A day of achievement for the whole USA. GM builds it’s 50 millionth car—a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air hardtop. Harlow Curtis’ quote from the film: “This accomplishment strengthens the national economy and contributes to our country’s achievement, and is symbol of progress for the future.” This would be blasphemous rhetoric in today’s government controlled society.
This [...]
by John Samsen
1952 Portfolio Sketch
I was lucky to get into car designing; I was at the right time and place. My early fascinations were with the planes and cars of the ‘thirties and ‘forties, and not knowing anything about Industrial Design, I took an Aero Engineering degree at Purdue, thinking I could “style” aircraft. At [...]
Artwork by Kip Wasenko, Tom Covert, and Others
This lithe concept mounted a 180-horse Wankel transversely, driving a new automatic transaxle being developed for the forthcoming X-body Citation. Designed by GM’s Experimental Studio and built on a modified Porsche 914 chassis by Pininfarina, the 2-Rotor made its debut at the 1973 Frankfurt show.
Mitchell had the car crushed.
Ron [...]
Corvette SS
Video shows designing and building the Corvette SS.
Mako Shark II
I worked with Allan Flowers in Buick in the late ’70s until he left for Nissan Design International. Very talented and super creative designer. This collection of artwork is from his GM days with a couple of sketches from NDI. Allan is currently very involved in RC aircraft and is currently building an incredible Siemens Schuckert [...]
This is the last installment of a three part series showing a design process in order from sketch to a roll around hard model. The photos are interesting revealing quite a bit of detail about techniques and tools, what was important then, and how things worked. I don’t know or remember everybody that is pictured in [...]
Traces the birth of the 1949 Ford from the drawing board to the roads of the world, showing different stages of automobile design and manufacturing. This is the first 12:30 minutes of a 27 minute video. Featured are studio renderings on black canson and full size clay models. A flashback into the days before the [...]
Click here to read part one.
The Ford orientation studio I started in, where I began my design career in 1952. Photo was taken before I joined.
Future Continentals
All the newcomers started here and the studio chiefs can look them over for production studio assignments. I went to Mercury Exterior from here. Looking back, I think what a [...]
