by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls

This 100-year history explains why cars looked, and look, the way they do, who designed what, and why. The original hardcover book was voted “must have” by major enthusiast magazines in the U.S. and Europe. The book also won the Society of Automotive Historians’ prestigious Cugnot Award.

The book is now out of print, but you can enjoy the DVD as one of the world’s best automotive reads and then keep it in your library for handy long term reference. The DVD contains the original book in its entirety: 308 pages, more than 900 photos, complete text, captions, sidebars and index. Nothing’s left out. The disc is fully searchable and very easy to use. The DVD remains the “book” of choice for everyone interested or involved in the history of car design.

To order a copy of the DVD, contact Michael Lamm.

Excerpt from the book.

This short selection from the beginning of the book defines the origins of a few of the body design terms studios use in creating surfaces.

It all goes back to shipbuilding

It’s no big secret that a lot of early motorcars took their body design from carriages. But it’s less obvious that carriage design evolved from shipbuilding. As with so many other arts and crafts, it all began with the Greeks.

In the 19th century, archeologists discovered mysterious lines scribed on the floors of Roman temples. What did these odd lines mean? The scholars discovered that they were the outlines of huge Roman ships, drawn in plan view (plan view means “as seen from directly above”). The smooth temple floors made an ideal surface to loft a ship’s hull full size.

The Greeks, Norsemen, Southeast Islanders and even some tribes of American Indians used a variation of this same idea.They would draw a full-sized hull outline on a sandy beach, plant sticks around the perimeter, and then connect the sticks with thongs. Finally they’d string more thongs diagonally across the hull to indicate the ship’s ribbing.The resulting “blueprint,” crude as it was, be-came the working drawing for a trireme, a packet or a war canoe.

These techniques worked well enough for the ancients, but as ships grew larger and more complicated, the blueprints had to be refined. For one thing, a simple plan view drawing gave the shipwright only a two dimensional, incomplete map to work from. What he really needed was a set of plans that showed in a way that workmen could read and follow.

So in the 1600s, European ship designers came up with a system for representing all three dimensions on a flat sheet of paper. This system involved basic geometry. Automobile stylists still use it today to map out autobody surfaces, but they now let computers do the mathematical calculations.

Once a ship’s designer had the ability to indicate to the carpenter or ship-wright exactly how the finished hull ought to be constructed, style started to enter the picture. Ships evolved from the tall, ungainly craft that sailed the ocean blue in 1492 to the sleek clipper ships of the mid-1800s. Amazingly, in that transformation, the fundamentals of ship-building didn’t change. What did change was that the ship designer-call him “stylist”-could and did get involved in the building process.

It’s easy enough to see that the design system that evolved for ships’ hulls carried over first into carriage building and then into auto body design. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the first step in designing a ship’s hull meant carving a scale “half model” from wood. A common scale was one inch to four feet, or 1/48. And the half model was exactly what it sounds like: not a representation of the entire hull but just half of it, split vertically down the middle and flat from the keel line up. This half-hull model was usually carved from a stack of planks, or layers. The planks fit tightly together, one atop the other, and they were held in place with tapered pegs that fit into vertical holes. The model did not have masts or sails.

In the shipyard loft, the “loftsman”—the person in charge of scaling up the half-hull model—would first draw out the lines of each hull section and then, from those drafts, make full-sized templates, or “molds.” The ship’s carpenters and craftsmen in the shop below then used these templates to cut and size the wooden beams that formed the ship’s main framework. By using the same templates first on one side of the hull and then the other, the two halves of the finished framing came together as mirror images.

Now it’s important to recognize that any mistake the hull designer or the master builder might have made in his original scale model got magnified, often by a factor of 48 or more, when that model was lofted full size. And since any scale model always did contain surface flaws, it was up to the loftsman to “fair” the full-sized representations. Fairing meant, first and foremost, making an ungainly or flawed design efficient as it moved through the water. Fairing meant smoothing the surface, sculpting the lines, reshaping, streamlining the hull, because a smooth, streamlined hull made the ship go faster, and speed meant money. Speed made the ship more profitable. So profit became the main motive for fairing a hull.

But fairing also had an aesthetic component. The art of fairing meant that the loftsman had the authority to change the full-scale drawings and templates so the lines looked “right;” so that the hull had what was generally accepted as a “proper” shape. The hull should look pleasing; it should look graceful and “fair,” as in “a fair young maid.” A good loftsman had an eye for fairing, and his aesthetic sense was as critical to the design process as his ability to make the hull efficient. Fairing, then, became the act of combining efficiency with beauty.

In the scaling-up process, the loftsman had the authority to “fair” or smooth outany irregularities in the hull shape, both in terms of fluid dynamics and aesthetics. He thus became the final arbiter of the ship hull’s styling.

Unlike ships’ hulls, the designing of carriages was almost never preceded by a scale model. It’s possible that a few carriage makers did use models, perhaps made of wood or sculptors’ clay, to help customers visualize what they were buying. But models weren’t common in carriage design, even in Europe. Rather, what carriage builders did was to first make detailed sketches, usually 1/10 or 1/12 scale, and the loft those sketches full-size on big, upright wooden panels.

To save space, the technique of lofting a carriage involved drawing a side view and then also superimposing half of a plan view on top of it. Both views were crammed onto the same board, and the drawings were kept separate and readable by being done in different colors. Offsets were called out on separate sheets of paper, and sometimes templates were made for the carriage body, but mostly not. This same technique evolved into the design and construction of automobile bodies and was used well into the 1980s.

A few photos and captions from the book.

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Reviews

SpeedReaders
On the chance that this is the first you’ve known about this book—that it’s all brand new news to you—you may not be familiar with the co-authors. Dave Holls was a professional designer, employed his entire 39-year career at General Motors. At the time of his retirement, he had risen to the number two man at GM Design with the official title Director of Design. But more than merely a working designer, Holls was a life-long student of design, maintaining voluminous personal files and photos on design and design history. Mike Lamm, co-founder and first editor of Special Interest Autos, is the author of many books. He is known and respected for his carefully researched and very readable prose. Together Lamm and Holls covered in detail, that amazed even the most knowledgeable, the story and history of the automobile in America in their seminal work A Century of Automotive Style; 100 Years of American Car Design. More…

Theme sketch that started it all.

In this post there is an excerpt from the book and photos from GM Styling including design and construction. Part 2 will include another excerpt from the book and a lot of photos from the Motorama filming at the Mesa Proving Grounds in Arizona (including many candid shots by Norm James). At the end of the post are links to the Firebird III brochure, additional excerpts on the GM Heritage site, a book review by SpeedReaders, where to purchase Norm’s book, and a link to an index of the book.

Excerpt from Of Firebirds & Moonmen

“If we don’t put fins on this car, then someone else will.”

Research Studio drew the assignment for designing the Firebird III because it was under Robert F. (Bob) McLean, who also headed the design of Firebirds I & II. The studio itself was new, created when Styling moved into the new Technical Center in 1956. At that time, the studio was set up with two designers, Stefan Habsburg, a graduate of MIT who’s specialty was mechanical and systems design and myself, a graduate of Pratt Institute and the “Styling” part of the team. We also had a studio engineer, Al Aldrighetti and two clay modelers; the modelers were out on loan to other studios.

Bob McLean would have been more involved with the actual design, as he was with Firebirds I and II, however, he elected not to. He advised Stefan and me of this in a closed-door meeting, saying that from now on he would participate only as a manager. He would give us an assignment and a date for completion. Then he would accept or reject what we presented to him, stating that it would be just like in a fine restaurant; if he didn’t like the food as it was presented, he would send it back to the kitchen to have it done right. He would not go in the kitchen and cook it himself!

Activity had actually begun weeks before, except it was then only known as “a car” for the next Motorama (a year and a half hence). We did not know if it would be a running car or a fiberglass dummy, like most of the Motorama cars were. Nothing further was defined so we started searching for a theme. We converged on a small electric car, developed as a clean simple form, devoid of fins and in good taste, i.e. a potato. We went so far as to build a full size mockup that you could sit in. The mockup was constructed of plywood templates mounted on top of a low wooden platform (on castors). It was like a flying model airplane, except without a skin.

A meeting was called with Mr. Earl to review it and McLean made the presentation, identifying all of its features. Earl patiently waited for McLean to finish and then, without addressing our presentation, began adding new information on the project that had already been committed to:

The (Motorama) car would be a running vehicle representing the Corporation (rather than a Division) and that it would be the third in the Firebird series of cars—designated as the XP73

The body would be a two-seater, similar to the Club de Mer of the 1956 Motorama, except a little bigger, in order to handle all the special features

It would have an upgraded version of the Firebird II Wildfire regenerative gas turbine engine, mounted amidships

It would have a joystick controller, instead of a steering wheel, and an automatic steering system being developed by Research Staff, able to follow a wire in the roadway

It would also have an auxiliary power unit (APU). A small two cylinder 10 HP engine driving a 115 Volt AC electric generator and hydraulic pumps to run the accessories.

The novel feature was that on the show circuit, the generator could be run backwards (as a motor) on 60 cycle house current, to power all systems for show, and not have to run the APU engine indoors

Research Staff had already begun work on the chassis layout, sizing tires, wheelbase and track. We could expect to see preliminary drawings in about a week.

Mr. Earl then began describing the emotional side of the Motorama and what could be expected. He described how New Yorkers would wait in line, four deep, around the block just to get into the Waldorf Astoria to see the free auto show inside, in the Grand Ballroom. He wanted the people around the car to be so deep that they would have to stay for an extra show, just to get a better view (and also making for a more dramatic setting). The key expression he used that summarized everything was when he said, “You know, when you go to see a show in Las Vegas, you don’t expect to see your wife on the stage. You expect to see a real floozy.”

When Earl and McLean left the studio shortly afterwards, and based on his floozy comment, I looked at Stefan and said, “You know, if we don’t put fins on this car, then someone else will.”

Firebird III Styling Development

Firebird III clay model.

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Photos courtesy of GM Media Archives

Based on this thought, I made a simple sketch combining several of the other features I noted in the air show. The body had a “stove pipe” front end like the F100 fighter, only wider to span the full width of the passenger compartment. Because the front end only housed the APU, it did not need the full opening (height) of a large scoop. The Club de Mer roadster had two small windscreens for the passengers and I enlarged these to be full blisters. Behind these, and at the maximum body width, I introduced the quad fins, clocked at 45 degrees. It was a simple sketch but, in essence, it fulfilled Harley Earl’s vision.

With a general theme that seemed workable identified, I thought it was also a good time to try another idea that I had been considering for some time (a design technique). I had been concerned about the standard design routine used when starting new designs, i.e., sketching side views full size on vellum with a soft pencil. In practice, the designer would have to step back from time to time to see what the full view looked like. Necessarily he would have to erase some lines and draw new ones. My concern was that, in trying to assess what he had, erasure smudges would erroneously be contributing to the design, when they really shouldn’t be. I had thought of a technique that addressed this problem and decided this was the time to try it. I called the technique “string drawing.”

Stefan and I agreed that we would go with the quad fin sketch and try the technique. We ordered colored yarns and pushpins (which had to be purchased) and were waiting for them when we started receiving the wheelbase, tire and track data and profiles for the APU, turbine engine and trans-axle. We carefully positioned the profile templates onto our vertical boards (on gridded vellum) and added tire and our 95% Oscar templates.

With the arrival of the pins and yarns, we tied a small loop at the end of the first yarn and pined it to the board as the front of the first horizontal line. We then pulled the yarn to its end point, cut it and tied another loop…pinning that as the end point. There was enough elasticity in the yarn that we could take other pins and stretch that yarn (up or down) with enough pins to give character to the line.

The beauty of the technique was that by just observing the spacing of the pins and the rate of change in that spacing, it was possible to adjust it to a “mathematical purity” for line character. Secondarily, the eye could also judge the angle change between line segments, offering another basis for judgment. In total, this would be an aesthetic metric.

The pins also worked in another manner. Applied to the “form follows function” rule of design, say where a line approached a radiator corner, or other feature in near proximity, one could stage the pins to approach the feature in a regular mathematical progression and then on passing, flip to a retrograde reverse motion in a related regression of that sequence. It would be similar to astronomical physics, where bodies in motion are affected by the gravity of other bodies as they pass by.

String Drawing Technique with Norm James. “I heard that the string drawing technique was picked up and used for a short time in a few of the other studios, but it was quickly replaced by black 3M photo tape drawings because they had a stronger graphic impact. My personal preference remains with the yarn technique, precisely because it is more abstract and more perfectly defines lines in a present day digital [computer] sense.” Photo courtesy of GM Media Archives.

While I was staring at it, Stefan said, “What if we try something like this” and then walked up to the board and pinned a large central (dorsal) fin and lower fins extending outboard, even further aft. I was aghast…thinking, “You can’t do that! You can’t add a three element fin array behind the four fin quad array!” But, I didn’t say anything because it added the balance the design was crying for. I then went to the board and tweaked the lines a little bit. I stepped back to look at it again and thought, “This is starting to look pretty good.”

I then set up other vertical boards to develop a ½ plan, front and rear views. That was to get all the features (mostly fins) correct in all views. In the front view, I set up two passengers in a tight “sports car” like cross-section, leaving enough space to develop the quad fins within the 80-inch street legal width. …It was still looking good.

We called McLean to “Come take a look.” He had an office on the second floor of the administration building, down the hall from Earl’s office, and he said he would be right down. A few minutes later he was in our studio and appeared to be very pleased. The situation was this; when Earl described what he wanted, we began converting our original mock up to the Club de Mer roadster and we were committed to complete it. So, what McLean immediately did was authorize our building a second mockup to the new design. We would have to carry both mockups to a common level for presentation to Earl. My task would be to convert the string drawings to hard straight-line segments and then overlay a clean sheet of vellum to interpret an equivalent in hard line sweeps. I would then have to draw up all the sections as separate details and send them to the woodshop to be made for assembly (in notched egg-crate fashion).

I decided to do something else different for the mockup. As noted before, mockups were usually built up on gridded platforms. Templates were then mounted to the platform at ten-inch intervals, with the outside line following the exterior body contour and an inside “trim” line offset one inch inside (representing clearance for inside mechanical components.
What I wanted to do was to make a “space sketch” as our 3D sculpture mentor, Rowena Reed, had taught us at Pratt (to define a sculptural concept). To do this, I selected those sections that were most characteristic of the design and then shaped their inside trims to best enhance that character in those template details. The main change, however, was to get rid of the platform base. I replaced it with a deep section wood beam cruciform, mounted on four large castors. The templates would be mounted directly to that cruciform and it would lie entirely within the body profile, yielding “free (negative) space below.” The center beam almost implied a structural centerline spine (which the Firebird III ended up having). Two contoured lounge type seats were fixed tightly into the cruciform.

The drawings were completed and sent to the woodshop to have the parts made. As these parts started coming in, we had two woodworkers assigned to our studio and I had to be available to identify what the parts were and where they went, as I had made no assembly drawing. Some of the features like the nose lip and side air scoops were detailed more accurately and they were hand shaped in poplar wood and painted in a high gloss white lacquer. The intent was that these details were considered to be “dominant” design elements and I wanted the observer’s eye to “linger” on these details. The rest of the templates, after assembly, were hand painted in a flat light gray latex water-base paint. Unusual items like the blister canopies had to be represented by ½ inch wide template sections cut out of ½ inch Plexiglas sheet.

Earl and McLean then left the studio as Stefan and I celebrated. McLean returned somewhat later and told us that Earl had directed the design committee to “stay out of our studio”—the end of a perfect day.

The noteworthy design message turned out to be that following the simple sketch, the string drawing that defined it and then its conversion into a “space sketch”; the design work was “done.” The long tedious process of getting the surfaces right in clay was just a matter of working the problem until it captured the essence of the mockup, which was there every day to be seen as a frame of reference. Even as the designer, I did not feel I had the right to change the basic architecture to solve some small problem that wouldn’t go away. I found that if you didn’t put too much effort in solving problems, they did not attract that much attention and flaws were not that big a deal. The design of the Firebird III was actually complete with the mockup. The execution took a little longer.

There were a few more events worthy of mention that happened leading up to the completion of the clay model. As noted earlier, Harley Earl had prohibited the design committee from entering our studio, but there was a conflicting incident that happened that summer. Earl went to Europe for a combined business trip and one-month vacation leaving Bill Mitchell in charge. Inevitably, Bill Mitchell and the design committee came by and offered their help. The committee was in complete agreement that the three rear fins were excessive and had to go. McLean was not able to dissuade them, so we removed them and cleaned up the surfaces, ending up with a long plain overhanging plank in back. The changes were completed in time for Earl’s return. We were placed on Earl’s busy schedule for a status review of the Firebird III. It would be in the auditorium so the model was transported down the long underground passageway and set up on the center turntable of the elevated stage. McLean and the design committee gathered around it and waited for Earl to appear. Stefan, Larry [Simi – the head clay modeler], and I, with a few other studio people huddled down below on the main floor, out of sight behind some boards. Earl finally arrived and took a position at center stage. McLean drew the task of presenting the change to Earl. McLean began his pitch. “After review . . . it was clear . . . we all agreed,” while Earl very quietly and politely waited for him to finish. After a pause, Earl began speaking. “You know,” he said, following with a pause, “when I came into the studio that day—for the first time—and saw the mockup . . . I actually saw the finished car in the Waldorf Astoria . . . and it was exactly as I had pictured it.” After another pause, he continued, “Now, why don’t you all take the car back and put it back to the way it was when I left.” With that, he turned and walked out.

If you want to read the rest of the story, get the book.

Firebird III Construction

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Links:
Download the Acrobat index of Of Firebirds and Moonmen
Firebird III brochure on Dean’s Garage
SpeedReaders book review
About the Author from Xlibris
Description of the book from Xlibris

The Design Staff Library

Bookstores and public libraries are always a disappointment. We go to these places in search of inspiration, but it’s always in short supply. The transportation books usually consist of one narrow section. Any cool car design books, if there are any, have to share space with airplane books, train books, books about Harleys, and the latest car culture/rat rod/tatoo books. The last gasp of hope is expended walking thorough the bargain section on the way out the door.

Not so the Design Staff Library.

The Design Staff library was stocked with interesting books geared to the level of the car designer. Upstairs there was a locked door that served as a guardian for an impressive collection of old car brochures, photographs, and other research materials. The library also subscribed to car magazines from all over the world. So the library was a popular destination for short breaks. They were necessarily short because the library was located along the hallway that connected the production studios, the escalator from the first floor where the advanced studios were located, and the administration building. The common wall between the hallway and the library was glass from floor to ceiling. So it was like a giant aquarium as seen from the hallway. You couldn’t stay in there too much or too often. Too many hall walkers. It could be a career stopper.

One day I happen to meet a good designer friend in the library looking through some magazines. After a few minutes he said, “You can stay here all day if you want, but I’m still promotable.” And went back to his studio. I also remember this rather intimidating, middle-aged woman with a heavy German accent that ran the library. Crossing her in any way was not an option.

Magazines used to have all kinds of cool and inspiring artwork and cutaway drawings. A good illustration can often communicate the essence of something and capture the imagination of the reader better than the camera. And readers buy magazines. Designers express themselves through their artwork and are often inspired by a particular view or perspective that excites the imagination. We’ll buy a magazine for one photo or illustration. Popular illustration styles often influenced drawing styles in the studios. The Harry Bradley post on Dean’s Garage has several galleries of his magazine illustrations.

Illustrations from Sports Car Graphic magazine.

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Illustrations by George Bartel that appeared in Sports Car Graphic magazine and made available as a set of prints

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Cutaway Illustrations

So what does the caption mean in English? I contacted a good friend who speaks German like a native because he is. Anyway, he said that the some of the words were difficult to understand in German let alone translate into English. It roughly means “the space (for the driver) in this efficiently small Baumm is not as small or confining.” Small as compared to some unknown something else. We don’t know what a Baumm is exactly, either.

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More Cutaway Illustrations

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Styling The Look of Things in Gallery Format

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R. Henry Gurr’s book played an important role in my interest in car design. After seeing GM’s show car display in the infield at a USRRC road race at the Riverside International Raceway in 1964 (which included the Monza GT), I had a letter on its way to GM Design Staff the next morning inquiring about how to become a car designer. GM’s response included photos of several of the cars I mentioned seeing, a list of schools I might consider, and a recommendation to purchase the book, Automobile Design by Henry Gurr. I ordered the book and still have it.

R.H. Gurr had quite a career with Disney after leaving Ford. There is a great interview with Bob Gurr at the Walt Disney Imagineering Fan Club site, and a candid biography at the LaughingPlace which connects Disney fans throughout the world. You’ll really enjoy reading Bob’s the interview and biography.

In Automobile Design are illustrations and renderings by Henry Gurr, Ron Hill, Stan Parker, Bob Caderet, and others. There are several great examples of bold pencil renderings, sports cars in action illustrations, and Prismacolor pencil on Canson.

Be sure to check out the comments for more information and images!

Published in 1955 by Dan R. Post Publications, Arcadia, California

Text and Illustrations by R. H. Gurr

Here is the book to open new fields of thought and action for anyone interested in the design and styling of car.

Whether used a the handbook for comprehensive drawing and design instruction, for gaining a qualified background of manufacturers’ view and professional design approach and technique in preparation for automobile styling as a career, for reference to it gold mine of fascinating illustrations in the development of a single glass fiber or steel-bodied custom car, or only to elect from it beautiful renderings suitable for framing Automobile Design is the kind of book you’ll not only enjoy but will be proud to share with friends.

Here are the rudiments of automobile drawing in plain crisp language, with an unequalled selection of supporting sketches and renderings. This is the book that will turn armchair doodler into artist of professional stature, and produce among the casually interested a pencil-pushing effort revealing latent ability.

R. H. Gurr is an outstanding professional automobile designer. His experience following graduation from The Art enter School—the west’s leading job-condition prep school—has included a stint at one of the largest manufacturers in Detroit, special product work as an associate of George Walker Industrial Design, and his recent development of the utopia cars and car and truck antique replicas for Disneyland. He possesses a rare combination of creative and rendering ability, coupled with crystal-clear engineering comprehension.

Automobile Design is the greatly enlarged, contemporized version of the book originally titled How to Draw Cars of Tomorrow. Coverage of the subject has been improved by the inclusion of important new chapters, together with a great number of additional illustrations, including the rendering work of several other professional automobile designers, among whom are Stan Parker, Ron Hill, and Bob Caderet, all currently of General Motors’ Studios.

Some of the facts pertinently revealed here may shock the reader. Nowhere else between the covers of a book can such candid and unbiased view of manufacturer’s aims, designers’ problems, and consumers’ benefits be found—confidential observations of such impact they could never have been said had the author been committed professionally during the period when the book was written.

You’ll quote it, but if your friends pick up this book you will have to tie it down to keep it from disappearing.

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Categories include: Adventure, travel, Art, Artists and Design, Automobiles, Aviation, Award Winner, Biography/ Autobiography, Construction, Earthmoving and Heavy Equipment, DVD, video, Fiction, Garage and tools, History, Maritime, Motorcycles, Multilingual and/or Published in a Language other than English, Out of Print, Racing, Rally, Technology, Trains, Trucks and Buses, and Youth and Young Adult.

Plan on spending a some time at SpeedReaders!

Of Firebirds and Moonmen

by Norman J. James

If you were a newly-minted designer in the 1950s, the place you would want to go to work would be General Motors. Legendary Harley Earl ran his design division as his own private fiefdom, and his Knight’s Errant were his designers. Assuming you were lucky and talented enough to become a part of Earl’s design staff, what could be better than to be chosen to create a gas turbine-powered concept car for the General Motors Motorama? That was the position Norman James found himself in when the 25 year-old designer was put in charge of the Firebird III project in 1957. More…

Download the Acrobat index of Of Firebirds and Moonmen.

Century of Automotive Style

by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls

(I have a copy of this book signed by Dave Holls and Michael Lamm. It is a treasure and a serious resource—Gary). On the chance that this is the first you’ve known about this book—that it’s all brand new news to you—you may not be familiar with the co-authors. Dave Holls was a professional designer, employed his entire 39-year career at General Motors. At the time of his retirement, he had risen to the number two man at GM Design with the official title Director of Design. But more than merely a working designer, Holls was a life-long student of design, maintaining voluminous personal files and photos on design and design history. Mike Lamm, co-founder and first editor of Special Interest Autos, is the author of many books. He is known and respected for his carefully researched and very readable prose. Together Lamm and Holls covered in detail, that amazed even the most knowledgeable, the story and history of the automobile in America in their seminal work A Century of Automotive Style; 100 Years of American Car Design. More…

Sports Cars of the Future

by Strother MacMinn

(Dean’s Garage featured a post on this book.) First impression is this is a modest little book (especially if comparing it to some of the multi-pound coffee table picture books). But once read, especially if reading now in the 21st century, it is virtually impossible to forget. It is more than what is printed on the pages of Sports Cars of the Future. It is the realization of when it was written—in the latter part of the 1950s—and by whom, that simply stuns the thinking reader today.

The prescience of MacMinn’s writings is startling. Ostensibly the book is about sports cars. But the cars, those real as well as those he hypothesizes for the future, are the ones that are today, a half century later, the most revered. Thus it is the principles beyond the specific, individual cars that form the overriding value of the book; design and engineering concepts that have been proven timeless due in part to the respect they demonstrate for the unchanging realities of nature’s laws. More…

Porsche Rennsport: The Definitive Photographic Record of the Racing Sports Cars of Porsche 1949–2004

by Jeffrey R Zwart

This is one of those books that will make you break out in a sweat—hot, cold, who cares—but you absolutely must have dry hands to handle this book so as to avoid getting sticky fingerprints all over the glossy pages. If you have an excitable bone in your body, if you are even a little bit of a visual person, the photos in this book are eyeball-warping sensory overload. From their sheer size (open the book is 30″ wide) to their sharpness, the photos are so in-your-face you’ll end up wanting to hold the book at arm’s length. So there. More…

Ford in the Service of America: Mass Production for the Military during the World Wars

by Timothy J. O’Callaghan

World War Two now lies approximately two-thirds of a century in the past. It must be incomprehensible to those not alive then, that there was a time when virtually all the resources of our domestic life were directed towards a single goal; victory over clearly identified enemies.

Preparedness for the eventual conflict began slowly in 1940. There was fear even before Pearl Harbor of a German air attack from hidden bases in countries south of the US and from enemy planes operating from aircraft carriers off the coastlines. Even though Henry Ford was anti-war (after all, there were Ford plants and facilities in England, Germany, and seven other European countries under Hitler’s control), he became fully engaged in rearming for national defense. The story of the Ford Motor Company’s contributions to the war effort 1940-45 is the theme of Ford in the Service of America. More…

Hot Rods and Custom Cars, Los Angeles and the Dry Lakes: The Early Years

by Ken Gross and Robert Ames featuring period photos by Strother MacMinn

I like this book despite a few oversights, errors, and uncorrected typos And while I’m not all that knowledgeable about the dry lakes, to me those pages look very much like a black-and-white Tom Fritz treatise. (For readers who do not recognize the names of either Fritz or reviewer Lord—both are accomplished fine artists and members of AFAS, the Automotive Fine Arts Society. Much of Fritz’s art shows iconic dry lake and hot rod scenes, while the subjects of Lord’s work are more open wheel race-oriented.) I reacted to the images esthetically rather than to what was hot rodded or run at the dry lakes. There are some great machines—hot rods, customs and dry lakes runners which include many with those wonderful belly tank bodies—that were thankfully recorded for us to see today because Strother MacMinn was exploring in and around the LA area during the 40s and 50s, composing beautiful shots. More…

The Art of Dexter Brown

by Robert Edwards

Brown’s renditions of speed and noise and light are not just those of an observant spectator but are informed by his own experience running a heavily modified, cobbled-together Jaguar XK120 in sprints and hill-climbs. In Brown’s signature racing scenes not just the speeding car but the entire canvas is disjointed—foreground, background, everything—as if all the molecules that hold the universe together have become unhinged by the assault of a ferocious racecar ripping the fabric of time. (Just like Pointillism might tempt a viewer to grumble “Anyone could do that!” try doing Brown’s sparse, purposeful style yourself and realize that using “fewer strokes” makes it harder, not easier.)

The Alphabet and The Automobile

by Murray L. Smith. Illustrations by Charles W. Queener

Queener’s brush strokes do more than merely put watercolor to paper—they sing, they talk—and others recognize this too for his paintings hang in some pretty prestigious collections. He’s well steeped in all-things automotive having raced for a short time, and instructed others to drive competitively as a Jim Russell Racing School instructor. Before moving east, as he describes it, he “got involved with the Ferrari Owner’s Club and this evolved into my founding Cavallino”. Plus he’s held staff positions at publications like Road & Track, Motor Trend, and Ski. There’s more, but you get the idea. More…

Zany Afternoons

by Bruce McCall

(I have this book and never tire looking though it—Gary). McCall’s 1982 book, Zany Afternoons, presents a collection of brief articles about an imaginary society from the 1920s to the 1950s, often populated by uber-wealthy and spoiled sophisticates who enjoyed such diversions as autogiro jousts, wing dining, zeppelin shoots (“they fell so much more gracefully than grouse”), and tank polo. You’ll learn about such delightful spoof devices as the RMS Tyrannic and the 1934 Airdreme Nabob V-16 Sleekster. The “Somewhere East of Laramie” automotive ad parodies are as accurate as they are funny, matched by the 1958 Bulgemobile sales brochure (think bejeweled Buicks on heavy doses of steroids). Text appears in the form of fanciful captions describing the action in McCall’s amazingly-detailed, large-format paintings, which perfectly capture the ambience of both subject and period. More…

Porsche 917 – The Heroes, the Victories, the Myth

by Thomas Födisch, Jost Neßhöver, Rainer Roßbach, Harold Schwarz

(German/English side by side) This is an expanded second edition of a book first published in 2006. That edition had won quick acclaim and sold out just as quick. What distinguishes this large-format book from the many others on this model is its approach. While the car and its history are described in all pertinent detail, it is first and foremost an appraisal, or, better, an appreciation of the car, written by the very people who knew it best, warts and all—the engineers and drivers. Where other books reduce such commentary to excerpts and pithy one-liners, often all the more pithy by being stripped of their context, here you have pages-long insights from the primary sources in a first-person voice. Another unique dimension of this book is that it is published by German photojournalist Reinhard Klein’s company, which means it takes its photography seriously. The first edition already contained previously unseen photos; here there are more still! Expanded by three chapters/24 pages the book now adds the reminiscences of Vic Elford and David Piper on the driving side and Helmut Flegl, Norbert Singer, and Herbert Linge on the engineering/management side. Not everyone experienced the car the same way and by encircling its subject in this manner there is naturally some overlap and also some discrepancy in these accounts. More…

Avanti: The Complete Story

by John Hull

There have been a number of books that have attempted to chronicle the history and lineage of the Avanti. But until now few have given accurate or chronological details. Some on my bookshelf are merely pages and pages of already published magazine articles, while others simply gloss over the highlights and report nothing news.

Hull does mention that the title of his book is a bit presumptuous, as a truly complete history could take up multiple volumes. Within the 128-page limitation of this book, he presents an accurate overview of the “evolution of this incredible automobile and the cast of owners, characters, and fanatics it has attracted.” The eight chapters trace the car’s history beginning with Sherwood Egbert and Raymond Loewy’s first conversations and rough sketches. Anecdotes that only an Avanti insider would have known are told, and rarely seen original promotional photographs and factory advertisements are included. More…

The Cobra-Ferrari Wars, 1963-1965, Second Edition

by Michael L Shoen

First published twenty-five years after the “war”, Michael Shoen’s account, is still considered the definitive work on what is one of America’s greatest motorsports accomplishments of the sixties.

This book takes us to all events, large and small, and tells us what we missed. Happily, in both words and pictures, it also tells us about Ferrari’s most successful racing GT, the glorious GTO and the men who drove it, factory racers and privateers who raced well and yet still lost to the Cobras.

The Cobra-Ferrari Wars is reflective, in many ways, of the cars it celebrates. It is Ferrari, elegant and thoroughly European, in its pictures and the settings they depict. It is more Cobra, rough hewn and determined, in its story and candid shots. The pictures are wonderful; several are gorgeous. Justifiably so, as many were taken by the famed photographer, Bernard Cahier. More…

Modes and Motors

“Out of the merger or art, science, and industry have come new techniques that have within themselves the ability to create an entirely new pattern and setting for the life of the world.”

The pamphlet’s text is here to read, and scans of the great illustrations are reproduced in gallery form. Also available is the booklet in PDF format.

But hardly anyone will think of industry.

For art in industry is comparatively new. Only in recent years has the interest of manufacturer and user alike been expanded from the mere question of “Does it work?”to include “How should it look?” and “Why should it look that way?” Appearance and style have assumed equal importance with utility, price and operation. The artist and the engineer have joined hands to the end that articles of every day use may be beautiful as well as useful.

Every civilization has contributed something of importance to man’s understanding of the principles of beauty. It remained for our own times, through new forms of skin to provide the means by which artistic creations are made available to everyone.

Probably in no field have the results of the application of art to the products of industry been more apparent than in that of the automobile. In this book is told the story of this new partnership, together with a description of the methods used in designing style and beauty into a modern motor car.

This simple drawing is important to us because in it Ab demonstrated, all unconsciously, certain principles of beauty and design that have governed artistic creation ever since. For example, he used bold sweeping lines. He painted in color. Later artists found that color adds naturalness to any composition. He pictured the bull in motion-it is now an accepted principle that motion increases realism and interest. Again, although he made his picture smaller than life size, he kept the various parts in rough proportion (experts call this “scalar reduction”). Finally, and doubtless without being aware of what he was doing, Ab utilized effectively most of the seven
elementary shapes we know today.

Thus, right at the very beginning certain definite principles of design were laid down that have been followed from that day to this.
But it is not for technical reasons alone that the bull drawn by Ab enjoys world fame. It holds a place high among the masterpieces of all time as our earliest known example of man’s striving to improve his surroundings and make them more pleasing and beautiful.

Art and nature, then, are so closely related that appreciation of beauty is not limited to the artist or the art student. We all know when we like a pattern or design. You often hear a person say, when looking at a new design, “It doesn’t look right.” You probably have said it yourself, without exactly knowing why you felt that way. Usually it is because objects designed naturally, in accordance with such natural laws as balance and unity, are pleasing to the eye-they “look right.”. At the same time, whatever violates the laws of nature “looks wrong.”

A neighboring people, the Assyrians, excelled In the use of color and discovered that borders make a structure appear stronger. Sculpture was made more life-like, more “natural,” by an unknown Assyrian about 2,000 years ago when he conceived the idea of modelling the surface of statues to represent muscles.

The Romans followed in the footsteps of the Greeks, but rarely, if ever, equalled the work that had already been done in the realm of pure artistic creation. The Romans were practical men, faced with practical problems and driven by the desire to build a great empire. So it was chiefly in the field of architecture and public works that the Romans showed themselves to be highly skilled and able artists, men with the vision and the ability to translate into stone the beauty that every truly useful thing must have.

Every civilization has thus helped to teach us the principles by which things are made beautiful. Wherever artistic geniuses lived and dreamed, they left behind them evidences of their hopes and ambitions and desires—evidences that have come down to us in the form of artistic creations.

Widespread dissemination of art was impossible because a means or method for duplication of artistic objects was lacking. Even small, movable works of art were scarce and costly. The artists of long ago were creators of beauty by their own hands-and by their own hands alone. The master painter of the Renaissance could produce only a few great pictures during his entire lifetime. A master silversmith, such as Cellini who lived in the 16th century, made relatively few pieces, spent months and even years in the creation of a single cup or bowl. Duplicates were rare-the pleasure and benefit

derived from a single work of art were restricted to the few.

Let us suppose, for a minute, that Cellini had lived and worked today. His designs would be used as master patterns. Expert craftsmen using modern methods would reproduce his work in finest detail, quickly and surely. Millions of these reproductions could be made and distributed all over the world. Everyone would have an opportunity, if he so desired, to see and purchase the product of this great master’s brain and skill.

In recent years, through such joint efforts of artists and engineers, sound artistic principles have been applied to hundreds of things in everyday use-from the package of perfume we buy at the store to the motor car we ride in. Not only has the influence of the artist been multiplied by science and industry, but modern research has provided the artist with a much more exact knowledge of artistic principles. No longer is it necessary to depend entirely upon “impressions” and that vague faculty known as “taste” in arriving at critical standards of comparison in artistic fields.-It is true, of course, that art cannot be produced with pure mathematics and applied science alone-there must always be the added ingredients of human feeling, inspiration and ImagInation that are the mark of the truly great artist.

In the last analysis, art, science and industry have a mutual objective-the betterment of mankind and man’s life. The means are different, but the goal is the same.

Knowledge itself became widespread only when invention made it possible to reproduce in quantities at low cost the work of the world’s writers and thinkers. When manuscripts had to be written by hand, only a few people ever learned to read. The printing press made information and learning available to everyone.

Radio and motion pictures, through the application of research and modern industrial methods, bring the finest artistic productions in the field of music and drama into the lives of us all. Tomorrow, television may still further widen our opportunities to enjoy the beauties of the world in which we live.

By thus bringing together the best artistic thinking from aII fieIds, it’s entirely possible that within the span of our own times the products of our factories will come to represent one of our most noteworthy contributions In the realm of art.

During this period the artist regarded manufacturers with thinly-concealed contempt—to him they were rough, coarse men whose sole purpose in life was to make money. In turn, manufacturers considered most artists to be dreamy, impractical fellows, notoriously unsuccessful by the accepted business standards of the day. Few of them felt the need of an artist to tell them how to design their products.

So, for more than a century we, in this country, were busy thinking out and learn•ing how to make the things we wanted. Even with the development of “mass production”—that is, the technique of making goods in large enough quantities so that many people can have them—it was quite generally assumed that machine•made products necessarily would lack artistic qualities. Gradually, however, as purely mechanical problems began to be solved, there came a growing realization that useful things need not be ugly, that in fact the most useful shape is the most beautiful—that good engineer•ing and good design were closely related.

It was not by chance that makers of automobiles were among the First to devote serious study to appearance engineering. The automobile had grown out of the carriage business. In many respects it still carried the earmarks of the family buggy it supplanted. But in reality the automobile was a new form of mechanical transportation-it served the individual, taking him where and when he wanted to go. To serve this purpose well, it must fulfill a number of very definite requirements.

In the first place, the owner wanted to move about at a rapid rate. He wanted to do so comfortably. He required a vehicle that could be operated with ease and confidence. And, because the motor car was a personal possession often second only to the home in which he lived, it was essential that it express individuality, style and good taste.

The job of the designer, then, is to combine the mechanical requirements with the human requirements to bring together the science of the engineer and the skill of the artist in order that the automobile might be as beautiful as it is useful.

Quietly, in the drafting room and in the industrial studio, this work has gone forward. Because the automobile utilizes materials of every sort-metals, plastics, glass, rubber, fabrics, lacquers-artists in many fields have been recruited from the style centers of the world.

The First Step
Engineers and designers, assembled around a conference table, take the first steps toward designing the new model. From an engineering viewpoint, mechanical specifications are studied, changes are explained. A new type rear axle may permit lowering the body-an increase in wheelbase may mean changes in seat location. As Leonardo da Vinci showed, the designer must know what is underneath be•fore he can design the covering, or envelope, known as the “body.”

From the viewpoint of the customer, the problem involves what might be called human mechanics. In other words, the car, in a sense, must be built around the human form-must be so proportioned as to provide the greatest possible convenience, comfort and safety for the average occupant.

The artist is interested in what the car will look like—in what it should look like. Because it is a swiftly moving vehicle, its exterior must express fleetness and movement; because it carries passengers, its interior must express comfort and repose.

Now comes what might be called a “creative field day.” Design runs riot. A group of designers give free play to their creative instincts, working out all the new ideas that happen to come to mind. Files of drawings made in the past are consulted for whatever material of value they may contain. (Incidentally, an average of 1500 separate sketches are prepared in the process of arriving at one finished design.)

Along with the actual sketching, fashion trends in other fields—women’s costumes, architecture, interior decorating—are studied, for the motor car must reflect in its design the style tempo of our times. Reports on special features and details of appointments are compiled from surveys made among “Motor Enthusiasts”—practical motorists who have more than a passing interest in motor cars.

Then comes a period of appraisal in which these various conceptions are weighed one against the other. Out of it all emerge a few ideas that have definite possibilities of application-the rest are filed away against a time when, under different conditions, some•thing that is not quite acceptable today may become the mode of tomorrow.

While finished designs are being created on the drawing board these artists develop their ideas in miniature, quarter size clay models. They spend hours and days molding contours with their hands, scraping and smoothing lines with tiny instruments, adding a curve here, taking away a curve there. It is careful, painstaking work, requiring patience a’ld craftsmanship of the highest order. The clay is very much like that sold for children’s use and is kept at proper working temperature in special electric ovens.

Clay models have two main advantages over drawings and sketches-they are in three dimensions and therefore show more nearly how a design will finally look, and the soft clay permits easy experimentation with different contours.

From these models other characteristics besides appearance can be studied. For example, by placing the scale model in a wind tunnel and generating gales up to fifty miles per hour, the effect of wind resistance can be measured. Incidentally, through such tests it is sometimes found that some minor projection or curve creates an unusual wind noise, in which case the contours are changed to eliminate the objectionable sound.

Every artist and designer is limited by the materials in which his design is to be reproduced. Some designs that look good on paper have to be discarded because there is no machine yet available that can produce the parts, or no materials that can be processed in the way called for by the plans. Every step in designing an automobile is really a compromise between human imagination and human ingenuity-between what might be done and what can be done now.

For example, take the recent development of all-steel tops. The idea was in men’s minds and on their drafting boards long before it could be put into production, simply because no one knew how to make steel sheets of the required size and quality, nor had any press been developed capable of stamping them into shape.

So right here at the beginning, production men and engineers step into the picture to check the efforts of the artists and make sure that the design selected can be produced with the present knowledge of materials and methods. When the necessary alterations have been completed, a full size drawing of the new model is made in chalk on a blackboard. Here every curve and every dimension is accurately plotted and drawn in outline; end views as well as side views are shown.

You probably have noticed frequent references to the extremely fine measurements used in the manufacture of a motor car. Connecting rods and pistons are balanced within a small fraction of an ounce; clearances held to 2/1000 of an inch are common. This is fine work, requiring precision instruments and skilled workers, and the automobile industry is justly proud of the accuracy with which these operations are performed.

But these men you see in the illustration are not interested in decimals and fractions-they are designing for comfort, making the automobile body fit the human body. People vary so greatly in size and stature that tiny fractions make little difference, but an inch or half an inch is important in the angle of a seat cushion or the height of an arm rest.

The designers carefully check the full-size drawing to determine proper door width, correct seat spacing and to establish ample head and leg room. Is vision clear and unobstructed? Where should the instruments and controls be placed so as to respond, .easily to. the normal movements of the driver? Their decisions are based upon carefully computed averages, but, whenever possible, adjustments are provided to make the final product even more suited to the user.

As a final check on the interior plan, a “trim buck” is constructed•a skeleton framework built in accordance with the proposed interior measurements and arrangement. It serves an important purpose by providing an actual reproduction of the head room, seat width, seat depth, leg room and other dimensions that will be present in the finished body.

If changes seem necessary they are indicated on the full size chalk drawings. Then, with the external outlines of the car established, tracings of the blackboard drawings are made on vellum paper and turned over to the drafting room staff.

Here the work is divided between two groups. One group prepares full-size working drawings of the contours of the car, using the vellum tracings. Another group concentrates on working drawings of details such as bumpers, emblems and headlights. Both activities are carried on simultaneously by skilled and experienced draftsmen. As time goes on and the design progresses through the various stages of full-size clay model, wood model and finished body, these men will revise and keep up-to-date the early working drawings they are making here. On their accuracy and care depends the success of the final design in production.

Through the preliminary stages of design development miniature scale models provide a ready means of translating the idea and sketches of the artist into three-dimensional form. But later, when the new design approaches its final stages, full-size models must be made in order to be certain that the design is entirely harmonious.

Using the working drawings prepared in the drafting room, a full-size model is carefully built up out of clay, over a wooden form. Some parts of the work go rapidly; others, such as details of the louvers, radiator and rear contours require endless hours of experimentation. On the same body shape innumerable combinations of louvers, lights, fenders and grilles may be tried out before arriving at the one combination that is satisfactory in all respects.

No door or window glass is installed in this model, and the interior is rough and unfinished. But every detail of the exterior surfaces is carefully and accurately worked out, so that from the standpoint of size and exterior design this clay model is an exact replica of a finished car.

With the last minute changes made, templates· and patterns are taken of every curve and contour for use in the construction of the hand-made wood model described on the following page.

When the design has been accurately reproduced in clay, the activity shifts to the wood and metal shops. Here, as shown in the illustration, a new full-size model is built up out of mahogany and poplar. Metal parts, such as bumpers, grilles and body hardware are made by hand by skilled workers, and are finished complete down to the smallest detail and even plated with chromium where required.

Next the inside of the car is trimmed. Seats are installed, glass placed in the windows, instruments in the instrument panel. Tires are mounted in position, doors hung, head and tail lights put in place. The exterior surfaces are then covered with cloth and painted. The cloth is used to give an extra smooth surface to the body, so that the painted areas will have all the gloss of a new car. As a result, this finished model-lacking an engine, frame and all the rest of the chassis-so closely resembles a real car that most people can’t tell the difference from a distance of six feet.

From this finished model a complete set of master drawings are made and turned over to the engineers and designers. They in turn make the shop drawings, dies and patterns from which the design will be produced in steel.

As already pointed out, the exterior of a car should be suggestive of motion and fleetness-an effect achieved, in the main, by the use of dominant horizontal lines. The interior of an automobile” must give a different feeling—a sensation of restfulness and repose for maximum passenger comfort. This is accomplished by using about the same technique as in designing a living room “cozy corner.”

The details of interior treatment are worked out simultaneously with the development of the exterior design. Hardware and moldings in many different styles are prepared. Customer preferences bearing on types of fabrics and styles of trimming are consulted. Harmonious color schemes in floor coverings, head-linings and upholsteries are developed.

Of special importance is the design of the instrument panel. For maximum safety, relaxation and comfort the instruments must be within easy vision, the controls within easy reach. Moreover, the color must be neutral and the instruments adequately illuminated.

The proper design and location of gear shift levers, door handles and window controls, the position of rear vision mirrors-all are of importance from the standpoint of safety and comfort.

These color experts do not guess at what colors should be used they find out by conducting field surveys at regular intervals among new car buyers everywhere, tabulating exactly what colors people like.

On the large map you see illustrated above, the color “vote” in each state is recorded and kept up-to-date. In passing, some interesting variations might be mentioned. For example, in the colder sections of the country, black and blue are favored; in southern areas light colors such as tan take preference. Automobile colors are even a fairly good index of economic conditions. During periods of reduced business activity people seem to prefer dark colors and swing to lighter hues with the return of good times.

New colors, especially those destined for automotive use, must be tested carefully before being used in production. This work is carried on in part at an extensive testing station in Florida, where sample color panels are exposed for long periods to the action of the hot tropical sun and the salt air. At regular intervals these panels are checked for signs of deterioration, or “weatheringIt as engineers call it. No finish can be adopted for automotive use until it passes these tests.

At any given time upwards of sixty colors stand approved by the color experts, including special forms of lacquer such as the recently developed metallic colors-made by adding a small quan•tity of fine aluminum powder to the pigment. From these approved colors selections are made for the various types of cars and body styles.

Many months have passed since the first conference of engineers and designers. Much work has been done-plans have been made and thrown away-ideas tested and rejected-designs perfected. The long weeks of study and research are drawing to an end. Engineers, designers and draftsmen gather to see the final result of their joint efforts.

The curtains roll back, the lights flash on. A new car is born!

In the factories, production soon will start. Then a different kind of craftsmanship comes into play-the craftsmanship of skilled production workers who execute the designs of the artists and engineers. Materials begin to flow into the factories, wheels begin to turn, and soon replicas of this master model will be sent to thousands of customers all over the country. But for the designers the job is finished—it is time to start another. Like the artist who draws Christmas cards in June, the automotive designer works far ahead of the actual appearance of the product on the market.

Because the principles of sound industrial design are equally applicable to any field, extensive development work in design is carried on with a number of diverse products, ranging from radios to streamlined trains, from batteries to buses.

No matter what the product may be, the problem of its design is approached in the same way. To follow the progress of, say, a truck design, would be largely repetition.

However, you may be interested in glancing through the following pages to see some of the results of this design activity in other fields.

The appearance of trucks and buses used to be even more neglected than the appearance of passenger cars-all the attention was given to power and capacity. In fact, only within the past few years has any real progress been made towards making commercial vehicles pleasing to the eye.

While passenger and driver comfort, ease of control and adequate visibility are of the same importance as in passenger cars, a distinctive commercial body design in itself possesses value from the standpoint of serving as a sort of moving billboard advertising the owner and his products.

Buses present their own peculiar problems of design-maximum passenger capacity, comfort, safety and ease of handling must be provided. But designers say that, strangely enough, one of the most difficult things to develop is a satisfactory plan or scheme for painting the body. The bus body is a massive object and it is the task of the designer to handle these large areas of external color so as to por•tray gracefulness and fleetness. The sweeping lines and pleasing color harmonies you see on the latest transcontinental buses were worked out mathematically to create this effect.

In automobiles the principal benefit of streamlining is in improved appearance. Since an automobile is usually operated at relatively low speeds except on rare occasions, the factor of wind resistance does not affect economy or performance to any great degree, practically speaking.

Trains are a different matter. They are often run at high speeds over long distances. They have a large frontal area. By following the best streamline practice, combined with the utilization of new, lightweight materials now available, it is possible to effect great savings in weight and operating costs, and at the same time increase passenger comfort.

With the development of Diesel powered trains the whole problem of locomotive design could be approached from a new angle. Not only were designs developed for many of the streamlined locomotives now in use, but the work was extended to include the interiors of the cars, the color scheme, seating arrangement and, in some cases, even the china, the silverware and the porters’ uniforms.

The ability and experience of these “industrial artists” have found expression in many of the products that surround our everyday lives.

For example, car radios and heaters were redesigned from the standpoint of style and utility, resulting in products that harmonize with the interior treatment of the car. Such little refinements as proper blending of colors, smoother contours and accessible controls are the result of long testing of preliminary designs before the final one is selected.

Storage batteries likewise were given a “face lifting” treatment. Simply because batteries are usually out of sight was no reason why they should not be better looking, reasoned the engineers. The application of the principles of design to this particular problem resulted in a battery that was not on I y more pleasing to the eye, but much easier to keep clean—which incidentally seems to bear out the theory that just as mechanical advances promote better appearance, so design based on sound artistic principles frequently results in improved function.

Progress in artistic design, as in most other things, is evolutionary. Advancement comes in logical sequence-it would not have been possible to jump, for example, from a 1934 design to the current one without benefit of the experience that came in between. Each year new knowledge and new skills are added to what was known before. In the constant striving for better products there can be neither hurrying nor holding back.

Always there is a race between our ideals of what a thing should be like and our ability to make it that way. Design frequently waits upon technological advancement before the product can be made as the artist pictures it in his mind -upon new materials’ and new methods and machinery to work these materials, and upon mechanical improvements in the car itself. Finally, every improvement in design must always be measured in terms of the cost of this benefit to the user. Modern industry by constantly devising new methods and perfecting new processes has brought a multitude of former luxuries within the reach of the average person.

There is much speculation about what the car of the future will look like-and many people have ideas about how it should look. As a matter of fact, no one really knows. We can look back over what has been done in the past and discover certain trends. We can even hazard a guess as to how long these trends may be continued. Further than that no one can, with accuracy, speak. But there is no reason to suppose that ten years from now the automobile will look any more like the car of today than today’s car looks like the product of ten years ago.

Certain it is that out of the merger of art, science and industry, fostered and made effective by modern industrial processes, have come new techniques that have within themselves the ability to create an entirely new pattern and setting for the life of the world.

[Show as slideshow]

There are many photos in the book of production and styling show cars from various manufacturers, renderings by Strother MacMinn of many of these cars plus several pages of his own designs. This rare, out-of-print book was loaned to me by Richard Nesbitt. Strother died in 1998.

A Man of Wit and Genius

From Coachbuilt.com. As a young boy growing up in Pasadena, California, Strother MacMinn spent every spare moment drawing pictures of cars or pestering salesmen at car dealers to share their brochures and knowledge of the treasures in their showrooms. It was on one such occasion that a kindly gentleman at the Pierce-Arrow agency provided a turn of fate for Strother by disclosing the whereabouts of a service entrance into the Walter M. Murphy Studio, where he met and became friendly with Franklin Hershey.

Franklin Hershey, one of the best designers in that custom body shop, was so taken with young Strother’s sketches that he invited him into a whole new world by having him come to his office Saturday mornings where he showed him the basics of professional body design. This friendship and guidance continued after Hershey moved to Detroit to work at GM, and throughout Strothers’ prep school, summer classes at the Art Center School in Los Angeles and high school years. It eventually led to Strother’s first working job in 1936 in the Buick studio at General Motors Art & Colour Section with Franklin Hershey as his boss.

With corporate approval from GM’s German division, Harley Earl set up a new studio in 1937. Strother MacMinn, John Coleman and George Jergenson, with Frank Hershey in charge and Hans Mersheimer of Opel as design liaison officer, were given the assignment to style the upcoming 1938 Opel Kapitan. It was an exciting enterprise because of its new approach to international styling and included advanced ideas such as built-in headlights, stretch fenders and a clean body form. (That basic model, with face-lifts, remained in production into the early fifties.)

It was with skill and enthusiasm that MacMinn participated in the development of design proposals for GM’s inter-city bus client, Greyhound Lines, Frank Springs styling department at Hudson Motors, Ed Anderson’s Oldsmobile studio, and many others on his long list of credits.

But, according to MacMinn, the best job offer anyone ever had was his part-time teaching job in 1945 at the Art Center College in the Industrial Design department. MacMinn feels nothing can compare with the excitement and stimulation of sharing enthusiasm and knowledge with dedicated, professionally oriented young design students. Perhaps that is why he has been teaching part-time for the past 41 years.

In addition he has worked independently as a designer of: aircraft seats, household products, and fiberglass boats. And as a consultant in 1979, he helped to found the first Southern California advanced concept satellite auto design studio for the Toyota Motor corporation.

Since 1953 MacMinn has written and illustrated articles for Road & Track, Motor Trend, Automobile Quarterly, and Car Graphic magazines in addition to historical catalogue essays for the “Automobile and Culture” and “Detroit Style: Automotive form 1925-1950″ exhibits in Los Angeles and Detroit.

Strother MacMinn’s lifelong love of the automobile has led him to own a 1937 Cord 812 phaeton and a 1929 Rolls-Royce P-1 Derby phaeton. He kept and still drives the 1951 Jaguar XK-120 roadster that he bought for $2400 in 1953.

An excerpt from the Coachbuilt.com article about chrome

Chrome, too, can be a temptation. Cadillac introduced chrome plating in 1929 and it quickly spread throughout General Motors and then the industry. Nickel, with its lovely warm hue, had had a soft richness that was appealing, but when that super-hard blue-white of chromium came along, which needed little polishing and which seemed to last forever, nickel quickly became pass. Few owners chrome inappropriately on cars that predate 1929, but on later cars, there’s a tendancy to chrome everything, including parts such as water pipes and electrical conduits that weren’t chromed originally. Chrome wire wheels appear in such abundance today that one is tempted to think that all classic cars had plated wheels. Yes, chrome wire wheels were possible as the problems of embrittlement were solved, but they were rare.

The problem is compounded when owners add whitewalls to chrome-plated wheels. Such a combination again shouts “Look at Me” too readily. Strother MacMinn, who served as Chief Honorary Judge at Pebble Beach for twenty-five years, always maintained that a car could have chrome wheels or white sidewalls, but not both; he felt the eye was so drawn to the combination of whitewall and chrome wheel that the general line of a car, its balance as a whole, was distorted.

A great Concours d’Elegance automobile is a combination of beauty, accuracy of restoration, and an indefinable melange of “star” qualities. But above all, a car must reflect its own period, especially in matters of color and decoration. Strother MacMinn, a famous judge with strong artistic gifts, comments on taste: “Either choose chrome wire wheels or white sidewall tires but not both. Too gaudy.” He adds, “All classic cars were not red or cream!” (Two favorite colors of restorers which often show to advantage on a field). The best car may quietly state its own period with a delicate refinement, even with understated elegance, that, when new, would have reflected the buyer’s taste. Good judges will see this on the field.

Gallery of artwork from Sports Cars of the Future by Strother MacMinn

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The first chapter,“Laying the Foundation,” is the history of what the climate was like at Ford in the years prior to 1950 and the events that led to the design of the 1949 Ford. The full-color book has 182 pages, softbound. ISBN 1-931128-14-6. By the way, yours truly designed both books and covers.

Every chapter includes a timeline, pricing, and model information. There are many two-page photo spreads in the book. The gallery in this post is a collection of photos from Fords of the Fifties.

Thanks to Mike Parris and Howard Fisher.

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