- Description
- Art Center grad with automotive product planning, development, and research experience over 34 years with Volvo and Ford. Former Petersen Museum vault docent and freelancer for Bring a Trailer. Monthly EV sales reports and curated alternative powertrain news reports for Motor Intelligence. Still playing with cars after all these years, from a Sunbeam Tiger to a stick-shift Mazda5 van...
![By mid-1977, I had secured steady (“permanent temporary”) employment and had begun to develop my design skills on real-world auto-industry projects as a Product Adaptation Specialist at Volvo of […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Alpine-Illustration.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #20: 1967 Sunbeam Alpine — The Rootes of My Classic-Car Ownership")
![During my first several months at Volvo, I put quite a few miles on the ’74 Audi Fox, considering that my commute alone added roughly 500 miles each week. By […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/76-Volvo-242-front-end.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #19: The Volvo Handicap Car")
![The “odd man hypothesis” was first advanced in Michael Crichton’s 1969 seminal techno-thriller novel The Andromeda Strain. Crichton presented it so convincingly that for decades afterward, I believed it to […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Volvo-240-Green-Books-e1714077045766.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "Auto-Biography: Volvo and the Odd Man Hypothesis")
![When we last left this saga, I was deep into my year at Syracuse University and had exposed my ’74 Audi Fox to the worst of a typical Central New […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/74-Fox-Brochure-Shot-e1713469564557.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "Auto-Biography: The ’74 Audi Fox Becomes a Commuter Car")
![Man, I really hit a nerve with my Audi Fox recollections. Who would have thought that a simple, square-rigged, German two-door would have elicited such emotion? There are more foxy […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Captura-de-pantalla-2024-04-11-16.59.07.png?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "Auto-Biography: Thinking Small in Syracuse — The PTV (Personal Transportation Vehicle) Project")
![After taking delivery of the Fox in October 1974, I looked for any halfway reasonable excuse to get behind the wheel and explore its virtues. Naturally, it didn’t have the […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/74-Fox-front-three-quarter.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL: The ’74 Audi – A Fox in Winter")
![My piece on the ’70 F-100 should rightly have been COAL #17, following as it did the brief piece on my father’s ’64 T-Bird. So we’ll get back in […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/74-Fox-Magazine-Ad.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #18: The ’74 Audi – A Fox Joins the Family")
![Art Center graduation was less than a year away, and there was little or no prospect of landing a junior designer position at any of the then-Big Three (least of […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/70-Ford-Pickup-Brochure-Cover.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL: The ’70 F-100 — From Pony Car to Pickup")
![By November of 1972, student life on the fringes of West Los Angeles was going reasonably well. I had left Mrs. Ray’s boarding house at 411 South Norton, moving […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pony-driver-June-72.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL: The ’69 Mustang — “I’m a Lawyer, and I Saw the Whole Thing…”")
![As was the case for most Transportation Design students at Art Center, I frequently visited Autobooks, a long-standing Burbank mecca for gearheads interested in perusing, or purchasing, the latest […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Rear-view-on-ACCD-lawn-1-e1709237306290.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL: The ’69 Mustang — A “Super Sporty” Adventure in Towing")
![This week, we’ll take a brief interlude from my Art Center reminiscences and get back to the family fleet. Let’s set the way-back machine for the fall of 1968. I […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/69-Ford-Going-Thing.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #16: Dad’s 1969 Ford Torino GT – The (T)-Bird has Flown the Coop")
![Last week’s post described a fifth-semester Art Center design assignment involving a domestic automaker investigating the use of a “not invented here” powertrain for use in several of their vehicle […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Captura-de-pantalla-2024-02-15-16.33.58.png?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "Auto-Biography: The Art Center Years – Have You Designed a Ford Lately?")
![Strangely enough, two of the transportation design projects during my Art Center years involved assignments to develop a vehicle powered by an engine supplied by a different automaker. Remember, this […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Captura-de-pantalla-2024-02-08-16.31.40.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "Auto-Biography: The Art Center Years – Wouldn’t You Really Rather Airbrush a Buick?")
![Return with me now to those bygone days… long before the PC, the internet, and the cellphone. In May 1972, when it came time to replace the ’66 Comet, I […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/69-Mustang-partial-brochure-cover.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #15: The ’69 Mustang – My Little Pony (Car)")
![Which car replaced the trusty Comet? I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you in suspense for another week. You see, the Caliente convertible’s last trip from Art Center back to […]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/VESC-2.jpg?resize=115%2C115&ssl=1 "COAL #14: More Volvo Imprinting – A Trip to Transpo 72")
