Camilo Pardo - Art and Automotive Design

March 19, 2012
Story By
Tamara Warren

Camilo Pardo, like most car designers, started drawing cars long before he had a driver’s license. Camilo was enamored with performance cars — the Gulf Porsche was at the top of his list. However for Pardo, designing cars was only part of his vision. Pop art and the mod culture of 1960s resonated with Pardo as a young boy growing up in a Colombian-American household in New York City. He was lucky enough to move to a Motor City suburb at age 10, which heightened his access to all things automotive. He eventually studied car design and fine art at the College of Creative Studies in Detroit.

Not every car designer tackles the broader aspects of culture to create works of art inspired by the aesthetics of car culture, and then turns around to design cars inspired by what happens in the painting studio. Camilo Pardo has always done both.

In the car world, he’s known as the architect of the 2003 Ford GT, an exhilarating, $150,000 seductive super sports car that recallx the heyday of the American streets. In the Detroit art scene, he’s known for the models he dresses in bold, snug motorsports inspired couture at fizzy parties that last into the wee hours. His large paintings of girls and racecars hang from the walls of his studio at the Bankle Building on Woodward Avenue, adding to the atmosphere — bold, figurative works that celebrate seductive women and racy cars. Then there’s the Los Angeles scene where Camilo has opened a second studio, where Ford GT collectors rally around him. “Doing figurative and automotive together are the most difficult to paint. They are complex as far as the form. There’s anatomy and perspective,” Pardo says. “A car has an anatomy as well as it has soft shapes.”

Ayrton Senna F1 Formula One painting by Camilo Pardo designer

Both painting and designing cars draw on similar skill sets. “Usually when I do a painting of a car, like when a Ford executive commissioned me to do a painting of Ayrton Senna for his garage, I use a lot of background that I know from designing.” Painting cars requires a keen sense of perspective. “When you’re walking around you have a sense of depth of field. When it lays flat you'd be surprised how clumsy they are. There’s a lot of things that have to do with proportion and drama and perspective. That’s the overlap of the design composition.” Since Pardo left Ford in 2009, he has shifted gears to focus on his art career. But he’s maintained a unique footing in the design world. His most recent project is the design of an airplane for the Detroit Aircraft Corporation. “The situation is that once you know how to design, you can design anything if you have engineering support about the package and size.” Pardo has also designed the company logo and the flight attendant uniforms, that he says capture the spirit of vintage Pan Am.

He still exercises his car design muscle including signature vehicles for Ford and several art car custom projects. He is keeping his Detroit studio open, but his new studio in LA has its benefits, located in close proximity to his newest collaborative partner Carroll Shelby. Even without the muscle of Ford behind him, Pardo shows no signs of slowing. :: Tamara Warren

Camilo Pardo - Art and Automotive Design

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