Design
A Revered Car Designer and Critic Picks the Best and Worst
Robert Cumberford has spent decades thinking about, designing and writing about cars and gained an influential voice in the industry.
For more than a century, automobiles have been key expressions of contemporary art and design. And while the world is thick with the musings of art and design critics, the specialist job title “automotive design critic” is one rarely bestowed. Indeed, the title didn’t exist until the mid-1980s when Automobile magazine assigned longtime car designer Robert Cumberford to the beat.
Cumberford worked alongside legends like Harley Earl, the man who invented modern car design at General Motors Corp., and associated for decades with many of the people at the top of the industry.