Feature: Design School Reunion
October 1, 2007
It’s about 90 degrees
and, for car connoisseurs baking under the Southern California sun, it’s worth
every drop of sweat. While the Art Center Car Classic ’07 is a much smaller
event than the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, it draws one-off cars with
enough design chutzpah and aerodynamic bravado to leave a seasoned car collector
gasping for air.
"A lot of times you go to car shows and it is 300 ’57 Chevys," says comedian
Jay Leno, who parked his SLR McLaren among the other invited cars at the Art
Center College of Design in Pasadena. "There aren’t as many cars as
you’d see at other shows, but they get ones you wouldn’t see anywhere else."
Rare doesn’t quite describe the show cars: Many are the sole
model in existence. They fit together nicely on the Art Center’s sculpture
garden, which for one day is a car-designer cornucopia. "It is the incredible
blend between art and science," says Stewart Reed, chairman of the
transportation design department.
This year’s exhibition included the famed Alfa Romeo
triplets—the 1953, ’54 and ’55 Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica (BAT) cars owned
by Blackhawk Collection of Danville, Calif. In charcoal, silver and aqua, the
set is roughly valued at $25 million.
From the movie Solar
Crisis, Gene Winfield’s Strip Star car—a ’63
Ford 427 cu in engine with dual quad carbs, packed onto a modified ’46 Ford
chassis—was also on display.
As was the 2002 Lexus Concept, built by Art Center alum Harald
Belker for the movie The
Island, and the 1955 Ghia Streamline X
"Gilda," designed for Chrysler by Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Ghia. If the
Alfa BAT cars look like prototypes from The Jetsons, then the Gilda, with its
low-slung body, long tapered fins and saucer shape, looks like something that
flew in from outer space.
"This is the one car show we come to by choice—it’s by designers, for
designers. Everything here is unique," says Reeves Callaway, who parked his 2007
Callaway C16 cabriolet on the grassy hill that served as souped-up
sports car row. "It’s always flattering to be asked to bring a car. But we’re
not even standing by our car. We’re walking around, looking at them. I mean,
look at that Rolls-Royce. Have you ever seen anything like that?"
Few people have. The 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom I was originally bodied as a
cabriolet, but a subsequent owner tossed that shell and had the behemoth before
us rebuilt by a Belgian bus maker. The 20-foot-long black body, pronounced
fenders and massive fin give the Phantom a hulking presence. Its sloped grille
is unusual for a Rolls-Royce, and the fanned windows and circular doors are atypical for any automobile.
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