Here’s a rare, behind-the-scenes look inside the General Motors styling studios as the 1938 Chevrolet took form.
In the 1930s, the General Motors Styling Section was full of future stars in automotive design, including Frank Hershey, Virgil Exner, and Bill Mitchell. But there was one man firmly in charge: Harley Earl, who ruled his domain from 1927 to 1958. Under his direction, automotive styling became an art and a science, using a number of tools and methods that are still in use today, as we see in this 1938 Chevrolet film, Designed for Distinction..
GM was early in recognizing the critical importance of styling in the mass merchandising of automobiles. “Users now demand that their cars have style as well as performance,” the announcer declares, “so design has become a functional branch of manufacturing.” And as styling rose to prominence at GM, Earl’s power in the company grew as well. It was said he held as much authority as any of the car division chiefs.
As our movie demonstrates, clay modeling was already a key element of the styling process in those days, though a number of the paper-and-pencil steps shown here have since been supplanted by digital tools. The striking grille of the ’38 Chevy is credited to Hershey, who later created the Cadillac tailfin, and the look certainly met the approval of the American car-buying public. Chevy outsold Ford that year by more than 50,000 vehicles. Anyway, here’s a rare look at the process in the early years of formal automotive styling, as it was when the ’38 Chevrolet was taking form. Video below.
I’m curious where a film like this was shown. Television was not in wide use then and dealerships weren’t equipped with the old mechanical projectors. So movie theaters would be the only venue. Interesting that an obvious advertisement would be shown amongst the newsreels and Bugs Bunny cartoons, I guess.
Yes, they were played in local theaters. Many Jam Handy Chevrolet films (not this one so much) had long introductions designed to educate on general subjects and pull people in. Others were dramatic shorts rather like serials of the time with only a subtle reference to Chevrolet. There was also a Chevrolet newsreel service. Jam Handy called the program Direct Mass Selling and it sometimes included live presentations.
This was the reasoning behind Jam Handy’s “first, the earth cooled” storytelling method where the first third of the movie is spent talking about ducks, motorcycle policemen, pirate ships, etc. They were trying to engage general interest before hitting them with the sales pitch.
Can anyone identify the men in the movie? I wonder if any of them are the stylists who later became famous.
That is an excellent question. When I have more time I want to pore over the movie and see how many people I can ID.
Thanks for that info. Growing up in the sixties I remember the last of the newsreels and shorts before the main movie attraction.
I fear today even my attention span is too short for such long introductions as the old Jam Handy movies, as charming as they were. A better time, perhaps.
My Dad was service manager for the local Chevrolet dealer; I remember they would have after-hours meetings and these Jam Handy films were shown. It was a thrill as a little kid to get to go along on these meetings.
That was great to watch (I liked the surprise towards the end) and the film itself was in really good condition, too – thank you. It was entertaining seeing the designers considering which art deco motif would best suit their latest design.