If you grew up in my Atlanta, you’d think we were keeping all of American muscle in business. Sun popping on candy paint on something growling with 20+ inch rims. Plenty of old schools so no surprise if you see your local Chevy boy in a Monte Carlo SS or a Chevelle. The Cutlass Kings creeping around with their Oldsmobile.
Ford broke in the new school with the 05 Mustang. Dodge hit back with the 06 Charger and the 08 Challenger (both getting the Hellcat variant). Not to be left out, Chevy dropped the 09 Camaro and that’s the connection to the title of this post.
Ed Welburn Jr. was VP of Global Design at General Motors from 2003-2016. I unknowingly stumbled on him learning about the Oldsmobile Aerotech concept car (check him out with the car below). While updating the American Object Makers topic on OBJECTS Forum, I came across him again. Instead of pics of the man, this time I got his portfolio and his story.
At 11 years old, after seeing the 1959 Cadillac Cyclone concept, he wrote to the president of GM and got a response. By 1971, he was interning there. Upon graduation from Howard, he joined full-time as the first Black American car designer at GM. In 2003, he became the highest-ranking Black man in American automaking when he took on the role of VP of Global Design.
If you piece it together, that means he led the design of over a decade of iconic American cars that are some of my favorites of all time. There’s the couple mentioned above alongside the Cadillac Escalade and CTS-V if you’re feeling figuratively presidential or the Beast if you’re feeling literally presidential. He made a Camaro into Bumblebee in Transformers, with a brief cameo in the final film. The C6, C7, and C8 Corvettes were all directed by him.
At the end of it, he oversaw over 500 vehicle design programs. Fittingly, he introduced the Cadillac Ciel and Elmiraj that inform the modern design of Cadillacs on the road today. He’s still hanging around after retirement. You can get more info on where to find him on the forum.
from Montez ★
