Tweet
Today in class, on of my architecture studios, we had a guest speaker come in. He was a former designer at GM, specifically Pontiac and Buick. He brought it tons of old sketches for future production cars. The difference between his job and other designers that made strictly concept cars is that he designed cars that would definitely be going into production. He had tons of early new GTO sketches. It was very interesting because they greatly resembled the new Camaro coming out. I asked him when he had made these sketches and he said somewhere in the mid to late 90's!! They were of course based off GM's Holden division. GM told him that this retro styling was a bad idea and they went with another design...obviously the one they picked for the 04-06 GTOs. But a few years down the road when they noticed that the design of the GTO was a flop and they began to take notice of the success of Ford and their mustang and other companies going back to their roots, they decided to give his old design a shot. So that design surfaced again and they changed it from the GTO to the Camaro.
He also had a sketch of a Firebird that I thought looked very cool. I asked him when it was done and he said 1994. He explained that is was a concept for the 98-02 face lift of the car. I could not believe that they were revising the car one year after it's production and that it was planned for production six years down the road. It turns out that's how long many of today's designs still take to get through the whole process. So he noticed my fascination with F-Bodies and said "hey how would ya like that Firebird sketch?" I was stunned and gladly accepted the offer. So ya I scanned it in and here is the pic of what the 98-02 Firebirds could have looked like!!! enjoy!!!
He also had a sketch of a Firebird that I thought looked very cool. I asked him when it was done and he said 1994. He explained that is was a concept for the 98-02 face lift of the car. I could not believe that they were revising the car one year after it's production and that it was planned for production six years down the road. It turns out that's how long many of today's designs still take to get through the whole process. So he noticed my fascination with F-Bodies and said "hey how would ya like that Firebird sketch?" I was stunned and gladly accepted the offer. So ya I scanned it in and here is the pic of what the 98-02 Firebirds could have looked like!!! enjoy!!!
Comment