Find out why Harley Earl's "Olds F-88" brought over $3 million

[harleyearl]

If you go to the following section of the Official Harley Earl Website, you will see part of the provenance that the bidders at Barrett-Jackson had been clued into before this motoramic masterpiece went up for auction:

http://www.carofthecentury.com/harley_earl_led_the_way_in_detroit_styling_&_engineering.htm

I was showing this historically innovative 1956 GM ?dream car? press release to potential bidders...and many were thrilled to see that the F-88 was on a storied list of priceless Harley Earl show cars.

Richard Earl

[Guest J446]

Nice article in todays NYT's about auction. It was also nice to see a CCCA car go for 2.75 million. I thought the Packard that sold at BJ was also interesting. CCCA approved rebody? Is that correct?

[Guest]

Mr. Earl; I started a thread some time ago last year stating that Harley Earl was vastly over rated as a designer, and was mearly the direct of GM's design studio. People who com along and sing the prasies of Harley Earl, doesn't know auto history to well. I can honestly say that being able to see the turbine powered GM Firdbird I, II, III, series cars, and taking pictures of them, and being able to study them close up, makes me want to go to the bath room.

[Aanderson44]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mr. Earl; I started a thread some time ago last year stating that Harley Earl was vastly over rated as a designer, and was mearly the direct of GM's design studio. People who com along and sing the prasies of Harley Earl, doesn't know auto history to well. I can honestly say that being able to see the turbine powered GM Firdbird I, II, III, series cars, and taking pictures of them, and being able to study them close up, makes me want to go to the bath room. </div></div>

Perhaps the best dissertation on the life and times of Harley Earl I have come across yet is in the excellent book by Michael Lamm and David Holls (Holls worked for the first 8 or 9 years of his long career at GM Styling UNDER Harley Earl). Both of these men pull very few punches in their description of the man. They put him up there, pretty much warts and all.

As for the so-called "Harley Earl" Oldsmobile F88, I do find it interesting that everyone at Barrett-Jackson seemed to accredit this car to Harley Earl, of which nothing could have been farther from the truth. Earl, by 1950, was of course, the Vice President of Styling at GM, but was no longer rendering designs, but rather running the largest styling operation ever created, before or since, in industry, anywhere or at anytime, before or since--literally hundreds of stylists, body engineers, clay sculptors. In short, he had become, very much, by the middle 1930's, pretty much the "idea person", bringing in stylists from all over, approving the designs he liked, and often summarily dismissing stylists who displeased him (gee, doesn't that sound like corporate America to this day?).

I've had, for reasons associated with my profession as an automotive miniaturist, the pleasurable opportunity to become acquainted with Claire MacKichen (the head of the Chevrolet Styling Studio in the 1950's), and the late David Holls--himself a Classic Car restorer and collector prior to his passing in the 1990's). In numerous conversations with both, they had both praise and subdued criticism of the by-then-deceased Earl, but they both spoke of him with a lot of respect.

Holls and Lamm cover the works of just about every automotive stylist in their fantastic book. It's a great look at not only the works of the many individual (and often individualistic!) stylists, but also the evolution of automobile styling in the 20th Century, from the beginnings, all the way to the often outrageous concept cars of the 1990's. Neither man makes much in the way of "critical" comments about the work of any of the stylists they wrote about, but rather they point out the contributions of each, and leave the ultimate decision as to what looked good at the time, and what wasn't appealing, to the reader.

But, one thing does stand out, and prominently so, and that is the impact (like it or not), that Harley Earl had on the "look" of the American automobile.

But, back to the Oldsmobile F88: A good bit, I think, of what makes this particular car such a "star" today, is that it was just about the only General Motors "Motorama" dream cars to ever have escaped from GM as a running, street-legal, driveable car, other than those cars which Joe Bortz has rescued from the Detroit-area scrapyard which was supposed to crush up retired GM dream cars but didn't. While Chrysler did sell copies of several of their 1950's dream cars, Ford did not, and neither did GM--but the F88 in question apparently was given to E. L. Cord for whatever reason, from whence it progressed through several hands until being restored to what we see today--and that does make it very significant. Harley Earl didn't style the F88, any more than he personally styled any cars post say, the very early 30's, BUT, he certainly put his stamp of approval on it, as he did on any of GM's dream cars or production cars from the early 30's through the 1958's, the last cars to reach production during his 30+ years at GM. And, being the larger-than-life person in the industry that he was, it is his name that gets attached to the F88, just as it does today with all the cars created during his tenure.

Harley Earl wasn't alone in being named, erroneously, as the stylist behind all those cars. Raymond Loewy is almost always credited in the popular press as being the "designer" of the '39 Studebaker Champion, the postwar "Which way is it going" Studebakers, and the famed '53 Studebaker coupes, even the Avanti, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Loewy may well have dashed off a sketch or two to give some direction, but it was others who finalized, and often brought about cars that were significantly different from what the famed "frenchman" had originally thought up. Virgil Exner (actually the man behind the '39 Stude Champion and the '47 Studebaker, while working for Loewy) is often given credit for the actual production design of the finned Chrysler products of the late 50's, but again, not quite true--he set the direction, but other stylists and sculptors did the work, and finalized those cars as well.

William "Bill" Mitchell, Earl's successor, was, in my opinion, by far the greatest stylist of the two. Mitchell's trend-setting Cadillac 60 Special of the late 30's still stands the test of time today as a very well-designed car, simple, clean, yet very elegant. And, very much in the pattern of Earl, Mitchell seemed to know what he wanted, and how to get it, upon replacing Earl in late 1958. Mitchell often gets credited with the trend-setting '63 Corvette Stingray, when that car was actually designed, almost singlehandedly, by a California hot rodder cum stylist, Larry Shinoda.

Unfortunately, so many of the so-called "pure stylists" of the 30's seem to have come and gone like a fleeting candle-flame in the night. People like Howard Darrin, Ralph Roberts, Thomas Hibbard, Amos Northrup, and the legendary Gordon Buehrig produced stunning designs in the 30's, even into the late 40's, but either due to premature departures, an inability to deal with changing tastes (for better or for worse), or unwillingness to blend into the rapidly evolving and expanding world of corporate politics, either faded from the scene or finished out their careers doing fairly minor parts of the cars they continued to work on.

I would suggest, if you haven't already done so, that you pick up the book I mention--it is a fascinating look back at the story of the automobile, and how it evolved, and how styling developed. However, one thing is very certain to me: I still much prefer the looks of cars from the earliest days through the end of the 1960's. With only a few exceptions, today's cars look about as exciting as a pile of baby lima beans on my dinner plate--which I eat because they are supposedly good for me, certainly not because they are pretty!

Art

[Jack Harlin]

Anderson44 Not AUTO related

Do you have any info on Harleys in put on the G.M. built Areo train? I have it in HO scale, made by Revell. I rode it one time when the PRR operated it. Bus bodies were used for the coaches on single axel trucks, short wheel base & rode hard. But the locomotives were really wonderfull looking. I wonder if this was done by others also as you stated above Jack

[Aanderson44]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Anderson44 Not AUTO related

Do you have any info on Harleys in put on the G.M. built Areo train? I have it in HO scale, made by Revell. I rode it one time when the PRR operated it. Bus bodies were used for the coaches on single axel trucks, short wheel base & rode hard. But the locomotives were really wonderfull looking. I wonder if this was done by others also as you stated above Jack </div></div>

Of that, I would have no idea whatsoever. While the Aerotrain's power car certainly has the protruding "snout" carrying the headlights that clearly has its roots in the LeSabre dream car of 1951, it also very closely follows the lines of the Euclid crawler tractor's styling.

Somehow, I can't envision GM Styling as having much input into the industrial/construction equipment or rail locomotive end of GM, as I do know that Electro-Motive Division did have their own styling department, located 300+ miles west of Detroit, in LaGrange, Illinois, where the styling of the EMD E- and F- series diesel locomotives were built. And, the bus-body passenger car sections of the Aero-Train were done by GM Truck & Coach of course, but then Earl might have had some influence on them.

Art

[Jack Harlin]

I will try to locate the write up I have. Im sure it states it was another masterpiece of Harley Earls. Jack

[Jack Harlin]

Matt

I was going to send e-mail but dont have your address. I never installed a link before so dont know if I can? If nothing comes up thats the reason??? Jack

http://www.caroftcentury.com/the_aerotrain.htm

[Jack Harlin]

I see what happened in the transfer. There should be a bottom line only, between, the_ aerotrain, not under all. Jack