Terry's Hatchback Chevelle Garage

Southern California seems to generate outstanding automotive designers. And among its best, is a soft-spoken gentleman with an eye for aggressive automotive styling.

After graduating from the Art Center College of Design in L.A., Larry Shinoda worked briefly at Ford, then Packard. He also designed winning Indy cars before moving to GM, where he worked with Bill Mitchell. Among his earliest contributions, the ‘63 Stingray split-window coupe became the highpoint of Corvette styling for many fans of the classic Chevrolet model.

Shinoda penned a number of show cars, for GM. His personal favorite, the Monza GT” was an air-cooled, mid-engine, Corvair derivative. And the sleek, Mako Shark II would eventually inspire the ‘68 Stingray, the style that dictated the overall look of the Corvette until its redesign in 1984.

For ‘67, Chevy introduced a beefier Camaro, the Z-28. Conceived by product-promotion specialist Vince Piggins, its purpose was to “develop a performance image superior to Mustang’s”. The Z-28 was mechanically much different than previous Camaro’s, and with a few simple, visual modifications, Shinoda provided GM with the sporty-look they wanted.”

The following year, Larry Shinoda found himself back at Ford, helping “the other guys” develop a new Mustang that would one-up the Z-28, the very car he had helped to create!

The new car was to be called the “SR2” (which stood for Sedan Racing category 2), but Shinoda felt the name lacked character. He believed that the “Boss” „ was a better way to describe the car’s image of authoritative performance. He fought hard to make the name stick, and eventually, it did. So did the wider tires, special blacked-out trim, spoilers, louvered Sports Roof, and the’ rest of the Shinoda treatment.

Recently, Larry’s company, Shinoda Design brought the classic muscle car’s namesake out of retirement and introduced the “Shinoda Boss”, a modern, performance-oriented Mustang with updated “Boss” graphics. |

Today, Larry continues to inspire enthusiasts through his written contributions to various automotive magazines.

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