1939 Chevrolet Master 85 Sport Sedan

"To see 'the new face and form of motor car fashion for 1939' at its very best — see the new Chevrolet! Its new Aero-Stream Styling, its new Body by Fisher, its new Custom-Tailored Interior, all have won the unqualified endorsement of men and women who appreciate good looks and good taste. First in fashion . . . first in quality and value . . . 'Chevrolet's the Choice!'"

Notwithstanding its "experimental" colors, this Chevrolet from Havana shows a stunning elegance and road presence that seems atypical for a mere "budget" car. Mind you, this was the cheapest model in the whole GM lineup!

The upscale impression of the Chevy was created by a pretty simple trick: since establishing the world's first corporate car design studio in 1927, Harley Earl occasionally applied styling elements of GM's more glamorous brands on to the cheaper models to add status to their appearance. In 1939, for example, Chevrolet's styling showed apparent Cadillac overtones. Two years later, the Chevy resembled an expensive Buick. These illusions helped to distinguish GM's budget models from their competition. Furthermore, Earl's relentless quest to create "longer, lower and wider" looking cars resulted in proportions that made these models simply look "better" on the road, and the customers honored that with a massively increasing demand.

The industrial car styling process that Harley Earl installed at GM also demanded a change in GM's traditional development hierarchy, in particular by cutting back the influence of Fisher Body, GM's coachbuilding division, that in the early 1930s still had a final word in all technical and styling matters. Establishing the styling department as a deciding authority that increasingly could dominate even GM's own engineering departments was perhaps Earl's biggest internal achievement. Within a few years, car styling became the most important sales factor, and was one reason for the massive growth of GM's market share in these years.

And in fact, the GM cars soon showed a much more flamboyant and expressive character: a comparison of the first Chevrolet whose styling was entirely controlled by Harley Earl's "Art and Color section", with the model you could buy only three years later in 1939, nicely illustrates the progress that American car styling made in these years.