survivingworldsteam
"3-D chart" of 110 years of Ford History
My career as a computer programmer/analyst gives me an occasional chance to prepare charts and graphs. There is a much an art as there is a science to preparing these; a good one should give a complete and accurate picture on its own. The most famous example of this is French mapmaker Charles Joseph Minard’s map of Napoleon’s unsuccessful campaign into Russia; it not only shows the route Napoleon’s into Russia and back, but the number of Napoleon’s troops, distance, temperature, location, and direction relative to specific dates.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard
Back in 2013, I thought it would be neat to take my lineup of Taurus models, and grow it into a “3-D chart” that shows the evolution of Ford cars going back to 1903, in roughly 1/64 scale.
It is hard to see the bands of color; but they represent various eras of Ford design evolution, from the Brass era and Vintage era of the Model T, through the pre- and post-World War II era; on up to the Kinetic Design era of today. The gradual shading shows that design changes did not occur overnight, but through succeeding releases of different models. My breaking up of the timeline to fit on three matts had an unexpected outcome – the first matt shows the early history of Ford cars when Henry Ford was alive, the latter the “Jellybean years”, and the one in the middle represents when Ford stopped placing its trademark blue oval on its cars, and instead used a herald and/or the F O R D name in all caps. Hence, the logos in the corner of each matt. The different rows show the rise of Ford of Europe and the Mustang, along with the various models through the years. The vertical component are the cars themselves; showing how they evolved in style and size over the years; for example, the SUVs/CUVs of today are roughly the same height as Fords prior to 1955.
www.flickr.com/photos/75105572@N08/15971293049/
What was most amazing about the project was the availability of so many models and marks. There are some I actually had to leave out because of space constraints – a 2002 Ranger by Motor Max and an EXP by Etrl, just to name two – because there simply was not enough space. There are also 15 paper models; see if you can spot all 15 of them.
"3-D chart" of 110 years of Ford History
My career as a computer programmer/analyst gives me an occasional chance to prepare charts and graphs. There is a much an art as there is a science to preparing these; a good one should give a complete and accurate picture on its own. The most famous example of this is French mapmaker Charles Joseph Minard’s map of Napoleon’s unsuccessful campaign into Russia; it not only shows the route Napoleon’s into Russia and back, but the number of Napoleon’s troops, distance, temperature, location, and direction relative to specific dates.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard
Back in 2013, I thought it would be neat to take my lineup of Taurus models, and grow it into a “3-D chart” that shows the evolution of Ford cars going back to 1903, in roughly 1/64 scale.
It is hard to see the bands of color; but they represent various eras of Ford design evolution, from the Brass era and Vintage era of the Model T, through the pre- and post-World War II era; on up to the Kinetic Design era of today. The gradual shading shows that design changes did not occur overnight, but through succeeding releases of different models. My breaking up of the timeline to fit on three matts had an unexpected outcome – the first matt shows the early history of Ford cars when Henry Ford was alive, the latter the “Jellybean years”, and the one in the middle represents when Ford stopped placing its trademark blue oval on its cars, and instead used a herald and/or the F O R D name in all caps. Hence, the logos in the corner of each matt. The different rows show the rise of Ford of Europe and the Mustang, along with the various models through the years. The vertical component are the cars themselves; showing how they evolved in style and size over the years; for example, the SUVs/CUVs of today are roughly the same height as Fords prior to 1955.
www.flickr.com/photos/75105572@N08/15971293049/
What was most amazing about the project was the availability of so many models and marks. There are some I actually had to leave out because of space constraints – a 2002 Ranger by Motor Max and an EXP by Etrl, just to name two – because there simply was not enough space. There are also 15 paper models; see if you can spot all 15 of them.