Harley Earl
Encyclopedia
Vice president
A vice president is an officer in government or business who is below a president in rank. The name comes from the Latin vice meaning 'in place of'. In some countries, the vice president is called the deputy president...
of Design at General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
. He was an industrial designer and a pioneer of modern transportation design. A coachbuilder
Coachbuilder
A coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others in Britain included...
by trade, Earl pioneered the use of freeform sketching and hand sculpted clay models as design techniques. He subsequently introduced the “concept car” as both a tool for the design process and a clever marketing device.
Earl's Buick Y-Job
Buick Y-Job
The Buick Y-Job was the auto industry's first concept car, produced by Buick , in 1938. Designed by Harley J. Earl, the car had power-operated hidden headlamps, a "gunsight" hood ornament, wraparound bumpers, flush door handles, and prefigured styling cues used by Buick until the 1950s.The car...
was the first concept car, he started "Project Opel", which eventually became the Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car by the Chevrolet division of General Motors that has been produced in six generations. The first model, a convertible, was designed by Harley Earl and introduced at the GM Motorama in 1953 as a concept show car. Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after...
, and he authorized the introduction of the tail-fin to automotive styling. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he was an active contributor to the research of camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
.
Early life
Harley Earl was born in Hollywood, California. His father, J. W. Earl, began work as a coachbuilderCoachbuilder
A coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others in Britain included...
in 1889. The senior Earl eventually changed his practice from horse-drawn vehicles to custom bodies and customized parts and accessories for automobiles, founding Earl Automobile Works in 1908.
Earl began studies at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, but left prematurely to work with, and learn from, his father at Earl Automotive Works. By this time, the shop was building custom bodies for Hollywood movie stars, including Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Tom Mix
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...
. He was six feet four and a half inches tall.
General Motors
Lawrence P. Fisher, general manager of the Cadillac division, was visiting Cadillac dealers and distributors around the country, including Lee. Fisher met Earl at Lee's dealership and observed him at work. Fisher, whose automotive career began with coachbuilder Fisher Body
Fisher Body
Fisher Body is an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan; it is now an operating division of General Motors Company...
, was impressed with Earl's designs and methods, including the use of modeling clay to develop the forms of his designs.
Fisher commissioned Earl to design the 1927 LaSalle
LaSalle
The LaSalle was an automobile product of General Motors Corporation and sold as a companion marque of Cadillac from 1927 to 1940. The two were linked by similarly themed names, both being named for French explorers — Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac and René-Robert...
for Cadillac's companion marque. The success of the LaSalle convinced General Motors president Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr. was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation...
to create the Art and Color Section of General Motors, and to name Earl as its first director.
Prior to the establishment of the Art and Colour Section, American automobile manufacturers did not assign any great importance to the appearance of automobile bodies. Volume manufacturers built bodies designed by engineers guided only by functionality and cost. Many luxury-car manufacturers, including GM, did not make bodies at all, opting instead to ship chassis assemblies to a coachbuilder of the buyer's choice.
The executives at General Motors at the time, including engineers, division heads, and sales executives, viewed Earl's conceptual ideas as flamboyant and unfounded. Earl struggled to legitimize his design approach against the tradition and production-oriented executives. As head of the newly formed GM "Art and Colour Section" of GM in 1927, he was initially referred to as one of the "pretty picture boys", and his Design Studio as being the "Beauty Parlor".
In 1937, the Art and Colour Section was renamed the Styling Section. Sloan eventually promoted Earl all the way to the vice president level, making him (to Sloan's knowledge) the first styling person to be a VP at a large corporation.
Harley Earl and Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr. was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman, and CEO of General Motors Corporation...
implemented "Dynamic Obsolescence" and the "Annual Model Change" to further position design as an engine for the company's product success.
Buick Y-Job
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Buick Y-Job
The Buick Y-Job was the auto industry's first concept car, produced by Buick , in 1938. Designed by Harley J. Earl, the car had power-operated hidden headlamps, a "gunsight" hood ornament, wraparound bumpers, flush door handles, and prefigured styling cues used by Buick until the 1950s.The car...
, the motor industry's first concept car
Concept car
A concept vehicle or show vehicle is a car made to showcase new styling and or new technology. They are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not have a chance of being produced....
. While many one-off custom automobiles had been made before, the Y-job was the first car built by a mass manufacturer for the sole purpose of determining the public's reaction to new design ideas. After being shown to the public, the Y-job became Earl's daily driver.
Camouflage research
In 1942, during World War II, Earl established a camouflageCamouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
research and training division at General Motors, one consequence of which was a 22-page document called Camouflage Manual for General Motors Camouflage. A decade before, two former World War I camouflage artists, Ledyard Towle (a U.S. Army camoufleur) and McClelland Barclay
McClelland Barclay
McClelland Barclay was an American painter of pin-up art. Born in St. Louis in 1891, Barclay studied first at the Art Institute of Chicago, then later at the Art Students League in New York City, where he studied under George Bridgman and Thomas Fogarty...
(who created the Fisher Body
Fisher Body
Fisher Body is an automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 in Detroit, Michigan; it is now an operating division of General Motors Company...
ads, and contributed to U.S. Navy camouflage during both World Wars) had worked as designers at General Motors. In addition, among Earl's apprentices was English designer David Jones, who worked at its British division at Vauxhall Motors
Vauxhall Motors
Vauxhall Motors is a British automotive company owned by General Motors and headquartered in Luton. It was founded in 1857 as a pump and marine engine manufacturer, began manufacturing cars in 1903 and was acquired by GM in 1925. It has been the second-largest selling car brand in the UK for...
, and who served in the camouflage section of the Royal Engineers
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
during World War II.
Tailfins
Tailfin
The tailfin era of automobile styling encompassed the 1950s and 1960s, peaking between 1957 and 1960. It was a style that spread worldwide, as car designers picked up styling trends from the US automobile industry where it was the golden epoch of American autodesign.General Motors design chief...
s. Inspiration for the fins came from the Lockheed
Lockheed Corporation
The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace company. Lockheed was founded in 1912 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995.-Origins:...
P-38 Lightning
P-38 Lightning
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament...
. But it also extended beyond the war during the age when space rockets captured the popular imagination. The style caught on throughout Detroit and eventually led to competition between Earl and Virgil Exner
Virgil Exner
Virgil Max "Ex" Exner, Sr. was an automobile designer for numerous American companies, notably Chrysler and Studebaker. He is known for his "Forward Look" design on the 1955-1963 Chrysler products and his fondness of fins on cars for both aesthetic and aerodynamic reasons.-Early life:Born in Ann...
over the size and complexity of tailfins, culminating with those on the 1959 Cadillac models.
Chevrolet Corvette
Road racing
Road racing is a general term for most forms of motor racing held on paved, purpose-built race tracks , as opposed to oval tracks and off-road racing...
circuits after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Earl decided that General Motors needed to make a sports car. Design work on "Project Opel" began as a secret project. He first offered the project to Chevrolet general manager Ed Cole
Ed Cole
Edward Nicholas Cole was an American automotive executive for General Motors.- Career :Cole was the son of a dairy farmer. In his youth, he designed, built, and sold homemade radio sets, and as a teenager became a field representative for a tractor manufacturer...
. Cole accepted the project without hesitation, and the car was offered to the public in 1953 as the Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car by the Chevrolet division of General Motors that has been produced in six generations. The first model, a convertible, was designed by Harley Earl and introduced at the GM Motorama in 1953 as a concept show car. Myron Scott is credited for naming the car after...
.
Succession
Harley Earl retired from General Motors in 1958 after overseeing the design of the 1959 models. He was succeeded as vice-president with responsibility for the Design and Styling Department by Bill Mitchell, under whose leadership GM design became less ornamental.Before Earl retired, General Motors became the largest corporation in the world, and design was acknowledged as the leading sales factor within the automotive industry.
Death and legacy
Harley Earl suffered a stroke and died in West Palm Beach, FloridaWest Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...
, on April 10, 1969. He was 75 years old.
He is remembered as the first styling chief in the United States automobile industry, the originator of clay modeling of automotive designs, the wraparound windshield, the hardtop sedan, factory two-tone paint, and tail-fins. He said in 1954, "My primary purpose for twenty-eight years has been to lengthen and lower the American automobile, at times in reality and always at least in appearance." The extremely low and long American cars of the 1960s and 1970s show the extent to which Earl influenced an entire industry and culture.
One of his concept car designs, the turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
-powered Firebird I
General Motors Firebird
The General Motors Firebird is a series of three concept cars designed by Harley Earl, and built by General Motors for the 1953, 1956 and 1959 Motorama auto shows. They were very much inspired by innovations in fighter aircraft design at the time...
, is reproduced in miniature on the The Harley J. Earl Daytona 500
Daytona 500
The Daytona 500 is a -long NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held annually at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is one of four restrictor plate races on the Cup schedule....
Trophy, which goes to the winner of that season-opening NASCAR
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
race.
Harley Earl was used in a brief advertising campaign for Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
, particularly during its reconstruction period between 2001 and 2002. Actor John Diehl, portraying Earl (or his ghost) was used to symbolize the importance of design in Buick's cars, or as the ads put it, the "Spirit of American Style". Earl's trademark fedora was often used as an icon
Icon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
in these advertisements.
In a December 1999 special section in the Detroit Free Press
Detroit Free Press
The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The Sunday edition is entitled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep"...
, Earl was ranked the third most significant Michigan artist of the 20th century, behind Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
and Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...
.