Car Design “Rock Star” Looking For Another Hit
The guy known as the “rock star of U.S. car designers” blew into town today to show the 2009 Dodge Ram pickup to journalists at, appropriately enough, the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art. Haitian-American Ralph Gilles, whose main claim to fame is designing the smash-hit Chrysler 300 sedan, oversaw a complete overhaul/upscaling of the new Ram, making it a formidable rival to Ford’s F-Series trucks. North Texas is the Ram’s No. 1 nationwide market, and local dealerships will get the new pickup starting this fall. The busy and gifted Gilles said he’s off Friday to Southern California, where 1,000 300 owners will gather in Irvine to celebrate what’s been called the “Everyman’s Bentley.”
7 Comments to “Car Design “Rock Star” Looking For Another Hit”
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Ram…..really? http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/.....ide_2.html
Give me a break. Chip Foose is the “rock star” of U.S. car designers. J Mays and Chris Bangle are bankable. But Ralph Gilles is a one-hit wonder, and that hit was four years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I like his 300, but I liked “6th Avenue Heartache” too and I’m not about to go around calling The Wallflowers “THE rock star of U.S. rock bands.” Glenn, are you allowing yourself to be misled by typically overhyping PR flacks?
The Ram was great when it was redesigned in the early 1990s. But the new Ram really doesn’t do a whole lot for me. What’s really sad is it looks like it’s trying to copy the new Toyota Tundra which essentially co-opted a lot of the F-150 design cues.
“Haitian-American”?
As an Arizonian-American, that’s one of the funnier hypen-American names I’ve seen.
Chris Bangle bankable?? Not after his BMW design fiascoes. J Mays isn’t much better, considering he has no clue how to design a sedan that doesn’t directly rip off VW. Those are two “celebrity” names that make it into the automotive press quite often, mostly from PR flacks, and they definitely don’t compare to the Buehrigs, Earls and Exners of the glory days of American design.
SE:
I didn’t like the Bangle Butt at first, and I thought that the entire flame-surfacing idea was a bunch of hogwash at first. I thought that the Lexus IS350 was a much better looking 3-series replacement than the actual BMW that it was competing with a few years ago. And don’t get me started on the fiasco that is iDrive, although I don’t know how much Bangle has to do with that. But although I don’t like the horizontal interior of the BMW’s now versus what I consider to be the near-perfection of their driver-first design circa the ‘95 525i, I have to admit that Bangle was right. Look at the current 3 and 5 and then look how they’re being copied. I can’t see a new Camry without noticing how blatant a rip off the lines on it are to the new 3 series. Even the Bangle Butt trunk. So while I truly preferred BMW’s style on the original Z3, the e39 5-series, and the beee-you-tee-full Z8 to Bangle’s new regime, I think that his design perspective has been validated by the market and by the reaction of other designers to his cars.
J Mays is certainly still bankable, but he’s stuck at Ford, which seems to have no idea about where it’s going. But you have to give him a lot of credit for the New Beetle, which made a hell of a lot bigger statement than did the 300. Which isn’t to say that I don’t like the 300, I do (except for the gaudy eggcrate grill on some models).
Buehrig I’ll give you, but I’ve never bought into the whole Harley Earle thing, I find most postwar Detroit iron to be boring and cliche with the exception of the first T-Bird, the Vettes (especially the ‘58) and the early pony cars. But even those got fat and sloppy after about 3 or 4 years. But put any of those cars up against what Ferrari was putting out in those years and I’d take the Ferrari every time. I confess that may not be a fair comparison, given the production volumes.
iDrive was definitely a disaster for BMW, and I don’t think they’ve recovered from the negative press. The Bangle Butt was what really turned me off BMWs (well, that and the reliability), because it looked like the deck lid was an afterthought. I do agree with the 525i - that was the epitome of BMW sedan design, and the Z8 was a prime example of what the design studios can do. I will say I like the Z4 coupe, but I’m a hatchback kid of girl, and would love to see more European models come across the pond for that reason.
I consider J Mays to be a one trick pony, much like Gilles, because the New Beetle was his one hit. There are a lot of parallels between the two designers, in that their breakout design reversed the fortunes of their respective companies. Sadly, neither company could keep the momentum going after those vehicles saturated the market(s).
Now that Chrysler has been bought by Cerberus, you’re going to see a decline in the sort of creativity that they have exhibited. No more hits like the 300, Charger, Challenger or Magnum. Ford is finally figuring out that they have to release some “other than truck” models to survive $3/gallon gas, but it has taken them years of bland sedan designs to develop the Taurus and Fusion. Now, if they’d pull from their European division and get us the SportKa and the new Fiesta, I might consider using my husband’s X plan discount.
The main thing about Earl was that he was the father of the Corvette. The 1953 Corvette was as close to the European models that GM would ever get. With each successive redesign, the car deviated from that early influence and became a truly American sports car.
True, what was coming out of Italy could outsex anything America was designing, but that has always been the case. The Italians have always had a different view on form and function. Then again, a lot of the cars from Europe in the 50s and 60s looked so much better than the US designs - Porsches, Jaguars, Astons, Healeys. While we didn’t get the electrics from the “Prince of Darkness” Lucas, we also never got stunning designs like you mention.