Driving Home History December 26, 2003 – Posted in: Press

By CHRISTINE DAVIS
Published: December 26, 2003
Palm Beach Daily News

Transported by television via a series of popular Buick commercials, the ghost of Harley Early has returned.

And it was to be expected and none too soon, says Richard Earl of his GM designer grandfather, who spent his final years in Palm Beach during the late 1950s and ‘60s. The legendary car designer deserves any recognition he is afforded, says his grandson, who lives in the Detroit area.

“He created Detroit’s dependency on design,” says Richard.

Known as the “DiVinci of Detroit,” Harley Earl even inspired a GM slogan that states “Our father who art in styling, Harley be thy name.”

“He was responsible for 37 one-of-a-kind car shows and experimental vehicles,” Richard says. “If he hadn’t plunked down large amounts of GM money, we might be driving Hugos today.”

Harley turned hurrying into pleasure for the masses, he says. “He created the telescopic radio antenna, the glove box, all the creature comforts. He was the first to put transistor radios in cars. He also created Oscar the crash dummy.”

Even though Richard was 10 when his grandfather died in 1969, he remembers him well. Harley and his wife, Sue, lived at 995 S. Ocean Blvd. They moved to Palm Beach fulltime after Harley retired from General Motors in 1958.

“My grandparents lived in a moderate home with a beach house next door,” Richard says.

Most of all, Richard Remembers the cars. “There are pictures of us kids in the driveway with the cars he used to drive,” he says. “Harley often drove his glacier blue LeSabre, his most expensive car. General Motors owns it now.

“The LeSabre was his creative muse where he got his idea for the Corvette,” says Richard, who drives a white Park Avenue Buick. “It had the first wraparound windshield. The first Corvettes had that. No one had ever done anything like that before. It was state-of-the-art. By 1956, all cars had the sweeping wraparound windshields.”

But even though Harley Earl was a showman when it came to cars, he was modest and unassuming, Richard Says.

“That’s probably why he didn’t have a ton of property in Palm Beach,” he says. “He was more interested in making the accomplishments. And he was publicity-shy.”

Harley Early, though, did own a piece of property on Peruvian Avenue “as an investment,” Richard says.

Which brings us to the House of Kahn.

The land where the House of Kahn sits at 231 Peruvian Ave., one block north of Worth Avenue, used to be part of the estate of Harley Early. Adele Kahn bought the property in 1971.

“The brokers were making a big fuss about the fact that property was part of Harley Earl’s estate,” Kahn says. “I didn’t know who he was.”

Kahn, of course, is very involved with design. But it’s not cars that capture her fancy. It’s fancy jewelry.

She describes the parcel as she first saw it. “I was attracted by the size of the property,” she says. “On the east side is the house where the House of Kahn is located. It was rented out. The other part (to the west) was a motel,” she recalls. “Renters were living there, too. It had patio stone statues in the front. I wish I’d taken a picture.”

She looked over, decided “it had good bones” and believed that “people would walk from Worth Avenue for beautiful jewelry at a good price.” She bought the property and set about renovating it.

She didn’t think much about the history of the property until recently.

“I always heard the name Harley Early,” She says. “But it never hit me until the last couple of years when Buick kept repeating his name in the commercials.”

What hit her was why Earl had bought the property.

“He was visionary,” she says. “Maybe he used the motel for guests.”

She thinks on this for a while. “It just struck me,” she says, laughing.

“He must have foreseen Worth Avenue’s parking problem. He bought it for the parking. The House of Kahn is the only place with parking for 16 cars,” she says, adding, “I wish he’d left a few cars on the lot.”

To learn more about Harley Early, visit his official web site: www.carofthecentury.com If you’d rather wear than drive striking designs, visit the House of Kahn at 231 Peruvian Ave., where there’s parking (and beautiful jewelry designs) aplenty.

About Harley Earl

Harley Earl was born in Hollywood, Calif., in 1983, a fitting birthplace for a larger-than-life man whose vision, sense of style and showmanship revolutionized the auto industry. The son of a custom coach-builder, Early grew up believing that personal transportation should be an extension of personal style.

By the early 1920s, he had left Stanford University to design for Earl Automotive Works, his father’s custom parts and accessories shop. There he gained notoriety as a designer of the elaborately customized “dream” cars favored by Hollywood’s elite. It took only a few years for Earl’s designs to attract the attention of General Motors, and in 1927 he moved to Detroit to head GM’s newly created Art and Color Section, later called the Design and Styling Department.

By introducing innovations such as clay modeling and the “concept car” to the design process, Earl brought styling to the force. His aesthetic – “Longer, lower, wider” – became a GM design mantra.

As the post-war era began, Earl’s fascination with performance, aerodynamics and sleek, streamlines chassis paved the way for cars unlike anything America had ever seen. Running boards fell away to reveal the tail fins of Earl’s powerful, chrome-adorned dream machines such as the 1950 LeSabre.

Source: Official Buick Web site.