Auto News 5

To have a car company of your own is a powerful dream, one that was once shared by tens of thousands of adolescent boys. When I was in high school in car-crazy 1950s Los Angeles, many of us sketched imaginary cars with our own names on the badges. Half a dozen people from my school went on to become professional car designers, but only one ever saw a company make real vehicles carrying such a badge. It failed. The dream was not only for starry-eyed schoolboys. In my career as an independent automotive designer, I had multiple clients who wanted a car company to bear their name and whose financial means -- usually from inheritance or earned outside the auto business -- allowed them to make the attempt.