Who designed the 1956 Buicks

Hi All,
I'm currently writing a story on a 56 Special and need a little background. I always like to mention the designer but I can't seem to find a name online.Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm as yet too wet behind the ears to post pics.....

 

I think that I once read that Harley Earl designed the 55 Buick.

 

Whoever it was is a genius. Best year IMO. My Dad owned 13 of them.

 

Harley Earl? Or, Bill Mitchell? Or, another could been; (I don't recall the first name) Ragsdale? By, '56; the basic body was on it's third year.

 

Harley Earl ( My hero by the way) , was GM Chief of Styling and Design at the time he retired in 1958. Bill Mitchell (whom Harley mentored, is my second hero - In charge for the Riviera years) took over from him and was his vice in 56. Chuck Jordan was chief designer of the special projects studio. these would have been three guys who directed the design - the actual designers would have been a team working for them.

lots of info interesting reading about harley, Mtichell (who some say ruined Harley vision of the future ) and some the others at http://www.carofthecentury.com/

 

Ned Nickles, was the Chief Stylist for Buick under Earl and Mitchell, he was also creator of the 49 Riviera and possibly the 63 Riviera ( Harley Earl may have had more to do it than is publicly known - The design surfaced right after Earl left - under questionable circumstances - which Earls Grandson seems to believe was Mitchell's doing, and that Mitchell and others promoted their own careers with Earls design for many years after - The design does fit Earls vision of smaller better built cars - but then these guys all worked under him for years)

an extractt from ROA's Evolution of the Riviera
He looked to his styling studio and his new chief stylist, William L. Mitchell, for ideas. Mitchell, who was trained under Harley Earl, had a talented staff of designers including Ned Nickles, who had created the 1949 Roadmaster Riviera, Buick's first pillarless hardtop.

Actually, GM had already been working unofficially on a car they believed would blow the feathers off the bird. According to Nickles, he had sketches of a car that he made in his apartment, which he envisioned as being a Cadillac LaSalle 11. There seemed to be no interest in the project until Mitchell showed the concept to Buick's new General Manager Ed Rollert. In 1959, while the preliminary design work was ongoing, Mitchell attended the London Auto Show. There, it is told by Mitchell himself, that one evening on a foggy London street, he was impressed by the silhouette of a Rolls Royce, with its sharp lines and angles, which was partially obscured in the mist. He recalls thinking, "That's it, but the car would look much better if it were lower.

 

On wiki Nickles also the credit for the venti ports

Source:
en.wikipedia.org


A traditional Buick styling cue dating to 1949 is a series of three or four portholes or vents on the front fender behind the front wheels. The source of this design feature was a custom car (one not made by Buick, but personal car of stylist Ned Nickles), which in addition had a flashing light within each hole, each synchronized with a specific spark plug simulating the flames from the exhaust stack of a fighter airplane. Combined with the bombsight mascot (introduced in the 1940s), the ventiports put the driver at the controls of an imaginary fighter airplane. The flashing light feature was not used by Buick in production, but the portholes remained as nonfunctional ornamentation.

 

Edward Ragsdale was General Manager by then.

"Hardtop convertible" styling was introduced on the 1949 Roadmaster Riviera. Buick's famous "portholes" came along that same year.

These styling innovations are attributed to Buick designer Ned Nickles. However, Edward T. Ragsdale, Buick manufacturing manager and later general manager, helped inspire the hardtop convertible styling. Ragsdale noticed that his wife Sarah always ordered convertibles, but never put the top down. She said she liked the styling but didn't want to muss her hair. The basic styling innovation was to eliminate the center side pillar. Buick built 4,000 hardtop convertibles in 1949, the first of hundreds of thousands it would produce over the next few years.

 

It is my understanding that through 1957 all GM cars styling was ultimately approved by Harley Earl.

 

That's true - He was known as hard you know what, who directed everything within his power and some outside of that. His way or the highway kind of guy - so even if he didn't say do it my ...... way - I'm sure things where done the way Mr. Earl would like them.
After he left - Many seemed to step forward, with "It was my Idea" - He said nothing. His grandson has highlighted a lot of that on the car of the century site pointing out how his influence has affected design well beyond his time - and how they messed with his vision - which was ahead of time. It has flavour that if they had of listen Gramps would have built the right car at the right time and the auto industry would not gotten into the big mess it did. -- Earl believed in the 50s it was time for smaller lighter cars - 4 cylinder Corvair (Corvair van) corvair Nomad, corvair conv , F88, wildcat 11, Bonneville, etc were already under way AS CONCEPTS in the early to mid 50's - and became the 53 corvettes - and then there were the turbine firebird cars - .

 

Thanks John and Rob, I followed that up .....In a way I was wondering whether there was someonewho'd pulled the whole thing together but it makes sense that big ol' Harley Earl oversaw the whole thing........

The '56 I'm writing the story on is a very tidy piece, tasteful mods but largely stock.

When my count is up I'll pop some shots up....

 

I remember reading that "Mr. Earl" - nobody called him Harley - was overruled by top management once. The top brass looked at the full-width grillework on the '55 Ford and Plymouth, and decided that the egg-grate narrow grille of the '55 Chevy had to go for 1956. Earl had no plans to change the '55 grille for '56 but was forced to do so. Most purests think that the change to the wider grille totally screwed up the appearance of the front of the '56 Chevy. As usual, Mr. Earl's opinion was proven correct.

 

It would be nice to have access to some of the internal memos that went around in 1952 when the 55-56 cars were planned. Chances are that a lot of other people had input to the project and Mr. Earl only approved of the final concept that went ahead to upper management. Of course, since he was head of the department, credit for all the sucesses would be his, and the failures would belong to some flunky who would find himself consigned to stamping out hubcaps on the line...

 

I would disagree. For the three; '55, '56, '57. I like the looks of the '56 best. But, the sales figures bear out, that, those buying; agreed with what you say.

 

Myself, I like the '55 best of the 3 years.
There is something about the turn signal placement on the '56 -'57 that reminds me of a chipmunk with a mouth full of nuts.

 

This (9 passenger Bel-Air wagon) was the most expensive Chevrolet offered in 1956 (including; Corvette and Nomad) And, to me; the best looking Chevy ever made.​

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Correction; Bel-Air Nomad wagon was more expensive than the Bel-Air Beauville 9 passenger wagon

 

The only Chevy of that era that I owned was a '56 Bel-Aire 2 dr ht. Naturally I yanked the stovebolt 6 and replaced it with a 264 Nailhead. Talk about an awesome swap! It handled just as well, was much faster, and got better gas mileage then the 6. Chebby shoulda put the 264 Nailhead in the '55 and '56 cars. The Nailhead also made a lot more power then the 265 Chevy. The only bad part of this car was that two years after I sold it, the kid who bought it killed himself in it by attempting to take down a telephone pole at about 90 mph. The T-pole won.

 

yikes! That's, too bad.

Chevy had a recall on the '55 265 (was it the oil pump?)
I remember another thread where; it was mentioned about the Chevy trucks ('57?); using the 322 nailhead.