Colin Neale, Ford and Chrysler designer, dies at age 89

Photo via Detroit Free Press; brochure image via lov2xlr8.no.

If success has many fathers, then Colin Neale had many children. As a longtime designer for both Ford and Chrysler and a close associate of Elwood Engel’s, Neale had – or, at least, claimed to have – a hand in many things from the genesis of the Mustang to the development of Chrysler’s “soft Corinthian leather.” Yet, ironically, far less credit goes to some of the more lasting changes in the auto industry ushered in by Neale, who died last month at the age of 89.

Neale, born in Birmingham, England, worked as a machine tool engineer until landing a job as a designer with Briggs Ltd. in 1950 via a design competition. By the time Ford took over Briggs a few years later in an effort to gain control over its suppliers and expand its U.K. operations, Neale had worked his way up from apprentice to chief stylist. He remained with Ford of England as the head of the design department, and while his designs were subject to approval from Dearborn, they still managed to distill Fifties American glamor into Europe-ready packages.

Among those designs were the Consul Mk II, the Zephyr Mk II, the Zodiac, the Anglia 105E (best known nowadays as the Harry Potter car) and the Consul Classic, all of which helped propel Ford of England to sales successes and had no small part in propelling that Blue Oval branch to the market dominance it enjoys today. Yet Neale found it difficult to work with his superiors and the body engineers in England, to the point where he had to literally slice the roof off a Consul Classic to append his preferred fastback roofline, a design that eventually went into production as the Consul Capri.

“The design lag of 1950s cars was typically three years to manufacture, so with the notable exception of the Three Graces (Mk2 Consul Zephyr and Zodiac) in 1956 he was usually not present to address the press on his own styling teams achievements at major launches,” Stephen Wickham, editor of the Classic Capri Review, wrote. “This perhaps means he is under recognised, like a great many stylists.”

Photo by sv1ambo.

Engel, who met Neale during their respective trips across the Atlantic, suggested that his counterpart move to Dearborn to avoid those conflicts altogether. According to Jim and Cheryl Farrell’s “Ford Design Department Concept and Showcars, 1932-1961,” he frequently sent newspaper clipping featuring low-priced cars, houses, and groceries as a way to convince Neale to relocate. Engel even gave Neale his assurance that he’d advance quickly through the design department when it became apparent that Neale wouldn’t be approved for a transfer and would have to start from the bottom in Dearborn. In October 1958, Engel’s persistence wore Neale down; the latter moved to the United States, his family in tow.

Working in Engel’s corporate advanced studio, Neale found an easy working relationship with John Orfe: Together, Neale (rear) and Orfe (front) designed the 1961 Continental and the Mark IX concept (which some believe eventually became the 1964 Imperial after Engel left Ford for Chrysler). Neale also counted among his friends at Ford fellow Brit Roy Lunn, who in about mid-1960 asked Neale – then head of the advanced interior studio at Ford – to help him develop an electric show car. Neale, in turn, recruited Alex Tremulis, and together they each designed a half of the car, Neale’s half called the Firefly (below) and Tremulis’s half called the Astrion.

Ford Motor Co. photo.

The story of the Firefly/Astrion wouldn’t normally figure into a short biography were it not for the story Neale often told about the day Lee Iaccoca stopped in the studio to look over the concepts. As Neale told the Farrells and, later, The Detroit Bureau, Iaccoca decided then and there to reconsider the sporty car plans he had previously back-burnered. “It was the spark that created the Mustang,” Neale said.

However, Bob Fria, who extensively documented the conceptualization and creation of the Mustang for his book “Mustang Genesis: The Creation of the Pony Car” didn’t once reference Neale and made no mention of any such encounter or of a back-burner period for what would become the Mustang.

Whatever Neale’s level of involvement in the development of the Mustang, he wouldn’t remain at Ford long enough to see it through. Instead, not long after Engel replaced Virgil Exner as head of Chrysler’s design department, Neale followed to head Engel’s interior design studio.

As Allpar reported, Neale punctuated his time at Chrysler with work on the 1965 Plymouth XP-VIP and 1966 Chrysler 300X, the latter of which included such advances as “retracting seat belts, a collapsing (and retractable) steering wheel, head restraints, height-adjusting seats, rear-seat television, and keyless starter (using a magnetic card), along with a speaking clock and swiveling driver’s seat.” Among his production designs at Chrysler were the interiors for the 1966 Dodge Charger, 1970 Dodge Challenger, the K-cars and, reportedly, the so-called Corinthian leather made famous by Ricardo Montalban’s Chrysler Cordoba commercials.

Neale retired from Chrysler in 1977 and continued his design work at both Ritter-Smith and Magna until 2006. He remained in the Detroit area until his death from natural causes in August.

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