An insider's look at the Golden Age of Automobile Design at General Motors during the leadership of Bill Mitchell, VP Design (1958-1977). Mitchell elevated design as a marketing tool resulting in General Motors establishing itself as the leading world corporation, and his Iconic cars sold over 136 million (including Corvette, Camaro, Riviera, and Toronado). Mitchell is regarded as the man who singlehandedly saved Corvette.Written by Roy Lonberger, who worked directly for Mitchell as head of his secret Studio-X, this 1st edition book of 440 pages has unique insights into the man, rare designer sketches, clay models, and secret photographs of the unique design process. Five years in preparation and with the help and license from GM Archive, this book is a must read for car enthusiasts, design students, and business managers.

The New York Times bestselling author of Bitter Brew chronicles the birth and rise to greatness of the American auto industry through the remarkable life of Harley Earl, an eccentric six-foot-five, stuttering visionary who dropped out of college and went on to invent the profession of automobile styling, thereby revolutionized the way cars were made, marketed, and even imagined. Harleys Earl’s story qualifies as a bona fide American family saga. It began in the Michigan pine forest in the years after the Civil War, traveled across the Great Plains on the wooden wheels of a covered wagon, and eventually settled in a dirt road village named Hollywood, California, where young Harley took the skills he learned working in his father’s carriage shop and applied them to designing sleek, racy-looking automobile bodies for the fast crowd in the burgeoning silent movie business. As the 1920s roared with the sound of mass manufacturing, Harley returned to Michigan, where, at GM’s invitation, he introduced art into the rigid mechanics of auto-making. Over the next thirty years, he functioned as a kind of combination Steve Jobs and Tom Ford of his time, redefining the form and function of the country’s premier product. His impact was profound. When he retired as GM’s VP of Styling in 1958, Detroit reigned as the manufacturing capitol of the world and General Motors ranked as the most successful company in the history of business. Knoedelseder tells the story in ways both large and small, weaving the history of the company with the history of Detroit and the Earl family as Fins examines the effect of the automobile on America’s economy, culture, and national psyche.

Winner of the 2013 Motor Press Guild's prestigious Dean Batchelor Award for Best Automotive Journalism across all categories of video/film, books, articles and photography, this book tells the fascinating inside story behind the creation of the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray as told by the last remaining GM Designer who was part of its design.

With nearly 400 scores to his credit, Ennio Morricone is one of the most prolific and influential film composers working today. He has collaborated with many significant directors, and his scores for such films as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Once Upon a Time in America; Days of Heaven; The Mission; The Untouchables; Malèna; and Cinema Paradiso leave moviegoers with the conviction that something special was achieved—a conviction shared by composers, scholars, and fans alike. In Composing for the Cinema: The Theory and Praxis of Music in Film, Morricone and musicologist Sergio Miceli present a series of lectures on the composition and analysis of film music. Adapted from several lectures and seminars, these lessons show how sound design can be analyzed and offer a variety of musical solutions to many different kinds of film. Though aimed at composers, Morricone’s expositions are easy to understand and fascinating even to those without any musical training. Drawing upon scores by himself and others, the composer also provides insight into his relationships with many of the directors with whom he has collaborated, including Sergio Leone, Giuseppe Tornatore, Franco Zeffirelli, Warren Beatty, Ridley Scott, Roland Joffé, the Taviani Brothers, and others. Translated and edited by Gillian B. Anderson, an orchestral conductor and musicologist, these lessons reveal Morricone’s passion about musical expression. Delivered in a conversational mode that is both comprehensible and interesting, this groundbreaking work intertwines analysis with practical details of film music composition. Aimed at a wide audience of composers, musicians, film historians, and fans, Composing for the Cinema contains a treasure trove of practical information and observations from a distinguished musicologist and one of the most accomplished composers on the international film scene.

While working at GM and afterward as the author of the authoritative Corvette history, Karl Ludvigsen was close to the behind-the-scenes development of Chevrolet's Corvette. As a result, his collection contains many rare and unusual photos of the experimental Corvettes built both for the road and racing - exotic chassis, engines, styling concepts and designs. In this book he opens his files and takes the reader behind the scenes of Chevrolet R&D and Design Staff to show the rare and spectacular machines conceived by Bill Mitchell, Zora Duntov, Larry Shinoda and others in the car-crazy Corvette world at GM.

For the amateur or latent professional.