Cooper Hewitt says...
John Samsen grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Fascinated with aircraft, he enrolled in a program at Purdue University that allowed students to design planes. After graduating with a degree in aeronautical engineering, however, he soon realized that the function of aircraft didn’t allow for the creativity in form he was hoping to design. Samsen soon met Bob Bourke, the manager of Raymond Loewy’s studio at Studebaker, who coached Samsen in automobile sketching and rendering techniques. With a portfolio full of concept car designs, Samsen approached Ford Motor Company and was hired by Senior Stylist Frank Hershey in 1952.
In order to compete with General Motors’ new Corvette, Ford created a Sports Car Team, planning to build their own two-passenger sports car. While at Ford, Samsen was instrumental in contributing to the design of the 1955 Ford Thunderbird. In 1955, Samsen was recruited by Virgil Exner to join the design team at Chrysler, where he was assigned to the DeSoto studio and, later, the Plymouth team, where he worked on the 1964 Plymouth Barracuda. He remained at Chrysler for the rest of career, designing Imperials, Furies, Road Runners, and later models of the Plymouth Barracuda.
