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Ed Welburn leaves a lasting legacy at GM design

General Motors design chief Ed Welburn retired July 1, and the soft-spoken stylist is leaving a lasting legacy at the automaker and on the industry. He became the first African American to lead design at a carmaker when he took over GM's top spot in 2003. Just six people have overseen the company's design, and Welburn followed in the footsteps of icons like Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell. When Welburn was given expanded global oversight in 2005, it wasn't ceremonial. He helped unite the company's sprawling design empire, and today is in charge of 2,500 people who have a hand in designing GM cars. "He nurtured a creative, inclusive, and customer-focused culture among our designers that has strengthened our global brands," Mary Barra, GM chairman and CEO, said in a statement." Welburn took the helm when GM and the industry were shaking off a general styling malaise that pervaded the 1980s and 1990s. During his 13 years in charge, he took risks, produced a wide range of styles for everything from hybrids to sports cars to big trucks, and leaves GM design in a better place. Welburn's replacement, Michael Simcoe from GM's international design unit, has big shoes to fill. News & Analysis News: Tesla attracted more than 325,000 preorders of the Model 3 in about a week. Analysis: If anything, the Model 3 is more popular than many expected. Elon Musk tweeted that surprising figure on Thursday, and he said just five percent ordered the maximum number of two. That seems to indicate actual owners rather than speculators are fueling the demand. With a starting price of $35,000 before incentives and an electric range of 215 miles, the Model 3 is the Tesla that's attainable for a lot of people. Clearly, that notion is resonating. News: Lincoln has drawn 40,000 hand-raisers for the Continental. Analysis: Okay, that's not a Tesla figure, but it's still an encouraging sign for Lincoln that one of its most famous and historic names still resonates in 2016. It also demonstrates using a real, albeit slightly dusty name, was the right call for the MKS replacement. "No other Lincoln vehicle has generated this much interest in this little time," Lincoln president Kumar Galhotra said in New York last month. The concept that debuted a year ago put Lincoln back on the map, and the production version remains true to that promise. It will stand out on the road when it arrives this fall, and ultimately, that kind of style will determine Lincoln's future.

Art students explore what a Lincoln might look like in 2040

Lincoln gave students at the ArtCenter College of Design an unusual challenge. It asked them to sketch their idea of what its cars will look like in the year 2040, and it instructed them to team up with students specializing in other fields (including film and illustration) to create a short movie that depicts their concept, the environment it operates in, and the folks who drive it. Over a year in the making, the final submissions have been presented to the public. "More than just the vehicles themselves, we were looking for that great narrative development, that rich storytelling. It's so important to understand the future ecosystem in which a concept vehicle will live," explained Jordan Meadows, the global strategic design specialist for Lincoln, in a statement.  Four teams of students participated in the project, which Lincoln called Quiet Flight 2040. Students received a basic set of guidelines that helped them create what the Ford-owned firm referred to as "the ultimate beautiful gliding human sanctuary," a term that's intentionally open to interpretation. Four body styles were chosen: a two-passenger car, a four-passenger vehicle, a different four-passenger model with a higher, SUV-like ride height and a six-seater. Participants created the concepts from scratch and showcased them in short films. The design studies are crammed with futuristic features, including autonomous driving systems, a technology that displays images on the dashboard, touchscreens embedded into the door windows, and a lounge-like interior that wouldn't look out of place at the Consume Electronics Show (CES). One is a crossover with a fastback-like roof line, another is a stately sedan, a third is an elegant coupe and the last is a van-like vehicle that looks like nothing Lincoln has ever built before. Nothing suggests these concepts will be built, let alone approved for production. What's certain is that, from a student's perspective, Lincoln's future looks a lot different than Polestar's. Volvo's upmarket offshoot held a similar contest in late 2020, and the finalists returned with a sci-fi blimp, an electric yacht and an autonomous pod. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. 2020 Lincoln Aviator Back Seat Review | Autoblog

Five cursed and haunted cars

Any kid lucky enough to grow up in Detroit is familiar with the Henry Ford Museum. It's huge, full of shiny things and a great place to take a child and let them burn off some energy. After several field trips and weekend outings however, the dusty concept vehicles and famous aircraft tend to lose their punch for youngsters. As a fifth grader, I was already gazing on the museum's many gems with glassy eyes. On yet another school trip, we made our way to John F. Kennedy's death car, a gleaming black Lincoln limo. The aging volunteer docent told our little group something I had never heard before. "You know, this car is haunted. Several employees have reported seeing a gray presence right here," he said, pointing to the back passenger side seat. I perked up. Now here was something I had never heard before. A haunted car? Sure, it happened in Goosebumps, but this was real life. It made sense, in a way. Cars can be violent, emotional places. That's certainly the case with JFK's limo, as well as the other four cars on this list. And maybe those gut-wrenching deaths can permanently doom a car. 5. Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Graf & Stift Death Limo World War I tends to be a forgotten war, despite being pretty terrible in its own right and setting the stage for the entire 20th Century. The French forces, for instance, lost more lives in the first month of WWI than the US did in the entire Civil War. Everyone who has been through a freshman world history course knows the conflict started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot by a Bosnian anarchist. The crazy thing is, Ferdinand had already avoided an attempt on his life that day, and was actually on his way to the hospital to comfort those who had been injured in the crossfire. One of the would-be assassins simply walked out of a cafe and saw his intended target sitting in front of him where the open-air limo had stalled. The archduke and his wife were shot through their heads and throats. Their deaths would not be the last caused by the limo. Throughout the war and into the 1920s, the limo was owned by fifteen different people and involved in six accidents and thirteen deaths, not counting the 17 million or so killed in the war triggered by the Archduke's assassination. The first person to own the car after the Archduke was an Austrian general named Potiorek, who went insane while riding in the car through Vienna.