Bill Mitchell and the 1938 Cadillac Sixty

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Modern, isn’t it? Then again, the Cadillac Sixty is often considered a benchmark in automotive design—at least it was for General Motors.

It’s nice to know that the man responsible was 26-year-old Chief Designer Bill Mitchell, who landed a job at GM through Harley Earl just two years earlier. He was said to have “haunted showrooms” as a youngster: “On weekends and evenings, along 57th Street and Park Avenue, admiring the great Isotta-Fraschini, Rolls-Royce, Hispano-Suiza, Mercedes-Benz, and Duesenberg cars that were the pacesetters of the day.”

Sketching those great machines was the next step. At 19, young Bill was lucky to join an advertising agency that encouraged his talent. The two agency heads would later become founders of the Automobile Racing Club of America—predecessor of the Sports Car Club of America. Bill became the club’s official illustrator, designing its logo and capturing much of the action at tracks such as Briarcliff and the Sleepy Hollow Ring. And when these drawings were spotted by a friend of Harley Earl...

The Cadillac Sixty was Mitchell’s first complete car design at GM, and it introduced several striking innovations. Among them were the ‘convertible-type’ door glass frames and, notably, the absence of running boards. The overall silhouette became known as the “torpedo body,” a design language GM would use for nearly a decade. We’d argue it lasted even longer. In retro motoring, the torpedo shape remained influential well into recent memory—remember the 1999 Packard Twelve concept car?

Here’s what the original caption of the accompanying photo says:

“Extremely rugged-appearing and possessing the characteristic flair for Cadillac smartness, the new Cadillac Sixty looms as one of the style leaders of 1938. The model is only five feet, five inches high, yet has more headroom than the average car. This is due to a unique frame and body design. The absence of running boards adds a modern touch to the ensemble.”

Words: Jeroen Booij
Picture: The New York Public Library

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