Do You Want To Be a Car Designer?

There is a old question in the automotive world. Whether it’s asked of a racing driver, engineer or car designer, the meaning is the same: Do you have gas in your veins? This is a question you may be asked. Or when someone is talking about you, they”ll use it as a point of reference, “Yeah, he or she has got gas in their veins”. Let’s face it, there are plenty of people working in car companies all over the world who look at cars as appliances, or worse, widgets.

To them they are units on a spreadsheet that create profit and loss statements that equal good news or bad news to share holders. And while these folks might be needed to run the business side of things, they tend not to get too excited about the actual product. That’s where the car designer comes in. A car designer takes their passion and turns metal, rubber and glass into emotion.

A Car Designer is Born From a Passion

So let me ask you then: Do you have gas in your veins? Do you love cars? Do you love the idea of designing them? Do you day dream about becoming a professional car designer? Do you like to draw? If you’d answered yes to any, or even better, all of these questions, you’ve come to the right place. How to Draw Cars is the first tutoring program that harnesses the power of the internet to bring world class, professional automotive design mentoring to you. If you’re an aspiring young car designer, welcome. The future production and show cars all start with you. But do you have the passion?

When I was a car designer at Chrysler I received a lot of attention for the 3 production vehicles I created while I was there. A newspaper reporter asked the late, great John Herlitz, one of Chrysler’s Design Directors at the time and the person who had hired me, what was it about Michael that made you want to have him on your staff. Herlitz answered, “Michael had more passion for automotive design and any young designer I had ever met”.

You Can’t Teach Passion

I did not have the most technical ability, I sure didn’t have any experience, but I had buring passion that was undeniable. You can teach someone technical skills, you can gain experience, but you cannot teach or hand someone passion. It comes from within. A car designer will usually have a deep seeded passion for cars and their design.

My passion for car design extends as far back as grade school where my friend Dominick and I would draw cars then then sell the drawings for money. We didn’t do anything fancy, just pencil sketches on some lined, looseleaf paper but the other kids loved them. For a while we had a pretty good little business going. The thing was, we weren’t drawing the cars we saw on the road at the time. We were drawing cars from our imagination. Crazy shapes, giant engines, cool graphics. This was pure unbridled, uninhibited, car design and we were pure unbridled, uninhibited, car designers! But the idea of being a professional car designer in the real world was still years away.

Car design drawing by a high school age student

Let Your Passion and Your Drawing Skills Take You Places

When I was thirteen I got accepted to a very prestigious all art high school in New York City. About 2000 kids apply and about 150 get in to make up each year’s freshman class. I was one of them. This was a turning point in my life in more ways that I could have imagined. For you see, across the street from my new school was Luigi Chinetti’s Ferrari dealership. As a kid who loved cars this place was Nirvana, The Promised Land and the worlds greatest toy store all rolled into one. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. At 13 years I told myself, “This is what I want to do. I want to put things like this into the world”. And so my quest to become a professional car designer began in earnest.

My high school days were long. I’d leave around 7:30 in the morning and sometimes would not get home till around 6 at night. I had to take the subway through some of the most dangerous neighborhoods not only in New York City, but in the Untied States twice a day. But it was a good experience.

You grow up fast as a 13 year old kid alone on the streets and subways of New York. Yes, there were many days where it was hard but not for the reasons you might think. The days were hard because all my friends all got home from school much earlier than I did and were out playing all afternoon and I missed it. When you’re 14 and everyone else is out having fun and you’re not because you’re commuting 2 hours a day on some slow, smelly train, that’s hard. Somehow I was able to realize that those were short-term joys and I was focused on a much bigger, long term goal.

More Resources Available for Aspiring Car Designers Than Ever

Unlike when I was in high school, there is more information about car design and what it takes to be a car designer than ever before. Blogs like this one,  design sites, youtube videos, information put out by the car companies themselves and so much more as all available now. But with all that readily available information comes much more competition.

On my first day of college, sitting in Drawing 101, my new drawing teacher told us that only 5% of men who want to do creative work for their careers will succeed. For women the number is even lower.

If you want to be a professional car designer, you have to make sure you end up in the 5%. You need to utilize all the tools and resources at your disposal. But unlike so many other disciplines like sports and the other arts, automobile design never had direct, one-on-one coaching, tutoring, mentoring, type programs. This is one of the reasons I wanted to launch this site and this service. I remember what it was like being 13, 14, 15 years old and wanting to learn, hungry for information and having no where to turn.

If you have the passion for cars, if you have gas in your veins, if you see design ideas in your head and need to get them out then take a good hard look at the How To Draw Cars program. I wish I had it when I was a teenager. It would have been made my life so much better!

It would have been great to have my questions answered. It would have been great to stop making the same mistakes over and over again because I didn’t have anyone to tell me there was a better way to do it. I didn’t have anyone to tell me to try this and forget that. It would have been great to make progress so much more quickly. Do you find yourself nodding along as you’re reading these words? Then maybe you should give our program a try. We’d love for you to be a part of it!

If you have any questions regarding the information contained in this article, please leave them in the comments section below and we will get them answered. Thank you.

Further Reading About Automotive Design Education

• What Degree is Best for Auto Design?

• What is the Best Major for Automotive Design?

• Car Design Video Tutorials

• Automotive Designer vs. Engineer?

• How to Become a Car Designer