This is the single greatest honor in the motor vehicle industry, intended to honor a career and/or lifetime achievement. To become a "Hall of Famer" the nominee must be either retired or deceased. Recipients must have significantly impacted the development of the automobile or the motor vehicle industry. Typically, four to eight individuals are inducted each year.
Few cars have been shrouded in mystery more so than the 1949 Ford. The car itself is symbolic of the post-War turnaround of Ford Motor Co. Strapped with pre-War designs, Ford showrooms in 1946, ’47 and ’48 were not reflective of the fresh, post-War optimism. More importantly, Ford was losing money at an astonishing rate, and the new car scheduled for debut as a 1949 model had to be a home run, or Ford’s very future could be at risk. To make matters worse, the small “independents” Packard and Hudson unveiled all-new models in 1948 to great acclaim. There was no doubt – success or failure for Ford Motor Co. hinged on the 1949 Ford.
The ‘49 Ford, as it turned out, was a huge success, selling well over a million units during its first full year, and turning Ford’s financial fortunes from red to black virtually overnight.
But who designed this landmark vehicle? That has been the decades-old mystery. And while any vehicle design is the work of multiple people, historians generally agree now that the chief designer of the 1949 Ford was Richard D. Caleal.
Richard Caleal was born in 1912 in Lansing, Michigan, the son of Lebanese immigrant parents. His love of cars, initiated by the sight of a Rolls Royce driving down his street, prompted him to start drawing cars at the age of seven.
Caleal’s first job as a young man was in a wallpaper and paint store in Lansing. Given the job of dressing the store windows, Caleal would often use his car drawings surrounded with various wallpapers. This caught the eye of a manager at Oldsmobile who encouraged him to apply for a job.
With his foot in the door – and his obvious and considerable talent – earned him a ticket to Detroit, and to GM’s Art and Colour Section, where Caleal became a clay modeler and draftsman. Soon, though, he left GM to work as a stylist for the Hudson Motor Car Company. Subsequent stops took him to the design studios of REO, Packard and Studebaker, where he was a member of the famed Raymond Loewy design team.
In 1946, having just been released by Studebaker, Caleal found himself back in Detroit seeking work. He stopped in to see independent designer George Walker, who, unknown to Caleal, had just been awarded the design contract for the 1949 Ford. Caleal needed work, and Walker saw an opportunity. George Walker hired Caleal on a freelance basis, with the assignment that he come up with a finished design concept, executed in quarter scale clay and finally plaster, within just three weeks. Two other teams, one consisting of Walker designers Elwood Engle and Joe Oros, and the other led by Bob Gregorie from the in-house Ford Styling Department had the same assignment.
Caleal went back to his home in Indiana to work on the assignment. He visited his friends at Studebaker to “borrow” some modeling clay, and even paid two Studebaker modelers on a moonlighting basis to help him quickly execute his design in clay.
Caleal set up shop in his home, the dining room table was transformed into a drafting board, and the kitchen table, shoved to the center of the room, was where the clay model was created. Caleal took his clay model to Detroit. Walker liked the model and gave Caleal the green light to produce his design in plaster.
At the end of the three week period, the three quarter scale plaster models from the three teams were presented to the Ford Executive Committee, which included Henry Ford II, Benson Ford, and Ernest Breech among others. In less than five minutes, the committee unanimously chose Caleal’s model. The only significant changes made to Caleal’s design were the shift from vertical to horizontal taillights, said to be the idea of Henry Ford II, and the addition of the spinner-style grille. Caleal was soon hired by Ford and headed the company’s Advanced Styling Studio.
Over the years, the credit for the ’49 Ford has been claimed by a handful of designers. But automotive historians now generally agree that it is the work of Richard Caleal that had the most influence on one of the most significant cars in American history.
