If it's a handsome cab, chances are it's Ogle's
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Doyen of the industrial designers, this Letchworth studio has had a great influence on the shape of many of the vehicles on our roads today. David Wilcox has been talking to its top men
WHAT DO the following have in common: a Cindico child's pushchair, a Leyland Roadtrain, an Electrolux vacuum cleaner and the Popemobile?
Along with dozens of other products they all started life on a drawing board in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. Or to be more precise, in the studios of Ogle Design. Ogle itself was started in 1954 by David Ogle to work on industrial and consumer product design; one of its early successes was the classic, rounded Bush portable radio that one still occasionally sees. Tragically, David Ogle was killed in a road crash in 1962 and Tom Karen joined as managing director and chief designer. Before coming to Ogle his design experience had been gained in the aircraft industry and with Ford, Hotpoint and Philips.
In the 21 years he has been at its head Ogle has grown from a six-man design team to a company with a staff of more than 80 and a worldwide reputation. Although Ogle designs a myriad of products from baby goods to industrial catering equipment, transport design is its largest single area of activity and accounts for about half of Ogle's business.
As an independent transport design studio, Tom Karen asserted: "We are as good as anyone else in Europe, and that means the world really because America is looking to European designs these days."
Where car design is concer Tom Karen said that the Ita studio Giugiaro is probably of the tree. "But on the truck there's nobody who can MC our track record." He added I Ogle tends to be stronger in industrial field, hinting that in opinion extrovert Italian flair sometimes be a little too stri for sound industrial design.
Even alongside some of Italians' output, Ogle's wonl car design is not to be sniffec First was the Ogle Mini in 1E 62, followed by such note examples as the timeles elegant Reliant Scimitar ( and the radical, cheeky Ii Bond Bug that proved tha three-wheeler could be spc and did not have to look like overgrown three-pin plug. M recently, Ogle has worked specials like the Laser Metro and the Ogle Astra.
As Tom Karen points out, the company's track record in commercial vehicle design is even more impressive. The past client list includes Seddon Atkinson, Dennis, Shelvoke & Drewry and coachbuilder Plaxtons. But the top commercial vehicle client is Leyland, notably for Ogle's work on the C40 cab system used for the Roadtrain, Cruiser, Freighter and Constructor.
This project was the largest ever taken on by Ogle and although the Roadtrain has been on the road for three and a half years now, Tom Karen's feeling for the design is in no way diminished: "I'm immensely proud of that cab. It's the best-looking cab on the road. It was a thoroughly thought-out job and a fine piece of industrial design."
Taking the Leyland cab as an example, Tom Karen and director of Ogle's transport design department Ron Saunders outlined how this type of project takes shape. Ron stressed that he was not involved with the Leyland design; after working for Ogle years ago he returned. there in April this year. The intervening period was spent at Ford where he worked on jobs such as the Transit and Sierra interior, the original concept for the Cargo and Capri exterior styling.
Why, I wondered, should a major commercial vehicle manufacturer with access to inhouse design studios turn to Ogle in the first place? Tom Karen explained that a commercial vehicle manufacturer is not producing a new model every other year and so a specialised truck design studio may be difficult to justify. The options are, therefore, to operate a joint car/ truck design studio or to put the commercial vehicle work out to external studios.
Some manufacturers find that a combined in-house car/truck studio is perfectly satisfactory but Tom Karen said that the economics of being able to turn to Ogle "like turning on a tap of truck expertise" can be favourable. As Ron Saunders put it: "We are not cheap but we are costeffective."
The Leyland job was not handed to Ogle on a plate. There was competition for the project from the Austin design studio within BL. Ogle's presentation was a joint approach with Motor Panels of Coventry, which was tendering to win the job of manufacturing the cabs, and so the final shape is a result of Ogle's work influenced by Motor Panels' manufacturing needs, bound by the parameters laid down by Leyland.
Leyland gave Ogle what Tom Karen described as a "very full brief". The project was for the
C40 cab system, covering a range of models rather than just
one and so a high degree of commonality was required. Evidence of the success of the final design is that the cab looks as good on the largest Roadtrain tractive unit or Coristructor eight-wheeler as it does on the smaller Cruiser or Freighter (which now goes right down to 11 tonnes gvw).
Part of Leyland's brief was to produce a cab that did not look aggressive, a point that was subsequently emphasised at the launch of Roadtrain. Its rounded corners play a large part in achieving the desired effect because they reduce the perceived width of the cab.
Ogle started on the C40 cab design in spring 1975 and the major part of the work was com pleted in the December of that year. Tom Karen said this gesta tion period was "incredibly fast" and Ron Saunders agreed that in his experience a more usual timescale would be 12-15 months.
According to Tom it was one of those jobs where "everything fell just right" and progress was helped by some commendably crisp decision-making by Leyland.
There were monthly styling meetings where Leyland would review every stage of the work so there would be no chance of the client rejecting all or major parts of the final design.
"I think operators would be surprised at the detail and effort that goes into the design" com mented Ron Saunders; Tom recalled that they must have produced at least five designs for the door handles, for instance.
He went on to point out some of the less obvious design detail, such as the cab's "sausage theme". Did you notice that there is a sausage shape recurring throughout the cab? It is on the door handles, the grill cutouts, around the ventilation slider controls on the dashboard, on the foot pedals and even the mouth of the air cieaner inlet stack.
Another aspect of the C40 design is its emphasis on the windscreen; the black panel immediately below the glass is cleverly shaped and placed to make the screen appear larger than it actually is. Tom explained that the windscreen area is the natural focus for the eye when you see a lorry head-on because you subconsciously look at the driver.
Tom Karen still enthuses over the interior of the Roadtrain cab, describing it as "gorgeous". He is particularly fond of the spade handle-style park brake lever that is integrated into the dashboard. It is not to everyone's liking and some drivers may prefer a conventional pattern, but then you can't please all of the people all of the time As somebody who worked on the concept of the much-praised Ford Cargo cab and had no part in the C40 project, Ron Saunders also admires the Leyland cab: "It has strong individual character as well as 'working' aesthetically." And it did win a Design Council Award for a "thoroughly practical design" when the Roadtrain was launched in March 1980, The C40 cab project was almost certainly largely instrumental in Ogle winning the job of restyling the front end for the new Freight Rover Sherpa, launched in June 1982. Compared with C40 this was small fry, but no less a job in its own way. "Facelifts are just as much of a challenge" declared Tom Karen. "You are working within the limitations set by the existing design and you have to work to achieve the maximum effect."
One of the main parts of the Sherpa facelift was a new grill — with sausage-shaped vertical slots. Freight Rover came back to Ogle for the new wider and heavier (2.8-3.5 tonnes gvw) Sherpa launched in October this year.
Another facelift job by Ogle was for Seddon Atkinson when the Atkinson big "A" re-ap peared, along with a bolder grill first seen on the new 401 tractive unit in autumn 1980; Ogle had done the original front panel and interior for the 400.
Ogle renewed its relationship with Motor Panels for the design of the latter's aluminium alloy Hemi-Tech cab which made such an impact at the 1980 Motor Show. A less radical and more down-to-earth design came from Ogle for the cab on the Dennis fire appliance, municipal chassis and Delta 16-tonner. The need for roominess and ease of access figured highly in the brief for this predominently municipal cab, which explains how such vastly different designs as the square Dennis and the curvacious Roadtrain can come from the same stable. The Shelvoke municipal cab is another Ogle design.
On the bus and coach side Ogle has been less active although Plaxtons hos been on the client list for fully 20 years. Ogle's influence on Plaxtons coach bodies has been rather restrained in the past but seems to have come to the fore more recently.
An artist's impression of the most dramatic Plaxtons body, the double-deck Paramount 4000 by Ogle, was shown at last year's Motor Show but it has not yet gone into production.
Ron Saunders is particularly interested in the British coach market and sees potential for Ogle Design in the influx of continental bodies that have added spice to coaching.
He noted with interest the coach body designed for Volvo by Giugiaro and exhibited at the Frankfurt Motor Show in Sep tember. He and Tom Karen are regular visitors to the major foreign motor shows such as Frankfurt and Turin where they can see the latest contintental designs.
The majority of Ron Saunders' team of designers in the Ogle transport department started their career with an industrial design course at college. This course is a combination of engi neering and design; it is where the arts meet the sciences.
After this they may go into product design — either consumer or industrial — or onto coruinued overleaf °motive and transport work.
s blend of engineering and ;ign should mean that the two ciplines do not clash with ;h other; the engineer and list appreciate the other's ids.
lesigners in the Ogle transrt department do not work in lation, and on many projects iy co-operate with other de-tments in the company. For tance, there is an engineering sign department to look at ijects from other than an aesitic angle.
t would typically work on ess analysis, structural reirements and the aerodynam of a lorry cab. Ogle does not ve its own wind tunnel and so rmally uses the Motor Indus Research Association (Mira) rhere are also model-making d prototype departments at tchworth. Tom Karen said that II-size models are usually ide in preference to smaller le ones; the extra detail and curacy is worth the increase in
cost of materials. A full size tenor and interior model of ,adtrain was constructed.
The prototype workshops ild working, pre-production Dtotypes and are valuable in it they enable Ogle to keep a oject in-house as far as pos)le, satisfying a client's desire
secrecy. The four Popemoes (two based on Range Roys, two on eight-wheel ,nstructors) for the 1982 Papal it were not only designed by Ile but built there as well.
Last year the company estabhed a human factors departant, a useful facility that Tom ren said most other design mpanies cannot boast. It aims
make the meeting between 3 n and machine or product as mfortable and efficient as pos)1e. It has designed a chair and pleware for disabled people, a
child's car safety seat and worked out the best position for a straddle carrier operator. The ergonomics of a truck cab interior would fall within this department's province and it has a computer-aided design programme for this sort of work.
One of the more unusual departments at Ogle works on the design and manufacture of the dummies used in crash testing and anywhere a human body has to be simulated.
The widest range of designs emerges from the product design department. Toys, vacuum cleaners, medical electronic equipment, aircraft and helicopter interiors . . . Ogle has done them all.
But is there anything it would not tackle? Tom Karen had to think for quite some time before he came up with an answer. "Jewellery. We havn't done any and there are a lot of specialist people who do that. But I would love to do a watch."
Despite the addition of the engineering and human factors departments last year Tom Karen does not expect this rate of expansion to continue indefinitely at Ogle. "One of the reasons we work well is that we are a manageable size, And we have good in-house discipline."
If he is so satisfied with the design of the Leyland C40 cab would it not be a problem if Ogle was commissioned to design a cab for a similar class of vehicle? Could it come up with something fresh, something better?
Confirming that Ogle is currently working on commercial vehicle designs Tom Karen declared: "That would not be a problem. We did the concept of T45 back in 1975 and designs have moved on since then. We could do better now."
How would it be better? "I think there is still room for even simpler, cleaner shapes. Aerodynamics can still be improved. And I think more plastics will be used in trucks in future."
Tom also believes that commercial vehicle manufacturers — and he is certain that there will be fewer of these — will produce tractive units that are more specialised and more closely matched to their trailers and operations.
Tom Karen's final remark is open to debate, but then design is partly a matter of taste. "Don't you think all the nicest looking cabs are British? It's something we are good at but we don't shout about it enough."