79 Conclusion In this book, we have challenged the conventional thinking about the origins of wedge car design. By digging deeper, we found three examples of cars designed and built by young talented designers3 at ArtCenter in Los Angeles, California in the 1960’s. These are Ken Ebert’s & David McIntosh’s Ocelot (1964), Kerne Ericksen’s GT (1964) and Ray Cannara’s Cannara Sports Car (1966) Marcello Gandini in a 2018 interview shared insights about the his career at Bertone in the 1960’s. He said, “It was a lucky period for prototypes, above all those that had to be displayed at the motor show (Geneva) I could do everything I liked, we didn’t do meetings with the marketing manager, stuff like that came later; so it was….There was absolute freedom from mechanical limitations obviously, rules, which were few back then. It was cool to do what we liked and so it was for many models. Many ugly cars that came later were surely influenced by thousands of opinions, advices.” As a self-funded young designer, Ray Canara built the Cannara without the constraints of other people’s budgets and marketing managers. His limits on executing his design were mainly mechanical. His freedom was high, even compared to the period of freedom that Gandini described. We have not found another car as early as the 1966 Cannara that has the purity of the wedge car silhouette. The Cannara, based on an comprehensive review of the literature, can be considered the design anchor for wedge car design. We conducted a number of third-party reviews of the work presented here. Raffi Minasian, a regular contributor to all things design- related, ArtCenter graduate and Pebble Beach judge concluded: “What is more and more apparent is that this design (Ray Cannara’s design) is clearly one of the earliest of its type, but more specifically it is the first car to completely embrace all aspects of wedge design, rather than simply using vector-based or linear design elements. This design is the full, and complete embracement of the wedge theme, both as a concept direction and as a complete car”. Finally, we would like to end with a quotation from Marcello Gandini. Much of this book has been about looking outside the normative assumptions of the history of wedge cars. While the following quote is primarily about design and designing, We think it is a reminder to be open to accept new information on a topic as it becomes available, and not be constrained by the historical status quo. On January 12,2024 Marcello Gandini (died March 13, 2024 aged 85) gave a speech at the Politecnico di Torino when he received an honorary degree in mechanical engineering. Gandini told students the following: “Fight to never do what someone has already done, do not repeat yourselves. Find solutions, perhaps difficult, but new. I know it’s not easy. I see today’s automotive companies, especially dealing with luxury products, indulging in temptation to make products that are the same, infinite replicas of their own past, while the right path should be, to respect the past, never to copy it, to avoid ruining it and at the same time to show entrepreneurial and creative courage to look ahead, to support true genius, innovation, and avante-garde. I wish for an era as close as possible where change and courage are mandatory voices in the business plans of companies and in the strategy of every CEO” Source: Masters of the Wedge; by Gautam Sen in The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Insider, Summer 2024.
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