Behind the curtain

AEItakes an in-depth look at how the designers and engineers at General Motors took the company's trio of new crossover SUVs from sketchbook to road.

The intersection between design and engineering in the automotive industry is delicate. That's because in this space, the space where creative vision and mechanical intellect meet, the look and feel of the automobile is continually being re-imagined. During this process designers are charged with the task, stylistically, of predicting what the vehicle of the future will look like. They must forecast, with a far greater degree of accuracy than your local meteorologist, the type of visual aesthetic that will appeal to a broad base of consumers. At the same time, engineers are charged with an equally daunting task: making it all work. After negotiating with design on what is and isn't feasible in terms of mass production and mechanics, they are then expected to realize the designers' sketches and clay models in a highly evolved physical form. Most important, both sides must be in agreement on theme and direction to ensure a vehicle program's best chance for success.

For the designers and engineers at General Motors, the development of the Saturn Outlook, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave came with the usual challenges and expectations of any new vehicle program. But the development process also proved to be a study in distinctive styling, not to mention open communication among peers. From the outset of the program, the design and engineering teams established that they would step outside of GM's usual comfort zone when developing products and attack this trio of crossover SUVs from a different vantage point.