‘VISUAL DISTINCTION’
Montreal-based designer Paul Deutschman, the man behind supercars like Callaway’s ‘Sledgehammer’ Corvette, shares his opinion on some modern cars and explains to Driving.ca’s Nicholas Maronese what the Lamborghini Urus should have looked like.
There aren’t a lot of car designers who have tackled the breadth of vehicles that Paul Deutschman has. He’s styled everything from snail’s-pace airport crawlers (the YYC Link shuttles in Calgary) to record-setting 408-km/h supercars (Callaway’s “Sledgehammer” Corvette). He’s done vehicles with two, three, four, or even 18 wheels.
“When you’ve been working as long as I have and then glance back, you say, ‘Gosh, there’s a lot of different projects there,’” the Montreal-based head of Deutschman Design says with a chuckle.
But there is one assignment he’s hesitant to tackle: the new Corvette C7 Stingray.
Even though Deutschman has mostly made his name re-bodying ’Vettes for Connecticut-based performance tuner Callaway — the company offered an Aerobody for the C4 Corvette, the Callaway C12 was based on the fifth-generation car, and a C16 upgrade for the C6 — he thinks the looks of the current Chevrolet flagship sports car are fine as is.
“It’s quite a big leap better-looking than the previous Corvettes. It can almost pass for a Ferrari from the front end,” he says. “I said to Reeves (Callaway), ‘Let’s not rebody this one. What’s the point if we’re going to come out with something equivalent? We have to try to do something noticeably an improvement.’”
Deutschman instead offered Callaway an idea for a hatchback addition for the car’s roof, which the company later developed into the AeroWagen conversion kit.
“It gives it some uniqueness,” he explains. “I think Callaway enjoys having some visual distinction to their cars.”
Otherwise, the closest he’ll get to re-bodying a new Stingray will be the mods he made to Callaway ’s Corvette GT3-R, which is set to race in the SCCA’s Pirelli World Challenge this year.
Deutschman caught the attention of Reeves Callaway back in the late 1980s, not long after he graduated from a London, U.K. academy’s car design and engineering program, interned with Rover and Jaguar, and started his career with Montreal design firm GSM.
In the early ’80s, he co-founded Spex Design, an industrial design firm, with business partner Kell Warshaw. Styling products such as Nova-brand washroom hand dryers paid the bills, but on the side they turned out a small run of Honda Civic kit cars.
It was his one-off retro Porschebased Spexster roadster, commissioned by a wealthy collector, on the cover of Motor Trend in 1987 that got Callaway to give Deutschman a call. The organic, rounded lines were “the kind of body language he was looking for for his Corvettes.”
Callaway is still one of Deutschman Design’s main clients, though he’s now also collaborating regularly with a host of other small- and medium-sized companies. Recent projects include designing car accessories, military vehicles, and work for Lion Elec- tric, the school bus manufacturer.
Though Deutschman had mostly good things to say about the new Corvette, there are some cars today he finds less appealing. Here are some of his thoughts:
Infiniti Q Inspiration concept: This new concept — the design of which was headed up by Canadian Karim Habib — is “one of the more handsome pieces of work Infiniti has done,” Deutschman says. “It has very nice proportions, it’s clean, it’s not over-cluttered, not forced, and it’s quite sensual, the lines. It’s very easy to like that type of design.” Lamborghini Urus: Deutschman says he was “a little disappointed” when he first saw Lambo’s new SUV. “I see where it’s coming from, but it’s a little too busy for my taste. It’s an SUV, it can go a little bolder and less finicky on the details, though I suppose the Lamborghini DNA is definitely there.”
He admits that for a vehicle forced to share a platform — the chassis is VW Group’s MLBevo, which also underpins the new Bentley Bentayga and upcoming Audi Q8 — it’s “sharp,” but says in a perfect world the Italian automaker would’ve gone for a cleansheet design.
Deutschman even went so far as to send us a sketch of his take on the Urus. “I would draw a straighter line between the hood and the windshield, make it a little more cab-forward,” he explains. “Something more Star Wars, or sci-fi.” McLaren Senna: There are few cars being built today that are wilder looking than the new McLaren Senna. “It’s a super-overachiever, and it looks that way,” offers Deutschman. “It’s dramatic, it’s wild, it’s obviously functional, so it’s pretty awesome in many respects.”
Toyota C-HR: “To me, the most polarizing design was the Nissan Juke. That had me scratching my head because personally I thought it was pretty awful,” Deutschman says with a laugh. “But apparently it was a good seller.
“I think Toyota is looking for that market, and I don’t mind it. They’ve tried some gutsy styling, and it kind of comes together,” he says. “There’s people out there that want to get away from the cookiecutter look, and this gives them a chance to have something that looks a little different.”