When the talented car designers got together and made a "classic" example --54 chevy,,ok ..But 55 was timeless and I'm not even a chebbie guy, still nice car Or Do you think they knew when they made a big whoops 58 edsel comes to mind Or was it just a pay check, who cares no one will even see them in a few years deep thoughts
I know it had to be more than just a paycheck. To some of them anyways. Virgil Exner for Mopar, for example, I believe was genuinely trying to hit the ball out of the park with every single design. In my opinion, he did just that on several occasions over his career. The problem will be that the "design" guys never ever had free reign. There were always bean-counters and engineers coming along and reigning them in. Just look at the differences between the one-off concept cars and the actual production cars... And in the end, the designs actually had to sell, right? So, I've no doubt, there were trend-setters and trend followers in all design studios.
I would think they believed all of their "original designs" were going to be loved. Why would you design something that you thought no one was going to like. However, like tragic59 said what got done or was forced to be done to those original designs was probably not always what the designers thought was the best design. They probably though of some of them as the best they could do within the confines of the corporate machine.
explain the Edsel ? Could anyone of though it would been a hit ? There are others but instead of fighting about those I'll pick on it
I think most of the cars they make today are designed by people who think "oh well, it's just a paycheck". Looks like they spent about five minutes with a block of wood and a bandsaw to come up with the design. Probably some of the cars that we think of as classics were kind of a leap of faith when they came out with them. There had to be lots of executives at GM who thought cars like the '59 Cadillac or the '59 Impala were too outrageous looking with their giant fins and they probably worried that nobody would buy them.
Very few people that work in design studios think of it as "just a paycheque". There is a tremendous amount of personal pride going into their design work, plus a very heavy pressure from management and marketing to design something that catches on with the public to create really great sales figures.
I think that if the Edsel was named Ford or Chevy or even Plymouth it would have been a whole different story. Take a look at the '60/'61 Plymouths , Edsel wasn't any worse then those two year cars. However today I'd take any of the tree of them!
I always say I was born a century too late. I would have loved to be involved before a mountain of statistics and market annalysis made the decisions. When it was heart & soul and a few peoples ingenuity. I think what can be done with a computer is great...... but the "classics" were done without.
The Edsel didn't sell becasue of the faulty electric shifters. Dealers had lines of cars on their lots that could not be sold as the shifting mechanisms were removed to do warranty work for the cars that had been sold. After they got that problem fixed, the die had been cast. Folks ASSUMED them to be sucky quality. I owned a 58 Pacer 4 door hardtop. Actually they drove quite well and I for one like their looks. Glenn
Edsel was named Ford..............Edsel Ford....Henry's son. The Edsel wasn't a bad car, it just came out at the wrong time. The country was sinking into a depression and smaller cars were the new thing. Edsel was not a small car.
Very true I think. I can't imagine a designer originally drawing the roof of a 1940 chevy as high as it ended up being or the ride height sitting so ridiculously high in the air as it did. Instead, I think the original drawings of most of those cars were much more swoopy and racy - sexy. Then along comes the executives to remind the designer that "ladies want to be able to sit in the car without removing their hats" so the roof gets raised and "a lot of potential buyers travel on bad roads" so the ground clearance gains a few more inches. That is where the "doing it just for a paycheck" comes into play. A guy has to make a living and knows it won't get appoved until the changes are made. I'm a graphic designer and I can relate. Sometimes I put something together and I know I've nailed it! - really something I'm proud of...then comes the customer who has to fuck it all around and ruins it, but thinks "oh, yeah NOW it's good to go." Sometimes you just have to. But the truely GREAT designs are ones in which all the limitations and forced constraints are all included and yet somehow it is still a BEAUTIFUL thing - think '36 Ford 3-window. I think in a case like that, the people involved definitely KNEW they had something really cool right away. Sometimes, just the right combination of things comes together. An interview with David Bowie comes to mind in which he related that he really had no idea what would be a hit or not and was continually dumbfounded as to which songs people loved or hated.
you can bad mouth the edsel,but even people that arent into cars know what it is.....id bet the designer of the 55 chevy didnt see it as exciting as the 57.the one car that id think the designers knew was a hit was the mustang.40 plus years and its still going strong.
The Mustang is a good example of what has allready been said. Have you ever seen some of the first concepts of this car? They were some good looking cars, but they changed and changed till they came up with one all could agree on and it was a hit. Some of the other designs would be a hit now but were ahead of the time in 64.
It's ugly. I'd be the first to admit that but it would be interesting to see how far it is from the original concept. Maybe the designer thought it was cool. I can't see how but you never know.
Holy Crap I forgot about that one...... First time I ever saw one I was with a buddy and we just about pulled the guy over and beat him for buying it.... how can something like that ever make it to production?
Of course they thought it would be a hit. That's why Ford sank hundreds of millions of dollars into development and marketing. Auto companies didn't set out to make any flops. Everything was done to sell in huge quantities and make money for the corporation. Even the Pinto, Granada, Gremlin, and Chevette were all designed to sell. That's what car manufacturers do, they sell cars. Sometimes... damned fickle public.
Hey, If i recall correctly, the Edsel was one of the first cars to be designed by committee. A number of people were to blame for its failure. It too, suffered from much the same problems as the 810 Cord in the late thirtys: a protracted development period and bad timing. After some early problems became known to the public, the bad press became insurmountable. I must be sicker than I thought, I own both a '61 Plymouth and a '62 Dodge Dart. Talk about two vehicles that got the shit beat outa them in the market. Swankey Devils C.C.
As someone who has to design (smaller, less signifigant) things (logos, brochures, etc.), I give them my all every time, but invariably, if I give a client two designs, they will pick my personal second choice 90% of the time. The 10% that we agree on, usually makes it to my portfolio. I believe the Edsel was one of the 90%... I think they had a design on the table that looked more like the Packard Predicta, which would have been slightly less offensive. but it could have been a bug-eyed pig sucking a lemon. "OK boys, I'm fresh out of ideas for the '70 Bonneville, lets say we steal the basic front end and rear tailight shapes from a Ford, from, idano... 12 years ago?"
What the designers of the Edsel were going for was very futuristic!!! Here are some pics I found on the net of the original concepts for the car.
The Jalopy Journal
