Styling The Look of Things was produced by General Motors Corporation in 1955, and revised in 1958. It is a time warp into a much different world of design than exists today. It starts out with an introduction by Harley Earl and contains five chapters: What is a Stylist; The Fundamentals of Design; Evolution of Design in the American Automobile; Modern Automobile Stylist Design a Dream Car; and Three Case Histories. It’s a great booklet with many interesting photos.

Click here to download a copy of Styling The Look of Things in Acrobat format.

Many thanks to Dennis Wesserling for providing scans of this rare booklet from 1955 for this post.

Styling The Look of Things in Gallery Format

Reminiscence from the 1985 Interview with Irvin W. Rybicki. Automotive Design Oral History, Accession 1673. Benson Ford Research Center. The Henry Ford Museum. This interview as well as many others can be found at the Automobile in American Life and Society website.

I think this was a cover from Automotive News. Behind Irv is a montage of renderings by Tom Semple (patchwork background/shadow), Jack Gable (trees, bricks, sunset), and Pete Meier (old car).

This is a very interesting and insightful interview with glimpses into how things worked at GM Styling. Irv talks about how he got his start as a designer, how several programs were developed, where some of the ideas came from, and what it was like working for Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell. He also mentions a lot of names including Alex Mair, Bill Mitchell, Bill Porter, Bob Eaton, Bob Fosher, Bunkie Knudsen, Carl Renner, Chuck Jordan, Clare MacKichan, Dave Crippen, Don Hoag, Ed Cole, Ed Glowacke, Frank Hershey, Harley Earl, Harlow Curtice, Henry Haga, Henry Lauve, Homer LaGassey, Howard Kehrl, Howard O’Leary, Hulkey Eldicotchi, Jack Gordon, Jack Humbert, Jerry Palmer, John DeLorean, John Gordon, John Schinella, Lloyd Reuss, Ned Nickles, Phil Garcia, Roger Smith, and Wayne Kady. It’s long but worth reading.—Gary

“This is Dave Crippen of the Henry Ford Museum’s Edsel Ford Design History Center, and this is June 27, 1985. Today we are at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, and we are conducting an interview with Irvin W. Rybicki. Mr. Rybicki is currently Vice-President for Design and Product Development at the General Motors Corporation, and he will recount the highlights of his career as an automotive designer.”

A: I’m a native of Detroit born here in 1921. My parents were Walter and Helen Rybicki. My dad was from the State of Pennsylvania, and my mother is from Bay City, Michigan. I spent my entire life in this city. I attended a Catholic grade school and went on to a public high school called Chadsey High on the West side of Detroit . My interest through my school years lay largely with aircraft and sports. I played just about every sport imaginable, including football, hockey, baseball, tennis, and golf. I was a member of the swimming team, but aircraft was always on my mind. I drew and designed my own planes, built aircraft out of balsa wood in kit form and attended the few art schools that were in the city. They no longer exist. One was called the Meinzinger’s in Orton, and I spent some time there trying to understand how to use an air brush and how you create proper perspectives. I didn’t think I was getting enough of that out of these classes in the school. I pursued that along with sports up until I was about fourteen.

Q: Did you go to Meinzinger’s in your off hours?

A: Yes. In the evenings. I pursued aircraft and sports until I was about fourteen, and I used to work in an uncle’s grocery store. I remember this like it happened yesterday: it was a Friday evening and it must have been somewhere around October. My cousin and I were stacking produce in the window when my uncle drove up with his new car. It was a black, 1938 Cadillac Sixty Special, and, with the lights playing on it out there, I thought, “My God, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. If I can draw airplanes, why can’t I do something with automobiles?” And from that day on, it was cars, period. That’s all I ever did. I created a portfolio at home that must have been two feet thick, and, if I wasn’t studying school work, I was designing an automobile. My dad had a summer home out at Portage Lake, twenty miles West of Ann Arbor, and I spent my summers out there fishing, swimming and playing and thinking about automobiles. It was a beautiful lake.

After I graduated from high school and without my knowing it, my dad packed up some of the work I’d done he thought was the best, and he went to General Motors on his own. He had an interview with a fellow who was Jules Andrade, who was one of Harley Earl’s assistants. Jules suggested that I come in to see him. So, that particular weekend—my dad always came out on weekends out to the cottage because he was a working man—he told me this: “You’ve an appointment with General Motors on such and such a date.” I couldn’t believe that my dad would go out and do a thing like this, and that someone in the industry might be interested in my work. So I took the sketches down to General Motors. This was just prior to World War II, and, while they had an interest in me, Jules told me that, at the time, they weren’t hiring because of the developing situation in the world and in Europe, but they would keep my name on file.

The war came along, and I didn’t go to work for General Motors. I went into the service instead. I wound up in an armored division, was injured here in the States and never did get overseas and was discharged. After the discharge, I thought I’d better position myself somewhere within General Motors so that I’ll be within striking distance of what I wanted to do—design automobiles. I managed to get a job at the General Motors proving grounds in an engineering data office. And, in that office, I kept drawing automobiles and far-out military vehicles, and I had them all over the walls. A fellow named Hubbell was the number two man out at the [proving] grounds at the time the war concluded. He came into my office one day and said, “You know, you really don’t belong here. You belong on Harley Earl’s staff. Do you mind if I take some of your work and send it down there?” I told him about what had happened [several] years before. He said, “I can help you.”

So he sent them down here, and it wasn’t two weeks [before] I found myself working on General Motors’ design staff. It was called the Styling Section at that time. That was one of the happiest moments in my life, and they put me in what they called Forty Milwaukee. That was a school for trainee designers, and there were many young men in that class. There were fifteen who were all striving for positions. We were told that we had a year to prove ourselves and [would be] audited every quarter.

Three and a half quarters had passed, and this is another scene I shall never forget. It is very clear in my mind. It was a Friday morning toward the end of the month, and the phone rang. One of the young designers in the group of trainee designers got a call to come to the 10th floor in the research buildings’ administrative offices. He came back, and he had tears running down his cheeks. He was let go. Before we got to 5 o’clock in the afternoon, there were just two of us left—a chap named Carl Renner and Irv Rybicki, and we sat there wondering. That was the most traumatic weekend I’ve ever gone through wondering whether they ran out of time and hadn’t got to us or were we in. Monday came around and nothing had happened. It just cruised by, and we did our work. Carl and I congratulated ourselves and felt now we’re a part of the team. We had a few of the chief designers running divisional studios come through the school—one was Bill Mitchell of Cadillac, and the other was a fellow named Anderson. He was running Chevrolet. The following week Carl Renner found himself in Chevrolet, and Irv found himself in Cadillac.

The Design team gets ready to play. Back row, L to R: Frank Soraka, Walter Cattell, Harley Earl, George Snyder, Howard O’Leary, George DuJardin, Al Boca. Front row, L to R: Unidentified, Bill Hodge, Irv Rybicki, Mike Sitowski, John Kutchka, Leonard Stobar

Q: Had you, up to this time, encountered, Harley Earl?

A: I had seen seen Mr. Earl only once. He came by the school to look at the trainees’ work and some scale models we happened to be doing. He spent an hour in the school and left. That was my only encounter with Earl until I became a part of the Cadillac studio.

Q: Who was the head of the trainee program?

A: A fellow named Ned Nickles who [later] became chief designer, of Buick. Then Frank Hershey came in to run the school. Frank finally left General Motors and went on to Ford. He’s somewhere in New Mexico now.

Q: In Arizona.

A: In Arizona? I haven’t seen Frank in thirty-five years, but he was a very fast-moving, aggressive, fast-talking fellow. I enjoyed him very much. My career in the Cadillac studio began. I spent six years in Cadillac with Bill [Mitchell].

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From the movie, LeMans. This is the same car driven by John Thomas that is featured in the sound files recorded by Mike Parris at Riverside International Raceway in 1980. The first audio file was posted before, but the second one, Four hot laps around Riverside, was recently acquired from driver John Thomas.

Great in-car 917K video

You’re in a 917K as it comes out of the pits, follows a 908 around for a lap, and then at about the two minute mark, watch out. Great in-car video from Monterey, 2009. Complete with on-screen G-meters. Don’t miss the racing scenes from the movie Le Mans with Steve McQueen that were posted previously on Dean’s Garage. Thanks to Bruce Canepa of Canepa Design. There are more in-car videos at Canepa Design.

Hot Afternoon in River City

by Mike Parris

It was a hot afternoon at Riverside Raceway in Southern California and L.A. Times owner, Otis Chandler, had rented the track for the day. He and a number of his vintage car-owning friends would have the classic road course to themselves to play with GT-40s, Cobras, Lolas, and some Porsches from Chandler’s collection.

I had been invited out for a second time, as some months earlier I had taken photos of the Chandler cars for some magazine spreads and had become friends with him and his friend/IMSA driver, John Thomas – better known at J.T.

I was making the best of the photo opportunities and ended up with some great images but J.T. had also promised me a “couple of good rides” at some point during the day. The first ride was in the glorious 917-K, the number 20 car driven by Steve McQueen in the movie Le Mans. It was a tight wedge getting in the “passenger seat” – obviously not meant to be inhabited by humans. Once in the cockpit, J.T. handed me a tape recorder and asked me to handle taping a few laps with some commentary. This came in two sessions; four warm up laps in the morning and another four laps “at speed” during the afternoon. This was the final, on-the-edge laps bumping a little over 160 mph on the back straight.

Firing the big, flat 12 Porsche engine sent a chill up my spine, partially because it sounded so great but also because it was sitting about five inches behind my neck! There was plenty of vibration and noise, but good noise. Slipping the clutch to get out of the pits, J.T. began a quick warm up and was starting to hit his stride by the time we got to turn seven. Double clutching and down-shifting into seven, he asked if I had enough room – we were looking akin to Siamese twins at this point – and I said, “Of course,” just happy to be in the iconic Porsche. By the time we came out of turn eight, a tight 110 degree hairpin, J.T. was into the first of four gears at full throttle and distinct over steer, revving past seven grand going on to the back straight. Pinning me against the back of my seat, John took it quickly through the gears as the desert scenery was fast becoming a blur. Entering the dog leg going in to turn nine, we were now going back down through the gears, toe-and-heal, with the brakes whipping us from left to right. There was a crudeness to the 917 that gave most drivers a love-hate relationship with the vehicle. It had tons of pure, raw horsepower but had to be finessed and sometimes manhandled, making it both fun and tiring to drive. Sweeping through nine was an experience as my side of the vehicle came within a few inches of the concrete retaining wall under full throttle as we headed to the start finish line.

What an adventure. I rode in the Sunoco 917-30 Can-Am car later in the day and while it was no doubt faster and more refined, it couldn’t hold a candle to the 917-K in pure automotive ecstasy. It’s just hard to describe, but between the sound and the raw power, nothing else even comes close. All I can say is, that was one fine day at the track.

917K in-car sound files by Mike Parris

This car belonged to Otis Chandler, and was the same car driven by Steve McQueen in the movie LeMans. Thanks to Mike Parris and John Thomas.
Click to listen: Two warm-up laps around Riverside in Otis Chandler’s 917K. Narration by Mike Parris.
Click to listen (Recently acquired sound file from John Thomas): Four hot laps around Riverside in Otis Chandler’s 917K. Narration by Mike Parris.

Great photos by Mike Parris from track day at Riverside in 1980:

By Dick Nesbitt

I started at Art Center College in the fall of 1967, when the psychedelic era and flower power were in full bloom (heh-heh). I was 21, and it was an exciting time to be in Los Angeles. Art Center required an extreme level of discipline, so any involvement in the general activities of the day, including hair length and dress, was not an option. As a Transportation Design major, our first Transportation class began in the second semester. Some of the students already had professional design experience, and were attending to get a formal graduate degree for better career opportunities. Don Wyatt was in our class, and had been a Tech Designer at General Motors Design Staff. He was familiar with the sketch and design techniques in use by GM designers, and he could hold his own with many of them. I was “blown away” by his technique skills at Art Center, as he exhibited his work for critique every week in each class. Gaylord Eckles was a Product Design major from San Francisco, and he was an incredible talent. From the simplest sketch to the most detailed design models, his work was truly exquisite and always delightful. Eckles later became an award-winning instructor at Art Center, and I am sure he was a tremendous inspiration to many fortunate enough to have had the benefit of his knowledge and design wisdom.

Our instructor for the first Transportation Design class was Hugh Jorgensen (click here to read an interview with Hugh Jorgensen). In my opinion, he was the best possible choice for our introduction to the very challenging and competitive world of professional automotive design. Jorgensen was always optimistic, motivational,positive and supportive in his critique of our work. He was never negative or derogatory, and he inspired much-needed confidence.

For our second Transportation Design class in third semester, our instructor was Strother MacMinn. ”Mac” was a legend at Art Center and in automotive design centers and related publications all over the world. He has had more influence on the careers of more automotive designers than any other single individual—ever. Unlike Hugh Jorgensen, Mac could be brutal and scathing in his student critiques. It was high praise, indeed, to receive any compliment from Mac!

Fifth semester was the beginning of Advanced Transportation Design classes for two days each week, and Mac was the instructor. For this semester, we were required to first design and then construct one-fifth scale, high-density urethane foam models of our final selected sketch theme directions. Mac normally was the instructor for the two day sixth semester Trans classes. Two new instructors were brought in for our sixth semester, because Mac was taking a sabbatical in Detroit during this time in 1969. The two instructors were Harry Bradley for one day and renowned Shelby designer Pete Brock for the second day! Harry and Pete were only scheduled to teach this one semester, but Harry Bradley stayed on for many years after. What a fantastic experience having Bradley and Brock as our sixth semester Advanced Transportation Design instructors.

General Motors, Ford, and sometimes Chrysler would come out to Art Center every other semester to assign a design project for which they would provide a final critique for each Trans students presentation. I was honored to participate in a General Motors Design Seminar for my seventh semester. The GM design team was represented by the legendary Dave Holls. Our final presentation included finished renderings, design development sketches, and a package component layout illustration. Also included was a space buck skeleton framework in scale to accurately illustrate in three-dimensional form the placement of seating and drivetrain components within equally spaced sections, indicating the outer body shell surface contours. Complimenting the space buck was a detailed clay model.

Our GM design assignment was the end of an era, as it turned out. We were to design a close-coupled front wheel drive 455 V8 personal luxury coupe for the mid-seventies. I selected Buick for my proposal, and created the “Centuro” name as a contemporary variation of Buick’s famous Century and Centurion nameplates. My design theme incorporated “applied form” raised rib forms over the front wheel openings and “sub windows”. Sub windows were smaller, fixed window areas that later became more well known as opera windows, as seen on the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado. The Centuro also included alloy wheels and a reverse “Z” line as a variation of Buick’s familiar “Sweepspear” on the body side with urethane body color front and rear bumper surfaces as pioneered by Pontiac’s GTO in 1968.

Send Dean’s Garage your interesting, scary, awe-inspiring, eye-opening, and funny stories from design school!

Some examples of Dick Nesbitt’s student work from Art Center.

The Art Center Bandsaw.

Late nighters or all nighters were the norm. It didn’t start out that way. When the semester first starts, you promise yourself that you’ll work on the class assignment that night. But after a couple of weeks you find yourself scrambling to get tomorrow’s assignment done. I fell asleep briefly standing up during a critique once. But that is another story.

One day I was in the shop waiting for some tool at the tool crib window. Near where I standing was a pretty big band saw. Pushing something that needed to be shorter through the blade was a student with that glazed over “I’ve been up a few nights” look. The thing he was pushing was a chunk of hard wood with the table tilted about 30 degrees, so it was feeding fairly slowly. The student was concentrating hard on what he was doing. In his state of mind dealing with several factors at once was probably not much of an option. Not having any other distraction, I watched the action at the band saw. I soon noticed that the student’s thumb was strategically positioned to hold the wood to give the most stability to the endeavor. I also noticed that if he maintained that grip, both his thumb as well as the wood would soon be shorter.

The feeding was going slowly enough that I could wait and see if he moved his thumb. But he kept pushing—past the point where I would have adjusted my grip on the board as to not whack off any appendages. Still, there was still time for him to act. Not a lot of time mind you, but some. But he kept pushing, way past my comfort level, and his thumb moved precariously close to the blade. It wouldn’t do to watch him cut his thumb off. I left my place at the tool crib window, stepped over and grabbed the student’s arm.

“Hey! Be careful. You’re going to cut your thumb off!

His response? “What? Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

—Gary Smith

Mitchell’s Silver Arrow III

John Houlihan graciously sent me a copy of his letter to the editors of Collectible Automobile that provide insights to the origins of the 1971 Riviera, along with a few sketches from the project.

Dear Editors:

I read with great interest your article entitled 1971–’73 Riviera: Buick’s Beautiful Boattail. In that article Mr. Brown states that “It has never been clear exactly who was responsible for styling this car.” I can shed some light on this subject. I was a member of GM Design Staff and working under Jerry Hirshberg at the time the ’71 was designed.

While Dave Holls is essentially correct stating in his sidebar comments that Bill Mitchell heavily influenced the design, Hirshberg was the studio Chief Designer and supervised the crafting of every surface and detail of that car. However, another designer named Don DaHarsh, working for Mitchell in his secret back-room Studio X, designed the theme model in 3/8 scale before any of us in Advanced Buick studio began the’71 project.

Inspiration for the Mitchell/DaHarsh model probably did come from the famous Y-job and the Stingray, but Mitchell had a mania for sweep-spears, evident on the Delahayes of his youth and demanded that the project that was to become the ’71 Riviera employ this flamboyant styling motif. We inherited the model and Mitchell’s burning desire to create a magnificent and aggressive design statement.

Our first effort under Hirshberg was a superb interpretation of DaHarsh’s model—Mitchell’s swashbuckling excess and the design team’s fine sense of line, form, proportion and detailing. This model was on a combined A/E body platform. It had a deep “V” windshield tapering through the monocoque body to the now famous boattail.

Cost was the prime factor in changing the size of the ’71 Riveria. The unusual A/E package, the deep “V” windshield, and other economic factors of the times forced Buick management to dictate that we redesign our sleek coupe and use the B-body seating package and glass. At the time this directive was a disaster—totally destroying the original concept.

Our design team worked tirelessly for months to convert what was once a shark into a whale, albeit a superbly detailed and proportioned one. The beautiful car you see today is a tribute to this effort and to the skill of Hirshberg and his team. I am proud to have been a part of this slice of automotive history.

John T. Houlihan

Does anyone have images of that original 3/8 model or the first A/E version of the design?

Featuring Cyclops, the Bongo family, and quite a number of other oddities.

By Stan Mott. Published in Road & Track, June, 1978. Reprinted by permission.

It’s 1946 and you’re interested in car design but don’t know where to start. Back in Detroit Harley Earl is looking for car designers. Design schools are starting to ramp up, but in the mean time how do you prepare to be a car designer? And how does Harley Earl find you? Would you consider answering an ad in Popular Science and enroll in the Detroit Institute of Automotive Styling and taking a correspondence course through the Institute? If you made the cut, you could get hired at GM’s Art and Colour Section. That’s just how a lot of designers got their start back in those days. Geoff Hacker of Forgotten Fiberglass clued me in on the Detroit Institute of Automotive Styling which I had no previous knowledge. I thought the ads in the back of Popular Science were mostly bogus. I guess not. Apparently Popular Science was well read by those interested in car design. If you went through this program, email Dean’s Garage with your experiences.

Click on this link to download the Detroit Institute of Automotive Styling course in PDF format (39MB).

Detroit Institute Ad from Popular Mechanics, December, 1946

Getting Rich on a Small Scale

by Robert J. Conners. Illustration by John Berkey. Published in Road & Track, August, 1985.

No, that one is not for sale, Both of them are mine. Yes, they’re Warren Johnson models. He was the greatest modeling genius the world ever saw, I allow. Know him? You bet I knew him. Better than anyone else around here. He was a strange one, all right, but I liked him. I sometimes wonder where he is now.

I expect it must have been around April of last year when I saw him for the first time. He was kind of mooching around in front of the store with a big cardboard box under his arm. He’d walk on by, looking in the window like a dog in front of a butcher’s, disappear, then come back. I was setting up a Tyco raceway in the back, so I don’t know how long he was out there.

Finally the door chime rang, and he came in, kind of gliding in cheap sneakers. A big fat guy, the sort who always looks shiny even in the winter. Ban-Lon shirt and greasy jeans; he looked like the fat kid in “Gasoline Alley,” except older and gone baggy. About 40, pink cheeks, curly yellow hair. And with this big cardboard box he carried real carefully.

The store was quiet just then. He put the box down on the counter and stood moving from one foot to another, like he had to go or something. And I asked him if I could help him.

“You, uh …” he said, his voice sounding scared, “you buy models as well as sell them, huh? My friend said you bought them.”

I went over. “Yes, we buy models. But only antiques or very special models. Not your old Revells.”

“This isn’t an old Revell. Do you want to see?”

“Okay, sure. What have you got?”

He took the top off and began to pull out cotton wool from the box. I looked, saw a flash of chrome, and then he reached down very carefully and slowly drew out a model car, a green 1967 Chevy, and put it on the counter in front of me.

It was not a commercial model. It was about 18 in. long, every line correct. Reaching out, I touched the fender with my forefinger, and the car rocked on tiny springs. Tiny coil springs. The model was all metal.

“Nice, huh?” He sounded proud. “All the details work, too. You have to use these tweezers and this needle.” Fumbling the tools from a shirt pocket, he unlatched and opened the Chevy’s door (it gave a high squeak). The seats were of worn vinyl, the driver’s covered with a miniature cool-seat. Reaching in with the long needle, he pressed the horn ring, and a thin blatting came from under the hood. He poked open the miniscule vent window.

“Pretty good model, huh?”

I was trying to keep my voice steady. “Not bad, not bad. Let me look more carefully.” I went and got my 20X magnifier while he stood there shifting from foot to foot.

Now, I think I know model cars as well as anyone around this city. They can be pretty damned nice. The Pochers are beautiful, the Solidos are fine models. I’ve seen those hand-cast and bolted Bugattis from Switzerland-lovely! I’ve seen photos of little Mercers a man builds that actually run. I know the market. But never in my life had I ever seen anything to approach the detail of this little Chevy. The tires were pressurized. The radio antenna went up and down. The doors all opened, the windows all raised and lowered (well, the driver’s side didn’t; broken, he said). All the tiny things were right; the little chrome Impalas were there. The wipers worked, the lights went on and off, it even had tiny rust holes and a bitty ding in the bumper. I mean, it was perfect. It had little casting holes in the back of the steering wheel, for crying out loud.

I tried to be blase. This fella was the greatest modeler in the world and didn’t seem to know it. “Not bad,” I said jokingly, “a little rusty, though.” He looked pained. “That’s for realism,” he said stoutly. “You could repaint it anyhow, couldn’t you? It runs good, real good.”

Staring, I said, “Runs? The motor?”

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