Vellum Venom: The Virgil Exner Jr. Interview (Part 1)

While Hagerty’s Vellum Venom car design column normally focuses on individual vehicles, today we’re lucky enough to be in the presence of a master of the car design world. Join us as we learn from the life and times of Virgil Exner Jr., both through his personal experiences and as the son of famed car designer Virgil Exner Sr.

You know Exner Sr. as the pioneer behind the famous Forward Look Chryslers, and his son, the now-91-year-old Exner Jr., has a résumé sprinkled with styling credits from the likes of Packard, Ghia, Ford Motor Company. He was also involved in the mid-century revivals of both Duesenberg and Stutz Motor Car.

His contributions are not limited to the sketchbook. As a design student, Exner Jr. wrote a thesis paper on his Simca and earned Notre Dame’s coveted Jacques Gold Medal of Fine Arts. In Peter Grist’s book, “Virgil Exner; Visioneer” we learn how Exner Jr. pushed the University of Notre Dame to create the Industrial Design department that still exists to this day. In 1956, Exner Jr. persuaded Frederick Beckman to offer design classes; Exner took “the position of graduate teaching fellow,” during which time his master’s thesis project was a custom-bodied Simca sports car. Put another way, both the car design profession and the industrial design community owe Exner Jr. a debt of gratitude.

Exner Jr. continues to render vehicles in his retirement—evidence that car designers never stop creating. He also co-founded an organization for retired designers and still enjoys a passion for motorsports.

We had a wonderful conversation with Exner Jr., and he answered many questions, but you can ask some of your own in the comments section below. Mr. Exner will answer them in the next installment of Vellum Venom.

Hagerty: What got you interested in cars?

Exner, Jr.: Naturally, my father got me interested in cars. He would make race car sounds in my ears, take me to Detroit, and attend nearby car races when I was 2 to 4 years old (1934 to 1938). We always loved auto racing, but many other sports. I lettered in both football and basketball in high school.

H: What was your first car?

VE: My first car is a 1937 Ford (pictured here). It was given to me when I graduated from the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1951. I sold it just before entering Notre Dame that fall, because they didn’t allow undergrads to have cars.

H: Why did you participate in the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild (FBCG) as a teenager?

VE: I read about the FBCG in a news publication when I was in the seventh grade (1945) at James Monroe Elementary School. The Exner family had moved to South Bend from Long Island, New York, at the time. My father was the Chief Designer at Studebaker in South Bend, and I was 13. I am believed to be the youngest ever winner of FBCG.

My father was the chief designer of Pontiac styling when he worked for Harley Earl at GM and was sent to Dallas, Texas, to be that area’s judge of the first FBGC to include car models. I used the scholarship money in 1946 to go to the Cranbrook School for my junior and senior years.

Then it was on to Notre Dame, where I earned my Master’s Degree, and won the school’s gold medal of fine arts. I also taught there, and the rest, as they say, is design history!

H: What are your favorite eras in car design? Specific vehicles?

Of course, given my father’s input when I was a child, my favorite cars are racing cars. My father always maintained that “Auto Racing Improved the Breed,” and we owned a 1932 Indianapolis Studebaker from 1944 to 1949. That is when my father became the first member of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) west of Pittsburgh. We drove to Connecticut each summer to SCCA’s big meet and scorched the competition.

H: What are your proudest moments when working in design studios?

VE:

Studebaker-Packard: Working for Duncan McRae, who was a very good designer at Studebaker. At the time, I was finishing up the my full-size clay model of the Simca at Notre Dame, but I worked with designers Del Coates and Emil Bocade at the “Packard Studio” in 1958. I helped design the 1959 Studebaker Lark at that time.

Carrozzeria Ghia: It began the moment I visited Ghia in Torino, meeting Luigi Segre when I was in Vienna, Austria, as a student at the Kunst Akademie for a semester in 1955. I loved working with/for Luigi and getting to know his wife Luisa and family. I met Wilhelm Karmann there, too.

After seeing some of my designs that I had done in Vienna (on the side), Luigi contracted me to design cars on a monthly basis. I completed one project while in Korea in 1958 (I had a three-year commitment with the USAF after receiving my master’s from Notre Dame), and that was my proposal for the Volvo P1800 S.

Luigi had sent me the requisite 1/10 scale side-view ‘package’ outlines (as usual) and I did a plan, front, and rear views along with perspective sketches. He liked my design very much. Later, when the car was produced, it looked very much like my original, except it didn’t have my fastback [rear].

I had no way of copying my drawings and sketches in Korea because I wasn’t supposed to, owing to our agreement. (Nor was I to sign my name to this or subsequent works for him.) At the Travis Air Force Base I did make copies of Luigi’s various projects and had a 1/4-scale clay model going at all times to rough out shapes in 3D.

My father and I never liked to just present pretty pictures for a design. I would photograph the clay and include the negatives in my mailings to Luigi. I still loved my Air Force work and had a little time for road racing, but the $600 per month from Ghia was twice as much as my Air Force pay. I managed to save nearly $10,000 in those three years. When I returned home to Michigan, I was able to secure an extended contract with Luigi for more projects (here, here, here) with my father after he retired from Chrysler.

H: Tell us about the first Ford computer design studio in 1987?

Apple Computer sent two people into Ford Design in 1987 to demonstrate computer-aided design. (Ford Design engineering had already adopted Apple computers.) I was very much impressed with the whole idea of designing cars on a computer. In fact, it aided me greatly in illustrating my designs.

I was given the opportunity to present a talk to all of Ford design about it. I was then made head of the first Computer Design Studio. It wasn’t long afterwards that designers adopted the computer as their main design tool. And it remains that way to this day.

H: Tell us about the League for Retired Automotive Designers (LRAD)?

The LRAD was invented by the President of the Cadillac/Lasalle Club (Ron Van Gelderen—former head of GM Styling’s Publicity Department), and myself at an FBCG reunion dinner back in 2004. He and I sat together and thought up the whole idea. Pure fun!

By 2006, with the aid of our friend Chuck Jordan in California, we got about 65 retirees from car companies to join us. We put on the first show in California with Cadillac, as the brand was the League’s choice that year to make a new design presentation/rendering. It was in two dimensions with any choice of design materials and mounted on a foam core sheet no larger than 24″ by 36″.

Ron lined up various automotive museums throughout the U.S. and had them put on an opening dinner show that displayed their sent or brought in works. It was very successful, and we got from 25 to 30 entries per year from the best of retirees until 2020 (then halted by COVID-19).

By then, Ron had passed away and it was taken over by Dave McIntosh, who revived it last year but with more open, nevertheless restricted rules of presentation. In 2010, Ron and I put on the show at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend. It was very successful and they would like to have it again this year, but McIntosh says that the very few, mostly in the Detroit area, aren’t interested.

H: Can you share anything about what it was like growing up with a famous car designer as your father?

My father brought me up by passing down his love of art and design with an emphasis on cars. I have attached some of his art to share with your readers.

It was simply wonderful growing up with my mother and father, my close family, relatives, and friends. The tragic exceptions are my two-year-old brother’s accidental death in 1942 and the passing of my sister Bronwen, who had a mental disease.

H: How are you influenced by your father’s work?

Naturally, I was greatly influenced by my father’s work. I simply followed in his footsteps, and even at times I influenced him with my own designs. One example is one of my preliminary designs for the 1966 Duesenberg revival prototype that we did when we were in business together.

H: How has the car design industry changed in your lifetime?

Car design has greatly changed in the U.S. in the past few years, with much less attention on sleek, forward-looking cars. Instead, there are few real good designers (from even fewer design schools) who have the guts to stand up to corporate management that just wants to “pinch a penny” more than anything else. This is why we have a lack of good, artful taste in design. And this is why we produce (with few exceptions) the blobs seen on our streets these days. 

H: Do you get excited about car design now? Are there any trends you especially like?

There is not a single new American car on the streets today that I particularly like, except for sports cars like Corvettes or Mustangs. However, I do like the trend for electric cars.

I recently bought a new 2024 Buick Envista at a good price (I never thought I would ever own a Buick!) but it’s just another blob with gimmicky controls. I already don’t like it, even with only 350 miles on it.

Thank you all for reading!

Feel free to ask Virgil Exner Jr. a question below, and I will share it with him. The next installment of Vellum Venom will answer these questions, so here’s your chance to learn something from a design veteran!