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When Chevrolet Bought GM (Sort Of)The Stingray Corvette and Other Bill Mitchell Designs
Few designers have been as inspired or influential as Bill Mitchell. From the C2 Corvette to the Riviera, Mitchell’s designs helped define the look of the 1960s.
GM’s Styling Evolution
There is possibly no other period of more rapid change in automotive styling than during the transition from the 1950s into the 1960s as the flamboyant era of chrome and fins gave way to subtler, more streamlined designs. A shift in consumer tastes was certainly part of it, but concurrently there was a change in personnel as the old guard passed the torch to a new generation full of their own notions about where tastes were heading.
When GM’s long-time head of their Art and Color Section Harley Earl retired in 1958, his protégé Bill Mitchell took over as the company’s VP in charge of styling. Mitchell’s tenure saw GM approach the 1960s as a time of innovation and bold ideas. Mitchell oversaw some of the era’s most iconic cars like the C2 Corvette, Buick Riviera, and Cadillac Eldorado to name just a few, and it was his commitment to newness that kept GM’s cars at the vanguard of automotive fashions for the next two decades.
Background
The dye was cast for Bill Mitchell from the start. His father was a Buick dealer and Mitchell’s early immersion in the car world saw him honing his artistic skills sketching fast cars. After attending the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Pittsburg, PA), Mitchell went to work for Barron Collier Advertising. Brothers Barron, Miles, and Sam Collier were avid racers and founders of the Auto Racing Club of America for whom Mitchell began doing promotional illustrations. Those drawings crossed the desk of Harley Earl, VP of GM’s Art and Color Section, who recruited Mitchell to work as a designer at Cadillac in 1935.
Mitchell’s precocious level of focus and zeal were quickly rewarded with a promotion to Cadillac’s chief designer the following year. He was just 24 years old. Under the tutelage of Harley Earl, Bill Mitchell continued to climb the ranks at GM, eventually becoming the company’s Director of Styling in 1954 and succeeding Earl as VP of Styling in December of 1958. Like Earl, Mitchell was known as a demanding boss with lofty expectations (and also known for the most profuse and creative use of expletives in GM’s boardroom). And yet, those that worked under him say his drive was inspiring and his enthusiasm for innovation infectious. Mitchell headed design at GM for nearly twenty years, retiring in 1977 at the mandatory retirement age of 65.
Below we look at some of the indelible classics from Mitchell’s time as the top designer at GM.
Building the Corvette Stingray
If Zora Arkus-Duntov is the Father of the Corvette, then Bill Mitchell is the Corvette’s stepfather. Arkus-Duntov gets that moniker thanks to his advocacy for a V8 motor and shepherding the car into its critical second generation. The latter probably wouldn’t have been possible if Bill Mitchell hadn’t been equally committed to the survival and success of the Corvette as GM’s halo sports car.
Following a high-profile racing disaster at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1955, America automakers entered into an agreement to stay out of motorsports, which included building sporty cars. The agreement called into question whether the Corvette would even get a second generation. Of course, for car guys like Arkus-Duntov and Mitchell such a possibility was untenable. Of cancelling the Corvette, Mitchell’s response was: “bull****, I’m not gonna let that happen.”
In light of the racing, Mitchell commissioned a skunkworks to design a next-generation Corvette starting in 1957. Inspired by a trip to the Turin Motor Show, Mitchell’s vision for the new Corvette was sleek, powerful, athletic, and a distinct departure from the first generation’s soft curves. Designers Larry Shinoda and Pete Brock worked on various prototypes and concepts, evolving the Corvette Super Sport, Q-Corvette, and Sting Ray Special into the eventual XP-720 concept.
The C2’s signature split rear window was dually inspired by Mitchell’s interest in marine life (directly the result of Mitchell sighting a Mako shark while skindiving) and a call back to pre-war European sports cars like the Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic. Arkus-Duntov, focused as he was on the car’s performance, was not a fan of the split window as it obscured the rearward view for the driver. The engineer won out, and the split window became an iconic element exclusive to the C2’s debut 1963 model year.
’61 Cadillac
The transition from Harley Earl’s gaudy and ornate designs of the 1950s and Mitchell’s simpler, more streamlined designs of the 1960s is best exemplified by the changes to Cadillac’s designs. The 1959 Cadillac is the chrome and fins era’s greatest exemplar with its double bullet taillights, massive fins, and colossal chrome grille. Designed under Harley Early by Chuck Jordan (who eventually headed GM’s design from 1986-1992), the ’59 Cadillac was the ‘50s aesthetic at its most baroque.
Bill Mitchell led design on the next-generation Cadillac for 1961. The Jet-Age vogue of the day inspired a more streamlined look. Though the fins were smaller than the previous year, they were now complimented by an additional lower set of fins, the car’s straightened body lines evoked those of a fuselage, and the aggressive front-end overhang completed a distinctly rocket-like look for the ’61 Cadillac.
The Buick Riviera Turns Heads
Nearly a decade before the entire industry scrambled to find their version of the Mustang, the Ford Thunderbird singlehandedly pioneered the personal luxury segment and sent GM and Chrysler back to their collective drawing boards in search of their own “personal car of distinction.” Buick’s would be the Riviera of 1963. The design was overseen by Bill Mitchell and penned by Ned Nickles. The design was a coup for Buick, earning universal praise from the likes of Raymond Loewy and Sergio Pininfarina. Among the Riviera’s unique features were its protruding fenders with vertical driving lights, its hidden headlights, and Coke bottle curve uplifting the rear quarter panel.
Oldsmobile’s Toronado
Another trendsetting design for Mitchell was the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado, that brand’s personal luxury car offering. The Toronado shared the same E-body platform as the Riviera with one major twist, it was the first mass-produced front-wheel drive car in America since the Cord 810/812 of 1937. Oldsmobile designer David North gave the car its distinctive low profile, long hood, and prominent fender bulges. The striking silhouette and a big block V8 helped earn the Toronado Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award for 1966.
Why the Firebird Trans Am is Black and Gold
Many of the best GM designs of the 1960s and ‘70s were shaped and spearheaded by Bill Mitchell. And yet, at least one of those now iconic designs came about both in spite of and, indirectly, because of Mitchell’s personal tastes.
When designer Bill Porter began work on the second-generation Pontiac Firebird, he knew he wanted a new emblem to replace the traditional Hopi Indian-inspired badging. He mocked up a phoenix-like Firebird decal and slapped it provocatively across the hood of the Firebird. Mitchell just happened by the workshop that day and saw Porter’s new emblem, which he did not like.
That could have been the end of the phoenix Firebird decal, but Pontiac’s John Schinella liked the design and developed it further himself, mocking it up on his own car and taking it around the strip on Saturday night where it quickly turned heads. Schinella knew he had something and put the new decal on a Firebird he had painted black and gold to match Mitchell’s Yamaha café racer motorcycle which sported a John Player livery (black and gold being the cigarette company’s brand colors). Schinella had both Mitchell’s motorcycle and the new black and gold Firebird with phoenix decal parked outside the office. This time when Mitchell saw the new emblem he liked it, giving permission for Porter and Schinella to pitch the look to Pontiac’s Chuck Jordan who approved it for the 1973 model Firebird.
