Frank’s Dream Garage: critiquing the great car designs on YouTube

Frank Stephenson is back with a new YouTube series. The designer of the modern Mini, the Ferrari F430 and most modern McLarens now runs his own design consultancy. More importantly for retro car fans, though, he also has his own YouTube channel.

This is where he discusses car design, building up more than 70,000 subscribers with his previous series, ‘How I designed’. Frank also analyses other cars, and more than 600,000 people have already watched his evaluation of the new BMW 4 Series (you know, the one with the huge kidney grille).

Now, he’s set to potentially stir up some controversy, with his latest series: Frank’s Dream Garage. In it, he discusses some of the most acclaimed car designs of all time, analysing their nuances… and critiquing them where necessary.

Imagine Martin Amis analysing Williams Shakespeare and saying, “with respect, I wouldn’t have worded it like that”, for an idea of what to expect.

Better still, Frank then suggests how it could have been done better. 

Improving on perfection

Retro Motor has watched the first episode, which is about the Jaguar E-Type. This is a car Enzo Ferrari, whose spirit Frank used to professionally channel, called “the most beautiful car ever made”. Surely there’s no way it could be improved upon?

Frank respectfully begs to differ, and the result is a fascinating analysis of the car’s great and not-so-great aspects. We promise, you’ll discover aspects of the car you’ve never seen before, and love the E-Type even more.

The really intriguing part is when Frank sits down at E-Type UK, where he makes sketches of an immaculate Series I Fixed Head Coupe (brilliantly produced with just a Bic biro on what appears to be A4 paper from the photocopier).

Afterwards (with a snap of the fingers) he relocates to his studio – to render his own interpretation of the classic Jaguar E-Type, rectifying the aspects he noted and subtly giving his own twist on the classic shape.

Don’t worry. This isn’t a retro recreation. The spirit of Malcom Sawyer’s original is fully intact. That’s the fascinating part about this series – Frank instead simply smooths out the niggles, the aspects that, perhaps, period manufacturing technology forced upon the designers, maybe creating the car they always had in their minds all along.

And if this isn’t reason enough to watch, simply seeing how a professional render is created by hand should be. It’s utterly compelling viewing, with Frank a polite, knowledeable and very engaging presenter. 

Frank promises some other greats are in store. The E-Type has set the bar high, so we can’t wait to watch more. Those who love beautiful classic motors, trust us, this is well worth a watch. And once you’ve watched that… well, that’s your weekend viewing sorted. 

Frank’s Dream Garage: Jaguar E-Type

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