After designing countless Star Wars vehicles over the last two decades for films and series (including the N-1 starfighter a young Anakin Skywalker piloted during the Battle of Naboo), award-winning designer Doug Chiang knows a thing or two about starfighters and speed. In a follow-up to the Luke Skywalker X-wing-inspired car-wrap designed for a 2023 NASCAR race, Lucasfilm’s SVP and and executive design director collaborated with Columbia to design a paint scheme, helmet, and racing suit (also referred to as a fire suit) inspired by the one and only Darth Vader. To quote his alter-ego Anakin, “This is where the fun begins!”

“Last year’s collection was so iconic,” says Chris Araujo, director of brand management at Columbia Sportswear — where Lucasfilm and Columbia collaborated on the design of the X-wing and TIE fighter-inspired car wraps for NASCAR. “It felt very natural to continue onto Vader after Luke and his iconic orange flight suit from the original trilogy.”

The design process for the Vader-inspired paint scheme spanned several months as Chiang and a team at Columbia worked from brainstorming sessions to locking in final details. “It's interesting, because past car designs don't apply, as each project is very new,” notes Chiang. “Each one has its own challenges, and they're always unique. It's the same thing that we do with our Star Wars vehicles. You'll think we've done so many spaceships now that it'd be very easy, but each one has a very specific demand, and each one is really, really challenging, because at the end, you're dealing with an inanimate object that you're trying to infuse with a lot of personality, and the personality is key. And so our goal was to make sure that it worked on a car, but then aesthetically, it had to marry the Vader aesthetic from the film to the car.”

The Vader Silhouette

This year, rather than changing the look from one vehicle into another, Chiang’s task was to transpose the key elements of Vader’s aesthetic and what he represents onto a car. Chiang wanted to incorporate Vader’s helmet and red lightsaber into the design without being too literal. “We're not just putting a photographic image of Vader onto the car, because I think that would be kind of underwhelming for fans,” notes Chiang. An early idea to represent the energy and power of Vader’s lightsaber was to put the hilt at the front of the car to have the saber act almost like flames running down the side of the car.

The brainstorming process — where nothing is off the table and all ideas are welcome — helped Chiang and the design team gravitate to motifs and ideas that spoke to them. “In some ways, you’re kind of looking at the designs in their raw form through the lens of fans. And it’s critical because sometimes we can get too into the details and we lose the big picture. It’s important to kind of step back and sort of get your instinctive reaction, and then from there, we just built on it.”

One element that Chiang felt strongly about incorporating into the paint design was how light and shadow play on Vader's helmet. “He's very mysterious. We want to keep all the iconic elements of his mask, but then abstract it so when you see it on the car, you almost imply that the car has dimension, but in a dimensional shape that looks kind of like Vader, but not being too literal to it. And I love that direction because it’s a beautiful blend of aesthetics - merging film design and car aesthetics.”

Chiang wanted to make sure that the car would easily read as Vader-themed not only when the car was parked, but also while it was tearing down the speedway. “That's almost the same challenge we have for films,” says Chiang. “A lot of film designs are seen very quickly, in a matter of seconds. And you have to really understand what it is that we're looking at. The solution we came up with was from the top, you see the bright red lightsaber, like a racing stripe and it's very striking. You can see it from a long distance, and then on the side is the second note, which is Vader's helmet. We deliberately chose to keep just a portion of his helmet and the way the light plays on the helmet blends with the fender. I just thought it was a really elegant solution, because you kind of got the best of both. You got a beautiful car design with the iconic images of Vader infused into it.”

Bubba’s gear

Recently, Chiang and Anakin Skywalker himself, Hayden Christensen, got to see the vehicle in person at the Phoenix Raceway, as well as meeting with NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, who will be racing the No. 23 Toyota Camry XSE. While driving the Vader-inspired car, Wallace will be outfitted in a fire suit and helmet that also evoke the Dark Lord of the Sith. Unlike designing a helmet for a new Star Wars character, where the size and shape can be altered throughout the production, Wallace’s helmet had to conform to NASCAR regulations. “The shape of the helmet is dictated by the racing team and what Bubba likes to wear,” notes Araujo. “So that’s a form factor that we have to design around. It’s a challenge with these kinds of themes. How do you get the designs to really show up on the helmet in a convincing way?”

The key to giving Bubba’s helmet a Vader makeover is in the details — and using tricks from Vader’s previous appearances on film. “Vader’s helmet is not just black,” says Chiang. “It’s actually black and various shades of gray.”

Chiang highlighted key elements from Vader’s helmet such as Vader’s cheek, eyes, and breathing mask in his design. “It was an interesting exploration for me — in some ways very similar to challenges that we deal with in film — because there is a component of reality that we have to adjust to. In this case, it was the actual physical helmet itself. And the goal was, let's literally take the key elements of Vader's helmet — and the part that really is iconic is his breathing mask. That gave us a really good opportunity to find a way to put it on the front of the helmet in a way that doesn't mirror the actual helmet, but evokes it. And I think that's the key: you're emotionally evoking the elements without being literal.”

Racing armor

Both Vader’s suit and NASCAR racing suits are designed to protect. The parallels between the two outfits were not lost on the design team. “The racing suit itself is very much like Vader's actual suit, once you take all the armor off,” notes Chiang. “And so that gave us sort of a head start, because we knew that we had to keep and preserve the vertical patterning on Vader's suit. Other elements from Vader’s suit incorporated into Wallace’s suit include Vader’s belt, chest component, and shoulder pauldron. “That hard armor piece that Vader wears underneath his cape is something that we absolutely had to have in there,” says Chiang. “And it's interesting, because in the early designs, once we put that in there, it actually spoke to Vader's design. Those patternings were very important.”

Chiang hopes that Star Wars fans notice some of the subtle design elements in the car paint scheme, suit, and helmet that add to the Vader feel. “I think one of the really fun elements is the rims on the wheels. We actually added a little bit of red that invokes Vader's lightsaber. That was very unexpected. And when I saw that, it was like, ‘Oh, that's the perfect thing, because it ties it in very well, but it's very subtle. So I'm hoping that fans will look at that and see those connections.’”

Star Wars and NASCAR fans can see Bubba Wallace in his Vader-inspired gear (crossing our fingers he whips out a cape pre- or post -race) at the NASCAR Cup Series Championship on November 10, 2024. And continuing their tradition of releasing a Star Wars inspired theme each year, Columbia will unveil their new seasonal Darth Vader apparel collection on Tuesday, November 19.

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