Syd Mead was one of the world’s best transportation and architectural designer artist of all times. Syd was born on July 18, 1933 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 1959, Syd graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His first job was at Ford Motor Company’s advance Styling Studio under the direction of Mr. Elwood Engel.The concept artist also worked with Mr. Alex Tremulis, designer of the Tucker automobile.
In 1957, Alex and Syd designed a concept car for Ford called the Gyron, which was a two-wheeled vehicle of the future. However, after only two years with Ford's design team, Syd left Ford's studio to pursue a career in illustrating books and catalogs for other manufacturing companies such as United States Steel, Celanese, and Allis Chambers. In the 1960s, the United States Steel provided books that were very inspiring and had superb transportation design art work for review.
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History sometimes takes place in a small and obscure location. The history of the following community describes how a culture that stood the spanse of time and considered the horse as a means of transportation came to a sudden halt. The story of the Village of Fairview takes place in roughly 7.2 square miles of real estate. This area was the birthplace of the automotive industry and marked the changeover from an agrarian horse-driven society to the modern industrial based urban world. Street names often reflect how a community came into being, and ushered a change so revolutionary, as to affect a way of life. This change was the internal combustion engine. Streets named after the original French settlers of Detroit have long since passed on except for a few, such as St. Jean, Beniteau, and Cadieux. Other streets in the area were identified with prominent families and property owners, such as Lycaste, Hillger, and Lillibridge.
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When you think about upgrading to disc brakes on a Chevy Muscle Car you probably think that it’s a difficult job that should be left up to a professional shop. In the past that would of been the case. Most upgrades required changing spindles, ball joints, custom machine work and a host of modifications that move your wheels out, negatively affecting the steering geometry, causing your new tires to rub your freshly painted fenders. But things have changed. Today, companies like Classic Performance Inc. manufacture kits that are considered easy “bolt-on” kits. An excellent example of this is CPP’s Super Street Kit, a high performance disc brake system designed for all the popular early Chevy midsize cars. Let’s take a look inside the box of a Super Street Kit and read the instructions. I think you will see these kits are very simple to install and require just basic hand tools, something any gearhead can handle.
On New Year’s Day of 1966, the original Dodge Charger made its debut as the “Leader of the Dodge Rebellion”. It was an instant hit among the buying public. However, it was the Dodge Charger II prototype that was displayed earlier to crowds in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tampa that generated a multitude of Charger fans. The Dodge Charger II show car was not only displayed to highlight the styling and engineering, but also to determine reactions from the buying public on such a unique model design.
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The DMC-12, most famous for its role in the “Back to the Future” film series, was a famous sports car produced by John Z. De Lorean. After spending his early career with Packard, Mr. De Lorean moved onto General Motors to work on some of the 1960s Pontiac vehicles including the GTO, Firebird and Grand Prix. While at General Motors, the Detroit native worked with Mr. Bill Collins and soon approached him in the early 1970s about the possibility of designing and building their own car together. DeLorean ventured from General Motors in 1973. In October 1974, Mr. Collins joined the De Lorean automotive team. The De Lorean Motor Company was founded in 1975.
The DMC-12 model was produced on a 72 acre site in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. Employees on the assembly line within the DeLorean plant performed several different tasks. Work toward assembly on the DMC began in October 1978, however, engineering problems and budget overruns delayed production until early January 1, 1981. The vehicle offered gull wing doors and a stainless steel one piece body with a rear engine compartment design. To save weight and increase overall strength, the DMC-12 had integral or monocoque construction, in which the body also serves as frame. Its lower structure was composed of two main elements bonded to each other: a full length floor pan, a superimposed layer forming the front trunk area, cockpit shapes, and engine bay. To this base structure, the exterior body parts are attached and bonded. These body and frame components were made of fiberglass.
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CPP’s new Complete Rear Dual Adjustable Coil-Over Kit is designed to convert your 1963-72 Chevy truck to a corner carving, performance driving vehicle! Our kit includes our new Totally Tubular Trailing arms, coil over springs and dual adjustable coil over shocks and all the mounting hardware to make this rear suspension
Get that cool street rod stance and track proven performance for your 1963-87 Chevrolet C10 Truck! Our Complete Front Coil-Over Conversion Kits include dual-adjustable coil-over shocks, spanner wrench and bearing kit, our Totally Tubular™ upper and lower control arms, and all the mounting brackets and hardware for a simple bolt-on installation.
Sue Vanderbilt in a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Seville “Baroness;" the show car that she styled for the Feminine Show. When you look back at General Motors’ rich design history, one of the most talented individuals, who made her career as part of GM’s vaunted Creative Design Team, was the late Suzanne E. Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt was one of the original Damsels of Design – a group of eight, great talented female designers that the famed Harley Earl hired during the early days of the 1950s.
Throughout history, the Oldsmobile story has inspired many automotive historians with its rich and celebrated heritage which started right in Michigan’s capital city of Lansing.
I remember a particularly exciting year in 1978 when Oldsmobile introduced their new line of vehicles and automotive catalogues to the buying public. My first impression was that Oldsmobile was using 1978 to create a family-oriented lineup of new cars. The company used its advertising and marketing to highlight many traditional family values
The year 1966 was a great year for automotive sales in the U.S. Many car manufacturers were doing very well for the economy and in 1966 the average cost for a new Dodge vehicle sold for $ 2,280 and the price of gasoline for 32 cents a gallon.
The Chrysler Corporation was also doing very well within the automotive markets with its popular Dodge Dart models. The 1966 Dodge Dart models made their debut in Dodge dealerships on September 30, 1965.
Based on a 1956 Chevrolet 210 Sedan, this recently completed mild custom was built to showcase the timeless factory “Tri-Five” heritage. With a new GM Performance ZZ4 power plant backed by a factory-fresh GM 700R4 transmission, it is equipped with rack-and-pinion steering, four-wheel Wilwood disc
To ensure that Shelby American would have its 1966 GT350 models in dealerships when Ford released the new ‘66 Mustangs, Shelby ordered an additional 252 cars from Ford’s San Jose plant at the very end of 1965 production. These ‘change-over’ cars (often referred to as ‘carry-overs’) were essentially Shelby-spec ’65 GT350s, and received the same performance modifications,
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