Accurately projecting a certain path of destruction for GM, Richard Earl made his claim in a January, 2006 newspaper article saying the following, "the company has lost its edge in creating industry-leading designs -- and that's a key factor in its diminishing share of the automotive market." While at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show, Richard revealed more on the emperor's new cloths, "GM has given up its design legacy and the company's products no longer exhibit pace-setting design" and then he capped it off with the most unmerciful true statement any car company and their leaders never want to hear in today's modern world, "GM's Style is as exciting as an Amish wardrobe." 

Richard continues, "In 2005 and 2006 I started to go head-to-head in the media against GM vice president of global Design, Ed Welburn because someone with a proven knowledge of this company's design legacy needed to stand up and fight for what was right in Detroit. These faulty GM leaders are ruining the American auto industry, forever. GM' management is ultimately accountable for all the company's product designs (clunkers) put on roadways in the last quarter century. Richard Earl's quotes above and below from these two different news stories are proof positive and decisively demonstrate how GM's recent CEOs like Rick Wagoner and Jack Smith tipped this company over the edge, and that's why GM went into bankruptcy proceedings in early 2009. 

After clashing with key management figures inside GM, while Richard worked on a unique DAVINCI of DETROIT advertising campaign that ended in 2005, Richard saw how GM could not sustain itself in the long term. 

GM VP of Design, Ed Welburn has always just been a minor puppet and/or just a cog in the wheel of GM's financial treasury office wheel. Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO, has always controlled GM Design's creativity with an iron fist. This is the system of business America's largest auto maker [GM] has been following for decades now and obviously, with the test of time, it clearly is all wrong and will bankrupt the company in the end run. Welburn's quotes in the Cutting Edge Design...article displayed above are proof positive that his, and Wagoner's forward design visions of GM's products, will sink General Motors fast! Wagoner and Welburn should be held accountable for their momentous failures (poor styling and improperly timed designs). Because what's discussed here at this section is at the heart of why General Motors Corporation is at its lowest market share point in 80 years time!"

In mid-Sept., 2008, Richard was the closing keynote speaker for the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and went on the record sharing with legions of the attendees at this conference how GM was about to go bankrupt. He shared how, "The existing way GM Design has done business in the last 30 years is polar opposite the philosophy of Harley Earl, the creator of GM Design. Going against the grain of the very individual responsible who primarily cemented this company near a fifty percent market share (via DESIGN) for decades of time is the surest way to fail in a business that is 'design driven.' The decay of GM's design legacy began in the 1960s, but really took hold in the 1970s when GM's treasury office took entire creative control of GM Design. This was the beginning of GM losing market share, loyal clients, money, respect and so much prestige."

Notice in below article, third paragraph from bottom, leads into where this entire story begins, "Of course, Japanese automakers aren't about to be overshadowed by American innovation." This Los Angeles Times newspaper story from April 5, 1959 details beginning of Japanese invasion of their smaller "designed" import cars. Also remember, 1959 marked the very first year General Motors would venture out on their own; no longer having the extraordinary wisdom and talent of America's Car Design Pioneer: Harley Earl.

It's not the first time GM's modern day vice presidents of Design have been dead wrong on "mega design trends" concerning the long-term fate of the American auto industry. Read Bill Mitchell's 1974 words on the "Small Car Trend," during America's first oil crisis. Then you can see how Bill Mitchell and GM's current vice president of Design, Ed Welburn, are cut from the same cloth and clearly employ same tact of driving GM in opposite direction using a design philosophy contrary to Harley Earl.

One of the reasons Richard Earl uploaded this section of the website was to clearly retaliate from various high level GM execs attacks on him who blackballed him from doing any further business dealings in Detroit's auto world. Essentially, Richard was working on a goal to have GM re-embrace a "good design sells" business paradigm that would be one of the fasted ways to turn this company around and get it back on the right track. But, Richard was met by a formidable wall of opposition and by late 2004 word filtered out amongst GM's leading executives not to do any further business dealings with R. Earl. Although he had started one of the largest multi-year advertising campaigns ever focused on an iconic American design/engineer, Richard became persona non grata inside General Motors. All the while, Richard had lived and worked harmoniously with GM for eight years leading up to this time (he started a business in Michigan, too) and had received numerous good press on his "cutting-edge design, key to market success" theory could quickly turn GM around. It was always clear to him how the auto-innovator, Harley Earl, who invented the Global Auto Industry's Dependency on Design business paradigm in the first place needed to be brought out of mothballs. 

Richard worked with Tiger Woods and Hollywood director Tony Scott and was on his way up in the auto world and in 2005 found out the leaders of America's largest auto maker (GM) were intensely upset with the current direction he was headed in regarding sharing the truth on Detroit's design legacy. That's when GM's CEO put a distinct order out, "don't do any more business with Richard Earl." Because of this, Richard chose to shoot a cannon shot over the bow of GM leaders by having a decisive "Cutting-Edge Design, Key to Market Success" newspaper article written during the 2006 Detroit International Auto Show. After moving away from Michigan in October, 2006 he decided he'd take on these pathetic GM financial treasury office managers later on and fight them by writing a biography on Harley Earl that would help level the playing field in the American auto business.

Richard believes this may be a likely long-term scenario,  "First off, the 'GM' and/or 'General Motors' brand will most likely be eliminated and the largest and most successful brand in the American auto industry's long history, Chevrolet, will stay in business along with Cadillac and GMC Truck, which will become divisions of the Chevrolet Car Company. All the other brands will be sold off and/or simply eliminated to deal with basic survival mode issues in the radically changing market place moving into 2010. Self preservation and accountability will become of the tallest orders as Detroit's auto world will rapidly be changed and reformed. Chevrolet will go back to using a design philosophy more consistent with the one which made GM so strong during the 20th Century."