Photo: Select Car Leasing
Car design hasn’t always been a trade for talented men and women. In the early days of the automobile, few cared how their cars looked as long as they worked, sold and allowed others to be made.
Traditionally, the beginning of car design as we know it today is set around the year 1920, when the market was getting increasingly crowded with car makes and models. To stir up sales and keep customers close to his nameplates, the then head of General Motors Alfred Sloan proposed a yearly change in car design so that people are forced to buy a new vehicle every year.
As with any great idea, this one too quickly spread, got transformed and also spontaneously surfaced on other continents, including Europe.
Since those early days of car design, people actually drawing the cars have grown into icons of their generations, sometimes just as famous as singers or even football players.
But who is the most prolific of the bunch? Who designed the most cars, who led the way for others and served as inspiration for countless generations of car designers?
Select Car Leasing, a British company that provides financial services for the auto market, answered that question by compiling a list of “nine incredible humans who have been at the forefront of car design over the past 50+ years.”
Coincidentally or not, of the nine people four are Italian and their names instantly ring bells: Battista Farina, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Marcello Gandini and Walter de Silva. Next up are two Americans (Chris Bangle and Frank Stephenson) one Dane (Henrik Fisker), one Brit (the recently retired Ian Callum) and one Japanese (Shiro Nakamura).
These nine people have shaped the auto industry in ways no one thought possible, some putting their signature on a huge number of cars, others on fewer, but no less important.
For instance, no one can match the 128 cars designed by Giugiaro, but who can ignore among the only 12 of Nakamura, the Nissan 370Z or GT-R?
As with any great idea, this one too quickly spread, got transformed and also spontaneously surfaced on other continents, including Europe.
Since those early days of car design, people actually drawing the cars have grown into icons of their generations, sometimes just as famous as singers or even football players.
But who is the most prolific of the bunch? Who designed the most cars, who led the way for others and served as inspiration for countless generations of car designers?
Select Car Leasing, a British company that provides financial services for the auto market, answered that question by compiling a list of “nine incredible humans who have been at the forefront of car design over the past 50+ years.”
Coincidentally or not, of the nine people four are Italian and their names instantly ring bells: Battista Farina, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Marcello Gandini and Walter de Silva. Next up are two Americans (Chris Bangle and Frank Stephenson) one Dane (Henrik Fisker), one Brit (the recently retired Ian Callum) and one Japanese (Shiro Nakamura).
These nine people have shaped the auto industry in ways no one thought possible, some putting their signature on a huge number of cars, others on fewer, but no less important.
For instance, no one can match the 128 cars designed by Giugiaro, but who can ignore among the only 12 of Nakamura, the Nissan 370Z or GT-R?
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