Harley Earl, head of design at General Motors
Harley Earl did for car design what John Wayne did for cowboy movies. Everything.
Harley J. Earl (1893-1969) was born in Hollywood. His father started in 1889 at the age of 23 as a coachbuilder. He changed his work from carriages to custom bodies and custom parts and accessories for automobiles. He founded Earl Automobile Works in 1908. The shop built cars for the rich and famous in Hollywood, then a farming village with an emerging film industry. 500 people worked there. Harley was a good athlete and set a pole vault record at the University of Southern California. His family sent him to Stanford University in the hopes that he would switch from sports to law and become a lawyer. However, he gets injured on the running track and returns home and goes to work for his father. After the 1st World War his father, Jacob, retires and Harley built the coachwork. After a vacation due to illness, Jacob returned to a company that built expensive Hollywood Customs for the wealthy.
Harley used clay to design cars. He had vacationed in the mountains north of LA as a teenager. He was 16 at the time. It was a wet summer, so he made some clay toy cars for him and his younger brother. What began in the clay of Bailey's Ranch was later used in an industry that had become very important economically and socially.
Earl Automotive Works was bought in 1919 by Cadillac dealer Don Lee who hired Harley as manager of Don Lee Coach and Body Works, the custom body shop. Earl was already doing work for Lee because Lee was just around the corner. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that this company was the largest west of Chicago and one of the six largest in the country. In 1921, Lee introduces Harley to Collins, president of Cadillac. He asks Earl to make 6 scale models that Collins could show to dealers. However, Collins left Cadillac to move to Peerless before the models were ready. In 1923 the Dutchman Joop Tjaarda also worked for Don Lee. Sloan had heard the name Earl by now, as had the Fisher brothers. Lawrence P. Fisher, just named Cadillac's new boss in 1925 by Sloan, visited as Cadillac's successive president the dealers and distributors across the country, including Lee. Fisher meets Earl and saw his work. Both Sloan and Fisher remembered the name Earl.
Fisher, whose career began at Fisher Body, was impressed by Earl's designs and methods, including the use of clay to form the shapes of his designs. Fisher was aware of Sloan's plans for a new brand, LaSalle, and had been discussing its design. Earl was well received by Fisher when he introduced him to some movie stars. They became good friends and often played golf. He scooped on opposite Fisher that he could make a Chevrolet look like a Cadillac. In 1925, Fisher offered Earl a job, encouraged by his brother Fred, co-founder of Fisher Body. He was commissioned to design the 1927 LaSalle. The success of this sports car, for sale for 1/6 the price of a luxury sports car, convinced Alfred Sloan of the qualities of Harley Earl. Sloan liked Earl, as did Fisher. Sloan wanted to get past Ford and was convinced that people wanted color, something more fashionable. He also acknowledged that changing the designs convinced people to buy new cars more often. By now closed cars sold better than open cars and Sloan saw the value of styling. After consultation with the management team on June 25, 1927, Sloan founds the first design department in the American automotive industry in 1927. The Art and Color Section headed by 34 year old Harley Earl. Despite the fact that Locomobile and LeBaron had also designed cars, there was no official design department at a manufacturer yet. Joop Tjaarda was also added to the team. He had already worked with Harley at Don Lee but had since moved to Duesenberg. In the meantime Joop also worked on his own cars, the Sterkenburg (which was actually his real last name). Tjaarda, however, soon switched to Briggs Manufacturing Company. Briggs was working on a design for the Chrysler Airflow when Edsel Ford approached the company for help when designing a smaller Lincoln. The first proposal was a Tatra-like model with the rear engine. The model was modified and released in 1936 as the new Lincoln Zephyr with the front engine and hood and grille designed by Eugene Gregorie under the direction of Edsel Ford.
The Briggs concept car for the Lincoln Zephyr. Design by Joop Tjaarda
The 'pregnant' Buick of 1929
GM's entire design department in 1947
Before the establishment of this design department, design was more of an afterthought. The major manufacturers built bodies designed by engineers guided by functionality and cost. Many luxury car manufacturers did not make their own bodies, but brought the complete chassis to a coachbuilder of the customer's choice. Earl explains: 'Fisher Body designed the body and hood, then they modeled the body and put it on trestles. Then the divisions made the wheels, fender and other things and everything was put together. When I started making the LaSalle, everything was designed in one go rather than in several phases'.
The executives, including engineers, department heads, and sales leaders, viewed Earl's ideas as flamboyant and unfounded. Earl struggled to justify his designs to traditionally production-oriented managers. As head of the newly created Art and Color Section, he was considered one of the 'beautiful guys' and his department was soon nicknamed 'the beauty salon'. Nevertheless, he perseveres and by 1928 he has employed a team of 50 promising designers, builders and administrative assistants. The team grows to 1,100 men in 1959. As soon as you were inside you were immediately 'hot' in the eyes of the competition who were also looking to designers. Many of these talented people also had a big ego to match. Still, Earl persevered until 1958. Experts believe the big team was created because of GM's desire to give each brand its own face. Years later, GM was criticized for lacking an identity of its own among its brands.
Earl was one of the best dressed people in the business. He was the epitome of what Esquire magazine defined as 'Style'. He had difficulty communicating and was not a designer, more of a critic of design, a pioneer in aesthetics, originality and experimentation. Earl used, among other things, sketches and clay models to develop new cars. He also introduced the concept of concept cars as an exercise in designing new cars for the future and as a smart marketing device. Dream Car collector Joe Bortz put it this way: 'You have to think of it as an orchestra, Earl didn't play an instrument but led the orchestra. In all my travels I have never seen a sketch of his hand'. Many of his designers did not stay long. If you wanted to become a designer, you couldn't ignore GM. GM led and the rest followed. Rumor has it that Earl rejected a design that later became Buehrig's Duesenberg. He never signed himself, but led the department. He swore a lot and used his own words: ''I want that line to have a duflunky, to come across, to have a little hook on it, and then do a little rashoom or sang'. Earl commanded respect, all young designers were afraid of him. Still, he is said to have drawn, in a train in 1938 he designs the first Buick station wagon, especially for Harlow Curtice, the boss of Buick.
In 1934 Art and Color became GM Styling. In 1937 the name was changed to 'Styling Section'. Earl thought it was a sissy name with a British spelling and was happy with the new name. Earl divided the department into separate areas by GM division so that each brand could work secretly on its new models. Sloan promoted Earl to VP in 1940, making him the first stylist to become VP, as far as Sloan knew.
Earl . started in 1937 with the development of the 1938 Buick Y-Job, the first ever concept car.
By 1929 Earl had launched a Buick nicknamed 'Pregnant Buick' because of a suggestive bump on the running boards. Since this was not part of his design but an adaptation of Fisher's production department, Earl was no mistake. The reason was the cheaper production method. Walter Chrysler was the first to use the term 'pregnant' and the name kept hanging. It turned out to be a battle, one that did no harm to Earl. Earl found a sympathetic ear with Sloan and was given permission to be consulted on any change to the production department. With Sloan's support, Earl's power grew to legendary heights.
Chuck Jordan, who worked at GM design for 40 years, says that when Earl had a problem with a division manager who said something like "I don't like that front Harley" Earl reached for the phone, "Alfred, it says here a guy who didn't like the design we made...' 'Yeah, I'll tell him'. The 1929 Buick 'incident' confirmed Earl's status within GM. He realized that he needed developers to avoid this kind of problem in the future. He integrated design into the development process for the first time. He also made sure that everyone, designers, developers and executives knew what a car would look like before it rolled off the line. This was done with 2D drawings and 3d 1:1 models of clay. To prevent the public from not buying a new design in the future, he thought it better to first show a concept car to the public. Curtice had asked him to design a Buick that he would buy himself. It contained lines from George Snyder, one of the first to give 'organic' a meaning in car design. It was no ordinary one-off, but a product to gauge the reactions of the public. After showing the car it became Earl's daily commute and drove 50,000 miles in it. The car had a hidden roof, fenders that extended into the doors, power windows and hidden headlights. Earl often drove his concept cars. He drove it to gauge the reactions of the public. The Buick Le Saber concept has also been deployed that way.
Earl and Sloan implemented dynamic aging and with it annual model updates to tie styling to the company's success. From that moment on, Earl is involved in the annual renewals. Whole new models came every three years. These ideas are very common today but unusual for the time. Years later, Earl explains his role in planned obsolescence: 'Our biggest job is to age the products quickly. In 1934 a vehicle is owned for 5 years, now in 1955 2 years, if it is 1 year we have a perfect score'.
The 1948 and 1949 Cadillac was a dream come true for young designer Franklin Quick Hershey. His high society mother bought the 3rd Cadillac that was built in 1903. Many more followed, including a 1918 Phaeaton. That car triggered Franklin to start designing. Franklin had set himself to design a Cadillac one day. When his mother's financial adviser came to their home in 1927 and saw a design by Franklin, he advised him to contact Murphy's. He responded and said: 'Sorry, you are not good enough, we are of no use to you'. Because the financial advisor and Mr Murphy were friends, he was hired anyway with the statement 'we'll see how long you last'. Within two months he was doing all the design work for Murphy. So he started his career at the Walter M. Murphy Body Company in Beverly Hills. He was placed with Hudson which he did not like. Fortunately, after two months, he got a call from Earl to lead the Pontiac division. He went to work at GM where he designed a Bentley-style grill for Pontiac and later in 1933 the famous Silver Streaks. He soon gained recognition and support from Earl. After designing the Kapitän for Opel, he became the head of the GM Advanced Design Studio.
In the early 1940s, Earl got wind of a radical new aircraft design. With the help of a friend, he obtained government permission to look at a secret new plane at Selfridge Field, Michigan. Amongst others, the designers Bill Mitchell and Franklin Hershey went along. There was the 13th Lockheed P38 Lightning. The radical design opened the eyes of the designers to new possibilities that they had never dreamed of before. It was not yet possible to suspect that this outing would have a lot of influence on the designs of the car industry.
Inspired by the outing, the designers got to work and looked at how the design of the P38 could be transferred to cars. This was short-lived as America became involved in World War II. Bill and Franklin joined the Navy and GM made war material. Earl's department contributed to a GM program to increase the effectiveness of camouflage. In the fall of 1944, Franklin was discharged from the Navy for medical reasons and returned to GM. Because Bill was still in the Navy, Franklin became interim chief of Cadillac. In that role, Franklin designed a few models incorporating design elements from the P38, sometimes with and sometimes without wings. Bill still had little to do with late 40s designs, he returned to GM only briefly. He temporarily went on to run Earl's company that Earl had set up with his sons. In May 1945 Franklin was transferred to GM's Special Car Design and Export studio. He remains fascinated by wings that appeared on study models for Vauxhall at that time. However, these wings were still modest.
At the end of the years, Earl had the ideal scale for a clay model calculated by the University of Michigan. That scale was 3/8. Hershey was at one point working on such a scale model with wings. Earl walked in with Nick Dreystadt (one of GM's top bosses) and yelled, "Take that goddamn fin off, nobody wants it." Hershey, however, let them sit and covered them up, a few days later Earl came by again and said 'take it off or be fired'. He covered them again. Later, when Dreystadt came by and said he was glad he had let them go and Alfred Sloan said they could become a stylistic trademark for Cadillac, Earl was convinced and allowed Hershey to include them in his designs whenever he wanted. Jack Gordon, who succeeded Dreystadt in June 1946, was not convinced, however. He came into the studio and sat on a bin to take in the wings. Finally he told Bill Mitchell to lower the wing 3/4 inch. Instead of this lowering, the other wing was made higher. Gordon kicked in and agreed to the lower front wing, not realizing it was the same height as the day before. He eventually found out, but the design was put into production anyway.
Harley's desk in the Technical Center. This office and the entire center has also been featured in Transformers: Age of Extinction where it served as the office of the CIA
The design of the P38 actually arose from the use of 2 Allison engines, for which ironically GM supplied parts. Form followed function. Hershey wanted to apply the resulting lines to the cars. The 46 and 47 models were essentially identical to the 41 and 42 models. If they wanted to stay ahead in design, they had to get started quickly. The Interceptor design that Hershey and his team then completed is converted into two driving models that performed well but were ultimately found too innovative by GM leadership. Hershey had to quickly design something new.
However, Franklin's influence on post-war Cadillacs would have been small had it not been for a UAW strike that began just before Thanksgiving 1945. The strike prevented people from entering the studios to work. However, Hershey had just bought a farm outside Detroit near GM's test track. He invited the Cadillac design team to design the 1948 line on his farm. The group of men got along well and they worked hard. There was a homemade sign at the entrance that read 'Cadillac Design Studio'. Because Earl was not always there and the team let it go its own way, Hershey was able to have the wings incorporated into the design by Ned Nickles. In the studios this might have been a bigger problem given Earl's opinion on the wings. The farm had thus become the birthplace of the 1948 Cadillac, Franklin Quick Hershey's baby!
At the end of 1947, Cadillac introduced the new line of small wings. Packard was immediately outclassed. They had no new modern design. Due to the strikes, Cadillac was only able to sell its new models from March 1948, they immediately sold very well, even better than the larger models that still had the old designs. Packard's identity was in the grill, a Cadillac's identity was now front and back. This made him recognizable both coming and going. Someone looking for a $3,000 dollar car bought the newly designed Cadillac. Those looking for a $2,000 car bought the Packard. Packard also lagged behind in the more expensive models, they sold more cars than Cadillac from 1947 to 1949, but 70% were the cheapest models that had to compete against GM's wings. When the new V8 came in 1949, Cadillac again had an advantage. In 1950, Cadillac sold twice as many models as Packard, partly due to the introduction of the hardtop Coupe de Ville models designed by Ned Nickles, head of design at Buick since 1947.
Hershey was fired by Earl after the 1948 Cadillac was delivered for designing cases for others 'non-automotive' companies. Earl wouldn't tolerate that, even though he also had a business of his own alongside his job at GM. Hershey first joined Packard and joined Ford in 1952 where he designed the first Thunderbird in response to the Chevrolet Corvette. When Ford decided that the 1958 Thunderbird should be a four-seater, Hershey withdrew from the auto industry. He passed away in 1997.
Around 1948 there was a quantum leap in design. Virgil Exner designed a 1947 Studebaker where the hood and fenders were one piece. This type of design would become the new craze from 1949. GM also kept a close eye on the customizers in California. Among them George Barris who fitted cars with lower roofs. Earl therefore thought that the cars should be lower, longer and wider. The 50s are now known for their wings on cars. Earl's slogan was 'Go all the way, then back off'. Earl's opponents say he forgot this slogan when designing the wings. Almost all brands eventually joined this trend, ex GM designer Virgil Exner, later designer at Chrysler, and Earl had started a competition. The pinnacle was 1959 with the tallest wings on the 1959 Cadillac and widest on the Chevrolet. In the 50s and 60s rockets and space travel were very popular and this was reflected in the designs of cars. Influenced by the rocket craze, Earl also designed three jet vehicles in 1954, 1956 and 1959. The Firebird I, II and the titanium III which also had onboard technologies for self-driving. Something that people are now also busy with and which is partly no longer fiction.
He started oa 'Project Opel'. Influenced by British and other European sports cars, Earl decided that GM should also have a sports car. Bob McLean designs the car. The project began in secret and was first presented to Chevrolet technical manager Ed Cole. He accepted immediately and in 1953 the Chevrolet Corvette was shown to the public at a Motorama car show. These shows showed the latest cars from GM along with many dreamcars in various places in America. Earl and his team designed 37. Joe Bortz: 'Americans are proud people, their 'if you have it, show it' attitude was well translated by the styling of Harley Earl's designs.
In the 1950s, Earl also helps design the GM Technical Center in Detroit. Sloan wasn't happy with Earl's offices. Many departments were spread across the Detroit area and located in makeshift spaces. He was especially upset at the plight of the designers whose offices were located in an old Fisher Body factory a few miles from headquarters. This building was right next to a building where heavy equipment, especially diesels, was tested. Earl's men went mad with the noise and were out of space. The GM Technical Center is being designed. Earl even chose the designers himself, the father and son team Elien and Eero Saarinen. He is recognized by GM as 'the DaVinci of Detroit' for this. Construction begins in 1949 and it houses the research department, all development activities and Earl's design group. The building is opened on May 16, 1956 by President Eisenhower. The building will cost GM $100 million. It covers 1.3 km2, 18 km of roads and 1.8 km of tunnels. It contains 25 buildings and a lake of 89,000 m2. During his discussions about the design, he sits in a Mies van de Rohe chair.
Harley retired in 1958 after the 1959 models were completed. He was succeeded by Bill Mitchell under whose leadership GM's designs calmed down. Harley had a heart attack and died in West Palm Beach, Florida on April 10, 1969, aged 75. He is remembered for his clay models, the introduction of two-tone paintwork, the hardtop sedan and wings. In 1954 he said: 'My goal for the past 28 years has been to make the car longer and lower, sometimes in reality, sometimes it just seemed that way'. The low and long cars of the 60s and 70s showed the influence Earl had on the future of the car. In December 1999, Earl was recognized as the 3rd most influential person from Michigan after Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. Bob Lutz once said, "During GM's parade of greatness in the 50s and 60s, the styling reigned and the finance people followed to put things in order and pick up the pieces."
Harley Earl's team:
Gordon Buehrig: The later designer of Cords
John Tjaarda: Is Lincolns and Packards start designing
Frank Hershey: Designed the 1955 Ford Thunderbird
Virgil Exner: Leiden the Chrysler design studio in the 50s
Richard Teague: Later chief designer at Packard, then VP at American Motors
Strother MacMinn: Influential Head Instructor At the Art Center College of Design
Bill Mitchell: Succeeded Earl as head of GM's design department
Our father who art in styling..... Harley be thy name!
