Fins

The New York Times bestselling author of Bitter Brew chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the remarkable life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined.

Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wooden wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in a dirt road village named Hollywood, California, where young Harley took the skills he learned working in his father’s carriage shop and applied them to designing sleek, racy-looking automobile bodies for the fast crowd in the burgeoning silent movie business.

As the 1920s roared with the sound of mass manufacturing, Harley returned to Michigan, where, at GM’s invitation, he introduced art into the rigid mechanics of auto-making. Over the next thirty years, he functioned as a kind of combination Steve Jobs and Tom Ford of his time, redefining the form and function of the country’s premier product. His impact was profound. When he retired as GM’s VP of Styling in 1958, Detroit reigned as the manufacturing capitol of the world and General Motors ranked as the most successful company in the history of business.

Knoedelseder tells the story in ways both large and small, weaving the history of the company with the history of Detroit and the Earl family as Fins examines the effect of the automobile on America’s economy, culture, and national psyche.

Step inside the epic story of the man who shaped the American car:
The Father of Car Design: Meet Harley Earl, the eccentric, six-foot-five visionary who dropped out of college, conquered a stutter, and invented the very profession of automobile styling.The Rise of General Motors: Go inside the boardroom and the design studio as Earl introduces art to engineering, propelling GM past Ford to become the most successful company in the world.The Birth of Tail Fins: Trace the evolution of an American icon, from early concepts inspired by WWII fighter jets to the towering fins of the 1950s that defined an era of optimism and excess.From Hollywood to Motor City: Follow an epic American journey from a carriage shop in silent-era Hollywood, where Earl designed custom cars for movie stars, to the executive suites of Detroit, the world’s manufacturing capital.