The Dream Cars of the Car Designers
Saturday mornings are for celebrating stylish sheet metal in the parking lot of a storied hobby shop in metro Detroit
DETROIT — What do the men and women who design cars drive? What kind of machines do sheet-metal artists park in their garages? A recent Saturday morning at Pasteiner’s Auto Zone Hobbies on Woodward Avenue in metro Detroit provided some interesting answers.
Pasteiner’s is a meeting place for car lovers of all types, but automotive designers have a strong affinity for the smallish store and its parking lot. That’s true in large part because the owner, Steve Pasteiner Sr., created cars for 23 years in Buick and Chevrolet studios, achieving assistant chief designer status. After calling it quits, he opened the store, offering an abundance of automotive books, magazines, models and car-folk camaraderie.
“It was almost a selfish thing,” Mr. Pasteiner, 79, said. “I needed a place to go after retirement.”
So did his fellow automotive stylists — the people who doodled cars while the teacher thought they were busy completing lessons and grew up to design cars in the studios of Detroit’s Big Three and for other carmakers worldwide. And every Saturday morning, many of them drive their favorite rides in for the weekly “Parking at Pasteiner’s” event, where they display their machines, renew acquaintances and pay homage to Mr. Pasteiner, the Pied Piper of Woodward. This Saturday is the Woodward Dream Cruise, billed as the world’s largest one-day automotive event, so Pasteiner’s will be a focal point.
While Mr. Pasteiner had a very productive career at General Motors, he upped the ante after leaving, creating beautiful automobiles at his own design and prototyping business, Advanced Automotive Technologies — not merely sketching the machines but rendering them in fiberglass and metal.
Among his favorites is a station wagon-like version of the 1953 Corvette that was inspired by G.M.’s Corvette Nomad concept car. He built 14 copies, sold 13 and kept one. He also constructed a “Road Warrior” cruiser, on a Jeep chassis and dropped in a hemi engine.
But his most admired creation may be the Helldorado, a hand-built, one-off Cadillac sports car. Constructed on a steel-tube space frame, the gull-wing coupe is powered by a midmounted Cadillac V8. The styling is extreme and delightful, with rally-inspired center-mounted headlights and flanks that form an aerodynamic wing.
“My Helldorado is the car you dream about as a kid,” Mr. Pasteiner said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have made good on that dream.”
Kip Wasenko, a Pasteiner’s regular, is a retired designer whose 40 years with G.M. included a long list of achievements. He worked on the Cadillac Evoq concept car, which was judged best of show at the 1999 North American International Auto Show in Detroit and earned him and his creation an invitation to a design exhibit in Milan. As design director for Cadillac, he created the first of the brand’s heralded “art and science” automobiles and styled the Cadillac that raced at Le Mans.
Mr. Wasenko is inspired by the automobiles of Italy.
“Art is such an important part of Italian culture,” he said. “Going all the way back to the 1930s, Italian design has consistently been more advanced, more beautiful.”
His love of Italian design plays heavily in his pride and joy, a nearly flawless 1970 Ferrari Type L Dino 246.
While many of the Pasteiner’s regulars are retirees, Darby Jean, 28, has the enviable job of designing cars for Chevrolet’s Performance Division. Influenced by classic collectibles, including the ’63 Corvette Sting Ray “Split Window” Coupe, she is working on several future products. When it’s time to draw, she starts with pencil and paper rather than a computer.
Ms. Jean — who, along with the rest of her family, owns horses — commutes to G.M.’s Warren Tech Center in a 2015 Silverado long bed pickup. “I can put 55 bales of hay in it,” she said.
But on weekends she drives a ’99 Mazda Miata racecar in the StreetMod class of the Gridlife Track Battle series. Although StreetMod machines race on tires meant for the street, they are heavily modified. Ms. Jean’s car generates 360 horsepower at the wheels.
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