Hirshberg's committee had recommended designs for a sculpture to be installed in Embarcadero Park by the minimalist Ellsworth Kelly, which didn't go over well with the retired admirals, who would have preferred a traditional statue or a sculpture of a warplane or ship.

The PR Society gave Hirshberg its award for the way he handled pressure "from those who found the sculpture offensive and those who simply wanted a San Diego artist chosen for the job," according to a contemporary article in theLos Angeles Times.

A dozen years after his Diogenes Award, I was on the staff ofAutoWeekwhen publisher Leon Mandel asked Hirshberg about the Infiniti J30 (above), a Jaguaresque sedan that had been on the market for a couple of years. "Who did you design this car for?" Mandel asked.

"We designed it for assholes," Hirshberg replied.

My colleague atAutoWeek, John Cortez, ran the anecdote on the magazine's back page, and if Hirshberg got a bit of flack from his superiors at Nissan over it, he didn't take it out on Leon or John, or the magazine. Diogenes had found not only an honest but also a straight-talking man.

I caught up with Hirshberg another year or two later, at the 1999 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, where he presented the Nissan Z concept (pictured below) that became the 350Z a few years later. We had met the first time in the late '80s at a Port District meeting—I had moved to the West Coast in 1987 to join the staff of theSan Diego Business Journal.Hirshberg continued to be exasperated working to find the rare artist who could please the retired admirals and still appeal to his own aesthetic sensibilities. I don't remember exactly what happened with that, but if memory serves, Hirshberg eventually resigned from the committee before any artwork was chosen.

After myBusiness Journalprofile of Hirshberg, which centered on the Port District sculpture controversy, I wrangled my way into NDI in La Jolla to write a couple more stories, including one in which his staff reacted to a television commercial campaign that used actors portraying them in the grips of creative discourse. (TV critics had found improbable the notion of Americans drawing up designs for Japanese cars and trucks.)

Hirshberg retired in 2000, about the time I took a staff job atMotorTrend.We had met a few times the three years prior at auto shows, where he would unveil various Nissans and Infinitis at press conferences. And each meeting, though short, was warm and cordial, as if we were old friends. It was easy to think of Hirshberg that way from my features and interviews in San Diego a decade earlier.

Hirshberg deserved the often overused description of "renaissance man." According to theL.A. Timesobituary, the University Heights, Ohio, native was a musical prodigy who studied composition and conducting at the Cleveland Institute of Music at age six. Later, he asked an uncle who had designed a Philco radio in the family home. "An industrial designer," the uncle responded, and the answer inspired Hirshberg to meld art and industry for his career path, theTimesreports. But not before he led a rock 'n' roll band called Jerry Paul and the Plebes, which opened for such music artists as Fabian and Frankie Avalon.