Ford’s X-100 (aka Continental 195X) By Jim and Cheryl Farrell Bob Gregorie’s last day at Ford was December 15, 1946. As head of the Ford Design Department for the past 11 years, he had been unable to convince Henry Ford II or Ernie Breech, Ford’s new executive vice president, that Ford designers should continue designing vehicles based on collaboration between Gregorie and anybody but Breech—and not under the GM committee system imposed by Breech. When Breech hired Walker to design a proposal for the ‘49 Ford, he promised him a long-term consultancy at Ford if his proposal was chosen over Gre ..read more

John Gable John’s work is published by permission. Please do not republish this material without prior consent by Dean’s Garage. John Gable is an original and incisive artist. His distinct sense of composition infuses his work with a quality of light and atmosphere that creates a mood beyond Realism. The viewer shares Gable’s intimacy with the subjects he paints as his work exhibits a rare combination of technical facility and emotional involvement. Gable specializes in painting mural images and large canvases of America’s love affair with the automobile and its effect on our society. Some co ..read more

The Ford Mexico By Jim and Cheryl Farrell Most of us have seen the movie “Ford Versus Ferrari.” That movie may not be accurate in all respects, but it does show Henry Ford II’s willingness to spend Ford money to build cars that won races like the 24 Hours of LeMans. Fords won that race from 1966–69, but LeMans was not the first nor will it be the last time Ford went racing. In 1935, Ford-built race cars were driven in that year’s Indianapolis 500—with not very good results. Although Ford’s participation in the Mexican Road Races 17 years later was initiated by Benson Ford, HFII was well pleas ..read more

NDI-Nissan Design International Published in Car Styling, Issue 60, September 1989 Located in San Diego, the activities of Nissan Motor’s design development organization, Nissan Design International Inc. (NDI), are currently attracting attention. With the publication of the fact that NDI contributed to the design development of the Pathfinder (Terrano) multi-purpose vehicle and the Pulsar series, local press and mass media have been extremely favorable in their coverage of the design laboratory. CAR STYLING has been planning to do a special feature on NDI since its inauguration and, with the ..read more

Alex Tremulis, Fortune Teller By Jim and Cheryl Farrell When the Gyron concept car was unveiled in 1961, few people realized it had taken five years to create. The idea came from Alex Tremulis, a Ford designer, who intended the Gyron as his answer to GM’s Firebird III. Starting in 1956, Mac Thompson and other young Ford designers worked on the Gyron. The final design of the Gyron, however, was created by Tremulis several years later, with lots of help from designers Elwood Engel, John Najjar, Gale Halderman, Syd Mead, Bill Dayton, and Phil Payne who were all assigned to Engel’s Corporate Adva ..read more

The Blue Job—Buzz Grisinger’s Test By Jim and Cheryl Farrell Handsome as a movie star and a physical fitness nut all his life, Buzz Grisinger would often astound his co-workers by doing numerous push-ups or pull-ups on command. He was a prize-winning competitive swimmer into his late 80s, and stayed interested in car design until his death at age 91. Grisinger graduated from the Boeing School of Aeronautics, taught at Boeing, and was a designer at Chrysler in the 1930s. He worked on the Manhattan Project (atomic bomb) during WWII, and then designed cars at Kaiser-Fraser until 1952, when he an ..read more

Bill Mitchell’s Super Bikes, Part 2 By Jack K. Yamaguchi Published in Car Styling No. 11, July 1975 PRIVATE venture of Bill Mitchell, the generalissimo of GM Design, on super bikes is getting more serious and better, as predicted by his lieutenant in the projects, Dave North, a senior GM designer himself, in CAR STYLING No.7. Those bikes in the previous feature belong to the first generation of Mitchell’s improved breed. Then the two latest examples as presented here must be classified as representative of the second “creative” generation. Bikes are Mitchell’s very personal and private enterp ..read more

Strother MacMinn, A Man of Wit and Genius Published in Car Styling 56, Autumn, 1986 ”A designer, a historian, a lecturer, a judge and a master teacher” is how Henry Haga introduced Strother MacMinn, the well-known and highly-respected member of the teaching staff at ACCD, when presenting him with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the IDSA (Industrial) Designers’ Society of America) at a symposium hosted by the IDSA and the JIDA (Japanese Industrial Designers Association) on June 14. ‘Mac,’ as he is affectionately referred to by his friends, has taught at ACCD for over 30 years, and many of ..read more

The Turbo Phantom Restoration Saga By Ron Will Check out the first Dean’s Garage post featuring the Phantom. This entire restoration was totally unnecessary, until I did something stupid, really stupid. It started when we sold our house in Costa Mesa, California where the Phantom was built, and we were moving to our new home in Laguna Hills. We were in the process of moving all of our stuff in a big U-Haul except for the Phantom 3-wheeler, which was loaded on to a trailer pulled by my El Camino. And here’s the stupid part. I loaded it backwards with the tail into the wind. The nail in the cof ..read more

Ford Unitron By Jim and Cheryl Farrell From 1973–78 GM produced and sold motorhomes. Almost 50 years later the design of the GMC Motorhome still looks fresh. During the six years it was produced, fewer than 13,000 were sold. In hindsight, there may not have been a robust market for the GMC Motorhome, and it’s hard to see how it could have been a profitable venture, but GM was on the right track as far as a versatile and good-looking RV. It has not been matched by anything on the road since production ended. Today, people are refurbishing and still using them for their intended purpose. Althou ..read more