Tribute to Bernie Smith 1929–2023

Bernie Smith

From Clark Lincoln: I am sad to report the passing of my good friend and previous boss at Design, Bernie Smith. Bernie was fighting a heart condition that finally took him peacefully earlier this month (April) in his Dexter home. He was predeceased by his (4th) wife of some 20 years, Susan. He is survived by his son and daughter and four (?) grandchildren.

I considered Bernie a good friend, and I will miss phoning him on his birthday, two days and 20 years before mine. When I started GM Design Staff, he was Chuck Jordan’s assistant. I remember him coming back into the studio alone after a review with Chuck to interpret and bring clarity to Chuck’s direction. Unlike many executives at Design Staff, Bernie was soft spoken, approachable, and considerate. I don’t remember when this started, but he called me son, and I called him dad when I’d talk to him on the phone—we both have the same last name. 

Bernie rode motorcycles, dirt and street bikes. Once Kim Boose and myself went to Bernie’s home in Rochester, and each took a turn on Bernie’s big Kawaski KZ 1000, a very fast bike at the time. I took it out for a few miles, then Kim got a turn, but got pulled over. It was way too tempting to lay into the throttle. 

Bernie (with his son, and Karl Kendell) was with me when I got hurt on my 250 Bultaco in 1978 near Port Huron. See The Surveyor—MItchell’s Ultimate Bike Racer Van.

For several years Bernie and Sue would drive out to Arizona for a few weeks, and that would spark the local designers to get together. I’ve included a few photos from some of those trips, including a visit to Neil DeAtley’s car collection in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In the spring of 2019 Bernie sent me copies of some of his memoirs he’d been writing out by hand. They ended up in the Dean’s Garage book, and I’ve included all of them in this post. The story of his 1958 Olds design and encounter with Harley Earl was previously published on Dean’s Garage.

In May of 2019 on the trip to GM Design Center researching photos for the Dean’s Garage book, I met with Clark Lincoln and Bernie Smith in Dexter, Michigan. I spent some time with Bernie at his home, and was able to photograph him with his ’58 Buick rendering.

I’ll miss Bernie.—Gary

1958 Oldsmobile Design

In 1956 I was a designer working on the 1958 Oldsmobile. Earl had become convinced that the American public wanted larger and larger cars with increasingly more “chromium.” Most of the designers resisted this movement towards more brightwork, but they knew that Earl would ultimately have his way.

We were struggling to come up with a design theme for the ’58 Olds, and Earl was giving Olds Design Chief Art Ross a hard time.

I knew that Earl liked almost anything with a “bullet” shape, so I created a large rendering of a design with a reverse bullet shape that came off the headlamps and flowed back onto the front door. I added just enough chrome to attract his attention, and rendered the car in black with the bullet shape accented in red, one of his favorite color combinations. You could say that I sold part of my soul to the devil, but we desperately needed a theme before he fired the entire bunch of us.

When I finished the rendering, I set it up by the studio entranceway—a choice spot that I knew would catch Earl’s attention as he walked by. I had no sooner gotten back to my desk when Earl popped through the door.

Sure enough, he stopped and looked at the rendering for what seemed like a long time. Then he poked his head into the studio and asked where Arthur was. Art had been in his office near the entrance with the door closed, and he must have seen Mr. Earl through the window in his office. He came bursting out to greet Earl.

Earl quickly led Art over to my rendering and said, “Arthur, you’ve got the design right here under your nose and you don’t realize it.”

I was at my desk across the room, so I missed most of the rest of the conversation. Earl did most of the talking. I could tell that Art Ross was not a happy man.

I had not considered the possibility that Mr. Earl would see my rendering before Art did. I had not been in Art’s good graces anyway, and was sure this would seal my fate. On one hand, he should have been pleased to finally have a design that Earl liked. But on the other hand, I’m sure he didn’t like the idea of executing a design on which he had not passed judgment. The design was modeled full-size and became the central theme for the ’58 Olds. Art gave me little say in the execution of the design, and Mr. Earl kept adding more brightwork.

Thankfully for me, after a few weeks had passed, Earl transferred the Oldsmobile designers into Pontiac Studio, and the Pontiac designers into Oldsmobile Studio, except the chief designers and assistant chief designers.

I never knew exactly why he made this move, but he did move designers around a lot because he felt it kept them fresh and energized.

Don Lasky, one of the Pontiac designers who transferred to Oldsmobile Studio, told me the rest of the story regarding the design of the ’58 Olds.

Don said that Earl felt my “bullet” theme coming off the headlamps left the rear quarter looking rather vacant. He told the designers to come up with some additional “entertainment” in that area. Lasky came up with a design that looked like a musical staff.

It has been said that the ’58 Olds looks like one designer did the front portion of the car and another designer did the rear. Well, that was pretty much the case. I’ve not confessed to many people that I had anything to do with the ’58 Olds because I don’t think it represented the best efforts of Harley Earl, General Motors, or myself.

Although Harley Earl showed signs of “losing it” near the end of his career, the many years of successful, outstanding designs giving the American public exactly what they clamored for, far overshadowed the occasional misstep. Even the ’58 Olds did reasonably well in the marketplace.

1958 Buick Bodyside

Mr. Earl had very strict orders about personnel from one studio not visiting another studio. He felt very strongly that designs for one division of the corporation should in no way be influenced by the designs of another division. Restricting designers from moving freely about helped insure maximum differences in the appearance of the vehicles from one division to the other.

However, this didn’t keep designers from talking with one another. I heard this story secondhand from the designers in Buick Studio who worked on the ’58 Buick. I was in Olds Studio at the time, but we designers frequently talked to each other about what was going on in the various studios.

All divisional studios were working on the 1958 program, and like Olds Studio, the Buick designers were having trouble coming up with a side treatment that pleased Mr. Earl. The body surfaces were pretty well set,
but each division relied heavily on a strong side theme to give the car its divisional identity. Buick Studio, like ourselves in Olds Studio, was not showing Earl enough chrome, enough divisional identity, and enough “entertainment.”

The Buick designers had been trying various side treatments by tacking overlays onto a full-size side view rendering of the basic sheet metal.

They broke for lunch, and shortly after they returned, Mr. Earl came into the studio. He was known to browse through the studios at lunch time or late at night, when no one was there, to soak up the designs and formulate his opinions. That is exactly what he did while they were at lunch.

They saw immediately that he was in an upbeat mood. As the designers gathered around he said, “Now you fellows finally got it!” He pointed over to the full-size rendering which had two distinctly different side treatments, which they had neglected to remove when they went to lunch. There was no explaining to do. Earl had made his decision.

When you look at the ‘58 Buick, I think it is pretty easy to see the two totally different treatments on the side.

1965 World’s Fair Cars

While the GMX and Runabout designs went smoothly, the Firebird IV got off to a rough start. We had gotten approval to proceed to full-size clay, and took the roughed-in model out to the patio for review.

I probably shouldn‘t have called Chuck and Bill out for the first look, but I did. I had made an error in judgment by adding some details to the model, like rendered taillights, scoops, etc., when the focus should have been on proportions and the basic theme.

I saw Mitchell quietly staring at the model and not looking happy. Finally he said, “(Expletive), that’s like putting lipstick on a hog.” Lesson learned. We retained the basic theme, and next time out we had a successful review.

We were informed about halfway through the program that all of the 1965 World’s Fair vehicles were going to be dummies, and not running vehicles. We were very disappointed, but decided to take advantage of that fact by lowering the overall heights about an inch to two inches to give them a sleeker profile. (Every designer perceived “lower” as better in those days.)

A problem arose, however, when I got a call from corporate Public Relations requesting that they come out to Design Staff to photograph the vehicles with live models, just prior to their being shipped off to New York.

I told them about cheating the height down, and that they had better find short people. I assumed they would probably abandon the idea of using models, but two days later the cars were completed and moved to the auditorium to be photographed. When the public relations people arrived, I went to the auditorium and couldn’t believe what I saw—perfectly proportioned, attractive, scaled down people; the tallest being a man about five feet, four inches.

Of the three cars, the GMX was Bill’s favorite. He never showed much interest in the Runabout. We all knew he disliked small, underpowered vehicles.

Photos: General Motors

Photos Courtesy of GM Design

Captions:

1. Bernie Smith, 1952. Photo: General Motors.

2. Oldsmobile Studio, 1955. Top Row: Don Hoag (Studio Assistant), George ?, Bernie Smith, and Frank Loeffler. Botom Row: Lenny Szeniak (Chief Modler), Billy Morganti, and Stan Mott. Photo: General Motors.

3. Chuck Jordan, Chuck Yeager, Bernie Smith, Don Schwarz, Stan Parker, Irv Rybicki, and Pres Bruning. Photo: General Motors.

4. Advanced Pontiac Studio: Berne Smith, Dave Holls, Roger Hughet, and Dave Rossi. The modeler might be Gary Staniec. Photo: General Motors.

5. An incredible series of caricatures by Andy Hansel. He captured the gestures, poses, stances, clothing, and proportion perfectly. Pictured are Ed Taylor, Bernie Smith, Dave Holls, Stan Wilen, Chuck Jordan, Jack Humbert, and Irv Rybicki. Thanks to George Camp. Used with permission.

Gallery of Photos from Arizona Visits