' Cloud 9 ' Engineering 

 1961 Detroit News story, below second column, mentions Harley Earl's engineering firm doing contract work for Detroit Tank Arsenal

Notice selfsame painting above in GM Styling (just left of American flag) is still around today...color photos above & directly below

Henry Lauve, notice arrow above in black & white GM wartime photo, was an important player on Earl’s team. Mr. Lauve kept this photograph, and only opened up on the secret military work he and others did when he was approaching 80-years old. The penalty of talking about issues of national security kept men like him quiet, for decades, and / or, from ever talking freely to any journalists or conventional writers. 

An in-depth  "Wartime Ad Section" will be - COMING SOON - to this website whereby more information, like what's shown here, can point out how big a difference GM was making at this time in history, and not just “talking the talk.” Once H.J. Earl’s entire story comes forward explaining how he introduced Detroit to a more modern way of building high quality volume production vehicles – then all this material will come together more cohesively. At which time, people will begin to understand the depth of how the Automobile Design profession radically changed our modern world. "Many tricks have been devised for speeding up this type of art to the tempo of war," came from Harley Earl's new-game-in-town (GM Styling Section).

Part of this interview, click link below, outlines a segment of this man's wartime contributions and demonstrates a side of his Detroit story (consulting to the U.S. military) that even most savvy auto historians, World War Two enthusiasts and legions of patrons of today's giant Society of Engineering don't even know about. For example, we researched this information ahead of time and found out that the very first Graphic Engineering Dept, ever, in industry was created inside GM's Styling Section under Harley Earl. Click below, and scroll down to page-11 to read more about this information.

One of the most absurd stories perpetuated by a camp of un-American individuals whom went to extreme measures to keep Harley Earl's true story down all these years, has to do with whether or not this man used wind-tunnel technology for GM's vehicles? Of course he did. But naturally, this inventive new car architect/scientist kept all the vital work being done around this cutting-edge design technology cloaked over in a veil of secrecy. Anyone in big-business today will tell you that GM's industrial designs - surrounding anything "professionally designed" over the last 75-years - were always kept highly confidential. 

In reality, it was the European car manufactures and Japanese automakers who were way behind. They didn't start catching up until well into the 1960s...and that's because American big-business slowly started showing them the way after World War-Two toward grasping the sheer magnitude and importance of combining and testing two technologically rich new areas of engineering: 1.] clay models of transportations products (a Harley Earl first) -  2.] the expertise of the wind-tunnel. 

Building Transportation Products

As one can see...the picture directly below illustrates that many of GM's mainline auto execs were truly mesmerized by what Harley Earl had started off in the industrialized world back in the 1950s. Bunkey Knudsen (Big Bill Knudsen's son), Ed Cole, Hafsteder, Goodman...these are a just a few of the next generation of GM leaders who would follow in this inventor's wake. In a very distinct way, all these men knew of this one man's giant contributions...but, as time went by, they never did much of anything to preserve what Earl originally set forth into motion. Instead, guys like this and GM's treasury office administrators stirred everything Mr. E originally created into the GM caldron of engineering inventions and just called them "GM's Milestones." Why you might ask? The primary reason was so that they could ride on this man's coattails!

Let's not forget that it was because of Mr. Earl's new " pre-engineering building technique" originally created for GM to use exclusively...that this company would arrive at a design monopoly by the late 1950s and Detroit would also be heralded as the "automotive design capital of the world" at this time in history.

Charles Kettering was told by Harley Earl in 1940, when the picture below was taken, to gladly go on the road and promote GM's radically streamlined new FUTURLINER concept vehicles and everything they represented..."as if they were your own." And, that's exactly what Mr. Kettering did, he's the one pointing to the design of HJE's second act of the Parade of Progress vehicles, below, (the original GM Parade of Progress started off years beforehand during the depression years). Twelve of these exact vehicles would be hand crafted at GM Styling under the direction of Earl and his one-of-a-kind team of hybrid engineers. "Ket" as Harley Earl and other friends of his referred to him by, then took the vehicles on a type of traveling dog and pony show across the USA. Ket also knew that HJE didn't want him to promote or say publicly who the artist was behind these vehicles...that's because it was classified information within the corporation. Why? 

Because, back then, Harley Earl shared his artistic creativity with almost every GM employee. You could almost say it is one of the greatest reasons today why GM still has a tremendous mystique and long following of car-and-truck buying clients...but it was Harley Earl who originally created this mystique. This company has always had the "artistic edge" and that's why GM still remains the largest auto maker in the world "uninterrupted" for over 70-years time now! Is this directly tied to the fact Harley Earl created the largest design monopoly in the 20th Century? You bet it is. [This last sentence was written in 2005; whereas, since this time, Toyota dethroned GM of this prestigious historical performance!]