General Motors produced this video tribute to the company’s first concept car, the Buick Y-Job, and its first vice-president of styling, Harley J. Earl. The creative vision starts here and it continues today.

Completed in 1938, the Y-Job is said to be the auto industry’s first purpose-built concept car—or dream car, as they were called then. The project was spearheaded by the auto industry’s first corporate styling chief, Harley J. Earl, who was recruited by General Motors executives Lawrence Fisher and Alfred P. Sloan. In another unprecedented step, Earl was given the rank of corporate vice president, equal in power to any of the GM division bosses, and he led an entire department of talented designers, artists, and craftsmen. From that moment on, styling would play a key role in the creation and marketing of the American production car.

The Y-Job—its original name was the Fireball, by the way—was not a prototype for any specific GM vehicle. Rather, it was a corporate vision statement, a look into the future of automotive design. According to the young GM designers interviewed here, including Creative Designer Justin Salmon and Lead Creative Designer Dillion Blanski, GM styling is still in the business of looking forward, and the Buick Y-Job remains an important inspiration in the process. Video below.