back to the door, eyes to the front.'
'But you know the Orion's in there. You must have seen it.'
'Yes, sir, I've seen it. When the brass came in for the big approval day, they moved it to the showroom.'
'What do you think?'
The guard smiled. 'I'll tell you what I think, Mr. DeLosanto. I think you and the Orion are a lot alike.'
As Brett entered the studio, and the outer door clicked solidly behind him, he reflected: If true, it would scarcely be surprising.
A sizable segment of his life and creative talent had gone into the Orion. There were times, in moments of self-appraisal, when he wondered if it had been too much. On more hundreds of occasions than he cared to think about, he had passed through this same studio door, during frenetic days and long, exhausting nights - times of agony and ecstasy - while the Orion progressed from embryo idea to finished car.
He had been involved from the beginning.
Even before studio work began, he and others from Design had been apprised of studies - market research, population growth, economics, social changes, age groups, needs, fashion trends. A cost target was set. Then came the early concept of a completely new car. During months that followed, design criteria were hammered out at meeting after meeting of product planners, designers, engineers. After that, and working together, engineers devised a power package while designers - of whom Brett was one - doodled, then became specific, so that lines and contours of the car took shape. And while it happened, hopes advanced, receded; plans went right, went wrong, then right again; doubts arose, were quelled, arose once more. Within the company, hundreds were involved, led by a top half-dozen.
Endless design changes occurred, some prompted by logic, others through intuition only. Later still, testing began. Eventually - too soon, it always seemed to Brett - management approval for production came and, after that, Manufacturing moved in. Now, with production planning well advanced, in less than a year, the Orion would undergo the most critical test of all: public acceptance or rejection. And through all the time so far, while no individual could ever be responsible for an entire car, Brett DeLosanto, more than anyone else on the design team, had implanted in the Orion his own ideas, artistic flair, and effort.
Brett, with Adam Trenton.
It was because of Adam Trenton that Brett was here this morning - far earlier than his usual time of starting work. The two had planned to go together to the company proving ground, but a message from Adam, which had just come in, announced that he would be delayed. Brett, less disciplined than Adam in his working habits, and preferring to sleep late, was annoyed at having got up needlessly, then decided on a short solitude with the Orion, anyway. Now, opening an inner door, he entered the main studio.
In several brightly lighted work areas, design development was in progress on clay models of Orion derivatives - a sports version to appear three years from now, a station wagon, and on other variations of the original Orion design which might, or might not, be used in future years.
The original Orion - the car which would have its public introduction only a year from now - was at the far end of the studio on soft gray carpeting under spotlights. The model was finished in bleu celeste. Brett walked toward it, a sense of excitement gripping him, which was why he had come here, knowing that it would.
The car was small, compact, lean, slim-lined. It had what sales planners were already calling a 'tucked under, tubular look,' clearly influenced by missile design, giving a functional appearance, yet with elegance and style. Several body features were revolutionary. For the first time in any car, above the belt line there was all- around vision. Auto makers had talked bubble tops for decades, and experimented with them timidly, but now the Orion had achieved the same effect, yet without loss of structural strength. Within the clear glass top, vertical members of thin, high tensile steel - A and C pillars to designers - had been molded almost invisibly, crossing to join unobtrusively overhead. The result was a 'greenhouse' (another design idiom for the upper body of any automobile) far stronger than conventional cars, a reality which a tough series of crashes and rollovers had already confirmed. The tumblehome-angle at which the body top sloped inward from the vertical - was gentle, allowing spacious headroom inside. The same spaciousness, surprising in so small a car, extended below the belt line where design was rakish and advanced, yet not bizarre, so that the Orion, from every angle, melded into an eye-pleasing whole.
Beneath the exterior, Brett knew, engineering innovations would match the outward look. A notable one was electronic fuel injection, replacing a conventional carburetor - the latter an anachronistic hangover from primitive engines and overdue for its demise. Controlling the fuel injection system was one of the many functions of the Orion's on-board, shoe-box-size computer.
The model in Studio X, however, contained nothing mechanical. It was a Fiberglas shell only, made from the cast of an original clay sculpture, though even with close scrutiny it was hard to realize that the car under the spotlights was not real. The model had been left here for comparison with other models to come later, as well as for senior company officers to visit, review, worry over, and renew their faith.
Such faith was important. A gigantic amount of stockholders' money, plus the careers and reputations of all involved, from the chairman of the board downward, was riding on the Orion's wheels. Already the board of directors had sanctioned expenditures of a hundred million dollars for development and production, with more millions likely to be budgeted before introduction time.
Brett was reminded that he had once heard Detroit described as 'more of a gambling center than Las Vegas, with higher stakes.' The earthy thought drew his mind to practicalities, of which one was the fact that he had not yet had breakfast.
In the design directors' dining room, several others were already breakfasting when Brett DeLosanto came in. Characteristically, instead of ordering from a waitress, Brett dropped into the kitchen where he joshed with the cooks, who knew him well, then coerced them into preparing Eggs Benedict, which was never on the standard menu. Emerging, he joined his colleagues at the dining room's large, round table.
Two visitors were at the table - students from Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, from where, not quite five years ago, Brett DeLosanto himself had graduated. One of the students was a pensive youth, now tracing curves on the table-cloth with a fingernail, the other a bright-eyed, nineteen-year-old girl.
Glancing around to make sure he would be listened to Brett resumed a conversation with the students which had begun yesterday.
'If you come to work here,' he advised them, 'you should install brain filters to keep out the antediluvian ideas the old-timers will throw at you.'
'Brett's idea of an old-timer,' a designer in his early thirties said from across the table, 'is anyone old enough to vote when Nixon was elected.'
'The elderly party who just spoke,' Brett informed the students, 'is our Mr. Robertson. He designs first family sedans which would be even better with shafts and a horse in front. By the way, he endorses his paycheck with a quill, and is hanging on for pension.'
'A thing we love about young DeLosanto,' a graying designer put in, 'is his respect for experience and age.' The designer, Dave Heberstein, who was studio head for Color and Interiors, surveyed Brett's carefully groomed but dazzling appearance. 'By the way, where is the masquerade ball tonight?'
'If you studied my exteriors more carefully,' Brett retorted, 'then used them for your interiors, you'd start customer stampedes.'
Someone else asked, 'To our competitors?'
'Only if I went to work for them.'
Brett grinned. He had maintained a brash repartee with the majority of others in the design studios since coming to work there as a novice, and most seemed to enjoy it still. Nor had it affected Brett's rise as an automobile designer, which had been phenomenal. Now, at age twentysix, he ranked equal with all but a few senior studio heads.
A few years ago it would have been inconceivable that anyone looking like Brett DeLosanto could have got past the main gate security guards, let alone be permitted to work in the stratified atmosphere of a corporate design studio. But concepts had changed. Nowadays, management realized that avant-garde cars were more likely to be created by 'with it' designers who were imaginative and experimental about fashion, including their own appearance. Similarly, while stylist-designers were expected to work hard and produce, seniors like Brett were
