When Acura charged Michelle Christensen with designing the exterior of the 2016 Acura NSX—the resurrection of the game-altering supercar and the brand’s halo car—she turned her gaze to nature for inspiration. “When I was younger I drew people and animals and trees,” she says “Even in automobile design and style, even though it is mechanical, you can draw from organic items. I’m constantly inspired by nature, architecture, and style.”
Early on, Christensen had the 2 prerequisites essential to turn into a successful automotive designer: She loved cars and could do considerable damage with her favored tool, the number 2 pencil. As a young girl in San Jose, California, Christensen worked on classic automobiles with her father. “Northern California has a heavy muscle-vehicle and hot-rod culture. I grew up about muscle cars and hot rods.” She studied the bounty in her dad’s garage. “He was a Mopar guy,” she recalls. He cycled by means of a Plymouth GTX, a Dodge Super Bee, and a Dodge Dart. “When I was 11 or 12 he got into hot rods and he purchased a ’32 roadster.” Christensen was immersed in the classic car scene and discovered her private favorite: “My favorite auto is the ’67 Chevelle. It’s simple, gorgeous, and timeless.”
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“My favorite car is the ’67 Chevelle. It’s straightforward, gorgeous, and timeless.”
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In school, Christensen excelled in her art courses. “I was usually doodling in class,” she says. Biology, humans, and horses had been her favorite subjects. “I was absolutely heavy into drawing and fine art genuinely early on, as effectively as the mechanics of automobiles.” Later, she discovered about the profession of automobile design and style at neighborhood college, and as a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena she soon made her mark. She was hired by Acura in 2005.
Christensen, like many car designers, mines the outdoors globe for inspiration. She research pictures of architect Zaha Hadid’s curvaceous forms. The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan [above] is among her favourite of Hadid’s buildings. When she’s brainstorming concepts for automobiles, Christensen also appears at footwear, lots of shoes. To realize the connection amongst the shoe and the automobile, she practices drawing feet. “From a type standpoint they are heavily dependent on proportion.”
Her initial assignments at Acura had been fairly pedestrian—the RDX crossover and a refresh of the RLX sedan. Her role as lead exterior designer on NSX has propelled her into a prominent position, leading a team of 8 designers. She is the 1st lady to oversee the design and style of a supercar.
The stakes for the second-generation NSX had been especially higher, since of the original NSX’s part in establishing Acura as a serious sports-vehicle contender. “Internally, it was a lot of stress,” she stated. She and her group had to balance the NSX’s heritage with a modern method taken from the concept introduced at the 2012 Detroit auto show. “When we appear at the original NSX, it was extremely basic and only what necessary to be there was there. It was really pure style and driven by the function of the car. At least from a styling standpoint, [the new version] has the exact same soul. We distilled it down only to what it wants to be. It is serving a functional purpose. It is a supercar, so weight is important, and we had to clean it up visually.”
We reported that the NSX is made up of a cocktail of materials: aluminum, higher-strength steel, and carbon fiber. “We worked closely with the guys in the wind tunnel in Ohio to make sure that every surface was tuned for aero, but also that it was in line with the styling concept: ‘interwoven dynamic.’;”
The procedure utilized both traditional clay-model studio function and sophisticated CAD programming to produce the final NSX shape. “Even when we’re sketching, you strive for a best balance in between analogue and digital,” Christensen says. Clearly, Christensen and her design team have struck a powerful first chord in the looks division.
Acura NSX Designer Michelle Christensen on the Influence of Nature, and the ’67 Chevelle
