Bill Mitchell (car designer)
Bill Mitchell (born July 2, 1912 in Cleveland , Ohio ; † September 12, 1988 ; actually William L. Mitchell ) was an American designer of car bodies and model variants, where he mainly worked for Chevrolet , Cadillac and GM .
biography
Bill Mitchell, who grew up in Greenville , Pennsylvania , was responsible for the shape of nearly 72 million automobiles in his 17 years as General Motors' design director , accounting for nearly 50 percent of the total US market. These included the 1970 Camaro, the 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado , the 1977 Impala, the 63 Riviera and the 75 Seville. In 1938 he was already head of design for Cadillac , where he celebrated his first success with the Cadillac 60 Special. However, he became famous with the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray (Split Window).
In 1977 he finally retired from GM and started his own design company, working a lot for Goodyear and Yamaha . Since he drove races in self-made cars even as a young man, he was still to be found in races later and remained an unswerving car enthusiast. The Corvette embodied his attitude towards cars. His appeal and admonition to the car designers was: "Make them look like they could harm you!" For Mitchell, cars should look boisterous, fast, beautiful and determined - in short, something really special.
literature
- Georg Amtmann: Cadillac . Lechner Verlag, Geneva 1990, ISBN 3-85049-071-8 .
- Richard M. Langworth: Encyclopedia of American Cars 1930-1980 . Beekman House, New York 1984, ISBN 0-517-42462-2 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mitchell, Bill |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mitchell, William L. (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American designer of car bodies and model variants |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 2, 1912 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cleveland |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 12, 1988 |