The Harley Earl Legacy: How GM Wrote the Book of Automotive Design

Early automakers left the design of their cars to their engineering staffs, who were more concerned with performance and reliability than aesthetics. Cars of the day often looked like metal boxes with head lamps, windshields, running boards, and fenders tacked on without any apparent thought for the overall appearance of the vehicle.

That all changed in 1926, when General Motors decided to turn to a professional designer for a new Cadillac model. Harley Earl was chosen for the project because of the reputation he had built designing custom car bodies for film stars in his native Hollywood, California.

Harley Earl

The 1927 Cadillac LaSalle was an immediate success and General Motors hired Harley Earl that same year to create the industry’s full-time in-house design staff, which he called the Art and Colour Section (later re-named Styling and then Design).

Up to his retirement in 1959, Earl’s GM design team set the standard for others to follow. The many innovations they brought to the design process include the use of line drawings and three-dimensional clay models to bring design concepts to life.

Under Earl’s leadership, the GM design team launched dozens of ground-breaking designs that have become classics, including the 1938 Buick Y Job, which was the industry’s first concept car, and the Corvette, the first volume production sports car.

One of Earl's less-known designs was the 1930 Cadillac V-16, the first volume production car with a sixteen cylinder engine. Its real significance is the way it was developed. No one outseide the small team assigned to the project knew of its existense, and no one outside the team was allowed to see its progress except three senior executives: Earl; Alfred Sloan (GM President and CEO); and "Boss" Kettering, head of GM Research. The competition had no clue of what was about to hit them. When the V-16 was unveiled at the 1930 New York Auto Show, they were all stunned. The press gave the car rave reviews, as did consumers. With the onset of the Great Depression at the same time, the main competitors in the luxury segment -- including Pierce and Packard -- were never able to respond to the V-16. Cadillac's image as the luxury and performance leader was further cemented, thanks to the surprise launch of the V-16.

Today, the Harley Earl legacy of excellence in design lives on not only with the current product lineup but with forward-looking, head-turning concept cars. In the past five years alone, GM’s list of new concepts includes:

• 2002, AUTOnomy
• 2003, Cadillac Sixteen
• 2005, Pontiac Solstice, now in production
• 2006, Chevrolet Camaro, scheduled for production in 2009
• 2006, Saab Aero X
• 2007, Chevrolet Volt
• 2007, Opel GTC
• 2007, Buick Riviera
• 2007, Opel Flextreme

As GM enters its second century of progress, design is once again at the forefront of the game. Design is passion, and no team is more passionate about design than GM.

William Pelfrey

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