One of the things that is part of our mission here at the Autopian is to take you behind the scenes. To reveal the inner workings. Not from the Autopian of course; no one wants to see That certain innards of a failed sausage-making experiment (although we do occasionally lift the lid for our esteemed members). No, we want to be the flashlight that illuminates the dungeon of the automotive industry and shows you things you won’t learn anywhere else.
One of the most secretive parts of the automotive industry is the design process, and that’s why, as a professional car designer, all-round cheapskate and resident wit, I’m here to try to pierce the veil. Well done actually, because outside of this madhouse I am effectively unemployed. The car design process is shrouded in secrecy for good reasons: like any other creative endeavor, OEMs don’t want to reveal what they’re planning until they’re done. They don’t want their competitors to know their intentions and would rather not risk a potential Osborne effect by hurting sales of existing models if customers realize something new is coming. There’s one last good reason that’s especially applicable in the age of hyper-connected social media: the risk of a huge backlash if fans and enthusiasts of the brand don’t like what they see.
What if a manufacturer want to to show customers and the press what they are doing? They may have an innovative design direction in mind, or an idea for a new model, and want to warm up the audience and gauge their reaction. The time-honored method of doing this in the past has been to release a concept car – a taste of what’s currently on the minds of the highlighter wielders. Depending on the response from customers and the press, they will move it forward and a toned-down version will go into production.
Or they may realize that they’ve created such a gigantic ball that the corpse of the lead designer is hidden in a clay model and the concept itself is parked in a dusty corner of a forgotten warehouse, never to be mentioned in polite company again. The days of huge convention halls full of splashy displays and drunken motoring journalists are long gone: the death of the traditional motor show means that most concepts today exist solely as digital properties, without any physical form. But sometimes hard concept models are still used, internally for design approval and externally for smaller-scale PR events. Thanks to the generosity of GM Design, we can watch a never-before-seen concept being built. But because GM is GM, as a great military man once said: I hope you enjoy pain. Because it’s a Pontiac.
The G8 that never was
Over the past few days, the excellent GM Design Instagram account has been releasing a series of images of the last Pontiac concept car ever created. Called the G8, it was completed at the GM Advanced Studio in California back in 2008, shortly before the entire brand was stripped down and killed off. Looking through these images not only provides a wistful glimpse of what might have been, they also give us a fascinating insight into how concept cars are created, as well as a little snapshot of the design process itself. So let me be your flashlight as we take a closer look.
First the sketches. These are actually renders rather than just sketches as they contain a lot of detail. Sketches usually refer to the quick line drawings you would make to flesh out your initial ideas. Some designers do this directly in Photoshop; I always felt more comfortable doing mine on paper with a ballpoint pen until I had something I liked. Then I scanned that in, adjusted it, and then started blocking in colors, shadows and highlights, and additional details. What’s interesting here is that while the first is taken from a dramatic high three-quarter view, the second and third are a straight front and back view. Normally you wouldn’t use these views because they look a bit static. Not having worked for them, I can’t speak to GM’s studio standards, but these front and back views can serve as a guide for the clay modelers. When Harley Earl was still the chief, anyone who started modeling without orthographic plans would have to endure some excessive nonsense from the big man, so this way of working may well be a hangover from that era.
A real studio clay this time
Speaking of sculpting, here is the clay model on the plate. The first design stages of a concept car are the same as those for a production model: sketches and renders are made, one or more favorite themes are chosen and an initial clay model is made. If you peek out through the rear window and the taillights, you can see the underlying foam trestle. You can also catch a glimpse of the front and rear wheel arches. The old-fashioned desktop PC behind the model is not for playing Doom during a coffee break – but for controlling the milling head (these days everything is networked – no direct PC connection is needed). Look closely at the images on the boards in the back: the outlined image is for a completely different car, a kind of two-door hatch. Remember, this is the advanced studio. No cars would have been worked on for production here, so this is an alternative proposal that didn’t make the cut.
This second image shows the clay model from the other side. Once again the foam block peeks through the headlight openings, but if you look into the front wheel arch you can clearly see the metal anchor that supports the entire model. In the background, various clays are being worked on on a smaller scale. If you have the time and enough modelers, four- or five-scale clays can be made by hand much faster than full-scale clays. The designers use these smaller models to determine which theme to carry to full size. At the top of the image you can see the horizontal strip lighting, which allows you to check the highlights when the model is wrapped in Di-noc.
On to the hard stuff
Naturally, then GM Vice President of Design Ed Welburn was happy, because the hard model is now being built. This is the point where the design of a production car and the creation of a concept car start to diverge somewhat, so let’s take a moment to understand what we’re talking about. A concept car is an incredibly detailed, extremely expensive hand-built model. They may have limited lighting functionality or may even travel at low speeds. It is even possible to make them radio-controlled, so that they can perform all kinds of magic tricks outside the camera by an operator. It’s all one big Oz-like illusion. We are using similar hard models as part of the production car design process, but they will not have the same level of detail or complexity at this stage. Their goal is simply to capture the design at that time for board approval.
Most of the major parts that make up the interior will be milled from rigid foam. It’s like that green stuff that florists put fake flowers in, but much denser, meaning it can maintain an extremely high level of detail and edge fidelity. Once the pieces are milled, they are primed and hand finished in the paint shop. The bright blue foam filling for the seats is much softer, making the edges rougher. Detail parts such as controls, instruments and small controls will be quickly prototyped. Look at the gap between the inner and outer parts of the back door. There is a small block between the two parts, because these things are fragile.
This rear three-quarter shot shows that the model is well on its way to being ready for paint and final finishing. The outer body panels are made of polyester, molds milled from the same rigid foam and then primed and hand-rubbed in much the same way as the interior parts. While it feels a little early for wiring in electrical appliances, the taillights come on – something like this simply connects to a battery and a switch hidden somewhere on the car. When I went to the Car Design Event in March the Kia PV5 Concept van’s display kept flashing and the interior and exterior lights flickering, so the guys looking after it just turned the whole thing off.
From the front, it looks like the headlights are illuminated as well. The metal trim around the grille and lower vents is milled from a solid block. In the background, it looks like there’s a paint booth behind the model. Remember, this is a smaller satellite studio, so it has to stand alone. You can’t just send half-built concepts back to the mothership on the other side of the country to be painted.
The last gasp of a dying brand
The completed object, outside the famous Tech Center rotunda in Warren, Michigan. Each design studio will have a secure outdoor viewing garden where models can be closely viewed in the open air in natural light (or in the pouring rain). The model sits on a turntable, not because designers are lazy, but to rotate the model so it can be viewed from a number of angles with a consistent light source and background. The description on the Instagram post for these images states that this is a “fully functioning vision.” You can catch a glimpse of the brake discs behind the typical large concept wheels. They’re not just there for verisimilitude – if this model can be driven (slowly), you still need to stop the damn thing. It’s entirely possible that some poor Holden Commodore or production Pontiac G8 donated its Zeta organs so this concept could live. At Land Rover we did something similar with our Defender concept (never shown publicly) which was built on the shortened bones of the V8 Range Rover Sport, including the complete engine and chassis.
Compare the finished interior with previous images. Those acres of gray primer have been painted, trimmed and detailed. At arm’s length and without touching anything other than the bizarre shapes, it’s indistinguishable from a real car, although trying one of those switches would have the effect of fucking exactly everything. Other than the controls, I think the only thing that does anything is the door handles. I really like the leather used, but as it is not a sealed surface it would not be practical for production. Finally, a photo of every designer’s favorite part: the giant wheels. They’re wrapped in real road tires: another little lie, but as Homer would say, they were all part of a single ball of lies.
Ultimately, we don’t know what the purpose of this concept was. Was it supposed to be used internally, a last-ditch effort by managers to save the brand in the eyes of the board? Perhaps shown in public to gain support for the same reason? From a design point of view it’s a slightly odd thing – typically GM-of-the-time heavy-handed, and it has a weird suitcase-shaped hatch – not quite one or the other. The taillight graphics are straight out of a Solstice, but the front end is much more progressive and advanced. I’m not sure what to think, but at least now you know how it’s made.
