Classic Auto Mall Show #203 - Stewart welcomes Fmr. G. M. Designer Kip Wasenko plus Keith Martin of Sports Car Market

Show #203 airdate 07-23-25 Stewart welcomes former General Motors Designer Kip Wasenko.  Topics include his @GM Internship, learning from some of the design greats leading to full time work @Buick and other #GM brands plus drawing in 3D to show perspective.  Also Keith Martin of Sports Car Market with his special offer, stuffing a seat and finding a "happy place."  @Cadillac  @Opel #SaturnCars #HoldenCars www.SportsCarMarket.com/testdrive6

Kip Wasenko started as a summer intern in the 1960s and talks about the outrageous mid-engine car he designed that summer and how Bill Mitchell saw his drawing and convinced him not to go to art school after he graduated and hired him upon graduation. Kip finished his final college classes and started at GM in 1968. He was the only intern that summer who was offered a job at General Motors. Most of the designers were graduates of Art Center, which is why Kip was planning on going to the Art Center after he graduated college. But Bill Mitchell saw his work and felt he was ready as a car designer without going to Art Center.

Kip talks about the early days of car designs and how everything was done with paper and pencil. He talks about his early renderings and how he would often exaggerate a particular part of the car and choose a view that emphasized a dramatic part of the design. They talk about how people often focus on a specific part of the car and how they would use focus groups to see what people liked or disliked.
Kip and Stewart talk about the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette with split windows that was designed by Bill Mitchell and how much better and more valuable it is than the 1964 model year when they made it a single window for function, but it hurt the appearance and popularity. They review the importance of the styling of a car.

When he started designing cars for General Motors he wasn’t allowed to go to the competitive studios because they didn’t want you influenced by their designs that way the brands had different appearances. He talks about how General Motors changed when Bill Mitchel took over because he made sure each brand stayed in their lane and had their own recognizable appearance.

The 1967 Cadillac Eldorado is also a topic of discussion and Kip tells how he changed the direction of Cadillac. He realized their demographic was dying and Cadillac wasn’t changing with the times, and he designed a Cadillac concept car that was a high performance, luxury touring car built on the Corvette chassis to go after Jaguars and Mercedes. It became the Cadillac Evoq and he designed it based on what he learned from Bill Mitchelll in the 1960s. The Cadillac Evoq won the International Design Award at the 1999 Detroit Auto Show. 

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Recorded in our Showcase Studio just inside the entrance of the Classic Auto Mall in Morgantown, PA, Host Stewart Howden, Classic Auto Mall President and Classic Car Specialist Steve Saffier talk about this unique and amazing place often with amazing guests.

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