One of my first serious career interests was to be a car designer. Every kid goes through a period of discovering what he or she would like to do for work when they grow up, and I smile when I think of all the different things I had wanted to be: a chef, a dressmaker, and an automotive stylist being among them. Could I have done all three? The world will never know, but I also believe that everything happens the way it’s supposed to. I had started sketching cars during my fourth grade year spent overseas in Liberia. Maybe it was because I was a little homesick, but one day I took a blank sheet of paper and drew my version of an AMC Gremlin from memory.
The Gremlin has a pretty uncomplicated shape in profile, especially with its bluntly chopped tail and upswept rear side window. There aren’t a whole lot of pesky compound curves on it to hamper the process. The Gremlin was easy enough to sketch for a kid who was still in his single digits, and I prized that picture, rudimentary though it was. From the time I returned home to Flint, Michigan and up through high school, I was busy creating a small stack of Joe Dennis originals of cars I dreamed of being put into production.
I had even been gifted with a Crayola drafting set for Christmas at some point, so my parents were paying attention. I actually wasn’t that technically skilled at drawing, and most of my sketches were in direct profile and never three-dimensional, but I would sketch and dream to my heart’s content. I honestly thought I would work for one of the Big Three (or resurrect AMC) one day in that capacity. I also understood the importance of getting good marks in math class and paying attention if I was going to gain entry into that field and succeed.
I’m nothing if not a walking set of dichotomies. During recess in elementary school, I equally enjoyed playing soccer on the field with the guys and double-dutch jump-rope with the girls. I would roughhouse loudly with my brothers in the living room, and later be quietly busy with my knitting needles on the couch. I still listen to most every kind of music – pop, rock, R&B, jazz, Latin freestyle, classical, etc. I had the whole Black / White / foreign / U.S. thing going with my parentage and background. Scholastically, I loved both math and English, and I got good grades in both. As far as the latter, I’ve always found joy in expressing myself, so things like writing essays and telling anecdotes innately appeal to me, and I did well in subjects dependent on skill with the written word.
I’m also highly methodical (Tuesday mornings at CC are evidence of this) and love the no-nonsense truths that mathematical formulas deliver without fail. It’s almost like the left and right halves of my brain had to agree with each other not to dominate for no other reason than to ensure my own sanity. Maybe I had thought I’d design cars by day and write columns about it by night. I do miss the youthful optimism of believing absolutely anything was possible, and it’s true that many things still are. I did as a youth what I believed I was supposed to do in order to stay on the path to an automotive career, which was to continue participation in the Flint public school system’s magnet program, which included advanced math courses. It was around the time of the Geo Metro’s introduction for the ’89 model year that I would take geometry. (Shout out to Mr. McLean.)
You’ve made it into the collective, cultural psyche when you’ve been spoofed on The Simpsons.
My mind has formed associations by what seem to be the most random combination of occurrences and stimuli. When the Geo Metro first arrived for the ’89 model year, replacing the Chevy Sprint, my first thought, honest to goodness, was that General Motors was trying to form some connection with geometry with the new name it had given its version of the Suzuki Cultus that was manufactured in its CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada. In most of the definitions of geometry that I’ve read online, many of them include reference to the concepts of area and volume. That contextual connection with this little car would make sense when one thinks about the Metro doing the most within its little external dimensions.
These things are tiny. This little LSi hatchback sits on a 89.2-inch wheelbase, measuring 174.4″ from bumper-to-bumper, is 62″ wide and 52.4″ tall, and yet it has a cargo capacity of 29.1 cubit feet with the rear seats down. This is within just one cubic foot within the cargo capacity of my old, much bigger ’88 Mustang hatchback (also with the rear seats down). Curb weight? Just 1,620 pounds. The Metro’s fuel tank held only 10.6 gallons of gas, but its one-liter, three-cylinder engine with 55 horsepower was rated by the EPA for fuel economy of 46 city / 49 highway with its standard five-speed manual transmission. Consumer Guide reported their test car returning 39.5 miles per gallon. That’s the kind of math I can get behind, though I still wouldn’t want to be in one of these in an accident.
Maybe GM was going for urban flavor with the name “Metro”, short for “metropolitan”. This would make sense for such a small car, especially in large cities like Chicago where side-street parking can be a bear in some of the more densely populated neighborhoods. I still maintain that there was somebody in the chain of this car’s development or marketing that had the same thought as me that “Geo Metro” would register with math-philes.
Ultimately, a later lack of confidence in my math abilities derailed my car-designing aspirations. Trigonometry would later be a challenge, but I was still all-in on my car designing goals. Ultimately, it was calculus with Mr. Shaw as a high school senior that was the last nail in the coffin of that dream. And then it was off to college with a blank slate and a new dream of journalism and anchoring the nightly news. (For about five minutes.) I kept many of my car sketches and have them in storage somewhere. I’ll need to go through my things at some point for a periodic purge, but if I come across that cache, I’d consider sharing some of my better drawings here at CC.
As for this jellybean Geo, I think it still has such a purity of shape, especially compared with many of today’s overwrought and ever-larger designs, even among compacts. Its tasteful, minimalist looks reflect its mission as a simple, low-tech machine, designed for the singular purpose of facilitating the most inexpensive operation possible on a tank of gas. It represented simple math for the economy-minded masses.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, April 28, 2019.
For many years I had the pleasure to know a man from Church who seemed to know a little bit about everything, and a lot about many things.
He died a few years ago at the age of 99. A classic case of a life well lived.
He was, in my opinion, as close to the definition of a renaissance man I have known, which is defined as a man with extraordinarily broad and comprehensive knowledge.
Broad knowledge and interests are a blessing, add to one’s quality of life, and keep the mind sharp.
But like many others, math was my downfall. Somewhere, like you, there are many drawings of cars and even suspension systems (*) that were created while my teachers tried to teach me stuff.
(*) During the early 1960s I had diagrammed a magnetic suspension system that would keep my 1953 Chrysler from leaning and wallowing so much on curves. Alas, engineering was not a real option for me. Because: Math!
” It’s almost like the left and right halves of my brain had to agree with each other not to dominate for no other reason than to ensure my own sanity….”
Such ideas make for interesting reading.
Thank you for this. Something I’ve been working on throughout adulthood when in the presence of someone like your friend from church is to listen to what they have to say, and talk less – of course remaining engaged in the conversation. There’s so much to be learned from such individuals. My late uncle was someone who knew a lot about a lot of things, and even if I couldn’t follow everything he was saying, I enjoyed hearing him share the knowledge.
I think its fascinating that you came up with a magnetic suspension system. Suspensions are one area where geometry seems to be the whole shebang, or a lot of it.
I remember that kind of youthful enthusiasm. I went through the brief stage where I saw car design in my future – which lasted until I came to terms with my lack of artistic skills. A crack engineer/inventor? A high-powered executive? All of these career paths seemed possible with a minimum of actual effort because of my innate genius and talent. I do remember when I got a dose of reality in my 20s when I realized that Michael Jackson was only older than I was by several months. I had to acknowledge that sudden stardom was off the table.
I suspect that GM had the same kind of awakening when it realized that putting a high-tech name on a collection of Asian cars and selling them through domestic dealers was not going to be the effortless secret to world domination. It could have asked Chrysler how the private-label-Mitsubishi thing had worked out, but I don’t guess it did.
I am jealous of the range one of these could get on a tank of gas. The tank of my Honda Fit is only marginally larger (10.9 gal) and I am nearing fill-up time again with only about 225 miles on the trip odo. Another 10-12 mpg would do a lot for my range.
There’s a lot here I can appreciate. In my essay, I talked about math skills, but in design, it seems like (and to your point) it’s the marriage of the technical drawing and the aesthetic that’s a lot of it.
And I can’t remember the point at which I started to realize people my age, or much younger than me, were doing things that were much more high-profile or important on the surface. One of my former classmates was mayor, to give one example. I’m figuring out that contentment can be found in much more humble situations – in anything really – once I adhere to Radical Acceptance of everything being the way it’s supposed to be.
And that’s an excellent point about Chrysler and Mitsubishi. It probably would have been beneath GM to learn from Chrysler on that front.
The original Mini was the first of this sort of car, but with the passing of time, the Geo Metro, all things considered, may be the tops in simplicity, minimal elegance (or is it elegant minimalism), and pure fuel mileage. Current cars have a heavier bias towards safety and complex hybrid methods of fuel efficiency.
I really like the comparison and thought of the Geo Metro being sort of a modernized take on the concept of the original Mini. The thing I couldn’t quite grasp, though, being born in the ’70s, is the sense of the original Mini’s style for its day. My impression, even outside the context of the new generation of Mini Cooper, is that the original Mini was a stylish car for what it was. The Geo Metro, while attractively and inoffensively styled, never struck me as having any actual cool-factor.
Maybe GM would have had more luck with the Geo brand had they tied the name into various things prefixed with Geo–… geometry, geography… dang, even geodes. The Geo brand marketing didn’t seem terribly successful.
What I find ironic about Metros nowadays is that I see many more of them in rural settings than in metropolitan settings. It’s not uncommon to see Metros still being used as transportation in small towns, but I haven’t seen a non-convertible Metro here in suburban Virginia in quite some time.
Regarding math skills, when I was in school I detested math – except for geometry, which I excelled at (much to my own surprise). Later, I detested economics for much the same reasons, but I think in many cases, people’s aversion to math and economics has more to do with how those subjects are taught. In an applied sense, both topics are very interesting, but in school they tend to be a bore.
The geode! Rounded like a rock on the outside, and sparkly on the inside! I dig it. I remember it mentioned in comments on another CC essay on a Geo (I can’t remember which one) that even their early commercials seemed unfocused, with two completely different marketing campaigns that were launched at the same time. (“Getting to know you…” was one, and I can’t remember the other.)
It would make sense to have one of these Metros in a rural area. You can take all the time you need to get to sixty mph, and everything is such areas is spread out, so the great gas mileage is a bonus, and a few other reasons.
I’ll say this about economics. I never took the course, but I sat in on a class one of my family members was teaching at university and understood maybe ten words the whole time. Important stuff, but yeah. I wasn’t wired for that. Just glad that knowledge and know-how is in the family!
Yes, our discussion about Geo marketing was in your NUMMI Bear article – and I had to look up the other ad campaign too (“No Matter What”). I’d never heard of it before.
Economics class was a complete bore, and it seemed to me the that the whole discipline revolved around making common-sense things as complicated as possible. But a few years later, I got a job in the field of economic development – which I loved. It was like real-world economics, and I found enjoyment in being able to analyze complex things in real-world scenarios. Sometimes, interesting topics are just poorly taught.
CC Effect: Two days after writing that “I haven’t seen a non-convertible Metro here in suburban Virginia in quite some time” — look what pulls in to the gas pump next to me:
The CC Effect is real.
I wanted to be a car designer too, and then a CEO of a car company.
In a curious case of late fulfillment, when I was around 15-16, I started cutting out the spec pages of Road and Track road tests, and compiling them in a loose leaf binder for handy reference, so I could quickly confirm what car X did in the 0-60, or 1/4 mile. And here I am doing it, this time on a blog.
Paul, I like the parallel and continuity between how you got it done then, and how you continue to do it now. It only reinforces that people should find a way to do what they love, whether for work or in some other capacity.
I think you achieved more than many car designers, Paul! Look at how many of us enjoy CC! You have always seemed to march to the beat of your own drummer and I really admire that…
“My Way” would seem to be an appropriate theme song for you!
For a number of years a clean 3 door Metro with a manual was very desirable vehicle for me. One never drifted into orbit however. We did have a 3 door Yaris with a stick that was my wife’s car for about 5 years, her favorite until her current RAV4 hybrid.
I did rent a Yaris once and really liked it. It was small, simple, functional, and worked very well. It was very similar to the concept of the Geo Metro. There’s something really appealing to me about basic things that function well.
Joe, your excellent writing always indicates that you are a very well rounded character – possibly too much so for the fairly obsessive nature required to become a car designer!
For that you need to first get past the people telling you that the job doesn’t exist (a problem years ago, not so much now), or that you should do something “sensible”. Then you have to hope your portfolio is good enough to get you into a school.
Even if you get your degree in design, it is another challenge to land a job with an OEM and then pretty a pretty cut throat process to get one of your designs on the road. About 99% of what you do ends up in the trash. You end up living your job emotionally – it really hurts when a design you have put heart and soul into gets cancelled. You never really leave work at work and that can be problematic for relationships. You also have to be ok with re-locating, often outside your home country and these days, working away from your family, which can be very stressful.
But…when a project finally gets shown to the public, you see someone enjoying a product you conceived, or read positive comments about it the endorphins definitely start flowing! And when you see old, beat up examples of vehicles you knew as sketches and clay models it really dose make you feel old.
The day to day problem solving is deeply satisfying, (although it is a lot of pressure to keep creative every day, for the length of a career), as is the interaction with other disciplines – you have to interact with product planning, marketing, finance, etc.,etc. and if working for a start up get to do a lot of this yourself. You get to meet a lot of very smart and interesting people, although that can be said of a lot of occupations.
So, whilst it may seem glamorous, designing vehicles or other products is a very strange way to earn a living!
Huey, thank you for all of this. I had first read your comment on my lunch break and knew there was a lot of great stuff in here that I wanted to re-read. This acts as not just a reality check specific to the car designing / engineering industry, but even in a broader sense for many other types of careers that seem glamorous on some level, but actually involve a lot of not just hard work, but heartache.
When I think (or thought, I should say) of car design, I thought mostly of creating the aesthetic. But as with anything that involves artistic expression, I can see how “just the way the process works” having the ability to dull the shine of the experience without the tools to compartmentalize the necessary compromises.
You mentioned the idea of a designer seeing one of their original designs on a car that’s now a beater or in less-than-perfect condition, and it’s something I have thought about before. I think my most recent instance of this was seeing a 2008-era Chevy Malibu with styling that (I think) still holds up really well, looking beat to death.
I appreciate your perspective here, especially coming from the industry I thought I would one day be a part of. I have a couple of friends who both worked as engineers with one of the Detroit Three, and it was enlightening to listen to what they had to say about the whole experience, much like some of our excellent COAL writers (of a crop that continues to be so great).
Thanks for your reply, Joseph. My father in law flew carrier jets in the ’60s and ’70s and has the same type of highs tempered by some uncomfortable realities. I still think he misses flying though and visiting aircraft museums with him is enlightening! Flying was one of my dream occupations, so I also look on it through rose tinted glasses from the outside. A friend is a musician and composer and it was fascinating to hear him describe his process of song writing, which had so much in common with the steps taken in design. First a riff, or general overall shape or detail that you then flesh out and go through various versions before orchestrating into the final composition or design. Then trying to get it published and marketed. And his feeling when hearing it on a radio somewhere. Not exactly the same, but closer than I thought…
I can see similarities with a lot of other processes like writing, too.
The only thing I really want for my son is that he gets to pursue something that he has a real passion for, whatever that may be.
My grandfather was a coal miner in Wales from the age of 11 until 67 – a really smart, intellectual man who won a scholarship, but was never able to take it up, as he was the oldest of 10 children. He read by very poor light everything he could borrow from the library and it always pained me to see what a waste of a wonderful mind that was.
I therefore never forget that, even when things stressful, it is a great privilege to be able to follow one’s interests, either as a career, or as one of those people who pursue their passions outside of work, often accomplishing the most amazing things,
Amen to all of this. I do think sometimes about what a privilege it was for me to even be able to get a college education, especially at the time I did, in the mid-’90s. Like you mentioned about your grandfather, I feel like my grandmother was also super-intelligent and I wonder what she might have done with her mind with a formal education in a different place and time than when she was busy raising my mom, aunts, and uncle. (Grandpa was a chemical engineer who later inherited the family farm, and went back to do that.)
Your last paragraph neatly summarizes pretty much what I tell people about how even though I didn’t make a career out of photography or writing, I get to do it regularly – on a weekly basis, here at CC. And that feels terrific.
I’m an engineer, retired now but still fairly math- and word-aware, and it never occurred to me that “geometry” and “ Geo Metro” share all but one letter. Thanks for your insight, and for diligently informing us on Tuesday morning 😀. I saw a Metro just the other day; actually I heard it first, which made me turn and see what was making that distinctive sound … I thought it was a Yamaha triple but not revving high enough. Maybe a big Triumph bike? Nope, just a three cylinder Suzuki/Geo going through the gears.
Dman, as I was mentioning to Huey above, I really appreciate hearing from those in the industry. I like that you were trying to guess what engine based on what you were hearing come down the street.
In its original incarnation as Suzuki Swift, one Toni Kukoc of Chicago Bulls fame used to drive it back home in Croatia towards the end of 80s. Amazingly roomy for its dimensions.
Wow. Kukoc was 6’11” (I had to look that up), so he must have had that seat raked all the way back. But the cool thing was that we was able to make it work. Great tidbit!
Another aspirant teenage car designer here! My terrible maths results were a clear no-no, and I guess it worked out for the best. My decades in the clothing design and manufacture field have been tough enough, and the auto industry is clearly so much more so! In clothing one can wing it to a degree and still have a good result, not so much with car manufacture. As part of a South African business growth initiative we were invited to a factory which made wiring harnesses for the locally produced Toyota Hilux. I was full of admiration for their intensely detailed process, but I walked away relieved this was not my daily experience.
I like that you mentioned your being in clothing design and manufacture, which to me seems to parallel car design in some way, in that you’re creating the way something looks on the outside and its image as perceived by both buyers and onlookers. I’ve watched shows like “Project Runway” (which is completely different than what you’re describing, I’m sure), but understanding how much work goes into creating a look and actually, functionally putting it together is eye-opening.
I think those who are creative-minded and want to do something like that for work have to have a whole, separate skill set around maintaining the ability to realize their visions and also not be sullied by all the red-tape and things it takes to execute what they’ve designed.
I think it is called “being stubborn”!
I was a dreamer, too and I still have a brief case full of drawings of my imaginary cars…
Thank you for sharing this great sketch. This Italianate wedge type of shape and profile is still hot to me. I’ll never outgrow it. How great that you also still have your drawings.
This is pretty handsome – when was it done? I’m seeing some MN12 T’bird in this, with a faster screen….
I have a neighbor a few doors down who currently owns four Geo Metros. His max at any given time was five, that I’m aware of. Most are daily drivers. The total number of distinct cars over the years is much higher, I’m sure.
These Metros seem to have been super-reliable, and I imagine that parts support must be okay for many of them to still be in use. I can recall having seen a few Geo Metro outtakes here at CC. Your neighbor probably discovered a good thing in the Metro, bought a few, and maybe even figures that if one needs to become a parts car, it could help keep the other three running!
These seem to have some of the same appeal as air cooled VeeDubs – dependable, easy to fix and cheap to keep running. And not caring what others think! My kind of car…
Joseph, I admire and appreciate your methodicalness at least as far as it carries forward to Tuesday mornings. I could only aspire to what you are able to accomplish each week.
I too aspired to be a designer when I was a yout. My particular take on this was to be an “inventor”, and my inventions went well beyond things vehicular. One that I particularly recall was a device for reheating canned food in emergencies. Then as now, if push comes to shove, I’m more about cooking than anything else.
I still have my 3 ring binder of invention drawings, and maybe someday I’ll share those here on CC. For now, I’ll share just one that comes out of my fascination (apparently) with “jets”. So, we have the “Jet Bike Flier”.
One thing that surprises me looking at these drawings is just how pathetic my spelling was (here, I was probably a 4th or 5th grader??). Ironically, I wound up being more of a writer, where spelling is a requisite skill, than an inventor. Fortunately, I now have technology – and very patient editors – to deal with the continual rather creative spelling issues.
And as for the Metro…yes, I second Eric703’s comment about seeing many more of these in rural areas than anywhere else. It’s an odd thing, but these for some reason seem to be well-preserved in rural places than anywhere else. I’ve routinely seen Metro convertibles in the deep South and nowhere else. Odd.
Whoops, forgot to downsize the pic…
Feel free to ridicule me soundly for my wacky, insane, spelling. Lord knows that my editors and collaborators do routinely. 🙂
No ridicule from me – this is very well thought out!
Love it.
Jeff, thanks for sharing this! I will probably think of your Jet Bike Flier the next time I see a prime time commercial for a product promoted by “B-B-B-B-Bulb-head! ♪♫” Time to get thee to a patent office!
Seriously, though, even though my spelling has generally always been decent, in a work setting where I’m typing a *lot* throughout the day (an insurance underwriter’s job of properly documenting things is never, ever done), I’ve increasingly come to rely on autocorrect on certain Microsoft applications. I always make an effort to spell things correctly, but every once in a while, there will be a word I misspelled that I’ll realize I’ve been misspelling for a while. (Stupid, red, squiggly line…)
Another would-be car designer here. I never kept any of my designs, but viewed in hindsight they were nothing special for the times. I could do variations of the kind of thing I saw around me, but had no vision for the future. I bullt models instead. I was hopeless at maths once they started putting letters and numbers together; though I tried my hardest I just never got the hang of even basic algebra. But words, yep, absolutely no problem there. Muddled my way through an applied science course anyway – somehow. Then got a theology degree a decade later. Retired now. Still read and write a lot. Anything mathemagical I refer to my wife; between the two of us we’re well-educated. 🙂
These cars were either Suzukis (Swift, Cino) or Holdens (Barina) in Australia. Incredibly popular back in the day, but I haven’t seen one for a few years now. There are models of larger and smaller Suzukis, but not this one.
When you mention, “variations of the kind of thing” you saw around you, I think all good designers / creators / writers etc. draw from a place of inspiration when setting out to create something of their own. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And your car models are incredible, the ones you’ve shared here, anyway.
I still really like these Metros – they were very nicely resolved and handsome little cars. Tough, too. As a small car enthusiast I would love to find one in good condition as a daily driver….
Mr. Dennis ;
Your initial article here is so well thought out .
When I read this I wish you lived where we could go gab over a hot cuppa Joe .
Many here have obviously intelligent and thoughtful minds .
I don’t mind that stupid red squiggle, I _HATE_ auto correct .
-Nate
Thank you, kind sir. And I agree that “Curbside Cafe” would be great.
Curbside Zoom meeting?
I’m FOR it!! 🙂