Robert Cumberford at home with his prototype Martinique 002. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Matthieu Rondel.
Published July 03. 2021 12:01AM
By Jamie Kitman, Bloomberg
Car designer Moray Callum remembers unveiling his latest project at the 1993 Geneva Auto Show: the Aston Martin Lagonda Vignale concept, a radical, swooping four-door sedan far afield from the Le Mans-winning race cars and James Bond coupes that made the British marque famous.
A proud Callum years later would call the car a crowning achievement of his career.
But that evening, at an industry party aboard a yacht on Lake Geneva, Callum says a former boss introduced him to Robert Cumberford, a protege of the legendary Harley Earl at General Motors Corp., the man who literally invented modern-day automotive design. In the time since his work alongside Earl in the 1950s, Cumberford had built his influence through independent commissions and magazine reviews of the latest models. Callum, thrilled to meet Cumberford
A front-row seat to 70 years of automotive design
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Verschollener Turbinen-Riese wieder da?
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“Batman”: The ’67 Holman-Moody Mustang that was smuggled in boxes, raced, and restored to glory Hagerty 2/5/2021 © Provided by Hagerty
Imagine, if you will, taking your significant other’s daily driver from them, smuggling it off to another country to be turned into a race car, smuggling it back disassembled in crates, assembling it, proceeding to race it competitively under a pseudonym (so your father wouldn’t find out) … and living to tell the tale.
Insanity, right? Well for Cristobal Galjuf of Lima, Peru in the early 1970s, it was reality. Incredible as it may seem, Galjuf, his marriage, and his relationship with his father survived the whole ordeal.