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The automotive industry moves fast. It wasn’t all that long ago that diesel was being peddled as the next big thing. Then, just a few short years ago, deadlines were being set for the demise of internal combustion engines all-together. Now, there are a number of big-name automakers scaling back their electric vehicle production plans. However, sometimes, the old ways absolutely are the best, and perhaps nowhere else in the automotive industry is this more apparent than in the design rooms. An innovative practice first introduced by GM legend Harley Earl in the 1930s is still found at the very core of automotive design almost 100 years later, and that practice is th…
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
The automotive industry moves fast. It wasn’t all that long ago that diesel was being peddled as the next big thing. Then, just a few short years ago, deadlines were being set for the demise of internal combustion engines all-together. Now, there are a number of big-name automakers scaling back their electric vehicle production plans. However, sometimes, the old ways absolutely are the best, and perhaps nowhere else in the automotive industry is this more apparent than in the design rooms. An innovative practice first introduced by GM legend Harley Earl in the 1930s is still found at the very core of automotive design almost 100 years later, and that practice is the use of clay modeling.
When Earl introduced this method, designers were making do with materials like wood and metal to design cars, which wasn’t exactly ideal for penning the fluid curves of motor cars from the influential art deco era. You may think that computers would have rendered clay modeling a thing of the past some years ago, but the truth is, car designers still prefer getting their hands dirty with the ways of old, and the reasoning is refreshingly simple.
The physical form of a designer’s clay sculpture is simply easier to study, manipulate, and appreciate. It can be moved and placed under different lighting, you can physically walk around it to see how each line flows into the next, different aspects can be changed at will, and it can even be wrapped to look like the eventual finished product. Almost every automaker around the world still uses this technique, and there is more to it than you may think.
Here’s how clay modeling works
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Just because the tech is a century old and doesn’t use complicated computer programs, it doesn’t mean that clay modeling is a simple science. Rather, it’s the opposite. The procedure starts with mocking up designs, either on paper or digitally. If the bosses like what they see, the design can then be approved for full-size clay modelling.
Something called an armature is used as the base frame for the model. This is a basic aluminum structure, which acts as an adjustable wheelbase. On top of this armature, various boxes and hard foam will be placed, and the designers will put down clay on top. If the entire model were to be made of clay, it would likely weigh literal tons, and that sounds a little tricky to move around.
The clay — which is actually not clay at all, but more of a specialist plasticine — is applied in a warm room to keep it malleable and, therefore, easier to manipulate. A five-axis milling machine will cut away at the car-shaped blob to make it, well, more car shaped, before a team of craftspeople finish the task by hand.
These finished clay models can be tweaked and adjusted, viewed in different lights, fitted with various different wheel designs, and finished in different colors. This complex design process allows cars to change dramatically from concept to production. All in all, clay models are still hugely valuable tools that enable designers to really see their design in a 3D form, as well as being great tools for wowing guests and visitors, rather than just loading up an image on a screen where the wow factor is, frankly, minimal.