From the Styling Studio: The Language of Tape

....interesting video produced by Ford showing how plain old ordinary tape is an indispensable tool in the styling studios. Among other things, allows designers and modelers to communicate without words. 

 

 

Video: The Language of Tape | Mac's Motor City Garage.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent, I always wanted to be a automotive stylist. How does a huge corporation manage to deal with flaky creative types and vice versa? I sometimes think the evident mediocrity of much of the work output from stylists for the big manufacturers must be down to an inability to think or communicate in mutually comprehensible terms across that cultural divide. Maybe the best never make it through the hiring process for similar reasons--you wind up with an HR suit's idea of a stylist instead of an actual one. I actually think Ford stylists have done pretty well of late so they must be doing something right. This is the same company that penned the Mustang II.

Excellent, I always wanted to be a automotive stylist. How does a huge corporation manage to deal with flaky creative types and vice versa? I sometimes think the evident mediocrity of much of the work output from stylists for the big manufacturers must be down to an inability to think or communicate in mutually comprehensible terms across that cultural divide. Maybe the best never make it through the hiring process for similar reasons--you wind up with an HR suit's idea of a stylist instead of an actual one. I actually think Ford stylists have done pretty well of late so they must be doing something right. This is the same company that penned the Mustang II.

 

The modern styling division was invented in the late '20s at GM by Alfred P. Sloan, who had the vision to bring in a talented styling manager from outside, Harley Earl, and then give him full autonomy by making the position a full GM executive board VP. In this way the Styling VP outranked most of the division executives trying to interfere with his mission and he was free to set up his own little country inside GM. The system had its faults but it's not completely out of line to claim that GM enjoyed styling leadership for several decades. 

 

One more example of Sloan's genius. 

 

After the war Ford essentially followed this template with George Walker, a sort of Harley Earl type with a similarly big, colorful personality. 

 

However, over at Chrysler, president K.T. Keller knew nothing about design or style and cared even less. But he ruled the entire product process, inventing ridiculous edicts -- for example,that all Chrysler products must be tall enough for men to wear a hat inside. Or, why all the products looked so dowdy and antiquated in the late '40s and early '50s and didn't catch up until Virgil Exner introduced the Forward Look. 

 

From time to time, the suits always manage to intrude on the design process, which is usually (but not always) the cause of the Motor City's most harrowing design gaffes. 

Once upon a time ford produced a pretty show car called the Barchetta.

 

http://beforeitsnews...ar-2480354.html

 

Ford Oz got the job of designing it and building it based on mazda 323 chassis and powertrain.

 

At one point I was the design and release engineer for about half the chassis, which was great fun as we were developing the turbo handling pack at the time.

 

This was in the late 80s and styling had a lot less clout than the penny pinchers (I won't blame the accountants, the entire organisation was dollars and cents)

 

and this is what we came up with

 

http://www.google.co...start=0&ndsp=15

 

not too bad at the front but from the doors backwards it is completely styleless

 

https://www.google.c...391811717334208

 

This one has the turbo 3 spoke wheels on.

 

http://www.cincinnat...onvertible.html

 

I was present (and conscious) for the entire design cycle of those wheels and the centre caps. We learned a lot about wheels making those buggers, in particular how if you spray a metal wheel with metal flake paint it looks different to plastic sprayed with the same.

Once upon a time ford produced a pretty show car called the Barchetta.

 

http://beforeitsnews...ar-2480354.html

 

Ford Oz got the job of designing it and building it based on mazda 323 chassis and powertrain.

 

At one point I was the design and release engineer for about half the chassis, which was great fun as we were developing the turbo handling pack at the time.

 

This was in the late 80s and styling had a lot less clout than the penny pinchers (I won't blame the accountants, the entire organisation was dollars and cents)

 

and this is what we came up with

 

http://www.google.co...start=0&ndsp=15

 

not too bad at the front but from the doors backwards it is completely styleless

 

https://www.google.c...391811717334208

 

This one has the turbo 3 spoke wheels on.

 

http://www.cincinnat...onvertible.html

 

I was present (and conscious) for the entire design cycle of those wheels and the centre caps. We learned a lot about wheels making those buggers, in particular how if you spray a metal wheel with metal flake paint it looks different to plastic sprayed with the same.

 

 

My neighbor the doctor loved his Capri dearly and wore out a couple of them. He enjoyed having a two-place roadster with the snow capability of fwd.

I tried to put together a deal to run a Capri in the Bathurst 12 hour in about 1994. 
We hoped to con a dealer into giving us a car on the promise of TV coverage of some idiots driving a Capri.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.

This is really how we should use tape: