Feature: Design School Reunion
October 1, 2007
The Car Classic theme this year was "Dream Machines:
Imagination Gone Wild." It’s the seventh year of the event—an astonishingly
short history considering the caliber of vehicles on display. "It started out as
faculty and students driving their cars out—and it’s morphed into this," Art
Center spokesperson Christine Hanson says. "This is a real concours."
The parking lot alone is filled with enough Ferraris to stock a
small dealership. Porsches, Lamborghinis, Bentleys and, of course, De Loreans—10
of them, two that went so far as to add a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor and
time-machine coordinate panel, with custom license plates, like BINTIME, paying
proper tribute to the Back to the
Future trilogy that cemented its fame.
The design show has raised the stature of the Art Center’s
transportation design program. Counted among its alumni are Freeman Thomas, who
helped create the Volkswagen New Beetle and Audi TT; Shiro Nakamura, Nissan’s
chief designer; and Chris Bangle, director of BMW Group design.
Students come to the school—which has programs in photography,
graphic design, film, fine art and illustration, but is best known for
transportation design—from around the world. They can’t help but be influenced
by the artistic exploration enveloping the campus, says Nate Young, executive
vice president and chief academic officer.
"I call it the big blur," Young says, sitting in his office overlooking the car show. "You come in
with a very singular idea, saying I want to be a car designer. You start
exploring that, and then you realize, wow, the film and photography and product
students, the illustration students are all doing really interesting stuff. You
pass the gallery every day, you look at what they are all doing and it starts
influencing you as a car designer."
Belker, who graduated in 1990 and was a Car Classic featured
speaker, spent four years designing Porsches and Mercedes-Benzes, before taking
his automotive ideas to Hollywood. His first placement was the Batmobile for the
1997 film Batman and
Robin, and he’s since designed cars for
Spider-man and two versions of the Lexus Concept for Minority Report
and The Island.
The Concept looks like a remote-control car that can flip
upside down and continue moving. When Belker built it, people weren’t sure which
was the front and which the rear. The driver sits atop the front axel and must
slouch to adjust to the low ceiling. Also, the purple model on display lacks
doors; the only way in is through the rear window.
"You try to come up with ideas that don’t exist," Belker says.
"That is the challenge. Even subconsciously, things slip into your mind. You are
not reinventing the wheel, but shape-wise and detail-wise you are trying to push
the envelope."
Art Center College of Design
www.artcenter.edu
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