Former head of GM Design Harley Earl in his office at the top of the Argonaut Building (1948)

1954 Oldsmobile F-88 convertible concept car penned “ROCKET 88” by Harley Earl (American automotive designer, automotive pioneer and business executive.) F-88 cradled a 324 cubic inch Oldsmobile Rocket V8. BACK STORY-it is said the Rocket was not made because it would hurt the Corvette sales. HISTORY- only two were assembled. One was destroyed, the other was taken apart and stored in wooden crates....until recently. #Rocket #oldsmobile #V8 #history #assembled #corvette #324 #harleyearl #convertible #sales #concept #car #auto #history #automotive

The incredible 1951 "LeSabre" GM design car created by the legendary GM design chief Harley Earl. This and the "Y-Job" are currently on display at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, CA, for a limited time as part of display curated to show the public some of the cars featured in Donald Osborne's fabulous book "Transatlantic Style". This is a rare chance to see these significant cars in person! #lesabre #harleyearl #transatlanticstyle #blackhawkmuseum #designcar #conceptcar #classiccar #vintagecar 🏁 (at Blackhawk Museum)

The LaSalle is best remembered today as the “Junior Cadillac” that it was - but the long-gone Caddy companion was a key part of Alfred P. Sloan’s plan to reinvent #GM after a calamitous period that coincided with the economic crash of 1920-21. The Twenties are remembered as a time of great prosperity, but they began and ended with serious economic crack ups, and GM’s corporate ship had nearly run aground in 1920 thanks to Billy Durant’s expansion plans, his stock manipulations, and the post-ww1 economic contraction. Installed by Pierre S. Du Pont to reinvent the company’s strategy for challenging Ford’s dominance, Sloan invented the idea of segmenting the market and creating “a car for every purse and purpose,” a slogan he popularized in 1925. GM set about differentiating its cars quickly after Sloan, who came up through the ranks of suppliers GM acquired and merged (now AC Delco), got the top job in 1923. #LaSalle was just one star in GM’s constellation of then changing brands, which proliferated in the auto boom of the #1920s - it was a companion just like the Pontiac was to Oakland, but the LaSalle had one special trait that would form the basis for most marque differentiation in the future - its looks were driven by stylists, not engineers. #Cadillac GM Lawrence Fisher hired young designer #HarleyEarl away from Don Lee Cadillac’s body works (formerly Earl Auto Works, owned by Harley’s father J.W.) and tasked him with creating a sleek new Cadillac companion. Earl styled his car after the #HispanoSuiza H6B. The resulting car, often seen in vibrant coordinated colors, was a smash hit, at least at first. Directly derived from Cadillacs, including using a version of Cadillac’s 90-degree V8. The original idea and look of LaSalle remained throughout the first five years - including 1930, when this LaSalle was built. There were only relatively minor changes to the popular car in these years, but the boom came to an end in 1929 and LaSalles became harder to differentiate from Cadillacs - eventually squeezing it out of the market. But the idea of putting style first became a universal practice at GM, with Earl directing the show for 31 years. #GeneralMotors (at Port Townsend, Washington)

Spotted in the wild - it’s a ’41 Buick Super Sport Coupe, known internally as the series 565. This pretty two-tone green (my favorite combo) coupe happened to be passing by while I was on a club drive last Sunday - the driver looked over at our gaggle of unusual foreign cars and we all returned the gawking. 1940 and 1941 were good years for #Buick and #GM as a whole, although part of that may have been that many consumers could see the writing on the wall and that it was possible car production would likely be curtailed at some point because of the war, which is exactly what happened in 1942. Buick, then led by future GM Pres Harlow “Red” Curtice, who had the ear of chief stylist Harley Earl, was especially buoyant in these years - placing fourth in the industry in sales in 1941 thanks to a combination of style, power, and making exactly the kind of car an early 40s customer wanted - quiet, powerful straight eights with style and quality. They also came at a wide range prices - the cheapest Model 40A Special was only a couple hundred dollars more than a Chevy, while the big Limited was in Cadillac territory. Consequently, the brand could appeal to many different consumers; and in the 40s, Buick had exactly the recipe middle-class consumers wanted, just as Pontiac would in the 60s and Olds in the 70s. All ’41 Buicks were powered by “Fireball Eights” - and in ’41 and ’42 they also had  a new innovation - compound carburetion. One Carb worked all the time, the second carb kicked in at high RPMs for passing power. The A and B body Buicks (Special and Super) had 248 cubes, the senior cars (Century, Roadmaster, and the huge Limited) had 320 cubes, but they were all in the family. The #BuickSuper was the nicest of the lower end cars, with the Super Business #Coupe - sans back seat - offering alot of car for only $1,031 before options. It was probably the plushest “Business Coupe” on the market. More common was the Sport coupe, which included a rear seat for $100 more.  #1940s #BuickWorld #Buicks #Americancars #streamlinemoderne #carspotting #BuickEight #ig_autoshow #vintage #oldcars #voituresanciennes #oldmotors #forties #HarleyEarl #style #hemmings #retro_rides  (at Black Diamond, Washington)