You may have seen the ads on TV. In one, for Buick, a fedora-wearing actor portraying the spirit of GM’s brilliant, but long-dead, head of styling tells the camera, “My name is Harley Earl, and I’ve come back to build you a great car.” For those of you who don’t know (and it’s a safe bet that many of you do not), Earl was GM’s first design chief, a man who for the better part of three decades, starting in 1927, shaped the cosmetic makeup of new models for the Detroit car company and in doing so rewrote the definition of style for the rest of the automobile industry as well. He was responsible for introducing to GM cars a vast compendium of styling details–most notably the tailfin (Earl was said to be fascinated by jets and airplane designs), bodyside portholes, two-tone paint and an abundance of chrome.
In another recent ad, this one for automaker Infiniti, the unseen narrator asks, “Where are the cars we were promised?” The reference is to those futuristic concept cars of the 1950s and 1960s–several of which, it was supposed, could drive and fly and even float–but none of which ever actually made it onto a production assembly line. Not surprisingly, it was GM’s forward-thinking Earl who developed the first concept car (at the time called a “dream car”), the 1938 Buick Y-Job, a two-seater that featured hidden headlights, power steering, flush door handles and even electric windows. The idea of the concept car would soon emerge within the auto industry as an essential sales and marketing device, thanks to GM’s virtuosic design chief and, some would say, consummate salesman. (Years later, Earl would convince a skeptical GM that it needed to build a sports car–the result of his persistent cajoling was the 1953 Corvette.)
