Investor's Business Daily, June 14th, 2007
Two decades after Henry Ford rolled out the Model T in 1908, American cars still looked like boxes on wheels.
That was before Harley Earl rolled into Detroit.
Earl arrived in 1927 from Los Angeles, where he worked for his dad customizing cars, recalls Earl's grandson Richard Earl on his Web site, carofthecentury.com.
Harley Earl was lured by General Motors GM head Alfred Sloan, who saw that Americans had become affluent during the Roaring '20s and figured they would pay more for a symbol of wealth and status.
Earl seemed a perfect fit.
His job was to create custom cars for Hollywood stars. His first creation along those lines was a streamlined auto body for Fatty Arbuckle for $28,000, an enormous sum at the time. He also designed a custom body with a saddle on the hood for cowboy star Tom Mix, according to the Detroit News.
While Ford kept churning out functional, no-frills vehicles, Earl's goal was to lengthen, lower and widen cars to make them attractive.
His 1927 Buick LaSalle was a first step in that direction. It featured long, flowing fenders and two-tone paint.
The LaSalle was "a significant car in American automotive history" because it was the first designed by a stylist to achieve success, Sloan told the News.
Under Earl, GM quickly adopted new technologies and styles for its vehicles. Ford, by contrast, remained stagnant, pumping out reiterations of its monotone Model T.
As Henry Ford reputedly said, "The customer can have any color he wants so long as it's black," since black enamel was cheap, durable and quick-drying.
GM To The Fore
Design innovations helped General Motors race ahead of Ford. In 1927, GM introduced annual model changes to lure motorists into dealer showrooms to see the latest styles and gadgetry.
"The design of the car can be a persuasive tool for inducing car buyers to get rid of the old and buy the new," Earl said.
Meanwhile, banks and car companies made it easier to buy through the introduction of auto loans.
A year after the LaSalle's success, Earl was promoted to head the newly created Art and Colour Section, the first division of an American car company devoted solely to design. He quickly founded the GM Design and Styling Department.
Earl continued to innovate. He eliminated running boards, hid the spare tire and integrated the fenders, lights, grille and other components with the body.
He created the auto industry's first concept car, or dream car, as a way of test-marketing new designs.
The first such car, the 1938 Y job, was a long and sleek two-seater sports car that featured bumpers wrapped closely around the body. It was loaded with gadgets, including electric windows, hidden headlights and a power-operated convertible top.
The concept car "became a worldwide industry standard for ... getting public reaction, trying out new ideas of style and engineering and creating interest in automotive progress," carofthecentury.com reports.
The Y job was never produced, but it was way ahead of its time. It was the first car to have an electrically operated convertible top and power windows. These and other features, such as the wide chrome grille with vertical bars, appeared later in Buick and Cadillac production cars.
Earl also introduced quadruple headlights, aluminum wheels, turn signals, heated seats and curved windshield glass.
Before the concept cars were shown, they and their components were built in the design studio using clay, another Earl innovation. Cars had been modeled using wood and metal. But clay was more malleable and let stylists incorporate smooth, flowing lines in their designs.
World War II interrupted Earl's efforts, as many auto plants were converted for production of war materiel. He again unleashed his creativity after the war ended in 1945, as Americans exulted following a long period of self-denial that began with the Great Depression.
Earl's designs reflected that exuberance and, in the 1950s, took cues from the emerging space age. Tail fins, panoramic windshields and other designs evocative of jet fighters and rockets came into vogue. Chrome grilles and bumpers were other common features.
One of Earl's most famous concept cars was the 1951 Buick LeSabre. It sported big tail fins and a faux air intake that GM says offered a preview of the aircraft styling that followed in that decade.
Earl's vehicles are icons of American car design. They include the Chevy Bel Air models of the 1950s and the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado, which featured soaring tail fins.
Earl tested them -- what many viewed as dream cars -- at GM's traveling Motorama Show, which toured big cities from 1953 to 1961.
Earl called Motorama -- the forerunner to the modern auto show -- a "new way of merchandizing." The shows attracted millions of people and boosted traffic at dealer showrooms nationwide.
"The dream car has become a world famous symbol of the American public's ever-growing fascination with the life it can expect in the future," GM said in 1956.
Perhaps the most famous of Earl's concept cars displayed at Motorama was the Corvette. Introduced in 1953, it featured a fiberglass body and tinted windows and is regarded as America's first true sports car.
Earl continued to pushed the design envelope, incorporating keyless entry technology, power radio antennas and Oscar, the first crash-test dummy.
By the time he retired in 1959, GM's share of the U.S. market had ballooned to more than 40%, a mark it held for years. His design studio had grown to 1,100 staffers from just 50 at its inception. Earl's "talent was to result in actively influencing the appearance of more than 50 million automobiles from the late 1920s to 1960," Sloan said.
In L.A. Gear
Earl was born in 1893 in a section of Los Angeles that later became Hollywood. He attended Stanford University before joining his father's custom car business.
Earl was as colorful as the cars he designed. At 6 feet 4 inches, he often sported light blue suits, a snap-brim fedora and two-tone shoes.
Oldsmobile designer Richard Teague told the Detroit News that employees always called their boss Mr. Earl. "He demanded respect and he got it. All us young guys were afraid of him. He kind of scared everybody half to death, but he was still a terrific guy," Teague said.
Earl's success prompted GM's competitors to establish their own design studios. At the time of his death at age 75 following a stroke in 1969, the design departments of all four Detroit carmakers -- GM, Ford, Chrysler and American Motors -- were headed by Earl proteges.
