14 Facts About Robert Cumberford

Robert Cumberford likened the Roadster to a harbinger of GM's future.

Robert Cumberford won the 2013 Best Article of the Year Award from the Motor Press Guild for his article, "GM's Road Not Taken" about the LaSalle II Roadster, published in Automobile magazine in March 2013.

Robert Cumberford began sketching cars at age 15 and developed a strong interest in aircraft design as child, later saying that he preferred aircraft design to automobile design.

Robert Cumberford had wanted to study aeronautical engineering on scholarship at Caltech but attended instead the Art Center of Pasadena, then known as the Art Center School, working in a grocery store and cleaning the classroom floors to help pay tuition.

Robert Cumberford had already designed two automobiles, the Parkinson Jaguar Special and the Ken Miles Flying Shingle.

At age 19, Cumberford sent 118 renderings personally to GM's Harley J Earl, who hired him as a professional car designer.

At GM Robert Cumberford worked the company's layout standards for instruments and controls.

In 1962 and 63, Robert Cumberford was chief designer with the racing team Holman Moody.

In 1986 Cumberford began contributing to the then new Automobile magazine at the request of editor David E Davis, joining the magazine in its sixth issue with his column By Design, which was expanded to two full pages in 2006.

Robert Cumberford authored the 2006 book Auto Legends: Classics of Style And Design; the 2001 book Chris Bangle: BMW Global Design and the 2008 book Cars, the latter printed in Italian.

Robert Cumberford contributed to the 2013 book Automotive Jewelry, Volume One: Mascots, Badges.

Robert Cumberford was keynote speaker at "The Italian Avantgarde in Car Design" as part of the September 2002 exposition on Italian design in New York, and moderated the 2007 Classic Car Forum at the Pebble Beach Concours with Moray Callum, Andrea Zagato, Shiro Nakamura, Ed Welburn, and Ian Callum.

In 2013 Robert Cumberford won the 2013 Best Article of the Year Award from the Motor Press Guild for his article, "GM's Road Not Taken" about the LaSalle II Roadster, published in Automobile magazine in March 2013.

Robert Cumberford later drove one of the Martiniques from Austin, Texas, to Pebble Beach, California, in 1985, and both still exist today.