Harley Earl, generally considered the father of American automotive design, was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1893. In the late 1920s, Earl's design talent caught the eye of General Motors Chairman Alfred Sloan, who offered him a position directing the styling of all GM car lines. Earl accepted, moved to Detroit, and soon wielded unprecedented control over GM's new product development.

During Earl's 31-year career with the company, General Motors reigned supreme as an industry leader. Under his direction, designers and stylists pioneered countless innovations, such as the following, which propelled the company to the forefront of automotive design.

1. The Auto-Styling Studio

Prior to Earl's arrival in Detroit, cars were designed almost entirely by engineers who often showed little talent for attractive, cohesive forms. The Art and Colour Section (which Earl later renamed Styling) changed all that. GM's new division revolutionized the auto industry, and rival manufacturers soon developed styling studios of their own. A car's appearance became just as important as its mechanicals in Detroit's new product development process.

2. The Wraparound Windshield

The groundbreaking 1951 LeSabre concept car boasted an innovative new windshield design in which the glass curved sharply at the ends to meet the windshield pillars. This gave a futuristic look and a panoramic view. The design soon saw production on the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado and the 1953 Oldsmobile Fiesta, and it quickly became de rigueur on most American cars in the 1950s.

3. Model-Line Hierarchy

One of GM Chairman Alfred Sloan's great innovations was a model-line hierarchy of increasing price and status. The idea was that General Motors would have an appropriate product for consumers at each level of the automotive marketplace, and consumers would aspire to the next rung up the GM product ladder. Harley Earl's work dovetailed perfectly with this strategy, as he designed a natural progression of increasing style and prestige into Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and Cadillacs.

4. The Dream Car

Earl popularized the idea of the "dream car," or concept car, a one-off, non-production vehicle built for auto-show display. Earl's dazzling, futuristic dream cars forecast tomorrow's styling innovations and whet the car-hungry public's appetite for the "next big thing" in automotive design. Public reaction to the new designs was also used to gauge the popularity of future production models. Earl's 1938 Buick "Y-Job" was the first full-fledged dream car.

5. Clay Modeling

Even before he arrived at General Motors, Earl was a pioneer in the concept of taking a design from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional form by producing clay models of his creations. The use of clay as a modeling tool greatly simplified and sped up the design process by allowing designers to visualize shapes and forms that were difficult and time-consuming to create in steel.

On the next page you'll find the rest our list of Harley Earl's design innovations, beginning with Dagmars.

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