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HJ: It was great. The thing with Art Center, it does teach you how to design, how to build things and how to think. Those are the things that made it. I think if you are a designer, you can be in any field. I got a call from Macmenn one-day and he had been talking to Tink, this was in the 60’s. Max says, “Hugh, I can’t do it, but I know you can, I want you to go to Palm Springs and work with Raymond Loewy.” He was like Frank Lloyd Wright to work with. So I came to Palm
Springs and spent three weeks with Raymond Loewy doing sketches for Studebakers. He was a character. He had his house over in North Palm Springs and it was an Albert Frey House. The water came right into the living room. He had a studio there and we would just sketch all day and into the evening, have wine and just sketch at nighttime. We did a lot of our small cars and we started to do the very first concepts on the Avanti at that point. It was just being talked about and after three weeks; I went back to Los Angeles. Then I got a call and was asked to go to Indiana for six months to do the Avanti. I said I couldn’t do it, my son had just been born and the timing was wrong. So I called Tom Kellogg and Tom took over the job. I was happy for him, he was out there without any work at the time, and he was good.
V5: That was a legendary project.
HJ: Yes, it was fun. It was great working with Loewy, you started understanding his philosophy of design and how he worked. Also his engineering background and he knew how to use talent.
V5: That’s a very important part of it.
HJ: Yes, he could coordinate. The background of Art Center was good, but as he would say, it would take at least two years to develop a person into his design staff the way he wanted them to work. You find that in any design studio, you have to get your feet wet in the real world, whether it is architecture, design, engineering or whatever you are doing.
Macmenn and I tried for years in the early 60’s to get General Motors to do; they would not do it. They wanted the tech center, they had a beautiful tech center.
V5: Yes by Saarinen.
HJ: Right. It’s impressive.
They wanted it all kept in one place because they had all the facilities for manufacturing. Now it’s changed, everyone has a place from San Luis Obispo to San Diego.
V5: More of a satellite system.
HJ: Yes, satellite design groups, but they are creative, little think tanks. The Miata that sold came out of a satellite studio or they may just use it to come up with concepts or face lifts for their vehicles. That is the hardest thing to do a face-lift on a vehicle !
V5: On an existing car ?
HJ: Yes. See everything had been set, the whole thing was set as a theme at that point. Then every two years we had a face-lift. The ones who were in production, they had studios who were down there trying to figure out how to make a difference, do you add a fin here…(laughs) You can see where this stuff was slapped up. The biggest knot was in '58, a General Motor’s project, Buick and Oldsmobile. They slapped things all over those vehicles.
The face-lift was the hardest. To make it work, you had to really design and try to come up with something. I wouldn’t say every face-lift was a good one, usually the first impression is the best. You take a ’53 or ’54 Studebaker, the fellow who designed it did a beautiful job on it. But then as they kept trying to change it, like the front and putting fins on it, they lost the integral shape it had the first time. Usually the first concept is the best.
V5: So, what’s on the road that lights your fire today?
HJ: As to what’s on the market now…
V5: Yes, mainstream.
HJ: Lexus, I like some of the things that are happening. Toyota, some of the shapes, they are getting pretty good and Honda has some real nice shapes. There isn’t one that I would say I would really like to have and drive it.
V5: Nothing that turns your head…
HJ: Nothing that snaps it. (laughs) A lot of them look so generic.
Out of the same mold. I think Ford right now, what with the Mercury Cougar coming out,is kind of interesting, a hard line design and that’s going to have some pretty good feeling about it. As for in the luxury cars, Cadillac leaves me cold, yet they are a good vehicle. Lincoln looks a little stauchy, the lower bottom of it, when you look at the cross sections, dumpy and even gross in some areas. But when you see it in black, when they black out the grill and pick up a kind of a tail to it....
V5: It gets a sort of green hornet look…(laughs)
HJ: Yes, then it sort of has an interesting shape. But I see it in some colors and it’s not there.
V5: Porsche Boxter?
HJ: Porsche Boxter, neat little shape. I like the feeling of it, but I think the 230 L Mercedes has got it. I think it has more appeal, a wedgy look to it. I like the boxer, but, gosh, I know I would kill myself in it.
(laughs) Really, that’s why I don’t have a sports car.
V5: Too tempting…
HJ: Oh, I would. I would be up Highway 74 (winding road up a mountain) going along up there.
V5: They were meant to be used…
HJ: (laughs) Yes, that’s it, you push it. It’s designed to drive.
It’s a good feeling. (laughs) I was saying about the Cadillac Catera, they took and butchered it and made it into an American car. But the European version is beautiful.
V5: If you were going to offer advice to a student that was trying to get
into Art Center and who wanted to move into Transportation or Environmental Project, what would you say?
HJ: That is a good question. I’d say they have to have a love of design and the feeling for it and they must want to work at it. You have to have that, because the thing of getting into any of these field, you have to really like and study it and figure that’s my life long endeavor. Go to an office and find out what’s happing there. Talk to those in the profession.
How do you feel about it yourself?
V5: I would have to agree with you. Students have to get a good broad understanding of the profession. I think it is about passion. Something has to happen at three o’clock in the morning when you are there with your project that allows you to go that extra distance.
HJ: Of course, it might be the chemicals in the markers…(laughs)
V5: (laughs) Yes..... but doing it time and time again, it’s not going to be the coffee or the markers, it has to be a core passion.
HJ: Yes, you have to have it because either you are going to do it or not. Another thing is you are set up with certain things inside you, and
sometimes by luck or by chance, something comes along in your life and brings it out in you and you never knew you had such a wealth of passion.
There is a young man from Coachella, who I’ve been helping for
years. This kid doesn’t have two little dimes to rub together, but he goes home and does his homework, then makes an appointment with me, I then review his work. This kid is so into it, he wants to go to Art Center; I’m trying to help him. This kid, in so many ways, deserves to go, I think he will make it.
V5: Thank you Hugh.
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