TO THE EDITOR:
Thank you, Jamie Butters, for the memories your column stirred up for me, both as an auto show visitor and participant (“Big auto show era truly over,” Jan. 18).
As a Ford stylist in about 1960, I was in the Detroit show airbrushing designs, representing what we did in the design studios — a treasured auto show insight perspective.
In 1977 as a Chrysler designer, I created a custom California Cordoba for the Detroit and Chicago shows. Later, we loaned it to Ricardo Montalban, our ad spokesman, to drive for several years. I acquired the Cordoba in 1979, having the pleasure of owning a car with no budget limitations: The interior was slathered in silver leather on “loose-cushion” bucket seats, with black mouton carpeting, plus custom silver and black two-tone paint, etc.
In 1980, with Chrysler emerging from bankruptcy, the design office “had no time” to create auto show cars, so the corporation asked me (now a product planning manager) to do them, with minor limitations, so naturally I instantly agreed (once a stylist, always a stylist) and created them for three years. Attending those preview nights was a never-forgotten thrill.
I proposed and created two new body styles as auto show cars, the convertible and the K-car executive sedan-limousine. When produced, they helped create the illusion that we had any money for new vehicles in that delicate period.
Those days are gone forever, but some memories linger on.
BOB MARCKS, Scottsdale, Ariz. The writer is a former Ford and Lincoln stylist and retired Chrysler designer and product planning and marketing manager.