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| A Major Breakthrough on a Decade's Old Controversy It is especially significant that the name of a senior GM engineer, Ernest W. Seaholm, accompanies Harley Earl’s moniker on the first La Salle automobile patent. Because, contrary to popular belief today (nine out ten people currently working in Detroit's auto world think Earl was just some "Stylist"), it proves Mr. Earl was a gifted engineer. The following story of the La Salle starts off with Harley Earl moving to Detroit from Hollywood, California. ....The moment this man arrived in America's auto capital to begin remodeling General Motors car lines, tensions were high with most all the other engineers. This was on account of a one-of-a-kind mandate Harley Earl fixed ahead of time with GM's top leaders and largest shareholders. Without it, he would have never given up his successful position making cars for the stars in sunny southern California to move to Detroit, Michigan. It was on account of this arrangement (it was the dealmaker, or his ace in the hole) that enabled him to gain a foothold edge over the legions of traditional engineers inside this corporation. If they ever came at him for a fight...and they always did over the years that would follow, each one always ended up regretting it. For obvious reasons, Mr. Earl never chose to publicly talk about all the delicious pressure going on around GM's new and more modern engineering designs...or, that he was talented in many other areas, too, and never became pigeon holed in one position like most auto execs. The filing date on this seminal patent was Nov. 15, 1926. At this time, Harley Earl was still an outsider, living in Hollywood, California and a "consulting engineer" to GM. The only other existing La Salle patent, also featured below, has more telling information on it, too.
The United States Patent directly above is of the 1927 companion car to the Cadillac: LA SALLE. This was the first professionally designed automobile to ever roll off an assembly line in Detroit. After the debut, it became an instant sales success (27,000 the first year). The U. S. Patent below is of the beautifully streamlined 1934 LA SALLE. Notice there is only one engineer's name on it.
The smart, distinctive Cadillac-La Salle body designs, that created a national vogue in motor car style, were carried to new heights of refinement and beauty. The exquisite closed bodies were notably engineered with unprecedented roominess and comfort. More strikingly apparent than ever before seen in any production automobiles, Harley Earl's stylish engineering leadership was brilliantly exemplified in these modern motor car designs. Three of Mr. Earl's bold assertions, (see paragraphs pointed out directly below) on the basic principles of automobile design and engineering have held the test of time. Whether or not any leading auto execs over the last forty odd years in Detroit ever paid much attention to any of Mr. E's highly important philosophies behind what it takes to build and sell cars successfully in the American market place is an entirely another matter. One thing for sure, if Harley Earl were to come back and see what was going on today in Detroit...the one area which would make him the most miserable, would be the legions of Detroit players who are more "career oriented" versus "car oriented."
It's kind of a natural that the trailblazer behind creating the "car design" profession (pointed out in title of news story in this Detroit News obituary, below) would also be an engineer.
Notice unique winged coat of arms emblem, below along with Harley Earl’s signature “LaS” mark featured on some of the very first design work he did for Cadillac (GM). When this new engineer, who was also a talented artist, started working for the Cadillac-La Salle division, the Cadillac brand was no where near being the established leader in the luxury car market place in America.
Taking Cadillac to the top would become another one of the giant steps Harley Earl would make in contributing to the long-term success of General Motors. Earl was the true champion to spearhead the enormous rise of this brand, cementing Cadillac as the No. 1 leader in the American luxury car market for over 60-years uninterrupted (1935-1997).
Harley Earl is credited in the annals of automobile history with being responsible for the aesthetic rules and dramatic engineering principles applied to all GM’s brands over his entire career, (1926-69). In the last ten years of his life, he remained on with GM as a consultant. The following information at this online section provides new insight into this man's career performance. The engineer who pioneered a new profession in Detroit (car styling or auto design was considered by most auto professionals to be the leading sales factor by the time Harley Earl retired)– was also entirely responsible for inventing the " GM LOOK " whereby each division [Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac] would have its own identity. Over the last 40-years or so, many leading auto execs in Detroit wished to keep all this information a secret, on the backburner or simply have it remain highly esoteric in the minds of most of the American populace since they already believed another story in history (for example, the contributions mentioned at this online section were done by GM, not by Harley Earl). In other words, over all the years GM has been devolving and steadily loosing market share...this company's leaders (prior to the ones currently in power) never wanted to share one of the best stories in the history of the modern automobile industry. That, for instance, there was actually one man in particular who truly was this pioneer of modernity, and was responsible for many of the features on today’s current model cars. More than any other, Harley Earl changed the shape and proportions of the American car of the last seventy-five years of the 20th century. By using all-new streamlining techniques this man dramatically shifted away from the cracker-box designs other more traditional engineers had used beforehand in Detroit (Henry Ford’s utilitarian principles were the most pervasive of the era). In eradicating the old and driving in the new, he pointed the entire auto industry in a different direction based on his “longer, lower and wider” streamlining credo that came directly from his modern manufacturing methods he originated in California. In the post WW II years, every other auto manufacturer followed in step with Earl’s more-modern technique; having a full blown "automotive design" department creating the original engineering designs that would later become a company's end product: A car or truck...or usually some other transportation product. Bullet pointed below are some of the engineering advances, or “FIRSTS IN VOLUME PRODUCTION” the auto titan Harley Earl instituted inside Detroit’s auto world that would go on to shape every car for decades to come; yes, even the modern cars people drive today: o Introduced a hybrid form of engineering the automobile ahead of time using modeling clay to develop the forms (ranging from automobile components to sculpting full-size prototypes). By the mid-1930s, GM adopts Harley Earl's radical new business paradigm of "automobile design" to master design all their cars. Without question, the world's largest auto maker for over 70 years now has been using Earl's more modern form of product design methodologies to pre-engineer their automobiles. Plus, every other major auto concern today remains faithfully compliant in pre-engineering their automobiles this way, too. o First to eliminate running boards o Integrated the headlights, fenders, grill and trunk. o In the 30s, it was Earl who made the monumental decision on which way (would the wiper blades come up from the cowl region or hang down instead) windshield wipers and their motorized apparatus would be standardized on all GM's future cars and trucks. o Originally introduced the exact dimensions of the standardized license plate that rests on each and every automobile manufactured and sold in America over the last 48 years (Harley Earl made them smaller…for, prior to 1955, certain states had different sizes). o
He would introduce the pillarless top, hidden spare tire,
turn indicators, tinted glass, electric windows, and the power convertible top. o
He also introduced the two-tone paint job, designed quadruple
headlights, aluminum wheels, and put the first (power) radio antenna on a car. o
To Earl’s personal dismay, since he was so publicity shy, one Motown song in particular by the famous black melody makers band of the late 1950s named, The Cadillacs became a famous hit about Earl and his cars for the stars mentality. The lyrics went like this, “Although they often call him Speedo…his real name is Mr. Earl...." Another popular hymn resonating throughout Detroit’s auto design departments in the fifties could be viewed as akin to scripture, “Our father, who art in styling, Harley Earl be thy name…” Like No Other High Priest of the Auto World, Hollywood Harley Turned His Industrial Designs Into Art As the local Michigan rotogravure attests, below, you could write the evolution of the design of the modern motor car by writing a biography on Harley J. Earl. In other words, this one creative engineer pioneered the "art form of modern car building." But, the only reason this story never came to the surface before since Earl's death in 1969, has directly to do with a number of important auto execs who followed in this man's wake. They became responsible for GM and Detroit taking a huge slide downward in modern times. For example, the past CEO of GM, Roger Smith, who is already widely epitomized as General Motors worst leader of the 20th Century, personally detested Harley Earl and what he represented and knew it was also a big mistake to remind any Americans of the winning bye-gone era Earl epitomized. Since men like Smith ran opposite Earl's views on how to successfully build modern cars to sell in the U.S. market place, they fostered various campaigns inside GM aimed at erasing Harley Earl's name and image and/or confusing his past storyline. Anyone today with a bit of car sense can recognize that Smith himself was just like another inflexible utilitarian thinker: Henry Ford. Otherwise, why would a vast majority of the cars put out by GM under Roger Smith's watch be likened to some of the ugliest designs and most poorly engineered autos GM ever made over its entire history? Everyone remembers them, they were the millions of look-alike cars GM produced during the late eighties that almost bankrupted GM by the early 1990s. For example, do you think GM's commander in chief, Roger Smith, would ever admit to even one of his past mistakes? Read the one quote by Harley Earl in the March, 1950 FOLKS magazine article feature above titled, GROWING STOPS FOR AUTOMOBILES, "It is a matter of record that poor styling or improperly timed styling has proved financially disastrous to some automobile manufacturers"...It's ironic that this one sentence sums up the disastrous circumstances of Roger Smiths years with General Motors. So, no wonder Smith wanted to bury Earl. Luckily, GM's current leaders are starting to act and become more like Harley Earl. Otherwise, we've already witnessed the grim consequences of what can unfold following GM's other modern leaders.
In conclusion, with all the dodging, spin created by others and an avalanche of hearsay burying Harley Earl's true story in American history...it is once again important to remind people reading this information for the first time...that the design innovations listed and shown here at this online section are all "engineering" based!
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