70NPORT
Old Man with a Hat
Absolutely not my style at all but curiosity is killing I just need to know...who built this car???
Who built this??
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cm23uoc
Old Man with a Hat
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That was Harley Earls personal drive after he put the Y-Job out of use. It's called the Le Sabre I think.
Ironwolf
Senior Member
[h=1]1951 General Motors LeSabre: Harley Earl's Think Tank[/h]
The 1951 General Motors LeSabre was conceived as Harley Earl's personal automobile. Earl, nicknamed "Misterl," was one of those industry titans who firmly believed in himself. He had total confidence that his own automotive likes and dislikes would become the taste of middle America. He had an uncanny intuitive sense combined with an almost naive innocence that said, "Well, if I like this, so will everyone else."
His intuition was usually spot-on. For decades, Harley Earl remained America's foremost automotive trendsetter, a position he actively pursued and jealously guarded. He certainly wasn't going to let any other car company get ahead of General Motors in terms of styling. And that was part of the reason why the LeSabre was born, yet it wasn't the entire reason by any stretch.
General Motors styling chief Harley Earl drove the 1951 General Motors LeSabre as his personal car, publicly flaunting the talents of GM's designers and engineers. |
Edsel, who was anything but competitive by nature, kept coming up with wonderful, mouth-watering personal cars -- little Ford V-8 speedsters, big coachbuilt Lincolns, and his masterpiece, the 1939 Continental cabriolet.
Ed Macauley, who headed Packard's tiny styling department, also drove around Detroit, first in a boattail Packard speedster that he kept updating and then, in 1939, in a customized deauville coupe based on a Packard-Darrin convertible, a car he proudly called The Phantom. The Phantom's 1942 front end metamorphosed into the grille of the 1948 production Packard.
Don Kopka, who retired several years ago as Ford's design vice president, grew up in the tiny northern Detroit suburb of Pleasant Ridge. Kopka recalled how he used to go over to Woodward Avenue, where it bisected Pleasant Ridge, specifically to catch glimpses of Edsel Ford, Ed Macauley, and Harley Earl as they drove past in their insolent chariots. And he often did see them.
In those days, Misterl was still driving his shiny black Y-Job. The Y-Job was built in 1938 as a harbinger of future Buick styling, and it certainly served as that. But more important to Earl, the Y-Job gave him the opportunity to show off what he and his designers could do, and especially to flaunt it in front of his perceived Detroit rivals.
In one way, Earl "wore" the Y-Job just as he wore colorful, flashy suits and ties. All these appearance factors conspired to prove to the world that here was a man who set store by style, who chose his clothing carefully and drove not just the latest fashion but fashion that hadn't even come out yet. It was his way of telling his colleagues, Here's what you can look forward to, fellas, so you better watch out!
And thus it was with the LeSabre. The LeSabre replaced the Y-Job as Earl's manifest automotive destiny. He wanted a personal car for which there could be no competition, but he also wanted a car to show the world the promise of the future.
Harley Earl still drove his Y-Job for several years after the war, but he could see its design starting to fade. It had originally been made for Buick, using 1938 Buick mechanicals. Buick's general manager, Harlow Curtice, felt he'd gotten his money's worth from the Y-Job in terms of image, ideas, and publicity.
So when Earl talked to Curtice during the winter of 1946 and the two men began blue-skying postwar American automobiles, it wasn't hard for Earl to convince Curtice to foot the bill for yet another image vehicle.
cm23uoc
Old Man with a Hat
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I just gave the short Version. LOL
Never liked this one, the Y-Job was a Piece of art though imho.
70NPORT
Old Man with a Hat
absolutely speecheless
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Klaus you are right the y job is cool the lasabre is a old man going downhill just adding crap for the sake of adding crap. By the late fifties he was following Mr Exner. IMO
70NPORT
Old Man with a Hat
Ya think?
cm23uoc
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There are a couple cues in the leSabre design that found their way in mid to late 50s GM creations, some only in pre production clay modeling some taken over like the curved side decoration on the 52 Buick I think.
While I personally don't like the LeSabre I'd say it was still on spot for a futuristic design not too far ahead of the times, and it left maybe even a bigger Impression than the Y-Job, even transatlantic. I saw pics of a Long distance bus of some unknown European builder that took about every cue possible of transferring on that vehicle including the fins and there were also vehicles used for a merry-go-round produced that were some simplified scaled down copies. I think it was featured somewhere in Collectible Automobile mag but I'm not sure.
Farz I know the LeSabre still livez ah pampered life at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mi. 'Mornin' y'all
70NPORT
Old Man with a Hat
That picture with Harley Earl sitting in it hilarious.
Morning Jeri!
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
It was cool back in the day. The big 3 back then were playing with each other trying to deceive each other with the direction of styling they were going to take next. Chrysler won in my opinion.
'Mornin' Bob
I'm in Green Bay.... and going to the game at Lambeau tomorrow night.
I forgot.... I'm going to Merck's today in GB for yellow perch dinners.
Gary is afraid of anything pre-1970. LOL!
70NPORT
Old Man with a Hat
Anything pre-70 with huge wings and fake jet engines shoved in the grill. :sSig_lol3:
ceebuddy
Well-Known Member
Taking into account the year that prototype was built (1951) and put into contrast with contemporary production vehicles, it was quite a visionary creation. Maybe the dashboard and controls were a bit far out. But if you ever wanted to fly an airplane yet never got your pilot's license, that would be the way to go...
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