Eugene Bordinat Jr. (February 10, 1920 – August 11, 1987) was a

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles ...

styling executive whose career spanned several decades.

Early career

Bordinat was educated at the

Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Educational Community is an education, research, and public museum complex in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was founded in the early 20th century by newspaper mogul George Gough Booth. It consists of Cra ...

and the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He joined General Motors in 1939 as a trainee. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he was a supervisor at

Fisher Body Fisher Body was an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan. A division of General Motors for many years, in 1984 it was dissolved to form other General Motors divisions. Fisher & Company (originally All ...

for

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful e ...

production, and later served in the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. Bordinat briefly returned to work at GM as a senior stylist after the war.

Ford career

Bordinat joined Ford in 1947, quitting General Motors. He supervised styling at the Lincoln-Mercury division, influencing the implementation of many automotive designs. Bordinat was promoted to vice president for styling and a chief designer in 1961, the successor to

George W. Walker George W. Walker (May 22, 1896 – Deceased) Was an American industrial and automotive designer. His most notable work was the original Ford Thunderbird. Early life Walker was born in Chicago, Illinois. His father worked for the Erie Railroad a ...

. He ultimately served 19 years, longer than anyone in Ford Styling before or since. His favorite designs during his tenure included successful cars like the

Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang is a series of American automobiles manufactured by Ford. In continuous production since 1964, the Mustang is currently the longest-produced Ford car nameplate. Currently in its sixth generation, it is the fifth-best selli ...

and Lincoln Continental Mk III, as well as the

Pinto Pinto is a Portuguese, Spanish, Jewish (Sephardic), and Italian surname. It is a high-frequency surname in all Portuguese-speaking countries and is also widely present in Spanish-speaking countries, Italy, India especially in Mangalore, Kar ...

. Bordinat was an enthusiast of the wire-wheels-and-stand-up-grilles school of design, as reflected in the Mark III and a number of other cars he styled. He retired from Ford in 1980 following his 60th birthday.

Personal life

Bordinat is quoted to have said "Beauty is a good 10-day sales report", a methodology that made hi
versatile
and adaptive. He was a member of the

Industrial Designers Society of America The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is a membership-based not-for-profit organization that promotes the practice and education of industrial design. The organization was formally established in 1965 by the collaborative merger of ...

from its founding in 1965. In his retirement he wrote a light-hearted autobiography manuscript entitled ''My Days at the Court of Henry II''. Though it had been finished and accepted, it was being edited at the time of his death to accommodate a more "anti- Iacocca slant" as suggested by the publisher and of which Bordinat approved. Eugene Bordinat died suddenly of an undiagnosed lung ailment at the

Henry Ford Hospital Henry Ford Hospital (HFH) is an 877-bed tertiary care hospital, education and research complex at the western edge of the New Center area in Detroit, Michigan. The flagship facility for the Henry Ford Health System, it was one of the first hos ...

on August 11, 1987. Although his

widow A widow (female) or widower (male) is a person whose spouse has died. Terminology The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed ''widowhood''. An archaic term for a widow is "relict," literally "someone left over". This word can ...

Teresa said that she would finish it, the work was never published.

References

*
Archived New York Times obituary
retrieved July 24, 2008
IDSA page on Eugene Bordinat
retrieved July 24, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bordinat, Eugene 1920 births 1987 deaths Ford executives Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni University of Michigan alumni People in the automobile industry United States Army Air Forces soldiers United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II