Octane Magazine

HARLEY JEARL

GIVEN THE FLAMBOYANCE, exuberance, excess, and showbiz pizzazz of Harley Earl’s reign as head of styling at General Motors, it seems appropriate that he was born in the wellspring of glitz and glamour: Hollywood. Yet in 1893, the year of his birth, the inhabitants of this agricultural settlement ten miles west of Los Angeles could not have imagined what lay ahead.

Four years earlier, Harley’s father, Jacob, had opened the Earl Carriage Works in central LA, building and repairing horsedrawn vehicles. The city

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