There's one person who can truly understand the onslaught of criticism that Tesla's yet-to-be-released Cybertruck has faced, and that's the 85-year-old Italian.
That octogenarian is Giorgetto Giugiaro, the legendary car designer behind the Lotus Esprit, BMW M1, and, most notably, the DeLorean DMC-12
The iconic sports car immortalized in "Back to the Future" faced a series of critical remarks in 1981, surprisingly similar to those directed at the Cybertruck, especially regarding its angular design and dirt-prone body.
Tesla shouldn't panic, says Giugiaro in an email to NPR. "When you go beyond the norms, it's almost always perceived as a provocation," says Giugiaro. "This happens in all fields, from furniture to cuisine, etc. Everyone wants to stand out; it's a market necessity, and the Cybertruck will undoubtedly be successful. I am convinced it will find its fans."
Fernando Alfonso with his DeLorean DMC-12 at the 2023 Independence Day auto show in Brookhaven, Georgia. Fernando Alfonso III/NPR Foretells a labor-intensive production process The first impression is everything, and the one made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not the best.
In typical Tesla style, the unveiling in Los Angeles four years ago included a countdown clock and an audience full of fans and journalists.
The stage was enveloped in artificial smoke as the truck rolled in under resonant music beats. Pyrotechnic flames flared at the edges, and the vehicle stopped in front of a graffiti-style image of the Cybertruck, sharply depicted in black and white tones.
On November 21, 2019, Musk addressed the crowd, asking, "Do you need a really tough truck? Not a pretend tough one?"
For the Cybertruck's appearance, Musk revealed plans to use a stainless steel alloy, the same one used by his SpaceX engineers for the company's Starship rocket.
However, during the strength testing of Tesla's "armored glass," the presentation took an unexpected turn.
A metal ball dropped onto a sheet of what Musk called "ordinary car glass," resulting in a long crack. Then Tesla's glass fell from about 10 feet, remaining undamaged. Unsatisfied, Musk handed the ball to Tesla's chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, who had earlier demonstrated the truck's durability by hitting it with a sledgehammer.
Co-founder and CEO of Tesla Elon Musk reacts verbally in front of the recently unveiled fully electric Tesla Cybertruck with broken windows after the demonstration did not go as planned on November 21, 2019, at Tesla Design Center in Hawthorne, California. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images "Franz, could you try to break this glass, please?" Musk challenged.
"Are you sure?" von Holzhausen asked.
"Yeah."
Without much hesitation, von Holzhausen threw the ball at Tesla's truck, creating a web of shattered and dented glass.
"Well," Musk pondered later, "maybe that was a little too hard."
"Tough" is perhaps the most fitting word to describe the development of the Tesla Cybertruck.
According to Motortrend, the truck faced "serious issues with transmission, brakes, suspension, construction, and seals," causing delays in deliveries for years. It was originally expected to hit the market about two years ago. Now Tesla claims the first deliveries will take place on November 30.
The root of the Cybertruck's problems lies in its stainless steel body, a design familiar to designer Giugiaro.
The intricate art of origami Before the 2019 event, Musk presented various design influences for the Cybertruck, drawing inspiration from films like "Blade Runner" and "The Spy Who Loved Me," where cars displayed angular front ends and wedge-shaped forms.
This style was mastered in the 1970s as part of what Giugiaro called an "architectural exercise, reminiscent of modern Miami or San Francisco chalets, almost a provocation."
Giugiaro called this design approach "origami."
"In 1972, his concept car for Maserati, the Boomerang, introduced an entirely new look for cars, based on wedges and sharp straight lines, inspired by Japanese origami. The most famous commercial application of this 'folded paper' style became the Volkswagen Golf Mk1, but the effect is seen in all subsequent angular cars," Esquire reported in an exhaustive 2019 profile of Giugiaro.
Giorgetto Giugiaro in his office. The Italian designer is working on the design of a new car for Bizzarrini called the Giotto, he told NPR. Alberto Peroli/Alberto Peroli Giugiaro referred to this design style as "origami."
"In 1972, his concept car for Maserati, Boomerang, introduced an entirely new look for cars, based on wedges and sharp straight lines, inspired by Japanese origami. The most famous commercial application of this 'folded paper' style became the Volkswagen Golf Mk1, but the effect is seen in all subsequent angular cars," Esquire reported in an exhaustive 2019 profile of Giugiaro.
John DeLorean sits in his DeLorean sports car at the Earl's Court Motor Show in October 1981. Central Press/Getty Images DeLorean debuted in 1981, the brainchild of Detroit bad boy John DeLorean, who, in partnership with Giugiaro, created what would later become the sole offering of his company: the DMC-12 (for more on the rise and fall of DeLorean, see Netflix's Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean—it's a fitting textbook).
Despite the DMC-12 being built over 40 years ago, the criticism of it surprisingly echoes that directed at the Cybertruck:
The Cybertruck received negative reactions for its stainless steel body (on the DeLorean's stainless steel body, "every fingerprint, every speck of dirt was visible, and it needed constant cleaning," as The New York Times wrote in October 1982). There are reports of misaligned stainless steel panels on the truck ("As luck would have it, the first 500 sets of [DeLorean] doors were stamped on a sloppy prototype tool. They're just impossible to fit," as "Car and Driver" wrote in July 1981). The Cybertruck made some questionable interior decisions (on the DeLorean, "handles, buttons, and other details regularly fell off," The Times added).