I firmly beleive three things. #1- every automotive engineer, at some point caught his wife in bed with a mechanic. that is why they punish us with things like the "awesome" whiny ford power steering pump, the battery hidden under the floormat trick, and with dodge, the water pump you must first remove the rear bumper to get to. it's punishment. don't beleive me? there is always that one item on any car that is a cast iron son of a ***** to remove. (70 buick door buzzers come to mind. they must have built the car around that stupid thing.) #2 Desingers and engineers hate each other. this is why a concept car looks *****in...but the windows don't roll down. when you get to see the production model, it's not even remotely the same car. (case and point-love it or hate it-the new Camaro. the concept was way better than the soon to be built production model.) somewhere around 1973, every person involved in building automobiles for production began using L.S.D. 1973 rolled in and stuff got really, really ugly-across the board. look at a 72 Cutl***- slick. 73...dear lord, what did they do? 70 charger. nice! ***y lines, power for days. 73 yikes! whatdidjahavetogoanddothatfor? 68-69 Mustang fastback. sinister. especially in black. 73 mustang makes me want to punch babies it's so ugly. sure, there were some missteps along the way before then, but they only lasted 1 or 2 model years then were s****ped. the stuff after 73...it still hasn't gone away!
The 73 mid-size GM's looked like they did because GM was trying to phase in roof designs that would meet a new rollover standard. That's when styling went to hell, when it had to start meeting government safety standards.
HAHAHAHHAA!! Damn near gagged on my own spit on that one!! You have a way with words, Mr Lux. After you give up wrenching you should go write sympathy cards for Hallmark!!! You're a natural if I ever saw one.
I wasn't really trying to bash the Edsel (but, it is ugly) More when they hit it .. stepped back and said , wow ..That looks nice ! Or did they shrug their shoulders..say,well it will be here today and gone tomorrow -- Didn't Henry one hate the 32 ? --I thought I read that somewhere anyway fun to wonder about it
Edsels's "pets" were the Lincoln line of cars and the Continental was the benchmark. As I understand it the Edsel was created as a middle ground car with the luxury of the Lincolns. The grille? Probably something they designed around to give it an ID. It does look like a big mammal ready to be fertilized though. Good call on the Predicta. That was futuristic in it's day. I think it's funny how old some of the futuristic stuff looks now. Products of the "jet age" were meant to keep people looking forward. Now we look forward to corporate buy-outs, down-sizing, and contract workers. Why is there no real media about new designs anymore? Some designs get "tired looking" very quickly. To me most of the Daimler Chrysler stuff ages way too soon. The Magnum, Charger, 300, whether or not it's because I live near Motown, I for one am just about sick of seein em. Ford has nothing exciting other than the Mustang and the F series trucks. GM must have hired someone that built cars outta Legos and his mommy said they look good. Now we have the Avalanche. Body by Lego. The Aztec was the same ****. Today, the guys that sketch this **** seem to have been "taught" what to draw. Back then it was more about style. And yes, some styles were just plain odd.
I would doubt a GOOD designer would have engineer issues... Part of being a good designer versus simply an "artist" is taking functionality into consideration when worrying about the form. Anyone with some artist skill (which takes me out of the running) could probably sit down and after a few tries draw a pretty sharp lookin' car. A DESIGNER would, at least to the best of their ability, also concern themself with the functionality (not DO the engineering, but just keep the engineering aspects in the back of their mind). It's about working well together and the engineer understanding, in part, the designer's job and vice versa. Really they both have the same pain in the ***, the accountants and marketing people, worrying about budgets and marketing research and **** instead of letting the creative juices flow freely, which is really stiffling both now-a-days, which is why I think there aren't many "WOW" cars produced.
I thought auto designers were, generally speaking, very "into" their work. That is until I met my uncle-in-law in the Detroit area in December. He is very "artsy"... fires pottery in a homemade kiln in his garage, teaches art cl***es -- things of that nature. I found out he was a designer for GM in the 60's. He couldn't even remember the makes/models he worked on. I asked him about a few notable models from that period, the Buick Riviera, for example. The angles, lines, the look of always being in motion--even when standing still. He wasn't in the least bit interested in thinking about or discussing cars. Changed my perspective of vehicle design...
I'm a transportation design student and an obvious car lover. I found it interesting when talking to the department head at my school, he said "car guys almost never make good designers". When I asked him why he said its because a majority of car guys know what they want in a car and not what people would want and while we would normally not have issues with things like chopped tops and seats that are welded to the floor pans the average consumer would. So I guess what he is saying is something you or I would oooh and ahhh over most people would see as inconvenient. He continued on to say that engineers are more likely to design a better car since they think of stuff like head room, headlight placement and wheel base and things of that nature and very rarely do you find someone who is good at both and they dont mind altering there work over and over again. When you draw up a concept you draw hundereds of variations before anyone even considers making them into a concept and when they do finally hit the concept stage alot of times they look NOTHING like your final rendering because the engineers get ahold of them and rip them apart..... I'm looking at switching to furniture design after those comments BTW...
I think to all those 50's and 60's designs. Some great stuff. Then I think of a Pontiac Aztec or Scion,Element and all the **** yet to come
I wouldn't think any major corporation would give a designer blank slate without consideration for using existing configurations. Mitchell still had to design the Rivi around the nailhead and off the shelf suspension parts. Eldorados and Toronados used the same basic front end (and the last 4 letters of the names). But the cars couldn't look any different. The guys that had to design the SWB '55-57 Pontiacs had to know that the Tri-5 Chevys would more popular. Pontiacs had to have more chrome and trim, just because of the price was above the Chevy and that's what the customer expected. You can't tell me a car guy didn't pick out the grill pattern for the new Lincoln MKX http://www.lincoln.com/mkx/img/main_ext_2.jpg 1964 Lincoln http://www.hubcapcafe.com/i/2003/salisbury/linc6401.jpg
Plymouth was the 3rd best selling brand in the US in 1960, so they weren't a flop at all, and I happen to love them. And the '58 Edsel was not a flop, either. If you look back to Ford's expectations, they were hoping to have a 5% market share for Edsel in it's first year, and they ended up getting about 8%. The problem was, there was much less demand for cars all around in late '57 and '58 due to a recession, so they got 8% of a much smaller number. Also, 1957 was the only year in the 50's that Ford outsold Chevrolet, even though the '57 Chevy is considered by some to be the ultimate 50's car. It's pretty hard to gauge what people will like and what they won't like. It seems so obvious to me what looks good, but there'd be some pretty wild looking **** driving around if I got to OK all the designs first.
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