Car Designers Work With Clay

November 25, 2016 in Daily Bulletin

David K Gibson wrote about a surprisingly anachronistic practice in automobile design:

  • Before car designs are approved they are first modelled with clay.
  • Clay has the advantage of allowing iterations – the design can be added to, removed from, or changed around at will.
  • It’s also collaborative. Multiple individuals can stand around and work on it.
  • Each car company has its own proprietary blend of “clay” that it uses to make car designs.
  • Ford, to take one example, goes through 100 tons of the material a year.

Read more about the process of car design, and find out what happens to the clay models on BBC.