Car Chat Podcast #60 - Frank Stephenson | World Renowned Automotive Designer (Mini, Ferrari, Maserati, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and McLaren)

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Frank Stephenson (http://instagram.com/frank.stephenson.official) is a renowned automotive designer having directed the design departments at BMW, Ferrari, Fiat, Maserati and Alfa Romeo before heading to McLaren to head up the new road car division.

He has designed:

New Mini, New Fiat 500, BMW X5, Maserati MC12, Ferrari FXX, Ferrari F430, McLaren 12C up to 720s and P1 and the list goes on. A really interesting guy and a lover of all things design, we have a great chat about his journey before finishing off with some of his current projects outside of the automotive realm.

Frank also makes videos on his youtube channel talking about how he designed various cars, worth checking out: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0prFtEeFBIRwm57wu2lBpQ

Make sure to check out the film about Frank's life on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81184189

Hope you enjoy the Podcast.

Thanks, Sam

00:00 Intro + Backstory

03:09 = What does a design director do?

09:09 = Is it difficult to maintain that initial form and design direction throughout a project?

13:55 = Are you an innately curious person?

15:16 = Starting a new design language at McLaren

17:13 = How do you create a design that will look good today but also in the future?

22:20 = The McLaren P1 and how McLaren has shifted to performance led design

27:04 = Manufacturers creating cars to fill niches without creating desirable products.

33:42 = Do you think we'll see some radical changes in car design with driverless cars?

36:30 = Autonomous flying vehicles and the future of mobility

44:29 = 5 Questions

55:23 = The Cybertruck

Shooting A Car Meet With A 35mm

I'll be honest, I find car meet ups distinctly boring now. I've seen so many epic cars driving in their natural habitat that seeing a car parked on a slab of tarmac is about as boring as it gets. The Supercar Driver "Secret Meet" is fundamentally one of these situations. Every year they bring together as many members as possible for a group photo to start off the driving season. I wasn't going to head along originally as it's a bit of a trek from London but meeting up with MrJWW for lunch he mentioned he had an XJ220 for the weekend so why not combine hanging out for the weekend and larking about with some nice cars. I'm glad I did, what an absolutely amazing selection of cars they got together. I figured James was going to make a video of the day and have recently decided to only film things I'm actively enthused about as "faking it" doesn't come across that well on camera. This brings me to a task I set myself. Shoot the entire event with a 35mm prime lens. (The lens of choice was the sigma 35mm f1.4 Art}. Now I like the concept of 35mm, bit wider than 50, bit closer than 24 but in reality i've never really got along with the focal length. For some reason my brain doesn't "See" 35mm that well. Anyho it's quite a good lens for general day to day photography, you can shoot portraits and a bit of everything so figured I'd challenge myself and try and shoot the day with just 35mm. Like anything, the more you do it the better you get. 

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One of the things you will never see in my photography is a moving car that looks stationary. I will do absolutely everything to have some motion in there somehow (look a bit closer at some photos you like and notice if the wheels are moving). Motion is also quite a good way of making really hectic situations a bit less so and help single out your subject.  

Mr J Dub doing his usual hand waving antics. Seriously 90s looking dash in this thing. 

Upon arrival at Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome there was the usual flurry of introductions, application of suncream and the obligatory burger to kick off the day. Once these were out of the way I had a chance to just have a wander around and chat with some like minded fellows about the usual car related stuff. Whilst on this initial walk I realised a brilliant "added bonus" of a meet of this scale. You get to see soo many different cars and different specs all in one space it's like a real life autotrader search. This allows you to argue back and forth about who chose the right colour, whether you should ever leave your wing up when you are parked. (There is no debate, if the wing isn't fixed or an actual wing like the p1 in racemode you should leave the damn thing down, yes 675lt owners..you included). 

I'll be honest, I struggled. I struggled a lot shooting with just this lens but I ploughed on and here are a selection of my photos from the day. I used panoramas to help get a wider view and "zoomed with my feet" for close ups. I still think 50mm is more of "My" lens but I was reasonably happy with the results. Not as much variety as I would normally hope for and quite a few things I couldn't do but all in all an interesting challenge. I'd definitely suggest setting yourself the task of shooting with a fixed prime (or even just set your zoom to a certain length) at some point. It makes you think more and since more is always more it's gotta be a good thing. 

One of the best sounding cars in the world

One of the other best sounding cars in the world haha altho needs proper pipes.

Pretty awesome get together. - Photo taken on my DJI Mavic Pro