Topic: Auto Designers

[Ultra]

List your favorites here and, if you dare, tell us why?

Mine, Bill Cushenberry.  Reason.  No rules to his designs.

[Otto Puzzell]

Wow - that's a tough one.

Tom Tjaarda - great designs of exotic AND run-of-the-mill designs. Sustained his edge over a long time, too.

Brooks Stevens - often challenged with cleaning up / disguising old designs, done by others. When he was given free reign, he came up with some pretty cool originals, too.

Dick Teague - like Stevens, his work (Packard and AMC) was often re-work of old and decrepit designs. Also like Stevens, often worked on a budget so small GM would have spent the same amount on a taillight redesign. Hampered by being blind in one eye, but occasionally, penned some very nice designs.

There are plenty more, but I don't want to hog all of them.

[75america]

Franco Scaglione.

Alfa Romeo B.A.T. 5, B.A.T. 7, B.A.T. 9 and 33 Stradale to name just a few.

[Allemano]

Aldo Sessano, Trevor Fiore, Pio Manzu – some of my favourites..

[Maxmotor]

Wow, that thread didn't get very far!

My favourite designer is Marcello Gandini because he pushed the envelope that much further than anybody else and it's much easier to fail than succeed when you stretch yourself this far out.

A close second for me is Giovanni Michelotti, albeit for very different reasons. He accomplished so much in his career, with such grace, creativity, elegance, and building up a distinct image for many manufacturers who benefitted greatly as a result. Also, I cannot think of any other designer who managed to work so well on cars of very small dimensions. It is one thing achieving good balance with long, low-slung chassis, but it's so much more difficult when you are limited in your creativity by a very functional package, and Michelotti excelled in all areas with equal genius.

There are many others I would like to mention of course, from different eras and horizons, but with just these two you already have a significant chunk of automotive design history covered!

[Otto Puzzell]

Nicely stated.

[Carnut]

I believe Giugiaro to be one of the very greatest.
He moved car design on in the 1960's and 1970's, although I think with age he lost his edge somewhat.
Michelotti too because he was so prolific and so much of his work looks so good.
But the list is really a long one, including Gandini, Brovarone, Scaglioni, Fioravanti, Spada .. I could go on.  And they all seem to be Italian!

[Maxmotor]

Oh, perhaps we should make a tread about our favourite non-Italian designers! 

There would still be plenty, but I agree: Italy is a very special place when it comes to car design.

I would like to mention here the name of Davide Arcangeli. He will never become very well known because he passed away so young, but to me he was the true heir of the Michelottis, Giugiaros, Brovarones and so on. His sense for good proportions, good surfacing, good lines, good balance, good detailing was a cut above the rest when compared to "modern" designers.

Pininfarina should never have let him go, they should have given him growing responsibilities instead with a plan to make him their chief designer sooner rather than later.

[motorcar1]

I have always liked the designs of Dr Elio Zagato, were quite crisp and he created many.
Detomaso was quite the designer and racer himself, the Mangusta and Pantera were both quite unique in their day.

Seems that the Italians do get a lot of credit.
In the US, we did exist you know;
Lee Iacocca played parts in the design of the "most collectable singular car in the World", the timeless Ford Mustang.

In being bold in designing and building a car that would have been like a Stealth fighter at Kitty Hawk next to Write's plane, Mr Benjamin Franklin Harris III.
He went where no man had ever went in the era, a US first>>> an exotic Sporting car !!!!!!!!!!
John

[Carnut]

And how could I have forgotten to mention one of my greatest all-time favourites, Pietro Frua?

To my mind these Italian designers are the modern-day equivalents of the Italian Renaissance painters of yore.

I agree, of course, that there are many non-Italian worthy designers, some of whom have already been mentioned like Trevor Fiore and Tom Tjaarda.  I love them too!

But the Italians have a very special flair for it and good though others may be they are different and I tend to go for the Italian style more than any other.

[Limo]

1. Giovanni Michelotti (1200 marvelous designs)
2. Paolo Martin (BMC 1800, Fiat 130 Coupé, NSU RO80 Pininfarina)
3. Giorgietto Giugiaro (Audi Asso di Picche)
4. Walter de Silva (Alfa Romeo 156)
5. Wolfgang Egger (Audi Quattro concept 2010)

[Carnut]

Detomaso was quite the designer and racer himself, the Mangusta and Pantera were both quite unique in their day.

His cars might be very mouth-watering but of course he didn't actually design them himself.
The Mangusta was Giugiaro and the Pantera was a Tjaarda design - both of whom get mentions elsewhere in this thread!

[Aaron65]

He may not have penned them all himself, but I'm going to give a shout out to the man, Bill Mitchell...the cars he was responsible for goes on and on...'63 Riviera, Grand Prix, Corvette; '66 Toronado, '65 Corvair, '70 Camaro/Firebird, '66 Riviera, '65 full-size Pontiacs, '68 GM intermediates (especially the GTO)...

An underappreciated guy was Bob Gregorie...all those beautiful Fords of the 30s, and my favorite car of all time, the '40/'41 Lincoln Continental!