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| What's featured at this section outlines the beginning of Harley Earl taking General Motors into America's modern sports car racing arena. The photos directly below were taken at the August 1957 Road America Elkhart Lake race. Not surprisingly, the award prize for this particular race, pictured further down, was another Harley J. Earl trophy. A couple years later, the Daytona 500 trophy would be named "The Harley J. Earl Daytona 500 Trophy" which was naturally related to the enormous contribution this one man made to America's post WW Two racing world.
Notice how Designer-Earl liked showing to these races; here he is with the Olds F-88 II, a custom show car he penned.
Photo at top is of Briggs Cunningham, Harley Earl and his daughter-in-law, Constance Earl. Photo, above left, is of Dick Thompson and Jerry Earl who both raced the Corvette SR-2 on this day at the Elkhart Lake race in 1957. Picture above at right is another one of Cunningham and Earl.
In 1956, the Sebring Chevrolet racers sired a trio of SR Corvettes - "SR" standing for "Sebring Racer" or alternatively "Sports Racing." When Jerry Earl announced he was going to race a Ferrari 250 MM, his father --- Harley Earl --- commissioned a racing Corvette for him instead. The result was the very first Corvette SR-2 (Jerry seen below in the middle).
Jim, Jerry and Suzy Earl at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin Road America racetrack in 1956. At 26 years old, young Jerry raced the very first Chevrolet Corvette (first Corvette sponsored and constructed in and by G.M.) in the post war modern era. Send us an email if you want to see the General Motors shop order (SO) number for this car showing how it's on a historic GM Styling list with other amazing concept cars Harley Earl designed.
The Ferrari that started it all.
1955 - November - Pictured directly above at home in Grosse Pointe, Mich., Jerome (Jerry) C. Earl is sitting in his recently acquired 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale. In a July, 2006 conversation, Jerry Earl said the following from his Florida home: "I bought this racing Ferrari for $4,000 from Richard Lyeth after the ’55 season was over and intended to race it on the circuit in 1956. My father, Harley J. Earl, made an offer that was hard to turn down. He recommended building a custom one-of-a-kind Corvette racer inside GM Styling for me to take on the 1956 race circuit versus my racing a Ferrari (which I'd have to end up paying for everything on my own). Essentially, he said I'd be sponsored in many ways and thus avoid paying all the high costs associated with the sport. Naturally racing what would later become known as the very first factory sponsored (by GM) custom built Corvette racer over this particular Ferrari was a giant motivator. So, I said sure thing to my dad on this deal and ended up selling the Ferrari about five months later in March 1956 for exactly what I'd paid for it. While it was in my garage, I did end up taking it out a few times, but I never raced it before I sold it to some fellow race car driver from down south in Birmingham, Alabama area. I wish I could remember his name..."
As one can see in the next four photos (check the dates), Jerry Earl's SR-2 already had been fitted with the high fin. That's why --- the SS Corvette and/or XP64 --- seen below in the 20ft blackboard drawings was initially rendered with a high fin, too. At this time, Aug. 1956, the SS Corvette was still being built. Also, notice directly below this important photo of Jerry's Corvette dream "race car" SR-2 seen w/ two other enormously important GM concept cars: the LeSabre and the Olds F-88 II
Tail section of first SR-2 had pointed fin molded to the back deck. Taillights were the first of the units which later became stock items. Plastic coverings for headlights add much to the streamlining of Earl's Corvette, they are removed for street use. Parking lights are special units that were taped for racing.
Detroit's true modern leader, Harley Earl, built the "the first race Corvette" for his son inside one of his very own engineering body development studios. This type of behavior is usually reserved for the top dog leader and/or selfsame engineer running the entire show. Naturally the power and the creative control to do anything desired, inside this giant corporation, created friction for Harley Earl! For example, hundreds of other internal GM finance guys, engineers and stylists were apprehensive since they simply didn't have the clout to "build running prototypes"...let alone know how to get the financing to fund their dreams inside this corporation.
Famous stock car racer Curtis Turner pictured with Jerry, below, at a rare Nassau competition during the 1957 season.
Jim Earl, Jerry's brother, with soon to be wife and the '50 LE SABRE prototype. Below
is a case study detailing the power role H. J. Earl played
influencing certain GM advertising campaigns. It’s easy to see that this
Corvette "logo theme," illustrated below, presents more evidence why Corvette’s
advertising from the late 1950s was so unique. At certain times, Mr. Earl would
point Campbell-Ewald Advertising Co. (Chevrolet’s sole advertising company
since 1928) down particular creative roads. Mr. Earl was never challenged, for
this was back before the day of modern Marketing Departments, and GM’s Styling
team often had their own sway to “market” GM’s image, brands and look.
Oh, were those the good old days of GM...Well, naturally this often included literary output and artwork used in some of the
massive print advertising campaigns associated with GM’s product designs [work
coming out of Mr. Earl’s studios that was duplicated in volume production by
all this company’s brands]. Regardless, Harley Earl's race car concept and symbology, that's very much apart of the most seminal moment in Chevy's early American race car history, wound up being duplicated in volumes of Chevrolet Corvette’s print advertisements from 1957 to 1960 (long before color TV was truly popular). Like so many other controversial elements of this auto titan’s story, there are many others who came out of Cambell-Ewald and GM who went on to tell entirely different stories related to where many of the good ideas originally came from.
For example, Harley Earl left his personal marks practically everywhere in GM's modern auto world. But, as surprising as it may sound, many traditional GM middle managers, stylists and engineers today have an axe to grind with his legacy (all that Mr. Earl did and left behind) since they can't come close to measuring up to what he was able to do in his day. Also, since all this history laid buried for decades of time, and many of the stories that did get told and were put into circulation via Corvette history books, often just cut Harley Earl's seminal version out! This was on account of the secondary bit-players in Corvette's early history who were trying to buoy up and/or push forward their own narrow self interests after Mr. Earl died in 1969. They are the ones primary responsible for tainting Harley Earl's early Corvette story since, often enough, they cut out his name and supplied often put their name in his place. Did people like this inside GM contribute to making all this great history practically indecipherable for others to comprehend? You betcha...that was part of the plan. So, one can naturally understand today that many of these shameless self promoters (many of em have passed away, too) would not like their names associated with trying to cover up Harley Earl's great "Untold Corvette Story." Exposing this petty jealousy, like what's described above, around something as illustrious as "early Corvette history" will eventually add gasoline to the fire in helping Harley Earl's true side of the story rise up in notoriety.
New Yorker & Sports Illustrated ads, above, from March 1957
Click image above to find out how H.J. Earl took GM into modern sports car racing
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