Among many talented designers, Mr. Gene Bordinat, Ford Manager; Mr. Gil Spear Jr., Advance Styling Ford Supervisor; Mr. Charles Waterhouse, VP Director and Manager of Ford Styling; and Mr. George W. Walter and Mr. Jim Huggins served as members on the Advance Ford Styling Studio Team.
The engineers worked very closely with the designers to not only achieve goals but to also plan out costs and decide which factory had the machinery for the job. After the engineers decided what the new designs should look like, the next step involved was the design package. If a project became too costly, the engineers would host several meetings to discuss ways and ideas to reduce costs.
Another important job within the Ford Styling Studio was taking sketch ideas on paper and transforming them to clay. This task was important because sometimes it was difficult to tell from the drawings exactly what an automotive design would like and this often changed the direction for a vehicle design. It happened quite often where it became difficult to decide whether a new Ford product was designed by automotive designers or engineers. Either way, it was the designer’s job to create a new model that could run while it was the engineer’s job to ensure mechanical safety for its consumers.
During the early days of production, the first automobile designs were painted in either dark blue or black. This simplicity was because the consumer rarely cared about the color of the automobile and was satisfied with a basic means of transportation. However, by the 1950s, the consumer interest of new automobile colors emerged.
Ford designers would study hundreds of small hand painted models to select the colors they thought consumers would prefer. Designers would determine exactly how many different colors and combinations they could offer consumers for their new product line. During the 1950s, Ford offered many different color combinations such as Persimmon , Cameo Coral, and Mandarin orange. These colors became quite popular among the buyer public.
Today, many design processes still use the same procedures that were previously used to make an automobile ideal for the consumers. The 1950s will always be the decade of style and dazzle which offered many flamboyant shapes and colors for the consumer market.
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A special thanks to Robert Tate, Automotive Historian and Researcher, for donating the story to the MotorCities Story of the Week program. Photographs courtesy of Ford Motor Company/ David C.Cook. Bibliography- Cook, David. How automobiles are made Dodd, & Mead, New York, 1957. Lamm Michael & Holls Dave. A Century Of Automotive Style 100 Years Of American Car Design.Lamm Morada Publishing 1996.
Please do not use any photographs without the permission of the Robert Tate or MotorCities National Heritage Area. For further information contact Robert Tate at btate@motorcities.org. If you have a story that you would like to donate to be featured as a MotorCities Story of the Week, email Lisa Ambriez at lambriez@motorcities.org.