View source for Eugene Bordinat

{{Infobox Person
| name   = Eugene Bordinat
| image     =
| image_size     =
| caption  = 
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1920|02|10}}
| birth_place =  [[Toledo, Ohio|Toledo]], [[Ohio]]
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1987|08|11|1920|02|11}}
| death_place =  [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]]
| occupation     = [[Automotive]]
| spouse         = Teresa Bordinat
| parents        = 
| children       = 
}}

'''Eugene Bordinat, Jr.''' ([[10 February]] [[1920]] &ndash; [[11 August]] [[1987]]) was a [[Ford Motor Company]] styling executive whose career spanned several decades.

==Early career==
Bordinat was educated at the [[Cranbrook Educational Community|Cranbrook Academy of Art]] and [[University of Michigan]].  He joined [[General Motors]] in 1939 as a trainee.  During [[World War II]] he was a supervisor at [[Fisher Body]] for [[tank]] production, and later served in the [[United States Army Air Forces]].  Bordinat briefly returned to work at GM as a senior stylist after the war.

==Ford career==
Bordinat joined Ford in 1947, quitting General Motors.  He supervised styling at the [[Lincoln-Mercury]] division, influencing the implementation of many automotive designs.  Bordinat was promoted to vice president for styling and a chief designer in 1961, the successor to [[George W. Walker]].  He ultimately served 19 years, longer than anyone in Ford Styling before or since.  His favorite designs during his tenure included successful cars like the [[Ford Mustang]] and [[Lincoln_Continental#1958.E2.80.9360_Mark_III.2C_IV.2C_and_V|Lincoln Continental Mk III]], as well as the much-maligned [[Ford Pinto|Pinto]].

==Personal life==
Bordinat is quoted to have said "Beauty is a good 10-day sales report", a methodology that made him [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/versatile versatile] and adaptive.  He was a member of the [[Industrial Designers Society of America]] from its founding in 1965.  In his retirement he wrote a light-hearted [[autobiography]] manuscript entitled ''My Days at the Court of Henry II''. Though it had been finished and accepted, it was being edited at the time of his death to accommodate a more "anti-[[Lee Iacocca|Iacocca]] slant" as suggested by the publisher and of which Bordinat approved.  Eugene Bordinat died suddenly of an undiagnosed lung ailment at the [[Henry Ford Hospital]] on [[August 11]], [[1987]].  Though his [[widow]] Teresa said that she would finish it, the work was never published.

==References==
* {{cite book | author=David L. Lewis and the auto editors of Consumer Guide | title=100 Years of Ford | publisher= Publications International, Inc. | year=2005 | id=ISBN 0-7853-7988-6}}
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5D8103FF937A2575BC0A961948260 Archived New York Times obituary], retrieved [[24 July]] [[2008]]
* [http://www.idsa.org/absolutenm/templates/?z=106&a=1673 IDSA page on Eugene Bordinat], retrieved [[24 July]] [[2008]]

[[Category:1920 births]]
[[Category:1987 deaths]]
[[Category:Ford executives]]
[[Category:People in the automobile industry]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bordinat, Eugene}}