Earl’s accomplishments during his 30 years at GM included introducing the “concept car,” crash safety testing and the use of clay models in the design of the automobile. But his most important and enduring contribution was to convince the brass at GM that a car’s appearance is just as important to the auto-buying public as the way it performs.
Harley J. Earl was born in Hollywood, California on November 22, 1893. His father, J. W. Earl, made a living building coaches and he eventually converted his business from horse-drawn vehicles to custom car bodies, parts and accessories, founding Earl Automobile Works in 1908.
Harley Earl, meanwhile, enrolled at Stanford University, but dropped out to work with, and learn from, his father’s car parts business. Before long, father and son were building custom bodies for wealthy car owners including Hollywood movie stars like Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and cowboy star Tom Mix that featured a hood ornament in the shape of a saddle.
Harley Earl, meanwhile, enrolled at Stanford University, but dropped out to work with, and learn from, his father’s car parts business. Before long, father and son were building custom bodies for wealthy car owners including Hollywood movie stars like Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and cowboy star Tom Mix that featured a hood ornament in the shape of a saddle.
Eventually, Earl Automotive Works was bought out by Cadillac dealer Don Lee, who kept Harley Earl on as director of its custom body shop. There, Earl caught the eye of Lawrence P. Fisher, general manager of the Cadillac division and Fisher Body fame, who was impressed with his designs and methods.
By 1927, Earl’s custom car designs attracted the attention of General Motors. GM had introduced the LaSalle that year to fill the price gap between the Buick and the Cadillac, but the car was a sales disappointment. Earl was lured to Detroit by the auto maker with the task of remodeling the car and, hopefully, boost sales. Shortly after arriving in the Motor City, Earl separated the style unit from the engineering department in order to give the designers at GM more creative freedom.
Harley Earl with a 1927 LaSalle
The newly-redesigned LaSalle was a sensation. Coupled with a 303 cubic inch 75 hp V-8 engine, it became a performance car able to average 95.3 mph, just a few miles below the Duesenberg which had just won the Memorial Day 500 race at Indianapolis. But it was the LaSalle’s streamlined shape that caught the public’s eye - the model was so popular that in 1929 nearly 50,000 were sold.
Prior to Earl’s radical design work, auto manufacturers were most interested in functionality and cost. The success of Earl’s LaSalle tipped the auto industry on its head. Earl’s idea of creating cars “longer and lower” redefined the way car makers in Detroit conceived the appearance of its auto offerings.
"My primary purpose has been to lengthen and lower the American automobile, at times in reality and always at least in appearance,” Earl once said. “Whyω 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."
Harley Earl in the 1930s
Flush with the success of the LaSalle, GM made Earl first head of GM's Art and Color Division, later dubbed the Styling Section. Starting with a staff of 50 designers, he had, by the time of his retirement, 1,000 creative people on board as a nod to the importance the car maker placed on design to the selling of its automobiles.
By the 1930s, many of Earl’s design ideas began showing up in the production of GM’s competitors. Such design breakthroughs as the ultra-futuristic tradition of “pre-styling the auto body” using Earl's colorful, life-size, two-dimensional drawings and full-size clay model became commonplace in the auto industry. In addition, other Earl ideas caught on such as two-tone paint, the four-headlight system, hardtops, chrome trim and the one-piece, wrap-around windshield.
Perhaps the design feature most associated with Earl was the “tailfin” that dominated American automobile styling in the 1950s and early 1960s. The first car to incorporate the tailfin phenomenon was the 1948 Cadillac - the inspiration of which came from the Lockheed P-38 Lightning jet and included features that Earl subsequently developed more extravagantly in other models over the following decade.
Another Earl first was the idea of the “concept car,” which was initially produced in 1938 and dubbed the Buick “Y-Job.” The purpose of the concept car, as Earl envisioned it, was to showcase a new vehicle's styling, technology and overall design long before mass production decisions are sent to engineers.
To look at the Y-Job today is to realize how far-sighted Earl was. A two-seat sports car that featured hidden headlights, power steering, flush door handles, and electric windows, the Y-Job looks more like something out of the 1950s than a Depression-era vehicle. While other “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. It also happened to be Earl’s favorite car.
1938 Buick Y-Job
Influenced by the English and European sports cars being raced on road-racing circuits after World War II, Earl decided that GM needed to enter the sports car market. Their entry, called the Corvette, exhibited as a concept car at the Motorama Show of 1953 in New York City. With its panoramic curved windshield, tailfins, “Blue Flame” engine, low center of gravity, and fiberglass body panels, the Corvette became an immediate hit with the fans at the show and, eventually, the public at large.
1953 Corvette
Earl became a vice-president of GM in 1940, playing a highly influential role in determining the corporation's design policies until he retired 18 years later. As a progressive in the world of cars, Earl was also ahead of his time in the social arena.
Starting in 1943, Earl employed a number of women industrial designers in the Styling Division at GM. Much of their work centered on the design of the interiors of cars, and employed well-known artisans such as Dagmar Arnold, Gere Kavanaugh and Jane van Alstyne, who became known as the “Damsels of Design.” In addition, Harley Earl was the first auto executive to hire openly gay men and women designers to come work for GM Styling.
By the time Earl retired in 1958, his legacy was secure. He brought the word "styling" into Detroit's lexicon and made it a legitimate part of the car-making process. Ford and Chrysler eventually established their own styling divisions, hiring many workers whom Earl had trained at GM. Incorporating the latest styles proved that the car was more than just a functional vehicle of transport but something beautiful to behold.
All told, Earl had a hand in the creation of about 50 million GM vehicles and developed design techniques used for eight decades. At GM, Earl is still warmly remembered with the phrase "Our father who art in styling, Harley is thy name".
Harley Earl died April 10, 1969 at the age of 75.
Harley Earl died April 10, 1969 at the age of 75.
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