Cooper Hewitt says...
Elwood Engel was born in New Jersey and raised in New York. He studied industrial design at Pratt Institute and began his career designing locomotives, women’s wear, and several displays for the 1939 New York World’s Fair before turning to automotive design. After graduating in 1939, he worked in General Motors’ advanced studio under Jules Agromonti and Tom Hibbard, and later in the Pontiac Studio under Frank Hershey.
Engel left General Motors (GM) to join the armed forces during World War II, serving in the horse cavalry and later as a cartographer in the tank corps. Near the end of the war, Joe Oros, a fellow young designer from GM, recommended that Engel work alongside him at George Walker’s industrial design studio. Engel promptly joined the team, and in 1946, Walker secured Ford as a client with the team’s winning design for an all-new 1949 Ford. Despite some disputes with Ford, Walker continued to work for the company and kept Engel and Oros as his employees. Engel was assigned to the Ford Design Department, where he oversaw design of Lincolns and Mercurys, and the trio of designers paved the way in creating the large automobiles with detailed chrome accents that defined the 1950s Ford style. In 1955, Engel became a Ford employee and Walker’s assistant manager, and in 1958 he became the head of the corporate advanced studio.
When Walker retired from Ford in 1961 and Engel was not chosen as his successor, Engel moved on to Chrysler to replace Virgil Exner as Chrysler’s vice president of styling. While at Chrysler, he created iconic designs for the 1968 Dodge Chargers and the 1970 Challenger. Engel retired from Chrysler in 1973 and stayed on as a consultant until June 1974. He died on June 24, 1986.
