Is it just me, or.......

[mountaindewd]

OK...so next year when GM is owned by the government, I say that we all vote for Harry as the chief designer!!

And change his medium from plastic to clay. I'll go for that.

Les

[mountaindewd]

and the prowler? someone mentioned the prowler?

that thing looks like a *really* bad lindberg kit designed by tom daniels or one of those cartoon minded people. it even looks plastic. i crack up everytime i see one of those on the street. almost as bad as a PT Loser but for entirely different reasons...just looks cheap, juvenile and very very poorly designed...like a chezoslavakian (sp) idea of what a hot rod was supposed to look like.

sorry but its true.

I thought the Prowler was rather cool, with the exception of those bumpers and the V6. It took alot off b@*%! to market that in this day....or that day. At least they weren't afraid to take a chance. International is doing a similar thing with the Lonestar, way out of the ordinary, but cool.

We need Harley Earl brought back. More chrome! Ressurect the 50's!

Les

[Harry P.]

I agree. It took "a pair of spherical objects," if you catch my drift, to create and market the Prowler. I applaud any car company that "thinks outside the box" and dares to build something that makes a statement. And remember... the bumpers were due to federal regulation, not to Chrysler styling! Maybe the Prowler wasn't everyone's cup of tea, but it wasn't meant to be. It obviously was NOT intended to appeal to everyone, but I give major props to Chrysler for having the you-know-whats to produce it.

And BTW, Clay, that image of a Camaro that you posted... now that is a design for the new Camaro that I could get on board with!

[Clay]

I know Harry, I was a little upset at the new Camaro, but I think that someone said that this one was built independently by someone. Looks to me like GM should have taken this one over the other one. Heres some more.

And this would be an awesome model to make. And it would be great if GM came out with this as well.

[Harry P.]

Those Camaro renderings are fantastic! Why didn't GM build that???

[vizio93]

i love the back of the green one, but it seems that no one can get the front looking good.

[roadhawg]

i love the back of the green one, but it seems that no one can get the front looking good.

Harry did.................

just imagine THAT front end with the rear end of the green one. That just might look halfway decent.

[Clay]

I guess I like the retro styling, because unlike most of you ( ) I wasnt there to enjoy them.

[Harry P.]

Watch it, junior...

[vizio93]

Harry did.................

just imagine THAT front end with the rear end of the green one. That just might look halfway decent.

yes now if someone could photoshop both of those together and submit it to chevy, then maybe we will have some good lookin cars on the road. Or all of us should get together and create our own brand of cars. What would we call it?............The harryclay! ewww maybe we could come up with a better name

[Clay]

[Zoom Zoom]

Those Camaro renderings are fantastic! Why didn't GM build that???

Yuck. I could not disagree more

While I don't think the new Camaro is perfect, those computer renderings are hideous, to my eyes. They look exactly like what they are; computer renderings by an amateur who wants to design but doesn't have the experience for the big leagues yet. They look fake and plastic and very un-realistic.

But they sure do appeal to a lot of people. Just not me. Whatsoever

Oh, and the Prowler idea that was great as a concept but not so much as a production car (dumbed down and cheap and cheesy)...idea was originally done by Foose.

He also does his own designs. But since you seem so anti-Foose, I won't bother to scrounge up a bunch of research that can just as easily be done on Google, I'll just include a link to his website. He's a very good designer, he has his niche, and he's making a boatload of $, so regardless of whether you like his talent or not, he's quite successful and happy and has an impressive clientele.

The car in my avatar, the Sportstar, was a custom designed streetrod from scratch using a Lexus drivetrain. It was done when Chip worked for Boyd. There's a lot of depth to his work beyond stupid television/reality show stuff that has to be done in a week.

Foose Design

[Harry P.]

Yuck. I could not disagree more

While I don't think the new Camaro is perfect, those computer renderings are hideous, to my eyes. They look exactly like what they are; computer renderings by an amateur who wants to design but doesn't have the experience for the big leagues yet. They look fake and plastic and very un-realistic.

But they sure do appeal to a lot of people. Just not me. Whatsoever

Oh, and the Prowler idea that was great as a concept but not so much as a production car (dumbed down and cheap and cheesy)...idea was originally done by Foose.

He also does his own designs. But since you seem so anti-Foose, I won't bother to scrounge up a bunch of research that can just as easily be done on Google, I'll just include a link to his website. He's a very good designer, he has his niche, and he's making a boatload of $, so regardless of whether you like his talent or not, he's quite successful and happy and has an impressive clientele.

The car in my avatar, the Sportstar, was a custom designed streetrod from scratch using a Lexus drivetrain. It was done when Chip worked for Boyd. There's a lot of depth to his work beyond stupid television/reality show stuff that has to be done in a week.

Foose Design

On the Camaro renderings, I'm talking about the design/proportions of the car itself, not the quality of the art. I know that those renderings aren't the best ever, but the car itself, if real, would look cool (maybe not the sloped-back front end though. A Camaro needs a more aggressive front end treatment, I think).

Foose? I'm not so much "anti Foose", more like "why the heck is this guy considered such a styling genius by so many people?" Especially on the cars where he literally does nothing more than slap on a set of cartoon wheels, a garish paint job and calls it "his" design...

To me, he's more a customizer than a designer, but I do know he's done some ground-up stuff. I'll check out the link...

[jbwelda]

hadnt yet had my coffee so maybe that was a little overstated but honestly it is the bringing to production of a concept that does dumb down and cheesy up what might have been a far better original concept.

i do like some of those drawings and do think they show some imagination but it is still in restyling the past. and i do have to admit i like the looks of the current mustang, esp the more muscular incarnations, but i am 58 years old. i just dont think the classic designs appeal so much to younger people today as to us elders, and they dont even appeal to *me* enough to really champion them or for that matter, build models of them. and i think that reflects in the sales numbers and ultimately the health of the corporations.

the bread and butter of these companies isnt in its prowlers, or its retro camaros or mustangs (though i suppose the mustang is approaching the PT Cruiser in terms of mass market), its in its everyday cars and most of those have been jelly bean bodied, generic "cars" for the masses.

all those generic, one size fits all, jelly beans seemed like half hearted attempts to sell cars. a car can be made to be inexpensive to buy, inexpensive to run and still *look* good. and inspire pride of ownership which is what its really all about and what i cant imagine anyone developing toward, say, a ford taurus.

i mean, japan, for one obvious reference, has made some pretty sharp looking cars that were meant for the mass market, and did it in a country with much worse regulations than even california. and makes them go too...the main thing US manufacturers seem to have forgotten is that you put a modest powerplant (say 200 horses) into a lightweight car, and you got a rocketship, one that will get good gas mileage while blowing off the camaros and mustangs (for the first 200 feet anyway) in a straight line and total lose them as soon as they come to a turn in the road.

and thats my comparison point for my opinion: that it was fine to make big heavy cars and then overcome all that weight with a huge gas guzzling 400 HP back when gas was cheap and no end was in sight, but today it doesnt work especially in the face of the alternatives.

so back to the camaro, even *if* it appealed to me aestetically, which it only sorta does, i would still have to say its not a step in the right direction for the company making it, that being of course GM. it really doesnt lead anywhere forward, it mainly recalls a good old time that fewer of us remember or participated in. and thats the biggest problem with it for me. for these companies to be reborn, they are going to have to get some fresh ideas and actually carry them out instead of just reskinning the same chassis over and over again (a big exaggeration i know).

all that said i parked next to a new corvette that was gussied up in a street racer fashion and i immediately started running figures through my head about how i could afford one. reason (and the gf) dictates however that i just went and got a model kit. i gotta watch where i park more carefully from now on.