Kaufman started his time at Ford Motor Company as a student at the Henry Ford Trade School in 1935 where he learned drafting and worked on tire tread design. After graduating in 1938, he taught at the Apprentice School and after serving as a Navy pilot in WWII, was hired into the design department as an illustrator. In 1947, he was hired at Studebaker by Virgil Exner and worked under Exner’s group and later Raymond Lowey’s design department. In 1953, he started his own design firm with John Hauser and Don Lowe. He rejoined FMC in 1955 and stayed there the rest of his career. He worked as an executive designer in several studios including Ford, Mustang, Thunderbird, Edsel, Advanced, and Product Design. He retired in 1975 from the Lincoln-Mercury studio. In his oral history, Kaufman describes his early time at FMC in the trade and apprentice schools, as well as the pre-war design department under Bob Gregorie. He talks about his time in post-war design and the influx of GM designers which led him to seek work elsewhere. Kaufman describes his work at Studebaker both under Exner and then Bob Bourke and his work on the Starlight coupe, Campion, Commander, and ‘53 coupe. He goes on to discuss his concerns with Studebaker production which led him to leave and start an industrial design firm in Chicago. Kaufman discusses his return to FMC and his work in various Ford studios, noting the changing nature of design at FMC under various managers of design. He discusses his work on the last model of the Edsel, the 2-passenger tonneau Thunderbird, various show cars, and a convertible station wagon concept in the Advanced studio in the late 1960s/1970s. He notes he enjoyed that he was always part of designing and not higher administrative positions which were far away from the board. He wraps up describing his later dissatisfaction working at Ford, early retirement, and return to painting in his more recent years.

Collection contains 3 cassettes, 3 WAV files, 3 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 2 loose transcripts, and 1 bound transcript. Uploaded July 26, 2021.

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