In part to celebrate the coming of age of automobile styling – GM changed the section’s name to Styling in 1937 – Earl conceived the Y-Job as a styling exercise to look at the evolution of the automobile’s appearance. The Y-Job was the first of a steady stream of “dream cars” from GM and others, with Buick Division being particularly prolific.
Earl’s two-passenger convertible was almost 6,096 mm (20 feet) long and had many features that would later become standard. He dispensed with running boards and extended the fenders back into the doors. For a wider appearance the grille was stretched horizontally across the front of the car, not stood vertically as it had traditionally. The bumpers wrapped generously around the fenders. Convinced that lowering a car vastly improved its appearance, Earl fitted 13 inch wheels to the Y-Job rather than the Buick’s standard 15 inch.
He believed the axis of the automobile should be dead level with the ground and this was strongly apparent in the Y-Job. Another of his ideas, the “power dome” or “helmet” look, was projected by the fenders and hood. The Y-Job also had several convenience items that would later become standard, including electric windows, power top and headlamps concealed behind power operated doors.
As GM’s Motorama road show extravaganzas were still years in the future Earl exhibited his new car by driving it on public roads. The Y-Job was his personal transportation for several years, impressing his country club friends and spreading the gospel of the automobile’s future appearance.
During the Second World War when automobile styling languished and car production stopped between 1942 and ’45, the Y-Job went into storage until 1947. It then re-emerged and went on to again serve as a styling inspiration, strongly influencing the cars of the early ’50s. By this time, however, Earl realized the regular cars were catching up to the Y-Job. His mind was again jumping ahead with new and heady visions as tail fins, wraparound windshields and rocket plane themes, ideas that would emerge in his second concept car, the 1951 Buick LeSabre.
The 1939 Buick Y-Job’s significance was that it pointed the way to modern American automobile styling. It also established concept cars, often called dream cars, as a method of probing the future. The Y-Job tested public reaction and led public taste, and for this it deserves its permanent place in automotive history.
