More is more.
Tangent together with iconic performance manufacturer Shelby and Elkhart based premium truck up-fitter Tuscany Motor Co., teamed up to design & develop the 2024 Shelby F-150, Shelby’s latest foray into the performance truck market. Tangent’s responsibilities included the design and development of numerous proprietary parts, including an injection molded grille, and the most ambitious front bumper assembly of any Shelby vehicle to date.
Inspired by Shelby’s rich racing and performance heritage, as well as previous collaborations between Tangent and Shelby, Tangent set about raising the bar on this year’s refreshed F-150 model. This meant taking a more radical design approach to the Shelby’s numerous bespoke parts, incorporating more advanced and robust production techniques, and considering the performance aspect of every new design feature.
A for Ambitious.
Tangent and Tuscany set out to top the already ambitious 2021 Shelby F-150, by going all out on the most complex and detailed bumper assembly yet. Adding multiple overlapping injection molded accent pieces, with functional air intakes and branding, Tangent looked to push the combination of thermo-formed bumper and injection molded accents to their aesthetic and engineering limit. The result is a bespoke front facia that completely reworks the OEM styling into a performance-oriented masterpiece fit for Shelby’s highest volume F-150.
It all starts with Design.
Tangent began the development process with a combination of 2D sketching, and VRED based underlays of the new Ford F-150, to ensure that every sketched detail and component would accurately reflect its real-life counterpart.
After settling on a 2D direction, Tangent set about modeling the Shelby’s numerous injection molded parts in 3D CAD software, bringing the design from concept level surfaces, all the way to tool ready parts. This process included the development of a new, multidimensional grille mesh, that underwent significant development from 2D Illustrator vector patterns to detailed cut away sketches, all the way to a final, injection mold ready part.
Without the support of a full-size clay model to evaluate surfaces, Tangent turned to it’s in house, VRED powered, virtual reality set up to create a full-scale walk-through environment, which provided Tangent with critical insights into the design and scale of each of the Shelby F-150’s numerous exterior upgrades.
Utilizing VRED’s powerful rendering software, Tangent was able to visualize the Shelby F-150 in real time, generating photo real images for marketing materials and client reviews, ensuring that every image would be of a consistent quality and accuracy for client evaluations and design discussions.
The 2024 Shelby F-150 made its debut in June of this year and is limited to only 800 models.
