Emeritus Professor Jerome Malinowski to Share Practice Designing Iconic Car

In the early 1960s, the Ford Motor Co. dreamed to design and develop a fresh car that would revolutionize the auto industry. In the midst of the failed expectations of Ford’s Edsel automobile, and the success of Italian auto manufacturer Ferrari, pressure on Ford’s designers was intense.

A sketch of the original Ford Mustang

Jerome Malinowski, professor emeritus of design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), was just a duo of years out of the Cleveland Institute of Art. In 1961, as a fresh employee in the pre-production Thunderbird studio at Ford, he was one of the designers charged with creating a car design that would capture what the consumer dreamed and needed. After several months of work, the team unveiled the final design for the Ford Mustang.

The car was introduced to America on April 17, 1964, at the Fresh York World’s Fair, and has liked iconic status in America over the past fifty plus years. Malinowski will speak about his practices as part of the design team on Saturday, June 17, at 11:30 a.m. at the Cazenovia Public Library, one hundred Albany St. The talk, sponsored by the Mohican Model A Ford Club, is free and open to the public.

Malinowski, an award-winning designer who was a professor in VPA from 1967-98, remembers well both the excitement and the anticipation surrounding the design of the Mustang. The team embarked its work with the basic design of the Ford Falcon, an economy car that had a proven record of reliability. They added a V-8 engine, which gave the car power and “muscle,” bucket seats, a four-speed transmission on the floor and a console. This model was called the one thousand nine hundred sixty three 1/Two Falcon Sprint, which sold 15,000 units. This layout would set the stage for the one thousand nine hundred sixty four 1/Two Mustang, meant to appeal to youthful families with children and older adults.

As a member of a six-person team, Malinowski studied other cars to determine what worked and what did not. He experimented with long rubber hood and brief rear and side scoops and roof designs. And he created the Mustang’s iconic racing stripes, the very first road car to have them.

The very first experimental Mustang one made its debut in one thousand nine hundred sixty two at the United States Grand Prix in nearby Watkins Glen, N.Y., driven by Formula One race drive Dan Gurney.

On the day the Mustang became available in April 1964, 24,000 of the cars were sold. “It was a superb feeling,” says Malinowski. “Even then, we still had no idea of the influence it would have.” More than 1.6 million Mustangs were sold from one thousand nine hundred sixty five through 1967. It became the very first in a class of vehicles known as “pony cars” and inspired the design of other brands such as the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird.

When he joined the VPA faculty in 1967, Malinowski brought his Ford practices with him. In the classroom, he worked to develop his students’ design abilities while preparing them for the challenging requests they would face in industry. “You have to perform,” he says. “It’s lots of work but lots of prize. The company was in dire straits and we helped to bring it back.”

In 2014, Malinowski was invited to the Saratoga Automobile Museum as part of the Mustang’s 50th anniversary celebration. There, he reflected on his experience—in a nondigital world—in designing the iconic car that has stood the test of time.

America’s love affair with Ford Mustang proceeds today. The two thousand eighteen car, part of the sixth generation of Mustangs to roll off the production line, is scheduled to be introduced in the coming months.

Automobiles aren’t the only vehicles that have been influenced by Malinowski’s design expertise. While watching the one thousand nine hundred eighty four Winter Olympic Games, he says he was embarrassed by the rudimentary bobsled used by the United States team. “I told myself, ‘I think I can help these guys,’” he remembers.

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