Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Car designer and artist Camillo Pardo and the GT40

2002 Ford GT40

It’s 1985 and Ford wants to take a run at Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus and the like. They buy a Ferrari Testarossa, a Ferrari 308, a Lotus Esprit and set their engineers and designers loose. After a while, Ford comes out with the ultra-modern GT90 and later the Ford GT (or GT40) pictured above. Given all that work and tinkering with European supercars though, to my eye it looks like the biggest influence on the redesigned Ford GT was the old Ford GT.

1966 Ford GT40

I love reading about design, about influences, how companies steal and redesign and take (or avoid) huge risks with design. I was listening to Ford car designer Camilo Pardo talk about designing the Ford GT in a Carcast podcast. Interesting if you’re into cars or design. He talked how he came to be a car designer, about how important transitions are from one design to the next, and how jumping too far forward can lose public support and lead to redesigns being scrapped completely.

Pardo is also a sculptor, painter and fashion designer. The best part of the interview was when he talked about cars that he liked, like these:

1965 Shelby Daytona
1969 Corvette Stingray

I like that because it’s great to see that line from the past to the present. You hear people talking about influences all the time, but to actually see them is something else.