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My Father worked on the Corvette project as a Clay Modeler (as Industrial Sculptors are tagged by the auto industry). His name was Ross Edgar McLean and he worked hands-on with the design. He told me many stories of the days spent refining the shape and details, and he took his orders from two individuals when it came to those changes: Harley Earl and Robert McLean. Robert was a 'Young Gun' with GM when Harley first saw his conceptuals for an Oldsmobile, which Robert dubbed the 'Bob' cat. Harley liked what he saw and moved the design to Chevrolet. Bob's original design was very similar to the F-88. Harley added his own touches to the car during the Chevy adaptation (Dad said he literally sat on a chair while the Sculptors worked, telling them to add more here and shave some off there). Dad had a gift for this kind of work, so it's no surprise to me that he was involved on this design. Harley seemed to work better with the design in 3-D, catching little things here and there that he felt needed to be tweaked from the prints. Harley felt this car would be a success with the crowd he was accustomed to from his early days in the industry and ordered the original design (F-88) prototyped, as well as three other variants. I suspect the Bonneville was one of those. Dad said the car (Vette prototype) was to be Harley's personal car (common practice among auto execs). Seeing the car go into production was a bonus for the whole team.
Dad left GM to go to Ford shortly after completion of the XP-20 project, but he had pictures of his work in black and whites that were taken when the finished '52 prototype was put on display internally. The project was very secret, but one of his friends took pictures of him, Harley, and the other modelers with the car. It appeared the pictures of the Vette were done deliberately as they were well composed, but the individuals in the pictures weren't posed (candid).
In the years before Dad passed away he asked me what I'd like him to do. Dad loved General Aviation and had done seaplane and other experimental models in clay. I worked as a Glass man with my Dad in the summer when in college, and together we worked on the Chrysler P44, Cutlass studies, a Bonneville, and a mid-engine design that would eventually become the Eclipse (after retiring he was a contractor for job shops). But what I wanted was a reproduction of the Corvette study in 1/12. Dad did the initial sketches for the project but a stroke left him unable to complete it.
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