HARLEY GREW UP IN HOLLYWOOD
1956 book by H.J. Earl (click above).
The Earl automotive story didn’t begin with Harley, but rather with his father, Jacob W. (J.W.) Earl, a late 19th Century coach builder, who started the family’s auto heritage in 1889 — seven years before Henry Ford built his first car in 1896; see a four-part online series on the Earl's "California Years” at theoldmotor.com.
No wonder J.W.'s great-grandson, Richard Earl, has so much auto passion, he is part of one of America’s oldest families on wheels.
AUTO INDUSTRY DISRUPTOR
The following quote from a "Best of America" news article sets the record straight behind the founder of Detroit's Dependency on Design, "His drive to execute his vision turned Harley Earl into a car industry disruptor, 70 years before disruptors became cool. GM's competitors didn't want to redesign their cars every year. But Harley Earl's success forced them to."
In other words during the early 1930s, Henry Ford and Walter Chrysler — GM’s main competitors — didn’t want to do Annual “Styling” Model Changes (which GM had invented) because they were expensive and entirely unproven. Because so much money was at stake, Chrysler and Ford began following GM’s lead in this important new area of auto making going into the 1940s.
So, is it any surprise that during the mid-century era, this man was the team leader of the largest industrial company in the world built through design and technology leadership?
GM’s amazing mid-century dream team leaders supported Harley Earl’s bridging the art world to mass production in the auto industry and these modern business pioneers called it, “the Modern Art of Industry.” Through Harley's studio doors rolled the cars that would ignite a nation's love affair with the automobile, establishing Detroit as the auto design capital of the world, creating a huge contemporary art market, and enabling the auto industry to become mid-twentieth-century America’s economic backbone. During this golden era the innovative team of leaders at GM stood behind Pioneer-Earl and created the modern Car Design soul propelling the meteoric rise of today's global automotive economy.
Y JOB
Jay Leno praises HJE’s Y Job as, "The most famous car in the history of General Motors, if not the United States."
FATHER OF THE “CONCEPT CAR”
An amazing success story displayed in the GM Design Bldg.
Harley J. Earl (HJE) didn't become America's Car Design Pioneer without putting up a fight against legions of traditional Detroit engineers and finance guys. To clear these hurdles, he was backed by GM’s largest shareholders and was unimpeded to build millions of sexy stylish hi-tech vehicles.
“ONE OF THE MOST HOTLY COLLECTED ARTISTS”
Being in the right place at the right time landed Harley in a rarefied spot to become Motordom’s first design superstar who turned car designers into the rock stars of the auto industry. Leslie Kendall, chief curator of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, Ca., puts it this way, "Harley J. Earl is one of the most hotly collected artists of the 20th Century, whose name is ironically often unknown among collectors of his work." Sounds like the icing on the cake of this man’s long career.
Harley's accolades are as numerous as they are diverse: being the first to use full-size clay modeling, first on-board computer in a car, inventing the concept car theme, hiring and advancing women car designers, the Corvette, first hands-free autonomous cars, creating the landmark Car Design Scholarship program, and supplying the auto design curriculum to such universities as Art Center College of Design and Pratt Institute, etc…
From university students to Vietnam veterans to Fortune 500 executives and Nonprofits, the story behind this American auto heritage is as important as it is inspiring.