The History of The Fin
Starring Mr Harley Earl

"War, what is it good for…” Edwin Starr’s 1969 classic may be a terrific song but what has it to do with Fins on Cadillacs?
Fighter aircraft of the 1930s and earlier had large radial air-cooled engines. This was because a single bullet could take out the cooling system of a water cooled plane and render it useless in seconds. Air cooled engines took a lot more punishment - but were bad for aerodynamics and speed.
In the late 1930s a genius called Kelly Johnson was designing planes for Lockheed. He decided to stick two water cooled V12 Cadillac built Allison engines into a slim trim fighter and that way, if one engine got taken out, at least the pilot could limp home on one engine.
The plane was the P38 Lightning and it was an outstanding success, smashing all sorts of speed and distance records across the US even while it was a top secret prototype.
That aero designer Kelly Johnson had a great mate called Harley Earl and in 1939, while the Lightning was still top secret, Kelly invited Harley to come see his masterpiece.
Harley fell in love with the sleek design and managed to wangle it so his entire Cadillac design team got to see the Lightning too. "I want a Cadillac that looks like this plane,” he’s said to have told his designers.
But then the Japanese took out Pearl Harbor and WWII got in the way of building Cadillacs.
Even after the war it took a little time to get Fins started.
They finally hit the dealerships in 1947 as the 1948 Cadillac range and were a massive success.
Other designers were forced to follow suit (Virgil Exner at Chrysler also designing some of the sweetest finned cars the planet has ever seen) and the Fin Fin-nomena kept reaching for the sky until 1959.
By the time the 1959 Cadillac hit the roads car tastes had changed though, people wanted restrained clean lines. But Harley Earl, who retired in December 1958, ruled with an iron fist and it wasn’t until the man had finally walked out the GM Design Studio door for the last time that his replacement, Bill Mitchell, grabbed a new broom (and pencil) and went to work with a fresh piece of clean paper for an entirely new model.
Of course there wasn’t time to get the new Caddy out before the 1960 model was due in dealerships so the designers did the best they could to tone down the 1959 into the 1960.
Then, at last, the new model hit the roads; the 1961 – yep, Lucy.
But the writing was on the wall and just a few years later the party was over and 1964 was the last year with a fin – (Helen's Lola).
Fins have never seen the light of day since.
And probably never will again.

The Fin is dead – long live The Fin.
(Some pics below courtesy GM archives)