Prototype Cars That Never Were Produced

by Brian Packard 2014

A concept vehicle or show vehicle is a car made to showcase new styling and/or new technology. They are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not be mass-produced. General Motors designer Harley Earl is generally credited with inventing the concept car, and did much to popularize it through its traveling Motorama shows of the 1950s.

Before I tell you about Harley Earl, let me show you some of the concept or "prototype" cars he envisioned and influenced.

Prototype Cars That Never Made It

The 1954 De Soto Adventurer

Of all the concept cars ever shown off to a fawning public, one of the coolest has got to be this 1954 Desoto Adventurer II Coupe. It was originally built in 1954, and it sits atop a Chrysler Imperial chassis with a body designed and built by Ghia.

A 54 Desoto recently sold for $1,430,000 at the Barrett-Jackson auction in 2012!

The 1956 Pontiac Club

The 1956 Pontiac Club De Mer was the unique masterpiece of GM's Motorama car show for 1956. The body was made out of anodized brushed aluminum and was a scant 38 inches high. The engine compartment housed a 300 horsepower Stato-Streak V8 engine with dual 4 barrel carburetors. The companion car for the full scale Club De Mer was a quarter scale model, which traveled with the car to all of the auto shows throughout the United States. While the full scale model was destroyed in 1958, the Quarter Scale Model was retained by General Motors and was later motorized by Harley Earl, chief designer of General Motors and given to his grandson, whose first name was tiger, as a peddle car. Thereafter the car went through several hands and was recently purchased and restored by the Bortz Auto Collection.

The 1956 Packard Predictor

Perhaps the worst-named concept car of the 1950s was the Packard Predictor. It did little to predict the future of automotive design beyond a couple years, and worse yet, it was a bad joke on the future of Packard itself. Sure, the Predictor's reversed rear window and swivel bucket seats would appear on production cars, but the Edsel-style front bumper helped spell doom for that automaker. Regardless, these features were very 1950s and the package as a whole was certainly wild and awe-inspiring during the jet age. We can't predict the past's future on a path not chosen, but we can't help think what Packard's future might have held had the Predictor design made it to production. It survives.

The 1954 Oldsmobile Rocket

If it weren't for the wheels and tires, Oldsmobile's 1956 Golden Rocket might look as though it were a rocket plucked straight from under the wing of a F-94 jet plane and given the plane's cockpit cover. No other 50s dream car took the jet-age theme more seriously than the Golden Rocket. Its three-point nose, rocket-tip rear bumper caps and rounded side panels to tie the front and back together made the Golden Rocket look like, well, a rocket with wheels. There was even a lateral fin on the rear deck for good measure.

While the nose was smooth for good air stream, there was a vent located in the center prow, flanked by projectiles at the tips of the pointed front fenders. As though more jet-age inspiration were necessary, several cockpit controls were placed in the center of the steering wheel. A central console that began on the instrument panel and extended to the console was not unlike that found in today's cars, but the lift-up roof panels for easy entry and egress were very much a jet-age feature of the Golden Rocket.

The metallic gold Golden Rocket was promoted as a "glittering new experimental car by Oldsmobile," but the shine soon wore off. Exactly where this car landed after the 1956 Motorama season is anyone's guess.

The 1953 Ford X-100

The 1954 Mercury D524

The 1952 Chrysler D'Elegance

The 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis

The 1953 Cadillac Ghia

Despite its handsome appearance, only four prototypes of this car were built between 1953 nd 1954.

The 1958 Ford X-2000

In the 1950s, automotive magazines were filled with images of space-age cars and visions of the future, and the 1958 Ford X2000 was one of them. the 1958 Ford X2000 is powered by a 352 cu. in. V8 engine that outputs 220bhp and is coupled with an automatic transmission. The car is equipped with an independent front suspension with upper and lower control arms and coil springs and a live axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs rear suspension.

Harley J. Earl (November 22, 1893 - April 10, 1969) was the initial designated "Head of Design" at General Motors, later becoming Vice President, the first top executive ever appointed in Design of a major corporation in American history. He was an industrial designer and a pioneer of modern transportation design. A coachbuilder by trade, Earl pioneered the use of freeform sketching and hand sculpted clay models as automotive design techniques. He subsequently introduced the "concept car" as both a tool for the design process and a clever marketing device.

Earl's Buick Y-Job[right] was the first concept car. He started "Project Opel", which eventually became the Chevrolet Corvette, and he authorized the introduction of the tailfin to automotive styling. During World War II, he was an active contributor to the Allies' research and development program in advancing the effectiveness of camouflage.

Earl Automotive Works was bought by Cadillac dealer Don Lee, who kept Harley Earl as director of its custom body shop.

Lawrence P. Fisher, general manager of the Cadillac division, was visiting Cadillac dealers and distributors around the country, including Lee. Fisher met Earl at Lee's dealership and observed him at work. Fisher, whose automotive career began with coachbuilder Fisher Body, was impressed with Earl's designs and methods, including the use of modeling clay to develop the forms of his designs.

Fisher commissioned Earl to design the 1927 LaSalle for Cadillac's companion marque. The success of the LaSalle convinced General Motors president Alfred P. Sloan to create the Art and Color Section of General Motors, and to name Earl as its first director.

Prior to the establishment of the Art and Color Section, American automobile manufacturers did not assign any great importance to the appearance of automobile bodies. Volume manufacturers built bodies designed by engineers guided only by functionality and cost. Many luxury-car manufacturers, including GM, did not make bodies at all, opting instead to ship chassis assemblies to a coachbuilder of the buyer's choice.

The executives at General Motors at the time, including engineers, division heads, and sales executives, viewed Earl's conceptual ideas as flamboyant and unfounded. Earl struggled to legitimize his design approach against the tradition- and production-oriented executives. As head of the newly formed Art and Color Section in 1927, he was initially referred to as one of the "pretty picture boys", and his Design Studio as being the "Beauty Parlor".

In 1937, the Art and Color Section was renamed the Styling Section. Sloan eventually promoted Earl all the way to the vice president level, making him (to Sloan's knowledge) the first styling person to be a VP at a large corporation.

Harley Earl and Alfred P. Sloan implemented "Dynamic Obsolescence" (essentially synonymous with planned obsolescence) and the "Annual Model Change" (tying model identity to a specific year) to further position design as an engine for the company's product success. These ideas are largely taken for granted today but were unusual at the time.
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