Art of the Drive

J MAYS REVS UP THE WORLD OF AUTO DESIGN

n the parallel universe of automotive design, the re-invention of the VW Beetle is practically American folklore. Creators J Mays and Freeman Thomas are credited with turning the car world on its head. Last year, Mays, head of global design at Ford since 1997, further rocked that world by introducing the 2002 Thunderbird, which was named Motor Trend's Car of the Year. This month he will become the first car designer to receive the Excellence in Design Award from Harvard's Graduate School of Design, and an exhibition of his work will be held at the school's Gund Hall Gallery. Mays is clearly onto something, but what? "He is using words like 'desire' and 'lust.' It's almost a new language," says Kim Shkapich, director of exhibitions at Harvard. No one has cultivated the connection between cars and our deepest emot'ons as explicitly as Mays, who was responsible for knockout concept cars such as the Audi Avus and the Ford Forty-Nine. And yet few car designers name the Bauhaus movement as a primary influence. "Whaf s interesting for me is to overlay that dogmatic vision with a more accessible populist culture," Mays says. "That can run the gamut ... right †0 wa|f Disney." An Oklahoma native who spent 14 years in Europe designing at Audi and BMW, Mays has brought a distinctly European flavor to Ford. "I think it's been good for the company as a whole to see beyond the four walls of Dearborn," he says. And good for us too.

ANNE FULENWIDER

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