During GM's modern rise to the top, it was always about an explosive sequence of highly successful production design coming off all this company's assembly lines. Among other self propelled vehicles, Harley Earl's Styling Section designed every one of GM's most important slip-streamed trains of the 1930s, '40s and '50s, too. But, like so many other key factors related to this man's wheel of creativity...much of the recitation of facts were simply buried over in an avalanche of hearsay. For example, most people today - even inside Detroit's auto industry - are completely unaware of this man's wide-ranging story.

Not only is this specific detail featured and demonstrated here on who designed trains for the Eltro-Mototive Division of GM in LaGrange, Illinois, but this fact is also written in most of Harley Earl's obituaries. An exact copy of a historically innovative 1956 brochure, featured below, is a small part of a clear paper trail showing exactly what was happening back then inside General Motors, and, points out a certain accountability of Mr. Earl's modern paradigm being a large part in making General Motors so strong and also being responsible for taking GM way out in front of any competitor. 

You just have to ask yourself then, why aren't auto executives today in Detroit not beating down a path to find out more about this forward-thinking innovator and the important roads he pioneered and championed, especially if his modern age contributions to our society and culture were not only so important to GM, but also good for the American economy? The following quote by HJE was taken from a 1956 Detroit Times dedication section for the GM Tech Center; click on image to read more unbiased reports:

Why is it that exactly what Harley Earl did (a methodology) is so unfamiliar to current automotive administrators, execs and designers in Detroit today whereby they hardly even know the comprehensive details on his fact-sheet of modernity? For many reasons, this distortion needs to be reformed in automobile history. Otherwise, it lowers the standard of how GM should build their products, and that...is not good for America. There is no doubt that if Harley Earl were around today, he would be trumpeting: Mediocre designed transportation vehicles turn off and mock a savvy American public, and to a certain degree, compromise our country's resolve and long-term strength. And, why on earth would any good American ever want to stand in the way of "the process that creates the demand for new products; that sets the factories in motion?"

Click above to see train designs by Designer-Earl and/or click below to read an unbiased media report

Click above image to find out who designed this extraordinary double-decker Greyhound Bus 

Great Design Reins Supreme

Telephone, TV and reel-to-reel tape player...GM was set to rock & roll. Naturally, dull designed vehicles never even made it past being built into scale models. So, the mass audience of car buyers, during GM's & Detroit's zenith, never suffered the consequences of what can happen when a large car company puts questionably styled vehicles into the market place.  Stay tuned, for a visual encyclopedia of this man's exciting work will follow.

Click below to read about GM's first, "Train of Tomorrow" streamliner

Click here to find about GM's highly publicized second "Train of Tomorrow"