Mistake of '58: The GM Chromemobiles and Far Out '59s

[Music] i believe this film far better than any words of mine will give you a better understanding of the important roles played by stylists and styling in general motors [Music] in the 1950s the american car makers were caught up in an all-out designer's war what started out in the early 50s as rounded off smooth cars with a responsible amount of chrome slowly turned into a jet-like spacecraft overloaded with rocket motives and tail fins everywhere but what happens if you take things too far that's what we're going to find out in episode 40 of the automotive history series welcome everyone to the mistake of 58. five four three two one with the launch of the explorer one satellite in 1958 the space race was in full swing and the general public became more and more interested in all things space age and aircraft and car designers were well aware of this in the early 50s you could buy a studebaker champion a car that looked much like an airplane that lost its propeller or a cadillac could deville which featured little fins on the rear and many other cars had a plethora of options and features with high-tech sounding names pan orama windshield autronic eye headlight dimmer teletouch automatic transmission and speed alert warning system that lets the buzzer go off as soon as you went faster than 60 miles an hour that's a 1950 safety tack for you one of the driving forces behind the design of the quintessential 50s cars we all know and love was harley earl the head of the design department at general motors he is the father of many car design techniques that are still common practice even today like free-form sketching hand sculpting clay models and the very first concept car to woo the public the buick white job in 1938 he turned carr's styling from an afterthought into a marketing tool by the mid-1950s harley had a certain prominence and power over the design department at general motors his will is law since he made card design so popular in the first place a card designer could come up with something entirely new refreshing or unique but if harley didn't like it then chances are it did not make it to the final production harley knew what was good for you this was no problem however as general motors kept on pushing the boundaries in the mid-1950s in terms of sales and styling the crisis around that time were considered outright old-fashioned and the ford motor company designed cars that were good looking but a bit bland but gm cadillac featured pointy bumpers and tailfins buick at the sweep spear in portholes pontiac had a stylized rocket on the side and chevrolet was an absolute sales hit many people still talk about the tri-5 chevys even today gm was invincible when it came to styling and harley earl was the undisputed king now i should add some nuance to this harley earl was the head of the design department and usually gets credit for all the many great designs but don't forget that some 20 to 30 men worked at the office and not everything credited to harley came actually from him but from one of the employees now one of those employees was designer chuck jordan and on a nice day in 1956 and remember that year he decided to go out of the office and check to see if he could get a glimpse of the cars from the competitor call it leisurely industrial espionage around this time almost the entire american car industry was centered in and around detroit and chuck chose the chrysler factory that was only a couple miles away chrysler that company that was the laughingstock of the auto industry chuck was in for a good chuckle he arrived at the factory and peeked through the chain-link fence at an outside parking lot and what he saw was highly interesting to say the least he looked at the fresh and new 1957 plymouths cars that were entirely redesigned from the ground up to the whims of competing designer virgil exner now chuck had heard about exner and sure enough the most recent chrysler models were looking slightly better but the cars that he saw at the other side of the chain-link fence were out of this world space age every greenhouse bold bumpers dual headlights and huge fins where did that came from i have told you the story of these chrysler cars of the late 50s numerous times before and i won't be doing it again but let's just say that chuck was extremely surprised and deeply impressed with what chrysler division plymouth had done with their cars they looked a lot more expensive than they initially were chuck rushed back to the gm design department because this was no good news by the looks of it chrysler might surpass the general in terms of styling chuck immediately told what he saw to his fellow colleagues and the second in command chief bill mitchell and they immediately went back to the chrysler factory to see it with their own eyes but where was the big boss in this story where was harley earl let's get back at earl as i mentioned before he kind of ruled the design department with an iron fist the designers had a certain freedom to design cars but not an unlimited freedom as it had to be approved by harley and harley had a different idea of future car design harley believed in heavy and bulky designs that showed sturdiness and power and was convinced that the price point of a car should be reflected quite literally by the amount of chrome on it more expensive more chrome this resulted in cars that looked like heavy battle tanks with a lot of intricate chrome details and ornamentation a historic contrast with the long sleek and fast looking chrysler cars this was a massive problem why well back in the day the car industry worked like this a car company would often work three years in advance when it comes to styling and development so in this case in 1956 there is that year again general motors had already commenced production for the 1957 model year for 1958 the designs were already locked in save for some very last-minute design changes and the designers were currently working on the designs for the 1959 model year so if you see a competitor's model ahead of production in 1956 and you think that this car might turn out to be a massive success that is going to steal your sales imagine that you're royally screwed since the designs for the two following years of your cars cannot be changed anymore you just have to deal with it and if your designs are not well perceived oh boy [Music] the brightest stars of hollywood brought to you by chrysler corporation maker of the five great cars of the forward look and we all know what happened in 1958 the stage was set priceless so-called forward-look models despite the quality issues were well perceived in the gm cars for 1958 a bit less they were hardly earl's dream mobiles but in reality heavy and bulky chrome latin cars let's go through the ranks shall we chevrolet for 1958 offered a car that was the least decorated of the bunch right in line with earl's philosophy the front features dual headlights inserted in oval pots and right under there a gaping mouth with an egg crate grille the side features some bright work depending on the chosen model and the rear features no fins but a curved line that swoops around the small round taillights all quite tasteful going one step up the ladder we arrive at pontiac pontiac features roughly the same design although the turn signals are now part of the bumper and cut into the grille on the side we find a massive stylized rocket which i think is pretty cool the rear mimics the front end with four round tail lights that look like jet after burners but from here it starts to get worse much worse i always like to refer to wallsmobile for 1958 as crewmobile the front end is okay the bumper is similar in design like pontiac and the headlights are squeezed between chrome trim but it's at the side where you really start to see earl's fever dreams the front half i can understand but the rear half looks like a case of just apply some chrome for the sake of applying chrome three chrome stripes with no real connection to a theme or body line the rear is just unique to say the least vertical tail lamps surrounded by thick bright work travel from a massive chrome bumper below to round paths with some very small fins on top of that and the trunk features the oldsmobile name along with two chrome stars that i believe serve no purpose other than to blind other drivers during a sunny day and now we get to the worst offender for 58 buick especially its top of the line model the anniversary limited the front features angry headlights with chrome automation on both front fenders and underneath a chrome art piece a massive fashionaire dynastar grille made out of some 160 small chrome squares had to make sure to lure customers into buick dealers the site is a mishmash of various buick themes the sweepspare a styling trademark that was still present quickly followed by a rear fender panel that features 15 chrome hash marks big and solid rear bumpers start right beneath that and wrap around to the rear where two fins stick out with tail lights you can't even see because they are hidden behind layers and layers of chrome bars we end with cadillac and you'd suspect at this point that the car would be made entirely out of chrome right yet the kitties are a bit more understated than the buick brethren and usually it's the other way around cadillac features such styling classics like the deckmar bumper guards and relatively normal grille pattern the side doesn't even feature all that much chrome although i do have a problem with the belt line it starts to dip down in the middle but oh goes back up again and then you think it goes straight but oh no it goes up again ending with a tail fin [Music] for many the cars were a bit too much they look more like flying saucers than starships and not in a good way they looked too heavy and bulky especially compared to chrysler later on in the 1970s the cars were once again ridiculed by magazine national lampoon by artist bruce mccall he drew the so-called bulge mobiles for 1958 as a parody on what was going on at the time and that's where i got the thumbnail from every car is an exaggeration of the cars from the late 50s including their advertisement people are extra small the card interior features quantum technology and macau through every design trick of those days in there but especially this car the bose mobile fire blast looks very much like the 1958 oldsmobile but back to 1958 and gm was in the middle of having a mental breakdown oh for the love of god why is this happening to me why now because not only the design process where future designs were already locked in was a problem there was also another one car companies made use of the three-year car body cycle what this means is that every division uses the same body shell for three years and then it gets updated but within these three years the exterior styling changes annually don't believe me look closely this is a chevrolet for 1953 and 1954 and you can see it's fairly round and similar design with extended rear fenders this is chevrolet for 1955 56 and 57 and as you can see it's all a bit more straight line the car lost its extended rear fenders for a more enveloped body and yes these three cars are the same basic body the greenhouse design is usually the giveaway why do i say all this well in 1958 gm just released new car bodies for almost all its divisions and had to stick with it until 1960. but this along with the designs that weren't well liked to begin with lead to a rather unfortunate situation it would cost boatloads of money just to switch to an entirely new body after one year not to mention the extra development hassle and that in a day and age when car companies already spend huge amounts of money on year-to-year facelifts and on top of all this you are getting surpassed left and right by competing car makers in terms of advanced design how was the general going to solve this problem and that brings us back to 1956 chuck jordan and the boys returned once again to gm's design department after visiting the chrysler factory for a second time and discussed what they should do they can save the 58 designs they're already locked in but the 59s can be changed they're still working on them and let's have a look at the original designs for 1959 so before chuck saw what chrysler was doing if you thought that the 58s were hideous or totally awesome that's also possible then you got another thing common this is the design proposal for buick for 1959 and as you can see things have now gone even more heavy and bulky a frown judging look with hooded headlights plenty of chrome arrows pointing in every direction meaningless pods on the rear fenders and no single tail fin in sight the design proposal for what i believe is cadillac may be even worse the front end takes heavy inspiration from the 1951 gm lesabre concept car with a massive scallop in the middle of the car and below that the contemporary cadillac grille along with more inward-placed dagmar bumpers almost completely surrounding the dual headlights these design proposals were the exact opposite of the lean and mean chrysler cars and instantly looked outdated but luckily there was still time to change them except there was one little detail the changes had to be approved by big boss harley and that was never going to happen now what as luck would have it harley was out of town at the moment and it was second in command bill mitchell that suggested that the designer should come up with an alternative design proposal for the 1959 cars based on what they saw at the chrysler factory what hollywood think of it when he would return was none of his concerns they decided to commit a silent coup finally the designers were given total and absolute freedom to design cars that would outshine the chrysler cars and all the designers went to work with unprecedented excitement and enthusiasm and you can see this in the first design sketches the most radical front-end design setups were drawn just to explore what was possible with the dual headlights like putting them together spreading them out or putting them far away from each other the pontiac division started to play with the split grille design theme and promptly came up with the white track drive advertisement slogan buick went nuts with not two with three tail fins called the delta wings but eventually the center fin would be removed oldsmobile played around with bizarre front ends and triple tail light configurations and chevrolet took a more cadillac-like design and even explored an edsel-like stacked headlight design in the middle of the front end and cadillac cadillac gm's prestige division was destined to once again show the world they meant business and went all out if it's fins the people want then finns they'll get what started out as a sketch by one of the designers became a styling trademark the designers had the greatest fun to let their imagination go wild but that the who's that knocking oh crap it's the big boss earl was back the door opened harley walked in everyone was quiet he looked at all the sketches and clay models and said continue and he left the room well that's not exactly how it went but seeing that his boys were going wild and his ideas of advanced design were actually he reluctantly agreed and we all know what happened from here on out in record time gm managed to work around the bulky designs of 58 and the 59 models became the most recognizable american cars from the 50s in the definitive chapter of the space age car design chevrolet became known for the sharp air inlets above the grill and the batwing fins with a cat eye taillight pontiac introduced the split grille and a wide track drive that would lead into 20 year long performance image also will show the world how tasteful headlights integrated in the grill could look like buick looked like an airplane about to take off with angry looking front end and simple but elegant round tail lights and diagonal fins and finally cadillac should it even be mentioned the tallest tail fins ever placed on a production car finished off with twin bullet-shaped taillights the general was back in the game [Music] you

Channel: Ed's Auto Reviews

Views: 2,224,301

Keywords: Automotive, History, Automotive History, Auto Reviews, Ed's Auto Reviews, Car Design, Design History, Harley Earl, Bill Mitchell, Chuck Jordan

Id: YT3i3q1pCQo

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022