Styling the Motor Car

[Music] in the beginning there was disorder score and confusion [Applause] and the master stylist touched the Rock and the water and created symmetry the ordered play of line and color and he called it good and man came [Music] in time he made a tool first a weapon then an instrument for work and building and the instrument made man a Craftsman a creator and man mastered his tools and the tools taught him many things taught him that the good thing is beautiful to be desired that beauty is the Hallmark of worthiness of value this was a milestone lesson for man and in time he knew instinctively to desire the beautiful because it is good because it is satisfying use and Worthy foreign foreign [Music] had revealed one vital secret of creation that the very Spirit of value is beauty [Music] you've seen it Monument to the reaching Spirit of America but have you ever looked at it contrast the look of senility with the fresh lines of modern utility compare the cost of industrial progress piled on itself with structural efficiency clean and business-like without reflecting new efficiency Within this is stodgy draft this is new inviting yesterday the three R's were tedious today learning is designed to lure the Mind touch the imagination vigorous this was new even smart 20 years ago but here's contrast Not Mere change but something more a distinction deeper than difference functional design creates a living expression of today a house deriving Beauty from Fitness a finer home because it's planned for livelier living more satisfactions more comfort and usefulness remember the housewives welcome of the first real washing machine they took the scrub out of Monday true but they were little more than the old washtub gone mechanical here was engineering Advance still Untouched by the refining finger of the true functional design in the modern household the traditional Monday chore becomes a simplified interlude with a washer that very nearly thinks and a dryer that makes the clothes spin as obsolete as high button shoes today our lives are touched by these distinctions the old versus the new the new appearance engineered with the promise of better performance better value these are more than engineered improvements these are work a day proofs in action that purposeful design creates new Beauty and work new value through functional fitness today our ideas are stretched by New Perspectives functional styling creates a new reach for the imagination a new perception of rightness in the working complements of our daily lives our living is enriched by the impact of Style rightness by the fitness that is the core of value foreign foreign but all this has come by a long evolving Road come for a spin down the years PX freestyling fashion we had we were stuffy with style but the functional interpretation of a product in terms of its purpose this was over the horizon two generations hits and the automobile rolled across the American scene for 30 years before planned design began to govern its transition from Horseless Carriage to Modern Motor Car the infant automobile was an engine a perch for passengers and plenty of mechanical gadgets and the early motorist a Coachman turned engineer and pilot of a self-propelled buggy buggy wagon with a motor that was the concept that dominated automobile development for two generations for 30 years the speeding advances of the engineers struggled with the traditions of the carriage maker the automobiles still a motorized wagon transportation for people an engine and baggage but mechanical Advance was forcing the automobile Into A New Perspective for both automaker and auto owner with the Advent of purposeful styling the buggy concept was doomed the motor car evolving passenger comfort and safety became lodestone ideas in the design and Rich thinking of the automotive industry the motor wagon became transportation plus the Modern Motor Car purposeful design gave new character to the old open radiator set the scene for the development of new head-on structural Integrity the strong on-the-mark personality of the evolving integral Grille functional styling demanded a parallel speed lining of bumpers from bench strands of strap metal to form guards to the modern nose to the ground look of solid bumper safety styling took the carriage lamp made it move with the car first Sleek on a strut then blended with a fender sunk outboard in the reaching lines of the new forward look remember the mud guard styling gave it Glow and fitness evolved the skirt and a leading drape for business-like new Beauty Creative Design linked the flow of the fenders with the moving silhouette of the motor car's new leap away Grace its eye grasping look of Speed and Agility and from straight up to tilt then to Windstream styling the modern windshield open forward Vision modern styling band external hinges and the outside running board functional design hit both these relics of the carriage days within the low hung sheath of the body a body no longer weakened by a fabric snood but turret topped with steel for the safety silhouette That Grew with the changing mood of the motor car from formal Carriage to Casual home on the road [Music] gone now is the Last Vestige of the buggy tradition bred out of the live stream of the motor car by many teams of modern designers [Music] come into the disarming quiet that prevails in a styling section Studio here the artistic impulses harness to the workaday demands of mass production science the Instinct for functional design blending with engineering advance to produce motor cars each year more inviting to the eye more sound in value because designed to ride to look and to serve ever better here are the origin points of the design ideas that are tomorrow's Motor Cars in embryo these are the workshops where the artistic imagination seeks to develop and to satisfy the public taste for modern Motorcar design these are the artistic cauldrons where new ideas clash with established forms and traditional methods where the challenge of improved design is cross-fertilized with engineering genius and the creative urge is dedicated to one purpose to make motor cars better more useful and satisfying through functional Beauty [Music] here a hundred good designs are developed and discarded for each single right design that undergoes the test of reproduction in clay or wood or metal for the motor car is three dimensions a form that moves and only in three full-scale dimension can the Merit of a design or a change in design be soundly judged today the car stylist reaches for maximum design appeal his guide the ultimate functional utility of each line and element of the total Modern Motor Car tests precise as production specifications hold the reins on his imagination prove the worth of each developing design in advance he gears his perspectives to the cold-eyed criticism of The Artisans who must test life-size each design idea before it becomes a rolling reality of Steel and horsepower the Modern Motor Car of today is Young muscled in movement Fleet and Urgent to be underway it reflects tomorrow in every line and feature and its design is a job for youthful Spirits tuned to the full current of the times styling tomorrow's Motor Cars is a challenge to alerted mines and hands seeking expression in the creative fields of industry or elastic mines trained and designed see much feel much that thwarts the foresighted experience its work and ideas and men and Minds it's the studied spirited adaptation of form to action that's functional styling it's the hard-headed scientific synthesis of design ideas derived from the moods the trends the evolving Spirit of the advancing years and the deadpan realities of engineering foreign [Music] in The Styling Studios and workshops of the Modern Motor industry the skills of Craftsman and Artisan blend Beauty and fitness with the practicalities of production engineering by reproducing each styling proposal in full-scale form with production methods and materials before any change is adopted anticipating the response of the potential car buyer wherever his eye will judge his car The Stylist studies and adapts the Fabrics colors and materials that will best complement the design ideas established for each new motor car in the line This is the detailed Artistry of design that links Progressive styling with a constantly recorded preferences of motor car owners in each section of the country the designer's role in the scheme of the motor industry is a planned continuous leadership of the tastes the preferences and the style attitudes of the public and out of that artistic leadership comes an evolving response to the public attitudes that Mark the distinction between the Artist as artists and the designer as producer of value through functional Beauty behind the scenes of the day-to-day styling job experimental design looks down the road way down the road to anticipate tomorrow's motor car to build toward the needs of tomorrow's motorists and tomorrow's highways this is the designer's equivalent of pure research each effort each dream focused on the probable Trends in motor car construction power and use here the watch word is be prepared here he tries with new materials and designs to comprehend each possible development in fuels and highways in metals and motors and the evolving needs of tomorrow's Travelers the responsibility of advancing design leads the stylist of the motor car to seat trepritation whole to serve the development of coaches for mass transport of passengers as he has so vividly sped the Improvement of the personal motor car equally two the designer's skill creates new functional value in the top fast trucks of modern Highway Commerce [Music] the man through new safety and comfort in tune with speed the nation's rails are enriched by the designer's mind as the Horseless Carriage became motor car so the Iron Horse and its trailing cars became a community in movement a comet of Steel a train of tomorrow [Music] foreign [Music] to the automotive industry the motor car is a composite tribute to many men many minds and many talents the scientists in better the engineer The Stylist and the production genius to the American public the man with the cash and credit that makes the wheels of the industry spin the motor car is a possession a compliment to his way of life an associate in business a companion and pleasure today he buys Transportation plus sound power and great performance are his by the gift of competition the spark beneath his desire to buy the measure of his pride in the car he owns is the value he receives from Transportation plus the instinctive lift he gets from the possession of a motor car that bespeaks his self-esteem a tribute to his good taste and position a motor car designed for today [Music] these are modern Motorcars modern in every sense of performance and value modern in their style reflection of people on the move alerted to the currents of an exciting Century these are motor cars that have been touched by the science and the labor and the spirit of styling the designers art and harness with engineering foreign [Applause] pattern of the automotive future the designer has only just begun to serve but this he knows that before functional design became a purposeful plan factor in the evolution of the motor car there was Discord disorder and confusion and master stylists touched the metals and the lines and the Very Spirit of the lines and the public called the work of the motor car designer good [Music] and he knew that in a world riding into the future his work was part of the living pattern [Music]