fulanimafia:
See what a Fulani genius from Sokoto designed...






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqx-xKGeDCA

https://www.nairaland.com/2069676/meet-jelani-aliyu-nigerian-genius

The Chevrolet Volt, an innovative electric car, among others.

Ikengawo:
Meet members of the Chevy Volt design team

http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2008/10/meet_members_of_the_chevy_volt.html

fulanimafia:
cc: lalasticlala

Design

Chevrolet Volt - design Talking about the design of the production Volt Bob Boniface, Director of Design for the Volt project, explains: "We believe the Chevrolet Volt’s exterior design is a balance between aerodynamic performance and styling.

"If you look closely [at detailed image of the driver-side front quarter] you can see the rounded and flushed front fascia, tapered corners and closed grille are aesthetically beautiful and functional, enabling air to move easily around the car.

"In the end, we believe the vehicle is both aesthetically pleasing and extremely efficient.

Three Ohioans were instrumental in designing and engineering the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid car.

Bob Boniface

Everyone knew that Bob Boniface should design cars. Everyone but the man who is now the lead designer of General Motors Volt electric car.



Plain Dealer Reporter Robert Schoenberger interviews Bob Boniface
Boniface's father, Raymond, a retired psychiatrist, said his son's childhood obsession with cars sometimes caused problems.

"He was terrible. As a little boy, his homework coming home from the fifth grade would have pictures of cars all around it," Raymond Boniface said from his home in the Youngstown suburb of Poland, Ohio. When Bob was 8, he gave his father a card that said 'Happy Birthday Dad,' with cars all over it.

Who could blame him?

His father collected cars.

The youngest of eight children (four boys, four girls), Bob polished the chrome on the Alfa Romeos in his father's collection.

It wasn't enough for him.

"I was one of those kids who knew every car on the road," he said. "I would sketch the pictures I saw in the owner's manuals [of his father's cars], pictures of the gas tank, pictures of the instrument panel and the steering wheel and the controls. Anything to do with cars, I couldn't get enough of it."

But when it came time to leave Poland, Boniface pursued a degree in psychology and economics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. After graduation, he ended up in Boston working for an investment company.

The sketching never stopped.

"I wasn't making a lot of money, so the decision was pretty easy," Boniface said. He left Boston for Detroit, where he entered the College of Creative Studies. After graduation, he spent 12 years at Chrysler working on vehicles such as the Chrysler 300 and Jeep Liberty. He joined GM in 2004, working on the new hydrogen-powered Sequel concept car and later the Camaro sports car.

Boniface's father said he sees influence of the Italian cars he collected in his son's designs.

"We love cars for the art form. They reflect the culture," Raymond Boniface said.

The Italian cars he loves have a live-for-the-moment feel. His son, he said, can marry that vivacious spirit to his Midwestern need for practicality.

Bob Boniface said the combination of passion and common sense is what draws a lot of people from this state to the auto industry.

"I can usually tell an Ohio person," Boniface said. "It's a Midwest thing. They're very balanced and rational thinkers.. . . . People understand how to build things. It's a positive, can-do attitude."



Ken Karbon

Ken Karbon isn't a car guy.

Sure, he has worked for General Motors for nearly 20 years and can point to dozens of features on cars that he created.



Ken Karbon discusses the Volt
But as one of two aerodynamics specialists working on the Chevrolet Volt, it's still the engineering challenge, not the car itself, that excites him.

"I could do this on airplanes or golf balls or anything," said the Parma native and 1984 graduate of Valley Forge High School.

Karbon's mother, Dorothy said her son was born to be an engineer. The youngest of four children and her only son, Ken was always building something or taking something else apart.

When Ken was 5, Dorothy watched him play with a set of Tinker Toys for hours.

"Just by looking at the picture, he could put things together. We never had to help him," she said.

The things he built got more complicated as he got older. When Ken was 11, he and his father built a cage to catch a bird. Her son had found a diagram in a magazine.

"Sure enough, a bird flew in there, and the door closed," she said. He set the bird free immediately. "He just wanted to see if he could do it."

After high school, Karbon earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio State University. He got several job offers, but most of them were for project management positions. He wanted to work on jet engines or some sort of complex machinery, not direct others.

"The job at GM seemed the most technical engineering application of the things that I learned at Ohio State," Karbon said. He might not have been a car lover, but the company offered the chance to work on tough engineering puzzles.

After he spent a few years designing suspensions and other components, GM awarded Karbon a fellowship to the University of Michigan. After that, he concentrated more on computer modeling and aerodynamics, the two areas that interested him most when he was at Ohio State.

After all of those years and having his fingerprints on dozens of car designs, Karbon said he's still not a car lover. His mother agreed, saying he chose his first vehicle strictly for practicality.

Dorothy Karbon said that when Ken turned 16, "He wanted a truck. He really didn't care about the engine as long as it took him to his fishing and hunting. That's all he cared about."


Gary Ruiz

Teresita Ruiz remembers the day when her son told she and her husband that he was giving up his career as a pharmacist to draw pictures for a living.



Hear from Gary Ruiz

"We were both so mad," Ruiz said from her home in Parma. "He should be looking for a profession that would be a high-paying job to support a family."
A pharmacist herself, she knew it was a safe, stable career. Getting paid to draw pictures of cars didn't feel right to his mother, who came to the United States from the Philippines in 1969.

She's less concerned these days. Former St. Ignatius hockey player Gary Ruiz is one of the lead designers of the Chevrolet Volt, General Motors' highest-profile vehicle.

Gary Ruiz also remembers the day he told his parents about his decision.

" 'You're going to be a starving artist,' That was the first reaction," he said.

His mother said she was happy that he at least had his pharmacy degree from Ohio State University if things didn't work out.

Looking back, she said, he was always drawing. A Crayon and a pad of paper could keep him happy for hours.

Gary said he tried pharmacy but knew after six months that he needed to go back to school. A year later, he entered Detroit's College of Creative Studies.

His mother said companies quickly noticed her son. He interned with BMW in California one year. The next, he was in Japan interning with Toyota. In addition to the internships, he kept winning or placing high in automotive design contests.

Ruiz said design school had four-month-long summer breaks. He would intern for three months. While his classmates spent the final month waiting tables or doing odd jobs, he filled out prescriptions.

"It was possible back then because of the shortage of pharmacists," Ruiz said.

When he graduated, he had offers from GM, Chrysler, Ford, Nissan and others. Teresita Ruiz said she encouraged her son to stay closer to home, and he chose the job with Chrysler. About a year later, GM came in with a better offer.

Teresita Ruiz said she doesn't understand a lot of what her son does with the Volt program, only that he seems to be doing well.

Gary Ruiz said he's just happy his parents realize that he can make a living as a designer.

"Now, I think they're just happy for me," Ruiz said.

It's being reported that the director of GM's Advanced Design Studio Bob Boniface has been tasked with heading up a new design unit within GM that will focus on developing new vehicles that use the new E-Flex powertrain. Bob led the team that created the exterior design of the Volt concept.

The fact that General Motors is creating a new design studio just to create vehicles that take advantage of the new electrically driven powertrain is another sign that the company is fully committed to producing vehicles like the Volt. ABG talked to Bob back in January at the Detroit Auto Show following the Volt introduction. If Bob's new team can bring the same flair to other vehicles that they demonstrated in the Volt, we can look forward to some very exciting environmentally friendly cars in the coming years.

Ikengawo:
Chevy Volt design lead Bob Boniface to lead new E-Flex studio in GM

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/01/chevy-volt-design-lead-bob-boniface-to-lead-new-e-flex-studio-i/

ABOKII STOP LYING!
This is how one Malo told me that he was no longer serving suya, only to turn around and serve to one yellow baby that was cued after me.

Jelani Aliyu is a fraud

"We smoothed the front and sharpened the edge of the rear to cut down on the drag," explains Boniface, running his hand reverently along the surface of a clay model of the car. "The show car wasn't the most aerodynamic, so we had to do a lot of work on that."

As director of design for the Volt and for G.M.'s electric-car efforts in general, Boniface was charged with creating a great-looking sports coupe that's streamlined and light enough to require less energy to power it. The first one is due out in November 2010, with 60,000 cars planned for production for the first two years. It's expected to retail under $30,000.

"The Volt has to look tough and confident," Boniface says. "We didn't want to design a jelly bean. It's going to be a sporty four-door coupe that will appeal to those who are buying transportation that's environmentally conscious, but would like a sports car."

It's not Boniface's first pass at bringing style to environmentally correct cars. At Daimler Chrysler, he was the lead designer for the 2002 Jeep Liberty, 1998 Dodge Intrepid, and the 1996 Intrepid ESX hybrid concept car, as well as the hydrogen-powered G.M. Sequel. His designs proved so popular that, in 1998, he received the Young Leadership and Excellence award from the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Boniface, whose father collected classic cars, says he's been drawing autos since he was four and always dreamed of designing them himself one day. But he studied psychology and economics in college, and then worked as an accountant, while drawing cars in the evenings. One of his sisters eventually talked him into going back to school for an art degree, which led to a job at Chrysler, followed by G.M. in 2003.

Today, Boniface supervises a team of 45 designers, sculptors, engineers, and support staff on the Volt project.

The continued rise in gas prices will likely have a profound effect on the way cars are designed, Boniface says. The most energy-efficient cars may come in unattractive shapes to accommodate what's under the hood, but he believes that cars should still have character and personality.

"I'd hate to see us take all the life out of a car to get that last bit of drag out. That'd be design by science only," he says. "Cars are an emotional purchase, and they say a lot about you. The Volt is going to be a car that looks good and drives efficiently."

Ikengawo:
LOL I use Google it's self as a source, Wikipedia, Chevy's website and Fulanimilitia sends me an article written by 'innov8tiv'

[size=15pt]BOB BONIFACE DESIGNED THE CHEVY VOLT YOU LAIR[/size]

fulanimafia:


You must still be recovering from the disgrace Philip Emegwali suffered no wonder you're hell bent on discrediting Aliyu.

You will logout, and the world will continue to celebrate Aliyu Jelani (MFR) for his intellectual excellence.

Go and find a job, you're disgracing yourself.

P.S Wikipedia is an editable source and not accepted as reference anywhere. Blame your ignorance.

BannedOtherView:
Forget wikipedia, I beg.
Check out the real deal!

Ikengawo:
dd

uniklinkum:
[size=14pt]ikengawo is a senior foool I did my internship in one of their plant here in Germany. And the fulani man is respected and the same respect was transfered to the two Nigerians in that plant at that moment because of the feat achieved by the fulani boy.[/size]