Saluting Sixty Years of Auto Design

Updated 1:25 PM PST, Mon, Jan 26, 2009

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For six decades Pasadena's Art Center College of Design has been a driving force behind the look of automobiles around the world.

To mark that milestone the Art Center is mounting an exhibit at this year’s Auto Show.

Stewart Reed, Chairman of the Transportation Design Department at the school says about fifty-percent of the world's current car designers are products of his department. Reed enumerated some of the recent cars designed by the school’s alumni, “Exotic cars like the Porsche GT and the Ferrari Enzo and on the other end of the spectrum wonderful cars like the new BMW mini, the little Fiat 500 that's made in Europe, the Volkswagen Beetle, the Audi TT.”

Auto Center grads are also responsible for creating some of the more iconic cars in automotive history, like the 1957 Chevy Bel-Air, the 1963 Corvette Stingray, and the 1989 Mazda Miata, which reinvigorated the roadster.
While none of those cars will be in the exhibit it will be showing off a new generation replica of the classic 1958 Scarab racecar designed by Art Center alum Chuck Pelly.

And since past is prologue the exhibit will also be looking at the future of transportation design. Reed says, “There are more challenges for designers than ever before but I think implicit in those challenges are opportunities for creativity."

Many young designers are creating more job-specific vehicles, like a two-wheeler based on the Segway scooter, for urban environments, or cars made from extremely lightweight materials that actually store energy.

Design student Ezekiel Wheeler says he’s up to the challenge of what he calls conscious design – focusing on sustainability, the environment and the economy. He remains optimistic for the future of transportation design -- even in the midst of what may be the worst economic times for domestic automakers when aesthetics alone is not enough to sell cars.

Wheeler adds that new designers will do well to learn from the mistakes of the past and not dwell on them. "Yes, right now is bad, but I think it's uplifting and optimistic future for us designers to push forward and move through these hard times."