Paul was interested in cars for as long as he can remember. One day the shop manager at a local Pontiac dealership let him drive his beautiful MG TC home to show his mother in hopes of getting one for his High School graduation, but that didn’t happen. So the first thing Paul spent his money on while in the Army was a MG TD. He attended many sports car races in the east, including the Sebring 12-hour International race.

Paul graduated from Pratt Institute in June, 1954 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design. He was hired by GM Styling after being interviewed by Bill Mitchell, and began his career in the Orientation Studio, then was moved to Pontiac Studio under Paul Gillan and worked on the Strato Star show car.

Strato Star Show Car

[Show as slideshow]

The Army interrupted his career. Paul was inducted into the Army in December, 1954 at Fort Dix. He was transferred to Ft. Knox and served as battalion photographer, in the 339 Corps of Engineers unit. He went through training at Ft. Eustis for Project Dewline West (Alaska and Canada), where he served as instruction cadre in cargo registration. On return from the arctic, Paul made a plaster scale model of the future site of the Jamboree at Valley Forge that they were to build. He served on a survey crew, as a photographer, and as a company orderly. Paul was discharged in December, 1956.

Paul returned to Styling in January, 1957 to orientation studio for short period. There he worked on Stingray proposals. Then back to Pontiac studio under Paul Gillan and later under Joe Schemanski, and worked on the ’59 Pontiac. He contributed to the front and side spear, wheel discs, and rear quarter treatment. Upon transfer to Pontiac, Paul quickly sold his MG TD and moved into a new 1957 Corvette.

In late ’57 Paul was transferred to Chevrolet under Claire MacKichan. He worked on ’60–’63 Chevrolets, contributing to new fronts, side, and rear end treatments, front end panels and décor for the Corvair, and minor Corvette grille changes. He was credited for the ’61 front, the ’62 rear, and the ’61 Corvair front.

Paul’s photos from Sebring, 1957

[Show as slideshow]

In ’61 Paul moved to Buick under Bernie Smith. There he contributed to the ’63 Electras, LeSabres, and the compact Buick Skylark. Buick studio was taken over by Dave Holls. Paul also contributed to Riviera, Electra LeSabre, and the new Skylark designs.

Paul was promoted to Asistant Chief Designer in ’62 and transferred into Pontiac Studio under Jack Humbert for the ’64–’67 programs, including the new GTO option for LeMans, the B-body Catalina, the Grand Prix, the A-body LeMans, and the X-400 show car

He was again transferred to Moved to Buick in 1965, as Assistant to Dave Holls. He worked on the new Electra, LeSabre, Wildcat, Skylark, and GS models. Buick Studio was taken over by Don Lasky. Paul was moved to Studio X for a while to work on the ’67 Firebird lead-in.

On to Truck Studio in ’68 as Assistant to Bill Lange, and contributed to the birth of the Blazer and Jimmy, development of Chevrolet and GMC pickups, RTX and city bus, the El Camino for Chevrolet and GMC, and the Astro Cab (aluminum tilt) heavy-duty and medium duty front ends. Mike Lathers took over from Bill Lange as Truck Studio Chief. During that time the GMC Motor Home, medium and heavy-duty trucks, the  General and G.M.C. STS bus were developed.

In ’70 Paul went down to Advanced Chevrolet under Dave Clark to help develop the new A-body sedan.

Paul was moved with Dave Clark in ’73 to run Buick Two Studio when Buick Studio was split. There he helped productionize the new Riviera. Paul also worked on the new Skylark FWD X-body and A-body platforms (Regal and Riveria show car).

Paul was moved into the Multipurpose Studio from ‘75–’78 where he worked on the LUV truck, the S-10 pickups, Blazer, the A-body wagon, and the Astro/Safari M-vans.

Paul spent ’79–’85 in Advanced 4 Studio under Kip Wasenko and worked on the last C-body RWD Cadillac, the new Pontiac F-body, and the Lotus Sport.

From ’86–’92 Paul was with Tom Peters in the Advanced Corvette Studio. ’92–’95 was spent with Jim Bieck in Advanced Chevrolet developing the ’04 Mote Carlo. Paul spent ’96 in the Advanced Truck Think Tank.

When I was at GM, Paul was always great to be around. Encouraging and uplifting with a great sense of humor. Thanks, Paul, for providing the content for this post, and your friendship.

Studio artwork by Paul Deesen

[Show as slideshow]

Russ had a stellar career with 40 years as a designer with General Motors Design from 1955-1995. He graduated from Pratt Institute in 1954, and won the 1st national Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild award in 1949. Be sure to check out the first post featuring Elia Russinoff’s design work.

[Show as slideshow]

I think in the back of every car designer’s mind there is this desire to build a car entirely of their own design with no constraints from a studio chief, engineering package, or market survey to guide them. That itch for me was what got me into car design in the first place. As a kid I built Soap Box Racers, then as a young teen went on to design and build contest models for the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild. A win in the Guild helped me land that dream job at GM. Even after working in the fabulous Corvette studio for years, the itch was still there.

I started to scratch that itch, innocently enough, by entering a Revell model motorcycle contest. I won the custom division with my 1/8 scale three-wheel design. This was back in 1973-74 when there were long gas lines and cars were only getting 12-15 mpg. I thought my sleek cycle car design would probably get double or even triple that in mileage. So the lure of possibly starting my own little car company became bigger than staying at GM Styling.

At that same time, I was working on the XP-898 experimental foam chassis car that Chevrolet Engineering was experimenting with. The concept was simple—basically build a top and bottom car sandwich chassis/body design like a surfboard and fill it with rigid foam. The Chevy prototype worked great and even had great crash protection. My light bulb went on, and I saw this as the method that a small manufacturer (me) could use to build cars without the multi-million dollar tooling costs. Chevrolet’s VP John Delorean’s light bulb also went on and he saw this same idea as a concept he could use for the car he was secretly planning. (Be sure to read a prior post on the XP-898, “Chevrolet XP-898: Inspiration for two unique designs.”)

I had also been working at the GM Tech Center’s Harrison Wind Tunnel on Chevy designs to lower their drag coefficients. So my next step was to do the same with my three wheel design. It was shaped like a wing, so I was a little afraid that it might try to fly at higher speeds. Also, I needed to find a place to locate a radiator. The first Honda Gold Wing water cooled 4-cylinder touring bike had just been introduced, so that was my engine of choice. I built a much larger 3/8 scale model this time. The guys running the tunnel were excited to run something different and ran it after hours. They even modified the tunnel base to accept a three wheel design. The results were all positive. It didn’t lift, the radiator would cool in the back of the fender, and our Cd was .31—not great, but not bad either.

At this point I made my big life change. After 10 years at GM design, I quit to follow my dream. I got married to Pat, someone who could put up with all of my car nonsense. I bought a duplex with a three-car garage in Costa Mesa, California and even convinced my brother and his wife to come out and help me. With the great help of my brother Lee, we applied almost every step that I had learned in the design process at GM to the three wheeler, that we now called The Phantom. This name must have stuck in my head for years, because later I saw a photo of me at about age 8 with a car I built with buggy wheels that looked like it came from a Little Rascals movie. On the side was painted a lightning bolt and the name Phantom Flash.

Using the 3/8 scale wind tunnel model as a guide, we scaled up full size drawings and made a full size three-dimensional buck to check entry, exit, vision, wheel turn and jounce, engine access, and basic appearance. Next came the buck for the full size clay model. For all these processes we used the identical rail and upright measuring systems used at GM for keeping accuracy from side to side. Costa Mesa was the perfect spot to do this project. There were race car builders, fiberglass shops, upholstery shops and classic car restoration businesses all within a few minutes of our three-car garage shop. It was easy to find people to help us make molds from the clay and cast our first body. This being a prototype, all the foam had to be fit into the body, shaped and then fiber-glassed to form the sandwich body design.

The fabrication included a widened VW suspension with disc brakes added and a 2-inch-thick sandwich steel firewall that separated the passenger compartment from engine, fuel, battery etc. This strong but lightweight wall also served as the roll bar. The steering wheel and instruments lifted up with the canopy top when it is raised. A heavy duty flex cable connected the steering wheel to the rack and pinion steering gear. Another unique feature was the covered headlights. The headlights were fixed in the body pointing straight up. The underside of the lids are mirrors, so when raised to 45 degrees they will project the beam forward. I also wanted skirts on the front wheels, but I also wanted as wide a track as possible. So, I put a Teflon strip inside the skirt bottom and hinges on the top. When the wheels turn, the tire lifts the skirt allowing the tire to turn outside the body width.

A great help came from Rich Straman, a fellow student from IIT (Institute of Design in Chicago). He graciously painted the Phantom Porsche Silver (twice) from his classic car restoration business in Newport Beach.

We first just made the body and painted it with no windows or engine—just a one piece body. This is what we took to the Chicago auto show. In Stage Two we opened the top and put in windows and interior. You could sit in it, but no engine yet. We showed this at the LA Auto show. Finally in Stage Three we put the engine in and all the mechanicals to make it a running vehicle. It still needs a Stage Four to make it more finished in many areas. The new heavy duty disc brakes were part of that. There is a Phantom II in Ann Arbor Michigan. I sold the original mold on eBay when I left New Jersey. Someone made a body and is putting it over a tube frame Chassis.

The paint was barely dry when we were asked to participate in a government test of various three-wheel car designs. They wanted to know if these new lightweight efficient vehicles would be safe to drive on the road. The dynamic driving tests were held at the Edwards Air Force Base in California on the space shuttle landing strip. Against a dozen other cars, we came out on top, with excellent handling, and stability, generating more cornering G-forces than many four-wheel cars.

After showing the car at both Los Angeles and Chicago auto shows, we started to get publicity in a few magazines. This led to a call from an ad agency that wanted to put the Phantom in a Texaco commercial with Bob Hope. The tag line of the commercial was that, “Someday your high-mileage car will be made of lightweight plastics made from oil.” The car was to break out of a giant oil drum, then drive across the desert and next to Bob Hope where the driver would turn out to be a beautiful girl in a silver space suit-like outfit. The catch was, they were worried the girl would drive over Bob Hope, so they wanted me to drive up to Bob. For this I would have to don a blond wig and silver space suit. When the car stopped, we switched places and the beautiful model would open the door. That was my 15 minutes of fame, suited up in drag.

The Jet Fighter design was started after the Phantom, but we realized that we had bitten off more than we could chew. It goes back to the original simple tube frame construction that we should have done in the first place. Had we done that, we might have actually had a little car company. We made a full-size space buck of this model and had a 1/8 scale model. But at this point we were all out of money and I had to find a real job. Subaru.

The Government testing was done by Paul Van Valkenberg. Paul worked for Chevrolet on their racing enterprises, and has written several books on race car suspension and handling. He wanted to test all the possible variations of three-wheel cars, but there were no front drive three-wheelers, so he made one out of a Honda Civic by replacing the back wheels with one in the middle. A real odd duck to see it driving around.

A group of execs left Subaru to try and start another car company based in China. They wanted to do the same thing: import a new car to the U.S. I got the job of designing the car, made up proposals, and got 50,000 shares of the new company for my effort. So what happened? GM bought the Chinese company and took over production. We were left out in the cold.

Today the Phantom is in my Arizona garage waiting for me to finish the restoration necessary to get it back into running condition. Perhaps this time it will be painted a Cadillac Pearl Red.

People who see it today can’t believe that it is almost 40 years old.

Thanks Ron, for graciously supplying photos and the history of this very significant car.

[Show as slideshow]

Stage One photos, 1976

[Show as slideshow]

Our designer friend and colleague, Elia ‘Russ’ Russinoff, has provided a portfolio of his work to feature on Dean’s Garage, shown on behalf of the Automotive Designers Guild and The League of Retired Automotive Designers, of which Russ is a fellow member.

Included among the 40+ sketches/photos is an image of a gold-colored 3/8ths scale model, called Illusion with the greenhouse sculpturally integrated into the form of the vehicle body, created in celebration of GM’s having worked with Libby-Owens-Ford (LOF) on vehicle glass development for 50 years. The cartoon in the portfolio, by Stan Parker, depicts several designers, modelers, and tech stylists with Russ seated in the vehicle. The illustration showing a dramatic 3/4 rear perspective of a pointy advanced car design demonstrates Russ’s out-of-the-box thinking. The Mead-like rendering of a couple of hovering, wheelless vehicles, was used along with other futuristic renderings by other designers for a presentation by Bill Mitchell on automotive design. Other images shown are from Russ’s work in Advanced Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Chevrolet Studios, the Aero Studio, and Advanced Vehicle Concepts Studio.

It’s been my good fortune to have known Russ for over 40 years, and I enjoyed working with him during my early days at GM Styling, in the Advanced Pontiac Studio, where he was a creative inspiration to all of us who worked with him. We’ve remained good friends for all these years, and I can truthfully say that while the years have passed, his enthusiasm, love, and passion for good car design is as sharp as it was back in the late 1960s when we worked together. His concept contributions as one of the founding members of the League of Retired Automotive Designers, at the various venues the League has exhibited its members designs at in recent years are exciting and forward thinking. Russ was also 1st Place Sr. National Winner in the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild Model Car Competition in 1949, and has been active in Guild Events over the years since, including the 2004 Guild Reunion held at GM Design, and the Eyes On Design concours event that year.

Elia (Russ) Russinoff
1955-1995 Asst. Chief Designer, GM Design
1960s Contributed to styling of several production Pontiacs and advanced aero projects
1955 Contributed to styling of Cadillac Town & Country show car
1954 Pratt Institute Graduate
1949 Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild 1st, Nat’l Sr. Award

[Show as slideshow]

By John Mellberg

I’ve had these photos filed in a brown envelope since leaving GM Styling in 1972. The car in the photos was a Firebird that was underway when I was assigned to the Advanced Pontiac Studio, initially working for Gordy Brown, Studio Chief Designer, and then, when management decided to shuffle the Chiefs around—Jerry Hirshberg became the Studio Chief Designer for Advanced Pontiac and Gordy Brown took over Advanced Buick Studio. It was a great learning experience working with both of these talented design leaders and the Advanced Pontiac team members. We had a lot of creative fun working together, while learning from one another in the process.

Working in Adv. Pontiac when I came on board was Roger Hughet (Assistant Chief Designer), Elia Russinoff (a lifelong friend), John Houlihan, Dennis Burke (a then GMI Co-op designer), Dave Rossi (Chief Modeler) Cliff Gabler, Kurt Struckmeier, Dean Towne, Juergen Stoldt, Klaus Brink (a good friend and Studio Engineer), and Rick Stuhlstatz (Klaus’ assistant). If I’ve forgotten anybody, my sincere apologies, as this was a long while ago.

This Firebird design was initially developed from a series of 1/5th scale clay and fiberglass models, from which one was picked to do full-size.  We had been working on the refinement of the design for about 6 months when Jerry Hirshberg joined us. The design went from a single theme, to 2 themes, or variations, with one side the sporty design with full wheel cuts, and the other side, a boulevard design with the rear wheels skirted. This gave the model an interesting split personality. At the time these photos were taken by Bob DeMerrill, a Design Staff Photographer, the clay model had been fully di-noc’d and details were cartooned by this writer to add visual substance to the design. The modelers foiled the headlight bezels/cans and trim around the tail lights. It was a bold, striking design, clearly a complete departure from the then current FIrebird, and would have been a hatchback. The large round headlights give the car a place in time, as it wasn’t long after we had worked on this that rectangular headlights emerged on GM automobiles and the others. The model’s color was a metallic orange, somewhat like the recent 2005 GTO Ram Air 6 Concept that Kip Wasenko’s group put together adding muscle to the Australian GTO beyond its appearance as had been shipped to the States as a Pontiac.

If I recall correctly, we abandoned work on this car when the then new Federal regulations for front and rear bumpers became law, as this design would not have been compliant. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen photos of this concept proposal ever published. Perhaps my fellow design colleagues from Advanced Pontiac Studio who also contributed to the design of this vehicle can further add to the pedigree of this design and its history.—John Mellberg

[Show as slideshow]

“I am not at liberty to say how fast the rail car was moving when it vaporized the station. But suffice it to say more rational bureaucrats approved the machine for production and service providing none would be driven past railway stations faster than 89 km/h (55 mph). Martini agreed, unless, of course, they were behind schedule. As a result, no Cyclops railcar has ever been run on schedule.”

Relive Cyclops Railcars in PDF format. Thanks very much, Stan.

Gallery of artwork from Cyclops Railcars

[Show as slideshow]

Oldsmobile wanted to highlight the introduction of the Quad Four engine by showing it off as a highly modified engine mounted onto an Indy type racing chassis. The goal was to have the car break the world lap record around an Indy-style oval track and be driven by former Indy 500 winner, A.J. Foyt.

Our goal was to develop an eye-catching interior to complement the exterior development for an introduction at the Chicago Auto Show. So in the summer of 1984, our design team made a trip to the Michigan 500 track to research the car chassis and to understand the driving needs of the racers. Upon returning, I started developing the design themes. We wanted to convey a design that was not only reflected the essence of a race machine, but also incorporate some high tech electronics such as Head-Up Display, Flip-Up Digital Info Panels, Access Panels to the onboard computers, and video cameras. My design themes were inspired by the F-16 fighter aircraft cockpit as well as some of the fantastic robotic models coming from Japan.

One minor problem that developed during our design phase was that we could not obtain any reference drawings from England where the March racing chassis were built. Without those drawings we could not accurately build our upper portion of our design to properly interface with the real car. We found out that the people in England knew their job well enough to complete the cars without reference drawings since they were all hand-built. Luckily, GM Design Staff was able to obtain a body chassis that had been involved in a crash, allowing us to take critical reference points. We had the unique opportunity to work closely with some very forward-thinking engineers from GM’s Delco Electronics that provided us with the digital display panels and supported us in developing all the electronic components, including the head-up display unit.

The interior design was completed by 1986 and introduced with the exterior show car model at the 1987 Chicago Auto Show. This was one of my most favorite projects. I had the pleasure to work with a fantastic group of people at Design Staff, incorporate cutting-edge electronics, and establish a great working relationship with various other GM groups such as Delco.

Thanks very much to the very talented William Quan who now works as an Industrial Designer for Teague in Seattle, Washington.

[Show as slideshow]

I worked with George Barbaz in the Lincoln-Mercury Advanced Design Studio during 1973. George was the “Senior” member of our studio, having started as a designer with Ford in 1945 after serving in the army infantry during World War II. He was of Hungarian descent, and had a great sense of humor, and very definite opinions on just about everything.

His career at Ford included participation in the design of a proposed 1949 Lincoln Continental and the 1949 Presidential Lincoln. Later, George contributed to the XL-500 “Dream Car” design and managed pre-production styling development of the controversial1958 Edsel.

An unusual and interesting assignment was the “lavish” exterior trim ornamentation George helped design for several Canadian Meteors and Monarchs.
One of his assignments I was especially interested in was his participation in the “Quicksilver” advanced design project. The Quicksilver became the radical, all-new 1960 full-size Ford, designed as a response to the really far-out 1959 Chevrolet.

It turned out the 1959 Chevrolet was not well received, and the angular, very conservative 1959 Ford outsold Chevrolet for only the second time since 1935. George said that when Ford’s “G-2″ spyguys got advance drawings of the 1959 Chevrolet, they first thought they had been found out and had deliberately been given this information as “misinformation!” Other talents George enjoyed sharing were caricature and cartoon drawing he excelled at. George was a pleasure to work with and he retired in 1981.

[Show as slideshow]

“This magnificent machine is absolutely authentic, with a minor modification of the elephant head lever and the addition of the ‘wiper ward.’  The serpent horn was copied verbatim, right down to the molars. (I am pleased to note that I resisted putting in a gold one.)” Published in Automobile magazine in the ’90s. Thanks, Stan.

Dick Nesbitt sent me these and this note: “I came across some Harry Bradley 1968 forecast illustrations for Motor Trend (July 1967) I got from Strother McMinn when I was at Art Center.” There are two other posts on Dean’s Garage with a great many of Harry’s great illustrations.

[Show as slideshow]