Bob Koto started his career with Briggs in 1933 working on body designs for companies including Ford, Chrysler, Austin, and Daimler. In 1939, he moved to Hudson mainly doing facelifts and some war work. He was hired by Raymond Loewy in 1943 to work on the Studebaker account and stayed with the company through 1955. Koto moved to Ford Motor Company in 1955 as the design supervisor for the Edsel studio before moving on to the Mercury pre-production studio as head stylist. In 1962, he moved to head stylist of the Corporate Products Studio and finished off his career at Ford as design executive for Lincoln-Mercury from 1963-1968. Koto begins his oral history talking about his time at Briggs and the plethora of projects he worked on there, including bodies for various manufacturers and the line drawings for the English Standard. He speaks fondly of his time working for Loewy, discussing the Exner/Loewy factions at Studebaker, but also the enjoyable work environment created by Loewy and some of his projects including being sent to England in the early 1950s to work on Austin and Rootes designs. He goes on to discuss his time at Ford, particularly his time in the Mercury pre-production studio where he worked on their concept Cougar which later became the Ford Falcon, and many other concept vehicles that later made it into production. He discusses his time as design executive and working on the GT-40 and Taunus. He talks about working with many FMC designers including Gene Bordinat, Bob MacGuire, and Buzz Grisinger. He wraps up discussing his design process and emphasis on modeling, his focus on aerodynamic, soft lines, and his views on cars in the 1980s versus those he worked on in the beginning of his career.

Collection contains 3 cassettes, 3 WAV files, 3 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 1 loose transcript, 1 bound transcript, 2 PDF transcripts, and a mini-biography. Uploaded July 26, 2021.