Tom Hurt Architecture

Our office has consulted several times through the years to provide color schemes for new or refinished automobiles. Here: our most recent scheme for renowned cartoonist, Austin legend, and brother Sam Hurt for his new electric Hyundai IONIC.

Discrete panels like doors — now robotically and precisely detailed, spaced, waterproofed and gasketed for all makes of cars and trucks — break the overall form into these beautiful puzzle pieces, and their differentiation (here also with color) within that smooth exterior adds a second, richer way to see the bigger shape. Differentiation with color is becoming a recurring trope in car design.

I’m fascinated by the elegance and art driving around us on the streets — due to this practical feature of automobile design.

For Sam’s car, the front boot houses his Enya ukulele, an instrument he recently picked up a full half-a-century after his childhood music teacher severely chastised him for sharing with her a “ghost on the keys” trick a friend had show him on the piano (holding down the keys of the accompanying chord while pinking out the melody). Sam is brilliant and resilient like the colors on his car.