Auto Designer Earl Created Look of GM's Glory Days, Tailfins, Chrome and All

It's important to note, or set up ahead of time, that many of Harley Earl's detractors tried to dethrone the sheer magnitude and success of his innovative tail fin design that swept through an entire nation of car buyers during the 1950s. Fins were an ebullient expression of devil may careness, the hoisting of a flag to honor America and a hope of better days ahead. They were splendidly outrageous, impractical and most people loved having them rest on the back ends of their cars. It's likely if you did a national poll today you'd probably find out that many Americans still feel this way! Why, because unlike any other innovative idea used over the last 60 years of auto making to sell millions of cars, this one concept was a bold and adventurous strategy that really has no equal.

It's wonderful that the word is getting out there now and many savvy individuals in the worlds of the automobile and the design profession are starting to find out the truth on how one of Mr. Earl's leading design rivals personally felt about "the tail fin." Many industrial designers interviewed for an upcoming biography on Harley J. Earl, some of which had worked closely for Earl inside GM Styling in the heyday of Detroit's '40s and 50s, uncovered a common thread of wisdom going on in the design world at that time: "Raymond Loewy hated tail fins because he didn't think of the idea first." Another reason why so many other car designers over the last few decades tended to sway towards Loewy's way of thinking has a great deal to do with hubris, rather than whether or not tail fins being on any cars in the past, present or future actually made good business sense from a design standpoint. Tail fins on cars were directly responsible for increasing sales of Detroit's motoramic masterpieces of that era. Also, a far-reaching California Institute of Technology report found out that certain tail fin innovations actually improved road handling conditions at high speeds, too.

Realistically, no professional car designers today are brave enough or even have the power or ability to start such a large nationwide trend like this one ended up proving to be. Earl's phenomenon of cars-with-fins lasted well over a decade (1948-63). The bottom line is, "good design sells."

Tail Fins Anatomy - 1950

The overall theme of the LE SABRE vehicle, pictured here, is distinctly identifiable: Timeless Hi-Tech Beauty. Dreamer-In-Chief, Earl, is pictured below standing next to the original pre-engineered/designed Le Sabre sculpture. Like all the significant full-sized models Earl ever created, once their purpose was served -- they were destroyed. Even for Harley, parting with this one-of-a-kind artistic masterpiece [the full-sized gold model of LeSabre] must have been a little rough. 

Business Week magazine, below, did a wonderful job reporting the story of this important car's mid-century introduction. As one can better understand now, the LeSabre was just another step in a long line up of this grand master's "quiet revolutions." 

Harley Earl is pictured below in 1958 with a trio of his finned FIREBIRDS; I - 1954; II - 1956; III - 1958. These spectacular super cars had become a major hit in pop culture and also featured a number of firsts, including the first-ever onboard computer. Building on top this winning heritage, execs within the Pontiac division of General Motors chose to launch a sporty new nameplate in the mid-1960s: FIREBIRD. At this time in auto history Motordom's execs embraced Earl's dynamic modernism. After all, they knew that this fashionable design-movement was directly responsible for selling millions of American cars and naturally stoked the flames of social economic progress, too. 

Of course this man's language of communication was a cryptic labyrinth of design that went on to stump everyone for decades of time...from a myriad of Detroit engineers, auto exec and journalist to savvy art historians as well as the entire general public. But, now that Harley Earl's signed artwork has finally surfaced and his entire legacy of design is currently being broken down, analyzed and properly translated for the first time...allows this man's important story -- One of America's Most Hotly Collected Artists -- to now be publicly shared. Sure, the story is controversial since the magnitude of this artist's works and lifestyle creations escaped millions of people for so long. 

For a multitude of reasons, ranging from a government "sworn-to-secrecy" accord to never wanting to loose his artistic immunity, Mr. Earl chose to never shout it out "down the line" how he was a main stream contemporary artist in America. (If you want undeniable proof, look around the website or just go straight to HJE's own words written on this subject: Individual Expression ).

The two pictures directly below were enlarged and taken from the GM Folks tail fin article shown directly above (gold color was added to give continuity). 

At the top of the Automotive World stood Cadillac, it was the leader from every conceivable standpoint. How and why it ever happened in the "modern age," ...that's Harley Earl's story. 

From Great Achievements...To Inspiring Tradition!