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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Style Conscious: The Art Center College of Design at 70

by Chris Poole

Source: Collectible Automobile magazine, August 2000, courtesy of Forgotten Fiberglass

Subtitle: America’s premier design school remains the world’s most renowned, alma mater to more star auto designers than any other single institution. Here’s a look at the unique college where design is both art and science-and dreaming is always part of the curriculum.

It’s true what they say: Experience is usually the best teacher, and practice tends to make one proficient. For 70 years, there’s been no better place for would-be car designers to get healthy helpings of experience and practice than the Art Center College of Design (ACCD) in Pasadena, California.

There’s certainly no better school for an aspiring designer to have on a resume. It’s estimated that Art Center graduates account for at least 50 percent of all the designers who’ve ever worked in Detroit and there have been dozens more at companies from Audi to Volvo. Is it any wonder, then, that Art Center alumni have popped up so often in Collectible Automobile—personality profiles over the years?

In 1946, Art Center SchooI, as it was then named, moved from its or original First Street campus in downtown Los Angeles to this large, rather palatial-looking facility on Third Street to accommodate a burgeoning postwar student body. It would remain the School’s home until 1975.

Still, it’s the glamorous “Trans Design” program that continues to give Art Center much of its high public visibility and a formidable reputation that has automakers scrambling over each other to hire its graduates year after year. Of course, the graduates themselves have had much to do with that, and their achievements testify as much to the quality of their education as to their personal abilities and talent.

George Jergenson (left) was co-founder of the Industrial Design Department and its chairman through 1969. He was also an active instructor, as seen in this early-Fifties photo.

But a long procession of illustrious alumni doesn’t fully explain Art Centers rise to become what Fortune magazine once termed “the most important autodesign school in the U.S.” There is, for one thing, the excellence of its teaching, long acknowledged by corporate employers and based on the two simple precepts mentioned at the start of this article. Perhaps more important, Art Center was, for many years, the only auto-design school in the U.S. Indeed, it was preparing students for careers in industrial and commercial design almost before the professions were born.

Design executives from major automakers remain frequest visitors to Art Center, critiquing studen projects, doing a bit of lecturing perhaps, and scouting out possible hires. GM design chief Bill Mitchell made the trip frequently over the years. Here he explains the fine points of surface development with the aid of a 1960 Buick. (No doubt he is explaining that GM prides itself on the fact that every square inch has to have an arbitrary surface change.)

Determined to close these gaps, Adams persuaded a group of friends and colleagues to help fund and set up a school taught by working design professionals. Thus was founded the Art Center School in 1930, with Adams as president and director, plus a handful of instructors working in their spare time out of several small studios on Seventh Street in downtown Los Angeles.

A Jetsons-like personal helicopter backdrops a mid-Sixties chat between (from left) Chuck Jordan, Jergenson, Mitchell, and Stother MacMinn.

With the outbreak of World War II, Art Center’s ability to train proficient technical illustrators attracted the attention of Southern California’s aircraft industry. The late Strother MacMinn (CA, June 1994), an ACCD faculty member for 50 years, was then working for the prestigious Henry Dreyfuss firm. As he told Collectible Automobile, companies like Lockheed and Douglas “were hiring [relatively) unskilled people . . . to read blueprints and put things together. That is pretty impossible. But if you can give them an 'exploded' view in a perspective, they can see how the assembly works and it's much quicker. So that efficiency became an essential part of the war effort."

Afterward, as MacMinn told us, "Adams contacted two graduates, George A. Jergenson and John D. Coleman, who were working in the Detroit area, [and) persuaded them to come back out to California and reconstruct the Industrial Design Department. They essentially built the curriculum schedule that exists today based on Adams' idea of having one class that runs all day, like a professional experience. And then tile next day it's another class. and so on."

Basic illustration is part of the early semesters core curriculum for all Art Center students. The Third Street campus and a '71 De Tomaso Pantera made absorbing subjects for this group. (Gosh, didn't anybody bring a digital camera?)

One of Art Center's most remarkable facets is long-lived leadership in the face of vast social and technological change. Adams didn't step down until 1963, and his successor, alumnus Don Kubly, carried on through 1985. It was under Kubly that the school changed its name to Art Center College of Design in 1973, then moved to its present campus three years later: a sleek 166,000-square-foot building with complete workshop and studio facilities nestled on 175 acres in the hills above Pasadena's Rose Bowl. David R. Brown took over upon Kubly's retirement, then retired himself in late 1999. His successor, Richard Koshalek, a former director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, is thus only the fourth president in Art Center's 70-year history.

Jergenson (right) reviews a scale model with student and instructor, circa 1965. (The instructor was Joe Thompson, a wonderful, gentle scupltor who got the most from his students with encouragement and expert guidance from years of professional experience. I remember going over to his apartment once to help him with some issue regarding his '69 Camaro. The man on the far left was the shop instructor, Joe something.)

Another Art Center constant has been its creatively competitive and physically taxing curricula. Per Adams' precepts, students spend an entire day in one studio course—five different classes per week—ranging from basic illustration and model making in the first and second terms to senior-student projects sponsored by major corporations. But that's not all. Evenings (and sometimes Saturday mornings) are devoted to required academic courses in the humanities, social and behavior sciences, natural sciences, art history, and, for "Trans Design" majors, studies ranging from human factors to basic automotive engineering. One wonders when students find time to sleep.

A seating buck for a mid-Sixites project suggests rear-engine, forward controls much on the student's minds. (Obviously this was before the government got involved with car design.)

With that in mind, day-to-day instruction strives for complete realism, nail-biting stress included. "We teach in a competitive fashion because that's the way Art Center has always been," says Ron Hill. "You put your design up on the board for your final critique and you want to outshine everybody. That intensity is what's really important. The students learn from each other, the self-induced competition. Extremely competitive, but extremely good in terms of a disciplined learning experience."

Strother MacMinn talks form and function in the early Sixties with future Pontiac Designer Terry Hinline (left) (that's Terry Hinline?) and another student. (Perhaps Strother is talking about aerodynamics, since this shot is taken in a wind tunnel.)

Role models for those qualit es are as close as Art Center ‘s teaching professionals. As Strother MacMinn once observed: “When [the instructors] come in and talk about the things they were doing yesterday at their business activity, it enhances the students’ attitudes no end. They cherish those moments of sharing, because then they feel they’re sort of part of it.”

Bill Mitchell holds forth on one of his “pets,” the 1960 Mako Shark Corvette.

With all this, it’s no surprise that so many Art Center grads end up designing the cars that end up in the worlds driveways. ” In the mid Fifties,” Hill recalls, “there was one opportunity, and that was Detroit. Now there are multiple opportunities: the burgeoning industry in Southeast Asia, Latin America, certainly Europe.” Lately, there’s also that perennial bellweather of automotive trends, Southern California, which is now home to satellite design operations established by most all of the world’s leading manufacturers. Significantly, ACCD’s MacMinn was a key advisor when the first of these outposts, Toyota’s Calty Design Research, was set up in 1976.

Model building has always been a must skill for Art Center students, especially Trans Design majors, and facilities have improved tremendously since the Fifties. (I guess so. I have stories.)

But can such creativity be taught, even at Art Center? “I believe you can darn near train anybody to paint, and render, and draw well,” says Hill. “We have a very good program for doing that. But what if they don’t have anything to say? What we’re trying to do is to get students to put their creativity out in front, to make that known. I think it can be nurtured. I think it can be encouraged. I’m not sure that it can be taught. I’m not sure it can’t. My suspicion is, if it can, it’s very difficult.”

Gordon Buerhig (center) and his Cord 812 Sportsman convertible pose with Jorgenson and Carroll Shelby’s iconic Cobra Daytona coupe, circa 1970. (There was a student parking lot, but students also parked on the street. I remember seeing some students new silver Rolls Royce Corniche convertible with a red interior, top down, parked all day on the street. Not everybody was struggling to pay the bills.)

By nurturing such talent for seven decades, Art Center has arguably done more than any other institution to legitimize the design disciplines, which it does by insuring that graduates have what Bradley calls “the level of superiority and expertise the industry is looking for.” In this respect, imitation has been the sincerest form of tribute. The Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, the Royal College of Art in London, and many universities have long offered programs modeled closely on Art Center’s.

Recent student work is always on view in the lobby of today’s Pasedena campus. This future-Camaro proposal dates from the mid-Eighties.

(Left) Late semester students get little rest trying to get their sponsored projects done. (Right) Veteran Chrysler designer Neil Walling leads a “crit” at the Pasadena campus in the early Nineties. Critiques expose students to the competitive world of a working designer. (That may be Neil Walling, but standing to his right is Geza Loczi.)

Stother MacMinn (left) looks on as Bill Mitchell comments on a student project in the Sixties.

Harry Bradley agrees, but then adds, “It’s a thrill to work for the best. What else can I say?”

Sliding doors—one students answer.

Instructor Harry Bradley helping a student with his model.

Manufacturers often sponsor Art Center projects to get a fresh perspective on their current products and how younger minds see them evolving. Here, Chrysler’s Tom Gale brainstorms future minivans with students assigned to come up with the next generation ideas.

Another frequently visiting executive was Gene Bordinat, longtime Ford Design Chief.

You might not think so from this crowded scene, by Art Center has always been a small institution, with many more applicants than it can handle, which makes for an elite, highly motivated student body (take note, clients and potential employers!). This Pasedana workroom is a far cry from the facilities in the College’s early days.

Director of Admissions
Art Center College of Design
1700 Lida Street
Pasadena, CA 91103
(626) 396-2300
Website: www.artcenter.edu

Alumni: Email photos from your time and experience at Art Center or any other design school for a future post!

1956 Buick Centurion

Jordan was born on October 21, 1927 in Whittier, California. His interest in automobile styling and design began in grade school. As a national award winner in the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild model car competition, he was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1949, Jordan received a mechanical engineering degree from MIT and joined the GM Design (then Styling) Staff as a junior engineer. He spent the 1950s in a number of different studios and positions at Design including Euclid where developed a new look tractor. At the age of 26, Jordan was named chief designer of the special projects studio where he designed the Aerotrain, GM’s concept of future locomotive transportation. After his stint with special projects, he moved to the advanced studio where he designed a couple of notable Motorama dream cars: the Cameo show truck for 1955 and the Buick Centurion for 1956. One of his advanced studio concepts was also chosen by Pontiac general manager Bunkie Knudsen as the basis for that division’s first generation of “wide-tracks.” Jordan was also instrumental in the design of the 1958 Corvette and its conceptual cousin, the XP-700 “Phantom” Corvette.

In 1957, he was appointed Cadillac chief designer where he began to prepare for the post-Harley Earl future of Cadillac. It was his design team that took the idea of tail fins to their absurd peak with the 1959 Eldorado. Jordan likened this to “letting a tiger out of the cage—saying go!” By letting go of the past, Cadillac design was able to move forward.

In 1962, Jordan became executive in charge of automotive design, responsible for all GM car and truck exteriors.

From 1967 to 1970, Jordan was design director for Adam Opel AG in Rüsselsheim, Germany. There he was responsible for a number well-regarded designs including the Manta coupe and the 1968 production model GT sports car. Even after his time at Opel was over, he kept a watchful eye and helped the design studio in Germany turn out the 1986 Omega and 1991 Astra among other models.

On his return to the United States, Jordan was appointed executive in charge of automotive exterior design for GM’s upscale car segment, the Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac group. In 1972, he assumed a similar position for Chevrolet, Pontiac and commercial vehicles.

In 1977, Jordan was named director of design for the entire staff. He was serving in that capacity when Irv Rybicki retired in 1986 and he was named vice president of Design. Jordan was tasked with returning GM’s product lines to their former glory following more than a decade of less than stellar design. It would prove to be a difficult task given he had only six years until he turned 65 years old, the mandatory age of retirement for GM executives.

Under Jordan’s direction, GM Design forged ahead always keeping in mind his motto of “no dull cars.” The Jordan team was responsible for popular and attractive production models such as the Buick Reatta, the 1990s generation of Camaros and Firebirds, the Oldsmobile Aurora, and the 1992 Cadillac STS. Jordan was especially proud of these last two models. His leadership also produced concept cars like the Oldsmobile Aerotech, the Ultralite, and the Sting Ray III.

Chuck Jordan retired from General Motors on November 1, 1992. Since his departure for GM, he has spent a large portion of his time teaching car design to high school art students in Southern California.

Source: GMNext

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His time at Ford, White Motors, and as an independent designer will be featured in Part 2.

More information about the Monza GT, including the brochure, is under the GM Brochures link.

Text, images and captions on this post come from a 60-page reprint from Car Styling Vol. 18, 1977. I saw Larry Shinoda only once, at the SEMA show in the early ’90s.

Forty-seven year old Larry Shinoda is one of a number of Sourthern California native sons who have carved out successful careers in the automotive industry in Detroit. Few men have so dominated the field of transportation design from passenger automobiles, land speed record cars, Indianapolis and Can-Am racers, to motor homes, heavy-duty trucks, dragsters, snowmobiles, go-karts, farm tractors, farm implements, garden tractors, portable hi-pressure washers, and even lawn mowers, Larry Shinoda has lent his legendary touch.

Lawrence K. Shinoda. A child prodigy raised in the west coast world of racing. A man who blew apart or conceptions of what a car should be. A stylist/designer whose career has been as controversial as many of his designs.

Shinoda is outspoken, candid, humorous, and firmly believes in what he is doing. And what he is doing is creating some of the most exciting machinery and products seen on or off the road.

Shinoda spent twelve and one half years with General Motors. By the time he resigned his position as Chief Designer for Special Vehicles in 1968, he had left his imprint on every 1963 production and special show Corvette of the era, not to mention every special show Corvair, including what he feels is one of his personal most favorite projects and best contributions in design, the Monza GT show car, some of the Wide-Track Pontiacs, Z028 Camaro, the Astro series of show cars, and a fistful of others.

He was an artistically gifted child. A giant painting he did while in the third grade was displayed at the Los Angeles Country Fair, and later in the Los Angeles Art Museum for several years. But for Shinoda, the road to auto styling/design was through racing.

Nisei Shinoda was born in Los Angeles, California, March 25, 1930. He attended grade school in highland Park and Junior High School at Luther Burbank Junior high.

The Second World War saw Larry and his family evacuated to the Manzanar Concentration Camp in early 1942. This camp was in the cold, dusty, Owens Valley of California, situated between the Sierra Nevada/Mt. Whitney range and Inyo-Kern/Death Valley range. Larry’s father, the late Kiyoshi Shinoda, died when Larry was only three years old. His father’s family founded the San Lorenzo Nursery Company in San Lorenzo, California (near Oakland) in the early 1900s.

On graduation from Eagle Rock High School in 1948 and two years at Pasadena City College, Larry was called to active duty in the Air National Guard/Air Force fot two years which included a 16 month stint in Korea. He decided the nursery business was not his cup of tea and was drawn to the automotive industry through racing and by enrolling in Art Center School (Art Center College of Design).

While attending Art Center, Shinoda was racing his ’29 Ford roadster at the drag races turning the quarter mile at 138.88 MPH with an Oldsmobile V8 engine. In 1953 he was at the SCTA Bonneville Nationals with a Chrysler powered roadster that earned him the Class D record with a two way average of 166 MPH. He was also eligible for top eliminator at the first NHRA Nationals at Great Bend, Kansas in 1955. He won the Fuel Roadster class with an Ardun overhead adaption for the Ford flathead V8 engine. The Ardun heads were originally designed by Zora Arkus Duntov (the engineering father of Corvettes) while he worked for the Allard Motor Car Company in England. Duntov was to become a good friend and highly repsected person for Larry in later years at General Motors.

Business with Ford

In late 1954 Ford Motor Company came to California to interview candidates for the Ford Styling Group in Detroit. The top executive of the group was Gene Bordinat, presently the Vice President of Design at Ford. Shinoda had studied at Art Center, and considered himself amply qualified. He was called by the late John Coleman and told to get his stuff together and come in for the interview. Dressed in pegged denim Levis, a Howard Racing Cam T-shirt, and an outlandish Hawaiian shirt, and armed with some race car renderings and car sketches (many of which he had just completed the evening before and while he was waiting for the interview), Shinoda was ready for the Ford brass.

To his way of thinking, Ford would be getting the better part of the deal. Shinoda would have to leave sunny California, his ten dollar a week room and board set-up and a better paying job as a commercial artist at Douglas Aircraft for cold, expensive Detroit and less initial pay. Shinoda wanted Ford to pay trip expenses for him (and his race car) to Detroit for a six month trial. If everything worked out, fine. They would pay him his asking price. If not, he was heading back to Los Angeles at his own expense. Shinoda recalls saying, ”You guys need me more than I need you.”

Despite the young man’s outlandish appearance and outrageous demands, (or maybe because of them), the Ford people were impressed by Shimoda. They agreed to give him a try and Larry Shinoda was on his way. Although the Ford Motor Company was later to have a dramatic impact on his career, Shinoda only stayed a brief year.

During that year he worked for John Najjar in an Advanced Design Studio. Designing portions of the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser show car. He was then transferred to Lincoln Studio and worked for Elwood Engle (who later went to Chrysler as VP of Styling), and George Walker, Ford’s VP of Styling). He worked on the ill-fated 1958 (bigger is better?) Lincoln.

Shinoda moved over to Studebaker-Packard in January 1956. But after thrashing for three months on the new Packard models, The Clipper/Predictor series, and a Studebaker Hawk show model for William M. Schmidt, VP of Styling, Dick Teague, Director of Styling, and his own boss Duane “Sparky” Bondstedt, he realized Packard was doomed as the models were shopped back from the tooling source with a “crash first” notice. While at Packard Shinoda worked with Dick MacAdam (now Chrysler VP of Design), Toshi Sakow (now heads up his own design firm in Teaneck, New jersey) who designed the interior of the European Air Bus airliner and had design many othe rwidely diversified products. John Z. DeLorean, was also at Packard as Chief Chassis Engineer. He and Shinoda left quickly to join GM in September that same year.

Larry at GM

DeLorean to Pontiac as assistant Chief Engineer, under E.M. “Pete” Estes. Shinoda to GM Styling. Shinoda was interviewed by Jules Andratti and Mr. Harley Earl. Mr. Early hired him personally.

After some design work for Chevrolet on the 1959 models,he moved to Pontiac where he helped design the 1960-61 wide track models. Shinoda then moved to an advanced design studio and had his first involvement with Zora Arkus-Duntov on a very early attempt at designing a midship engine Corvette. Ron Hill was the studio assistant and then Chief Designer. Another move to a body development studio, taxed Shinoda’s patience, so he designed Buicks, Cadillacs, and limousines with racing numbers, mag wheels, stripes, and other goodies which upset his boss, to say the least.

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He was finally transferred to the studio which was right for him. Soon some of the most exciting automobiles of the decade began coming out of the special Bill Mitchell/Shinoda studio, which was under the lobby in the basement. The Stingray, the 1963 Corvette, the Mako Shark I and II, the Corvair Super Spyder, the Monza GT and Monza SS. The Monza Jr. (Chevrolet Jr.), The Cerv I and II (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicles) for Duntov. The Astro I and the mid-engined Astro II, the XP-819 rear engine Corvette for Chevrolet Research and Development. The theme model for the 1968 Corvette production model, and a raft of specials for Chevy R & D. The Chaparral 2C and 2D race cars.

Shinoda had been promoted to Chief Designer of Chevrolet Studio 3 and moved to the warehouse (bowling alley) studio prior to the Mako Shark II and 1968 theme Corvette.

He was them promoted to Chief Designer for all special vehicles, which included coordinating efforts for engineering staff (Frank J. Winchell) and the corporate R & D groups. During this period he designed a three-wheeled commuter vehicle for Engineering Staff and a four wheel commuter car for Chevy R & D called the “Flint-stone.” It was a small front wheel drive four cylinder Corvair powered unit, which was bootleg modeled at Chevrolet Engineering. Shinoda worked with Vince Piggins and his product performance group on the 1967 Z-28.

Byt 1968 Shinoda was growing restless. Although he maintained his ties with racing, through working on Indy 500 crews, designing some items for Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren, and the snowmobile line for Rupp Manufacturing and its others products (go karts, mini-bikes, and the off-road Ruppster). Shinoda was looking for new challenges. He was considering an offer from Toyota of America, but some of his friends told him to cool it—something big is in the wind.

When I got home from the race, I wrote a letter to General Motors Design Staff about how one becomes a car designer. I was fifteen years old. A few weeks later I received a letter signed by Lee Knight and a few publicity photos of several show cars, including the Monza GT. I still have those photos. The letter suggested some books I could buy about car design. They were Automotive Design by R.H. Gurr, published in 1955 by Post Motor Books, and You Can Draw Cars by Bill Jenks, published in 1960 by Sports Car Press. I still have the books. Nine years later I was a real car designer working in Advanced Chevrolet. Ron Hill was the Studio Chief, and Gaza Loczi was his assistant.

An AC Delco ad with another page from the Monza GT brochure.

These are the photos sent to me by General Motors.

Monza GT photographed at Michigan International Speedway about 1977.