How Cars Are Really Designed in Detroit

It’s like having a flashback! Not being someone who designed cars, but having been raised by a car designer, I remember this process quite well. I watched it from the outside, from regularly scraping the clay off of shoes, to hearing the dinnertime stories of design committee meetings and styling discussion.

This was very useful to me. I got to show it to my wife, and it helped explain so many of the stories I had told her, or that she had heard from other members of the family.

Excellent !!!!

Bob and Stan always great! Only, twice as bad situation at Ford Design.

I can remember Bill Mitchell coming in, reviewing the clay model, then giving us some whimsical, yet derogatory comment like “It looks like a damn canary in chicken coop.” After he left the studio, we would all scratch our heads trying to figure out what he meant and worse yet, wondering what we should do about it. The most common reaction was, “Just change it, just change it, so it doesn’t look like that when he comes back.” The design direction, like this, was often initiated out of fear rather than rational or artistic merit. They don’t teach you this stuff in design school.

Ron Will

Re: Luiz, on April 5th, 2011 at 9:35 am Said:
I just wonder how the Design Comittee, Director of Styling and Division Management came to an agreement in the case of the Edsel…

However it was, the same strategy worked again for the Aztec.

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a hot illustrator who is also a lousy designer.” Bob Marcks

Whenever I see a really ugly taillight, etc. I think, “Boy, I’ll bet that was a beautiful sketch!”

Relative to Bill Porter’s regrets:

To have done subsequent regimes, we’d have had to be there all through them. A fate (much) worse than death.

Be content that we laid it out more than fifty years ago, secure in the knowledge that nothing much would change. Oh, yeah, one change: now the curtains are pulled back on the 40-foot high glass walls…

I remember being in Design Development in summer of 1961. We heard about the cartoons and writings but could not find anyone to show them to us. It was apparently a subject that was not to be discussed by civilized people. Then one day, because of a lack of seating in the upstairs cafeteria I sat next to Larry Shinoda and Tony Lapine.

I really did not know who they were so after finding out they were working in Studio X, in ignorance, I asked them about the stories. They looked at me in a curious way, like I was a piece of fresh meat, which I was. I thought they were going to fall off of their chairs! They then invited me down to the studio but Sparky Bohnstedt discouraged me from going.

Several years later I was working with Bernie Smith on a full-size model that looked much like a Motorama show car, the GMX (I think), with a lot of unusual negative surfaces. We had been working on it for several weeks getting ready for a Bill Mitchell show, always a very unpredictable event.

One afternoon, after lunch probably, Bill came in with the Chief Engineer from Holden of Australia and a few other people. he had an audience.
They stood in front of the model talking and then Bill turned to leave, he looked back at the clay model and said, “That looks like something you would pull out of a lake with a hook”. They all nodded agreement and proceeded to leave.

I was devastated as I was the main proponent of the sea monster design. I asked Bernie what we should do. Before the door even closed behind the group our Chief Modeler jumped onto the hood, creating a loud thumping sound where standing there he proceeded to hack away with a large tool to destroy the curving fin like front fenders. Question answered.

Another strange but easily understood event was told to me by Ned Nickels when I worked for him in the Overseas Studio in about 1968. This concerned the design of the (1958?) Buick Limited when Ned had been Chief of Buick. It was a car that was, for some reason, loaded with chrome goo-gaws of every shape and size. It had an illogical character.

They were finishing off this special edition Buick and they had two proposals. They were taking it to the patio for a Harley Earl final approval. The proposals were illustrated by two cardboard mockups with clay extrusions on them. The designers decided to pin both proposals to the side of the car at the same time for the trip. They would then adjust the proposals for the presentation of the two designs. The model left the studio for the patio and since it took a few minutes to get there everyone took a short break, gathered their tools and started out.

To their horror they were met at the hallway entrance to the patio by Harley Earl’s Administrative Assistant (Jules Androtti?)
who announced:

“Mr. Earl just looked at it and he says that you should release it exactly as it is shown”.
They could not believe their ears. I asked Ned if he went back to ask Earl about another show. He did not answer, just shook his head no.

I then understood Ned’s penchant to always leave the studio for the patio before the car did. After hearing that story I adopted his rule and I have to say it saved me several times.

From time to time I would tell stories like this to my father who was in the construction business and a great fan of GM, especially Buick and Cadillac.
He would get a blank look on his face

DICK RUZZIN

This classic series of cartoons panels by Stan Mott is satire but breathtakingly accurate.
That WAS the way HJE worked as he was lord supreme over his design process. All of the panels are so true and I remember them well when they were published. But panel #7 is what I remember most. HJE would spend hours in that chair, raising a line, lowering a line and so forth. Of course, all of his subordinates would always agree with everything he said and did. One fella, in particular, was an old time associate of HJE and toured the studios with him quite often. The routine was, “Now (Mr. X), isn’t that a lot better now the way I changed it?” The answer always was, “Yes Sterile, it looks a lot better”.