Larry Fisher, one of the seven "Body by Fisher" brothers of GM fame and head of the Cadillac division, had a problem in 1925. Rival manufacturer Packard had introduced the Packard Six, and GM management feared that this reasonably-priced higher-end car would draw show room traffic away from their Cadillac models.

Meanwhile, in movie-town Hollywood, Cadillac dealer Don Lee had no such worries. His business was booming, and so many of his movie star and movie mogul customers wanted custom bodies on their new Cadillacs that in 1919 he had purchased an automobile crafting shop from a man named J. W. Earl.

Earl Automobile Works had manufactured cars since the turn of the century, but the company had gradually begun to specialize in creating specialty vehicles for the movie industry, including stage coaches and chariots. Son Harley, home from two years at Stanford, had earlier taken over the task of designing custom bodies for customers, many of whom wanted new Cadillacs.

A few of these "Earl bodied" cars made their way to New York City, where GM chairman Alfred Sloan, attending an auto show, noted that Earl's cars were longer, lower, and wider than the competition's.

Larry Fisher might have heard about Harley Earl from Sloan, or he might have heard about him from his brother, Fred Fisher, who frequently played golf with young Harley Earl. In any event, around Christmas 1925 Fisher called Earl. Would Earl, he inquired, be willing to take on the task of designing Cadillac's new sportier, less expensive "sister" carline, the LaSalle?

"You betcha," replied Earl, and, taking wife Sue in tow, he relocated to Detroit for what was to be a three-month stay.

During that period, working in clay and wood, Earl produced four designs - a coupe, a roadster, a sedan, and an open touring car. He painted these models in black lacquer and mounted them on wheeled chassis. They were convincing.

Fisher and other GM brass were convinced, too. The car, which Earl made no bones about having been influenced by the European Hispano-Suiza, went into production with only minor modifications.

Earl accepted the congratulations of Fisher and other Cadillac managers, and then he headed home to California and Don Lee.

Nine months later Larry Fisher called again (this time from Alfred Sloan's office). Would Mr. Earl be interested in coming to Detroit to take charge of the "Art and Colour" department?

"You betcha," replied Earl, and thus began the longest-ever, most influential reign by an American automotive designer.

The Buick "Y-Job"

Earl's office was to be accessible by all GM divisions, and Sloan told him that he could expect to have a staff of fifty in a year's time. Sloan, he said, would back Earl, but Earl would have to find his own way within the organization.

The Art and Colour department (A&C) was located on the tenth floor of the GM building in Detroit. At first, Earl's people were assigned to selecting paint colors and fabric patterns, but real commissions began to trickle in.

Larry Fisher asked Earl to touch up the 1928 model line.

O. E. Hunt of Chevrolet asked Earl to design the division's first six-cylinder car.

The Buick division asked for Earl's help in styling their entire 1929 model line.

This design work for Buick was also Earl's first failure as a designer. These cars had a stylistic feature called a "rolled belt line" or a widening of the body just below the window openings. Walter P. Chrysler, upon viewing an early production model, said that the cars looked "pregnant," and the Detroit press picked up on his comment. As a result of adverse publicity and the actual public reaction to the design, Buick sales were poor that year. In the end, 56,000 less Buicks were sold than in 1928.

Earl found this ignominious misadventure hard to shrug off, but help (and a return to good favor) soon came to Earl from the contributions of an engineer in his employ.

This man was Vincent Kaptur, who had been hired away from Packard in 1928. Kaptur's job was to check various car body designs for the different products in GM's lineup to ensure that they "fit." After a while, Kaptur noticed that the completely different car models that the divisions made actually were extremely similar in their measurements, even though each division produced their own models "in house."

Why not, Kaptur suggested to Earl, have the divisions standardize on three or four body sizes? Then they could employ a greater parts commonality, and Earl's department could have the job of differentiating each model.

This idea was a concept of scale that would modify the way automotive producers develop their lineups forever, and Harley Earl was the point man who offered the plan to GM management. It was called the "A, B, C, D" plan, in which each letter represented a different chassis "floor plan."

From scoundrel to prophet in a year and a half, Harley Earl was back in GM's good graces, and his department was soon given additional responsibilities.

Earl set up five studios within his department to work on the different model lines, and he apportioned staff between them. He also kept a separate team working on futuristic models that might not be entirely practical or imminently produceable, and these teams received his special interest. They also produced some surprising designs, such as the 1935 Pontiac, and (another story altogether) the 1938 Cord 810.

Longer, lower, wider.

Earl in the 1951 Le Sabre

Harley Earl was convinced that cars could be designed to sit lower to the road without sacrificing head room (which was important back when men wore hats). To demonstrate this, he set up a special showing for Sloan and other GM brass. Michael Lamm, in an article called "The Earl of Detroit" in American Heritage described the show this way:

"In one presentation of the mid-1930s, Earl wanted to show GM executives how the company could make its cars lower without sacrificing headroom. Alfred Sloan was watching, along with the Fishers and others. Sloan later wrote that Earl 'made one of the most dramatic demonstrations I have ever witnessed. He had a Cadillac . . . on the stage before us. There were a number of workmen who, after lifting the unattached body from the chassis, proceeded to cut the chassis frame apart with acetylene torches. Proceeding very quickly, they welded the frame back together in such a way as to lower its height by a good six inches. When they replaced the body on the makeshift frame, Mr. Earl had proved a point - not only could the body be lowered but, in its revised form, looked 100% better.' Earl always believed that lower looked better, and the average height of a GM sedan decreased from 72 inches in 1930 to 56 inches by 1958."

Harley Earl was GM's chief stylist for 31 years, and his staff grew from 50 to about 1150 people. Along the way, he hired away talented stylists from the competition, and among them were Zora Duntov, who would direct Corvette styling, and Billy Mitchell, who would become GM's next great stylist.

Earl was enchanted with the sleek, powerful lines of fighter aircraft, and he often tried to incorporate aviation-inspired details into his cars. One of his innovations was tailfins. They appeared on the 1948 Cadillac and became a dominant styling theme in the 1950s. Another innovation of his was possible because of improvements in chrome plating techniques during the war years. Earl's designs had lots of chrome, and this, too, became a industry-wide element of automotive design in the 50s.

Harley Earl retired in 1957, and he reflected on his career: "My primary purpose has been to lengthen and lower the America automobile, at times in reality and always at least in appearance. Why? Because my sense of proportion tells me that oblongs are more attractive than squares, just as a ranch house is more attractive than a square, three-story flat-roofed house or a greyhound is more graceful than an English bulldog." (Source: Vivian M. Baulch, The Detroit News, Harley Earl, father of the 'dream' car).

Harley Earl died April 10, 1969, at age 75 after a stroke in West Palm Beach Florida.

Remember those little separate design teams that Earl set up to work with futuristic designs? Their first driveable product, the Buick "Y Job," is generally hailed as being the first concept car from a major American manufacturer. Another was the 1951 Buick LeSabre, pictured above with Earl at the wheel. If this article recieves favorable comments, these cars will be the subject of future Kudzu Monthly articles, as will the car that is partially visible in front of Harley Earl in the photograph above. It's the 1958 jet-powered Firebird III.

Notes

"To reassert its styling philosophy, Buick creates the persona of the auto industry's first design chief, Harley Earl. He returns to take stock in today's models, such as the highly successful Buick Rendezvous, and suggests that great things are to come."
    -- GM Communications Press Release "Tiger Woods And Harley Earl Reintroduce Buick's 'Spirit Of American Style' In New Advertising Campaign," September 16, 2002

The advertisements were produced by McCann-Erickson in cooperation with Richard Earl and were directed by Tony Scott, who is known for having directed the movies "Top Gun," "Enemy of the State," and "Crimson Tide." About the actor, the press release continues:

Veteran stage and film actor John Diehl plays Earl in the commercials. Diehl is probably best known for his appearance on "Miami Vice" as the Hawaiian shirt-clad Detective Larry Zito. More recently, Diehl played a surgeon in the film "Pearl Harbor" and appeared as Ben Gilroy on FX's critically-acclaimed television series "The Shield."

To learn more about Harley Earl, visit the Earl-family-authorized website at www.carofthecentury.com.

To read another article about Harley Earl by this author, please see Those Fabulous Jet-Powered Firebirds in the December 2002 issue of Kudzu Monthly.

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Copyright © 2002 Lamar Stonecypher
All rights reserved

About the Author

T. L. Stone is the pen name of Kudzu Monthly publisher Lamar Stonecypher.