Robert Cumberford
| Robert Wayne Cumberford | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 4, 1935 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Design Editor Automobile Editor Auto & Design Editor Air Progress Automotive stylist Writer Editor Design Critic |
| Genre | Automotive journalism |
the Jaguar E-Type is elegant, extremely phallic and a great middle-aged man's compensation... the ultimate automotive expression of phalliform perfection.
— Robert Cumberford
GM's Road Not Taken
In his award-winning 2013 article, Cumberford reviewed the restoration of GM's 1955 Motorama LaSalle II Roadster, a concept car scheduled to be destroyed but which survived until its restoration began in 1990.
Cumberford likened the Roadster to a harbinger of GM's future. While the Roadster concept showcased important new technology – including an aluminum block, double overhead cam, fuel-injected V6 – the technology went unrealized. GM instead emphasized styling over engineering advancement for the decades that followed – and didn't bring "an aluminum block, fuel-injected, overhead-cam V-6 into production until 2004."
Cumberford described the Roadster as "a signpost to the many wrong turns that led to the bankruptcy of what was in 1955 the largest business entity in the entire world (GM)."
Robert Wayne Cumberford (born August 4, 1935) is a former automotive designer for General Motors, author and design critic – widely known as Automotive Design Editor and outspoken columnist for Automobile magazine.
Examples of Cumberford's critiques:
On the automotive industry, Cumberford wrote in 1998 that "a lot of automotive enthusiasm is based on what is undoubtedly immature excitement over excess." In 2014 he wrote that there is "no foreseeable future for the Italian coachbuilding firms," referring to the storied design houses of Bertone, Zagato, Ghia, Pininfarina and Giugiaro.
On prominent automotive figures, Cumberford described Alec Issigonis, who received a knighthood "in recognition of his engineering genius," as "not terribly innovative in a mechanical sense." He wrote in 2004 that intensely controversial car designer Chris Bangle is "a man with the courage of his convictions and of solid character, and he is worthy of our admiration for that alone."
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