For Aspiring Car Designers: “The Journey of a Car Designer – Part 4(Chrysler / Latter Half)” [Shikado’s Column #9 ]

Chrysler Citadel

While working on full model changes and minor changes for Chrysler brand production cars, an opportunity came around the following year to design another concept car. This was the “Chrysler Citadel,” which would be unveiled at the 1999 NAIAS.

Unlike the symbolic Chronos, this vehicle was a much more practical concept—a proposal for a practical vehicle that combined the ease of driving of a passenger car with the spaciousness of an SUV. The exterior featured a clean, tube-like body where the side glass and door cross-sections connected with virtually no steps, and I deliberately eliminated excessive flourishes and eccentricity from the styling. Several years later, this concept would become a production car as the “Chrysler Pacifica,” but at the time, demand for minivans—the gods of spaciousness—was overwhelmingly high, and slightly taller passenger cars couldn’t quite achieve mainstream status. However, I’m pleased to see that in recent years, vehicles with this intermediate package between SUVs and passenger cars have been increasing. Shortly before the Citadel project began, another Japanese designer fresh out of ACCD, Akino Tsuchiya, joined Chrysler Design and handled the interior design for this Citadel project.

It was an extremely valuable experience to create a concept car together as two Japanese people in a land far from Japan.

Just as the Citadel design development was wrapping up, the development of the third-generation Dodge Viper progressing in the neighboring packaging studio finally entered the sketch phase. The studio barriers were removed to solicit ideas widely, and a sketch competition was opened to all designers. For me, this was a real sports car representing the Dodge brand, and moreover, a two-door car project—something I had almost no experience with—so there was no way I couldn’t participate. The time allotted for sketching was only about 10 days, but precisely because of this constraint, I was able to concentrate and immerse myself in theme development.

My First Two-Door Car Design: Dodge Viper

About 30 people participated in the sketch competition, and over 50 sketches filled the walls. In a format where all participants had voting rights and voted for works other than their own, a popularity vote was held for the idea sketches. Based primarily on the vote count, Director N. Waling selected six proposals to advance to scale model stage, and fortunately, my sketch was able to proceed to the next stage.

What made the process of designing the Dodge Viper relatively stress-free was, first, that the vehicle’s concept itself was clear, and simultaneously, the image users desired was also clear. Rather than novelty or newness, I refined the design of this third generation with the mindset of further honing the high-performance feel that everyone senses, the sense of speed suggesting it could run fast, and the American sports sensibility that the first-generation Viper had established.

Subsequently, a total of four designs—left and right alternatives—were transferred to two full-size models, and we completed the clay models through design refinement and technical verification.

Since there were no major directional changes from the initial sketch and I was able to pursue my own vision, at the design review, my design became the foundation, and it was combined with proposals from two other designers—the side gills (front fender air outlet shape) and front grille opening—to finalize the production car design.

Of course, the interior design was also completely renewed, and the design by Ralph Gills, who would later become the head of Chrysler Design, was adopted.

Aerodynamic Countermeasures

Even though the production design was finalized, it’s still a production car—various improvements, large and small, continue. Particularly important for the Viper were issues of vehicle performance and driving safety. We achieved weight reduction by changing from the initial two-motor-driven wiper blades to a more common single motor, and changed the muffler pipes that had once converged at the rear of the vehicle to side exhaust with superior exhaust performance. And there was another problem unique to sports cars. At that time, several accidents were being reported where the rear wheels had insufficient grip while driving, causing the vehicle to spin out on highway ramps and such. The engineers took these accidents seriously and set a goal of aerodynamic zero lift for the rear wheels to prevent rear-wheel floating during driving conditions. Of course, a rear spoiler would be effective, but we first aimed for zero lift with the normal body, including the design. The difficult part was verifying the symptoms—since airflow under the vehicle also has an effect, we needed not a regular wind tunnel facility but a wind tunnel equipped with a rolling road, where the road surface under the vehicle is belt-shaped and the belt rotates according to vehicle speed to reproduce driving conditions. A staff of about five of us, including engineers, went to a wind tunnel with this rolling road at a university in Stuttgart, Germany, along with the clay model, and repeated tests for a week. What was interesting about aerodynamics was discovering that even slightly adjusting the front corner area affected rear lift. We repeated tests while adjusting the kick-up of the trunk surface within a range that wouldn’t destroy the overall body design image, but couldn’t find any major results. In the midst of this, an engineer who noticed that the airflow at the rear lower end of the vehicle was turbulent proposed installing an air diffuser at the lower rear bumper. When we sculpted it with foam core panels and clay and tested it, we found that air between the rear tires flowed more smoothly and quickly, with a significant effect on reducing rear lift, and ultimately we were able to achieve slightly negative lift. This is why there are several fins attached to the lower rear bumper of the Viper.

To NAIAS Concept Car

Another thing that made me happy was that just when the final design of the production car was approved, it was time to decide on a concept car for NAIAS two years later, so it was decided to unveil this Viper as a Dodge brand concept car. However, since the production car launch was still several years away, it was decided to develop a coupe body based on the production convertible body to appeal to a sportier image. And what surprised me here again was that even though the production body dimensions were already sufficiently exaggerated specs, a policy was handed down to make it even wider and lower, with inch-up wheel and tire sizes (Frt: 20″ & Rr: 21″).

And in January 2000, at NAIAS, a bright red concept car called the Dodge Viper SRT-10 was unveiled.

My first Dodge concept car. The first unveiling of a two-door sports coupe in my design career.

Furthermore, after this, development of a race-only vehicle began based on this concept car Viper SRT-10, and my mood was turning toward the circuit, but the winds of fortune suddenly changed direction triggered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and strong, long headwinds struck American society as a whole. After these terrorist attacks, the U.S. economy fell into a severe slump, race activities were canceled within Chrysler, various projects were terminated, dark rumors of restructuring flew about, and I found myself in a situation where I had to think about my own future. I’ll share what happened after that next time.