Some might say that the passion which used to go into designing and building cars is all-but gone nowadays, when each vehicle is designed to appeal to a very specific clientele, and corners are cut to get costs down and profits up. This results in many cars that look the same, like the freshly-revealed Toyota Corolla, which from the side reminds me of Kia’s Forte sedan.
Back in the 1960s, though, before the days of AutoCAD and 3D modeling, cars were conceived on the drawing board – an actual physical one, and this showed in the fluidity of so many designs of the era. Just check out this period video made by Ford, explaining what it was that they looked for in a car, from a design standpoint, how the appeal of new features was gauged, as well as the transition from 2D sketches, through clay models and into metal.
The nearly 17-minute long video highlights a variety of Ford concepts, which featured clever ideas, like an electrically-adjustable memory steering wheel and even a very primitive form of sat-nav which used an actual map which was moved so that it gave the impression of actually following the car. I don’t know if it actually worked as intended, but the idea seems fairly feasible, with rudimentary technology…
By Andrei Nedelea
Story References: YouTube/USAutoindustry via Jalopnik
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