Automotive Design books

[Michael D. Nicola]

Below you'll find a list of books and manuals specifically written on the subject of Automotive Design.

It's important to note that while these books aren't required for our course, they can and do serve as great references for both students and working professionals alike.

If, however, you are interested in purchasing any of the books listed here, you will find a link within each posting that you can use to purchase these items online.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Car Design Yearbooks
By Stephen Newbury

Along with all the drawing tools and techniques car stylists use to create eye-catching sketches and renderings, they also find it extremely useful to compile their own library of reference photos. And some of the best collections of car reference photos available today are the series of Car Design Yearbooks by Stephen Newbury. Published on an annual basis, these large format hard-cover coffe table books are the definitive guides to some of the best concept and production cars introduced world wide during the year. Unfortunately, these books have only been published over the past three years, so you'll have to look elsewhere for photo references regarding vehicles introduced prior to 2002. But with their large sized format, excellent photography, well orgainized layouts, and indepth descriptions, these references are at the top of any good aspiring and professional designer's list of "must-haves". Highly recommended.

If you're interested in buying Car Design Yearbook 1 online, click here.

If you're interested in buying Car Design Yearbook 2 online, click here.

If you're interested in buying Car Design Yearbook 3 online, click here.

[Michael D. Nicola]

A Century of Car Design
By Penny Sparke

I've always had a sort of love-hate relationship with books like A Century of Car Design. I love them because books like this are always very well laid-out, with wonderful photography and great descriptions of the subject matter. I hate them, however, because they typically try to cover such a broad subject matter, or a subject that spans an extremely long period of time (such as the case with this book), that more often than not, they only scratch the surface of a much larger entity.

Fortunately, in the case of A Century of Car Design, the relationship is more love than hate. While the subject matter and time frame is certainly broad, Penny Sparke's focus on automotive design over the past 100 years gives true justice to the art of styling automobiles. And it seems like all of the world's greatest designers are here too: Raymond Loewy, designer of the revolutionary 1947 Studebaker, Giorgetto Giugiaro, legendary designer of the Lotus Esprit and numerous other superb automotibes for companies like Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati, Harley Earl, creator of some of General Motors' most innovative designs and the god-father of automotive design as a professional entity, and Ferdinand Porsche, creator of the original Volkswagen. Even contemporary designers like Bjorn Envall of Saab and Uwe Bahnsen of Ford are highlighted in this book too.

With such a wealth of information, and some absolutely beautiful photos (over 600 in all) A Century of Car Design is a great addition to any serious design student's reference library. Very highly recommended.

If you're interested in buying this book online, click here.