All buildings will come in OLD (1940s- 1980s) and NEW (1980s - Future) versions, both SMALL (for little car companies like TVR for example) and LARGE (for Toyota etc.)
My current question is what do you reckon should be insitde the OLD SMALL Car Design building where you’ll be designing your car chassis, bodies etc.
Its currently a fairly bare old fashioned garage, with a drafting table, some sketches on the wall, a table with room for little clay models etc, and a place in the middle of the room for the car to sit (on ramps)
Any scenery needs to stick to the outside of the room, and not impede your view of the car.
Any thoughts or pictures of what might look awesome in this room?
bit of oil on the floor
kinda dull lighting
some posters of classic cars on the wall
mug of coffee on the side (sounds silly but trying to create the atmosphere)
few tools on the floor near the car
Make it look like it’s really some blokes private garage. A lot of tools on the walls, strewn around the workbench, and on wheeled tool cabinets which the induvidual workers would drag around. An English Wheel should be included, showing that there’s some degree of metalshaping going on in there. A large, old-school lathe. Lots of shelves with bits and parts for the various cars. A large, flexible ventilation tube, which one’d connect to a car exhaust if one were to have it run for an extended period of time.
Astracrazy’s suggestions are good too. Other stuff such as newspaper lying around, or a jam-packed ashtray would give it that atmosphere of a really tiny little workhop, just of the kind a lot of car manufacturers, especially british ones, were born in.
and then the modern one i found a picture of mclarens production hall. The styling of if and how tidy it is would be a good contrast to the old factory
How about a table or cupboard with toy-/miniature cars as a source of inspiration for the designers?
Also, a pin-board with cut-out newspaper articles/pictures would be fit I’d suppose…
How about something like this… Its my uncles “shed” That he restores his old Zephyrs in, and, as you can see, my capri as well. Has all the basic tools to fix up cars, looks about right for a one-man-in-a-shed company too! (PS: Sorry for pic size, not sure how to change it!)
Here’s a good image for a design room! This is and early 60s design room at Prince. I like the idea of the shelves at the back with models of all the cars you’ve made previously. Of course, Prince at the time wasn’t a tiny company so this would probably be one of the later design room designs. It’s a start though
There’s more fantastic pictures of the DAT/Datsun/Prince factories here earlydatsun.com/factoryprince1961.jpg The first and second pictures are great!
I have to admit it’s very difficult to find pictures of old factories, and even harder to find their design studios. All I can suggest is not to leave the room too small. Aquiring a barn or large shed, or even an abandoned factory in England was not so expensive back in the 50s. Also, don’t forget the blueprint/yellow trace paper
Other stuff such as newspaper lying around, or a jam-packed ashtray would give it that atmosphere of a really tiny little workhop, just of the kind a lot of car manufacturers, especially british ones, were born in.
