Death and Legacy
Harley Earl suffered a stroke and died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 10, 1969. He was 75 years old.
He is remembered as the first styling chief in the US automobile industry, the originator of clay modeling of automotive designs, the wraparound windshield, the hardtop sedan, factory two-tone paint, and tail-fins. He said in 1954, "My primary purpose for twenty-eight years has been to lengthen and lower the American automobile, at times in reality and always at least in appearance." The extremely low and long American cars of the 1960s and 1970s show the extent to which Earl influenced an entire industry and culture.
One of his concept car designs, the turbine-powered Firebird I, is reproduced in miniature on the Harley J. Earl Trophy, which goes to the winner of the season-opening Daytona 500 NASCAR race.
Harley Earl was used in a brief advertising campaign for Buick, particularly during its reconstruction period between 2001 and 2002. Actor John Diehl, portraying Earl (or his ghost) was used to symbolize the importance of design in Buick's cars, or as the ads put it, the "Spirit of American Style". Earl's trademark fedora was often used as an icon in these advertisements.
In a December 1999 special section in the Detroit Free Press, Earl was ranked the third most significant Michigan artist of the 20th century, behind Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.
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