Camaro Headlight Assembly. In 1963, when I was just 23 years old and working on special assignment for GM Vice President William Mitchell in a secret studio, I was asked to join a team in setting up a brand new Chevy II studio. Could that event be more exciting for a guy fresh out of college?

• Headlight Assembly for 2009 Chevrolet Camaro
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Iry Rybicki was head of all Chevrolet products and the product line was busting at the seams. More studio space was needed. The new Chevrolet studio was located on the east end of the south side of the design staff building. As a reference, all major production studios were located on the second floor, west end, facing north with a view over the lake and fountains. When we worked in the “warehouse” nobody else knew what we were doing. Bill Mitchell owned the keys to that castle and that’s the way he wanted it. We worked on the future Corvettes, Camaros and shows cars. It was just stuff that wasn’t meant to be shared.

Hank Haga, who became an excellent mentor, was chosen to head up this new Chevrolet studio. At the same time an interior studio was set up across the hall. A very good friend who I had worked with in that special, secret studio in the warehouse was also selected to join the interior studio. Bill Mitchell wanted an interior designer with gas in his blood to create exciting sports car interiors. George Angersbach was the right guy and he had a great sense of humor. Maybe George was a little concerned about going from exterior to interior design, however, he made a major impact on his first day on the job when he bolted a shifter to his design chair and entered the studio with car sounds. Those were the fun times.

Our new Chevrolet II studio was a great place to be at this time in history, working on an all-new Corvette theme and, unbeknownst to us, the first Camaro. We had four designers and probably three sculptors. It was a small team, but we worked hard and had a lot of fun. Without a doubt, Jerry Palmer ultimately became the king of Corvette design, but yours truly had his hand in a few of them.

The Chevrolet Studio had a small staff with two platforms in which to create two exciting products. We had what I would consider top talent. Great guys like Don Wood, Dave Stollery, Phil Garcia, Graham Bell, etc. They would rotate between Studios I and II, or come from other studios. Chevrolet II Studio was sort of out of the mainstream from exec visits, which allowed us more room for freedom to take risks and try many new design concepts. We still knew that management would have the last say. I believe Bill Mitchell and Chuck Jordan thought of us as their pri vate sand box to play in and try things. This made for a very fun working relationship. We could sense their support and enthusiasm.

Just about the time Ford announced its Mustang show car in 1962, we were beginning to draw a bead on more sports car designs: low to the ground, tight seating package, and performance. We never knew that our zeal would eventually lead to the 1967

Camaro. Just before the Mustang came out in production, we were working on a small, hot, two-door performance coupe for the auto show. With the success of the Mustang and the acceptance of our show car, the stage was set to compete directly with Ford. Wow, Corvettes and Camaros! We thought we had died and gone to heaven. All the young designers wanted to get into the Chevrolet II Studio to show their stuff.

We had heard rumors about Ford, that they had a four-seater American Sports car coming that was def initely not a European sports car. Ford was very secretive, and at that time they had already announced the GT-40. That was a beautiful car.

When the Mustang came out I think there were a lot of us that were envious because we were sketch ing things like that. You didn’t really see any stealing of designs or espionage, but if you have a lot of designers doing a lot of designs, you’re going to have similarities.

Painfully, I remember my first full-size airbrush rendering. The side view was very big. I believe it gave me nightmares. It was a hard and demanding experience with plenty of mistakes, but I got it done.

The eyes were on us and the pressure was build ing. This Chevrolet had to be successful to <go up against the Mustang. During this time, Hank gave me the title of “acting assistant designer” as his direct report.

To make sure that our Camaro was unique, we studied the Mustang’s overall theme and details. The Mustang was very angular, and took the large-car design themes and made them into a sports look. Some of the detailing looked applied and cheap. Fit and finish left a lot to be desired. But we loved the overall proportions. They were on the mark. Long hood, short rear deck, wide stance, low roof and low to the ground. This car grabbed your attention, made you look, and made you buy.

When we were concepting our Camaro, we looked at what was going on in Europe for sports car design trends. We took the approach of simplicity as our main thrust. Being wheel-oriented was a must, with a taut, contoured skin covering the essentials — engine, wheels and people. The concept was to get a fairly squat car that was wide, short, and with a long front end. When we started we didn’t have that. We had to come up with the proportions that we needed, and we worked hard to get it right.

The peak through the midsection of the body sides was a design feature you could find on many Chevro lets up to this time. That helped strengthen the Chevrolet brand recognition. To keep the design sim ple, a single opening mouth was used — a cue from many great sports machines.

Eventually, I was promoted to assistant chief designer. I was very proud and overwhelmed. Work ing with Chevrolet and design during this period of history was a great experience, especially with the emerging involvement of club and professional racing.

Aero design was starting to come of age, and we took our first scale model Camaro to a wind tunnel in Texas. We made some changes, like tapering the front, improving the front air intakes for cooling, and adjust ing the rear profile. The data we gathered provided a good learning curve base and helped us as we contin ued to develop the overall exterior shape of the Camaro.

We thought the Camaro was great, but Ford really had a jump on us in the marketplace. They were real ly cooking hard.

One executive who really had an interest and focus on design was Chevrolet General Manager Bunkie Knudsen, who was eventually named executive vice president. He personally took the “old man look” out of Pontiac’s vehicles. With the design staff’s help, he made Pontiac’s image more youthful and perform ance-oriented.

I really liked Bunkie and we got along well. He was very passionate about design, but he did not interfere. Bunkie would pick a design from several sketches we had produced. He was always polite and friendly and would ask your opinion. One morning at about 7:30 a.m. when I got to the studio I found Bunkie going through the designers’ desks looking for a better solu tion for the Camaro front end. We always kept our sketches in our filing drawer and he knew it was OK to look.

That day he found two or three designs that looked good and we tried them. One was the hidden headlamp idea and it finally made it to production on our top-line series. Bunkie truly loved cars. It was good that Bill Mitchell and Chuck Jordan liked Bunkie. If they didn’t, they would have kicked him out of the studio for messing with the design process.

There was a lot less stress than today. Design staff was made up of great, creative design teams and everybody had their oars in the water pulling togeth er. Mitchell reported directly to the top, and they did n’t have multi layers of management. Bill had a great vision about things, but he never, ever designed our cars. We had to do the sketches. The designers had to come up with the designs, then he would select the direction. And of course all the designers think they have the right ideas.

My gut feeling is that the car could have gone on forever. If you put out a great product, you can put out more than one version to select from and people will buy it. I’m really happy with the way the cars evolved. Today’s versions are beautiful, but they’re just a tad large for their market. Let’s hope GM will revise these great names.

It saddens me that the Camaro and Firebird will be gone, but my personal experience with GM during these times will also be close to my heart. The passion and excitement of going to design staff every day and having the opportunity to create something great for all of us to drive was incredible. There will also he fond memories of the great, talented, and influential people that helped shape and support our beliefs and ideas, and those special folks are my unsung heroes.

—John Schinella Former GM chief designer