A few points about Earl. First, he tried, in 1957, to bring in women engineers, claiming that women knew what they wanted, and that women would increasingly be decision makers in buying cars. Second, he was trying to get GM to "go small" with some of their cars, while maintaining quality. GM fought him on this, as larger cars meant larger profit margins. Earl did not want to make econoboxes. Here is a prototype Monza from the early 1960s. It freaks me out how ahead of it's time it is:
Third, he fought the bean counters that took over GM tooth and nail until his retirement. The Corvette, the 57 Chevy Bel Air, the Chevrolet Apache pickup, and many others came from him.
I think the maddest I ever got at GM was when they brought in the actor to play Harley Earl in those Buick commercials. I believe Earl would have spit on the Buicks they were advertising. Those vehicles were what Earl fought against his whole career.
The thing I'm saying is that visionaries and engineers like Earl knew where autos were going, and were trying to take us there. The MBAs and bean counters wanted to maximize profits by creating a cartel with Ford and Chrysler and stifle innovation. Imagine if in 1960, GM had gotten ahead of the Volkswagen and Toyota invasion with quality small cars. Imagine if they had brought in female engineers to design cars specifically to appeal to women.
If you loved the cars in those billboards, say thanks to Harley Earl. Almost all of them were his babies.
