Green Concept Car Designed in Irvine - Reflex

A new concept car -- dubbed the Reflex -- sprang directly out of Orange County, where motoring trends often start.

"The market in California affords us great insight into the future of the American market," says David Woodhouse, 37, head of the Ford Motor Co. team that designed the Reflex. "That was really what set it all off. That's the reason we're here."

The car debuted at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to favorable reviews.

"It's a fuel-efficient car that people will want -- not be sentenced to," said George Peterson, president of AutoPacific, a Tustin marketing and consulting firm. "It says that everything out there doesn't have to be an econo box."

Here is a look at the twists and turns in the road to creating the Reflex:

February 2005: Ford executives in Dearborn, Mich., greenlight the California Advanced Product Creation Group's idea for a small sedan or "B-car," a market segment led by trendsetters such as the Mini Cooper, Toyota Prius and Honda Element.

The assignment is general: Build an environmentally friendly sports car.

The deadline is specific: Deliver a working model to Detroit in 11 months.

In Ford's studios near the Irvine Spectrum, the eight-member Advanced Product team begins by creating a story for the Reflex. They imagine the owners: a young couple with a child in the back seat, parents who worry about protecting the Earth but love new technology and synthetic materials. They listen to music on an iPod, talk on Razor phones, feed the baby organic food. They want a car that looks cool and goes fast, not their parents' minivan.

"This is a hot sports car. But by the way, it's green," says Tyler Blake, the lead exterior designer.

It takes about three weeks for Blake to visualize a body for the Reflex. One afternoon, he sketches a view of a left rear fender area on a pad of paper. As seen from above, it resembles the haunch of a crouching animal.

"I did a really messy pencil sketch and then went to my computer and tried it out, to see if the planes all fit together," says Blake, 32, who helped design Ford trucks, SUVs and the Edge before moving from Detroit to Irvine in 2004.

Within a few hours, he produces a computer rendering of a sleek sports car with a profile that harkens back to a 1960s Ford Cobra, but with 21st-century angles.

"We saw it and knew immediately this was the one," Woodhouse says.

March: Blake shades in exterior details that expose the car's internal mechanics. A lithium ion battery pack for the hybrid engine appears through a rear window outlined by exposed electronic circuits. Solar energy panels ornament the roof and hood.

Computer renderings are translated into blueprints and transmitted as mathematical instructions to mechanically mill a clay model of the Reflex. Blake and other designers refine the soft clay by hand, adding a human touch to the computer-generated model. Digital scans of the model are then fed back into the computer to refine the blueprints.

As the exterior develops, Fairuz Arabo assembles materials for the interior. She proposes felt carpets, doors and a dashboard covered in a combination of polyurethane and sound-absorbing plastic made from recycled Nike soles. To save space and weight, Arabo covers the seats in webbing, a look inspired by office furniture.

"We're identifying trends so we can apply them and bring out a new trend," says Arabo, the only woman on the team. "There's a theme here of new beginnings, a couple with a baby in back. We have to tell this story in color and materials, to define the emotions without words. My approach isn't automotive. It's about the feeling."

April: Blake's original drawing shows a pair of gull-wing doors hinged at the top, a configuration the designers realized put too much stress on the solar-paneled roof.

The team builds a cardboard model of the cab to test different doors. They try hinges in front and back, hinges that swing up like scissors. Finally, they try a hinge that opens at a 45-degree angle, attached to the car's haunch, where the frame is strongest. They call it a "reverse-butterfly door." It works on a visual and functional level as if it had been planned.

"The planets aligned," Blake says.

June: Freeman Thomas -- designer of the revived Volkswagen Beetle, the Audi TT and the Chrysler 300 -- assumes the team leadership after leaving a job at Daimler-Chrysler's design studios in Carlsbad.

A new leader can throw a project into turmoil, but Woodhouse says that Thomas integrated smoothly into the team, using his experience to tweak the design rather than tear it up. Thomas, 48, spends hours studying how rows of fluorescent lights on the studio ceiling play across the surface of the clay model, seeking perfection in each curve.

"It's like looking at waves at the beach," Thomas says of the light. "You see them rolling in and you know it's a good day for surfing."

August: The Reflex is ready to build. Aria Group, a fabrication studio in Irvine, gets the complex assignment.

"It's impossible to count the number of parts," says Brian Fioritto of Mission Viejo, the design team's technical and budget manager. "The headlamp alone has six different parts in the housing."

At least once a week, Fioritto and Aria meet to resolve mechanical and visual problems. Meanwhile, Ford executives in Dearborn are breathing down the team's neck.

"It's always the little things," Thomas says. "Timing is always an issue. We have to sell our ideas."

November: The car has taken shape slowly inside a garage.

"When it first pulled out of the facility, into the skylight, it was amazing," Blake says. "It had a real presence and muscle."

January: News reports announce Ford plans severe layoffs and factory closings. A new company mantra is "Small is big," pointing to the need for the success of vehicles such as the Reflex.

The prototype arrives in Detroit, poised to emerge through clouds of steam onto a spotlighted stage before an audience that includes Bill Ford, grandson of Henry Ford and the CEO of the struggling company.

"In Detroit, it's usually the biggest, baddest, most brutal design that gets the applause," Thomas says. "I'm hoping our car would start and the doors would open, especially when people like Bill Ford are there, people you work for who have their name on the building."

The Reflex hits its marks. The reviews are good. But the car's future is unclear. Ford will only say it plans to produce 250,000 fuel-sipping hybrids by 2010.

"A show car like this is for forecasting, to see how the public reacts," Thomas says.

The Reflex is appearing this month at auto shows in Minneapolis, Denver, Dallas and New York. It will debut in Southern California at this fall's auto shows in Anaheim and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, back in Irvine, the California Advanced Product Creation Group is working on a new, secret prototype.

MPH