Lawrence Kiyoshi "Larry" Shinoda (March 25, 1930 – November 13, 1997) was a noted American automotive designer who was best known for his work on the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Mustang.

He was interned with his sister, mother, and maternal family (an uncle, two aunts and a grandmother)[5] by the U.S. government during WW II under U.S. Executive Order 9066 into the Manzanar "War Relocation Camp" in California.

[6][7] According to his internee data file, he was in grade 7 and spoke English only when he entered Manzanar; he had never attended a Japanese language school.

His first recorded functional design was a set of reclining back chairs for his mother and grandmother at the incarceration camp that attracted the admiration of other incarcerees.

[7] While working for Weiand, Shinoda earned an associate's degree from Pasadena City College; upon graduating, he enlisted with the Air National Guard and served for two years, sixteen months of which were spent in Korea.

[4] One of the first cars he built was "Chopsticks Special", a 1932 Ford deuce coupe equipped with a 298 flathead V8, which he acquired from a coworker at Weiand, Bob Lee.

[9] Shinoda won the "A" Hot Roadster class at the first NHRA U.S. Nationals held in Great Bend, Kansas with Chopsticks Special IV in 1955.

Then he came into the Chevy studio and he's telling McKeegen, the boss, about this white Ford that blew his doors off; he said he thought it must have had a Cadillac engine in it.

Shinoda also led design work on the revised 1968 version that borrowed heavily from his Mako Shark concept.

He led the design that was used for the succeeding Mustang models for 1970-1973 as well, but after Knudsen was fired from Ford late in 1969, Shinoda was dismissed a few days later.

[18] After leaving Ford, Shinoda and Knudsen co-founded Rectrans in November 1970, which built recreational vehicles in Brighton, Michigan.

In 1985, he was competing with an American Motors Corporation (AMC) internal team, and two fellow contractors (Giorgetto Giugiaro and Alain Clénet) to style a vehicle under development, then known as XJC; that vehicle later was released in 1992 as the Jeep Grand Cherokee (ZJ) after Chrysler purchased AMC and its designs in 1987.

He was placed under a non-disclosure agreement and not allowed to speak publicly about the contract for five years; Shinoda did not protest the theft of his design until 1992, when the Grand Cherokee made its debut at Cobo Hall.

[6] Before a transplant surgery could take place, he died of heart failure on November 13, 1997 at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, aged 67.