Former top general motors car designer talks about automotive design
Dick Lutzin, former Chevrolet Prime Minister and Cadillac designer of General Motors, shares his thoughts on automotive design.
- In this book, Dick Rugin outlines the creation of the world’s first automotive design studio, and Earl defined it as leading to Motorama Cars, the auto show GM that took place from 1949 to 1961.
- Ruzzin never spoke to the Count, but said he remembers seeing a glimpse of him at Warren Studio when he first started with an automaker in 1959.
The golden age of American automobiles can be distilled into one vehicle, not just an era, but also the 1966 Olds Mobile Tronado.
At least that’s according to Dick Lutzin, a former Chevrolet and Cadillac designer who has a 40-year career at General Motors and a creative designer for the project under Chief Designer Stan Willen.
Released on July 29th, Ruzzin’s book, “Desiging Dreams,” centers around the emergence of muscle car culture and the creativity and development capabilities of the staff at the heels of legendary Harley Earl’s retirement from Detroit’s car makers.
While Earl’s story and the history of GM Design have been told before, Rujin said that earlier history missed a direct link between the real people there and the real people who worked right after Titan in automotive design.
“It’s not about what was done in this book, how It was done,” Rujin said.
In his book, Luzin outlined the creation of the world’s first automotive design studio, defining the system that led to Motorama Cars, the car show GM from 1949 to 1961. He introduced clay modeling and pioneered changes to the annual model, and his “Project Opel” eventually became a Chevrolet Corvette.
As Ruzzin did, starting with Earl’s retirement GM design is like entering a Disney studio after Walt Disney’s death. This is the first era from under the shadow of the mastermind who launched the system.
Ruzzin never spoke to the Count, but said he remembers seeing a glimpse of him at Warren Studio when he first started with an automaker in 1959.
“The people who were there for Harley Earl told me a lot of stories, but for our newest people who started in 1960, we really didn’t know a lot of the background,” he said. “One day, Bill Mitchell came along with this really tall guy, and everyone whispered, ‘It’s Harley Earl!” ”
Remembering that Earl refers to the vehicle design, Rujin focused on the sheet metal that ties the taillights into. “He said, ‘You know, it’s really good if you can see the taillights from the side. You can see the car driving the car.’ He didn’t do that – he just raised that point.
Ruzzin’s account of creativity – a four-part process that is not entirely complete – is one element of the book he is most proud of.
The book features a bitter CD sketch on the back of a yellow envelope Lutzin, sketched while working for Dave Hols’ Opel Design in Germany in 1971. It is now living in Lutzin’s garage in Grosspoint Park, Michigan, where only four vehicles sold in Germany and the UK came to the US.
The designer’s responsibility was not lost at Lutzin. Rujin said that while some projects took months, if not years, to be completed, his team finished some designs on their first attempt.
“It’s hard to imagine. It’s comical to think that a company could spend around $5 billion to build more than 300,000 cars based on a single sketch,” he writes.
Ruzzin explains that working in design is rarer and more difficult to get than becoming a professional soccer player in the NFL. He graduated from Michigan State University in 1959, earning a degree in industrial design, and then joined the GM subsidiary.
He had to quit his job to apply for design during the recession. History and Luzin’s literary career reflect the reward for his gambling.
His tenure began when the automaker began performing marketing along with style amidst a wave of “sensible functionalism” that compact cars represent.
Ruzzin worked on Chevrolet Corvair. This was thought to be a response to GM’s first compact car and the growing popularity of imported vehicles like the Volkswagen Beetle.
His stint as a junior designer at Oldsmobile Exterior Studio put him in the draft process that became his most respected vehicle, Toronado, and began his 40-year career as a designer for the company. He worked on over 140 car design programs, and as a creative designer, then Design Director for Studio Head, GM Europe, and ultimately Director for Chevrolet in the US
However, Rajn praises the credits as the golden age was created with new political and cultural challenges for automotive designers.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nadder has announced “Unsafe at Every Speed: The Risks of American Automotive Design.” He indicted GM with “excessive decoration” among other crimes, claiming that the design of cars at the time came at the expense of safety.
From free love movements to new regulations, GM’s design team was fighting for many changes. In the book, Ruzzin describes the designer as a rare variety of business-types that cover bell bottoms that are as interested in the artistic merits of vehicles as they are corporate accomplishments.
Throughout the book, Ruzzin suggests what works great engineering to support “graphic, straight and memorable” styles.
Matt Anderson, transportation curator at the Henry Ford Museum, said: “And as electric cars become more common, it’s going to become more and more.”
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Contact her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
