You’ve probably heard stories about a car design being roughed out on a napkin during a lunch meeting. The napkin gets handed off, and the vehicle is made. While that’s an entertaining tale, we thought we would show you what it’s really like in the life a Ford designer.

A car design starts when the design team receives a basic package from engineering. This tells the design team what the vehicle will be, the overall dimensions  and specifics such as passenger space and seating requirements.

Working with these basic parameters, the designers sketch the specific vehicle and then create a clay model. The next step is to transform the clay vehicle into digital data, which then can be shared with engineering.

Each step in the process includes reviews with people from engineering, marketing and other disciplines, as well as executives. There’s usually a bit of tension between the various groups, but the input from everyone is what creates the final product.

The video above shows the passion behind the designs and lets the designers share some of their struggles and rewards in the process.