Words Andy Leuterio
Concept cars are important to car manufacturers. Far from just being expensive eye-candy for
gearheads, they represent the know-how of a company's engineers and designers. Free from
the constraints of mass production considerations and focus group findings, they show us the
vision and creativeness of a car company.
Concept cars are "dream machines." Engineers and designers work hand in hand to come up
with their interpretations of what people will want in a car for tomorrow. Or what they think
people should want, because people's preferences are often formed on the basis of group
dynamics and economic situations as much as by individual tastes.
Concepts can be whimsical or truly relevant, a radical proposal or a development of an existing
platform. A car company may create a concept and hint at possible mass production, in a way
getting valuable clues as to how a new model slated for production can be tweaked depending
on the concept car's reception by both critics and potential buyers.
Or it may create one but have no intention of ever building it for the mass market, strutting its
wares just to tell the world and its competitors what it can come up with. The very first, true
concept car was the 1938 Buick Y-Job, created by the Art and Color Section of General Motors
headed by the flamboyant Harley Earl. For while boutique coachworks in America were already
crafting handmade one-offs as early as the '20s, and carmakers were already creating experimental
prototypes by the 1930s, the Y-Job was much more than an experiment or a custom car.
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For full stories, grab a copy of Speed's August 2004 issue in bookstores and newsstands near you.
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