Life is Sweet

A few months ago in September, I wrote a post about Buick's new ad campaign using some thumb-faced mook in a fedora claiming to be Harley Earl--in part, it read like this:

"What's that strange whirring sound? Why, it's none other than Harley Earl, spinning in his vault at about 8,000 RPM, that's what! Only got to see the last part of the Emmy Awards last night, but enough to be assaulted with some greasy, fedora-clad shmoo trying to convince me that he was Harley Earl and that he would actually be caught (even dead) within 50 feet of a Buick Rendezvous, much less that he would claim that it would represent his vision of the future! I have not seen these particular ads before, and hope I don't have to see them again. I have posted before about how the Cadillac "Break Through" ad campaign with the spot using the '59 Caddy is dumb, and about how GM seems incapable of appealing to the people who actually remember when they made desirable cars, and how they seem so incredibly inept when mining their own design past (i.e. the new "Impala" has four big ugly round tailights, which to those-who-know means "cheap-ass Biscayne," and all the Buick show cars have rediscovered Ventiports, yet the designers seem not to know that three per side says "cheap-ass Special"), and now these piles of crap advertisements.

The one with all the reporters was especially horrid, in that despite the fact that men used to wear hats, they also had the common sense to take them off INDOORS. Ah, but hats have that certain post-ironic iconography about them, I suppose. Anyway, if Buick really wanted to mine the past, why not skip Earl completely and go for Billy Mitchell, whose sublime '63 Riviera is a certified milestone and really set the tone for the whole Buick line during the '60s and '70s."

So imagine my supreme pleasure in when I got home last night, seeing that I had received my AutoWeek last night, and turning to Denise McCluggage's column:

I'll bet Harley Earl is doing 7500 rpm in his grave. It's that Buick ad campaign with the tag, "My name is Harley Earl and I've come back to build you a great car." More correctly: "to witness the desecration of my image."

Before Harley Earl, automotive stylists did not exist; he invented the genre. First with fanciful coachwork on bare chassis for Hollywood starts, then by heading the Art and Color (later Style) Department at General Motors, the first ever in the business. That was 1927. [...]

Harley Earl in his day (he died in 1969 at age 75) had greater influence over what more people drove than any other stylist. He even had a reverse influence. I, for instance, fled from his "longer, lower, wider" to "smaller, simpler, plainer" and opted for MG-TCs and a Jaguar XK140 MC.

Harley Earl's vision was not for me; nonetheless, I knew him and respected his flamboyant visions.

Thus I cringe when admen plunk a snap-brim fedora on a face better suited to cadging drinks in an Irish bar, have it rave about "minivans" and "SUVs" (longer, lower, wider?) and simply embarrass the hell out of anyone with any regard at all for GM history. [...]

Any of you out there who are amateur writers know that there is absolutely NOTHING like having a pro print something that validates your view of something. For those of you who are motorheads, there is nothing like reading the snappy prose of Ms. McCluggage, a giant in the industry who has been at her game for the whole history of the sports car movement in the United States, as both a writer, a photographer, and a driver (and is on my official list of "Old Broads I Would Really Like To Meet and....Well, You Know"). So surely you must know how I felt when I saw that she had the same thoughts about this as I did. I could barely contain my glee, and had to send her a note to let her know I thought she was dead on. I included the bit I wrote, and wished her well, not expecting ever to hear back. She is sorta busy after all. Then I woke up and checked my e-mail this morning:

Hey, great minds rev in the same RPM range! Your piece is terrific.

I got one dissenting letter out of a large response. That was from a Buick dealer who liked seeing GM use its heritage for a change. (I wrote to him that I agreed, except they let the know-nothing ad boys misuse it.)

And I agree that Bill Mitchell would have been a better choice, anyway. Can you imagine what they will do with the Lutz character down the line? If they miscast as badly he might look like Shrek.

All the best, and thanks for your note.

Denise

I now need no Christmas presents. For about the next forty years.
posted by Terry at 10:51:00 AM