts, but the quintessential product of the industrial era: the automobile.

Like Florence under the Medicis, the golden era of Turinese coachbuilding saw the work of countless artists and craftsmen eclipsed by the towering achievements of a handful of legendary masters. And masters don’t get much greater than Marcello Gandini, who passed away on March 13 at 85.

As it’s widely known, Gandini was hired by Nuccio Bertone in 1965 following Giorgetto Giugiaro’s move to Ghia. Mr. Bertone had a keen eye for talent, but probably even he couldn’t imagine just how good his decision would turn out to be.

Gandini’s first project for Bertone was the car his name will forever be associated with: the Lamborghini Miura. Widely considered among the most beautiful cars ever made, the Miura’s design was a masterful synthesis of different influences. Its overall concept drew heavily from Ford’s GT40, while the surface treatment and detailing owed much to previous Bertone designs from Giugiaro, particularly the 1963 Corvair Testudo.

Although its mechanical layout was inspired by motorsport, in the Miura, function definitely followed form. It was the fastest car money could buy, but its capabilities as a vehicle were entirely secondary to visual drama. Designed primarily to drop jaws rather than seconds off a lap time, the Miura marked the birth of the bedroom poster supercar. Yet, while the rest of the world was busy writing checks to Lamborghini, Marcello Gandini had already moved on.

The Miura had boosted Bertone’s reputation to unprecedented heights, much to the dismay of its crosstown rival, Pininfarina. But there was no time to rest on one’s laurels—these firms’ thriving yet fragile business model hinged entirely on being perceived as the bleeding edge of automobile design. With that precious reputation on the line at every year’s major motor show, it was a case of innovate or die. And innovate Gandini did, big time.

First came the Lamborghini Marzàl, which landed at the 1967 Geneva Motor Show. The word “landed” is entirely appropriate, because few other artifacts embody the era’s fascination with space exploration quite like the Marzàl. Built on a lengthened and extensively modified Miura chassis, the Marzàl was a piece of art inside and out.

Its front end was a slim black slit, housing six Marchal quartz-iodine headlamp units, among the smallest available at the time. The Marzàl’s giant glass gullwing doors exposed its four passengers like mannequins in a shop window, while the mechanical elements remained hidden under a matte black, three-dimensional hexagonal pattern engine cover that looked like armor plates.

The hexagonal honeycomb theme continued in the dashboard’s instruments and controls, as well as the seat cushions and backrests, which were upholstered in a highly reflective silvery material reminiscent of a spacesuit. If Gandini’s initial works for Bertone still had a tinge of Giugiaro’s design influence, the Marzàl was the turning point at which Gandini broke away from that mold and never looked back.

When the 1968 Paris Motor Show doors opened, the Miura was less than two years old and still the hottest thing on four wheels. Yet, that didn’t stop Gandini from completely rewriting the design template for the whole supercar genre.

Based on an Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale chassis and running gear, the Bertone Carabo was a radical departure not only from established aesthetic norms but also from anything Gandini had done until then.

Inspired by the latest trends in racing car design, the Carabo was as pure a “wedge” shape as possible, achieving a low drag coefficient while minimizing the front-end lift issues that plagued the Miura. Gandini took advantage of the relative absence of mechanical hardpoints at the front of the Alfa 33 chassis to keep the Carabo’s nose low and frontal area to a minimum.

Thus, the Carabo’s visual weight was concentrated at the rear. Its profile was characterized by a single, nearly unbroken line from nose to tail, as the flat bonnet merged seamlessly with the windscreen. Gone were the Miura’s sensuous curves, replaced by sheer surfaces with minimal crowning and tight radiuses: it was the dawn of the “folded paper” design language that would dominate 1970s automobile design.

Nowadays, Franco Scaglione’s curvaceous 33 Stradale is rightfully revered as a design masterpiece. But one glance at Gandini’s creation, based on the same underpinnings, is enough to realize just how far he was pushing the envelope.

The Carabo was never meant to become a production car. Yet, in a roundabout way, it did. That’s because when it came time to design the Miura’s replacement, Marcello Gandini reused the same essential design ingredients (scissor doors included) but distilled them to even greater effect. Leaner, sharper, and with even more dramatic proportions than the Carabo due to its bulkier powertrain, the Lamborghini Countach hasn’t lost an ounce of its visual impact over half a century from its conception.

Marcello Gandini remained at Bertone until 1980. His early years as the Turinese firm’s main creative force were not only the company’s finest hour, but arguably the period in which Italian car design reached its peak in terms of international influence.

Over the following years, from a desk in his country house outside Turin, Gandini tackled everything from massive industrial programs for Renault to underfunded supercar projects like the Cizeta Moroder. Though not all the entries in his vast back catalog can be considered masterpieces, each of his efforts affirmed Gandini’s unwavering commitment to technological and aesthetic innovation.

That’s a commitment Gandini reiterated in what would turn out to be his last public appearance. In the speech he gave before receiving an honorary degree in engineering from Turin’s Polytechnic University this past January, he urged the young students to “extract from limitations and impositions a strong, stubborn, and constructive sense of rebellion.”

Addio Maestro, e grazie di tutto. Non ti dimenticheremo.

***

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When you speak of superb Italian car design, and you possibly often do, one of the names typically mentioned is Marcello Gandini. The man most responsible for the look of the seminal Lamborghini Miura, the outrageous Lamborghini Countach, the diminutive Fiat X1/9, the first generation of the BMW 5-Series, and dozens of other cars, died on Wednesday.

The versatile Gandini, a native of Turin, Italy, was the son of an orchestra conductor. Gandini was working as an interior designer when he showed some of his automotive designs to Nuccio Bertone in 1963, but Bertone’s top designer at the time, Giorgetto Giugiaro, didn’t care for Gandini and he wasn’t hired.

Giugiaro, responsible for designs of the BMW M1, the De Tomaso Mangusta, the Maserati Ghibli, and the Lotus Esprit S1, moved on to a job with Ghia in 1965, and Gandini was brought on at Bertone.

During the 14 years he was at Bertone, Gandini worked on a massive variety of designs for a long list of manufacturers. He is best known for his exotics—the Lamborghini LP500 prototype, which became the Countach; the confounding Lancia Stratos Zero concept; the remarkable Alfa Romeo Montreal; the grand touring Maserati Khamsin—but he designed many vehicles for everyman, including the original Volkswagen Polo, the second-generation Renault 5, and the Citroën BX.

During his later years, spent in a 17th century home and studio located just outside Turin, Gandini enjoyed designing non-automotive projects, such as the graceful Angel helicopter. There was also a large house in Corsica that he designed, built, and then sold, plus the interior of a nightclub that he’d rather not be remembered for. “Happily, it burned,” Gandini told author and fellow designer Robert Cumberford in a story for Automobile in 2009.

Italian designers are often known for the size of their ego, but Cumberford found Gandini to be “self-effacing, modest, and quiet. He doesn’t attend motor shows and has no use for public relations but is neither particularly shy nor a recluse.”

Marcello Gandini was 85 years old.

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Chrysler designer Tom Gale once said in an interview that taller tires were key to the success of the original Chrysler 300. He then inadvertently let the cat out of the bag, going into detail as to how the wildly popular sedan had the presence of a Bentley because “the 300 is deceptively tall, and we disguised that with larger wheel openings and larger tires. But we also raised the beltline so that the roof looked chopped. The cars always looked relatively low even though they were deceptively tall.”

Deceptively tall is right, and the Chrysler 300 is one of many reasons we now have a dying crop of sedans with worse outward visibility and significantly less utility than crossover SUVs. It appears the sins of 2005 are revisited in 2023’s final run of this iconic family sedan, so let’s run the vellum over a 6.4-liter example of the breed.

To some extent, the Chrysler 300 lost its trademark swagger once every car sported a nose just as swollen as this. The generic texture of the grille doesn’t help the inability of the 2023 model to stand out in a crowd, either. This honeycomb is in stark contrast to the massive egg-crate texture of the original, which also benefited from the lack of a similarly textured hole below the grille.

Stand up and behold the 300C from an elevated position and the redesigned fascia of the 2011+ model makes sense. The grille is bold and the headlights are squinty. The front-splitter effect of the bumper draws your eyes up and to the grille, while the reverse mohawk in the hood ensures the space above the grille looks visually lighter.

The retro graphics are a nice throwback to the Chrysler 300 J, but this one is unfortunately tucked away in the upper corner of the grille, unlike yesteryear’s gunsight grille design.

The lack of a bold texture for a Chrysler “letter car” is a bit of a missed opportunity. Much like 1980s American performance cars wearing understated charcoal gray trimmings and Sacco Planks, the 2023 300C might be too understated for its own good.

At least this final example of a bold Chrysler sedan has a grille texture that is never blocked up and eschews artificial texture. The parts that don’t need cooling are blocked off from behind.

And the “seeing eye” of the cruise control sensor is framed by both a thick border of plastic and negative space; designers did not even try to mess with the understated grille texture. Perhaps a design like this would make a great frame for the 300 C logo within a gunsight grille?

The bolder, round fog lights on the flat face of the 2005 Chrysler 300C really helped accentuate the headlights and balance out the radical egg-crate grille. This generic 2010s statement of non-functional performance styling cues on the 2023’s bumper waters down the original vision and leaves a bland aftertaste.

It’s refreshing to see a grille that doesn’t try to incorporate technology like proximity sensors for parking, as their omission keeps the texture from getting murky and complex.

While the 2005 model had design elements (like headlights) conforming to a flat-faced bumper, the redesign has headlights that try to become a more evolved surface. That might sound like a word salad, but bear with me …

Here on the inner contouring of the headlight, the Chrysler 300’s bumper extends from the headlight to the face of the grille. It’s a refinement that’s light years ahead of the 2005 model, which had a crude stair step in the same location and a bumper shelf that slowed down the visual speed of the front end. The elegant surfacing looks great on this monochrome 300C, but the lack of a shelf hurt other 300s that still had chrome trim where the shelf once lived.

The outer contouring of the headlight is met with sympathetic rounded forms in the bumper. The integral side-mount reflector has a hard contour, which becomes the genesis of a strong fender crease.

While the subtle transition from the round headlight projector to its chrome bezel is pretty clever, the pattern doesn’t match that of the ribbed turn-signal lights next to it. Another complementary bezel of black plastic that matches the chrome one is clever, but it’s too subtle: the jeweled lights of the 2005 Chrysler 300C, deeply set into the car’s bumper, were more memorable.

And the panel gap where the fender, headlight, and hood meet is clumsy. This is far less elegant relative to the previous generation Chrysler 300.

But it is hard to argue with the cool factor present in a fender crease that’s almost as aggressive as that iconic grille design.

That fender crease does accentuate the strong power bulge in the hood, more so than same feature in the previous generation, with its softer curves.

The one perk to all this extra surfacing over the original is that the current 300 looks far more sinister. And not just the 300C; even a Pentastar V-6–equipped model looks this good. (The same can’t necessarily be said about V-6 versions back in 2005.)

And like most modern vehicles, the 300C has creases that awkwardly disappear into nothing. I reckon it is because vehicles are too tall, too much like rolling billboards: Extending the lines here and there gets your point across. To some extent, this feature would improve the original, 2005 model, as it looked boring and unfinished from many angles.

From the side you can see the redesigned 300 has a much smaller face than the outgoing model, but with similarly large fender flares. This makes the 300 look more aggressive than it really is, or just the right amount of aggressive, when you consider the 6.4-liter engine powering this 300C.

Perhaps that smaller face also accentuates the 300’s long dash-to-axle, which is clearly a million times cooler than that of any other sedan in its class. (Dodge Charger stablemate excluded.)

Adding to the decadent dash-to-axle is that long, sweeping fender crease. It goes from the headlight to the base of the A-pillar in one fell swoop.

The wheels, while beautiful in their organic simplicity, prove the Chrysler 300 was an entry-level luxury car on its best days and a rental-car special at its worst. These particular forgings have the requisite depth (the hub is sunken relative to the spokes) to be the former, but it isn’t priced like a BMW M3 for ample reason.

The wiper/cowl area is short and harder to spot at a glance, as you’d expect with a cab backward, long dash-to-axle design. The steep rake from the (higher) hood to the (lower) windshield suggests this area was crafted with pedestrian-friendly design in mind.

The rear-wheel-drive (i.e. long dash-to-axle) proportioning really shines in the 300’s pillars, as that impossibly thin A-pillar belongs to anything but a space-efficient crossover utility. The sideview mirror has assertive angles and a bold repeater indicator light but tucks away perfectly in a black plastic triangle within the DLO.

The front door is almost exaggerated in length, but this car has more of a coupe flavor than its counterparts from Asia and Europe.

The B-pillar, while static and upright (like all vehicles in this era of head-curtain airbags), has just enough tumblehome to look less like an SUV or CUV, more like a vintage muscle car.

There’s a strong character line a few inches below the DLO, and it’s absolutely needed because the 300 gets even taller in the back (and needs something to break up all that height).

All things considered, Chrysler did a great job keeping the 300 (looking) as trim and low to the ground with its use of horizontal lines and modest surfacing. While not technically a shoulder line, the crease in the C-pillar that turns into the top of the deck lid is absolutely gorgeous and is a nice homage to the 2005 model.

The rear wheel arch is a bit troubling, however. Its thick shape cuts deep into the contours of the rear door, unlike the smooth forms presented in its brother, the Dodge Charger. Perhaps most of the issue is in my head, as I have a particular Avenger haunting my car designer soul.

The minimal contouring of the roof (save for cutlines for a fancy moonroof on this 300C) accentuates the long, luxury-sedan lines of the Chrysler and is a good way to save money. The exposed rain gutter isn’t as pretty as the extra plastic strips of other sedans in its class, but I generally prefer its minimalism in a low-visibility area. Can’t give the same kudos for the lasagna noodle–like rear window seal, however.

The transition from the aforementioned character line and the shoulder line is harsh and angular, which has implications for the taillight. But it is another throwback to 2005, ensuring the Chrysler 300 has a design DNA like so many other American icons of our past.

The redesigned 300 eliminates the smiling rear-end treatment created by the original’s curved rear deck and rotund rear bumper. This is produced by implementing the bends in the quarter panel and rear bumper as design limitations of the rear light. The downward force pictured here gives a contrasting frown to the bumper. It’s a little fussy, in a Malaise Era Chevy Monte Carlo way, but eliminates the under-surfaced issue of the previous generation.

There’s a certain harmony that comes from a bumper that’s directly influenced by the outer contouring of the light, and a trunk emblem that naturally steps down from model name to trim level to reverse light.

The Aston Martin–like emblem Chrysler chose after its bankruptcy never resonated with me, as there was something special about both the Blue Ribbon and the Pentastar before it. All that recognition was lost forever, so that’s probably why I like it better in a morbid-like black finish on the decklid’s otherwise unadorned center section.

Unadorned is right, because Chrysler did a fine job integrating both a push-button trunk release and a rear camera within the CHMSL at the top of the decklid. To some extent, perhaps the designers didn’t leave themselves much of a choice.

Just like the original, Chrysler opted to put the license plate mount in the rear bumper, leaving an acre of underutilized space in the trunk above. It’s a nice change to the usual “trunk plate” seen on today’s Camry and Accord, but it looks unfinished compared to the heckblende-equipped trunks of the Charger, Sonata, and (Kia) K5. I’d personally like to see C-H-R-Y-S-L-E-R spelled out on the back to fill in some space—and to be proud of this once-famous brand, and the founder behind it.

The lower bumper sports a matte plastic insert with arches around the exhaust, sized appropriately to match the wheel arches on the body side. The integration of the reflector lens into the insert’s outer boundary with the painted bumper is a common trick for modern cars, one that is both clever and beautiful.

The ducktail spoiler is a wonderful touch, adding much-needed visual excitement to the 300’s tall and flat-faced posterior. But it’s all relative, because this butt clearly received hundreds of hours more surfacing time from Chrysler designers than the same area of the 2005 original: The decklid is toned and muscular, and the 2022 bumper tries hard not to have a big-faced smile anymore.

It works, as the 300 now has a cocky smirk instead. Be it a Pentastar or 6.4-liter Hemi, anyone who has driven Chrysler 300 knows it’s pretty darn fast. Pick a fight with one and you know that trunk is absolutely giving you a victorious smirk, because it knows who won the race. While it’s a shame that family sedans are an unprofitable genre deemed unworthy for most automakers, at least the Chrysler 300 made a splash in 2005 and went out with a helluva bang last year.

Thank you for reading; I hope you have a lovely day.

***

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Rivian, the embattled electric automaker behind the R1 truck/SUV and the Amazon EDV van, isn’t going down without a fight. And everyone loves an underdog, especially when their design team is tasked with making smaller, more affordable vehicles that promise the same good vibes of their current crop of aspirational designs.

That’s precisely what happened yesterday, as Rivian announced the R2 SUV and the R3 crossover. Thanks to the thoughtful body surfacing and a headlight signature that resembles a dual USB port, both concepts have the DNA of the original R1T flagship pickup.

The R2 rests on a new architecture, with party tricks like fold-down rear and front seating for camping trips. But it looks a bit derivative and dull, in a light beer served at a franchised restaurant kinda way. Enter the R3: Photos make it look far more delicious than its larger stablemate, like a hoppy craft brew served on an outdoor patio with a food truck parked nearby. While based on the R2’s platform, the R3 has a shorter wheelbase and, presumably, a cheaper asking price.

That’s a value proposition with some legs, and most of the online chatter since yesterday’s introduction is about the R3. That’s likely for good reason, as we currently have a dearth of small, affordable EVs that offer town-and-country substance with aspirational style. (Sorry Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt owners.)

Pricing has yet to be released, and that’s always a concern with an EV startup. Hopefully Rivian has learned from their mistakes because the R3 is hitting a chord with folks who want a cheaper vehicle with the requisite CUV dimensions and price point. This little rig does something that even the Ford Bronco Sport can’t do on with its portly, Escape-derived bones. Heck, even the clamshell hood cleans up the front view, giving good vibes on par with the affordable Kia Soul.

The R3 sits so perfectly on its haunches from the rear quarter view. The rear door’s dogleg hugs the wheel arch, evocative of the original Jeep Cherokee (XJ). The compact rear cabin makes for difficult ingress/egress, but there’s a purity to this design when paired with the upright roof pillars, flat cant rail, and aggressive horizontal bodyside creases. In a perfect world, this purity is paired with Chevy Bolt-like affordability.

But most enthusiasts can’t stop talking about the R3 trim with rally-car flair, the R3X. Analogies to the dynastic rule of the Lada Niva is prevalent across social media, and for good reason: both look like workaday passenger cars from a forgotten analog era, right down to the ride heights, upright B/C pillars, strong horizontal lines, and that flattering clamshell hood.

There’s something about the R3X that tugs at your heartstrings, just like a Lada does. (Or like a Subaru Crosstrek in a sea of Camry LEs, if vintage iron isn’t your jam.) Here we have a promise of added practicality via extra ride height, with a footprint suggesting a price point friendly to lending institutions eager to finance the lower rungs of our society. Of course, that’s relative to the $90,000-ish Rivian R1T, which I drove and quite enjoyed.

Slice the baby Riv’s look another way, and I’d suggest there’s a bit of the Group B rally Lancia Delta S4 in its design. The roofline is purposefully boxy, the creases are crispy, there’s a spoiler at the back, and the wheels fill up their arches like a race car. The latter even gives off the same anthracite vibes of the Delta HF Integrale.

The Rivian family of vehicles is starting to look like a full line of modern SUVs and crossovers for modern lifestyles. Yesterday’s unveling of the R2, R3, and R3X have put the rest of the world on notice, and Rivian is clearly serious about reducing the fixed and variable costs that are an albatross around their neck.

The questions we have left are the same for all concepts: how much and when? Rivian says R2 pricing “is expected to start around $45,000, and R3 will be priced below R2.” Deliveries for the R2 are slated for 2026, but Rivian vaguely states that R3 and R3X deliveries will start sometime after that. Fantastic.

Those hoping for an R3/R3X aren’t getting the plausible price and timeline that buyers of the Escape-based Ford Maverick received back in 2021. And that affordable trucklet still suffered from tech-company-worthy production delays and price increases despite coming from a legacy automaker. That says nothing of the concern I have around Rivian’s negative contribution margin impacting its ability to deliver future product.

And if such financial and logistical headwinds feel like bizarre choices to include in a design column like Vellum Venom, just remember the author dropped out of car design school and got himself two business degrees. While I’d love to gush over the product, perhaps it’s wiser to have cautious optimism. As Neil Young said,

“It’s gonna take a ‘Lada’ love to change the way things are.”

***

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I must confess that, until recently, if I had to pick an automobile brand as the one least likely to survive the industry’s inexorable pivot toward electrification, it would have been Dodge.

After all, with its reliance on muscle cars powered by hulking V-8 engines, the brand already seemed to live in a bygone era, albeit one still very close to the hearts of many. So it seemed inevitable to me that, sooner rather than later, we would be speaking about Dodge the way we do with the likes of Pontiac and Oldsmobile: in past tense only.

But, understandably, the people in charge at Auburn Hills beg to differ. The new Dodge Charger is out to prove that muscle cars can guzzle electrons or the good ol’ dinosaur juice. That’s no mean feat, and it places a considerable burden on the collective shoulders of Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles and his team.

That’s because in a world where EVs capable of neck-snapping acceleration are commonplace and Dodge can no longer bank on the raw, primal appeal of its supercharged Hemi V-8, the new Charger’s chances of success will largely depend on its looks. But that’s just as well, because Dodge’s designers knocked this one right out of the park.

Everything has changed under the new Charger’s skin. Yet, Dodge’s designers have chosen to wrap the new technology in the reassuring comfort of nostalgia, drawing heavily on design cues from the beloved 1968–70 models. Of course, this is far from the first time they’ve done so, but never before has the end result been so compelling from all angles.

But let’s break it down, starting from the fundamentals.

Beauty in automobile design is, above all, a matter of proportions, and those who worked on the new Charger clearly got the memo. Dare I say, the new Charger has the proportions its 1968 namesake wishes it had.

Mind you, having grown up watching the Duke boys thrashing Dodge B-bodies on the telly over and over, I love the classic late ’60s Charger as much as everyone else does. Still, to my eye, the old model’s front overhang has always seemed a touch longer than it should have been. And don’t get me started on the size of the wheels and how far inset they were into the fenders!

That’s not the case with the new Charger, though. Its 20-inch wheels neatly fill the arches, and the front overhang has been kept nice and short. On the other hand, the generous length of the rear overhang allows the roofline to gracefully taper into the rear deck as it did on the classic model. So, in typical muscle-car fashion, the cabin’s volume extends rearward on the new Charger to visually “sit” over the rear axle. This helps make the car look purposeful, like a beast ready to pounce.

Once the vehicle’s basic proportions are set, the second ingredient of automobile design is what I like to call the “sculpture,” or the way exterior surfaces are modeled and interplay with one another. And I’m pleased to notice that in this regard, the new Charger is a significant step forward from Dodge’s previous efforts.

To me, the 2008 Challenger and, to a lesser extent, the 2011 Charger have always looked a bit too plump and heavy. They were handsome cars, but they lacked the degree of grace and finesse that separates a good design from an outstanding one.

But while I’ll stop short of declaring the new Charger a masterpiece, the overall execution is on another level compared to its predecessors. The body surfaces are taut, the lines are pin-sharp, and the way the chunky rear pillars merge into the quarter panels appears to have been treated even better than they were on the concept car from two years ago.

Yet perhaps my favorite aspect of the new Charger’s design is what Dodge’s PR calls the “R Wing.” We’ve already seen that feature on the 2022 concept car, but I’m glad it made production. Not only does it make for a gorgeously sculpted bonnet, but through this aerodynamic device, the designers have managed to integrate a key graphic element of the 1968 Charger (its full-width grille) and give it a thoroughly contemporary new function. Well played, Dodge.

Grilles bring us to the third main ingredient of automobile design: graphic elements. This umbrella term includes everything that “cuts” into the vehicle’s main volume, like the windows, the air intakes, the headlights and taillights, right down to and including the shutlines separating the various body panels. Dodge’s designers thankfully chose to keep things clean and functional on this front, and all the better for it.

However, I really wish Dodge went the extra mile and splurged for flush door handles. On the clean, sharp bodysides of the new Charger, those door handle recesses stick out like a sore thumb, especially so on the four-door variant. Curiously, the photo album accompanying Dodge’s press release features the two-door Charger much more prominently than the four-door, even though the latter will invariably take the lion’s share of sales. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the four-door ends up making the two-door redundant altogether, as it looks just as attractive and is going to be way more practical.

So, the case is closed. I was wrong, and the future of Mopar muscle is bright and safe. Or is it?

Dodge had no trouble selling the outgoing Charger and Challenger models until the very end of their run, despite their age, which shows just how much love there still is for the Hemi V-8.

And that’s something no amount of digital gizmos or a few tenths shaved off a quarter mile can replace. Sure, Dodge is hedging its bets by bringing out a twin-turbo straight-six version of the new Charger next year, but whether that will be enough to keep its fans happy—or bring in new ones to replace them—remains to be seen.

Time will tell us if Mopar muscle still has a place in our electric future, but one thing is clear enough: Dodge has just made one hell of a case for it.

***

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Like many beautiful things in life, concept cars are ephemeral. These are vehicles built to showcase a company’s creative and technological prowess, at the expense of permanence and production reality. Like shooting stars, they shine bright and captivate our attention for a fleeting moment, only to vanish into the night sky as quickly as they appeared.

But, as always, there are exceptions. Concept cars can prove so influential that they become genuine landmarks in the aesthetic evolution of the automobile. Precious few designs belong to this exclusive club; GM’s 1951 Le Sabre is undoubtedly among them.

The story of the Le Sabre begins with the car it was meant to replace, the seminal Buick Y-Job from 1938. That one-off roadster is widely considered the first concept car ever created and served as GM Design Vice President Harley Earl’s personal car for over a decade. By 1947, though, the Y-Job no longer looked as fresh as it once did, and Earl began thinking about a replacement.

Harley Earl proposed that Buick’s chief engineer, Charles Chayne, create a pair of two-seater convertibles built on identical chassis but wearing two different, futuristic bodies. The rationale was to show off GM’s leadership in automobile styling and engineering. Naturally, Earl and Chayne would get one car each for personal use.

Development work on the two cars began in 1947 under the XP-8 and XP-9 codenames. Both saw the light of day in 1951. However, while the XP-9 (rechristened XP-300 upon its unveiling) soon faded from public memory, the XP-8 became an all-time icon: Earl’s legendary Le Sabre.

The name was a nod to the military aircraft that inspired the car’s design, the North American F-86 Sabre. The first prototype of this jet fighter flew in 1947, and it’s easy to see why it caught Harley Earl’s imagination. With its smooth, sleek fuselage and its wings dramatically swept back to reduce drag as it flew close to the sound barrier, the F-86 Sabre was a direct byproduct of the massive strides made by aviation technology over the war years. The F-86 embodied speed and progress, and Harley Earl aimed to bring those values down from the sky to America’s roads.

Earl knew well that beauty in car design is, above all, a matter of proportions. From the time he joined GM in 1927, the man relentlessly strived to make the corporation’s cars as long and low as possible. With an overall length of over 17 feet and a height of just 58 inches, the Y-Job already epitomized this ideal, but the Le Sabre went a step further. It wasn’t any longer than the Y-Job but was just 50 inches tall: 2.5 fewer than a Jaguar XK 120 and about 15 fewer than an average car from the period.

The Le Sabre’s front end was dominated by a giant oval grille; it was meant to evoke the jet’s air intake but served a very different purpose. Back then, the limitations of lighting technology meant designers could hardly do anything about headlights. Saddled with elements whose shape and dimensions couldn’t be altered, automotive stylists spent decades either working around the headlights or concealing them in ever-more inventive ways to give the car an enigmatic “eyeless” look. Since jet fighters have no headlights, GM’s stylists hid them into the Le Sabre’s faux air intake, behind grilles that retracted at the flip of a switch.

Aviation influences informed every facet of the Le Sabre’s design. Its body was built from lightweight cast magnesium parts and hand-formed aluminum panels, all expertly crafted to seamlessly fit together like an aircraft’s skin. The convertible top, which could operate automatically thanks to a rain sensor, folded neatly out of sight under a flush cover. Rather than being treated as accessories, the bumpers, grille, and all trim pieces were made to blend into the car’s body and form a cohesive whole. The Le Sabre’s rear deck tapered into a single, large circular opening which, once the sizeable red taillight inside it illuminated, was meant to resemble a lit afterburner. Tall, prominent tailfins, each housing a bladder-type fuel tank inside, completed the package.

By then, tailfins weren’t a new idea. Inspired by the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft’s twin-boom design, tailfins famously made their debut on the 1948 Cadillac. However, those still were relatively subdued affairs, unlike those of the Le Sabre. Unapologetically tall and prominent, the Le Sabre’s tailfins spearheaded the ever more flamboyant interpretations of this design feature hailing from Detroit’s design studios throughout the 1950s.

Inspired by the teardrop-shaped transparent canopies of jet fighters, the Le Sabre also featured a wraparound “panoramic” windscreen. Harley Earl had toyed with the idea for decades, but only at the dawn of the 1950s was the technology to make such sharply curved glazing finally perfected. Made by laying semi-molten glass over a steel form and having the ends draped down by gravity, panoramic windscreens first went into series production at GM in 1953, and within a couple of years, Ford and Chrysler had them, too.

With the establishment of Harley Earl’s “Art & Color” section in 1927, General Motors practically invented automobile design as practiced today. That leadership played a fundamental role in the corporation’s rise toward market dominance over the following years. And, by the time the Le Sabre was unveiled, GM’s huge market share meant its every move had ripple effects across the industry. That was especially true when it came to styling, and the public’s raucous reaction to the Le Sabre’s flamboyant design reaffirmed GM’s position as the car industry’s tastemaker and brought Detroit’s automobiles into the jet age.

Moreover, the success of the Le Sabre got the public to crave more dream cars like it. This led to Earl’s team providing GM’s Motorama exhibitions with a continuous stream of increasingly extravagant concept cars, starting in 1953. This further solidified GM’s position as a leader in automotive design and exerted a powerful influence not just on its Detroit rivals’ output, but also across the Atlantic.

In the Western European countries recovering from the ashes of WWII, everything that came from America held huge appeal. The music, pop culture, and flashy automobiles from the U.S. embodied the promise of a better future in the eyes of people who wanted nothing more. Consequently, it took little time for tailfins, panoramic windscreens, and other jet-inspired design flourishes to crop up in the Paris, London, or Turin motor shows.

Thanks to its role as Harley Earl’s preferred choice of wheels, the Le Sabre has never been at risk of being discarded and destroyed, even after it no longer looked like the future. Lovingly restored in the 2000s, today the Le Sabre is among the crown jewels of GM’s Heritage collection, and rightfully so. It represents post-war America’s hopes and dreams better than any historical treatise ever could, and may well be the single most influential design ever to come out of GM’s studios.

Not bad for what began as the design boss’s new company car.

***

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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Domagoj Dukec is not your average car designer. As head of BMW design for nearly five years, he is responsible for some of the most radical BMWs to ever make production. (Radical might be putting a positive spin on some … downright challenging designs.) But even yours truly grudgingly admits the design of the current BMW M3 is well-executed.

Too bad “our” opinions as traditional car enthusiasts and/or BMW loyalists don’t matter to Dukec. In an interview back in 2022, he suggested that someone in his role can’t make everyone happy “because BMW was never about pleasing everyone.” As he sees it, his role “as head of design is to always create something which makes a difference.” Perhaps he has accomplished that?

Automakers always give customers new reasons to trade in their old ride for a new, and there are only so many times you can retread that same tire. That truth is magnified by Dukec’s assertion that the BMW iX is not a “beauty from first sight, but sales are 40 percent over what we estimated.”

Faint praise indeed. Sales and good design do not go hand-in-hand: The Fisker Karma was a beautiful dud, and the Tesla Cybertruck won’t be leaving any time soon. We may never know if sweetheart lease deals at BMW dealers, government EV incentives, or any factor outside the control of a design studio played a part in the sales success of the awkward iX; but I come not to bury Dukec’s designs. Instead let’s consider praise for a brand that flourished, on occasion, with boundary-breaking design. Perhaps we can see if the future can be brighter, as told by Dukec’s Instagram channel.

 

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Firstly, a round of applause for an upper-level design manager who isn’t afraid to post such interesting content on a regular basis on social media.

Dukec’s mastery of the medium apparently extends beyond the vellum and 3D designs of a studio, as he can place vehicles like the 1972 BMW turbo, a car with a vision that logically and clearly turned into the 1978 BMW M1, into proper perspective. While later concept cars may not be as directly responsible for icons that made production, it’s clear that BMW likes to use concept cars to bounce ideas off people. And those concepts do play fortuneteller, on occasion.

 

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Then we have the AVT concept from 1981, which flirted with the idea of having brand DNA plastered onto an aerodynamic future of sleek lines and plastic faces.  Too bad this was just a design study made of clay, and its DNA didn’t have a direct impact on future products: BMW didn’t love the concept of aerodynamics nearly as much as Audi, as demonstrated by its 5000 (1982), or even as much as downmarket Ford—see the Sierra (1982). But, again, this isn’t under the control of a design team: Multiple departments within a corporation, concerns along a supply chain, restrictions at the retailing level, and governmental regulations all take their toll on a designer’s initial vision of a vehicle.

I bet there are multiple reasons why even the much beloved BMW E30 took so long (1989) to receive the sleek, aerodynamic plastic bumpers its German, American, and Japanese competitors had received years before. Sleekness to the extreme is great, but maybe the AVT concept isn’t the best example of a BMW that shows us our future.

 

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Now we’re cookin’ with gas! The 1989 E1 Spider is a design study that clearly foretold a future with long-nosed BMW 8 Series (E31) and the rounded yet taut surface tension found on the hood of an E39 BMW 5 Series. Sure, it lacks things like a roof and wheels, but the silhouette is clean, elegant, and minimalist in its expressive contouring. It’s not unlike BMW products since the first E36 3 Series of 1990 to the last E46 3 Series in 2005: That’s a good tie-in for any concept car … even if it looks like a speed boat, not a car.

 

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These early renderings of the 1996 BMW Z3 show a decadent sports car with the classic long hood/short deck proportioning of a vehicle from the era of British sports cars, Italian touring cars, and American land yachts. It’s pretty amazing to see the production Z3 look so true to the concept, as BMW clearly spent a lot of cash to re-work the E36 platform into something worthy of a classic sports car. While it didn’t have to put in all that effort for such a long hood (BMW’s historical proportioning rarely chooses style over snub-nosed functionality), thank goodness it did just that.

 

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Even the Chris Bangle days of BMW design, an era generally reviled by purists, had concepts that were clear winners. The Z9 Gran Turismo influenced the 2003 BMW 6 Series (E63) right down to the elongated grilles and a Kammback rear that turned into one of the prettiest implementations of Chris Bangle’s infamous Bangle Butt.

 

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Now here’s one we haven’t seen before: The I16 a concept that was apparently ready for production, and Dukec suggests it was intended to be the successor to the hybrid BMW i8 supercar. It reportedly used the i8’s underpinnings to speed up production, and Dukec suggests “you will find a few cues” of the i8. He’s right, as I spy the i8’s long hood and scooped C-pillar right off the bat.

BMW wisely left the I16 as a concept, as a restyled i8 isn’t what the market needs at this point. It needs something radical under the skin, on par with the Tesla Plaid or the 1111-horsepower Lucid Air. If the I16 had reached the world as yet another hybrid, it would have become a showroom paperweight just like its predecessor.

 

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Now we get our fortune told by someone who knows our future better than we do. The BMW Neue Klasse (New Class) Concept may be little more than a dream car at this point, but even the name harkens back to an inflection point in the company’s history.

The tapered, fade-away front fascia and ample greenhouse are pure Neue Klasse BMW from 1962. The door glass’ lowered DLO would look wonderful in a production BMW sedan. There’s a tall rear deck as per modern cargo and aerodynamic needs, but all the hallmarks of a modern BMW (aggressive kidney grilles, radical lights, aggressive body side surfaces) are so darn logical it would be an absolute tragedy if this weren’t a lightly disguised production car.

Don’t take my word for it: Have a look at more photos of the Neue Klasse sedan and arrive at your own conclusion. The “New” Neue Klasse concept might be Dukec’s best work yet. It illustrates his need to break from BMW’s staid styling norms—but in a way that more enthusiasts can appreciate. Add in the fact that this concept is intended to have an EV powertrain, and Dukec is clearly giving new generations of motorists ample reason to fall in love with the BMW spinning commutator propeller brand.  So maybe Dukec was wrong when he said:

I can’t, and I don’t want to please everyone, because BMW was never about pleasing everyone. Actually, my duty as head of design is to always create something which makes a difference.

You will absolutely please everyone if this Neue Klasse makes production at the price of a Tesla Model 3, but with BMW build quality and its rock-solid dealership network. The market is constantly evolving, and a conservative German brand can’t stick to its enthusiast ethos forever. But you need not veer too far in the other direction to appeal to radicals and loyalists alike. And that’s quite a wonderful thing to behold.

***

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Wayne Kady might be the most well-known unknown designer in the history of General Motors. Well known, because his designs are some of the most recognizable from the 1960s to the 1990s; unknown, because the unassuming Kady was often eclipsed by flashier designers more adept at self-promotion.

Kady’s tenure at GM began in 1961, when the General was at the zenith of its influence—so all-powerful that the government considered taking action to break up the automaker’s near 50 percent grip on the American market. GM Design was the undisputed leader of automotive styling, and Kady was in the thick of it, working for legends like Bill Mitchell. He soon landed at the studio where he made the most impact—Cadillac, where he penned the 1971 Eldorado and helped steer the brand through the vehicle downsizing of the late ’70s. By the time he retired in 1999 as chief designer, Buick 2 Studio, his portfolio contained some of the most recognizable cars to come out of Detroit.

Over the course of many interviews, Kady told us his story, which is also the story of how one person can make a huge impact on an industry and a culture.

California beginnings

I grew up in Reedley, California, a small farming town located in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. My dad immigrated here from Lebanon and saved up enough to buy a small farm. My first experience driving was on our tractor. Dad had a ’29 Chevrolet truck that was no longer used and was going to be scrapped, so Dad let my brothers and me take it apart. I learned about how an engine works and how to turn a wrench, as well as how to skin my knuckles. By the eighth grade, I could draw all the GM cars from memory. In my junior year of high school, I bought a 1940 Willys for $12 and started to build a sports custom. My inspiration was the Jaguar XK 120. I never finished it, but I learned how to weld and graft sheetmetal—and how to use a lot of Bondo. What inspired me to become a car designer was I learned that you could earn a living doing it. In January 1951, Life magazine published photos of the Le Sabre show car. It was an inspiring thing to see, that “Wow, all of a sudden, it’s the future!”

ArtCenter

In high school, my art instructor saw me drawing cars when I should have been drawing other things. He told me about ArtCenter College of Design [located in Los Angeles, California, before it moved to its present location in Pasadena] and suggested I apply. I did, and they rejected me. They said I was too immature. After two years at Reedley Junior College and a second attempt for admission, they let me in on probation.

Hired by General Motors

Clare MacKichan, the chief designer of the ’55 through ’57 Chevrolets, came to ArtCenter and interviewed me and several other students, shortly before I graduated with honors. He looked at my portfolio and offered me a job. I moved to Detroit on February 13, 1961. The farthest east I’d ever been was Phoenix, Arizona. That was the first time I’d ever flown. I had a window seat and I was looking out as we were circling Willow Run Airport. I couldn’t see anything moving, and everything was white. I sat there wondering what I was doing. I got off the plane and had to walk across the tarmac because Willow Run didn’t have jetways back then. I didn’t have an overcoat, just a suit coat. When they opened the door, it felt like nails going through you, it was so cold. My first night in Michigan was spent sleeping on the floor of Syd Mead’s apartment in Royal Oak. Syd was a fellow ArtCenter graduate and legendary designer who went on to create designs for the Blade Runner and Tron films.

It sounds like a cliché, but my first day at GM, I couldn’t believe that I was hired to work at this place. It was an environment where you couldn’t wait to get to work, because if that’s your passion, that’s the ideal place to be. The environment was such that you wanted to be as creative as you could be, the ideas had to flow out, and you had to be competitive with whomever else was working there, too. Working at GM back then was fantastic. It was a very creative environment to be in.

Bill Mitchell

I first met Bill Mitchell when I was newly hired and assigned to Design Development, the studio where all newly hired designers started. There they could be evaluated, then assigned to a studio where they could be most effective. I remember whenever Mitchell would visit the studio, he was always dressed in expensive, tailored suits and had someone with him taking notes. Later, after I was assigned to Cadillac, Mitchell would visit the studios to check on the progress of the clay models. If he wasn’t happy with the direction the design was headed and you tried to defend it, his face turned red, and you knew a chewing out would follow. Usually he would come back after a couple of hours knowing everyone was tense and uptight, and then he would tell a joke or make an off-color comment and then walk out, and that would lighten the air. Some designers had a hard time with him, but I thought he was very effective. He might have been a little crude in some areas, but he was successful as far as picking the designs for production.

Designing at Cadillac

In 1962, while assigned to Bernie Smith’s Preliminary Design studio, our project was to create an alternate design for the 1965 all-new Cadillac versus the direction the Cadillac studio was pursuing. Smith’s theme was chosen, and I was transferred to the production studio to help design the ’65 DeVille and Fleetwood. We were also working on a theme that eventually led to the design of the ’67 Eldorado. In August 1968, I was promoted to chief designer of a newly formed advanced Cadillac studio to design an all-new Eldorado for 1971.

1971 Eldorado

The ’67 Eldorado, [Oldsmobile] Toronado, and [Buick] Riviera were designs initially developed with unique sheetmetal for each brand. Cowl, windshield, and side-glass planes were the only major parts shared. Eldorado shared front-wheel drive with Toronado, while Riviera continued with rear-wheel drive to enjoy a price advantage as well as differentiation. When I was working on the Eldorado for 1971, we started out with a smaller, more tailored body. As the design progressed and volume cost estimates and other data evolved, we ended up having to share the B-body platform used by all five car divisions and even sharing the roof panels between Toronado and Eldorado.

The ’67 was a big act to follow, because the car was, as far as designers are concerned, probably the best-looking Cadillac for a long time. The 1967 through ’70 Eldorado had a two-piece hood. When they’re stamped in two pieces, they’re assembled to the center and then the ends have to be welded and metal finished. Metal finishing cost a dollar an inch back then, and the ’71 hood required 9 inches of welding and metal finishing, so it cost $9 per car. In those days, if you took 50 cents out of a car, that was big money. Wally Sitarsky was the die engineer at Cadillac; I had great respect for him.

After careful study, he found a way to make the hood of the 1971 Eldorado in one piece. [This technique saved Cadillac almost $250,000 in 1971, roughly $1.8 million in today’s dollars.] Another important cost savings for Cadillac was sharing the front-center bumper and guards with the DeVille and the Fleetwood series.

1976 Seville, Part 1

After completing the design on the ’71 Eldorado, we had a fiberglass model built of a four-door DeVille concept with horizontal taillights before starting work on a small Cadillac to compete against the Mercedes 280SEL. We had completed a set of renderings of three possible approaches: importing the Opel Diplomat [Opel was GM’s German division], importing an Opel with minor changes to the front and rear, or creating an all-new car. These were taken by the sales team and the general manager to dealer councils across the country, where they were evaluated and voted on as to whether we would even have a smaller Cadillac. Cadillac was having competition on the West Coast in particular with the Mercedes. As that project started to roll, I got transferred to Buick. Mitchell called me into his office, and he didn’t really say much. He just said, “Hey, kid. I’m transferring you to Buick. They got a problem in there. Get out and fix it.” He used to call me kid. I was pretty young then.

Buick

One of the reasons that I was sent to Buick was because Mitchell was pressured to change the boattail Riviera. The Buick general manager disliked it and thought it was too controversial. Mitchell wanted me to graft the design that came off the four-door Cadillac with horizontal taillights onto the back of the boattail Riviera. The doors had to be kept, while the roof panel was shared with the Toronado and Eldorado. We also had to incorporate the new 5-mph bumper standards. We didn’t have enough money to change a lot on that car except maybe the quarter-panels and the decklid and add high-level brake lamps. I managed to make it look more conventional, which satisfied Buick. It didn’t enhance the look and did not add sales. I always thought the boattail was better-looking. Mitchell’s the guy who pushed the design of the boattail Riviera, but Jerry Hirshberg was the chief designer. After [facelifting] the LeSabre, the Electra 225, and a major facelift to the ’76 Buick Regal series, I was transferred back to Cadillac as exterior chief designer.

1976 Seville, Part 2

Back at Cadillac, I reinherited the Seville that was marketed as a ’76 model; its design was already finished when I returned. The design was done by Stan Parker, my first boss at Cadillac. It was a big hit for the division, and it answered the competitive question to the Mercedes. It introduced Cadillac into that small-car segment, at a big price. I think it was priced higher than anything except for the limousine. [1976 Cadillac Seville MSRP was $12,749.] From my perspective, it was the proportions that made the design so successful. One of my colleagues once mentioned proportions as being to design as location is to real estate. I think anytime you start a design for a car or a house or a product, proportions are one of the first things that you want to address. When I’m talking about proportions, it’s the dash to axle, the location of the front wheel in relation to the windshield, the amount of overhang in front of that wheel, and then the location of the rear axle to the roof profile. Then the placement of the wheels to the width of the car. These are all the things that you see while you’re looking at a car, whether it’s moving or static. The Seville’s A-pillar looks swept back, but that’s more dramatic because the roof profile was so upright and formal.

Earlier in my Cadillac career, somebody had taken a survey of our owners’ garages, and a lot of them had garages that were attached to older houses. The houses might have been big, but the garages weren’t, because nobody anticipated cars growing to that length. We got to a certain length, and we were told, “Don’t go any further because we’re going to lose customers.”

Downsizing at Cadillac

The first major downsizing project was the ’77 DeVille and Fleetwood. I’d started a little of that [downsizing] at Buick before I left. I think the assignment was to get a thousand pounds out of the car, so we had to reduce the size. Part of the assignment was to make the car look more fuel-efficient. We had these large cars that looked irresponsible and were getting maybe 12 mpg, then we’ve got Asian cars that are getting 25 [mpg] or more. That’s what people were concerned about back then. Even if the car got good fuel economy, it was the image that was part of the reason for downsizing. There were people at Cadillac who were talking about the bulk of the car and the appearance that we were wasting the nation’s resources and that we were greedy.

1980 Cadillac “Bustleback” Seville

After we finished the design of the ’67 Eldorado, we were given time to sketch whatever we wanted, and we were putting together advance concepts. I always had an interest in something that was unique and a little different for the rear of the car. Harley Earl used to say, “The most important part of a car design is the front end.” But I thought maybe the rear end was just as important.

Tailfins had run their course, and it occurred to me that people spent a lot of time looking at the back of a car. I thought, “There’s an opportunity to make a car distinctive and different.” I had been sketching that idea since probably the early to mid-’60s. We were looking at this design for the ’79 Eldorado, and we’d shown the clay model to Ed Kennard, who was the general manager of Cadillac. He rejected it and Bill Mitchell asked if he’d consider it for Seville. Kennard said he would look at it, and I think he was placating Bill for having rejected it outright as an Eldorado. We added another door cutline and that’s how it became a Seville. I was invited to the dealer announcement in Long Beach. When they announced that car, they had it on the stage and when they pulled the curtains back, the car started to revolve on a turntable and was partially concealed with fog. Then the lights gradually came on, like the sun coming up. As the fog cleared, you could see the car. It got a standing ovation. I’ve been to a lot of these dealer announcements, and this was by far the most applause for a new car that I’d ever seen. But then they priced it, I think, almost $4000 more than the previous year. They added a lot of standard features, like a diesel engine. Those engines were extremely problematic and added to the car’s price. I remember going into a dealer showroom and people would walk up to that car, they’d look at the sticker price, and then they’d look at an Eldorado or DeVille and many of them would go for the less expensive option. Then they had the V-8-6-4 [GM’s first attempt at cylinder deactivation] and the technology wasn’t ready. The electronics weren’t worked out, and the dealers didn’t know how to fix it—the factory didn’t have a fix. It was a time when fuel economy was a huge problem, and the corporation was doing all it could to squeeze out as many miles per gallon as possible. I’d give credit to Cadillac engineering for advanced thinking and having the fortitude to produce it. It’s just too bad that the technology wasn’t proven. They were ahead of their time. Today cylinder deactivation is standard on a number of cars.

I remember being at a dealer council meeting and the dealers were very upset with the general manager and the chief engineer. I think I was included in the meeting because the Seville was controversial with that bustleback and I would share some of the criticism. Oh, they were very upset. One of them was Don Massey [known as “the Cadillac King,” at his peak, Massey was one of the largest Cadillac retailers in the country, accounting for approximately 6 percent of the brand’s sales], but he was fairly cool. The one who was the most vocal and angry was John DeLorean’s brother, Charles, who owned a Cadillac dealership outside of Cleveland. Another dealer belonged to the same country club as some of his customers, where he would regularly overhear one of them asking another member how they liked their new Cadillac. The other member responded, saying, “I hate it. It’s been at the dealership, and he can’t find a fix for the engine.” And DeLorean says to us, “I’m losing my customers, I’m going to lose my franchise, and it’s because of you SOBs.” They were literally calling the general manager and the chief engineer SOBs right to their faces. It was pretty nasty. Massey was the last to speak. He looked at Kennard, and he said, “Well, boss, looks like we got work to do.”

The Cadillac Allanté

The 1989 model year was my last year at Cadillac. One of my final projects was an alternate design to the Allanté. I was not happy when I found out that Bob Burger, Cadillac’s new general manager, was going to [Italian design house] Pininfarina to build a two-passenger car. I asked Burger, “How is it that we can do your bread-and-butter products, but then when it comes to a fun and historic project, you give it to somebody who hasn’t done anything for you?” He answered, “Well, this is business. We want that designer label.” I said, “What do you mean, ‘designer label?’” He said, “We want a designer label on the car, like the red tags on the back of Levi’s.” I asked him, “What do you think we are?” He replied, “Nobody knows who you are.” And he was right. Nobody knew who we were. Bill Mitchell received credit for everything, but the designers, they were unknown to the public. We put together an alternate version of the Allanté anyway. It wasn’t any better than what I think Pininfarina came up with, but we had to do something to keep the team together. The morale was shot when they found out about it. I think if Mitchell had still been there, he probably would have fought Burger on that one.

Back at Buick

I was transferred to Buick after the ’89 model year. I shared responsibility for Buick exterior design with Bill Porter [another design legend at GM, who was responsible for the 1968 Pontiac LeMans/GTO, the 1970 Pontiac Firebird, and the 1982 Chevrolet Camaro/Pontiac Firebird, among others]. Bill was leading the design for the LeSabre, the Park Avenue, and the Riviera. I was responsible for the Century, the Regal, the Skylark, and the Roadmaster, which was based on the same platform as the Chevy Impala; the estate wagon version of it was done by my assistant, Dennis Wright. He brought back woodgrain trim on the sides of the car, and some of the designers disagreed. Dennis told me at one time, he thought that the Roadmaster estate wagon outsold the Impala version. We were there to design cars to sell for profit. That’s what we were paid to do.

I retired on April 1, 1999, after a little over 38 years at General Motors. Coming from a farm, as a farm kid, I never would’ve dreamt that I would have been working at General Motors from day one. And to work on Cadillac, on GM’s top brand, and be the chief designer longer than anybody else in the history of Cadillac. I made a good living, met a lot of great people, and worked with some of the most talented people in the world for automobile design. You know, what’s there not to like?

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“Holy jumping Caesar’s catfish, my ‘H’ has been stolen! Ohhh, that’s how people know it’s a Honda! What’s the point of having a Honda if you can’t show it off?”

Honda’s H logo clearly mattered a great deal to Superintendent Chalmers in a popular 1996 episode of The Simpsons, though the audience might have wondered why Chalmers’ boast of “making superintendent money” still only allowed him to buy what was by that point a 17-year-old Accord.

The even more eagle-eyed might have spotted that the emblem wrenched off the front of the superintendent’s Accord was actually incorrect for the year of the car. The fade marks left by the missing badge depict a wider H, which arrived two years after the character’s 1979 model was built.

Since 1963, when it began producing automobiles in Japan, Honda’s car division has only had four significant emblems. That will change in 2026, when the first in a dramatic new line of Honda electric vehicles arrives wearing a new H logo, the badge’s first significant redesign since 2000. Look at each in turn, though, and despite their differences, Honda has clearly seen fit not to mess with one of the world’s most recognizable automotive marks.

Honda’s first H: 1961–69

There appears to be no official explanation for the design of the original Honda H. It’s said to have first appeared in 1961, a significant date in Honda’s history, coinciding with the firm’s first victory at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races and with the opening of a new R&D facility in Saitama, Japan, but at that point Honda was still denoted by its famous winged logo, a design that had already been through five evolutions since 1947.

The first automobile to use the familiar H, and indeed Honda’s first automobile full stop, was the T360, a tiny kei-class pickup truck unveiled at the Tokyo motor show in 1962. The H then appeared on the S500 sports car, but not until 1969 would customers in the vital U.S. market become familiar with the badge, affixed to the front of a tiny two-door sedan dubbed the N600.

Based on Japan’s N360, another kei car, the N600 still had an engine displacement smaller than that of most motorcycles (the clue was in the name), but that parallel twin could buzz along at 80-or-so mph all day. The N600 sold alongside the sportier Z600—same engine, kooky styling—before both were replaced by an all-new car wearing an all-new badge …

1969–81

Here’s the Honda logo that Superintendent Chalmers’ Accord should have been wearing. It debuted in 1969 on the little-known Honda 1300, an air-cooled vanity project of Soichiro Honda that leaned too heavily on his focus on engineering above all else and, as result, sold poorly in its home market. Its replacement was ushered in swiftly for 1972 and, with the possible exception of the Super Cub motorcycle, did more to build Honda’s brand than any other vehicle in its history.

That car was the Civic. Next to the 1300 it was middle-of-the-road conventional, but against the N600 it replaced, it was significantly more useful, with double the cylinder count and notably more torque. Just a year after the car’s debut, the oil crisis hit. Combined with growing unease over pollution, the frugal Civic—with its low-emission CVCC (Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion) engine, which needed no power-strangling catalytic converter or weedy carburetor to meet new emissions requirements—arrived at the perfect time.

Against all this the Honda H of 1969 is less exciting, but it notably lost the HONDA wordmark and went from a low and wide design to a tall and slim one—typically a white H on a black background. On Chalmers’ Accord, the real badge would have sat neatly on a slim chrome trim piece at the leading edge of the hood.

1981–2000

The next change came in 1981, and it’s this logo that forms the basis of the emblems applied to the front of every Honda since. The key elements were all in place by this point: An H that splits the difference in height and depth between the designs of 1961 and 1969, always presented within a soft-cornered trapezoid, and with the bold uppercase serif lettering making a return—although typically used on a separate badge, rather than below the main logo.

The new badge debuted on the City supermini in Japan but soon featured on much more exciting cars, such as the Honda CRX. By now on its third-generation Civic, Honda supposed that customers might also like a sportier variant, and the CRX of 1983 was the bob-tailed, flyweight (right around 1700 pounds) result. Spectacularly economical in its earliest iteration, the CRX is even better appreciated in its 1988 second generation, with a distinctive split-glass rear hatch and, in some markets, a dual-overhead cam VTEC engine making nearly 160 hp from 1.6 liters.

The badge itself had subtle evolutions throughout the next two decades, but was mostly seen as a raised chrome emblem with no solid color background. The exception is on Honda’s Type-R models sold outside the U.S., a moniker that debuted with the NSX in 1992 and brought back the red background seen first on the nose of the S500 in the 1960s.

2000–present

In 2000, the Honda H became a skeuomorphic design, with a 3D appearance replicating the actual chrome logos seen on most Honda cars by that point. The Honda script itself was now bright red, a detail you’ll see in most of the brand’s official literature, though white and black are also used for contrast depending on where the script is being used; Honda often ditches the H entirely in brochures and on some of its websites. The use of the logo on cars still varied, with a chrome logo standing proud of the grille on some, and a flush-fitting H with a solid background on others.

It arrived on 2000’s Civic, but no other model better heralded Honda’s new-millennium look than the S2000. Launched in 1999, the S2000 was the most focused model from Honda since the NSX a decade earlier, and indeed it was built in the same factory. Like all the greatest Hondas, the S2000’s centerpiece was its engine: a 2-liter four with a 9000-rpm fuel cutoff making 237 hp through one of the tightest shifters you’ll find.

2026–forward

Honda’s next generation of production cars doesn’t yet have a solid launch date, but the 0 Series concept shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will supposedly debut in relatively unchanged fashion in 2026.

However much the low-slung sedan morphs before then, an aspect that probably won’t change is one of the more significant updates to the H logo in the company’s history. Wider and shorter than the outgoing badge, it’s closer in spirit to the 1961 original than any we’ve seen since, and just like the original logo, it has no defined background.

Honda isn’t the first car brand to return to a historic logo: Citroën and Peugeot have recently both gone back to designs inspired by their early days, Renault’s latest design harks back to the 1970s, and many more such as VW, BMW, Skoda, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz have, like Honda, adopted a flat logo in recent years.

Just as with these, Honda’s new look reflects advances in design and technology, perhaps alluded to with badges increasingly becoming illuminated. But perhaps it’s also a nod to the fact that unlike some of the auto industry’s recent startups and upstarts, having history and heritage—and a recognizable brand mark—is something to be proud of.

Superintendent Chalmers understands that Honda pride, even if the details got lost in his animation.

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Mario Revelli Di Beaumont. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

I wish I had a name like this, one that exudes old-world charm and sophistication. It certainly wouldn’t look out of place on the label of an expensive Italian wine. Mario Revelli’s story has nothing to do with fine wine, but it’s nonetheless very much about good taste. He may well be the most prolific automobile designer you’ve never heard of.

Born in Rome in 1907, Mario Revelli Di Beaumont owed his surname to his family’s roots in old nobility. Revelli’s formative years were heavily influenced by his father, a career officer in the Italian army. He led young Mario to join the “Accademia Militare della Nunziatella,” a prestigious military academy in Naples. However, this didn’t stop the young Revelli from cultivating his passion for fine art and engineering.

The latter discipline brought Mario Revelli to Turin at the tender age of 17. His brother Gino owned a motorcycle dealership and workshop there, and it wasn’t long before the two brothers designed a racing bike together, built around a 499cc JAP engine.

Revelli himself rode the special motorcycle to victory at Monza in 1925. Period commentators heralded the young Revelli as a promising young rider, but that glory proved fleeting. After discovering the hard way how motorsport, especially on two wheels, wasn’t conducive to a long and healthy life, Revelli turned his attention to automobile design.

Combining his artistic sensitivity with his technical training, Mario Revelli conceived elegant yet functional car designs that soon made him a name in the Turinese coachbuilding industry. By 1926, he was collaborating with Stabilimenti Farina, Garavini, and Ghia—earning Revelli Di Beaumont a reputation as the world’s first freelance car designer. While that’s impossible to verify for sure, such a figure was certainly rare in the 1920s, whether in Italy or anywhere else in the world.

Thanks to his privileged upbringing and vast sense of culture, Mario Revelli was very adept at interpreting the aspirations of the coachbuilders’ wealthy clientele. In his proposals, Revelli often managed to strike that elusive, delicate balance between flamboyance and restraint that the period’s Italian elite so craved. His skill brought him to the attention of Fiat’s president, Giovanni Agnelli.

In early 1929, Mario Revelli began collaborating with Fiat’s “Carrozzerie Speciali” (Special Bodywork) department, where he assumed an unofficial managerial position. In practice, though, Revelli’s role was more akin to that of a high-profile “aesthetic advisor” to Fiat’s top management. From this vantage point, he indirectly held sway on the design of the entire Fiat range.

That role didn’t stop Revelli from cultivating his ties with prominent local coachbuilders like Giacinto Ghia, for whom Revelli designed the Fiat 508 Sport Spider. To give the little Fiat roadster the look of a proper racer, Revelli placed the two seats offset to obtain a narrower body that fit snugly onto the underlying frame, just as on the period’s Grand Prix cars.

The subject of Grand Prix racers brings us to one of Revelli’s wildest projects: the 1935 Monaco-Trossi single-seater. The car was the brainchild of the engineer Aurelio Monaco, with its creation financed by wealthy enthusiast Count Felice Trossi. The latter was a friend of Revelli, thus he was brought in to help with the design. The vehicle’s appearance was that of an airplane with its wings removed, and it was dominated by the supercharged 4.0-liter, 2-stroke, 16-cylinder, air-cooled radial engine placed ahead of the front axle.

As if that wasn’t radical enough, the engine sent its power (around 250 hp) to the front wheels, doing away with the propshaft and placing the driver closer to the ground. Daring as its design was, the Monaco-Trossi proved utterly worthless on track. It only took part in the 1935 Monza GP, and even then, it didn’t last beyond a few practice laps. The engine’s weight hanging ahead of the front axle caused severe understeer issues, but its driver didn’t have to put up with it for long, as insufficient airflow around the engine soon caused it to overheat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Monaco-Trossi remained a one-off, preserved in Turin’s National Automobile Museum collection.

In the 1930s, Revelli emerged as one of the leading advocates of the “streamlining” trend. In collaboration with engineer Rodolfo Schaeffer, he conceived the Fiat 1500, which was launched in 1935 and played an important role in popularizing this new aesthetic in Italy.

After World War II, Revelli continued collaborating with Fiat and Turin’s most prominent coachbuilders before heading to Detroit in 1952 to work on GM research projects. Upon his return to Italy in 1955, Revelli established a new design consultancy, with French automaker Simca among his best clients.

The small Simca 1000 and 1300 sedans may not be the most glamorous designs in Revelli’s back catalogue, but they were undoubtedly the most successful, at least in quantitative terms. Introduced in 1961 and ’63, respectively, the Simca 1000 and 1300 stayed in production well into the 1970s and sold by the million before Chrysler took over Simca and ran it into the ground.

In 1967, the Copper Development Association approached Mario Revelli to create a show car meant to promote the use of copper in the automobile industry. The result was the Exemplar I, based on a Buick Riviera and lavishly decorated in 11 distinct hues of copper alloys. Amazingly, not only does this one-off prototype survive to this day, but it could be yours, provided you can live with its looks and meet the $750,000 asking price. Still, Revelli’s customers must have been happy with the exercise, given the fact they commissioned a follow-up model in 1972. Unimaginatively called Exemplar II, and built from a donor Oldsmobile Toronado, its fate is unknown.

Mario Revelli Di Beaumont passed away in Turin in 1985. He never became a truly famous name, but over a career spanning five decades and two continents he left a mark on automobile design history the size of which any current professional would envy.

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Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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As die-hard enthusiasts of all things automotive, we do our fair share of diving into the heritage of all automakers. We’ve exhumed plenty of older concepts, rifled through scores of design sketches, and done our best to not only study the creations that didn’t see the light of day but also to hypothesize why they didn’t make it.

But occasionally, sketches of bygone ideas surface that stop us in our tracks. In a recent LinkedIn post, Hans Hedberg, manager of Volvo Heritage, did exactly that when he revealed drawings of an off-road concept drawn up in the 1970s that never made it to reality. (The Facebook version of the post is embedded below, in case LinkedIn ain’t your style.)

According to Hedberg, the sketches were penned by long-time Volvo design manager Gunnar Falck, who was asked by then-CEO Pehr Gyllenhammar to explore the idea of “a rugged vehicle for Africa and developing countries.”

We love the idea of Volvo’s boxy styling set atop something engineered for rougher roads. With hoisted rocker panels, large wheel openings, and an outboard-mounted spare tire, this thing certainly looks ready to rumble. Is anyone else seeing a little bit of Bronco II in the massive windows aft of the doors, or are we crazy?

Above that black cladding running the length of the side profile, check out that bar protruding out above the window. Was that some sort of safety implement, or was Volvo way, way ahead of Subaru’s SVX when it came to oddball two-piece windows?

That front fender line and swept windshield are very 240-esque. However, the 240 didn’t debut until the mid-1970s, and there’s no specific date tied to these sketches, so perhaps these boxy lines precede Volvo’s most iconic nameplate. (Squint a bit, and you can almost see some Malaise-era Lincoln or Cadillac in the lines of that front end; the one photo is even giving us Cadillac Allanté vibes.)

There were no specifics about powertrains noted with this concept, nor any type of internal project code or potential name, all of which leads us to think that these sketches, though striking, never got past the ink-on-paper stage.

Still, it’s hard not to tease the idea out into what could have been. Could Volvo have stumbled its way into a genuine G-Class competitor, backing in first through developing countries (read: with a relatively spartan interior) and then eventually heaping on the luxury fittings to create its own long-lived, antiquated product that sells for ludicrous sums of money?

Alas, it’s a true “who could say” situation. In the ’70s, SUVs were still relatively niche products. Cars and wagons still had the run of things in most markets, a theme that would continue for a few more decades. We’re not surprised Volvo nixed something of this ilk in favor of a product like the 240, which by all accounts was a smashing success over the entirety of its lifespan.

Mr. Falck, your genius was ahead of its time. Shame how often that sort of thing happens.

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“Concept car for the road” is an overused phrase among car enthusiasts. Very few designs truly make the transition between concept and production vehicle undisturbed, and many of those that change the least are a case of smoke and mirrors, where a “concept” didn’t inspire the production car but instead was an already-signed-off design dressed up with bigger wheels and shinier paint to “preview” a vehicle arriving in just a year or two.

So you’ll forgive us a raised eyebrow at reports that the new Honda 0 Series, or ‘zero’ concept, unveiled recently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, closely previews a new production car arriving in 2026.

To be fair to Honda, it has not been too wide of the mark in the past—though the company also has quite a back catalog of true pie-in-the-sky concept vehicles. Below we’ve selected ten of our favorites, including a couple that show the 0 Series isn’t the first time we’ve seen a lounge-like, new-energy saloon from the Japanese brand.

2003 Honda Kiwami

The new Honda 0 Series concept looks familiar. Really familiar. Not sci-fi familiar, but “I think Honda might have done this before” familiar. Well, you aren’t imagining things, as back in 2003 the company unveiled the Kiwami concept, a premium saloon that at casual glance looks almost identical to Honda’s latest concept.

Then as now, Honda was aiming for a minimalist look inside and out. The company likened the Kiwami to “the beauty of a landscape as it changes hues with the seasons,” though the 2003 concept did get a more prominent trunk, rather than the 0 Series’ breadvan look. The key difference, though, is the powertrain: Back in 2003, Honda still felt hydrogen fuel cells were the way forward, whereas the 0 Series is an EV.

2001 Honda Dualnote

We would never say that Honda was out of ideas, but two years before the Kiwami, Honda launched the Dualnote. It was … er, a somewhat low-slung, premium four-seater, though as we’re going back in time, this one was neither EV nor fuel-cell but a hybrid, a technology Honda was already exploring at the time.

Power came from a 3.5-liter naturally aspirated V-6 engine paired with the brand’s Integrated Motor Assist hybrid setup, though this used three motors rather than the single one you’d find in a Honda Insight. Combined output was around 400 hp and sent to all four wheels, but Honda claimed it’d do more than 50 mpg. Not the prettiest concept Honda has ever made, but gamers could get behind the virtual wheel as the two-tone machine in 2002’s Gran Turismo Concept.

1999 Honda Spocket

We’re going back another two years with the Honda Spocket, this time tracing the styling thread of the Dualnote. The two certainly share a similarity at the front, and both embrace a two-tone color scheme, too. But from there they diverge, as the Spocket (and you’re reading that correctly, it’s not “sprocket”) was actually a compact two-seater pickup.

The front axle was powered by a four-cylinder engine with hybrid assistance, while the rear got electric power. Doors opened Lamborghini-style, the bed was (according to Honda’s sketches) large enough to shuttle a go-kart around (or a plus-two pair of seats could pop out of it), while the powered roof over the cabin could retract to sit over the bed.

1984 Honda HP-X

We’re not done with wedges yet. By the standards of most Japanese car companies, Honda didn’t seem to waste much effort on concept cars during the 1980s, but a glance at the HP-X suggests engineers and designers were mulling a supercar long before the NSX made its debut at the turn of the next decade.

Styled by Pininfarina (the HP-X name means ‘Honda Pininfarina Experimental’) and unveiled at the 1984 Turin motor show, the HP-X had a single-piece Perspex cockpit which raised to allow entry. Power came from a 2-liter V-6, derived from that used in Honda’s Formula 2 machines of the era. While the later NSX was unrelated, the HP-X showed where the company’s collective mind was at the time.

1991 Honda EP-X

We’re jumping forward in time again now to the 1991 Honda EP-X. If performance has always been one of Honda’s central tenets, then environmental friendliness has always been another. The EP-X is probably the kind of thing a lot of us thought eco-cars would look like by now: tiny, light, and aerodynamic, rather than simply SUVs with batteries slung underneath.

The EP-X got its power from a 1-liter, three-cylinder gas engine with VTEC-E, Honda’s alternative VTEC technology, which prioritized low-rev efficiency over high-rev power. It made nearly 70 horsepower, but the real benefit in such a low, narrow, tandem form was 100-mpg fuel economy. The actual future feels a lot less fun to us.

2009 Honda EV-Cub

In 2024, 100 mpg is impressive for a car, but Honda Super Cub riders have been getting figures like that for decades. The world’s most prolific motorized vehicle—with well over 100 million units sold since 1958—is also one of its most efficient, but it could in theory be improved further with clean electric power, something Honda previewed in 2009.

The EV-Cub featured a removable battery mounted low in its underbone chassis and simple styling directly inspired by the original. Other than a simplified sub-moped version offered in China, though, Honda has not yet put an electric Cub into production. Perhaps, when the original is already so efficient and so affordable for so many, the potential market for an electric model is too small.

2015 Honda Project 2&4

From a two-wheeler to a car inspired by two-wheelers. Honda unveiled the Project 2&4 in 2015, with a single-seater layout and white/red color scheme inspired by its 1960s Grand Prix racers. The 999c V-4 engine was straight out of its (at the time) dominating MotoGP bikes, giving 209 hp at a screaming 13,000 rpm.

Somehow the 2&4 was even more skeletal than other stripped-down track cars, like the Ariel Atom, with the driver seat virtually hanging off the chassis to the side. The absence of bodywork resulted in an 893-lb curb weight, and while Honda has never made a production version, it was, like the Dualnote further up, “driveable” in a Gran Turismo game: Gran Turismo Sport on the PS4.

2007 Honda Puyo

It just wouldn’t be right to scribble down a list of concept cars from a Japanese manufacturer without including something deeply odd, and the 2007 Puyo concept is probably among the odder Honda has ever created—a blob-like fuel-cell city car designed to “please both users and onlookers alike.”

Not just visually, either. “Puyo” is apparently a Japanese onomatopoeic word “that expresses the sensation of touching the vehicle’s soft body,” to “convey a warm, friendly impression.” If you’re not a fan of strangers coming up to fondle your car then this probably wouldn’t be the vehicle for you, though we’re also imagining a pleasing cartoonish boing if you happen to bump something when parking it.

2017 Honda Sports EV

Honda’s biggest 2017 concept debut was probably the Urban EV, a big-wheeled, retro-styled hatchback that became the Honda E production car, albeit with a much less dramatic shape. But the Sports EV concept launched the same year is much more interesting to us. If the Puyo invites you to touch it, the Sports EV very much encourages driving.

Honda announced disappointingly little information on the concept, perhaps tacit admission that it wouldn’t see the light of day. But its visual similarity to the Urban EV and the Honda E suggested a rear-mounted electric motor, and a broad dash-mounted touchscreen was visible, while an AI assistant could display messages in the car’s front and rear black panels.

1995 Honda SSM

In covering only 10 vehicles here, we’ve inevitably had to leave out plenty of great concepts, but it’s impossible to leave out the SSM. You’ll immediately place it as the predecessor to the S2000 production car that arrived in 1999, but that link almost doesn’t do the concept justice, for the most Honda of reasons: its engine.

The S2000’s F20C four-cylinder was remarkable, but had it been closer to the concept, we could be eulogizing an inline-five instead. The SSM used a 2-liter, 20-valve five with an 8000-rpm redline, which would no doubt have sounded remarkable. Thankfully, Honda ignored the SSM’s “F-matic” automatic transmission with the S2000, while its open cockpit—while driver-focused—was undoubtedly more practical than the SSM’s two individual enclosures would have been.

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In the history of automobile design, few periods are more fascinating than the years between the end of World War II and the early 1960s. We can attribute this to the intense creative exchange between the two sides of the Atlantic in that era. To the eyes of people in war-ravaged Europe, the flamboyant automobiles hailing from the United States embodied the promise of a better future. On the other side of the ocean, Americans manufacturers seeking to lend glamour and sophistication to their mass-market products found a font of resources in postwar Italy, a land of rich design heritage and abundant artisan talent. And if there’s one man whose career trajectory rode this wave of “transatlantic style” better than anyone else, it’s Giovanni Savonuzzi.

Savonuzzi was born in 1911 in the small city of Ferrara. Shortly after graduating as a mechanical engineer, he moved to Turin to work for Fiat’s aero division. It was during his time at Fiat that he met Dante Giacosa, and the encounter would lead to a pivotal moment for Savonuzzi’s career.

By the early 1940s, Giacosa had become the head engineer of Fiat’s automobile division. But, with activities on future car projects sidelined by the war effort, he was tempted by entrepreneur Piero Dusio’s venture, Cisitalia. Working over his spare time at Dusio’s Turinese residence between 1944 and ’45, Giacosa designed the D46 single-seater for Cisitalia and laid the technical groundwork for the marque’s famous 202 coupé. Yet when Dusio asked for a full-time commitment from Giacosa, the latter politely declined. He suggested hiring Savonuzzi instead.

In his 1979 autobiography, Giacosa described Savonuzzi as: “Intelligent, brilliant, passionate, and a tireless worker.” Deservedly so: Savonuzzi began working for Cisitalia in August of 1945 and, in the space of a few months, set up Cisitalia’s technical facilities from scratch and took over every aspect of vehicle development. This included styling, an area in which Savonuzzi would go on to show remarkable skill.

The first prototype for Cisitalia’s coupé got the uncharitable nickname “cassone” (the Italian for “large box”) due to its slap-dash, makeshift looks. (Not so in the case of the lovely 202 Coupé Mille Miglia that followed, however.) The Italian engineer’s fascination with aerodynamics is evident in these cars, known today as “Aerodinamiche Savonuzzi,” due to their voluptuous curves and tailfins tall enough to make a Cadillac blush.

Meanwhile, Savonuzzi started work on the production version of the 202. It would become one of the most celebrated designs in all of automotive history. And once again, his creative input went beyond the technical aspects to encompass the car’s aesthetic appearance. Pininfarina usually takes all the credit for the design of the 202 coupé, yet the key elements that made the 1947 Cisitalia such a turning point in car design—like its fully integrated fenders and the bodyside made of a continuous surface across the entire vehicle’s length—stemmed from Savonuzzi’s drawings.

The involvement of Battista “Pinin” Farina was Piero Dusio’s idea. After all, Cisitalia was a new company, and the Pininfarina signature would give the 202 valuable cachet. But that’s not to say his name was the only thing the great master brought to the table—Pinin’s uncanny eye for proportion and detail polished Savonuzzi’s rough gem into a masterpiece that set the design template for the whole “Gran Turismo” genre.

Savonuzzi left Cisitalia in 1948. Various race car projects and collaborations followed, one of which brought him to Ghia in 1953. Conceived to take part in the Mille Miglia road race, the “Supersonic” was as Italian as lasagna but wouldn’t have looked out of place among the dream cars of GM’s Motorama shows.

Displayed at the 1953 Turin Motor Show, the “Supersonic” was based on a bespoke tubular chassis equipped with an Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint engine and mated to a Lancia Aurelia transmission. What captured everyone’s imagination, however, was the car’s streamlined body, with its long hood, squat roofline, and taillight clusters that looked like jet afterburners. Orders for more Supersonic-looking cars quickly ensued, prompting Savonuzzi to modify the design to fit the newly launched Fiat 8V’s chassis. Over the next two years, Ghia would give the Supersonic treatment to fourteen Fiat 8Vs, three Jaguar XK 120s, and even an Aston Martin DB2/4.

The story of Ghia in the 1950s is inextricably linked to its role as the Chrysler Design Studio’s overseas prototype shop. Having become Ghia’s technical director in 1954, Savonuzzi oversaw the build of Virgil Exner’s “idea cars,” and that inspiration is evident in the fantastic “Gilda” streamliner from 1955.

With its semi-concealed wheels, impossibly long hood, and razor-sharp tailfins, the Gilda resembled a sci-fi movie prop more than an actual vehicle. Yet, there was a method to the madness: The Gilda’s striking design, inspired by watching ink blots blown onto a dart shape, stemmed from Savonuzzi’s experiments with scale models in the Turin Polytechnic University’s wind tunnel. A crowd favorite wherever it went, the Gilda would keep making motor show appearances until as late as 1960, but would also be one of Savonuzzi’s last stylistic feats.

His duties at Ghia meant Savonuzzi dealt with high-ranking Chrysler personnel in America on a regular basis. Due to his background in aircraft engineering, he was interested in Chrysler’s work on space and defense contracts and eventually joined the company in 1957 as a research engineer on the gas turbine project. While his name is listed on several patents related to turbine powertrains, little is known about the extent of his contribution to Chrysler’s turbine program. Nevertheless, Savonuzzi remained at Chrysler until 1969, when Giovanni Agnelli lured him back to Turin. Over the following years, as the Director of Research and Development at Fiat, he kept working on alternative propulsion systems until his retirement in 1977.

Giovanni Savonuzzi passed away in 1987. At this point, an article like this would end with a variation on the classic “gone but not forgotten” cliché. That would be disingenuous, because despite leaving a deep mark on the history of automobile design that any contemporary professional would die for, Giovanni Savonuzzi is not celebrated alongside other Italian masters like Bertone, Pininfarina, Gandini, and Giugiaro. I like to think I’m doing my bit to change that.

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Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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Our last foray into the 1985 Lincoln Mark VII Comtech was over two years ago, but one comment from a reader suggested he knew why this car—arguably the very first one to ever have a touchscreen—never hit the showroom floor. His point got me seeking more truths about this car, both from the commentator and from the Ford Heritage Vault, a wealth of information that came online after our previous Comtech article was published.

Before we get to the truth behind the demise of the Mark VII Comtech, let’s see how its hallmark technology evolved into a final product that almost came to production in another Ford vehicle, thanks to rarely seen photos and press releases provided by the Ford Heritage Vault. In the process, we might learn how engineering from the tail end of the Malaise Era established changes in automobiles, advances that we seemingly take for granted these days.

1983 Continental Concept 100

The engineering innovations of the Comtech likely started with the 1983 Continental Concept 100. From the first and second photos, it’s clear that the Continental Concept was also a “teaser” for a new production car, the 1984 Continental Mark VII. The 1980s were certainly a unique time in history, as a luxury concept coupe came with radical technology not likely to be found in a production vehicle. (Ah, to go back to those days when concept cars were rolling dreams, not veiled threats of a modern reality we already know and begrudgingly tolerate.)

But the debut of any 1980s concept car ended with a cliffhanger: How much of its unique technology could make production? With Continental Concept 100, there’s a custom dashboard loosely based on that of the production Mark VII, and a host of bits robbed from a future Ford parts bin. We mentioned some of those cutting-edge bits previously, and now we see that the Lear-Siegler sport seats from the 1983 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe also made the cut. But the new photos unearthed from Ford show the technological goodies with clarity: voice control, NAVSAT navigation, and a diverse selection of media formats for in-car entertainment. Starting from the top, there are all seven frequencies of weather band radio, a TV tuner, a micro-cassette player (presumably not with the cheap tapes used for dictation), and a custom face for both Ford’s AM/FM digital stereo guts, and its corporate seven-band graphic equalizer.

This once-cutting edge technology was nestled in a frame wrapped in leather, par for the course in a concept car looking for maximum impact at an auto show. The ’83 Continental Concept 100 clearly made a positive impression, as more production-worthy implementations were pressed into existence at the same time.

1982 Thunderbird/Cougar Proposal?

Pictured above is the interior of a 1980–82 Ford Thunderbird, the technological flagship in Ford’s fleet before the 1984 Continental Mark VII. The downsized square bird was clearly looking at its Blue Ovaled creator to get into the navigation game, possibly noting how Japan Inc. was helping the likes of Honda, Nissan, and Toyota to innovate via in-car navigation systems. The navigation interface is very similar to the navigation system in the Continental Concept 100.

The T-Bird’s had potential, because the complicated blend of audio/video/HVAC integration appears to be simplified for production. HVAC is removed from this particular equation, as the automatic HVAC is still controlled by the Ford’s well-known, fully analog, sliding-lever control panel. But it was only two years until the 1984 Continental Mark VII sported a fully digitized climate control system, which was fully integrated into a touchscreen in the 1985 Mark VII Comtech. Nowadays touch screens are what we come to loathe expect in modern times, but it’s clear this march of progress began in the Malaise Era: This time period never ceases to disappoint, and the changes proposed for the 1980–82 Thunderbird and Cougar are proof.

In a press release dated April 1981, Ford CEO Philip Caldwell noted the increased amount of electric content in luxury vehicles, starting with about 50 semiconductors in 1970 (most were inside the radio) to “the equivalent of 250,000 transistors in the 1981 Continental Mark VI, contained in 17 different electronic modules using about 850 semiconductor devices.” And that Mark VI really had nothing on the Mark VII Comtech.

Too bad this ill-fated Thunderbird/Cougar navigation dashboard was lost to history, as its production could have spurred the greenlighting of the Mark VII Comtech. This complicated ‘Bird could have happily lived with the optional computerized gauges, trip computer, digital audio system, and keyless entry button pad that did make production and were heavily promoted in print advertisements.

New information about the Mark VII Comtech

Here we see the interior in action, thanks to this vintage B-roll from the fine folks at the Ford Heritage Vault. There’s the yoke behind the factory Lincoln steering wheel, letting the driver control many features without taking their hands off the wheel. I especially like the volume controls, which appear a good decade before they made production elsewhere. While the touchscreen interface is the “killer app” for this car, the user in this video never pushes a virtual button to adjust temperature or fan speed.

That’s a shame, but the Mark VII Comtech also lacked the navigation system teased in the aforementioned Thunderbird dashboard and the Continental Concept 100. Time has shown that the technology behind the screen needed at least another decade of improvement, even if this video proves the Comtech’s radical user interface was refined and seemingly ready for production.

Meet Richard Schierloh

This is where Richard Schierloh, the aforementioned commentator from our last Comtech article, comes into play. His 40-year career in automotive industrial design ensured his work on the Mark VII Comtech’s interior was polished and ready for the assembly line. Richard has a BFA from the University of Dayton and an MFA from Wayne State University, and he proudly asserts he has no formal training in automotive design. (Something that’s seemingly mandatory these days, thanks to academic institutions that are now firmly set in place.)

Richard, now 91 years old, tells Hagerty that he “had a wonderful career; I lived my dream. I worked on almost every type of vehicle that Ford produced but I had more years with Lincoln than with any other car line.  I was lucky because I got to design the sort of cars that end up in museums.”

His tenure at Ford started in June 1955, and his favorite design is the 1969–71 Continental Mark III, where he worked under the direct supervision of Lee Iacocca. While he was promoted to a managerial role at Ford, Richard states that he “much preferred the hands-on experience” of being a designer. And that is something he clearly did with the 1985 Mark VII Comtech. In his own words:

I was assigned to the Industrial Design Studio during the time that I worked on the Mark VII Comtech. I was not in the Lincoln Studio, and so I was the only stylist involved and I worked directly with Lincoln management. There were two areas of the Mark VII interior which would be exclusive to the Comtech, the steering wheel controls and the computer interface. I designed the control pod which was mounted behind the steering wheel.

The computer interface is the big story. Nothing like this had ever been done, so we had to invent every aspect. An example of this was the type font. The cathode ray tube did not have enough pixels to use a conventional type face, so I created a new font with simple shapes which could be used. I worked closely with a vender who supplied graphics for Ford.

In the early 1980s, computers were still mysterious things to most people and we had to be able to explain to management just what this system could do. I did not have access to an actual Comtech system, so my solution was to have the typesetter vender copy my screen designs on black film. These films were displayed in the Industrial Design showroom. The films were back-lit and the room was dark. Management could view the various pages of a situation.

The Mark VII Comtech did not have a true touchscreen, which is so common today. Instead there was a frame around the screen with infra-red beams shooting across. If you put your finger on the screen in an area where two beams intersected, this sent a command to the computer. For this reason, I had to design all screens so that a command was located exactly at the intersection of beams. Working with the engineers, we devised the series of screens which we thought would be useful. It was therefore important that we had a logical sequence to every series.

A favorite screen of mine was one that said, “GET OUT OF THE CAR AND RUN LIKE HELL.” I could not sell the team on that one.”

Lawyers killed the Mark VII Comtech

After many months of serious effort, the program was canceled because the Ford legal staff feared the liabilities if someone had an accident while driving and touching the screen. (Today the driver assumes full responsibility. — SM)

However, there was some good news. Money had been allocated for a test drive, and in a corporation like Ford you always spend money when it is available. A test drive was arranged, all the people involved would take four cars (three T-birds and a Continental) out West. We went to Las Vegas. Why not? Ford was picking up the tab.

One morning we went to Death Valley, and all four cars were left to idle with the heater at the maximum and all lights turned on. Windows were left up, too. The cars sat there in 120-degree heat for about six hours. At the end we put down the windows, turned on the AC, and checked the computers. Everything functioned perfectly: Comtech passed the heat test!

After we left Vegas, we drove to Mason, Ohio, the home of Voice of America. They had one of the biggest radio transmitters in the world. We parked the cars right under the antenna and functioned the computers. Everything worked perfect. Then we returned to Dearborn, and that was the end of my Mark VII Comtech experience.

But there is an interesting epilogue. Several days later, as I filled the tank of my Continental, I noticed that the tail-lamp lenses had melted. And here’s the Hagerty connection: Recently I was telling the tail-lamp story to someone and decided to google “Comtech.” I saw your article, and I felt that I should reach out!

I had a great time interviewing Richard, and he gave this Lincoln Mark VII enthusiast some great historical perspective on the car itself:

I can understand your fascination with the Mark VII. I have always felt that it was one of the greatest of the Mark series. At that time Ford styling was moving into the “aero” look, and the traditional Mark Series format was not aero. I felt that that the Mark VII was a successful compromise but I fear the public did not take to it. A lot of the reason was that tastes were changing and the definition of luxury car took on new meaning. The era of the big car would soon be over.

Richard is right: The Mark VII’s personal luxury genre was a slowly dying format that is unlikely to return. At least not until regulations that favor light trucks disappear, among other things. But there was a time when personal luxury flagships were a bellwether of product innovations. Or at least could be, as this quote from Nick Zeniuk in a Ford press release suggests:

Market research tells us luxury-car buyers are especially interested in electronic features, and the Mark VII Comtech goes a big step beyond anything we’ve ever offered. If the test program goes as we expect it to, some of Comtech’s experimental features could be incorporated into production cars in the near future.

 

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The new Toyota Crown is two-tone, and that refers to more than just its paint scheme. In one sense it’s an honorable advancement for a famous nameplate, but it could be construed as an insult to decades of heritage. Japanese-market car nuts love the Crown limousine’s legacy, but it should be no secret at this point that carmakers care more about money than enthusiasts’ attachment to history. Fewer and fewer people buy true sedans and coupes anymore, so perhaps Toyota can’t be blamed for making this revived Crown a kind of tall-ish crossover utility.

It’s to the point that two-box car designs resembling CUVs are becoming the norm. The Crown attempts to either inspire or feed the market’s appetite for elegance rather than outright family hauling. In that respect, it’s a modern relative of the 1937 Chevrolet Sport Coupe.

Back in the 1930s, the coupe’s sporty style was underpinned by an upright ladder frame, tall running boards, and bolt-on fenders of a conventional sedan, albeit with a faster C-pillar to create three boxes instead of two. I once hated to admit that a BMW X6 was a Coupe SUV, but that vehicle’s success (combined with the existence of many subsequent imitators) establishes that the genre is legit. So why don’t we run it across the vellum to learn more?

Aside from the rain (sorry about that!) you’ll first notice Toyota’s Hammerhead front-end design language on the Crown’s dual-toned schnoz. The header panel above the headlights is designed to have the thrusting appendages of the hammerhead shark from which the name is derived.

This Brown Crown (the nickname I gave this particular press loaner that we reviewed here) is the top-line Platinum model. That trim wears a two-tone scheme that accentuates the Hammerhead with a striking blow to your senses via bronze sides with a strong blackout center spine.

Readers of the Vellum Venom series may remember my take on the 2020 Ferrari SF90 Stradale and how its yet-to-be-named hammerhead front schnoz makes the car’s increased frontal area still look sleek and cool. The SF90’s nose, like that of every other new car sold in Europe, has to be pedestrian-friendly, and the hammerhead style definitely accomplishes the extra height with a dash of aggression worthy of a Ferrari.

The hammerhead nose on the Crown dovetails with Toyota’s new corporate branding. I’d argue works better on the new Prius, but the design has merit here. The Crown’s headlights are much lower relative to the top of the hood. Nothing can save a modern front bumper from “gaping maw” grille styling, but the extra black elements on the Brown Crown help the eyes focus on the bronze paint wrapping inwards.

Note how the rainwater cascades down the hood: That’s where the hood drops significantly to let the Hammerhead DNA come into play.

While this Brown Crown’s extensive use of black accentuates the contrasts, the LED headlight array is surprisingly understated—lost in a sea of shadows.

There’s a functional grille between the headlights, and its linear texture is replicated by the form of the Crown’s center light bar non-functional clear lens.

The LED array should not ordinarily turn the corner for the purpose of side illumination, but if you’re gonna do it, I always advocate not to use a pointless black filler panel for the gap. (At least side-impact collisions might be cheaper to repair this way.)

Speaking of non-functional design, the Crown has a huge fake grille, complete with a triangular graphic worthy of a mid-century bathroom backsplash. As much as I love to trash these open-mouth grilles, the bottom texture is genuinely cool; there’s a dynamic element to the triangles, suggesting they might all open up and fly away like geometric butterflies.

Someone needs to invent a triangular sensor lens to complete the look for this grille.

There is a second grille beneath the triangles, but it’s solid at the corners.

Move up the eye as we turn the front corner and one notices a muscular tone to the Crown’s fender. It’s tapered and elegantly surfaced, accentuated by a long-ish front overhang.

The same strong, muscular vibes continue as you extend past the front axle.

Yes, it’s a strange-looking face, and much like the 2022 BMW M3’s rear bumper, the Crown’s front grille area is doing a duck face; there’s a large black element thrusting forward while sucking inward from the brown fenders. This level of topographical layering is far easier to see from the front-three-quarter view.

The side view doesn’t adequately show how the front bumper’s extensive layering. But it does show how the Hammerhead nose rests atop the headlights (and headlight filler panel), giving the Crown the appearance of furrowed eyebrows above the headlight’s eyes.

Like so many modern cars, the fender has a flat spot leading up to the wheel arch. And there’s the requisite reflector lens in the flat spot. The round proximity sensor is a mandatory piece of kit at the Crown’s mid-$50,000s premium price point, and the extra layer of textured black plastic is needed to make this tall vehicle look like a coupe-ish SUV. The painted surfaces thus look smaller, helping your eye focus on the sleekness and less on the body’s inherent tallness.

There’s something about the rendering of these black spokes with machined high spots that reminds me of the legs on Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No 2. Perhaps the wheels, when at speed, look a little like that modern masterpiece, too?

These mud flaps are admittedly a little tacky by luxury SUV standards. They also reveal another downside to these tall vehicles with huge wheel arches, even with twenty-one-inch wheels: the eye will naturally wander to all the open space and wonder why such a puny flap was so poorly integrated into the fender. It’s probably an aerodynamics-friendly way to keep the fender free from dirt kicking up from the tire, but the visual consequence is an uncomfortable middle-ground between functionality and aerodynamic understatement.

We offer no such over-analysis for the Crown’s cowl—it’s just a small area of black plastic harkening back to an era when everything had cab-backward design.

Coupe-ish SUVs tend to excel in dramatic roof pillar design, as this is where you can make a tall vehicle look sleek and sporty, and here the meeting point of A-pillar/door/fender is darn near perfect.

I question the use of black paint for the side view mirrors, but it certainly shows commitment to the two-tone theme of this Platinum model.

There’s some fine chiseling going on between the mirror body and the recessed turn signal light.

The door’s front cut line jets backward elegantly with the A-pillar, while there’s an interesting carve-out for the negative area where the door meets the rocker panel.

Sure enough, the bronze-painted doors suck inward to provide surface tension on the Crown’s tall bodyside. The black rub strip replicates the door’s surface tension and breaks up the wall of a single-toned panel.

There’s an up-kick to the rear door that, when combined with the huge wheel arches, looks like a smirk on a human face. I first saw this “smirk” on my parents’ 1975 Mercury Montego sedan, as I’d always be sitting in the back seat as a child.

The smirk might be more visible from this angle, as there’s a hard bend right below the door handles that shows just how aggressively the rear door kicks upward.

Too bad the smirk wasn’t tall enough to eliminate the need for the huge plastic triangle, which ensures the rear window will roll down without interference from the wheel arch.

Window tinting should be mandatory with a two-tone Crown, as the clear windows take away from the aggressive blackout treatment that Toyota’s trimmers surely envisioned.

Back to the notion of surface tension: Note how both the gentle and hard bends in the doors make the body side look muscular and taut.

Toyota continues the surface tensioning in the quarter panel, with less effectiveness. It’s a shame these quarters couldn’t be “sucked in” as aggressively as the doors, but safety, cargo space, and platform sharing of hard points clearly ruled the day.

The space where the rocker panel meets the rear wheel arch is shockingly angular compared to most other vantage points of this Brown Crown.

In case you forgot how tall this Coupe SUV is, here’s a view of the rear wheel arch’s plastic filler panel to visually halve its height.

This Crown still has a coupe-like C-pillar feel in its D-pillar. And it works, provided you don’t marinate on the logical but questionable transitions from black, brown, glass, rubber, and chrome.

There’s simply too much going on to truly enjoy a fastback … sigh … coupe.

The brown cant rails do work well with the black roof. If only all elements of the two-tone paint job worked this well.

Much like the D-pillar’s entanglement of lines and shapes, the decklid has a non-functional stamping to help explain what’s going on beside it. We’ve seen a similar issue with the Porsche Taycan; big things trying to look like coupes always need to cheat a bit.

I’ll not that the two tone black/brown paint makes that stamping look rather pointless. Everything lives under that shadow of darkness.

Like many modern crossovers, the shelf-free Crown does a fantastic job hiding the fact it has rear bumpers out back there, somewhere.

While the front end’s two-tone treatment looks like an angry bat coming out of a brown cocoon, the rear has no theme to mimic the front. Some more aggressive surfacing/negative area in the quarter panels would help make the black trim “pop” away from the brown body. But again, you can’t tweak the rear of a shared SUV platform too aggressively without incurring a lot more cost. And I bet Toyota already broke the bank (as it were) when making a new roof for the Crown.

Any further, deeper, surfacing efforts where brown meets black might also muck up aerodynamics, as these two foils near the tail light housing suggest. Those foils might have to stick out 1+ inch further if the rear end’s blackout treatment was as aggressively surfaced as the front.

But there’s a serious need for more surfacing to separate the two colors. While the lower part works well thanks to a strong carveout for those little red lenses, the top makes very little sense thanks to an all-black decklid and a mismatched quarter panel. Something that’s gloss black needs to be sunken in a good inch in some places for this to make sense.

Toyota did throw us surfacing freaks a bone, as there’s a gentle bump at the decklid’s, uh, crown. It’s just a bit too subtle to make an impact like similar contours in the front end.

It’s kind of a shame that the skinny red heckblende has to be thicker at the corners to integrate a brake/turn light. But the lack of uniformity is offset by intriguing textures and depth just below.

The ribbed and ramp-like panel below fills in the gaps between a thin heckblende and a thicker brake/turn assembly. The other gap filler is a brake/turn signal extension in the hatch door (second photo) which is purely cosmetic. Both items visually force your eye upward, where you notice the heckblende’s contouring as it reaches the central Toyota emblem. It’s like starburst, with the Toyota logo being the central sun of the Crown’s rear-end styling treatment.

The only downside is the camera has no other place to live but below that central sun. This wouldn’t happen if there was a high-mount license plate like more conventional SUVs that don’t cosplay as coupes.

The rear bumper’s matte black treatment behind the license plate ensures the gloss black above will indeed “Go Places.”

Recessed reflector lights between black and brown add more depth and texture, ensuring this large posterior remains taut and slimmer looking.

The aforementioned two foils upstream from the tail lights make sense, but the airfoil in the reverse light in the rear bumper seems to lack purpose. Maybe, due to its puny size and low location, the foil is needed to keep water and dirt from collecting, obscuring its light output.

The brown, gloss black, matte black, and red lighting elements are surprisingly well integrated into shapes and lines that define the Crown’s rear end.

However, there are over-contoured, frumpy bits in the rear bumper. The things you gotta do to make a Coupe SUV look sleek and sporty, eh?

Someone did a great job making a flat spot on the curvaceous decklid, ensuring Toyota’s badging isn’t an afterthought like the 2006 Camry’s decklid.

All the slender, long lines on the Crown’s tall posterior do a great job making this Coupe SUV look as sleek as a real coupe. Or not, but the Crown is at least more like a Porsche Taycan, right down to the sleek C-R-O-W-N lettering and the bizarre (yet necessary) stamping behind the rear window.

In the spirit of well-disguised parts sharing, the Crown overlay on Toyota’s ordinary key fob is a nice touch. It shows that Toyota cares enough about the Crown brand to ensure owners are treated differently at many turns, though this premium model is at its core a TNGA-K platform derivative.

I had the distinct pleasure of driving this car on Hocking Hills’ technically impressive and wholly beautiful roads. There was impressive coordination between turbocharger, electric motor, and six-speed automatic. If only the convoluted exterior design was as delightful as this complicated yet dialed-in powertrain.

Not that engineers and designers are competing directly for accolades once a vehicle reaches production, but its clear which team ensured this Brown Crown stole my heart. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a lovely day.

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There’s more than one way to skin a car, but there are only so many ways to drape sheetmetal over a frame and make it look good. Popular styles rise to the top, and we covered quite a lot of them when we gave 20 examples of similar-looking cars. We’ve revisited this idea and expanded it to focus on specific design elements, rather than just the entire car, including some suggestions from reader comments. If you recall grilles or taillights or dashboards from two vehicles that seem to copy each other, let us know in the comments below.

1959 Pontiac and 1960 Edsel grilles

We’re gonna start with two pairs that were suggested in our list of doppelgänger cars from almost two years ago. The short-lived Edsel brand had a rough go in its early years, thanks to a polarizing grille that is still instantly recognizable. Frequently described as resembling either a horse collar or a toilet seat, the signature vertical center portion was tossed aside for the 1960 models, which wore split grilles that looked an awful lot like those on Pontiac’s 1959 models. The result was a stylish, understated design that looks particularly good as a wagon, in our opinion.

Unfortunately, 1960 marked the final year for the Edsel brand, so we didn’t get to see Ford apply Edsel styling to the Falcon, as was planned. We got the Comet instead, so things worked out just fine. But can you imagine if the brand had survived a few more years, and we got to see Edsel’s take on the Mustang?

1960 Pontiac and 1961 Dodge Lancer grilles

When Dodge launched the Lancer line in 1961, to give the brand a version of the Valiant, the automaker made some major leaps in design. The greenhouse was unlike anything else on the market—the influence of Exner was clear. The front, however, did have a strong resemblance to the full-size Pontiacs of the previous model year. The horizontal grille slats and a protruding shield shape look good on both vehicles, and both also have prominent horizontal body lines that start at the leading edge of the fender and terminate mid-door. Aside from those similarities, however, there’s really no mistaking the cars for one another.

1968 Mopar C-body and 1970 AMC Ambassador C-pillars

We love how much a car’s entire look can be transformed by changing just the roof. Some cars look good as convertibles and fantastic as coupes, and vice versa, but some cars were offered with sportier or more formal rooflines that really were their best looks. Dodge, Chrysler, and Plymouth C-bodies were available with a sleek hardtop in 1968 that made the otherwise conservative cars look much more like overgrown muscle cars. In 1970, AMC added a very similar roof to its Ambassador, with a similar effect.

1968 Olds Toronado wheel flares and dozens of early 2000s cars

This one was suggested by our own Stefan Lombard, who pointed out the Tornado’s wheel flares were oddly similar to those found on a 2004–08 Nissan Maxima and also later Altimas. Other cars from the era have similar shaped flares with a flat, vertical face that follows the wheel opening.

1970 Pontiac Trans Am and 1972 Porsche Carrera ducktail spoiler

Form follows function, and this shape works as intended to break up the flow of air over the rear of a fastback roofline. This one’s also from Stefan Lombard, who saw the similarities in the two cars and it led us to gather two fantastic examples for a retro comparison.

C4 Corvette and Mk IV Supra interior

There were plenty of Supra fans who pointed out that the C7 Corvette’s dash resembled the driver-focused cockpit of the MK IV Supra. Go just a bit further back, and you can see that the Corvette team was looking at the later C4 for inspiration, as the dash was redesigned for the 1990 model year. If you want a more recent example of Corvette raiding its own design bin, note the strake on the front of the C8 that divides the lower grille opening, and then look at the split front bumper on the C2.

2003–2010 Dodge Viper and 2006-2010 Pontiac Solstice interior

Whether you believe there were three or five generations of Viper, you can probably agree that Pontiac cribbed some elements from the famous snake’s interior when it made the Solstice. The powertrains couldn’t be more different, but the basic shape for the center stack and the vent placements is pretty spot-on for both of these sporty cars

Nearly every Aston Martin ever, and the 2013+ Ford Fusion grille

This one was talked about all over the automotive sphere when the 2013 Fusion debuted. The shapes are different—Aston Martin’s a grille opening features concave curves on its top edges—but the comparison is definitely warranted.

1993 Pontiac Firebird and 2021 Porsche 911 GT3 heat extractors

As soon as the 2021 Porsche 911 GT3 debuted, we had a funny feeling we’d seen a similar hood treatment. The twin heat extractors gave us serious fourth-gen Firebird vibes, and when we pointed it out, Hagerty’s Porsche faithful came out of the woodwork to call us crazy. Two years later, and the extractors still look similar to us.

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The transition from 2023 to 2024 seems a fine time to celebrate 30 years of the Aston Martin DB7, which made its first public appearance at the 1993 Geneva Motor Show and then went on sale in the autumn of 1994. James Mills went along for the ride all those years ago during his time with the U.K.’s Auto Express; here he shares fond recollections of this monumental Aston Martin. –Ed.

Three decades is a long time, and yet it feels like only yesterday that Ford gave Aston Martin the nod to take the brave but badly needed step from being a quaint manufacturer of hand-made specials to something resembling a 20th century car company.

Before the DB7 made its debut at the 1993 Geneva show, Aston Martin was still something of a cottage builder. You’d have had a slow day counting the cars being pushed to the end of the assembly line at the modest factory in Newport Pagnell, on the outskirts of Milton Keynes.

To understand why that was, you have to go right back to 1958, when production of the DB4 began. That car’s chassis, designed by Aston engineer Harold Beach, would ultimately evolve to accommodate the DB5, DB6, DBS, AMV8, Lagonda, and V8 family. And despite spanning four decades, these cars were all brought to life in much the same, hand-built way, with small crowds of men and women fabricating chassis, assembling engines, beating panels, trimming leather, and sanding down painted bodies between coats. (Presumably with plenty of builder’s brew and biscuit breaks throughout the day.)

Despite the years of practice, it took the Ford-owned company (Ford bought 75 percent of Aston in 1987) about 12 weeks to build each example of the V8 in the ‘90s. The approach held some appeal for the small number of wealthy customers who cared about such things, but it held no appeal to management at Ford, which believed Aston was unviable unless it made more cars.

So when we rocked up at Aston Martin’s new Wykham Mill assembly plant, near Bloxham—TWR’s former production hub for the Jaguar XJ220 supercar—in October 1994, to collect and drive one of the very first DB7s off the production line, we were witnessing so much more than the arrival of a new car. The DB7 wasn’t just a new, more affordable Aston Martin; it represented a transformation in the way the company built cars and the volume aspirations for the brand and its American owner.

It would be fair to say that I and my fellow motoring hacks writing at the time for weekly rag Auto Express were filled with hope for the future of Aston Martin, because the DB7 promised so much—on paper, at least. We had seen the crowds swarm around it the year before, at the Geneva show, and we appreciated the effect the Ian Callum-designed body had on the pulse rate of car enthusiasts. Further, we knew the tantalising technical ingredients of the front-engined, rear-driven, 335-hp supercharged sports car.

But we also knew that Aston Martin needed more than beauty and brawn to lure drivers out of a BMW 8 Series or a Porsche 911. And in this respect, we had reservations. A seat back release lever fell off as we tried the back seats for size, and you certainly didn’t want to spend any more time than you had to in the two chairs, which, as in a 911, were really only for holding a Hermès handbag rather than taking friends to dinner in Mayfair. And then there was the predictable criticism: the Ford-sourced switchgear. Nobody could blame Aston for using what it had at its disposal and saving a fortune in development and tooling, but the opinion among us was that at this end of the market, Aston could have done more to disguise such origins.

The engineers did a better job of hiding the origins of the Jaguar-sourced, 24-valve, all-aluminum straight-six engine. The decision to adopt a supercharger was faithful to Aston’s heritage but flew in the face of experiments that Jaguar had made in using twin-turbo technology during the development of the so-called F-Type—the troubled replacement for the XJS that ended up being canceled by Ford.

The immediacy of the power delivery and distinctive whine of the supercharger gave the DB7 a character all its own, which was pleasing. This was and still is a part of the car market where you have to find your voice, and Aston had unquestionably come up with something different and, importantly, appealing. It had the brawn of Aston Martins before it but combined this subtly thuggish charm with the sort of polished road manners—a pliant ride and good body control—that meant you would happily consider cruising by DB7 from London to a bolthole in the Scottish Highlands.

What we couldn’t fail to notice and criticize, however, was the driveline shunt, weighty clutch, and heavy (Getrag) gear shift. Some care was called for to drive around this trait in stop-start traffic, or when building and shedding speed on a winding road, although three quarters of the customer base leaned toward the four-speed ZF automatic gearbox. (A supercharged, manual-controlled inline-six would be a relatively rare and special thing to have tucked behind garage doors.) It was also something of an omission that front airbags weren’t made ready for the time of the car’s launch to customers.

Yet when all was said and done, we were impressed. Little old Aston Martin had produced a car that was not only one of the most heavenly looking creations any of us had seen come to market during our careers, but one that was confident in itself and had a character all its own. Its success doubtless encouraged Ford to buy up Aston in its entirety by 1994 and invest in the evolution of the DB7, creating the DB7 Vantage, which brought still more buyers to the marque.

If you read the 2021 Hagerty UK Bull Market list, you’ll already know that the DB7 was and remains to this day a fine introduction to Aston Martin ownership. There’s something else about it that’s significant, I think: This is the car that determined the way Astons would look for generations to come, and I’m not convinced the DB7 design’s deft touch has ever been bettered.

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Them Dodge Boys sure know how to market themselves. They always lean into the fun aspects of their designs, ensuring there’s no doubt as to what differentiates a Dodge from the boring cars made by Toyota and Ford Tesla. Their designs (and the powertrains underneath) are all about muscular performance, ensuring the bold branding statements cannot oversell what the customer sees in the showroom.

These days Dodge is straddling the line between EV and ICE muscle car performance. And it is doing a good job, complete with a Christmas-themed commercial promoting its rear-wheel-drive offerings. But what do we behold before seeing acceptable alternatives to a Camry?

Oh yeah, that’s gotta be a fresh look at the Charger EV concept. The holiday-themed rendering, wearing a festive shade of red, proves that key elements of the Charger Daytona SRT Concept are coming to production. First up are the headlights and the R-wing front fascia:

Every EV (and some ICE vehicles) has a light bar on the front end these days, so the rendered round headlight with a distinct beam pattern is noteworthy. The lights look much like those of a Plymouth Barracuda, especially the 1970 model. This should be cause for celebration, because the EV concept car we saw last year was a bit too minimalist and undefined for the Dodge brand.

The R-wing above those headlights is most certainly making production, though it isn’t innovative if you consider the “bridge” fascia of the 2019 Ferrari 488 Pista. But the Pista cost over $300,000, and the Charger EV is gonna be deep in the five-figure range. Nice.

Now let’s put the holiday rendering’s greenhouse next to that of a current Challenger and the concept Charger EV. Check out the length and height of the quarter window: The Charger appears to have a more accommodating back seat than the Challenger it (presumably) replaces. While the new Challenger’s doors could be longer, the length of the quarter window suggests there’s still a chance that more real estate is dedicated to rear-seat legroom in the upcoming Charger.

And it’s about damn time someone re-created the Lincoln Mark VIII, as it was the last (best?) coupe designed for adult-sized rear seat occupants and their fully grown legs. While this holiday rendering is still just a teaser, we’ve learned more about the production model due in late 2024. And this holiday season is clearly going worse for another performance EV product.

It’s a shame, but aspirational designs with no backstory or context can be hard to move off the lot. BMW and Lexus are never this forthcoming in their holiday promotions, and I suspect the Charger EV will follow their trajectory in our slowly electrifying world. The car will have a built-in following of folks hungry for muscular styling and the rush of effortless torque.

I suspect the faithful will gladly seek out charging stations for their next hit of Mopar-infused electric torque … especially if those ‘cuda-inspired eyeballs become their guiding light.

***

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Think of the tools of a British coachbuilder. You’re probably imagining hammers pounding sheet metal, or perhaps the hypnotic turn of an English wheel.

Now think again. At Britain’s only independent coachbuilder of new vehicles, it’s all about autoclaves to cure carbon fiber, 3D printers, and multi-axis milling machines to shape parts with nanometer precision.

You won’t have heard of Allesley—at the time of writing the company didn’t even have a website up and running—but it is already working on bespoke commissions for wealthy clients, offering the kind of one-off vehicles that are beyond even OEM special divisions.

Allesley, named after a village just outside Coventry, the historical heart of coachbuilding, is a new venture from the people behind HPL Prototypes—who you probably won’t have heard of, either. HPL has 25 years’ experience in building show cars and prototypes for the most prestigious brands, including Rolls-Royce, Bentley, McLaren, Aston Martin, Lotus, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Gordon Murray Automotive.

Its expertise in developing everything from clay models to running prototypes means HPL was uniquely positioned to fill the rapidly increasing demand for unique vehicles for individuals and also short runs for OEMs, and Allesley was formed.

HPL CEO Chris Devane (above right) explains, “HPL’s reputation in supporting OEMs in the realization of their project vision through bespoke concept design and prototyping is exemplary. However, HPL has— and always will—offer a solely commercial service. We have deliberately flown ‘under the radar’, majoring on confidentiality, because that is what our automotive OEM clients require. As we celebrate our 25th year, the time is right to launch Allesley which will draw on our world-leading expertise, and with a dedicated new team, bring to life bespoke vehicles for a new audience.”

“We’re not competition, we’re actually advocates for their brand,” adds Allesley CEO Paul Abercrombie (above left). “We’re making cars that individuals want that maybe the brands may not have the ability to deliver within their schedule, and with the capacity they’ve got.”

Unlike the first coachbuilders, Allesley have to work with a fully built vehicle, rather than a rolling chassis. Customers will need to purchase the donor car in their home country to ensure it meets local regulations before shipping it to the U.K. for the conversion—whatever form that may take.

It’s a collaborative process that can take years depending on the complexity. “It could take 12 months just getting out of the clients what they want, how they want it,” explains Abercrombie. “It requires a big investment of time from the client to give you the information required to get the best results. These are very busy individuals so it can be hard to be able to get time from them, and it depends client by client. Having said that we have a client at the moment who phones me every morning at 8 a.m. for an update.”

Clients have come to Allesley with a sketch, a full moodboard, and one even took away a clay model and had a go at sculpting it himself. “The actual developing of the car will be as much fun for the client as the car itself,” says Abercrombie.

During the development process Allesley is able to provide models—up to full scale—drawings, renders and even virtual and augmented reality experiences depending on client preferences.

The firm’s fetching art deco facility, which once made parts for Spitfires and has a rich automotive history building racing Triumphs and the Rover SD1, can handle up to five bespoke builds at a time. A ballpark figure for a coachbuilt model is three to four times the cost of the new donor vehicle, but if extensive prototyping is required the numbers could run much higher.

“If someone wants to put a much more powerful engine into the car, for example, then the challenge will be is it usable power? Or is the chassis able to cope with the increase? Is it safe? What we’d recommend is that we would do a development program with a test mule and that’s going to cost a lot more.”

Allesley will reveal its first one-off customer car in 2024, a luxurious extended wheelbase SUV with a conventional powertrain, but the firm is actively looking forward to electrification.

“The skateboard chassis have to be so strong because of the batteries. It means that the cabin and the body structure give you more freedom, and the ability to use composite panels, made in our own composite center,” says Abercrombie.

No hammers required.

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With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories that you can follow here. Many performance cars, especially nowadays, aim for an anodyne version of perfection that only a few can afford. The Camaro is for the rest of us—and it’s always ready to party.

If there’s one thing that my obsession with automotive history has taught me, it is to be very careful with declarations of the absolute. In the annals of any long-running nameplate, there seems to always be an odd one out, an exception, an often-forgotten footnote. That’s what makes the subject so rich and interesting, and that of Chevrolet’s pony car is no exception. In the spirit of our recent love letters to the departing Camaro, here are four unique Camaros that time forgot.

1968 Camaro CS Coupe Frua

A key element of the Camaro story is the development blitz that took place after the 1965 Ford Mustang’s success caught GM off balance. Still, none of that haste was apparent in the Camaro’s refined looks. Under the stern watch of the legendary Bill Mitchell, GM Design hardly put a foot wrong with its pony car. But Mitchell was dismissive of the first Camaro’s design due to the many compromises deemed necessary for cost reasons. We’d nevertheless argue that the original Camaro looked great even in basic trim, thanks to its crisp lines, perfectly judged proportions, and deftly modeled surfaces.

Most would conclude there was little room left for aesthetic improvement, but that didn’t stop the Italians from saying “Hold my Nebbiolo.”

Presented by the Turinese coachbuilder Pietro Frua at the 1968 Paris Motor Show, the Camaro CS Coupe was a sleek 2+2 that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Maserati showroom. But while Frua’s Camaro exuded an air of sophistication that belied its humble Chevrolet underpinnings, it was far from an original design.

You see, in those days, Italian design firms had no qualms about selling variations of the same design to multiple clients. Frua’s one-off Camaro CS Coupe is one of several cars sharing a common design theme that the coachbuilder made between 1967 and 1971. Notably, this group includes the 1967 Monteverdi 375 S, the 1969 AC 429 Coupé, and even a one-off in 1970 based on the Dodge Challenger.

1976 Camaro “Europo Hurst” Frua

Nearly two million second-gen Camaros were built over the model’s 12-year production run. (There will never be enough of these around if you ask me.) Contrary to the previous model, GM designers were given adequate time and significantly more leeway. In my view, it shows.

Particularly in its purest early incarnations, the second-generation Camaro stands out as one of General Motors’ finest designs this side of a Corvette. I would say that the second-gen Camaro’s design embodies the best of both worlds. Its overall shape, stance, and details drew heavily from period Ferraris, but the final result exuded the kind of bravado that only an American car can pull off.

Pietro Frua exhibited his own take on the second-gen Camaro at the 1976 Turin Motor Show. However, the Turinese coachbuilder left most of the donor car alone this time, save from a rather slick hatchback conversion. As we noted in 2020 ahead of its sale via RM Sotheby’s auction (just $31,900!), Frua’s slick version was not your daddy’s Camaro.

Integrating a large hatch door required a near-complete redesign of the Camaro’s rear end, which lost its curvaceous haunches. Nonetheless, the result is rather graceful and could easily pass for something built by GM itself. Another neat detail: the clever use of black paint to visually connect the donor car’s window profile with the new rear quarter windows. The same can’t be said for the redesigned front clip, though, which looks rather bland and generic.

This Camaro started life as a regular coupe but was treated to a Hurst T-top conversion after it arrived in the U.S. in early 1977. Later the same year, Frua repeated the trick on a Pontiac Firebird, which was displayed on his company’s stand at the Geneva Motor Show.

1985 Camaro GTZ Concept

A childhood spent watching Knight Rider reruns means that third-gen GM F-bodies will always hold a special place in my heart.

But, besides my tender years’ fascination with The Hoff’s talking Firebird, I consider the 1982–92 Camaro one of the few genuinely outstanding designs to come out from GM during Irv Rybicki’s tenure as Design VP.

Upon Bill Mitchell’s retirement in 1977, the GM top brass wanted a gentler, more malleable design vice president. They got their wish, but the tradeoff came at a tremendous price. As GM Design lost its edge, the cars got blander, and the differences between each division’s offerings became harder and harder to spot. The latter point was put in stark evidence in 1983 by Fortune magazine, with its infamous cover featuring GM’s four near-identical A-body intermediate sedans.

But that nadir proved to be the jolt GM’s management needed. Chuck Jordan, who would succeed Rybicki as design VP in 1986, spearheaded the creation of an awe-inspiring array of show cars to demonstrate GM wasn’t brain-dead after all.

The Camaro GTZ concept car was presented at the 1985 Chicago Auto Show. It was based on a production T-top coupe but sported redesigned front and rear ends whose smooth design didn’t quite gel with the donor car’s more angular middle section, which remained unaltered. Instead of the usual Chevy small-block V-8, under the Camaro GTZ’s clamshell hood sat a 4.3-liter V-6 rated at 240 hp and mated to a five-speed manual transmission.

Contrary to other more spectacular GM concept cars from the same era, the Camaro GTZ was quickly forgotten once its auto show run ended. It remained stored at the company’s Heritage Center until 2009, after GM’s bankruptcy, when it was auctioned off along with other vehicles from its collection.

1989 Camaro California IROC-Z

As the 1980s drew to a close, automobile design had completed its transition away from the folded-paper style of the ’70s and was heading fast toward the opposite end of the spectrum.

Earlier during the decade, the trend for smoother shapes had been primarily driven by the pursuit of aerodynamic efficiency. But by the time the Berlin Wall fell, that singular focus on aero began to fade in favor of a newfound playfulness. The inspiration came from nature, and the new trend became known as bio-design.

Created by GM’s advanced design studio in Newbury Park, the 1989 “California Camaro” perfectly epitomizes that period. As the aim was to “prepare” the public for the radical design of the upcoming fourth-gen Camaro, the California IROC-Z took the same design theme and cranked it up to eleven. With its short rear overhang, elongated prow, and large “butterfly” doors, it was as striking a vision of the future as any of the legendary Motorama show cars from the ’50s. GM Design had definitely gotten its mojo back.

Despite its less extreme proportions and a somewhat compromised stance, the fourth-gen Camaro launched in 1993 lost little of the California concept’s visual impact. It may not be everyone’s favorite Camaro, but it undoubtedly was the most daring one. It eschewed the classic long hood/short deck proportions in favor of a dramatic wedge profile with a steeply inclined windscreen and a scuttle stretching forward atop the engine.

That turned out not to be what buyers wanted. The more traditionally styled Ford Mustang consistently outsold the Camaro, so GM played it safe when it came time to reboot the nameplate after its 2002 demise.

It’s sad to see the Camaro ride into the sunset again. Still, I hope that whenever GM brings it back, it’ll return looking confidently toward the future rather than like an overblown caricature of its 1960s namesake.

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Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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Corvette history is littered with fascinating one-off design experiments. Some, like the ’59 Stingray Racer, have remained etched into our collective memory. But many more faded into oblivion the moment the auto show’s lights switched off—very much the case for the Vettes penned by Italy’s most renowned design firms.

Pininfarina Rondine (1963)

Perhaps the best known of these so-called Italian Corvettes, the Pininfarina Rondine was a running prototype first presented at the 1963 Paris Motor Show.

Equipped with a 327 small-block V-8 and a four-speed manual transmission, the Rondine was built on the chassis of a brand-new 1963 Sting Ray (VIN number 99574) directly supplied to Pininfarina by GM. The idea behind the study, commissioned by Chevrolet itself, was to see an Italian take on the Corvette. But little did GM know that once the Vette arrived at Pininfarina’s workshop, the designer tasked with creating a new body for it was Detroit native Tom Tjaarda.

Whether Tjaarda’s elegant, smooth lines were an improvement over the iconic Sting Ray we know and love largely depends on individual taste. Still, GM’s top brass was reportedly satisfied with the exercise, including design supremo Bill Mitchell and Corvette’s chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov. Nonetheless, Pininfarina’s hopes for a production version were soon quashed, so the Rondine remained a one-off. The Turinese firm kept the Rondine in its company museum until financial difficulties forced it to put it on sale at Barrett-Jackson’s 2008 Scottsdale auction, where it fetched $1.6 million.

The name “Rondine” is the Italian for “swallow” and was inspired by the car’s peculiar rear-end design, vaguely reminiscent of the bird’s tail. But if GM did nothing with the Rondine, the visionaries at Pininfarina were never the ones to let a good idea go to waste. When Fiat came knocking at Pininfarina’s door for a spider derivative of the upcoming 124, Tjaarda skillfully adapted the Rondine’s design theme to Fiat’s small roadster, which went on to become a beloved Italian classic.

Bertone Ramarro (1984)

Presented at the 1984 Auto Expo in Los Angeles, the Ramarro (a little green lizard common in the Piedmontese countryside) was Bertone’s radical take on the recently launched C4 Corvette.

In fact, the donor car was the Vette from Chevrolet’s 1983 Geneva Motor Show stand, which GM gifted to Bertone after the show ended. Bertone’s designers knew that trying to improve upon the new Corvette’s very accomplished design would have been pointless. But they also knew that if their Corvette couldn’t be better than Chevrolet’s original, then it ought to be bolder. A lot bolder.

Created under the direction of Marc Deschamps, the Ramarro was an almost brutal wedge design. The sharply cut-off rear end was ten inches shorter than the donor ‘Vette and housed the engine and air-con radiators. That’s because their space at the front of the car was taken by the space-saver spare wheel to further lower the car’s nose compared to the original.

The C4 Corvette’s generous glasshouse was substituted by what looked like a jet fighter’s canopy: the entire roof was dark, with the pillars disguised by the smoked glass. Access to the cabin was via two large sliding doors, which revealed a cabin upholstered in leather whose color and texture were meant to evoke the lizard’s skin.

The Ramarro was a fully functional, running vehicle. However, once its motor show run was over, it mostly sat in Bertone’s museum until the firm’s bankruptcy in 2014. The whole collection was bought at auction by the Automotoclub Storico Italiano in 2015, and the Ramarro has since appeared in many events and exhibitions. But as Richard Corliss once wrote, nothing ages as quickly as yesterday’s visions of the future: The Ramarro has lost none of its shock factor, but it’s become more of a charming period piece than a design classic.

Bertone Nivola (1990)

Named after the legendary Italian racing driver Tazio Nuvolari, the Bertone Nivola appears on this list out of sheer completism more than anything else. That’s because it’s a “Corvette-engined” design study rather than a “Corvette-based” one.

The quad-cam LT5 V-8 from the Corvette ZR-1 was placed amidship in a tubular steel frame, mated to the ZF transaxle from the De Tomaso Pantera. But citing the Nivola as one of the many mid-engined Corvette concepts that paved the way for the current C8 generation would be a stretch. That’s because GM’s involvement with the project was limited to the engine supply, and the Nivola wore no Chevrolet or Corvette badges.

ItalDesign Moray (2003)

Presented at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show, the Moray was Giorgetto Giugiaro’s way to commemorate the Corvette’s 50th anniversary. That’s why, rather than an attempt to reinvent the Corvette, Giugiaro’s Moray was more of a loving tribute to the classic Vettes of yore.

Built as a fully functional prototype on a Corvette C5 chassis, the Moray’s sensuous curves harked back to the C3 generation and legendary show cars like the Manta Ray. Rather than a traditional roof, the Moray had two large removable glass canopies hinged on a central “spine” that can be read as a clever homage to the ’63 “split-window” Corvette. But my favorite part of the design is the front end, with its ultra-slim headlights positioned on the outer edges of the bodywork. This way, Giugiaro recreated the “eyeless” look of previous Corvette generations while doing away with the classic pop-up lights.

The name Moray (the English name for the eel-type fish Muraena Helena) was in itself another nod to the Corvettes from the Bill Mitchell era, whose shapes were famously inspired by marine creatures.

Bertone Mantide (2009)

Presented in 2009, the Mantide (the Italian word for mantis) was a one-off penned under the direction of Jason Castriota during Bertone’s twilight years.

Commissioned by a private collector, the Mantide was built on the chassis and running gear of the C6-generation Corvette ZR1. Thanks to the ample use of carbon fiber, Bertone claimed a 250 pounds weight saving over the donor Vette. On top of that, The Mantide’s somewhat contrived body design produced, according to Bertone, 25 percent less drag than the Corvette despite a 30 percent increase in downforce.

The Mantide was initially presented in red but later repainted in pearlescent white, which led some to speculate about a limited production run that never actually happened. What still wears the original red is the full-size styling model for the Mantide, which remained part of Bertone’s collection.

Much to the credit of GM’s designers, not even Italy’s greatest stylists ever managed to create a Corvette that looked better than the regular production models. But still, if you had to pick one, which of these Italian Vettes would you have liked to see in production? Drop a comment below.

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You’ll be surprised how much acoustic guitars and bespoke Porsches have in common. Fourteen years ago, no one thought the world needed custom Porsche 964 restorations worth well into six figures. Forty-nine years ago, nobody thought the acoustic guitar was in need of reinvention.

In each case, a wildly successful Californian company has since proved the naysayers wrong while teaching us something about the reinvention of old ideas.

Taylor Guitars was founded in 1974 by Kurt Listug and Bob Taylor. In the decades since, they have brought modern engineering and fresh thinking to an industry dominated by tradition and fuzzy intuition. Through CNC machining and constant innovation, the company has grown into one of the world’s largest builders of acoustic instruments, but also a compass for the guitar industry, influencing even legacy giants like Martin and Gibson.

Singer Vehicle Design is younger. English expat Rob Dickinson found public exposure in the 1990s as the vocalist for shoegaze band Catherine Wheel. In 2009, he started a company to “reimagine” the Porsche 911 through heavily customized, ground-up restorations. Singer’s jewel-like work costs as much as a West Coast house and looks it, but it also launched an industry, birthing countless copycats. Singer reps won’t admit this publicly, but the company’s work is so good, it’s admired even within the executive suites of Porsche itself.

Happily, Dickinson and Listug know and respect each other. The former owns and plays a Taylor, while the latter, a longtime 911 fan, just took delivery of a Singer restoration after a four-year wait.

Mindful of all this, we toured Singer’s new restoration facility in Los Angeles. After that, we visited Taylor’s modern San Diego factory. Finally, we sat down with Dickinson, then Listug, and then Taylor’s new CEO/chief luthier—the architect of its recent renaissance—Andy Powers.

We met these men separately but asked each the same questions—on creativity and inspiration, but also on how you make something new in a hidebound environment. Their answers comprise the virtual roundtable on the following pages.

All three men love machines and music and view both in unique ways. (Powers even drives a vintage pickup to work and wrenches on it himself.) But enough introduction—we’ll let the creators speak for themselves.

Taylor now owns 40 percent of the American acoustic market. Singer has delivered more than 200 customer cars. Growth like that doesn’t happen by accident. And yet you can’t totally plan it, either.

Rob Dickinson: It takes a nutjob, an individual. Just setting out on these goals… cannot be done by a committee. It can only be done by someone who’s got something in their brain that they just can’t shake off. That they’re convinced will be good.

Did you ask Kurt if he imagined Taylor would grow to this? I can probably guess his answer. There was never a destination to my idea. I just knew I was absolutely f***ing convinced it was a good idea. In as much as it would not kill me, or bankrupt me, or bankrupt all the people—my wife’s family—providing the money to get it off the ground. I was just convinced it would be OK.

Kurt, did you and Bob ever think deeply about growth? Or was it just… finding the next cool step?

Kurt Listug: The things that you do are the things that make sense to do. We’re dreaming all the time about things we want that could be great for the business, but it’s a matter of timing and resources. What do you get really amped up about, that you want to work on and pursue?

We grew the business to $150 million a year and basically self-funded. We started with $10,000, we reinvested, grew and grew. Looking back, it seems impossible, but that’s what we did.

You waited four years for one of Rob’s restorations. Why?

Kurt: I’m a 911 guy. I’ve had 11 Porsche 911s. I saw [Singer’s work] in the magazines and thought: Wow, that’s really incredible. The workmanship, the quality of the craftsmanship, the design.

Rob is… being an artist. I hoped [the car] would be as good as I wanted it to be. It really exceeded my expectations.

You told me that ordering one felt like a leap. That a project this complex could be worth the money and time.

Kurt: The car is reimagined, turned into something completely different. I like it when people do that, and really, any industry would just get stale and die without it.

With Andy being so creative, someone who can invent new guitar designs, that’s important to us—that’s who we want to be as a company. We want to make instruments that inspire people to create new music.

The music business and car business each run on an odd balance of tradition and new.

Kurt: With guitar companies, typically, when the founder gets old, they sell. The company is usually bought by financial people. They’re backing sales and marketing, and nobody’s in charge of design anymore.

The same old design becomes a legacy product. It doesn’t really advance, but it has to. You have to keep creating the new world, so to speak.

When I started the business, we couldn’t pay ourselves regularly for the first 12 years. I know with Rob, the company was basically financed early on by customers paying their deposits. He surrounded himself with people who were equally passionate. That’s how new things come into being.

Everyone knows these industries die if they don’t occasionally break out of the box. And yet they both push back on reinvention and call you nuts when you try.

Rob: It was just like, “We’ve got to build this and show our idea.” If you talk about it, people will just roll their eyes and say you’re f***ing bonkers.

That’s why we didn’t have any luck raising any money before we started Singer. We had to do it ourselves. “I don’t really understand. What do you mean, great quality? How are you going to make it look any different, any better?”

You start to get bored with those conversations quite quickly. I think the only way to do it is to build it. It comes through sheer passion or sheer insanity: I can’t stop thinking about this when I go to sleep, and I can’t stop thinking about it when I get up.

I love how artists and engineers, when they start a project, don’t always know where it will end up. They just know where to start.

Kurt: It’s getting an idea, an intuition, of the direction to head in.

Rob: Lots of people have good ideas. But lots of people can [move on, go] do something else. I just was unable to do that. To the extent that I pushed aside a reasonably rubbish rock-and-roll career for the sake of a car I had become obsessed with.

If everyone thinks something is fine as-is, how do you begin thinking about changing it? Is that process rooted in need? Problem-solving?

Andy Powers: All of the above. I have all these things, and none of them satisfy me—why not?

If you’re making something new through deeply considered choices, how do you prioritize that work process, not get overwhelmed by possibility?

Andy: What do I want it to be that it isn’t? That’s incentive No. 1. I don’t have what I want. I have no means to get it unless I build it.

Another part would be, maybe I have the ability to build something that nobody else has. Knowledge or tools or personal initiative. There’s also that simple question: Why not do this? With Southern California… in other places, the expectation is: Don’t do that, that’s not the way it’s done. Here, it’s: Oh, yes, do your thing, man. Hope you don’t get hurt.

Rob: The process isn’t work. I grew up in the Porsche community in England and was deeply within it for 5 to 10 years before I moved to America. Gaining opinions and attitudes, desires for what was best, what was average. The natural library builds up in the head as to what great can be.

So many great bits of new have compassed off California culture. Like how early hot-rodding evolved, couldn’t have grown the same anywhere else.

Andy: It’s the opportunity of a place and ability and desire all stacking together to go: Hey, this should be, and there’s nobody to tell me no. They’re not even paying attention.

Rob: And it is unavoidably entangled in ego. Wanting to express yourself. To be seen as the person who did something that needs to be done.

Ego can be productive.

Rob: If I’m brutally honest, I thought someone would do [what Singer does] before I did, and I wanted to get in there first.

I was thinking last night about where the great music has come from. The best rock-and-roll is audacious. Audacity is a product of ambition and ego, I think. Wanting to make your mark, to go: F*** it, I’ve done it, go tell me I’m wrong. The audacity to do that in a song! The Beatles had it flowing out of every pore.

Does that process look different when you’re rethinking someone else’s creation?

Andy: It does. You feel a great dose of respect, and you don’t want to upset that legacy. You already love what it is. In the case of a Porsche, there is a very emotional connection Porsche drivers have—with the legacy, the fenders, the sound, the feel.

Musicians have an attachment to their instrument that makes it behave almost like a living thing. It’s intimate—used as an expression of emotion, philosophy, aesthetic. You don’t want to do something that is totally irrelevant to that legacy, and yet, within context of it, you can make your changes.

One of the things that was a real departure in the history of acoustic guitars—we started bolting the neck on instead of doing woodworking joinery to glue those parts together. Mostly because [that change] makes it more serviceable. It just does a better job serving the musician over the life of the instrument.

Because guitars change shape over time. Wood moisture shifts, the neck has to be adjusted to play right.

Andy: Instead of a super-invasive and expensive repair job, this takes like 10 minutes. You take it apart, you put a different set of spacers in—it’s no different from, say, changing a car’s alignment.

Kurt: It’s all done with CNC [milling] equipment. Bob designed shims of different thicknesses… you can change, in thousandths of an inch, the angle of the body.

Before, you had to break the guitar apart to do that. It was decades to get to the point where he could do that. I knew he would eventually figure out how.

Andy: We went to great pains to make it look familiar. You want it to look and feel comfortable and respect the tradition of how the thing performs. More recently, we totally changed the internal architecture of an acoustic guitar.

Taylor calls it V-class bracing—this massive shift in how guitars are built.

Kurt: Un-freaking-believable. That’s a problem guitars have had forever: They’ll go out of tune once you go up the neck. Andy figured it out from surfing, looking at wave-forms. Sound is waveforms. He figured out it was really the guitar top fighting itself. He redesigned it. His V-class bracing, they play in tune all the way up the neck. That’s never been done. Ever.

Andy: It was a series of circumstances: Oh, I should take this influence from archtop guitars and mandolins, all these different instrument-building legacies, and I’ll combine those in this funny surfing context—that would give me a better architecture for how an acoustic guitar could work.

I could voice that and steer it in a lot of different directions. But the first course of business was, take this radically new idea that performs better and deliberately voice it so it is familiar to what a Taylor player already loves.

It’s not going to come out of left field—I’m going to hide it. When you play it, you’re going to instantly go: That is the sonic signature of a Taylor guitar. It’s all that I like, there’s just more there.

Why are we so compelled to make new from the old without losing the old?

Rob: [Our cars], in my humble opinion, they’re me thinking to myself: This idea can be even more fantastic than it already is.

I live in the past. I don’t like sci fi. I don’t like computers, really—I’m not very good with them. I live in a rose-tinted world of trips to France with my parents in the 1970s. From 1970 to 1985, we spent six weeks each year driving down to and around the south of France, sometimes into Spain.

You can imagine what I saw on the roads. The glamour and beauty, the birth of the appeal of the automobile to me, as an object of deep, dry-mouth desire. Those cars became my life.

I think it’s the same with music. My songs are very much a product of loving other people’s songs. I think our work on the 911 is very much a product of us loving the 911 and wanting to do our own thing.

That “dry-mouth desire” can be hard to share. Is it ever frustrating, trying to get a customer on board? “I can’t explain it, just trust me?”

Kurt: It’s not frustrating. It’s a challenge. You think about Rob, how he went about making a [964 have the nose of a] long-hood 911? What it takes to rebuild the whole thing to be able to do that? I texted the guys up there about the steering. I wondered what they’d done differently because it felt so good. I got back this answer: We’re using this and that and there was a 993 something-or-other and we designed our own bushing for this and that.

It’s just… they knew no bounds, to make it as good as they could.

A Porsche designer once told me that redesigning the 911 was half privilege, half curse. Everyone wants the car to get better, but no one wants it to change. It ties into this old saw in the car business, how what the customer wants and what they say they want don’t always jibe.

Andy: Ask your favorite band: We need a new single—can you make it different from the last one and make it sound just like the last one?

To me, it feels like a left-brain/right-brain exercise. You’re going to look at this thing as the sum of its parts, and at the same time, you’re going to see it as a cohesive whole: What do I like about it? What feels expressive?

Musicians are not doing their business with dollars and cents. They work with the currency of emotion. They’re trying to make sense of a wider world. That’s the language we need to think about if you’re going to disassemble this thing. Let’s say we want the guitar to have more empathy. What the heck does that turn into? What does it mean when a car has great road feel? What translates through a steering wheel? Technically, that’s a flaw, but why is it so dynamic? It feels like you’re engaging with a living thing. That’s something that needs to be preserved.

Those are all measurable, quantifiable things, but what they really turn into for a musician is: What can I do with this? How expressive can it be? I start disassembling them mentally. I want them to turn into the more subjective experience. Then, when I go back over to my holistic side, I want all of these components to still reflect and affirm each other. In other words, the guitar needs to sound the way it looks and look the way it feels.

That’s all fuzzy, personal stuff, but also real and universal.

Andy: It’s very real. If it looks a certain way, you want it to then feel that way when you pick it up. You want the sound that comes out of it to conjure up the same sensation.

So much of creativity orbits rules—new ones we make, old ones we break. Success can calcify that thinking. You don’t want to risk what you’ve built.

Kurt: I’ll give you an analogy of creativity versus not being creative, wanting to do the same thing over and over.

If you have financial people running, say, a record label, they’ll look at what’s been selling. They’ll say, I want you to sound like so-and-so. They’ll squash [an artist’s] creativity when that person really needs to develop their own voice, their own personality.

I think that’s just the nature of business types, because they’re used to looking at metrics like that. They’re not always able to discover something new, see something in it.

The car business is so similar.

Rob: I’m asked more and more what I think of the industry that perhaps we had a hand in inspiring. I’m going, “Why don’t you try and imagine what Singer might do next, rather than trying to copy what we’re doing now?”

I look at this new [Singer-like] Porsche 928 [restoration] that’s just come out. The entrepreneur behind this company found a car designer that he loved, a good car designer but with no passion for Porsche whatsoever. It’s like, let’s change it as much as possible for the sake of reimagining it. Rather than look at how the guys that were responsible for the 928 [thought], set about reimagining that.

Apparently, though, a lot of people love it. Which is fantastic. Who am I to say what the rules are?

Who are any of us?

Rob: It’s interesting how other people misinterpret why we’re around. Yes, I wanted to start a business. But what I really wanted was to make a name synonymous with doing something particularly, dare I say, unusual in the automotive sphere.

To get under the skin of a subject and understand it. Not just from a design aspect. From an industrial aspect, a social aspect.

The 911 is such a social thing. It’s bought for what it means, how it feels. And yet the business model is so metric-driven. Each new one must be faster, or they’ve failed.

Kurt: You stake 15 more horsepower every time you turn up with a new one. They have to give people a reason to buy it.

Right! As if a Porsche weren’t desirable already. The balance is so funny. If carmakers ask the customer what they want, they want a crash-proof ’69 Camaro with 3000 horsepower and a 5-pound curb weight. Does the music business have more latitude to listen there?

Kurt: The music business is really, really teeny compared to the car business. They don’t have the capability or the resources [to respond] to the public as quickly.

I admire what Porsche does. I think they’ve done a remarkable job with not wrecking the 911. They’re basically all the same animal, but the personalities are all a little bit different.

Does it ever feel limiting to work with only one instrument? One car? Evolving one object for most of your career?

Andy: I break them into categories. There’s always the projects that are going into production in six months. Some things, we can’t make in even 10 years. The players aren’t ready for it. We’re not ready to figure out how to make it.

To me, it’s exciting to work on all of them. Because you’re a product. Whatever a person makes is a snapshot of who they are right then—your experiences, influences, resources, inspiration at the moment. That might be the availability or lack of a certain material. It might be a musician asking for something. It might be a changing aesthetic that you can’t even put into words yet, but you know is there.

I’ll look at something and go, man, we just put everything into it. Now, two years later, how the heck are we going to do that again?

You can’t just double your efforts. You won’t get anything new or fresh out of that.

Rob: I think that Singer has an opportunity, maybe, to become a car manufacturer. Because of whatever we’ve done thus far. I’m slowly starting to put together the idea of what our first [ground-up] car will be.

In the past, I didn’t really scratch that itch, because I didn’t know what it was. I’m starting to get a better idea. I think it’s a journey through the past to get to something brand-new. That no one has ever seen before.

The question is, do we reimagine 911s for the rest of our lives? Or do we do other things with that notoriety that perhaps we’ve gotten? I don’t know.

With creating, what does it feel like when you realize you’ve gone…

Andy: Too far in the wrong direction?

It’s typically coming out of the struggle to bow to some market metric. Let’s say as a company, we want to make a new thing, and we understand that there’s a market and a price point we should look for. And that if we arguably delivered a set of features at that price, mathematically, you would have a certain number of customers.

The reality is, it rarely works that way. As I said, musicians aren’t doing their business with the currency of dollars and cents. Fortunately, we’ve never really gone that far. You tiptoe up to the line and go: Oh, that was the line, back away.

There was a psychologist, I think his name was Mendo. He did a lot of work back in the ’50s and ’60s trying to define creativity. The closest he ever got was saying that his essence of creativity was the formation of a connection between disassociated ideas.

You take two things that aren’t related, and you make some sort of connection between them, you’ve created something new.

What’s scarier—creating on a blank sheet with endless freedom, or inside fences?

Andy: Both are exciting and terrifying. Within an existing box, you don’t want to ruin it. You have a lineage, an expectation. A community of enthusiasts. You can all stand around this thing and agree on what it is.

Don’t disrupt that. That’d be like some kid stomping on your sandcastle. At the same time, [freedom] has its own pitfalls. Something entirely new—I might make one and go, “Well, this was exactly what I wanted,” and nobody else will agree. “You have what you wanted, now get back to making some we all like.”

Rob: A blank sheet is always scarier, but only if you don’t have an idea.

If you got an idea, it’s great. Approaching that blank canvas each morning. Even if you are embracing the traditional mores of popular music, which is built on repetition. If you’re challenging and you’re audacious, maybe your second chorus isn’t the same as the first chorus. Maybe there’s only one chorus. Imagine three verses and one chorus—f*** me!

When any band is trying to find new ways of doing things, these things are always experimented with. And you do find yourself coming back to this very satisfying sense, if something is really lovely, you want to hear it again.

It sounds so easy once you see someone do it. Making something new. Convincing people it’s worth it. And yet.

Kurt: I was the person who did all the sales, called on stores, and drove around the country. People working in guitar stores, or guitar players, they always want to see a new guitar. For ours, it was the [ease of] playability. Bob liked the thinner neck—he didn’t see any reason why we needed to have a [more traditional] bigger neck.

Everything in the business is problem-solving like that, even the creativity with marketing. When I had the money to start doing advertising, I didn’t want ads that looked like everybody else’s. It helped put the company on the map.

Really, anything you approach, you have to look at the problem and come up with a creative solution. Not just do what everyone else has done. Because who wants what everyone else has done? That already exists.

***

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The post Work, Wheels, and Wood: A conversation with Taylor Guitars and Singer Vehicle Design appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Be you a rural or an urban dweller in these United States, it’s a safe bet there’s a Chinese restaurant not too far away from where you live. While Chopstick Diplomacy played a part in the success of these dining establishments, the migration of people into the U.S. on merchant visas is the most likely reason for the prevalence of these restaurants. Their rise created a large number of delicious entrees with Chinese influences, and some of us quite love how the cuisine has percolated into American society over the last century.

Be it next to a rural truck stop or a wallet-draining experience at Caesars Palace, Chinese food is here in America to stay. The same could be said about Chinese car design. From bold color palettes to huge in-car entertainment screens and thoughtful exterior contouring, car design from China is making a mark on par with the Hofmeister kink and Sacco planks invented by Germany all those decades ago. Case in point is the 2024 Chevrolet Traverse—specifically, the dorsal fin over its rear wheels. As you will shortly see, this is Chinese takeout at its finest.

But first, a little about the Traverse’s dorsal fin. It has an upward thrusting motion into a glass panel, making the rear end look far less static than that of your average family hauler, with its uninspiring A, B, C, and D pillars. I don’t care for Chevrolet’s application of the fin: It feels like an afterthought, a visual cue added without regard for the frame of the vent window on the rear door. That vent window kills the flow of the glass above the fin. It feels like a part of a cost-conscious, mid-cycle refresh, even though the 2024 Traverse is significantly different than the model of the previous year. (Chevy even messed with the DLO to add DLO FAIL to the A-pillar. How great is that?)

I expect the intended buyer of the 2024 Traverse to love all the changes. But where did the dorsal fin C-pillar design come from originally? I did my best to go back in time, and I learned that the fin originated on a car that came from China in the year 2019. But that car’s fin wasn’t cosmetic like the Traverse’s; this one had purpose. The dorsal fin allowed for a smaller quarter window and, in addition, visually forced your eye to pay no attention to the opening roof above it. Until the roof actually opened.

Meet the HiPhi X and Y, made by Chinese tech company Human Horizons. While the HiPhi Y doesn’t have the dorsal fin, it’s clear that a little upkick in the sheetmetal above the rear wheel—that, or gullwing roof doors—signifies a HiPhi product. Impressive branding for any automaker, much less a young one.

Clearly the folks at Human Horizons had Tesla’s design successes on their minds, taking the insane “falcon wings” from the 2015 Tesla Model X to the next level: instead of a huge rear door, which is painfully complex and somewhat unreliable, the HiPhi X and Y use a conventional door that hinges at the rear. The glass then rolls into the door and lets the roof lift along with the quarter window, like the hatch on a hatchback.

The arrangement is crazy but logical: HiPhi implemented something on the side that’s been scienced out (so to speak) by the likes of Land Rover at the rear. The dorsal fin below the roof’s hatch is just a big, pointy arrow forcing your eyes to notice the show right above it. And what a show that is!

Suggesting that the HiPhi X is a clever piece of design is akin to calling Mr. Chow just another Chinese restaurant. (Unfamiliar with that establishment? Keep reading.) And this automotive flight of fancy actually made production, likely spurring fits of jealousy in design studios owned by more traditional, more risk-averse automotive manufacturers. While the use case is questionable, the HiPhi is aimed at the frivolity of the luxury SUV market, not the white-collar audience of the Chevy Traverse. And for that reason, the HiPhi is a smashing success.

At least in theory, because some customers will be leery, citing the complexity and unreliability of the Tesla falcon doors. Odds are the HiPhi’s door/hatch combination will be significantly more durable, and the dorsal fin below isn’t corny like the Model X’s dance show. The door/hatch accomplishes the same thing (i.e. makes it easy to install baby seats, etc.) but does so with understatement and long-term functionality. But like any other design element since the advent of the chrome grille, once one company does the fin, everyone else will follow.

The HiPhi X’s radical door arrangement lends itself logically to a dorsal fin below a floating C-pillar. Too bad none of the rolling tributes made after its 2019 introduction had the nerve to include an actual door above the fin.

I’d wager this dorsal fin helped convince many a suburban family hauler to buy the new Kia Carnival minivan over a traditional SUV, even without a roof door allowing kids to trampoline their way out of it. The fin will likely serve the Volvo EM90 multi-purpose vehicle in the same manner, especially in Volvo’s home market of Sweden China. China is indeed a safe space for minivan appeal, but it’s also a place where car design can flourish.

That flourishing extends to more than cheap subcompacts and affordable EVs. China’s rise to power in the last 20-ish years has elevated automotive design for everyone, not unlike how Chinese food been showcased as a culinary art thanks in part to a gentleman named Mr. Chow.

I can’t remember exactly how much I spent at Mr. Chow’s establishment in Las Vegas: remembering such details means you didn’t have enough fun in America’s city of sin. But I remember the theatrics, the dynamic artwork, the exquisite food and cocktails, and the company I kept. And that’s precisely what you should feel when experiencing anything designed with purpose, when the owner/company of said organization throws as much money at the design as they darn well please. Aside from cars like the dreamy Lucid, we rarely see this level of purpose in American car design. And that’s a shame.

But money for a flourishing design scene comes at a cost, as cheap labor has downsides, and cheaper cars mean safety isn’t always built into Chinese designs. But the HiPhi X wasn’t intended just for China, and it passed all necessary safety tests for retailing in the European market. It’s only a matter of time before HiPhis infiltrate everyone’s social media feed…

… If they haven’t already. You know, just like General Tso’s chicken on menus from East to West coast.

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Famously conceived as a modern take on classic British and Italian sports cars, the Mazda MX-5 Miata has long since outlasted and outsold them all, and it’s now a classic in its own right.

Mazda’s little roadster has touched the lives of countless enthusiasts over the last three decades, and I’m no exception. Buying a used ’97 NA was the first thing I did upon getting my first job as a designer in Fiat’s styling center. The last new car I bought was a ’17 ND I wish I never had to sell.

But with Miata sales having never truly recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, and the industry’s inexorable pivot towards electrification, the walls appear to be closing in on Mazda’s little roadster. Therefore, I pay close attention to whatever Mazda says or shows that has even the faintest connection to the Miata and its future. If that future looks half as good as the Iconic SP concept shown at the 2023 Japan Auto Show, I’m already looking forward to it.

In terms of concept and design language, the Iconic SP picks up right where 2022’s Vision Study Model left off, to the point that one could be forgiven for thinking it’s the same car. Not that it matters, because Mazda’s latest concept car is a true joy to behold.

It’s a refreshingly pure, honest, and straightforward design, one that reminds me of all the little red sports cars I used to sketch during dead times to brighten my mood and purge my soul after working on yet another Chinese crossover. But it’s executed with a degree of finesse that’s criminally rare these days. Observing how the light flows seamlessly on the Iconic SP’s clean, smooth surfaces leaves me no doubt this project has been a true labor of love for all involved.

Since they started with a clean sheet of paper and a very compact powertrain package, Mazda’s designers could give the Iconic SP killer proportions. The large-diameter wheels are pushed towards the corners of the car, stretching the wheelbase and reducing overhangs to a minimum. Those wheels sit under big, muscular fenders that flare out from the main volume of the car, giving the Iconic SP that sexy “Coke bottle” shape that any owner of a C3 Corvette knows and loves. In classic sports-car fashion, the cabin’s volume rests closer to the rear axle for a long hood and short rear deck.

On top of that, according to the figures released by Mazda, the Iconic SP is nearly three inches lower than the Miata but wider by four and a half. Such a wide track, plus large tires that sit flush with the arches and are emphasized by a body that cuts aggressively inward at its middle, contributes to the Iconic SP’s purposeful stance.

We’ve known since ancient Greece that beauty is a matter of proportions, and cars are no exception. Far too often, proportions is overlooked due to economic or technical constraints. If you nail the relationships of the vehicle’s foundational shapes, as Mazda’s designers definitely did here, the result can be magic.

Once the vehicle’s overall proportions are set, the second ingredient of a beautiful automobile is the sculpture: the complex interplay of the body’s various elements and surfaces. In the case of the Iconic SP and its surfacing, I’m delighted to report that Mazda’s designers knocked it out of the park.

The Iconic SP is a refreshingly pure design, almost devoid of character lines. Such a minimalist approach is nothing new in car design. Mercedes-Benz, for example, has been championing it for years, albeit with far less convincing results. But the Iconic SP is on another level: watching the light and the reflections flow over its muscular yet taut surfaces is a real pleasure.

The tension in the body’s curves, the crowning of the surfaces, and all the transitions appear perfectly judged. Without a doubt, that’s the result of clear design intent and painstaking refinement in the modeling studio by experienced eyes and hands.

Once designers have dealt with proportions and volumes, the last ingredients to consider are the so-called “graphic” elements. These are the windows’ contours, the cutouts for the headlights and taillights, the grilles and air intakes, and the shutlines between the various components.

Given the Iconic SP is just a show car, Mazda’s designers could ensure these graphic elements stayed coherent with the pure, minimalist ethos of the design. The potentially unsightly bumper and boot lid shutlines are simply deleted. However, the gloss-black trim piece highlighting the windscreen frame is a playful indulgence, a hint to let us imagine how the Iconic SP would look as a convertible.

With its gorgeous curves and its reliance on proportions and sculpture rather than superfluous decoration, Mazda’s Iconic SP reminds me a lot of Italian design classics like the Cisitalia 202 or the Ferrari 250 SWB. I do not mean that Mazda’s latest concept car is in the same league as those classics; such a statement would be premature, if not blasphemous.

But what Mazda has delivered is a perfectly executed contemporary reinterpretation of all those classic red sports cars we have in our hearts. The Iconic SP doesn’t move the automobile design game forward by a single inch, and it doesn’t matter. All this concept is meant to do is look pretty, and it does so exceedingly well.

Mazda has emphatically confirmed that the Miata will remain part of its lineup for the foreseeable future, but the automaker remains tight-lipped about when the new generation will ultimately arrive. That’s understandable: There’s no real hurry to replace a model that has no real competition.

What Mazda is telling us with the Iconic SP is that, whenever it comes, the next Miata will surely bring the most significant change in the model’s basic formula since 1989. But, if what we’ve been shown in Tokyo is any real indication of what Mazda’s designers have in store for the next Miata, I’d better start saving up for my fifth Mazda roadster, regardless of what will power it.

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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This article first appeared on this site in July 2022. We’re resharing it now to solicit your input: Which automotive rear ends would you add to this list? Drop a comment below and let us know. Who knows, we might compile Part Two. —Ed. 

Despite the proliferation of video chat and Zoom calls in recent history, the fundamentals of interpersonal communication involves face-to-face interaction. When it comes to automobiles, we aren’t all that different. Manufacturers tend to design them “from the front,” as people digest and judge a car’s face above all else.

Rare is the vehicle for which the rear-end styling receives equal or additional consideration. In some ways it isn’t sensible, given that we are constantly looking at the backside of every car in front of us while driving in traffic. With that in mind, we’ve hand-picked a slew of significant vehicles that treated the rear with as much visual weight as the front.

1948 Cadillac

It may be difficult to believe, but Cadillac was not the top luxury brand in America before World War II. That would be Packard.

Cadillac slowly made its way toward overtaking Packard as America’s dominant luxury brand, starting in the late 1920s with compelling designs from Harley Earl and commensurately deft engineering innovations. By 1948, with styling cues copped from the twin booms of the P-38 Lockheed Lightning, Cadillac began a styling cue that would change how Americans (and the world) viewed personal transportation.

These humps (or lovely taillight lumps) were the genesis of what we’d later call “fins,” with the aeronautical influence evolving from airplanes to rockets as the 1950s progressed. Designer Bill Mitchell, a progenitor of this motif, later said, “From a design standpoint, the fins gave definition to the rear of the car for the first time. They made the back end as interesting as the front, and established a longstanding Cadillac-styling hallmark.” With the all-new high-compression V-8 for 1949, Cadillac arguably produced the first perfect American car of the postwar era and, by 1950, had overtaken Packard in the American automotive consciousness.

1957 Chrysler Corporation “Forward Look”

If 1955 was the year of the “Horsepower Race,” then 1957 certainly was the year of the fin. Notable protuberances had begun to appear in 1955 in some showrooms, but it wasn’t until 1957 that most manufacturers fully inhaled the waft of what Cadillac had been cooking. Out of all the brand offerings in 1957, it was Chrysler Corporation’s all-new “Forward Look” that asserted itself as the king of fins. From the front, they all looked like they were soaring; from the rear, they looked like they were ready to blast off.

Certainly there were many other reasons besides “Flight-Sweep” styling to appreciate the Forward Look: comfort, engineering, roadability, safety, and performance. In comparison to other brands, Forward Look designs appeared cohesive, as if they had high upswept rear fins from birth. All one has to do is compare a 1957 Plymouth with the evergreen Chevrolet (with fins that practically seemed like an afterthought) and there was no contest; the Chevy was headed to the drive-in while the Plymouth was headed to the moon. It wouldn’t be until 1959 that General Motors would have vehicles that rivaled the Chrysler Corporation in style, especially from behind.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette

The Corvette always reflected among the best that General Motors had to offer in terms of styling in the 1950s, but when the second-generation “C2” debuted in the fall of 1962, mouths were agape. In particular, the bisected rear window on the ’63 became a controversial trademark but, even without it in years that followed, the rear view’s impact was as spectacular—if not more so—as the rest of the car. Underneath, an all-new independent rear suspension upped the sophistication quotient to a level for engineer and director of high performance, Zora Arkus-Duntov, to remark, “For the first time I now have a Corvette I can be proud to drive in Europe.”

The genesis of the 1963 Corvette comes from Bill Mitchell’s vision for an Italian-influenced sports car for Ed Cole’s Q-Chevrolet project. Peter Brock’s design for the Q-Corvette model won out, but the project never made it to production. All was not lost, however, as Larry Shinoda took inspiration from the Q-Corvette and came up with the 1959 Stingray Racer concept for Bill Mitchell. Thanks to critical acclaim and racing success (a highlight was winning the SCCA National Championship the following year), it became clear the Stingray Racer would determine styling cues for the C2. The rear design, influenced by the 1930s Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, pulled everything together to create one of the great postwar cars, especially from behind.

1971 Buick Riviera

Notice a pattern here? Bill Mitchell brought back the Riviera’s verve for 1971 after losing its style leader status over the previous few model years. The new Riviera returned as an eye-catching chariot that featured inspired, neoclassical boattail styling, which was both distinctive and polarizing for some—even within Buick. General Manager Lee Mays publicly called it, “A classic new design that is a triumph of automotive styling,” but privately he said, “Sure, people liked it, some people like anything. I never could find anyone who admitted they designed it.”

Designer Jerry Hirschberg had a different take: “At first it was supposed to be on a [stretched, mid-size] A-body [platform, like a Grand Prix and Monte Carlo]. But then it was moved to the [full-size] B-body, and that didn’t help. On a smaller car, it could have been kind of interesting … the car looked slightly eccentric. But so would a Corvette if it were the size of a Cadillac.”

And from the horse’s mouth, Bill Mitchell said in retrospect that “What hurt the boattail was to widen it. It got so wide, a speedboat became a tugboat.” Such is the creative process but, to those of us who were not insiders, the 1971 Riviera represented style that had cast off any connection to the 1960s. Nowhere else was it better demonstrated than in the boattail rear. Perhaps the Riviera didn’t end up the way as intended, but its bodacious booty set the tone for the rest of the car.

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Pull a thread on a sweater, and you may reduce it to a ball of yarn. When trying to unravel automotive history, you also sometimes end up with a yarn or two. Here’s an example: Perhaps because it was the only show car in the history of General Motors’ Motorama that actually became a car you could buy in showrooms, the Corvette earned such positive reception from the public that GM executives decided to green-light the concept. That legend is likely not true, at least the part about why the Corvette was approved for production.

Here’s the real story. Chevrolet brand manager Thomas Keating wanted a product to compete with the British sports cars, which had become popular in America following WWII thanks to GIs returning from the UK and Europe. The two-seat, rear-drive, open-top Vette certainly got a strong reception. A true part of Corvette lore concerns an attendee at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, where GM first showed the car, who was so impressed by the car’s potential and disappointed in its driveline (a six-cylinder engine and two-speed automatic transmission) that he wrote a letter to Chevrolet’s head engineer, Ed Cole, who hired the young engineer. His name was Zora Arkus Duntov, and he went on to become the Corvette’s chief engineer for decades.

Since that first Corvette show car (EX-52), concepts have played an important role in the history of the brand, shaping both production models and brand enthusiasm. To Corvette enthusiasts, Bill Mitchell’s 1959 Stingray and the Mako Shark II are almost as familiar as the Split Window or the C3. In my exploration of the mid-engine, all-wheel drive Corvette concepts that preceded the new, hybrid/AWD E-Ray, I came across a number of Corvette concepts that are worthy of attention. Some are better known than others, and not all of them are precisely Corvettes, but all of them had some kind of role in shaping the brand.

The Duntov Mule

First, let’s get back to Zora. After he was hired on at GM, he wrote a four-page memo encouraging his superiors to make cars that would appeal to the hot-rodders of his day. It was Duntov who convinced Cole to take the small-block, overhead-valve V-8 in development for Chevy sedans and put it into the Corvette, turning the two-seater into a true performance car. The result was EX-87, currently owned by Ken Lingenfelter and better known as the Duntov Mule.

Not only is EX-87 literally the first Corvette with a V-8 engine, but it also has a provenance and pedigree that is a bit hard to believe. The engineer tasked with installing that engine in a production ’54 chassis was three-time Indy 500 winner Mauri Rose. The famed operator of Daytona’s “Best Damn Garage in Town,” Smokey Yunick, was responsible for tuning the V-8 prototype. Duntov set speed records in it. The cut-down windshield, tonneau cover over the passenger seat, and tail fin (for high-speed stability) were also Duntov’s ideas, as was increasing the displacement of the engine from 265 to 307 cubic inches.

1961 Mako Shark I

If you’re wondering why the Corvette was nicknamed Stingray, that’s because Bill Mitchell, who followed Harley Earl as GM’s head of styling, liked to go deep-sea fishing. He followed up 1959’s Stingray racer and show car with XP-755, the original Mako Shark.

Not as well known today as the Mako Shark II, which presaged the production version of the third-gen, or C3, Corvette (1968–82), the first Mako Shark was based on the second-gen car (C2). It had a streamlined front end that came to a point, six taillights, and an impressive paint job that faded, roof to rocker panels, from blue to white. The color scheme reproduced the coloration of the actual mako shark, an example of which was displayed by Mitchell in his office.

The way the story goes, when the styling team repeatedly failed to paint-match the shark’s colors to Mitchell’s satisfaction, they snuck into his office one night and repainted the fish to match the car.

1962 Corvair Monza GT

Yes, the Monza GT was branded as a Corvair concept and used an engine (an air-cooled, horizontally opposed turbocharged six-cylinder) from the production car—mounted in the middle, not the back, of the chassis. However, XP-777 and its open-roof sibling Monza SS, designed by Larry Shinoda and Tony Lapine, may have been the first expression of the styling themes expressed in Mako Shark II and the third-generation Corvette. The chassis for the Monza GT was also the basis for the 1963 Corvette GS-II, also penned by Shinoda, and part of the Corvette Grand Sport racing program. While the GS-II never raced, it became the basis for Jim Hall’s Chaparral 2C racer.

1967 Astro I

For 1967 Larry Shinoda took the design themes of the Monza GT and Monza SS to a radical extreme with the extremely low Astro I, also based on a Corvair. At just 35.5 inches tall, it is even lower than the Ford GT40. GM’s official history of the car says that it was “designed to investigate the visual potential of automobile aerodynamic characteristics” and that it “dramatically demonstrated the harmony that could be achieved between aesthetics and aerodynamics.”

With a roofline that low, ingress via conventional door was problematic, so roof and side glass were integrated into a clamshell that tilted rearward. To save driver and passenger from plopping down into such low seats, the chairs automatically raised when the canopy was opened and lowered as it retracted. Chevrolet said that the Astro I was powered by an experimental, overhead-cam version of the Corvair six-cylinder, but it’s not clear whether that engine was actually ever fitted to the Astro I.

1969 Manta Ray

I’d like to show you a photo of what the 1965 Mako Shark II, XP-830, looks like today but that influential Corvette concept, also designed by Larry Shinoda, no longer exists—at least under that name.

For the 1969 Detroit Auto Show, Mitchell’s team modified the Mako Shark II into the Manta Ray concept, expanding the Corvette’s aquatic menagerie. The Manta Ray had a longtail rear end, a styling feature that would show up in the Aerovette family of concepts (we’ll get to those in a bit), a “sugar scoop” rear glass treatment, a flip-up roof panel, tiny side mirrors, pop-up turn signal lights, a deep front spoiler, and side exhaust pipes—the last perhaps intended as a nod to the original 1959 Stingray. The Manta Ray was powered by the aluminum-block ZL-1 engine developed by Chevrolet with Bruce McLaren for use in the Can-Am racing series.

In a bit of concept-car trivia, the Manta Ray Corvette was not the first Manta Ray car. In 1951, a couple of West Coast customizers, Glen Hire and Vernon Antoine, built a highly modified Studebaker called the Manta Ray that bears more than a little resemblance to Harley Earl’s famous LeSabre concept.

1973 Aerovette

One of the better-known Corvette concepts that never reached production is the Aerovette. Its origins lie in the XP-880 mid-engined Astro II concept, first revealed at the 1968 New York Auto Show. Less extreme than the Astro I, the Aerovette had actual doors, a front storage hold, and a clamshell-style rear end that lifted to allow access to the transversely mounted V-8 engine.

Duntov’s team then developed two prototypes for what was tagged XP-882. Chevy general manager John DeLorean initially canceled the program, deeming it too costly, but when Ford announced the DeTomaso Pantera would be sold at its Lincoln-Mercury dealers, the program was revived and one of the XP-882s displayed at the 1970 New York show.

At the same time, General Motors was developing its own version of the rotary Wankel engine for the Vega small car. In 1972, DeLorean approved additional development of the XP-882 chassis, leading to the XP-895, powered by a pair of the two-rotor Wankels ganged together to make a 420-hp, four-rotor powerplant. A sibling, two-rotor car dubbed XP-897 was also developed. Both of those concepts were shown in 1973, before the oil crisis sparked by the Yom Kippur War and increasingly stringent emissions regulations put the kibosh on rotaries, which are relatively thirsty and dirty.

The exterior styling of the rotary-powered Corvette concepts was much rounder and organic than the production Corvette of the era. The two cars wore distinctive fender flares and NACA ducts on their hoods.

Three years later, in 1976, the four-rotor engine in XP-895 was swapped out for a 400 cubic-inch V-8. The car was renamed Aerovette and, according to reports, it was approved for production for the 1980 model year, albeit with a 350-cubic-inch small-block Chevy V-8.

By 1976, John DeLorean had moved on to his own self-named venture. It may be just a coincidence that, like the Delorean DMC-12, the Aerovette was given gullwing doors. Unfortunately for Corvette fans hoping for the new design, all advocates for producing the Aerovette (Duntov, Mitchell, Ed Cole) had retired by then, and new Corvette chief Dave McLellan, after deciding that the conventional front-engine layout was more economical and would have better performance than the Aerovette, killed that program.

Reynolds Aluminum Corvette

The reason why the Aerovette had poorer performance was that, unlike the production Corvette with a composite body, the Aerovette’s skin was steel, making it 100 pounds heavier than a 1973 Corvette coupe. DeLorean, who then was still at GM, turned to Reynolds Metals.

Reynolds, the same folks who make aluminum foil used in kitchens, had been a GM supplier for over a decade, providing the alloy used in Corvair engines, Corvette intake manifolds, bell housings, and other parts, along with the specialty alloy used in the ZL1 block, L88 head, and all-aluminum Vega motors. Reynolds made an exact copy of XP-895 out of 2036-T4 aluminum, a special alloy that could be spot-welded. Even then, some epoxy adhesive was used to make the hand-fabricated body. The result shaved 450 pounds off the weight, making the body almost 40 percent lighter. While it weighed significantly less, it was also significantly more expensive to produce than either a steel or composite body.

2009 Stingray concept

The most recent Corvette concept was the 2009 Stingray, intended to preview the seventh-generation Corvette, which was introduced in 2013. Interestingly, it may be the least well-known of the Corvette concepts here. Given the design brief of making a retro-modern Corvette, the Stingray, which also had a starring role as an Autobot in one of the Transformer movies, mashed up the split rear window of the ’63 C2 with contemporary scissor doors and a clamshell hood. Although the Stingray was part of the C7’s development, it also anticipated the newest C8 Corvette, the E-Ray, in that it was a mild-hybrid.

If you had to pick one, which one of these concepts would you tell Chevy to put into production? Drop a comment below.

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Andreas Bovensiepen’s early memories are inseparable from Alpina. His father Burkard founded the business as a BMW tuner in the mid-1960s—hence the twin carbs and crankshaft on its logo—but by the early 1970s of Andreas’ childhood, Alpina was a force to be reckoned with in the European Touring Championship.

Drivers including Derek Bell, Niki Lauda, and Günther Huber helped it win European Touring Car Championship titles in 1970, 1973, and 1977, first in the BMW 2002 and 2800 CS, later in the famous 3.0 CSL “Batmobile” (a homologation car developed by BMW’s nascent M Division to Alpina’s own requirements). Work rarely ceased in the workshops located just a stone’s throw from the family home.

“I remember like it was yesterday,” says Andreas, who has spent much of his working life at Alpina, but initially worked in BMW’s Research and Innovation Centre (FIZ) after graduating with a degree in business management. “The race cars were prepared only 200 meters away from where we lived in Buchloe, so even at night you could hear an engine running on the dyno, or when a fresh engine was installed in the race car and started for the first time.”

Since Burkard stepped back from the day-to-day running of Alpina, his sons Andreas and Florian have taken the reins. In 2022 the brothers made an announcement that was both agonising and relatively straightforward—Alpina was selling its naming rights to BMW. More on that shortly.

Crucially, though, as one chapter closes another begins: The Bovensiepens are developing their wholly owned Alpina Classic subsidiary, among several other endeavors. There is no shortage of inspiration in their back catalog.

After that 1977 ETCC win, Alpina stepped back from motorsport to concentrate on its own BMW-based models, three of which were initially introduced from late 1978 with a focus on the torque-rich performance and grand-touring luxury that still defines Buchloe BMWs.

The B6 2.8 came first, an E21-based 3 Series fitted with a six-cylinder engine. The 5 Series–based B7 Turbo was the fastest saloon in the world courtesy of a 300-bhp (296 hp) forced-induction straight six. The B7 Turbo Coupe applied the same template to the 6 Series.

Alpina was no longer merely a tuner, and by 1983 it was accredited as a manufacturer in its own right by the German transport authority, if always with a BMW base car as the main ingredient.

Since those early days, approximately 60,000 Alpinas have left Buchloe, with around 25,000 still in existence. Given around 2200 models are produced annually and demand is higher than ever (in 2022 that equated to roughly 750 units each for the U.S. and Germany, 250 for Japan, and 110 for the UK), selling off the rights must have been an impossibly tough decision for the family.

“We have almost 60 years of history, and Alpina has always earned money, so it was a really difficult decision,” admits Andreas. “But now as the industry is forced to turn to electric mobility, the costs of development, software validation, driver assistance, and supervisory assistance systems will make it much more complex and costly in future for development and homologation, especially for small manufacturers.”

The final built-in-Buchloe Alpina will be produced at the end of December 2025, after which BMW takes manufacturing in-house.

It’s too early to confirm which model will sign off the Bovensiepen era, says Andreas, and besides, it will most likely remain in Alpina’s own collection, but a predictable surge of interest has ensued among dedicated clientele.

“Customers want to secure a BMW Alpina equipped with a nice V-8 or six-cylinder inline engine while these drivetrains are still available,” Andreas says. “There are some similarities to the Swiss watch industry and mechanical watches—there’s hardly any interest for hybrid or electric drivetrains among our clients at the moment.”

Alpina’s future does not hinge entirely on its heritage. Over the last decade it has built up an engineering consultancy, with specialist subjects including suspension, stability control, electric steering, engine tuning, and emissions compliance. This avenue will expand, both for BMW and others. The firm also has mysterious “further plans for the automotive sector,” potentially with a move further upmarket under a different brand.

But for anyone who’s lusted after Alpina’s trademark “Deco-Set” graphics, 20-spoke alloys, and snow-plough air dams, Alpina Classic is the silver lining. Classic accessories and spare parts will form one logical sideline, and Alpina has already re-released classic alloys for the E30 3 Series, as well as Garrett turbochargers for the E34 Alpina B10 Biturbo.

But a focus on restoration will have a more profound impact on how the business is run and organized. Presently, Alpinas are built on the BMW production line using a kit of Alpina-specific parts (engine cooling package, turbochargers, springs, wheels, tires, brakes…) before returning to Alpina’s “manufactory” for final assembly and any number of bespoke interior upgrades in its in-house upholstery and saddlery workshops.

This leaves the business at absolute capacity, with requests from classic owners largely turned down, including those who want to have cars serviced at the “birthplace.”

“We have completed some restoration projects,” says Andreas. “For instance, a year ago we finished a two-year restoration of a 1981 6 Series Coupe B7S Turbo for a Japanese customer, which we completely dismantled, rebuilt, and painted. But mostly we use a maximum of two car lifts in the workshop, so for now we cannot fulfill a lot of wishes. From 2026, our business will be almost the opposite of today.”

In future, engine, suspension, and interior overhauls will be completed on-site, with bodywork out-sourced. The intention is to retain comparable floorspace and staffing levels (currently 300 or so) with younger mechatronic-trained technicians re-educated in the more mechanical art of rebuilding components such as engines, gearboxes, and rear axles.

Upgrades are already in the offing—the Japanese B7 was refitted with modern ignition and fuel-injection systems—and even far more radical restomods are apparently not out of the question.

Alpina also plans to upgrade models sold over the last decade (both the majority of its production and the remaining fleet) with “new wheels, aerodynamic parts, and new upholstery, including Alpina cloth interiors.”

Yet neither continuation cars nor EV-swapped classics are likely, despite precedents elsewhere. The latter is no doubt music to most Alpina fans’ ears, but surely there’d be demand for a fresh B10 built from a donor E34 5 Series…

“This is an interesting idea,” concedes Andreas, “but tooling for several hundred parts for an Alpina conversion and other BMW parts are no longer available, so it’s just not realistic.”

So if he could choose only one, which classic would the man born at Alpina’s inception—the man who has lived and breathed its values ever since—put in his garage? Maybe a late ’70s B6 3-Series? Or the B10 “Testarossa fighter” he waxes lyrical about?

“I’d pick the [Z8-based] BMW Alpina Roadster V8,” comes the instant response. “I was involved with this model when I worked at the BMW Research and Innovation Centre, and I pushed heavily to do our own version afterward. It’s the only car where we reached nearly 10 percent of total production, with 555 Alpinas from a total production run of 5703 cars. Today that car is a collectors’ item, and it’s difficult to buy one for under $350,000.”

That’s around a third more than you’ll pay for a typical Z8, but no doubt selling the final built-in-Buchloe Alpina to a keen collector would liberate the necessary funds.

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Early on, Toyota says, designers at its CALTY Design Research studio worked quietly in the shadows, “diligently researching the market in and around Southern California,” Toyota said. Experimentation was encouraged, so the designers didn’t limit themselves strictly to cars and trucks. And a good thing, too, because these creatives came up with some truly inventive designs, including two mid-engine sports cars that Toyota unearthed photos of to celebrate the studio’s 50th anniversary.

In the five-decade history of the California-based American outpost for Toyota’s global design network, it isn’t unusual for designers to be working towards the future. What they’ve been working on lately is way in the future: In honor of CALTY’s five decades of design, the group has unveiled a “Baby Lunar Rover,” complete with a nod to the original FL40 Land Cruiser.

The Baby Lunar Rover, complete with in-wheel motors and a massive glass canopy, is just the latest design from CALTY. The first one you are likely familiar with that made production was the 1978 Toyota Celica, the one with the aluminum band across the top. It was a smash hit.

“California was a youthful, vibrant epicenter of fresh ideas, a cool car culture, and the glamorous movie industry that inspired CALTY to create innovative designs and establish new trends,” said Kevin Hunter, president of CALTY Design Research.

The group styled multiple concepts, some of which never made it to production. CALTY is sharing a few here:

We’re likely a long way from knowing whether that Baby Lunar Rover will make it to space, but here are some details: It’s inspired by the real, full-sized Lunar Cruiser being developed by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and Toyota. The BLR is controlled by twin joysticks and rolls on airless tires. There’s a “panoramic” augmented reality dashboard display and a full array of cameras and lidar/radar sensors, and a split tailgate out back.

Going back in time, CALTY designed what the studio calls an “an early FJ40 proposal.” It was a stout little two-door SUV that, had it made production, likely could have given the Jeep a run for its money. It was based on the Land Cruiser.

CALTY designed this MX-1 concept in 1983, which featured a mid-engine layout and gullwing doors. It was developed as a “premium halo sports car,” with period-appropriate white mesh wheels. It should have at least made an appearance in a Tron movie or something, right?

A few years later, CALTY stuck with the MX-1’s basic layout and designed the two-tone MX-2, which was, Toyota says, “close to a pure race car.” It had the predecessor’s mid-engine design with gullwing doors, and the body was made out of fiberglass reinforced plastic. It had a swing arm steering wheel that could accommodate either left- or right-hand drive.

CALTY’s version of the 1993 Supra wasn’t selected for production, but you can see design elements from the prototype in the production car. For the Mark IV Supra, or A80 as it was known internally, “CALTY’s intent was to take the Supra in the direction of a ‘pure sports car,’ rather than continue with the previous models’ Grand Touring character. They gave it a long hood and a linear bulge so the engine bay could accommodate a large inline-six engine.”

During the 1990s, CALTY contributed significantly to Toyota’s production vehicles for the North American market. Notable designs from this era include the 1995 Tacoma, the 1997 Prius and the 2000 Avalon.

In 2004, CALTY opened a studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan, “revolutionized local production design efforts, resulting in the creation of North American-specific models like the Tundra, Tacoma, Avalon and Sienna.”

Meanwhile, the 2010s were very successful for CALTY. There was the 2012 Fun-Vii concept, deemed a “smart phone on wheels”; the 2012 Lexus LF-LC, which became the 2018 Lexus LC 500 and ushered in a new design language for Lexus, and the 2014 FT-1 concept, which became the A90-generation 2020 Supra, “a personal sports car favorite of CALTY.”

More recently, CALTY is responsible for the new 2024 Toyota Tacoma pickup.

As far as the next 50 years, Hunter said, “There’s no way we could have thrived without Toyota’s support for enabling new ideas. CALTY’s role to explore, innovate, and inspire is ingrained in our DNA, and we are excited to continue pushing boundaries in automotive design.”

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Your eyes do not deceive you: That is a late-model Toyota Tacoma wearing a front clip inspired by a Toyota J60 Land Cruiser from the early 1980s. Tacoma door emblems notwithstanding, the truck is called the Renoca Windansea, and it is made by the folks at Flex Ventures. The pickup is part of a broader line of Toyota throwbacks under the Renoca moniker but appears to be their first venture into the wildly popular/profitable North American pickup truck market. (Check out the J80 Land Cruiser-based Renoca 106, Wonder, and Phoenix to see where it all began.)

Clearly, the Renoca Windansea’s value proposition would never exist at Toyota, as the company is far too aloof to make an obvious throwback vehicle. OEMs have a team of highly compensated, talented, and creative car designers to make something a little less literal. Case in point, the introduction of Toyota’s new Land Cruiser is retro done with grand designs, especially the model with the round headlights that kinda look like yesteryear’s rounded sealed beams.

Part of me wishes that Toyota would go retro in as literal a fashion as Flex Ventures has with the Renoca family, but that would be a disservice to the rest of the modern coachwork. Even worse, the throwback treatment would be a slap in the face to all the insane engineering under the Land Cruiser’s sheetmetal, which gives impressive performance on- or off-road with safety and low emissions to boot. Toyota has access to wind tunnels and to the most expensive 3D rendering facilities; with those resources, it can make a vehicle all street-legal in the blink of an eye. When you’re a customer, buying something beautiful isn’t cheap, but when you’re a manufacturer, making it beautiful is even more costly.

That’s because car design—Tesla Cybertruck aside—is a game of finesse. The artistry of each vehicle is so subtle that, to understand the sculptural goodness,, you need to fully concentrate on the final product with perfect lighting for minutes, not seconds, at a time. If you haven’t been in a design studio lately, imagine the fastback of a 1960s Impala coupe as the setting sun slides down the vehicle’s frame, or a the iconic face of a Land Cruiser at high noon, with mud sliding off the fascia.

I doubt such a deep visual analysis would net the same results with this retro-ized Tacoma. The lifestyle-oriented video above does not do the Renoca Windansea any favors, either. Perhaps if Flex tossed out the boring soundtrack and got a Millenial/Gen Z take on glam rock or synthwave? The music would put us in a throwback mood but without prompting fears of finicky emissions controls or rudimentary electronics. Listen to what’s in my ears right now, and admire the dreamy guitar riffs worthy of Alex Lifeson and the syncopated hi-hat technique on par with that of Stewart Copeland.

Hagerty doesn’t keep me on the books to praise a new generation of musicians for embracing the lightly electronic vibe of Rush and The Police, so let’s get back to this throwback Toyota design. The Renoca Windansea eschews the Gaping Maw of all modern vehicles, instead using a full-length, externally mounted front bumper akin to that of the FJ Cruiser. All the lighting pods look like off-the-shelf bits for a J60. The fenders have been carefully crafted to continue the door’s bulbous contours, but the nose never got that curvaceous memo.

Put another way, there’s just something about the Renoca Windansea’s upright nose that lacks the finesse of the Land Cruiser. The grille lacks the J60 Land Cruiser’s integration with the top of the headlight trim ring; instead, it pokes upward like that of a 2013 GMC Canyon. It might be a source of pride, as Flex Automotive suggests the “exterior begins with a straight-line hood design intended to enhance the vehicle’s distinctive appearance.”

From a head-on view, it looks about right. And the hood bulge of the Renoca Windansea likely looks pretty radical from behind the wheel. But body parts aren’t designed in a vacuum: Step to the side, and the Tacoma-like fenders demand more contouring everywhere else on the front end. And there’s simply no contouring to spare: There’s no surfacing around the grille, nor is there tumblehome in that front fascia to match the rest of the bodysides.

The implementation is more of a forced fit, ensuring that the nose of the Renoca Windansea looks like a pug struggling with Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome. Compare it to the unique front clip that Mitsuoka Motor bolts to the Toyota RAV4 to make the Buddy SUV, a modern tribute to Squarebody Chevy trucks with the Deluxe Appearance Package. More to the point, the Buddy looks nothing like the Chevy … but it certainly reminds you of one.

Here’s the important part: Mitsuoka took that Chevy grille and adapted it to the contours of the RAV4. The Renoca Windansea is trying to be something it can never be—a square grille jammed into a round hole, if you will.

I am sure the designer(s) of the Renoca Windansea would kill for technical support on par with that of Toyota, but Flex Ventures didn’t spend/have the money. Or perhaps it lacked Mitsuoka’s luxury of creative interpretation: Flex painted itself in a corner with its previous Toyota Land Cruiser-based throwbacks. We may never be able to walk in the designers’ shoes, so perhaps we take comfort in the fact they did a good job given their budgetary and Taco-truck design constraints?

No matter, the Renoca Windansea is cooler than ‘most any other Toyota Tacoma on the road. And that’s worth a round of applause, no matter what.

***

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When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

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Hagerty Drivers Club magazine sat down with member Richard Vaughan, a designer who has 30 years of experience in a variety of automotive product development roles at Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Rivian, to ponder the question: Will Radwood-era (post-1980) cars develop patina?

Vaughan, a graduate of Detroit’s College for Creative Studies and a lifelong car enthusiast, has written six books on Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Aston Martin and has been a concours organizer and judge for decades. He currently serves on the Advisory Team for the Detroit Concours as well as on the board of directors of the Rolls-Royce Foundation Museum and the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club.

Hagerty: Tell us what you think patina means in the classic car hobby.

Vaughan: Patina means worn in as opposed to worn out. It’s like if you buy a Ralph Lauren leather club chair, and over the years it becomes worn in and it looks like you’ve enjoyed it, but it’s still beautiful. That’s different from being worn out. Worn out looks like something you need to throw away and replace.

Cars made before the ’80s have several sensory cues that communicate that they’re worn in: smell, touch, feel. For the interior, leather, fabric, carpet, and wood are probably the four primary materials that create these sensory perceptions. On the exterior, it’s metal and chrome. Acrylic lacquer paint was commonplace from the immediate postwar era through the ’70s. Cars had a lot of paint, and it wasn’t quite as glossy as modern paints. When you polish and polish acrylic lacquer over the years, it gets thinner and thinner, and you get those beautiful areas where you can see that someone has maybe polished through the paint a little bit. It has what I would call a luster. That changes the more you polish it, and the cars can take on a really lovely look of being worn. You can tell somebody’s loved it and they use it.

Radwood cars don’t have it?

Vaughan: You can’t get that patina because the technology just doesn’t allow it. Radwood cars all have urethane, or polyurethane, paint finishes, which is a two-stage paint: base coat, clear coat. When the clear coat fails, it starts peeling off and looks like crap. It never looks worn in; instead, it looks great until it looks bad. You’ll see the paint peeling off the clear coat in sheets.

How will exterior plastic trim age?

Vaughan: Plastics for urethane bumpers and that kind of thing often are painted, but the black-molded-in-color plastics just turn gray and look awful and then you’re trying to put Armor All on it. I mean, if you ever see an old Pontiac Aztek or Chevy Avalanche where half the car is covered in that cladding and it’s really faded—you see these little, like, lines? That’s the mold flow of the liquid plastic as it enters the injection molding tool.

Are there any remedies?

Vaughan: The idea that you could preserve it and it’ll look like it has patina? That is not going to happen. To make the car look good, you’d have to paint the parts, which is kind of weird, as it’s a deviation from the original, but you could paint with a matte finish; it doesn’t have to be a glossy paint. But then it’s not original patina; it’s something else.

So, exterior plastics will not have patina as we know and appreciate patina?

Vaughan: It would be a compromise thing. In the ’80s and into the ’90s carmakers, especially of mass-market cars—this doesn’t apply to a Ferrari or a Bentley—but cars like a Corvette or a Pontiac 6000 STE—they use a lot of PVC—polyvinyl chloride—and a lot of polypropylene, which is the hard material that turns brittle and breaks. In the ’80s, most of that polypropylene, or PP as we call it in the industry, was painted. If you had a beige interior, they would mold the plastics in beige and they would also be painted beige. And, so, two things can happen. You can have the paint starting to separate from, or delaminate from, the substrate, or you can have the plastics getting so brittle that they break and are not repairable. When you’re shopping for a used car from that era, you have to ask: What was the climate where that car lived? If the car came from Texas, every time you take a plastic part off the car, you might as well be sure you have a replacement when you need to put it back on. A car from a place like Seattle where it’s not incredibly hot and there’s not a lot of UV damage, because there’s a lot of cloud cover, might be OK. But eventually time will get all these polypropylene parts.

Is it possible that 25 years from now we collectively might decide that it’s charming when those 1990s plastics turn gray?

Vaughan: I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in life, but I don’t think anybody will value that.

Does that mean that in 2050 we will clearly know the difference between a patina-era and a non-patina-era car?

Vaughan: A lot of it will depend on the car. There may be within a certain car community an appreciation for some aspect of the degradation of the materials, like we do today for cars in the ’50s and ’60s that are original. But it’s going to depend on how those materials were used in a particular vehicle.

Here’s another example: leather, which people value a lot, but which has changed and evolved. If you look at a car from the ’60s or ’70s and into the ’80s, leather seating was literally leather sewn together, which can be repaired. And if it’s a really nice car with a thick hide properly dyed rather than simply sprayed with a topcoat of color, you can get a beautiful patina as the leather wears in and you start to see some of the layers of the material. These leathers didn’t have coatings to prevent moisture from getting in. So you could put a cream on the leather, what we call “hide food.”

But in the ’90s, car companies started laminating the leather to protect it and add softness. The leather is laminated to a foam scrim, or backing, to provide some initial softness when you touch the material. But over time, the foam backing starts to break down and de-laminate. And then the leather seat looks like a sleeping bag. Look at, say, a 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage or DB9 or an ’07 Bentley Azure convertible. You peer into the interior and you say: My goodness, these seats look terrible, loose and baggy. It’s because the foam has de-laminated and turned to dust. It’s common across most premium automakers—I have this conversation all the time with the Rolls-Royce community.

What if that coated leather cracks?

Vaughan: Putting hide food on modern leathers is a waste of time and money because the coatings are designed to prevent, to repel, absorption.

The leather that we of a certain generation loved because of the way it looked, felt, and smelled, and its incredible durability? That traditional material is not considered to have a premium haptic anymore. Today’s luxury buyer would find it to be too hard and firm to the touch. That all changed due to the consumer desire for this sensory perception. It’s also worth pointing out that the cost of leather is very high in more than mere dollars. Leather is extremely heavy.

Foam lamination is also used for vinyl. When we say vinyl, what we usually mean in the car industry is a PVC-coated cloth. And when you talk about synthetic leather that you might find in a modern upscale car like a Lucid or Rivian, that typically is polyurethane. In the business, we would always call that “PU” or “PUR” for polyurethane. And the technical term for these treatments, by the way, is polymeric films.

If we say vinyl, that’s internally [inside car companies and suppliers], because we know that the consumer doesn’t like that word, so we don’t use the word vinyl if we’re talking about the higher-end product that’s polyurethane-based, even though it is indeed just vinyl.

Everybody would consider it vinyl, but the industry often draws a distinction between PVC vinyl and PUR by calling PUR “vegan leather”—but they’re both just petroleum-based polymeric films. The main difference is that the PUR feels more like leather.

None of these plasticized interior materials is going to age well?

Vaughan: Well, that’s one benefit of PVC. It looks good and lasts forever. Everybody’s heard of MB-Tex. You can see a 50-year-old Mercedes and the seats look brand new.

Is PVC vinyl a candidate for patina?

Vaughan: No. Patina implies that it has a worn look. This stuff just doesn’t wear; it can last a very, very long time. Now, of course, like everything, there are really cheap versions where you can wear off the topcoat. But, you know, a car that has a really nice PVC vinyl will keep a new look or good condition look for an extremely long time.

You mentioned Corvette earlier. If we’re talking C4 through C8 Corvettes, in 2050, will there be aftermarket replacements for both interior and exterior plastics?

Vaughan: I think the cost of injection-molding tooling is lower and lower all the time, and 3D printing will allow people to replace parts that would have otherwise not been available. But these are going to be like-new spec. There’s no way in 2050 to make a C7 Corvette have patina as we currently perceive patina.

So, back to our earlier thesis, patina may die after 1980 …

Vaughan: I think your thesis is accurate.

***

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One American sedan is still rolling off the assembly line, be it in Azerbaijan, in China, or in these United States, surviving and thriving in a global marketplace. With well over 10 million sold worldwide since 1964, the Malibu has been everything from a gussied-up Chevelle to the middle-class family sedan presented here. Which makes it a winner, and not entirely by attrition.

Finding a family sedan is harder than it used to be, especially if you want to buy American. But the current Malibu is a perfectly respectable car, American or otherwise. Even better, a 2019 refresh gave the Malibu a face worthy of competition with imported sedans and every crossover utility on the market. It’s big and bold, but also delicate and effortless. So let’s run this Canadian-spec Malibu, which I rented last month, over the vellum.

I’m not a huge fan of the Gaping Maw School of Design (TM), but it offers a beautiful way to integrate pedestrian safety into a modern automobile. And in the case of the Malibu, a larger opening made decades of Chevrolet split grilles finally make sense. Note how the grille’s lower chrome bands form a muscular ripple in the center, a shape that translates back to the hood’s pointed beak and muscular power bulge.

This is a very refined design with fantastic surfacing, giving the Malibu a front end on par with that of any premium vehicle from a more aspirational brand. And that’s a big deal considering previous implementations.

But don’t take my word for it: Take a look at the slideshow above, and the half-baked, bisected-by-bowtie grilles that preceded our car below. Every Malibu before this 2019 redesign sported a milquetoast grille that was lost in a sea of bold-faced Chrysler 300s.

This expensive-looking grille makes no apologies for its design: Chrome-accented black plastic is the modern-day equivalent of tail fins on American sedans from decades past.

Even the grille’s details are done right: The Chevy bowtie emblem boldly sticks out farther than the center grille bar but is elegantly molded around said bar.

The obligatory blocked-out grille holes, something I usually dislike, are pushed so far into the background that it takes serious effort to spot them. There are simply too many crisp horizontal lines, subtle contours, and chrome trimming to make the block-off plates visible to the passerby. Even better, the block-off plates’ linear relief pattern is nestled so deeply behind the bars of the grille bars that they are rewarding to behold once you get up close.

Even the holes for a front license plate are downright impossible to spot behind all that gently bechromed geometry.
Sajeev Mehta

This is one of the few bad angles for the Malibu’s grille: the headlights and painted bumper are absolutely dwarfed by this angry grille with a furrowed brow.

But it’s okay to be angry when almost all of your brother sedans from the Motor City have fallen by the wayside. The Malibu’s center chrome spear turns into a frame inside the headlight assembly. The transition from indoor to outdoor chrome trim is a bit awkward, but it’s downright breathtaking considering this isn’t a luxury vehicle.

More to the point, I’m thrilled that such attention was paid to a vehicle that stickers for $25,100 in today’s economy ($33,074 CAD as rented).

The grille and headlights combine to make the face of a vehicle that we all should be proud to own over others at the same price point. From the front, the Malibu is more restrained than a Camry, far more exciting than an Accord, and, best of all, it’s a gen-u-wine family sedan and not a crossover utility.

The cooling ducts and front splitter are non-functional, but remember how much real estate needs to be covered on tall, boxy front fascias of modern cars. This execution looks pretty great, with secondary lamps mimicking the “cooling duct” texture, itself a nice homage to the grille’s texture.

The color contrast between white paint up top and black trim below adds functionality, as the bumper is less likely to need a pricey bumper repaint in a minor collision. Hopefully, some sections of that massive grille can be rebuilt individually, like that of the Fusion sedan before it.

Is this the pointed hood of a Chevy Camaro? The DNA of Chevrolet’s pony car is very much on display in the Malibu, and that’s another reason why this body style might be the best of the Malibu series.

The sheer volume of creases on the hood makes no sense from up close, but their proliferation is not unique to the Malibu. The mission of these lines makes more sense when you step back.

The hood lines are actually a transition from a low front fascia (relatively low, anyway, provided a Chevy Corsica doesn’t park nearby for reference) to the tall cowl below the A-pillar. Go way back, like back into your hotel room, and the lines turn into connective tissue: the lines that add logic to the space between the cowl and the aforementioned “muscular ripple” in the center of the grille.

Speaking of connective tissue, there’s a hard line at the grille’s widest point, mirrored by the hard edge that frames the secondary lighting pod and fake cooling duct. It’s a nice compliment, one that doesn’t try too hard to make the visual handshake work.

The Camaro’s front-end design makes an even bigger impression on the Malibu, as the header panel pushes the Malibu’s hood back just like it does on Chevy’s pony car. The turn signal also has the same smart upkick in its tail, albeit with a chrome frame to work with the grille.

But the Malibu’s proportioning makes it clear this is a front-wheel-drive sedan for modest family needs, and not a rear-wheel-drive Camaro.

Much like the grille, the level of surfacing on the 1LT grade Malibu’s 17-inch wheels is impressive. Someone took the time to craft these muscular spokes and spent the money for the brushed aluminum center caps, which add a bit of prestige.

The front end’s aggressive face transitions to a bodyside akin to that of the Chevy Impala (RIP 2021), but the surfacing is far more subtle than that of the former flagship Chevy sedan.

Unlike the Impala, even the hard bends in its side profile are muted by curved transitions. The block of metal between the hood and the A-pillar is regrettable, but this tall cowl needs a filler panel in the fender to make everything line up.

To wit, imagine if the cowl ended where that chrome strip begins. This would be a far, far, sleeker design.

While the Malibu’s door lettering appears to be perched high atop this body, it actually falls closer to the midpoint of the door, which is unfortunate but expected with a cowl this tall. Still, the door stretches impressively forward, while the contouring of the body side is subtle and almost expensive-looking.

That long A-pillar makes for a sleek door, and pricey chrome trim and this nicely chiseled sideview mirror look more upmarket than the Malibu’s base price would suggest. Note the strong shadow where my finger’s pointing, as this assembly is sculpted quite nicely.

Too bad about the excess flashing on the mirror’s mounting panel—affordable family cars exist for good reason.

More to the point, I’m glad Chevrolet spent the money in places that matter. Like this blackout pillar trim, as it helps the chrome-rimmed DLO truly stand out.

Ditto the fact that Chevrolet spent the money for an actual piece of glass behind the rear window, instead of the DLO FAIL we see in the other sedan in GM’s portfolio.

It truly feels like Chevy’s designers had more time, money, and desire to surface the Malibu compared to their counterparts at Cadillac who made the CT5.

The only bit of bodyside surfacing that doesn’t quite work is the character line, which gets a bit too close to the negative area reserved for fingers to curl around the pull-out door handle.

And that character line has an aggressive downward trajectory as it slides back to the rear door. It is not terribly organic because of the door handle’s location—dropping it down an inch or so wouldn’t kill the flow.

And when that character line falls down the door, another one begins, crossing (too closely!) over the rear door handle, and becoming a significant design element in the quarter panel.

Indeed, it becomes a hard crease that does a fantastic job of elongating the quarter panel. Too bad it also has to crease the filler door; very few designs get away with an unbent gas door.

Down by the rocker panel, you can see how a few hard bends remain across the body (the chassis needs to remain flat for passenger space) but a cosmetic character line does bend upward to harmonize with the downward bend just a few feet away.

These body creases really make you forget how tall modern vehicles are, don’t they? Yeah, me neither. 

This body’s presence in rental fleets almost ensures it won’t be considered automotive art; its main role is to be an alternative to a Nissan rival. (Remember the infamous Big Altima Energy movement?) And that’s a shame, as the all-glass DLO, chiseled doors, and long strokes across the body deserve more recognition outside of airport parking lots.

But this one crease in the quarter panel? It feels unnecessary, relative to the flatted-out plane around the wheel arch, and almost fights the mandatory cut line for the rear bumper. I’d eliminate this bit of surface tension and let the cutline do its job, visually speaking.

Aside from the aforementioned crease, this might be the best angle on the Malibu. The bumper moves skyward to meet the tall rear deck, and the tail lights are squinting, like they are thinking long and hard about something. The integrated decklid spoiler kicks up, like an angry forehead enhancing those slitted eyes, while the bumper cutline goes right up to the tail lights like a mean mugging mouth.

But this is far from an overly angry family sedan. There’s a lot of swoopy, harmonious curves here, accomplishing so much without resorting to the tacked-on blobs seen on the Toyota Camry.

The bumper’s upward slope is accentuated by this black panel, which pretends to be a diffuser. Blackout trim panels at the top or bottom of a body are a common trick these days to reduce visual bulk, and they really help accentuate the aggressive upward slope of the bumper.

Large relief patterns and an integrated reflector also help reduce the visual bulk of this tall vehicle.

Sometimes I wish body sides had character lines that were this linear and flowing instead of swooshes and such stamped onto those huge doors.

The bumper’s upper character line aggressively moves upward to meet the taillight, thereby reducing the size of the bumper shelf and providing a clean break for aerodynamic efficiency along the bodyside.

Those squinting tail lights meet a center relief in the trunklid that looks like a menacing grin. The trunk itself has a gentle, sculptural curve from top to bottom, which smooths out the grin and makes it feel more natural than the jagged elements in the C8 Corvette’s license plate area.

That sculptural curve ensures there’s plenty of room to tuck a backup camera in the license-plate relief …

… but the curve isn’t wild enough to mess with the bowtie emblem’s mounting surface.

Ditto the surface behind the Malibu emblem. You can see just how “hard” the lights squint from other angles, just by looking at their drop in height relative to the emblem’s horizontal orientation.

The red lights themselves have a replicated “L” pattern in their internal diffusers, an accent that makes them almost as cool as the fancy LED units found on 2LT Malibu, as the duplication really accentuates the squint.

Get above the vehicle, and the fastback-style roof sports aggressive muscles that effortlessly translate to the deck lid.

It’s just a shame the muscular character line fights for your attention with a downright counterintuitive cutline between the trunk and the quarter panel. Odds are the cutline could be slightly modified to have the aggression of the character line while still working as a functional door with bulky hinges.

The strong linear elements presented in the rear are matched by exposed rain gutters on the roof. I never loved the gutter covers on similar family sedans, as it leaves more money for stockholders desirable items like a big screen with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto.

Because tech sells, and that color-matched antenna is proof. But it’s also resting on an elevated plateau on the roof. I wonder why?

Oh wow, that bump in the roof is for a white strip that turns red for the Malibu’s CHMSL. This kind of surprise and delight I would never have suspected in this car, but it’s precisely why I wanted to write this installment of Vellum Venom.

Here’s the thing: Even the most boring, mundane, and forgettable piece of product design was designed by folks who (at one point) were thrilled to be doing this task. I am sure even designer Yves Behar has some level of pride in the Juicero, as his efforts aren’t necessarily the problem with that doomed product. But comparing a failed San Francisco start-up to work on a General Motors product is a bit disingenuous, even if the results of both ventures are equally forgettable to most onlookers.

At least plenty of folks will enjoy driving this Chevy Malibu, in either a fleet or retail setting. Many won’t admit it, but some just want to understand why they’re intrigued by this vehicle. If so, I hope I helped make that happen.

I firmly believe these lines will age extremely well over time. And with that, thank you again for reading Vellum Venom. Have a good week!

***

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We recently looked at what may well have been the first two car-based pickup trucks, the 1937–39 Studebaker Coupe Express and the 1941–47 Hudson Cab Pick-up. The ’41 Hudson pickups were also connected to another first, the American automotive industry’s first fulltime female designer, Elizabeth “Betty” Thatcher Oros, who had an important role in styling those trucks.

If the name Oros is familiar to you as a car enthusiast, it’s likely because Joseph Oros was in charge of the design team responsible for the first Ford Mustang. Joe, who previously had worked for General Motors, was not, however, the only pioneering automotive stylist in the Oros family.

Mrs. Oros—Joe Oros’ wife, nee Elizabeth Anna Thatcher, better known as Betty—had her own role in automotive styling history. She was, the record indicates, the first full-time female designer in the U.S. auto industry, perhaps worldwide. She wasn’t the first female car designer, though, since women designers and artists had worked as consultants for color and interior fabrics. Helen Dryden worked for Raymond Loewy‘s studio on Studebaker interiors in the 1930s, and the car company even advertised “It’s styled by Helen Dryden.” Helene Rother was hired by Harley Earl at GM, to work on interiors, again, in 1942 and later was an important consultant to Nash. And Audrey Moore Hodges started in 1944 at Studebaker and was later responsible for the ill-fated Tucker‘s interior.

As for Betty Oros, she was hired in at Hudson in 1939 when she was still known as Betty Thatcher. Most sources consider her to be the first woman to get a full-time job in a domestic automaker’s design studio, and the record seems to indicate she was indeed the first to do any exterior styling, almost two decades before any other women have been credited with exterior styling on a domestic automotive vehicle. Bill Mitchell, who headed GM styling after Harley Earl retired in the late ’50s, hired female designers like Sue Vanderbilt but also said he’d never let a woman head an exterior design team.

Before we get into Betty Thatcher Oros’ story, there needs to be a clarification. A number of sources—including the John Boyd Smith Collection and Wikipedia—attribute the 1941 Hudson pickup’s attractive exterior styling to Betty Thatcher Oros. While Oros undoubtedly worked on exterior trim and has her role in automotive history, the notion that she was responsible for the overall look of the vehicle is a bit like saying that actress Hedy Lamarr invented the cellphone. While Lamarr’s co-invention of radio frequency hopping for secure control of naval torpedoes is conceptually similar to how cellular service works and is arguably a foundational idea, cellphones really weren’t invented until almost a half-century after Lamarr’s patent was granted.

In an interview conducted by the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s automotive oral history project with her and her husband, recorded in the late 1980s, Betty Thatcher Oros explained that while she worked on exterior trim (her first job being the Hudson sedan’s brand identifying hood-side running lights), most of the sheet-metal styling was pretty much already established, and it wasn’t going to be changed due to financial limitations. Also, while Hudson had its own design team, under the leadership of Frank Spring, Hudson was still buying bodies from Briggs and Murray, whose own styling teams and engineers had significant input into the exterior design of Hudson vehicles.

Betty Thatcher Oros was born Elizabeth Anna Thatcher in Elyria, Ohio, in 1917. Graduating from Elyria High School in 1935, she wanted to go to art school, though her father, an accountant, thought secretarial school was a more practical choice. She enrolled in what was then called the Cleveland School of Arts, formerly the Western Reserve School of Design for Women and today known as the Cleveland Institute of Art. She majored in Industrial Design, which she said she enjoyed “very much,” graduating with honors. She went into the field wanting to design products, though she hadn’t originally intended to be an automotive designer. In possibly another one of those Hedy Lamarr incidents, some sources say Betty was the first woman in America to major in industrial design, but again in the recorded oral history she says there were “other girls” taking industrial design courses.

Perhaps due to the influence and publicity surrounding Helen Dryden, or perhaps because Hudson Motor design head Frank Spring was just a forward-thinking person, he wrote a letter to the Cleveland School of Arts looking for a female designer around the time Thatcher Oros graduated in 1939.

“He had the right idea,” Thatcher Oros said, describing Spring’s motivation. “He thought that the cars should at least appeal to women because, at that time, I guess most families had only one car, and he thought that the woman of the family would have a lot to say about which car would be chosen because of the appearance, never mind whether it ran well or not. So he wanted a female designer, to consult and also do some designing. So he wrote the Cleveland School of Art and they had me to come to Detroit for the interview.”

Thatcher Oros had already received a scholarship for a fifth year at the school, but she wanted to get working. At the interview, Spring wanted to know if she was serious about design and started to ask her questions about cars. “He didn’t know I couldn’t drive, but I had an idea about good design.” When offered the job, she went straight back to Elyria, and on Labor Day 1939 her mother drove her to Detroit. The next day she started working in Hudson Motor Company’s design department.

Thatcher Oros’ initial work for Spring did involve the traditional female role as color and fabric consultant, but she also worked on what she referred to as exterior “decoration” for the upcoming 1941 models. Again, clarifying her role in exterior design, she said, “At the time they weren’t changing the body shape very much, I guess, moving forward. I worked on what they called the side bonnet lights. There was a little triangular light at the front [side] of the hood, that would be on at night, of course, which would be instantly recognizable as a Hudson. That was for the top-of-the-line [model]. Then the less expensive Hudson had sort of a rectangular light. This was all incorporated in the chrome trim that went the length of the car.”

You might think that a running light is a small thing of no great importance, but many of the automotive industries most celebrated designers started out working on things like knobs, switches, mirrors, and lights. To be historically accurate, more than a few celebrated designers also ended up working on those things later in their careers. Designers may be the rock stars of the auto industry, but they can get knocked down a peg or two by senior executives. For example, Camillo Pardo went from designing the 2003 Ford GT supercar to working on mirrors.

For the ’41 Hudsons, including the Cab Pickup and Big Boy, Thatcher Oros also worked on the interior hardware, including the instrument panel. She was particularly proud of her concave radio grille. She was assigned by Spring to work under Art Kibiger, assistant styling director at Hudson and later technical director for styling at American Motors. Kibiger gave her a place for her drawing board by the window of his own office, paternalistically telling her that she shouldn’t be exposed to the “language” used in the all-male design studio. When the interviewer suggested that it was also to prevent her from being a distraction to the male designers, Betty modestly said, “Oh, I don’t think so.”

While I’ve been unable to locate a photo of Betty, her daughter told me that she was an attractive and elegant lady, always well dressed.

“Eventually I did go in the studio after a while,” Thatcher Oros says in the oral history. “After all, designers talk among themselves and talk over the development of what they’re working on. They must have cleaned up their act because I didn’t notice any bad language, and I enjoyed working with them.”

While Kibiger’s actions seems paternalistic and condescending to our modern ears, it seems to me that they accurately reflected the attitudes of the day concerning women in the workplace. Kibiger and Spring understood the need to have women’s input in design and respected Thatcher’s contributions, while at the same time they respected the social conventions of the day.

While some sources erroneously credit Thatcher Oros with the exterior design, one of her regrets was that she didn’t have more influence over the shape of the body. She said that when she was in school the emphasis was on forward-thinking, modern design. While today we might see the ’41 Hudson, including the trucks, as exemplary period designs, at the time Betty was disappointed that due to budgetary constraints her team wasn’t able to make the body “more modern, more streamlined.” There’s more than a little irony in accounts these days that credit her with the overall exterior design of those vehicles. Not only is that an exaggeration at best, but she also wasn’t exactly thrilled with how the vehicles came out.

In 1941, Betty Thatcher married Joseph Oros. The two had met while both were learning design at the Cleveland School. By then, Joe held a job as a designer in the Cadillac studio at General Motors. When the two got engaged, they knew that to avoid any suspicion of conflict of interest, one of them would have to quit their job before anyone in the industry found out about their relationship. Not surprisingly, considering the social standards of the day, it was Mrs., not Mr., Oros who resigned.

In the oral history, Thatcher Oros says that it wouldn’t have been an issue at the time of the recording, and while that sounds like she would have liked to continue her career as a designer she also expressed no regrets about becoming a full-time housewife to Joe and mother to their five children. In retirement, the Oros family moved to Santa Barbara, California. A lifelong lover of the arts, Betty Thatcher Oros served as a board member for both the Santa Barbara Museum and the Symphony League. She died in 2001, but her contribution to the automotive industry lives on.

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On what was presumably a slow but not uninteresting day in Nissan’s public relations office, the press agents packaged some concept cars from the past that celebrate Nissan Design America (NDA)’s 40 years of styling in its San Diego facility, which opened in February of 1983, and had designers reflect on “the impact of four landmark concepts that originated at NDA. Four decades, four groundbreaking concepts that transformed Nissan.”

“These ‘show cars’ allow engineers to unveil the latest innovations in technology and powertrain development. Meanwhile, they give designers an opportunity to dream big, and to gauge the reception of visual elements before they are implemented on production vehicles,” Nissan said.

Indeed, 25 years ago some rather wild-looking concepts frequently populated auto shows, which were then much more popular than now. Today’s shows typically feature concepts that are little more than slightly disguised future production cars, which is much more cost-effective than building something that will never be sold.

Still, we miss them.

NX-21 concept

“In the future-focused 1980s, Nissan had established itself at the forefront of cutting-edge technology and design. For proof, look no further than the 1983 NX-21: the first concept created at Nissan Design America. With wind-cheating lines and a huge greenhouse, the NX-21 featured gull-wing doors and a rear-mounted turbine engine that could run on multiple fuel sources.”

When Hiren Patel began working at NDA in 2001, he overlapped with some of the original NX-21 design team. Now senior manager of exterior design, Patel says the NX-21 was a “prime example of Nissan’s dedication to providing the perfect blend of quality, affordability and tech.”

“The NX-21 was category-breaking, not only in terms of aesthetic, but functionality,” Patel said. “It felt like it was from the future.” He added that concepts like the NX-21 allow a brand to give the public and press an idea of where their design language is heading. “We don’t have fast fashion in the car business,” Patel said. “It’s like having a runway model. After going to Paris Fashion Week, you’re not going to buy that look at a store the next day, but it gives you an idea of the aesthetic.”

It may be a stretch, but Nissan insists that three years later, the NX-21’s visual cues “were clearly seen in the Nissan Pulsar NX production car, which debuted in 1986 with a first-of-its-kind removable hatch roof.” The Pulsar was a fun little car that was clearly ahead of its time, but has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and resale value. “One glance at the Pulsar’s angular rear and louvered taillamps shows the NX-21’s influence.” Maybe.

Z Concept

When sales of the Nissan 300ZX in the U.S. “ceased after 1996, fans were understandably eager to know about the future of the iconic sports car. The answer came in the form of the 1999 Z Concept. Revealed at the 1999 Detroit Auto Show, the Z Concept made it clear: Nissan was committed to producing world-class sports cars.”

Bruce Campbell, who retired as vice president of NDA in 2010, was focused on the concept’s interior. He said that while the Z Concept’s design was not retro, it was a clear homage to a back-to-basics, lightweight sports car. “We wanted to make it modern and yet have some clues that would reference the original 240Z,” Campbell said. “It was fun to go back and pare it down to the essentials, and truly make it a sports car instead of just a sporty car.”

“The Z Concept was not a direct visual inspiration for the 350Z, which launched for the 2003 model year, but the principles of the concept lived on in the production vehicle,” Nissan insisted.

“What carried over was the sense of that clean, simple gesture,” Campbell said.

Infiniti Essence

“Sometimes,” Nissan said, “a concept’s purpose is not to preview one production vehicle, but an entire lineup. That was certainly the case when Infiniti revealed its striking Essence concept at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show.”

Giovanny Arroba, senior director of design, says that the dramatic lines of string instruments inspired his first sketch for the show car. Now based in Japan, Arroba was a senior designer at NDA when he designed the exterior of the concept. “It was meant to be a symphony of shape, seduction, and beauty,” Arroba said. “I wanted to do something that was distinctive and had not been done before.”

“The Essence had a substantial impact on Infiniti’s look throughout the 2010s, as designers regularly referenced it when styling production vehicles,” Nissan said.

“It’s an honor to become part of that story. That’s what drives you to do it again and again,” Arroba said. “When you work on a car like that, it’s magic.”

The Essence is the car Infiniti should have built. It hasn’t had a true signature model since the brand launched with the Q45 in 1990. The Essence could have given Nissan a lot of momentum when it needed it most.

Xmotion concept

“When it came time to redesign the massively popular Rogue in the late 2010s, Nissan designers set out to preview its new look through the Xmotion concept,” Nissan said.

“We wanted to use [the Xmotion concept] as an exploration project for future design language,” said Lars Taubert, project lead designer, who was part of the Xmotion team at NDA. He said the designers leaned into Nissan’s Japanese DNA and created something that was equal parts tough and emotive.

“It’s mainly a communication tool. You get people used to changing shapes, and you can use them to communicate your future thoughts,” he said.

***

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Throughout automotive history, few expressions have been misused more often than this marketing standby: “race car for the road.” Cliché, indeed, but accurate in the case of the 1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale.

Development of a road-going version of the Alfa Romeo “Tipo 33” sports prototype started before the latter’s racing career had even begun. Company president Giuseppe Luraghi’s target for Carlo Chiti—the head of Alfa’s racing department, Autodelta—was as simple as it was ambitious: The 33 Stradale had to deliver no less than 95 percent of the racing car’s overall performance.

As time and resources were limited and legal requirements for homologation hardly an issue, the 33 Stradale inherited the race car’s exotic chassis design and highly-strung 1995-cc V-8 engine with remarkably few modifications. The result, presented in August of 1967, was a featherweight 1500-pound supercar that delivered Miura-esque performance with an engine half the size.

Despite this achievement, its extreme specification and blistering performance aren’t what people first think about whenever the 33 Stradale is mentioned. Attention instead lands on the voluptuous curves Franco Scaglione penned for the car, which earned the 33 Stradale a well-deserved reputation as one of the most beautiful automobiles ever made.

As a former car designer myself, I imagine the scale of reinventing such a classic design to have been monumental. As an Italian, as well, it would involve seriously conflicting emotions: On one hand, it is an Alfa Romeo supercar, which is the sort of assignment of which every designer dreams. On the other, however, it sets any work up against an ideal that is near-impossible to equal.

I interviewed Alfa Romeo’s head of exterior design, Bob Romkes, to pick his brain about the fascinating new 33 Stradale supercar. (Read the full story on that debut here.) For Romkes, reimagining the 33 Stradale for the 21st century was: “definitely an enormous challenge. But that wasn’t a reason not to do it. We wanted to dream and put the bar high for Alfa Romeo,” he said. “We have a very capable design team, so we trusted our capability to make something beautiful.”

Beautiful it is indeed. I admit to letting out a big sigh of relief once the smoke cleared and I first laid eyes on the new 33 Stradale. The stakes were high, but Alfa’s designers masterfully captured the 33 Stradale’s essence and delivered a gorgeous design that is a worthy homage to its hallowed namesake.

This is no small feat, especially given how much the world has changed since 1967. Designing a supercar in the 2020s is operating in an entirely different universe. “It was very important to find the right balance between the past, using the right cues from the original,” Romkes stressed, “but also looking to the future, to have something that hits the sweet spot between old and new.”

Like all the best classic Italian designs, the original 33 Stradale was devoid of gratuitous ornamentation, an approach Romkes was keen to maintain: “We wanted to use all the iconic features of the original car and combine them with aerodynamic features.” As an example, he cites the new car’s large headlights, which also integrate a functional cooling duct.

The same is true for the character lines on the front hood, which, as Romkes explains, not only evoke the shape of Alfa’s “shield” grille but also guide the air towards the side mirrors, whose shape was optimized to send the airflow towards the engine air intake on the sides.

Aerodynamics plays a crucial role in a vehicle capable of a top speed of over 200 mph, yet Alfa’s designers managed to avoid adding spoilers or other tacked-on bits. The new 33 Stradale retains the sexy, curvaceous side section that is such a hallmark of Scaglione’s original. That is my favorite aspect of the whole project, and Romkes explained how it was achieved: “Visually, we split the car in two. The lower part is technical and dark, while the upper part is the beauty, the sculpture.

“We passed many hours in the wind tunnel because we didn’t want to have active aerodynamics, so everything had to be in the sculpture, exactly like the original car.”

Still, designers found room to incorporate some neat detail touches. The one that immediately caught my attention is that aforementioned Alfa Romeo “shield,” whose layered, three-dimensional treatment reminded me of the front of the classic 2000 GTV. I wondered if that was indeed the inspiration: “Absolutely,” Romkes said. “That’s one of the most beautiful Alfa Romeo grilles.”

Although it may be purely coincidental, the new 33 Stradale’s reveal comes precisely 20 years after that of Alfa’s previous supercar, the 8C Competizione. That car went on to exert a powerful, lasting influence on the design of subsequent mass-market Alfa Romeos, so I wanted to know whether we could expect the same to happen for the 33 Stradale. Romkes remained predictably coy on that matter, but let on a little: “You’ll see elements of the 33 in the future lineup, but I cannot specify which ones.”

With this halo car, Alfa Romeo has produced a dream car that carries with it the promise of a brighter future for the brand. Speaking as a 40-year-old Italian, I’ve heard bold Alfa Romeo revival plans for as long as I’ve been alive, but looking at the new 33 Stradale makes me feel genuinely optimistic. The project is a shrewd play on nostalgia, yes, but it’s a well-executed one. And if there’s a brand that can pull such a thing off, it’s Alfa Romeo.

Remember, this is a brand with immense heritage yet nothing to lose in today’s market. The automotive world is in flux, facing an uncertain future, which means now is maybe the perfect time for Alfa Romeo to emphasize its unique history, futurism be damned. Because nothing sells like a good story, and Alfa’s rear-view is full of them.

***

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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To recognize 25 years of the Audi TT and commemorate its final year in production, we bring you this story focusing on the sports car’s greatest strength: design. To read about our recent drive and market analysis of the Mk1 TT, click here, and come back tomorrow for a road test of the final, 2023 model. -Ed.

This year marks the end of the road for a car that first landed as a monument of modern automotive design. The Audi TT hit the road in 1998 and experienced immediate success, elevating Audi’s street cred and helping evolve the brand from staid luxury sedan maker to, well, a luxury sedan maker with better taste. The TT’s fundamental appeal was its freshness. It leaned on neither retro cues nor nostalgia, instead adopting a simple, comprehensible aesthetic that was as exciting for the everyman as it was for design purists.

How did Audi arrive at such a formula? Not through endless focus groups and committee-led design sessions, but rather from a spur-of-the-moment idea. More specifically, Freeman Thomas’ idea.

Today, Thomas is CEO and Chief Creative Officer for Meyers Manx. Back in the ’90s, he was at Volkswagen and on the heels of a big success with the Concept One, a design project developed with J Mays that would ultimately become the New Beetle.

The original concept for the TT was born in March of 1994. “J had become the head of design for Audi,” Thomas tells Hagerty, “and he asked me to join him, and so I did an extended business trip.” A little while later, Thomas was doodling at his desk and created a thumbnail sketch, “which was basically a little identity of the TT.”

Mays saw it and asked if he could borrow the “little doodle.” Thomas agreed and Mays walked it straight to to Franz-Josef Paefgen, Audi’s then-head of development, who fell in love with it. After that, it was just a matter of figuring out how to transform the doodle into a real-life driver’s car.

Mays, wanting to keep things quiet, arranged for a drawing table at Thomas’ apartment. It was up to the latter to refine the design in the evenings, while still doing his regular work in the studio during the day.

As the project progressed, Thomas eventually got a few more resources, including some modelers. He set himself to the task of creating a quarter-scale clay model, which Mays presented as a concept to Volkswagen Group execs, including the big boss Ferdinand Piëch, who Thomas says was “absolutely smitten.”

“And so that’s how it got cemented,” Thomas says.

The TT was first shown as a concept the following year, at the 1995 Frankfurt motor show. From there came the process of taking those initial sketches and making them into a production car, based on the Golf’s front-wheel-drive platform. That process, Thomas says, went seamlessly, which is not the case for every concept that ends up in showrooms.

“The design and the platform were really greatly suited for each other, and in no way, no how, did I ever feel that there was a compromise,” he says. In fact, one of the TT’s more notable styling cues—the way the hood blends into the fenders—was actually a product of the platform. Thomas initially planned to have a narrow hood, which wouldn’t fit, so he instead moved the shutline to the side, mid-way down the fenders. “An even better solution,” he says.

The car’s shape, which has remained basically unchanged for a quarter-century, was also a product of the tools available at the time. According to Hagerty design contributor Matteo Licata, a former automobile designer and current instructor at IAAD (Istituto d’Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin, “What you can see, toward the mid-’90s, is the very dramatic effect of surface 3D modeling software becoming really big.

“The designers playing with this new technology influenced their output, whether they liked it or not,” Licata says. “These more basic shapes, more basic volumes, intersected with each other.”

In fact, when Licata was himself learning 3D modeling software Autodesk Alias for his degree in design, his first assignment was to digitally re-create the Audi TT.

Sometimes limited tools and constraints create great things, and the resulting TT design was clearly a winner. “It is a perfect example of the zeitgeist of the era, of that precise moment in time in car design,” Licata says.

The TT resonated with the press from first blush. “My recollection is the media all loved it,” veteran automotive journalist Angus MacKenzie—the former editor-in-chief of MotorTrend, U.K.’s CAR, and Australia’s Wheels—told me. “It was seen as an instant design classic; a more original car than the BMW Z3 or the Mercedes-Benz SLK.”

Still, some automotive purists at the time panned the TT for its Golf-platform roots. That never bothered MacKenzie. “I remember the car feeling tight and fun. You could feel it was essentially a front-drive platform, as opposed to the Z3 and SLK, which had a traditional rear-drive sports car feel, but that didn’t diminish the enjoyment. Plus, it looked so cool on the road; there was nothing out there like it. You felt like you were driving a concept car.”

That otherworldly look helped drive its popularity elsewhere, too. “For a couple of years, the TT was the car to have,” Licata says. “Other coupes in the similar category, no one wanted them anymore. People had to have the TT, purely on the strength of the design that resonated with people … It became the car used on TV shows, in advertising, even for unrelated products.”

As good as it looked, though, it had one design flaw: imperfect aerodynamics. After a handful of high-speed accidents in Europe, early examples of the TT were recalled in 1999 to implement suspension and traction control improvements, as well as a new spoiler on the rear decklid.

While many decried the little lip as ruining the car’s ideal form, Freeman Thomas is more pragmatic about it: “It wasn’t that unfortunate. I mean, it was so small.”

***

Audi left the TT largely unchanged through the 2006 model year, after which came the challenge of introducing a successor. “Once they captured lightning in the bottle,” Licata says, “the trouble is doing it again.”

“The second TT, in typical [head of VW Group Design Walter] de Silva fashion, was a very expertly made redesign. I love the sheer smoothness of it, the surfacing,” says Licata. “But it has nowhere near the staying power of the original, because it was a derivative design that also lost some pretty key elements.”

Some of those changes, Licata believes, were driven by cost: “They cheapened out the body stamping process of the rear end because it’s much smoother. The original TT had a very expensive rear quarter,” he says. But, ultimately, he’s a fan: “It looks great. Absolutely, well done. If I was tasked at the time to re-do a TT, I certainly couldn’t have done a better job than that.”

The third-generation TT, the final chapter for the 2015–2023 model years, lacks the self-assuredness and clarity of the preceding versions. The form is there, but there are a lot of tacked-on distractions. Audi designers were more true to the TT’s ethos on the Mk3 car’s interior, which forgoes a central display and makes a handsome motif out of the HVAC vents.

I asked Freeman Thomas about the legacy of the TT and its significance to the automotive community. For him, the genesis and path of the project itself was as significant as its product: allowing a designer and their team “to create something simple, pure … something that really communicates the brand values in an absolute sense. [The TT’s] legacy is its purity.”

Purity, Thomas argues, was a key ingredient in other design icons like the original Beetle, the Mustang, and the Miata. “Those are designer cars. Those are vehicles that are so easy to understand. They’re capable and functional, full of common sense, and the sad thing is that the companies only hold on to them for a certain period of time, and then they let it go. And what’s left are just normal vehicles.”

After 2023, Audi is letting the TT go, ostensibly for good. The car leaves behind a remarkable heritage for something with such simple underpinnings, which Thomas makes no bones about: “Basically, it was a Golf underneath. But then, a Porsche 356, in many ways, was basically a Beetle underneath.”

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When it comes to BMW’s latest design exercise, the Neue Klasse concept that debuted last week in Munich, I can’t help but think of how some rules of design evolve and change. Or perhaps it’s our understanding of them. For instance, a quote: “Negative surfaces have no place in automobile design.” That’s what my professors used to tell me during the first year of my bachelor’s degree in Transportation Design. That was 2003, the same year BMW launched a positively controversial interplay of negative and positive surfaces for the E60-generation 5 Series sedan.

Under the direction of Chris Bangle, BMW’s designers were ripping to shreds the very same rulebook I was being taught to follow. As you can imagine, Bangle’s BMWs were a hot topic of discussion between us design students and our seasoned professors, and there seemed to be no middle ground. People either appreciated BMW for its courage or vehemently hated it for “ruining” the cars we grew up loving so much.

I admit I was closer to the latter camp, and it took me a few years to come around to cars like the E60-generation 5-Series mentioned above, or the E85 Z4 roadster. Twenty years on, these cars arguably look fresher and more modern than their current equivalents, and I revere them as genuine design landmarks. Much of my peers do, as well.

Even though many other BMWs from the “Bangle Era” haven’t aged nearly as well, there’s no denying the lasting impact he and his team’s work has had on the evolution of automobile design. But that was a long time ago, and I’m certainly not the only one who’s now failing to see any rhyme or reason behind the design choices that characterize the most recent crop of BMWs.

In fact, I’ve grown so accustomed to BMW’s repeated recent assaults on our retinas that I was ready to dismiss the latest Neue Klasse concept car as yet more proof that BMW has lost the plot. But that would have been unfair, because the more I look into this project, the more I realize that BMW may be onto something this time.

As most BMW fans will undoubtedly know, the “Neue Klasse” moniker was used for a seminal run of sedans and coupes built between 1962 and 1972, which established BMW as a purveyor classy, sporting cars for decades to come. In the United States, the 2002 is the most celebrated product of this lineage. Much like the rest of the German automobile industry, BMW built its fortune through skillful and incremental refinement of the same winning formula. For decades, all the Germans had to do was give their customers—every few years—a bigger, faster, better iteration of what they already knew and loved. Automakers could charge customers a bit more each time and then laugh all the way to the bank.

However, those days are rapidly coming to an end. The shift to electric propulsion forces BMW (just like other brands) to rethink what it stands for as a company and revise its cars’ unique selling proposition. Thus the resurrection of the “Neue Klasse” moniker for its latest concept car: the start of a new, transformative era in the marque’s history.

In this context, the choice of a classic three-box sedan format is all the more remarkable, given that this body style is currently heading the dodo’s way. It’s but one more clue that, as I’m reliably informed, BMW designers took inspiration from beloved compact sedans like the 2002 and the E30-generation 3 Series while designing the Neue Klasse.

That’s particularly evident in the concept’s slim roof pillars and ample windows, which I really hope will remain so on the production model slated for 2025/6. The front end is once again slanted forward, echoing the distinctive “shark nose” of the 1970s Bimmers. But there’s much more to the Neue Klasse than simple nostalgia for the BMWs of yore. It is a pared-back, refreshingly minimalist design almost devoid of character lines. It’s so far removed from the clumsy, overstyled monsters currently populating BMW’s showrooms that it might as well have come entirely from another company.

The Neue Klasse may have a traditional sedan body style, but its striking proportions show that its designers understood how to exploit the packaging advantages of electric vehicles to the fullest. The large-diameter 21-inch wheels are pushed toward the outer corners of the car, stretching the wheelbase and minimizing front and rear overhangs. Designers love this because it gives the vehicle a planted, purposeful stance that visually suggests roadholding and stability. Moreover, it leaves plenty of room for the underfloor battery and creates a more spacious passenger compartment relative to the car’s exterior dimensions.

If the exterior of the Neue Klasse has a definite retro-futurist vibe, its interior design is anything but. Here, BMW’s designers shunned nostalgia to fully embrace a minimalist aesthetic and digital-centric approach that does away with almost all physical controls. The dashboard is nearly bare, save for a full-width display panel called Panoramic Vision and a trapezoidal central screen. As the Neue Klasse is built on a new, dedicated EV platform, the floor is completely flat, with just a floating center console separating the four seats. It all looks very slick, perhaps too much so. The yellow corduroy upholstery is a nice touch and gives the interior some warmth, but overall, the cabin still exudes a clinical vibe. And no matter how modern and cool your dentist’s studio looks, it will still be the last place you’d like to kick back and relax. Plenty of recent concept cars from other brands have successfully demonstrated that a slick and high-tech can be inviting, as well.

So, has BMW finally rediscovered its mojo? Maybe, but I’d say it’s too early to celebrate. After all, the Neue Klasse is still just a prototype, and although it is a promising sign of things to come, it still looks somewhat half-baked in its execution, especially the rear-end design. Still, I’d much rather drive around in something like the Neue Klasse over a current X3 or X4. The production version of the Neue Klasse is expected to be released in just a couple of years’ time. It will be the first new BMW in years that I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing.

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Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

The post The Neue Klasse concept instills hope for BMW design appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It’s amazing how many luxury automotive brands made the transition from their iconic cars to the more profitable, high-volume world of sport utility vehicles. Be it sedan to SUV, or sports car to SUV, the formula is well known: Designers pick out the most important bits of their brand’s DNA, then slap it across the tall body sides and upright face of a utility vehicle. The Porsche Cayenne is almost a collectible vehicle at this point, and even Ferrari got it right. No matter how we may feel, an SUV is an inherently desirable vehicle on its luxurious, aspirational proportions alone.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow, but at some point the lines between the machismo of a cab-backward SUV over those of the glorified, passenger car–based CUV (crossover utility vehicle) get blurred. The cab-backward stuff is what really sells to this elite demographic, and that’s why it’s sad that Toyota didn’t get the memo. Both its Crown and Century models went from being the Japanese Cadillacs to CUV-based oddities. Before we discuss the all-new 2024 Century, let’s see what Toyota did with the Crown.

Although the Crown Vellfire luxury van has the gravitas of a Cadillac Escalade, it’s still clearly a narrow people mover like the Mazda MPV we had stateside. The other Crowns are either a fastback CUV or a rebadged Toyota Highlander. Not exactly the greatest start to high-end sport utility, but let’s remember that Toyota Crowns were usually an “of the era” design that fit off-the-shelf bits into whatever the vehicle needed to be to suit the market. That was never a problem, because for decades the Century was positioned above the Crown, having no peer elsewhere in the Toyota lineup.

The SUV blockification (technical term) of the famous Toyota Century should include a rear-wheel-drive architecture, complete with a longer hood to make way for a V-12 engine, or maybe a hybrid V-8 in modern times. Long, clean lines accentuated by more chrome than any other Toyota car on the planet would sweep back from that impressive powertrain, with a tall greenhouse elegantly rising above in the time-honored tradition of luxury SUVs. This is how Toyota succeeds with a luxury SUV, in the same vein as Porsche, Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and even Aston Martin have with their own SUVs.

And they almost made it work. The Century’s massive grille, turbine-style wheels, and understated body surfacing are hallmarks effectively transferred from the famous sedan to the new SUV. The headlights sport an external shape that works well with the current sedan (which is still in production, for now), but the lower chrome cladding made way for a complementary paint color in the transition. Not ideal, and the face looks a bit like a Cat Eye Silverado with LED headlights from eBay Motors. But that’s merely a North American-centric reference. The bigger problem are the overhangs that cling tightly to the massive wheels, in a most CUV-like manner. Uh-oh, is this actually a CUV and not an SUV?

It’s all very Rolls-Royce Cullinan in aspiration, if not in execution. Yes, the taut, understated body surfacing is appropriate for a luxury vehicle. But its size and proportioning do the surfacing an extreme disservice. Imagine these lines on the proportions of a Toyota Sequoia, for example. That said, words take a long time to get the point across, hence why a picture is worth a thousand of them. Or in this case, two pictures.

The proportioning is off. Way off.

This clearly isn’t derived from the third-generation Century car platform (as one does to make a Camry into a Highlander), nor is it the aforementioned Sequoia. The latter was never intended for markets outside of North America, but it woulda made for a Century that possesses Rolls-Royce–killing road presence. And this is precisely why cab-backward designs still exist in our modern society, as they simply look more prestigious.

Proportioning is likely the most important part of car design, and there is correlation to the concrete slab of a house: Do both wrong and everything afterward becomes less of an estate and more like a McMansion. The short dash-to-axle is the Century’s biggest proportional flaw, and instantly puts it in the McMansion category of luxury items. Then there’s the significant dogleg curve in the rear door that looks positively pedestrian, contributing to a passenger cabin more interested in providing CUV-like space over top-dollar style. Compared to the Roller and the Century sedan, that C-pillar looks far too much like any mainstream Toyota product: It should be further inset from the rear wheel and more upright for a more coachbuilt, limo-worthy appearance. That rear door is huge; it can afford a little trim on the back end.

Finally, take a look at how the leading edge of the Roller’s quarter window looks more like that of a train, as it’s intended to give the rear seat passenger an experience not unlike transport via luxury rail. This has been a hallmark of chauffeured motoring, from the likes of Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, and a certain American brand with an in-house coachbuilder.

Thanks to Fisher Body and Cadillac, we know this experience is easily designed and replicated with yesteryear’s cab-backward luxury coupes, as it made the Cadillac Fleetwood Series 75 a fantastic limo for many decades. Perhaps I am too much of a purist in limo designs, but no matter, I’m wondering if this thing is actually front-wheel drive…

Aw heck, look at that sideways engine. This Century is based on the aforementioned Camry/Highlander platform, right down to the transverse-mounted V-6 and hybrid powertrain. (But don’t take my word for it.) So it isn’t nearly as bespoke as its sedan sister, and it also means this is a CUV, not a proper luxury SUV. And it needed to be a cab-backward SUV, as the market already spoke on this matter.

Sadly, this Century is out of proportion by design. Even worse, Toyota had a perfectly good chassis in the Century/Lexus LS sedan. It’s a safe bet that a cost-benefit analysis was performed, and Toyota chose to class up its current CUV platforms instead of making a proper luxury SUV with traditional cab-backward design.

The stripped unibody presented above shows just how short the dash-to-axle is on this platform, but perhaps there’s a business case for tighter dimensions that ensure easier parking on the cramped streets of many Southeast Asian cities the Century calls home. But that theory falls apart when recalling that the intended owner of this vehicle is being chauffeured, and is not the driver. Instead consider the efficient hybrid powertrain’s ability to fall in line with Toyota’s Beyond Zero initiative. With headwinds like that, it’s no surprise that the Toyota Century became a boring crossover.

But what if we didn’t care about any of this green-washed, bean-counted hooey?

My dear friend David Houston, a talented auto designer I met as a student at the College for Creative Studies, loves to improve OEM designs on his personal Facebook page. He was kind enough to let me use this before/after image, as he was rendering this at the same time I was typing this very article for you wonderful folks.

David’s rendering is a properly proportioned Toyota Crown SUV, not a compromised CUV. It is far more authentic to the DNA Toyota has crafted for decades with the Century sedan, as it’s the same DNA Rolls-Royce retained for its SUV. He added more dash-to-axle real estate, darkened the lower body cladding (so it draws less attention, cough, Pontiac Aztek, cough), but kept everything else on par with the production model. (Note that the revised image was longer, and had to be shrunken down to fit in the same space as the image from Toyota.)

The work David put into the Century is likely what this vehicle needed, as yesteryear’s Century was less ostentatious than a Caddy or a Roller, but clearly a big step up from any other Toyota. Or any other Asian automaker, for that matter. But that was likely never in the cards, so this is nothing more than a sad moment in automotive history. The legacy of cab-backward flagships is likely coming to an end, as making a limousine out of a crossover-utility vehicle was the right move for a corporation with the size and scope of Toyota.

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The joy of being a consumer in the Greatest Nation in the World is in the fact that we can have our cake and eat it too. Well, provided we don’t dig too deep into the sad reality of our situation, as I recently did when treating myself to a new suit. Personal health goals made the gift to me a reality, but someone who makes a big deal about car design on the Internet should probably look the part, too. Fashion in general is spiritual window dressing, but Fast Fashion is a problem for all. So I did a little online window shopping, seeing what all the fuss is about without contributing to our society’s demise with a foolish purchase.

I checked out the latest Chinese fashion app, the website of that Spanish fashion retailer found at my local mall, and traditional offerings from physical locations of various price points. (Time was of the essence, so no custom stuff for me.) I wound up buying a more expensive suit from an American brand sporting a webpage that’s littered, so to speak, with unabashed greenwashing. For those who don’t know, greenwashing is the practice of misleading the public about a company’s environmental impact, a derivative of the more common practice of whitewashing one’s sins for improved public perception.

Greenwashing is a fantastic feel-good sales tactic, as it lets us continue to design/manufacture/purchase whatever we want with fewer consequences. The fashion industry, fast or otherwise, is a dicey proposition: the American brand I chose gave me a suit with an admirable amount of recycled materials, but they are likely greenwashing with a consortium of questionable utility. It’s a utility not unlike that of buying a 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ, the latest EV from General Motors.

We can’t have our EV cake and eat it too, as seen by the Escalade IQ’s massive 200-kWh battery pack (similar to that of the Hummer), and its prestigious 750-horsepower punch. Nobody in this country fetishizes the utilitarian, downright noble demeanor of Nissan’s Leaf (even if they probably should). Nissan’s EV is the equivalent of thrift store shopping for fast fashion, while everyone else lusts for a vehicle that meets both their needs and their aspirations.

The somewhat affordable Tesla Model 3 (or any used Tesla at this point) is a mixed bag of intenders, including aspirational BMW 3-series buyers, torque junkie street racer/SCCA autocross types, and virtue signaling environmental enablers like the once-stereotypical Prius owner from 17 years ago. The cake analogy goes to full-on “let them eat cake” as the price tag climbs, because the new Escalade IQ might be the luxurious, high-performance, greenwashed Fleetwood Talisman of our era.

Enough with the cake analogy, you say? Perhaps instead let’s focus on how automakers make the nut these days. Well, at least those outside of China. We almost exclusively design/market/retail EVs on the merits of prestige. Call it a cult, call it a validation of concept forged by the 2012 Tesla Model S, but the parallels between fast fashion and North American EVs end when our collective wallets open. Because while you can wear fast fashion and sit in the back of an Uber Black, you should be full on Burberry to purchase a new one for yourself.

Oh, but we love this vehicle at any age, any price point. The sheer number of zip codes that fell in love with Cadillac’s rebadged GMC Denali luxurious take on the Sport Utility Vehicle was astonishing. Suburbs needed the big Caddy over the minivan. Big cities needed it for flash in areas with poor coverage from Land Rover’s once-frail dealer network. And anyone who needed a truck or custom van for hauling big toys now had a Cadillac for recreational activities. The impact of this vehicle cannot be understated, especially since it stuck out like a sore thumb in Cadillac’s portfolio from the Art and Design era.

No doubt, the runaway success of the Escalade, the Escalade ESV, and even the Escalade EXT was a big middle finger to Cadillac’s corporate planners and designers, as they were crafting a prestigious image intended to steal BMW’s glory. Which rarely worked, and is another reason why we love the Escalade. A stunning rejection of modernity is fun, and the “IQ” derivative will likely make a similar impact in the EV space.

It’ll certainly extend the Escalade as a brand to a new demographic, and could turn into a pop culture icon just as quickly as select Cadillacs before it. The Escalade IQ’s proportioning is distinctly long hooded, looking more like a cab-backward station wagon than any SUV before it. Gone are the “real” Escalade’s upright pillars, though the latest gasoline-powered greenhouse also distances itself from tradition. The A/B/C pillars presented here are almost Land Roverian, while the D-pillar is a clarion call to soccer moms in their Lexus RX crossovers.

The Escalade IQ’s front end has those same large swaths of blacked-out trim and a down-the-road graphic worthy of Cadillac’s other EVs (the Lyriq and Celestiq) for maximum brand recognition. Tesla fascias are surfaced to look cheap minimalist, and Cadillac clearly wants none of that.

Cadillac, as with most premium brands, also seeks differentiation with unique lighting elements at the rear. The Escalade IQ finally deviates from a posterior heavily derived from that of a Chevrolet Tahoe. It’s about as unique as yesteryear’s tail fins and blends nicely with the DNA present in its Lyriq and Celestiq EV sisterships. It’s a softer, more approachable Cadillac SUV. Or is it?

While the Escalade IQ’s overall design looks like it’s catering to a “softer” EV crowd, don’t let the contours fool you: Everything is festooned on a shockingly upright fascia. That nose will be just as intimidating to pedestrians as any GM truck, making it clear this American EV isn’t here for saving the world. It might greenwash better than the Hummer EV before it, but that’s a low bar to clear.

Instead, this is a greenwashed take on what Cadillac’s SUV has always done: be an aspirational purchase for millions of fans, a place of respect and admiration for all occupants, and exist as both a noun and a verb in pop culture. Making the Escalade go EV won’t change the mission; it will only add more fans to its gasoline-fueled base.

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Perhaps my headline is a bit misleading: The Bronco is neither a zebra nor a tiger. It is a cow, a cash cow of the highest order. Ford’s decision to tweak the T6 truck platform to give Jeep’s Wrangler a legit competitor was brilliant and long overdue. Dearborn hit another home run by extending the Bronco brand into the C2 platform via the Bronco Sport soft-roader presented here. Sure, it’s not “the real” Bronco, but it is precisely what the market demands: mall crawling and high(er) speed family hauling.

The Bronco Sport’s styling and off-road upgrades are still true(ish) to the Bronco name, but then Ford threw us another bone: a set of throwback decals and interior trim taking us back to a simpler time. Then the company gave the vehicle the name it so truly deserves: Free Wheeling.

The Bronco Sport Free Wheeling proves Ford is focused. The company is no longer fearing its great escape from passenger-car mediocrity; as it is clear that Dearborn’s crew has no interest in fighting Toyota and Honda for sedanlette scraps. Why bother, when it is far more profitable to be a maverick and take a path that others can’t possibly travel?

C2 platform jokes aside, Ford is indeed capitalizing on the trim levels that made the company so special. (It’s about time, considering how leveraged the Dodge brand is to trims like Demon, Scat Pack, etc.) The 1970s Free Wheeling package is both obscure and tragically neglected, just like other limited production whoppers from the era like Swinger (Dodge Dart), Palm Beach (Buick LeSabre), and Talisman (Cadillac Fleetwood). In 2023’s sea of globalized mediocrity, new interpretations of these retro names and their bolder trimmings are welcome dashes of uniqueness.

Naming conventions aside, let’s get back to the Bronco Sport’s color gradient stripes. These beauties are actually a staple of 1970s graphic design, a multi-disciplinary trade applicable to any industry. Even the U.S. government made a big deal about graphic design; you can see excellent examples of the era on this Instagram account. Graphic designers working for government entities and corporations usually reduce complex themes and mission statements into a simple image, one that is easily to process and remember. Your favorite might be the NASA “worm” logo, which also made its triumphant return just a few years back.

Color gradients were a smaller part of this ’70s trend, commercializing a design theme normally reserved for hoity-toity modern art circles. I’d like to think this mass adoption tickled one Mr. Josef Albers a delightful shade of pink. Or perhaps the noted color theorist felt the joy in shades of red mixed with increasing amounts of white?

No matter, the Free Wheeling color gradient stripes on Ford trucks/vans/Pinto wagons offered the requisite amount of fun for buyers in the 1970s who were looking for a brighter, more cheerful vehicle to present themselves to the world. Perhaps the color gradient trim played well with many Americans’ notion of embracing their own need for freedom in the 1970s—or perhaps that theory goes a bridge too far, even in automotive design and branding.

However you skin it, spicing up cars with graphics was a big deal in the 1970s. Every Detroit automaker needed to sell more sizzle and less steak. Screaming chickens on Firebirds are the best example of the breed, but the designers knew that making 5-mph bumpers, pillared hardtops, and plastic-y interiors sexy wasn’t gonna be easy on any car. But they made it work: Check out the seventh-generation Thunderbird’s sales if you don’t believe me.

But it is not a stretch to suggest that today’s younger car buyers feel the same state of malaise as referenced by Jimmy Carter, so perhaps a bright collection of decals and interior fabrics are absolutely needed for the 2024 model year.

If so, history repeats itself. Those who are attuned to the cyclical nature of human existence can capitalize on that knowledge, and the good people behind the branding of the Ford Bronco are hopefully enjoying the multi-colored fruits of their labor. That said, pushing a retro agenda in a design studio can only go so far, as Josef Albers was likely right when he said: “Traditionally art is to create and not to revive. To revive: leave that to the historians, who are looking backward.”

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We may never know why Satoshi Wada made the formerly staid, static bumper of the Audi A6 into the gaping maw that changed the world in 2004. But from there on out, oversized grilles—with real-estate ratios bordering on prewar standards—became commonplace. Yet unlike yesteryear’s frontal speed holes, the faces of today’s automobiles are so large and toothy that disturbing amounts of teeth are non-functional.

It’s a shame, but better aerodynamics merits smaller grille openings than most designers would wish. It’s not the designer’s fault that vehicles are as tall and bloated as they are today, but a designer’s workaround is a grill veneer, one with all the honesty of the fake wood present in a Chevy Nova Concours. No, really—take a close look at all (most?) modern grilles and you’ll see how much of it is a solid casting of black plastic.

While we can’t blame Audi for the trend of fake teeth, oversized grille faces are now the predominant component that ensures every car has a recognizable, palatable, and marketable face. On the current (2023 model year) Hyundai Santa Fe, there are 20-something block-off plates that turn the grille into the sort of non-functional real estate normally accomplished by a painted fascia. That painted part once provided a logical transition to headlight assemblies at each corner. Without it, the Santa Fe’s headlights turn into puffy beaver cheeks adjacent to that toothy, partially fake smile.

It’s all very organic and logical, and we’ve seen this far too many times in our daily commutes. There’s no hate in my assessment: The 2023 Santa Fe’s face shows a logical evolution from Audi’s rounded, organic, gaping maw into something worthy of a mid-level CUV. Grilles as faces have been pushed to a delightfully logical extreme, but it’s so disingenuous on many modern machines.

Enter a new look with a familiar name. The 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe eschews our current trend of faking smiles and illogical headlights, bringing an honest face into the extremely profitable market of jacked up station wagons crossover utility vehicles. Instead of trying to make a face with a bold grille and catchy lighting pods, we are treated to a democratization of facial features via layers upon layers of modernist shapes.

That last sentence includes a lot of words that might fall flat. If so, consider this: It is clear that a mainstream Hyundai vehicle is officially adopting the 8-bit school of design first seen on the Ioniq 5. And 8-bit styling has strong roots in modern architecture from almost a century ago, as I can’t remember how many times I’ve associated the graphics in an Atari 2600 video game with that of modern architecture. (I’m looking at you, Atari Adventure versus any Brutalist building on a college campus.)

The Modernist tones continue at the side and rear of the new SUV, as the Santa Fe is now embracing the machinery that brings it to life. (And, perhaps, also embracing the buildings that house the design studios where the model originated?)

No matter, the influence of the revolutionary Ioniq 5 means the Santa Fe now looks less like a copy of a Land Rover. Sure, the roof pillars give off a Discovery vibe, but suggesting the Ioniq-infused Santa Fe is ripping off whole chunks of prestigious English DNA is like suggesting the 1986 Ford Taurus photocopied the 1982 Audi 5000 . . . neglecting the fact that Ford made its own wild-looking jellybean in the 1982 Ford Sierra. Don’t fall for that particular Pitfall.

Sigh. Sometimes a bad pun is needed to make a Modernist point: Going blocky with 8-bit design is a winning move in our contemporary world, either as Gen-X pop culture nostalgia or for a CUV that looks like nothing in its price bracket. The Santa Fe absolutely stands on its own four wheels, even if the jamming of the front wheel-arch contours into the front doors is rather tacky. There are layers upon layers of beauty and purpose in this new design, provided you find beauty in other Modernist designs.

The Santa Fe does for suburban families what Unité d’habitation did for living spaces in European city centers. That said, comparing the transportation needs of an American middle-class family in 2023 to the housing shortage created after WWII is a bit disingenuous. Modernism paved the way for lifting people out of poverty, serving as a guiding light for more housing in our growing, densifying cities. Applying this notion to cars may seem unorthodox, but modern CUVs certainly reach skyward—much like an apartment complex.

Let’s see more of the Sante Fe’s “blockiness” in other vehicles, and reject organic faces with fake smiling grilles. Pointless contours must be replaced with functional, logical blocks of painted panels, eye-catching LED chips, and purposeful areas of negative space. We don’t need fake teeth to make a shiny, happy, recognizable face. We should embrace the modernist principle of functionality, found in the original Ford Explorer, Jeep Cherokee, the Squarebody Chevy Suburbans, and those iconic Land Rovers.

A happy face may be nice on a “bug-eye”Austin Healey Sprite or on an animated NC Miata, but adding modernist construction to the 2024 Santa Fe makes it much more appealing as a utilitarian product. There’s a chance this architectural appeal could translate into success on a larger scale than that of the long-forgotten Ford Flex.

Who knows, a (growing?) family of architecturally pleasant automobiles could indeed carve out a profitable piece of the pie. So join me in saying goodbye to the organic face of modern cars, and get excited for a return to modernism. Or do the opposite, if you’re feeling contrarian, and get one of the big-grilled crossovers before their memorable faces disappear from new car showrooms . . . because they are likely facing extinction. 

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For all their function, cars are in another sense just huge toys. Everyone’s idea of play differs, but Stefan Lombard happens to enjoy bending images of cars to his will, shifting perspectives to make this or that car look like something else. With that in mind, we hereby present the fictionalized account of Randolph T. Dumple, automotive designer-at-large. –Ed.

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I’ve been poring over this goldmine of recently discovered stuff, Dumple’s sketchbooks and diaries, devouring it all. What a gift! His was a life of stories and adventure, and while I am still sifting through it all, trying to organize and make sense, just today I was struck by an entry concerning the late Wyoming millionaire James Calhoun III.

That name has been in the news of late because of the bizarre circumstances surrounding a guns-for-lentils deal gone awry in Saskatchewan last fall. It’s an odd exchange no matter how you slice it, but the shady practices in which Calhoun’s eldest son, James IV, engaged—and the legal mire in which he now finds himself—likely mean an end to the Calhoun empire and the liquidation of their fabulous car collection. Scandal!

According to the records at hand, our famed automotive designer, Randy Dumple, was 54 and living in Switzerland when he received a telegram from James Calhoun III: “The oil man of oil men in all Wyoming” is how the Casper Star-Tribune once described this magnate of the American West.

Randy Dumple, in a diary entry dated August 29, 1965, observed thus:

Ferrari enthusiast with too much money … but impeccable taste!

“Love all my Ferraris,” Mr. Calhoun writes in his fan letter to me. “Love love LOVE my 500 Superfast especially.” He goes on, although certainly I don’t care. Love whatever car you want, sir; it’s not one of mine. And yet, curiously, the man has been made aware, all the way over there in the Powder River Basin, of a new Maranello coupe on the horizon for 1966, built on the 275 chassis and with Colombo’s four-liter V-12 to make it go. [Tom] Tjaarda’s 330 GT 2+2 variant is fine, if you like kids—or hate your friends—but a two-seat coupe… now that always holds appeal.

Mr. Calhoun closes: “And I was just hoping you might whip something up special, like what you did for Somoza [Nicaraugan president Antonio Somoza Garcia] with that delightful 375 America of his.”

What a mind, this Dumple. The next day, the seasoned designer drove a borrowed Fiat 500 down to Turin to bother Sergio Pininfarina for details. Randy had by this point in his career designed several Ferraris for enough of the right people, some of whom had Enzo Ferrari’s ear and whispered into it clearly enough or rationally enough or Sicilian enough to convince him it was a good idea to let Randy be Randy, even in Sergio’s shop.

Pininfarina resigned himself to the arrangement, but he practiced a knack for avoiding Randy Dumple around the studio. In his own papers he makes quite clear his feelings: “Quel Dumple è una piccola peste! Come un giornalista che ficca sempre il naso con le sue domande.” [That Dumple is a little pest. Like a reporter always nosing around with his questions.]

So, it was Aldo Brovarone, chief designer at Pininfarina, whom Dumple encountered in the offices of the great design studio on the 30th of August, 1965. Dumple bothered Brovarone, too, of course, but someone had to accommodate him, and it is understood the two men chatted about the upcoming 330 GTC over coffee and gelato at Gelateria Pepino. That, before Dumple folded himself back into the Fiat and returned to Geneva to send Calhoun, the oil man of oil men, his reply:

Mr. Calhoun,

I have just returned from inspecting Pininfarina’s plans for the new 330 GTC and am quite intrigued by your offer. I shall like to take you up on it. Will be in touch with more details and my fee, and once agreed, will supply you with some variations. — RTD

Brovarone recorded his thoughts on their conversation for Sergio Pininfarina, closing his missive with what had become a common refrain whenever Dumple dropped in:

“E ovviamente mi ha assillato ancora una volta per andare in una galleria del vento. Onestamente, Sergio, perché quell’uomo non può farsi gli affari suoi?” [And of course he nagged me once again to get going on a wind tunnel. Honestly, Sergio, why can’t that man just mind his own business?]

It must have been great fodder for Randy Dumple’s ego when he learned, some time in the spring of 1966, that Pininfarina did, in fact, get going on that wind tunnel.

As for the exploration of a custom 330 coupe commissioned by Mr. Calhoun, Dumple supplied the requisite sketches by the end of 1965, and by the following summer, Wyoming’s richest man had himself a new toy to “love love LOVE.”

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John Kiprian Wasenko, or “Kip,” as he is known to his friends who gather for cars and coffee at Pasteiner’s in Birmingham, Michigan, is a true son of the Motor City. Racer, artist, and lover of beautiful automobiles, this Dino driving, GT2-style Corvette-race-car wrassling car designer has a story that begins long before he ever got behind the wheel.

Getting the bug

In 1952, six-year-old Kip Wasenko often sat on the front porch of his family’s Detroit home, waiting for yet another new Caddy to drive down his street. The shiny new luxury cars were en route from the old Clark Street Assembly Plant to a nearby site where they will be loaded onto transports and shipped to dealers. To get there they had pass by the Wasenko residence near Livernois and Michigan. The boy on the porch was far too young to understand Cadillac’s place in the hierarchy of the automotive world, but he kew pretty sheet metal when he saw it.

GM was king in mid-century America, and Cadillac was the Lord Chamberlain of the General’s court, a fact regularly communicated to young Wasenko by an uncle who helped manage GM’s storied Motorama extravaganzas. Knowing the youngster’s fascination with automobiles, he would bring him brochures with artfully rendered illustrations of the new machinery.

Wasenko filled notebooks with his own renderings of fabulous machines, growing more proficient with each drawing and each passing year, becoming more deeply immersed in the world of wheels. As a teen, his passion turned to drag racing and performance, but he never stopped sketching, never stopped conjuring images of very special machines. Machines he longed to create, touch, and drive.

Before he turned 18, Wasenko knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wanted to create cars. So, he enrolled at Detroit’s Wayne State University and majored in industrial design. His plan was to complete the Wayne State degree program, then continue his education at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Before he could get to step two of that plan, he was selected for an internship at General Motors.

In the General’s army

The work environment at GM was challenging and competitive, just the way Wasenko liked it. Drawing on years of devotion to all things automotive, he designed a mid-engine streamliner powered by a turbine. An unusual machine, it featured a vertical fin not unlike those used on some race cars today and a rear track that, for aerodynamic purposes, was narrower than the front track. Bill Mitchell, GM’s design chief, saw the young intern’s work and offered a job on the spot. Wasenko completed his degree work at Wayne State and started designing cars for GM on January 2, 1968. He would continue in that role for 40 years.

Wasenko’s career path saw many successes—too many to cover here. An early win was the acclaim afforded his design of a mid-engine twin-rotor Wankel-powered Corvette in the early 1970s. An assignment at Opel in Germany followed shortly thereafter, and he was able to present the rotary-engine car at the Frankfurt auto show. That car, and a larger four-rotor Vette that his boss Bill Mitchell penned, never saw production, as fuel economy concerns killed GM’s interest in rotary engines.

Wasenko’s work in Germany was followed by a stint at Holden, GM’s Australian brand, where he served as assistant design chief. Back in the states, he became chief designer at Saturn. But Cadillac had won his heart many years before, so a new assignment designing the cars he knew first and loved most saw Wasenko doing some of his best work and ultimately becoming director of design for Cadillac.

Art, science, high performance

The summer of 1998 was a high point in Wasenko’s career. With his Cadillac design team, he developed a concept car called Evoq that was meant to forge a new path for Cadillac styling. He then spent the summer in California supervising its construction at Metalcrafters, an auto industry fabricator. The car was unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January of ’99 and was hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary automotive art and a revolutionary new look for Cadillac. The car and Wasenko were invited to participate in a design show in Milan.

Evoq changed everything. A production version of the concept—the XLR—soon followed, heralding the birth of Cadillac’s Art and Science design language. Wasenko would continue to push the envelope, championing high-performance CTS-V and STS-V coupes and sedans that came to define the new Cadillac.

The Italians’ embrace of Evoq design in 1999 was reflective of Wasenko’s interest and passion for Italian design. His pride and joy has long been a beautiful red 1970 Dino 246 GT that he purchased in ’75 and restored to concours standards in 1991. The Ferrari-built mid-engine car was created as a loving tribute to Enzo’s son, Alfredo “Dino” Ferrari, who had been tragically taken by muscular dystrophy at the age of 24. Styled by Pininfarina with coachwork by Scaglietti, the car is considered one of the most sensuous designs ever to emerge from Maranello. For Wasenko, it was both model and motivation.

Cars that not only look fast but perform accordingly came to define Wasenko, and he would finish his career in the GM performance division with Mark Reuss, Tony Roma, and John Henricy. Racers all. They created pace cars and specialty vehicles for the SEMA show. They took the brand to Le Mans from 2000 to 2002 with a turbocharged V-8 prototype race car and proved competitive with the world’s best.

“Cadillac had it figured out by the end of our final Le Mans race but then backed out,” said Wasenko. “We were disappointed, but the amount of money allocated to the program wasn’t enough to continue to race Le Mans. The reality was that we should race what we sell, and we created a CTS-V race car that proved successful. But Le Mans is the big show and GM will be back this year with five race cars [Cadillac hypercars finished 3rd and 4th overall at the June 10–11 race—Ed.]. Credit Mark Reuss as the guy who kept the V-series alive and prompted a return to Le Mans and the world stage.”

Designed to be driven

Wasenko has always believed cars are meant to be driven, and in 1991, while still designing for Saturn, he cautiously but enthusiastically took to the race track in his gorgeous little Dino. “I took some heat for driving a classic in competition,” he recalls. “But my Dino racing was short-lived. Soon thereafter, I was invited to co-drive a Corvette race car, so the Dino was retired from competition with nary a scratch. In the winter of ’92, I built my own Corvette race car, and I’ve been competing in that same car for 30 years, with numerous upgrades and modifications along the way.”

Wasenko’s racing Corvette is a 1988 C4 that he purchased as a theft recovery survivor; it had been stripped down to its bare frame and rear body doghouse. That’s about where you want to start, he says, if you’re going to turn an older Vette into a race winner.

Danny Kellermeyer of Ortonville, Michigan, welded a full cage into that basic Vette donor car and Doug Chenoweth, a friend and forer racing partner, helped Wasenko turn it into a race car. And a race car it is, appearing regularly at Waterford Hills, an historic road racing course in Oakland County, Michigan. Running in ITE, a class that includes former GT cars and other pure race cars, Wasenko and his pretty Corvette came within 0.2 second of the track record last year. Power is provided by a 6.2-liter LS small-block Chevy engine with CNC-ported LS9 heads, a Callies crankshaft, Oliver connecting rods, and Mahle pistons that provide a compression ratio of 11.8:1. The intake is an LS fuel-injection system that was reprogrammed for competition. The engine was prepped and assembled by Kevin Pranger at Great Lakes Engines; on the dyno, it generated 550 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Wasenko stirs gears with a ZF six-speed manual that delivers power to a 4.10 gear set. At the end of the rear axles hang a pair of 345/35-18 Hoosier A7 sports car racing tires. Those are matched with rubber of the same manufacture up front.

When Wasenko was interviewed for this article, he expressed pride at having passed his pro race car driver physical. At age 76, that’s no small feat. When he’s not racing, he’s busy judging concours events all over the country, something he enjoys and is frequently called on to do. That’s no surprise—he’s been working on that keen eye for exact details since his boyhood days on the front porch.

***

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For all their function, cars are in another sense just huge toys. Everyone’s idea of play differs, of course; for some of us, it’s the driving that makes cars fun. For others, it’s the wrenching, or the looking. Stefan Lombard happens to like bending images of them to his will, shifting perspectives to make this or that car look like something else. With that in mind, we hereby present the fictionalized account of Randolph T. Dumple, automotive designer-at-large. –Ed.

***

Everyone loves a good barn find. With each passing year, it gets harder and harder to imagine how new discoveries keep popping up. But there are a lot of barns out there, all over the world, and throughout the last hundred years or so, people have stashed away cars in them for any number of reasons. Each new unveiling helps to keep this hobby and all who enjoy it on our collective toes, wondering what’s next.

Even more abundant than barns, however, are attics. And while no one—to our knowledge, at least—ever stashed a car in one, plenty of automobilia has ended up squirreled away in the dark, cobwebbed recesses of the craftsmans, bungalows, chalets, tudors, villas, castles, and four-squares of the world.

Which brings us to the sketchbooks and diaries of one Randolph T. Dumple. Recently unearthed by a realtor in a downtrodden, overpriced Cape Cod outside of Rock Island, Illinois, and graciously shared with Hagerty, several crumbling cardboard boxes reveal the life’s work of America’s least-known (but perhaps most prolific) automobile designer.

Ambidextrous from a young age, Dumple forged an impressive path during his long career as a stylist, one that began as a teenager and lasted an astonishing 70 years, taking him to some of the world’s most famous coachbuilders in the process: LeBaron in America, Jonckheere in Belgium, Gurney Nutting in England, Figoni & Falaschi in France, Pininfarina in Italy, and dozens more. He also took part in several special projects directly with manufacturers, including Chevrolet, Ford, Mercedes, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Toyota.

Though he had multiple stints at several carrozzerie, records indicate that Dumple was never employed full-time at any of the styling houses or carmakers he represented; instead, it appears he was that rare freelancer, a hired gun who parachuted in to work on a special project, often at the behest of a particular well-to-do patron (and to the consternation of a given firm’s full-timers), and then just as quickly flitted off to the next destination, the next project. His clients included heads of state, actors, musicians, athletes, lottery winners, and socialites, and his designs have been described as “elegant,” “absurd,” and even “elegantly absurd.”

By his own account, Dumple was not an easy man to work with, and his diaries reveal that he left a string of grumbling colleagues in his considerable wake, including, no surprise, Enzo Ferrari. The unique vision of his designs, however, are hard to argue.

It’s not quite clear how the colorful chronicle of Randolph T. Dumple’s professional life ended up in an attic on the banks of the Mississippi (he never lived in the area and in fact died in a mountaineering accident in Patagonia in 2010, aged 99), but one thing is certain: The automotive world is a richer place for the discovery.

Hagerty is pleased to share the works of Randy Dumple with our readers, and we’ll leave you to ponder one of his very first designs, the three-wheeled 1930 Ford Model A “Tringledeptor” shown above, which he penned at the age of 19 for a contest sponsored by Ford called “Ford of Tomorrow.”

Dumple’s notes on the design are sparse, but his intention was clear:

Tomorrow’s cities will be crowded, messy affairs, and parking one’s car will be an exercise in frustration. The highly maneuverable Tringledeptor (with rear steering!) will alleviate that frustration by allowing drivers to fit into the tightest of spaces.

Curiously, this would not be the last three-wheeled design to flow from the practiced pen of Randolph T. Dumple.

***

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Fred writes:

This is the second time I’ve written you; the first was when you were at that other place. Anyway, I’ve noticed another automotive styling feature worth discussing, and perhaps you have some thoughts: I’ve been seeing cars with factory two-tone paint jobs, often a black roof over a white body. Will this become a trend?

Might it become more than black and white? Are we in for a return to ’50s paint schemes?

Sajeev answers:

Aside from the usual, bespoke creations for the top-tier demographic, we are absolutely not returning to 1950s levels of multiple-toned paint schemes. Cars are too damn expensive to make these days, and adding features is a balancing act: An automaker must consider sales volume and profitability. The market is too price-sensitive and competitive to alter that balance, and two-tone paint is the equivalent of dropping a lead weight on a balance beam scale . . . well, on a scale perfectly balanced with the features mandated by the government and the features demanded by consumers.

It’s all fine and dandy for cars made in Maybachian volumes, like the mulberry-creme concoction I configured above. Profit margins on these vehicles are so insane that automakers can indeed stop an assembly line to do a bit more body prep for a two-tone paint job. But most companies do the aforementioned balancing act with airbags, power-assist this and that, turbocharged engines, cameras/radar sight thingies, six-plus-speed transmissions, giant wheels, big disc brakes, soft-touch vinyls, in-car entertainment systems, etc. All those features are legit threats to profit margins. But some lower-cost, outlier vehicles will always exist.

Take the delightful little Mini Cooper. The vehicle is designed to ensure that loyalty to Mini’s brand remains unquestionably rabid, as owners are encouraged to customize their cars with factory tweaks. It’s like adding flair to your uniform. Better yet, nobody bats an eye at the mini-uscule (sorry) amount of vehicle you get for the Camry-like price.

Genuine two-tone outliers, sadly, are just that. A better choice for beancounters, supply-chain analysts, and product planners is to differentiate areas on a vehicle with plastic trim in a contrasting color. The “XC,” or Cross Country, Volvos and the Chevy Spark ACTIV suggest companies can capitalize on the bigger, taller, more profitable SUV craze with different trim, different springs, and a snazzy name. Thanks to component logistics worthy of comparisons to Amazon, lean-manufacturing methodologies, and modern assembly-line technology, slapping on different parts at the factory is pretty easy and cost-effective.

Sadly these advancements haven’t trickled down to the labor-intensive act of applying two paint colors to a car’s body. Much like Uber still needs people behind the wheel to be anything resembling a going concern in the foreseeable future, most automakers still need people in the paint shop.

The Nissan Juke—now, only for sale outside the states—proves the point. Nissan recently added four paint shops that are two-tone friendly as part of a facility upgrade in the United Kingdom. That same article suggests “30 percent of customers” opt for a two-tone Juke, so the demand mandated the need for Jukes to be “masked by hand” as the video above suggests. But the Juke isn’t an entry-level vehicle, and it is such a niche product that Nissan quit selling it in the U.S. after 2017.

Two-toning a car is still too much work to support a widespread resurgence of the trend. Vehicles that get the treatment will be limited to those black-roofed examples mentioned by Fred. Granted, there is plenty of crazy body surfacing on modern vehicles that could be masked off and sprayed a different color, but there’s only one place to do it quickly—and cost-effectively, of course.

The roof usually has logical beginning and ending points at every pillar, as witnessed by the angular stopping points on a modern Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Try to do the same with angry slashes and soft bubbling along the body side, and you’ll have a truly bizarre-looking two-tone vehicle, one that would prove to be lot poison at dealerships across the country. Sure, you could two-tone a Dodge Challenger or Chevy Truck with modest effort and reasonable success, but any vehicle with a rounded fascia, complex bumper design, etc. makes the transition point between colors very challenging.

More to the point, an extra color isn’t gonna “move the metal” like a heated steering wheel will, and there’s only so much cost you can add before a substitute good looks more appealing. Consider the notion of a Ford Escape with two shades on its bubbly CUV body, likely an $800–$1000 option if it were to come to fruition. But odds are that the boosted price of a two-tone Escape would be too close to the sticker of a single-tone Ford Bronco Sport; the baby Bronco is roughly $1200 more than its more urbanite sibling.

It takes a special type of person to insist on a two-tone paint job. I’d like to think I know that two-tone feeling, as restoring Project Valentino to its proper shades of gold and chocolate was very, very expensive. The price was painful back then, but the end result still makes me pause, enjoy, and relax as I walk by it—a great feeling.

Any car can be two-toned easily in the aftermarket thanks to vinyl wrapping, so go ahead and let your spirit be free, without the confines of a multinational corporation’s bottom line. It’s only money, right?

***

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Created by Mercedes-Benz’s California design studio, the Vision One-Eleven is a twofold endeavor. In one respect, it serves the role of traditional concept car: a sleek vision of the future. At the same time, the Vision One-Eleven is an homage to the legendary Mercedes-Benz C111 concept, particularly the C111 II that was presented in 1970 at the Geneva Motor Show. In its time it, too, was a wild attempt to imagine life on four wheels in the decades ahead.

Possibly the coolest car Mercedes-Benz never sold, the wedge-shaped, gullwing-doored C111 II was a world away from the staid sedans that made the bulk of the company’s production to date. Perhaps not quite as polished a design as the period’s finest Italian exotica, such as the Lamborghini Miura, the C111 II certainly wasn’t far off in terms of raw visual impact.

Contrary to the deepest desires of Turin’s “carrozzieri,” however, looking great on a turntable was never the C111 II’s end goal. Mercedes-Benz built six examples of the vehicle, each made to drive fast and hard, day in and day out. Combined with its arresting looks, this proven capability cemented the C111’s legendary status.

Consider that the Mercedes-Benz of half a century ago was a conservative, engineering-led company that didn’t deal in flights of fancy. The concept was meant to make a splash, yes, but the C111 project’s primary purpose was to serve as a high-performance testbed for a diverse range of technologies, chiefly among those the Wankel rotary engine. In fact, the C111 II was equipped with the most advanced rotary powerplant built by Mercedes-Benz: the four-rotor DB M950 KE409 with direct fuel injection, whose 350 horses powered the prototypes a top speed of more than 180 mph.

With such formidable performance, looks to die for, and a halo from Mercedes-Benz’s then-impeccable reputation for peerless engineering integrity, blank cheques for the C111 started rolling in from customers who viewed it as the spiritual successor of the unforgettable 300SL. All requests were, however, politely rejected; the C111 was never meant for production, which we can also say of its modern counterpart.

Although the two axial-flux electric motors powering today’s Vision One-Eleven may not ignite the enthusiasts’ imagination quite the same way a high-powered rotary does, they indeed represent the current state-of-the-art in powertrain technology. Perhaps more relevant is that electric propulsion promises to play a much more significant role in our future mobility than any other emerging tech, let alone Felix Wankel’s troubled brainchild. Mercedes-Benz itself abandoned the rotary soon after the C111, switching the program’s focus toward diesel power.

Despite the cutting-edge powertrain and impressive battery technology on board, there’s no mistaking the Vision One-Eleven for anything but a styling-led showcase. And, unlike the C111, this concept probably won’t be caught anywhere near a test track. For some that’s a critical disconnect, reason enough to dismiss the Vision One-Elven as a shallow nostalgia play to leverage some half-century-old gravitas from a concept that actually pushed the envelope.

Remember, too, that the C111 was a clean-sheet idea that came out of the blue. The Vision One-Eleven follows a long series of Mercedes-Benz concept cars with which it shares a signature style, to the point it might as well have been painted silver and given another name. The so-called “sensual purity” design language, spearheaded by long-time Mercedes-Benz design boss Gorden Wagener, is characterized by smooth curves and large, uninterrupted surfaces almost entirely devoid of character lines.

Character lines are the lines, or creases, on a vehicle’s body that serve solely an aesthetic purpose, but you’ll have a hard time finding any on the Vision One-Eleven, or on any other of the latest Mercedes-Benz concept cars, for that matter.

While I’ll be the first to admit that “sensual purity” has made for some visually impressive and refreshingly minimalist concept cars over the last decade, its application on production Mercedes-Benz models has rarely produced a compelling a result. The possible outlier here is the oh-so-lovely AMG GT coupé.

The front end is where the Vision One-Eleven more directly apes its illustrious predecessor, with the twin blacked-out air outlets neatly merging with the windscreen’s graphic and the three-pointed star sitting directly on the orange-painted surface rather than inserted into a grille as usual.

That’s likely because the electric Vision One-Eleven doesn’t have a grille, so its large black “mouth” serves as nothing more than a gimmick—there just to offer a pixelated representation of the C111’s large round foglights. This is nevertheless my favorite part of the design, and arguably the most visually appealing, with the smooth curvature of the fenders and bold graphics vaguely evoking another gorgeous retro-futurstic concept car: Pininfarina’s Maserati Birdcage 75th from 2005.

Things really diverge between the Vision One-Eleven and the C111 II when we look at the interior design. Although impressively well-laid out for an experimental vehicle, the C111’s snug cockpit was a decidedly sombre affair in which form closely followed function, leaving little room for stylistic flourishes.

Things couldn’t be more different aboard the Vision One-Eleven, in which the compactness of its electric powertrain creates a much larger cabin for Mercedes-Benz’s designers to really flex their muscles. It’s an inspired mix of the somewhat clinical all-white ambience (characteristic of most recent Mercedes concept cars) and various influences from the late 1960s and early 1970s. The seats’ elongated lounge-chair shape is reminiscent of many period show cars, such as Chevrolet’s Astro I or the Manta Ray, and I just can’t look at their shiny silver upholstery without thinking about that of Bertone’s Lamborghini Marzal from 1967.

Ultimately, the Vision One-Eleven is yet another slick concept car whose legacy is unlikely to leave much of a mark. This is in no way the fault of the designers, whose fine work here is reflective of their passion and competence. The design brief itself, to recall such an irreplaceable classic, invites the risk that the successor cannot measure up to a beloved piece of Mercedes history.

No speed or endurance records will be broken. An amazing production model along these lines is unlikely to follow. Yes, the clever engineering behind the Vision One-Eleven’s highly efficient battery and electric motors may in some form find their way into upcoming Mercedes models, but Vision One-Eleven’s time in our collective memories is likely going to be measured in weeks rather than decades.

*

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

**

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Car-design press releases are generally a cornucopia of stylistic filler words designed to delight the soul and fog the mind, but Mercedes’ release on the Vision One-Eleven was a bit much, even for me. I mean, it was over 9000 words. How on earth can a press release discussing an homage to a 1970s minimalist design get away with this? All we truly needed were six:

Look at our reimagined orange wedge!

Or maybe seven:

ZOMG look at our reimagined orange wedge!

But no, Mercedes instead told us about the many ways it is “creating iconic luxury.” Its take on Bruno Sacco’s delightful C-111 concept car from 1970 was the main event; everything else was mostly filler.

I take issue with this approach: Anything related to the C-111 deserves a standalone press release, as the original orange doorstop was a gullwing doored, mid-engined delight powered by either a Wankel rotary, a diesel, or a turbocharged V-8 engine. It truly stole our hearts. Now it’s back, sort of.

The 1970s was a long time ago and, well, things have improved significantly since. Enter the Vision One-Eleven, a name that uses absolutely more letters and words to evoke the minimalism provided by the C-111. No wonder the press release was so long. Even the captions on the manufacturer-provided photography came with a word salad on the side.

No matter, the biggest change from retro C111 to modern Vision One-Eleven is the elimination of the traditional upright greenhouse. The pillars are there, somewhere, but the feel is that of a melted cab that slides across the entire wheelbase. The silhouette would make a cab-forward Dodge Intrepid blush with jealousy.

The insane level of cabin space is thanks to an electric powertrain utilizing a YASA axial-flux motor and a “liquid-cooled cylindrical-cell battery with Formula-1 inspired cell chemistry.” That said, Mercedes provided no hard numbers in this absolute unit of a press release. The motor’s packaging benefits likely make for a concept car with prestigious, Mercedes SL–worthy amounts of space.

The C-111’s interior wasn’t the star of that particular show, but the Vision One-Eleven’s silver/orange/white interior might actually overshadow the exterior. The pixelated lights and dashboard technology are a delightful homage to the era of Giorgio Moroder–infused disco, though Hyundai kinda beat Benz to the punch with recent 8-bit styling statements. No matter, interiors are far more important these days, as showing off some killer app within a dashboard is seemingly mandatory. Gorden Wagener, chief design officer, had his own thoughts on the Vision’s radical exterior and interior styling:

Our all-electric vision show car is the modern-day interpretation of the C 111, which was avant-garde at the time. The element of surprise comes from its exceptionally clean, purist and, at the same time, extremely muscular proportions. This iconic clarity is also reflected in the interior. The equally sensual but minimalist design language stands for ICONIC LUXURY by Mercedes-Benz.

The paragraph has merit, but I stand by my ZOMG look at our reimagined orange wedge comment—it accomplishes the same thing with more impact. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to learn about the (presumably radical) electric motor and battery technology, as it likely influenced the exterior and interior design. Hopefully there will be more information on the Vision One-Eleven in the future . . .

. . . Because any Mercedes-Benz with gullwing doors, orange paint, and a front fascia with pursed lips deserves to be more than just a chapter in a novel about luxury design. This right here is a standalone beauty.

***

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So many famous automobiles bloat as they age. Not the RX-7. By its third (1993–95, or FD) generation, the Mazda was still a hard-edged, lightweight sports car, wearing a body that had grown just big enough to accommodate a twin-turbo-infused powertrain and near-luxury NVH engineering. More to the point, the RX-7’s newfound size ensured buyers paid a premium every time the taxman arrived in Japan. In the United States, the FD did something amazing: It impressed Americans hungry for power and prestige while keeping the spirit of previous RX-7s intact.

So let’s run this iconic sports car, another example of Mazda’s bubble-economy designs, over the vellum.

Hindsight can be troublesome: The rounded cutlines for the FD’s hood/lights/fenders/bumper really look like those of the C5 (1997–2004) Corvette. (The resemblance is so obvious that John Carfaro likely averts his gaze any time an FD rolls by.) That said, the C5 makes the FD RX-7 even more important to America’s car culture.

The FD’s is a beautiful shape, with a face that is relatable to Miata loyalists. . . and a perfect source of Corvette DNA.

This is the track-oriented “R1” model, visually separated from tamer RX-7s by the larger front splitter. (And a swank rear spoiler out back.) The R1’s extra “visual weight” up front makes the FD’s fascia a bit more muscular, and further differentiates the fascia’s contouring from that of the most minimalist Miata. It’s kinda like underlining words in a term paper.

Without it? The RX-7’s extra width, modest added length, and ever-so-slight haunches in the hood (above the wheel arches) would be harder to distinguish at a casual glance.

Apparently, that little divot in the bumper is meant to evoke the two rotors inside the FD’s Wankel engine. It’s a nice touch, and keeps your eyes from focusing on the gap between the R1’s two-piece splitter.

The bumper’s divot least tries to avert your gaze from that crack. But when new, the splitter was cheaper to repair; if you bashed-in just one corner, you didn’t need to replace the whole assembly.

While this signal light looks similar to that of the original (NA generation) Miata, it is a completely different shape. It’s also mounted on a bumper that’s longer and more “mature” looking than that on the baby Mazda roadster.

The R1s have an extra oil cooler, lending symmetry to the lower fascia.

The R1’s front splitter also routes air to the brakes. While not as well designed as a modern splitter, which would integrate proper ducting, at least it funnels air to the correct general area for a car with this level of performance.

Back up top, note how the hood’s gentle curves only make ripples in the reflection of the clouds.

This could be a shot of the C5 Corvette, except surfacing of the Chevrolet is more aggressive. A Corvette designer would make those power lines bend harder into the car’s contours.

The Miata DNA is absolutely present, but the smoother contouring, organic cut lines, longer snout, and unique lighting pods make the FD RX-7 worthy of its premium asking price.

Note how the bumper curves outward in the center and how the bumper-to-fender cutline was also implemented in the C5 Corvette.

The level of customization over the Miata is clear when the headlights emerge. These are not a universal sealed-beam design, nor are they a recognizable shape, though they look a good bit like the rectangles present on a Chevy work van.

Had they been implemented on a universal scale, these stunning half-round/half-square headlights would have dressed up countless cars from this era. The slick plastic frame Mazda designed around this lamp is no slouch either.

Black modesty panels behind the headlight emerge when nighttime illumination is needed.

Mazda’s emblem representing “dimensions of wings, sun, and a circle of light” was originally a bit more angular. Then the clay modelers treated it to the same amount of surfacing given to the FD’s organic body. The logo kinda-sorta looks like the Khanda, but any parallel with religious iconography is generally discouraged in design studios. Perhaps that’s why Mazda’s website doesn’t mention this short-lived corporate logo?

The R1’s front strut tower brace is both functional and a representation of product design from the era. The 1990s were chock-full of global, regional, and local businesses putting their brands inside ovals. Among car-design geeks, Toyota’s three-ellipse version is probably the most memorable.

While the front of the FD’s hood has parallels to that of the C5 Corvette, the contouring on the rear of the Mazda reveals significantly fewer parallels.

While a sports car with a 0.31 coefficient of drag isn’t likely to set the world on fire, the FD is a small car with modest frontal area. The footprint extracts the most performance out of that turbocharged Wankel motor.

The previous generation (FC) RX-7 had a top-mounted intercooler with a hastily added hood blister, but the FD was designed with turbocharging from the get-go. Its short, steeply angled nose packages both a large radiator and an intercooler.

Much like the C4 Corvette, the FD uses a steeply angled radiator to lower its hood height—by a whopping 2.8 inches over the FC. The dramatic effect of the subsequent thinning of real estate above the wheels cannot be understated.

It’s hard to put into words the sleekness present here.

The simplistic, spine-in-spoke design of the FD’s 16-inch wheels works well with the body’s organic curves. Perhaps, in addition to the reducing weight, the hard carve-out for the hub keeps the wheels (and the rest of the car, by extension) from looking too soft and whimsical?

The FD clearly embraces the dash-to-axle ratio of rear-wheel-drive flagship vehicles, a configuration that allows plenty of space for an air extractor. This is another area from which Chevrolet drew inspiration, but Mazda’s execution makes the long dash-to-axle much smaller, lower, and less of a defining element in the fender.

Yes, this is a functional bit of kit: Air from the front bumper goes around the wheel arch and exits out this aperture. Nice.

Cab-backward designs usually have less space for black plastic trim at the cowl and provide a delightful way to minimize “ugly” space for wipers and HVAC components, while yielding more real estate for a longer hood.

Much like the wheel hub’s hard carveout, these utilitarian elements in the cowl are shockingly angular on such an organic body.

Impossibly thin A-pillars make all the difference in a sports car. The increasing thickness of A-pillars is a key reason why modern examples of the breed look clumsy and “slow” compared to their predecessors.

The body is so impossibly low-slung body (mostly) because of that tiny cowl. With such little need for extra size or height, the fender remains uninterrupted by the requirements of a hood (think modern Supra) or complex cutlines for tall doors and overly thick A-pillars.

The door’s shark fin draws attention to itself with an embossed triangle. It feels unnecessary on such a curvy body, unlike the wheel hub’s strong statement of negative area.

The large amount of glass and the thinness of the radically curved pillars ensure this tiny cabin doesn’t feel claustrophobic. There is very little space on the door frame for practical upright contours; the majority of this section is reserved for the A-pillar’s rake.

From this angle, however, the window looks significantly flatter. This shifting of perception is precisely why car designs must be refined in a 3D space; 2D renderings can never fully convey the drama of walking around a well-surfaced design. More to the point, the interior’s radically organic design often flows beautifully with the exterior lines, as seen here.

The lack of a door-mounted door handle further accentuates the speed present in the door’s cutline. Aside from the cut’s interference with the fender scoop’s lower blister, this is a flawless implementation.

That’s one heckuva oddly shaped gasket to mount the belt line trim against the body and door handle. Not a bad thing—it’s impressive.

The intersection of beltline, roof trim, and door cutline is a bit “slow” and awkward. Considering all the visual speed present in the cutline of the lower door, it would have been nice to see the door cutline continue to the outer contour of the black roof trim.

Doing so would make the door cutline move with the same fluidity as the cutline for the hatchback, which flows over the FD’s taut body muscles. That’s the perk of placing door handles inside the daylight opening; they open up so much visual room on the painted body surfaces.

Suggesting the FD has a taut, muscular body is no overstatement. The FD has no need for the crazy amounts of surfacing present on modern cars with tall cowls: a few gentle curves across the body’s cross-section is all that is needed to make this modest-sized sports car a visual stunner.

See how the building’s reflection warps in the middle of the roof? That ripple in the sheetmetal supposedly improved the FD’s aerodynamics. Unlike the radical “double bubble” of the 1996 Dodge Viper GTS, the bump did not improve headroom for the Mazdas’s passengers.

Much as the front end gives C5 Corvette vibes, the FD’s strong B-pillar, curvy hatchback glass, and the R1-specific spoiler suggest a miniature 1993 Trans Am. Except both designs were (probably) created independently, and the Mazda is significantly smaller and less swollen than the Pontiac.

A quick look behind the rear wheel and a fancy aluminum suspension control arm awaits. These parts weren’t cheap, even if it isn’t as radical as the exposed bits found on the NSX.

It’s probably no coincidence that these large rear rotors have “FD” stamped in them.

Much like the front ones, the FD’s rear overhangs are modest, making the body look as if it is shrink-wrapped over the wheelbase.

The strong shoulder line (curve, actually) present in the doors deliciously extends into the quarter panel.

Again, the 1993 Firebird references arise. But, unlike that car, the FD is so small that the gas filler door and the side marker light are very close to each other. The lack of a continuous bumper shelf provides another differentiating factor: On the Mazda, there’s an expensively contoured quarter panel running from top to bottom.

How contoured? Note the sky’s reflection on the bumper’s horizontal surface, and how it bleeds into that fancy quarter panel.

While it may not scream “minimalist” like some Italian Mazda doorstop from the 1970s, the FD is an organic implementation of design with the same level of restraint. Sure, there are expressive curves. But they spread long and wide across elements of the low-slung body and long wheelbase.

The R1’s spoiler gives extra purpose to the otherwise “soft” contours of the quarter panel and backlight.

The R1 spoiler has a visually exciting claw-foot design with the inner “nails” sticking further forward than the outer ones. The irregular pattern wonderfully complements the FD’s radical lack of straight lines elsewhere.

Well, no good design can exist without any straight line. From here you can see that the curvaceous hatchback still has a straight cutline for some amount of visual tension. Imagine this body with a modern (i.e. hidden) radio antenna; the change would only add to the curvaceous nature of the FD’s body. There’s a shockingly wonderful interplay between straight lines and soft curves, a juxtaposition illustrated best by the hatchback and the R1 rear spoiler.

Indeed, the quarter panel even has muscular ripples in a normally overlooked place. The reflections from the parking lot would look far more accurate if this were a flat panel.

The fuel door, aside from being uncomfortably close to the wheel arch by today’s standards, is close to a perfect circle. The shape remains at this level of perfection from any vantage point (unlike the door frame above).

There’s probably no better example of the FD’s organic design than the rear side-marker lights. Surprisingly, this red, amoeba-like creature is affixed to the body with exposed screws, in stark contrast to the hardware-free look of the front light.

The sheer volume of upward trajectory from the lower quarter panel to the rear bumper is stunning to behold. Not only does it continue the FD’s curvy demeanor, it also ensures the body remains tight and taut.

The RX-7 embodies the notion of lightweight performance above all else, clearly nothing like the golf-friendly raison d’être of, ahem, future Corvettes.

This hatchback musta cost big bucks—making a sheet of glass continue the inward trajectory of the B-pillar/door is no small feat.

But you need glass with that much contouring to work with the insane level of curvature on the spoiler, bumper, and rear deck. Take the rear light bar, for example . . . looks pretty flat from this angle, no?

Yeah, definitely not. The light bar might as well be the sleek little Continental kit from a 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII, and the R1 spoiler capitalizes on its curvature. It’s all just so perfect.

Then there’s the rear bumper, bending the sky’s reflection in a huge arc from corner to corner.

The taillights bend inward at the corners (note the building’s reflection) and subtly extend the deck lid at the middle of the car’s rear.

The inside of the R1 spoiler continues the organic curvature, looking here like a cavern.

All these curves meant that conventional (i.e. linear) badge placement would look static and slow. The “Mazda” badge works with the lower end of the tail light, and the “RX-7” badge extends upward and inward . . . just like the light assembly itself as it dances across the rear deck.

Like everything from the Acura NSX to the Ferrari Testarossa, the FD worked hard to bury its red light behind a sea of black trim and a clear plastic shroud. This arrangement would become a stark contrast to the upcoming Altezza craze, something to which the RX-8, which replaced the RX-7, was not immune.

I cannot tell you how difficult it was to get a shot of the CHMSL in this blackout assembly. But there it is, ready to attack your retinas when needed.

The amber light is a bit easier to spot at a quick glance, only because it’s a lighter color than red. This level of concealment took some effort.

Note the shadows between the bumper and the Mazda emblem: The vertical element of the rear fascia is also heavily contoured. Adding to the impact are the door-lock bezels—they are bezeled, letting the body surfacing speak far more boldly.

Unlike the side markers, the rear reflectors/back up light is far less amoeba-like. But like the front signal light, each still needs one screw for attachment. Bizarre.

The bumper has an ever-so-gentle curve, preparation for a flat spot for the license plate.

While the period-correct aftermarket exhaust is a bit much in terms of styling, it both accentuates the level of negative area present in the rear bumper and ensures a healthier Wankel engine. (Oh, and it sounds awesome.)

Not only does the rear bumper aggressively push skyward (in the side view), the black plastic insert curves downward as it transitions to the center, becoming more like a chin on a human face. Wow.

The center of the bumper looks like it extends two inches past its start on the quarter panel—just another reason why the FD is one seriously complex design. But complexity is relative, because the FD  doesn’t scream in your face. This RX-7 is the antithesis of something insane like a McLaren Senna, even if both designs are similarly complex. It’s clear that Mazda designers worked overtime to ensure the styling was just as effortlessly complex as the high-revving Wankel engine under the skin. I walked away from this episode of Vellum Venom with even more respect for this vehicle.

Thank you for reading—I hope you have a lovely day.

Special thanks to Toby for providing this vehicle for evaluation.

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“The overwhelmingly positive reaction across the globe to last year’s concept has convinced Jaguar to build the F-Type roadster.” That emphatic statement came from the lips of one Dr. Wolfgang Reitzle, then Chairman of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, at the Los Angeles Motor Show in 2001. A year later, the F-Type program had been canned.

Before we find out why, let’s clear up any potential confusion. An F-Type did appear in production form many years later, but that was a very different car, based on a very different concept (the 2011 C-X16, to be precise). What we’re talking about here was an achingly beautiful show car from 2000, created under the watch of Geoff Lawson, Jaguar design director. It so wowed customers that a claimed 50,000 placed orders for its road-going version.

So how did that 2000 concept, which came so close to being a production reality, end up consigned to the great cupboard of declined proposals? Well, it certainly wasn’t through any lack of will. Jaguar had already attempted a modern take on the E-Type with the XJ 41/42 coupe and drophead concepts in the ’80s; by then, it was clear that the XJ-S would never make the cut. But when Ford bought Jaguar in 1989, it decided that a by-then rather bloated sports car was not a priority in its brave new world.

Nine years later, though, that world had changed. 1998 brought with it a raft of new and exciting sports cars (step forward Porsche Boxster, BMW Z3, Audi TT), all of which offered stylish entry points to their respective brands. Browns Lane needed a piece of the action, too, and this time its corporate parent was on Jaguar’s side.

Jaguar’s lead designer, Keith Helfet, had already created a one-off concept known as the XK180, using a cut-down XK8 platform. But while the 180 was only for show, its design signaled the possibility of a smaller, more affordable Jaguar sports car, and perhaps finally a worthy successor to the E-Type.

Under Lawson’s auspices, Helfet along with designers Adam Hatton and Pasi Pennanen started work on a knock-’em-dead concept that was to be known as the F-Type. Alas, this was to be Lawson’s final project; he died in June 1999. Helfet, Hatton, and Pennanen continued to develop the concept, but one can only imagine what a blow to the team Lawson’s passing must have been.

The F-Type was a fitting tribute. Taking some cues from the XK180, the concept stunned press and public alike when it was finally unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show in January 2000. Proportionally perfect, its sleek, roofless body blended just the right level of retro with enough modernity to carry it into the new millennia. Pure and unfussy, the F-Type was shorn of all unnecessary addenda, other than a modest rear diffuser. Inside, a spartan but exotic aluminum dash sported seven circular dials, with all switchgear—even the gear lever—formed from the same metal, too.

At 162 inches, it was three feet shorter than the incumbent XKR, with, Jaguar claimed, an equal weight distribution front to rear. Power was to come from Jaguar’s 240-hp AJV6, with the option of 300 hp from a supercharged version of the same engine, delivered to the rear wheels through either a manual or automatic ‘box.

It was a dream concept, and one that Ford’s management wanted to productionize—hence Reitzler’s bold words in 2001. But Ian Callum, who had replaced Lawson, saw a big challenge ahead: The F-Type was a pure show car. It didn’t use an existing platform, so some of its more distinctive elements, like the cut-down front glass and hood height, were pure fantasy, never designed to meet production regulations.

Callum’s solution was pragmatic but radical: put the engine in the middle. Development of the car, dubbed X600, started soon after the Detroit show, with a target time of three years to production launch. Internal marketing documents described the car as “a revolutionary and sexy Jaguar roadster,” with ‘uncompromising performance and handling that takes your breath away.’ The Whitley engineering team had even started real-world testing using Honda NSX “mules” fitted with Jaguar-designed suspension to validate chassis dynamics. In other words, the X600 was well on its way to being a car you could actually buy.

And then it wasn’t. As with the XJ 41/42 13 years before, Ford’s management once again saw greater priorities ahead, such as rapid development of then-fashionable diesel engine technology. So the thought of ploughing untold millions into a low-volume, aluminum-bodied two-seat sports car which needed a completely bespoke new platform looked like a bad idea. In 2002, Ford drew a line under the program, and X600 was no more. Perhaps that reimagined E-Type will always elude us.

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Via Hagerty UK

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I try not to follow links to click-bait articles, but when I saw the photo above, I couldn’t stop myself. Why had someone Photoshopped the front end of an early Ford Bronco onto the Dodge Deora?

If you didn’t have that same thought, here’s some background: The Deora was a highly customized Dodge van turned into a radical pickup truck in 1965 by Detroit’s legendary Alexander brothers. Their creation was such a popular show car that the Chrysler corporation leased the Deora from the brothers and put it on tour to promote the Dodge brand. Not only did the Deora win the prestigious Ridler Award at the 1967 Detroit Autorama, but it also was cast as one of the “original 16” Mattel Hot Wheels introduced in 1968, courtesy of Deora designer Harry Bentley Bradley.

The Deora’s notable features included a radically reshaped cab accessed through a front-mounted, center-hinged door. It was powered by a slant-six engine mounted in the middle, behind the front seats. It incorporated a number of Ford parts: Mustang taillight bezels for side air-ducts, sequential Thunderbird taillights, backlight glass from a Ford sedan, and the rear hatch of a Ford station wagon as a flip-up windshield. According to the Alexanders, the Blue Oval’s rivals at Chrysler headquarters, who eventually sponsored the car, were never the wiser.

As it turns out, that image up top is not Photoshopped—or even “airbrushed,” as would have been done in the era of chemical film photography. It was a real car.

If the folks at Chrysler were unaware of how many Ford components went into the “Dodge” Deora, designers and managers at Ford were probably in on the secret. Just a few years after the Deora made the show car circuit, Ford revealed a concept vehicle at the 1973 Chicago Auto Show. It was called the Explorer, and it very much looked like it was patterned after the Deora.

The name of the concept was not new in the Ford lexicon. Before Explorer meant an SUV, it designated an option package on the F-100, Bronco, and Ranchero trucks. Interestingly, a period press release describes the 1973 Explorer as “a foretaste” of what the full-size “Ford F-100 pickup could become,” not as a potential replacement for the car-based Ranchero utility vehicle. It’s quite possible, therefore, that Ford’s Deora-esque show truck was intended to promote the Explorer option package. Either way, this 1973 concept was the first Ford vehicle known as an Explorer.

The Explorer was probably built from a pickup truck, like its Dodge lookalike: One of the press releases, in describing the Explorer’s mid-engine layout, noted that the engine had been moved from “its normal position in a Ford F-100 pickup.” However, the Explorer’s cab-forward driving position is more like that of the Econoline van, which, like the Dodge A-100 van upon which the Deora was based, places the engine between the front seats. The Econoline, though, was of unibody design, a structure that is more difficult to stretch or shrink than the frame of an F-100.

Both the Explorer and the Deora rely on some sort of mid-engine layout, though the Ford’s is more extreme. The Alexanders moved the Deora’s six-cylinder only 15 inches; to create the Explorer, the Ford designers moved the truck’s (or van’s) V-8 back a full five feet.

When it came to speed, the Deora wasn’t much of a hot rod. Chrysler’s venerable slant-six engine probably deserves a plaque in the engine hall of fame, but most folks don’t regard it as a performance powerplant. For the Explorer, Ford chose V-8 power, selecting its 429-cubic-inch big-block in the 375-hp / 450 lb-ft tune of the contemporary Thunderbird. The Explorer and the Deora differed in transmission design, too: The Explorer’s two-pedal interior indicates an automatic gearbox. The Deora had a three-speed manual.

Ironically, though the Deora came from the radical world of custom cars and the Explorer from a relatively staid corporate culture, the Ford was theoretically the higher-performance vehicle. I say theoretically, because I haven’t been able to determine if the ’73 concept was operational or just a show-car pushmobile. If any reader recalls any contemporary coverage clarifying the matter, please let us know in the comments.

Although there’s no indication that Ford ever intended to put the Explorer concept into production (it was still selling the Ranchero ute), the Explorer’s design is more practical than the Deora’s. The latter has no side doors; the windshield flips up and the lower front panel swivels open, allowing the driver and passenger to get in and out via the front of the vehicle, in the style of the Isetta microcar.

The Deora also relied on a complicated linkage to swing the steering wheel out of the way when passengers were entering or exiting, and the steering “wheel” itself is actually a dragster-sourced yoke. In contrast, the Explorer had a more user- (and production-) friendly interior, with conventional driver- and passenger-side doors.

That interior, by the way, indicates how quickly trends changed between 1965 and the early ’70s. The Deora’s cab is upholstered mostly in black vinyl, while the Explorer’s is very, very orange—down to the roots of its shag carpet and the spokes on its Torq Thrust–looking wheels. Even the truck bed is carpeted in orange.

Surprisingly, the Explorer did not have an eight-track tape player, though it did have an AM/FM stereo in the overhead console—with a quad-speaker system aimed, so the PR materials ran, at music buffs.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Explorer when it was on display in Chicago was its “Parawing” tent, really more of a tarp, that could be stretched over the bed to create a shelter. At over nine feet long and over five feet wide (110.7 x 65 inches), the Explorer’s bed was larger than that of any current F-series Ford.

The Explorer’s bed should have easily accommodated two sleeping bags and related camping gear, but I haven’t been able to find any photos of the bed in use. I suspect that the big-block V-8 might have taken up some of the cargo space. The press materials mention removable engine access panels, so the powerplant may have been located low in the frame.

It would be nice to credit the team responsible for styling the Explorer, but Ford archivists say that fact isn’t recorded. They were, however, able to locate studio photos dated April 29, 1971, of two clay models with 1974 license plates. Apparently, Ford was considering two alternatives as theoretical replacements for the F-100 pickup: a more conventional pickup with a separate bed and a rearward driving position, whose front-end styling may have influenced the 1986 Aerostar minivan; and what appears to be a fully formed version of the cab-forward Explorer concept, wearing a slightly different grille.

Interestingly, that second clay model bore a “Caribou” nameplate. If you zoom in on the first, you’ll see that designers used a truly generic placeholder badge.

There is no indication that Ford ever exhibited the Explorer after its brief display in Chicago and at auto shows and state fairs in 1973. While Ford archivists have graciously provided Hagerty with period publicity materials, they were not able to find any record of what happened to the Explorer concept. Details of its ultimate destiny are not in Ford’s corporate collection, as far as I have been able to determine. Most likely, it was crushed years ago.

The Deora is currently owned by Detroit-area collector Tom Abrams, who operates the Reliable Carriers service used by many to transport their vehicles to shows and to new owners. The 1973 Ford Explorer concept survives in name only.

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The beauty of Hot Wheels, like many of the toys we treasure, is the way they inspire kids to use their imaginations. Turns out, Hot Wheels does the same for big kids, too. 

Mattel’s iconic die-cast vehicles have been inspiring car lovers of all ages since 1968, and now some of those kids are turning their actual cars into life-size Hot Wheels on NBC’s new hour-long show Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, which debuted on May 30. 

Like the iconic toy cars that we grew up loving, the competition is good, clean, family fun. And although it airs at a time—Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern—that’s not exactly family friendly, each episode can be streamed on Peacock the following day.

Hosted by aw-shucks nice guy Rutledge Wood, Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge features two “superfans” who are tasked with turning their dream designs into reality. Each contestant has a touching story to tell about a car that changed their lives, and an identical model serves as the basis for their build.

“Buckle up for the ride of your life,” Wood says in the intro, “where car-loving Hot Wheels fans get the chance of a lifetime … transforming nostalgic cars from their past into life-size Hot Wheels of their dreams.”

The winner of each round gets $25,000 and a spot in the finals. The overall champion (of 16 contestants) gets an additional $50,000, plus the honor of having their custom creation made into a Hot Wheels car that will be sold to the public. 

Wood, who auto enthusiasts may know from the American version of Top Gear, is joined by fellow judges Dalal Elsheikh, a Hot Wheels ambassador and designer for Ford Motor Company, and car culture influencer Hertrech “Hert” Eugene Jr. Each week also introduces a new celebrity judge, who in the premiere episode is Terry Crews, host of America’s Got Talent.

The first two superfans to square off are 24-year-old Jadejha Edwards, of Houston, and 58-year-old “Jerzey” Jim Farrell, of Forked River, New Jersey.

Jadejha chooses a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro to match the car her aunt drove when Jadejha went to live with her as a teenager. Now a cybersecurity engineer, Jadejha says her aunt offered her constant encouragement and a safe place to live and dream. “Who I am today,” she says, “started right there in that car.”

Jim, a custom van outfitter, selects a 1969 Dodge Charger like the one that he and his father restored together—and painted bright yellow—decades ago. This one wears black matte paint, just as his previous Charger did prior to its final paint job. “Seeing that car again feels like I’m 18 years old, man,” Jim says.

Given one week to design and build their cars, each contestant receives help from three experts from the “Car Pool,” who are charged with making their dreams a reality. It all begins in the “Chrome Zone,” where hundreds of actual Hot Wheels serve as inspiration. Once the build begins, there are plenty of hurdles to clear along the way. That includes a curveball thrown by the Hot Wheels crew more than halfway through the build: the Inspirationator 5000, the huge centerpiece of the set, selects an actual Hot Wheels car, and the fabricators are required to incorporate one of its design elements into their own cars.

Jadejha wants the Camaro to be green and have a low, wide, futuristic look that reflects her job in cybersecurity—and the sense of indestructability she felt whenever she rode in her aunt’s car. Jim requires two things: the Charger must be yellow, like his first car, and pop a wheelie. That last criterion prompts him to pull the engine from the front and put it in back; he also wants the engine to be a Hemi V-8.

Although we know that each team has seven days to complete the work, the editors of the show manage to manufacture some drama by making it look like the cars are completed just in time. Regardless, both are gorgeous successes and receive plenty of praise from the judges. Jim’s Charger can indeed pop a wheelie (thanks to hydraulics), and that’s enough to steal the show and take the win.

The real winners, however, are those of us who remember the first time we imagined driving one of those spectacular little cars on the track, the street, or some remote two-track. Yes, the show’s jokes are a little lame, and we want to know more about the specifics of each build, but the kids are going to love it all. Even some of us kids who remember playing with their first Hot Wheels cars 55 years ago.

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There is a link between Ford’s 2004 Shelby GR-1 concept and Britain’s national speed limit. How so? Well, the original design was inspired by Shelby’s take on AC Cars’ Cobra Coupe, the very model that in 1964 racing driver Jack Sears tested to 185mph on the M1 motorway, making front-page news, and—allegedly—prompting the government to introduce a 70mph limit three years later. That tale never appeared in Ford’s launch material for the GR-1, but with a claimed top speed of 190mph, it would have made a nice tribute to Sears’ bravado.

Trivia aside, in 2004, Ford was already looking at the performance car horizon after the successful launch of its mid-engined GT. With only 4500 GTs planned, a successor was needed and after in-house designer, George Saridakis, penned a 21^st-century homage to the ‘60s Shelby Daytona Coupe (the AC’s wilder sibling), Ford’s head of design, J.Mays, commissioned a clay to be produced. When it received a warm reception at that year’s Pebble Beach Concours, Ford’s Advanced Product Creation (APC) team were tasked with developing a fully functional car – and one, maybe, with production potential.

The result was quite breathtaking. Using the mid-engined GT’s chassis as a base, modified to allow front/mid installation of a 597 bhp, 6.4-liter, dry-sump V-10 engine, APC presented a muscular, two-seat fastback design, with a traditional cab-rearward stance, crafted from polished aluminum. Two feet shorter than the GT at just 14.5 ft long, the GR-1 successfully melded cues from the original Shelby without looking overtly retro.

Opening its distinctive McLaren-style “butterfly” doors, drivers were faced with a cleanly-styled part-analogue, part-digital dash, incorporating a ‘TireIQ’ system, which, among other things, recorded cornering G-forces via an accelerometer. Speakers for the GR-1’s sound system were built into the headrest wings of the carbon fiber-shelled seats.

This was no mere styling pastiche, either. With the mighty V-10 installed, taken from Ford’s Modular family of engines, the GR-1 was predicted to hit the aforementioned 190mph top speed, and accelerate from 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds, laying its power down through a limited-slip-differential-equipped six-speed manual transaxle, and sending drive to 19-inch rear wheels shod with 345 x 35 tyres.

Making its first public appearance at the 2005 North American International Auto Show, there was obviously still an interest in seeing the GR-1 through to series production, with Phil Martens, Ford’s group vice president of product creation, making a clear statement about its market position: “Our goal this time around was not to create the ultimate top-speed, high-performance sports car. Really, we intended to strike a better balance of design, capability and usability that might appeal to someone considering a Ferrari 575M Maranello.”

But as was the case with many a promising concept car, the devil was in the detail, and after the GR-1 was subjected to a full feasibility study, significant changes were identified. To be production viable, its 45-inch height needed to be raised, and its wheelbase—which was seven inches shorter than the GT’s on which it was based—needed to be lengthened, too. The GR-1 was not a light car, either, with the concept weighing in at 3900 lb. Ford’s target production weight was 3500 lb, and consideration was given to replacing the GR-1’s V-10 with a V-8 to achieve that goal.

In the end, though, Ford’s production dreams for the GR-1 wouldn’t pan out. While the changes needed didn’t present insurmountable hurdles for the car’s development team, Ford was starting to get its fingers burned with GT sales. After an initial rush of orders when the car launched in 2004, demand had dropped significantly two years later. Faced with the prospect of only selling 4000 GTs from the originally-conceived 4500-car run, Ford’s accountants could only see the same scenario playing out with a production GR-1, and slammed on the brakes.

That isn’t quite where the story ends, though. There was still a lot of love for the GR-1 in enthusiast circles, and one person could still see its potential in a more limited market. Lance Stander, CEO of California-based Superformance—distributors of low-volume, high-end recreations, such as the Corvette Grand Sport, Cobra, GT40, and Shelby Daytona Coupe—sought to reach an agreement with Ford and Shelby America to purchase the rights to produce a modified version of the GR-1. After many years, they succeeded, and in 2019 Superformance announced that it would be taking orders for its own Shelby GR-1, with the choice of either an aluminum or carbon fiber body, and an output of 750bhp from a Ford V-ok8 engine. The predicted cost: $250,000.

Unfortunately, the federal government recently halted implementation of the regulation which would have given Superformance exemption from the safety and labelling standards required to build the Shelby GR-1 in low volumes. But we still live in hope…

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