Designer Times by Bob Gurr
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The clay model guys would take the sketches and blend them into a full size clay car for the boss to critique. Sometimes this process would go on for weeks during which time the car design would evolve slowly thru a mish mash of sculpted clay. Generally the stylists would do their work, then hand the design off to the engineers, defying them to find a way to produce the thing. Stylists and engineers didn't seem to like each other and some of the cars later showed this. Detroit Iron as some would later say. Today everyone works much more coordinated and most cars are really great.

But this scenario did not appeal to me and thus I decided I'd be better off doing something else in life, but I didn't know what. After a stint in Advanced Styling I was transferred to the Lincoln Production Studio. Sure enough, I got the hood ornament assignment. The boss let me make the clay model of one of my designs. A chrome and gold plated fiberglass hood ornament was made up for display on the future 1955 Lincoln model. My design was rejected, so I stole the thing and brought it home...still have the souvenir today.

By December 1952 George Walker had hired me out of Ford to do designs for the upcoming Lincoln Continental MkII project. Now I'd burned a second bridge...leaving Ford's Lincoln Studio for Walker's consultancy to work for Ford! I also did other designs for tire treads, garbage trucks, and various industrial design clients. Walker was a real neat guy to work for and I enjoyed the work. But one day during lunch, It hit me...I'm leaving Detroit NOW.

Returning to California I was immediately put to work helping to write more books for Post Publications in Arcadia, California. I bought a rubber stamp, R.H. Gurr Industrial Design, and set myself up in business doing all kinds of art and design work. I picked up a car styling job thru a Detroit Consultancy, Miller & Grisinger, to draw numerous car designs for Kaiser-Willys. I wound up doing way more Detroit Styling while sitting in the California sun.

One day the call came from the Walt Disney Studio thus my real career was calling. This was to lead to designing the whole car, not just the hood ornament. I could then design all of a vehicle, make most of the drawings, get my hands dirty in the shop helping to build it, and most wonderful of all, do the test driving. The capper was to be dressed up in a ride operator's uniform and give a ride to Walt Disney and the Vice President of the United States. I wonder if all those other stylist kids ever had much fun.

The next chapter of the story starts with Designer Times No.1 May 10, 2000.

oOo

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