Multi-link suspension allows the auto designer the ability to incorporate both good ride quality and good car handling in the same vehicle.

There is no recorded or even oral history among the auto designers of that "eureka!"

Yet for decades, the field lay fallow, overlooked by auto designers.

But he says auto designers may "squander this new credibility very rapidly."

From that moment, as Frank Stephenson recounts his youthful encounter, he was destined to become an auto designer.

Mr. Bangle is arguably the most influential auto designer of his generation - and he is not yet 50.

Inside the car, in what auto designers see as a harbinger of things to come from other companies, three distinctive decors are available at the same price.

Some auto designers think that midsize cars can be made exciting again.

But auto designers and engineers generally dislike seeing spy photographs of their creations, especially when they show models that are a year or more from production.

After more than a century, auto designers have emerged from the back rooms to be identified with the cars they shape.