Bill Robinson Influential Auto Designer And Proud Hellcat Hell Raiser Dies At 96

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The influential designer and educator lives on in the cars being made today.

What do I want to be doing when I’m 96 and looking back at my career in the automotive industry? I want to be driving a Hellcat when I reminisce, and that’s exactly what Bill Robinson was reported as doing in his final days. Called “the most influential American car designer of the post-war era,” Bill Robinson, passed away Tuesday in a hospital in Pontiac, Michigan.

“As one of the thousands of industrial designers Bill Robinson looked after during his time as our transportation design instructor at the College for Creative Studies (in Detroit), I can tell you that he was not only our instructor but also our mentor, our coach, and ultimately our friend decades after graduation,” said Ralph Gilles, Stellantis’ chief design officer.

Robinson penned Packards in the 1950s and could go on to educate a generation of automotive designers. His work strongly influenced the cars you see on the roads today, and he was an automative enthusiast to the core. He was recently seen prowling around suburban Detroit in his Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat.