Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild Models Imagined Full Size

Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild Models Imagined Full Size

by Ron Will

In 1930 the Fisher Body Division of General Motors started the contest known as the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild. Teenage boys were encouraged to build a replica of the Napoleonic Coach that was the logo of the Fisher Body company. The prizes were cash and scholarships. But the big prize was a chance to work at Fisher.

In 1937 Harley Earl, chief of GM Styling, thought the contest could be expanded to include automobile design. Earl was on a search for young talented designers who could become the next generation of car designers for General Motors. From 1937 to 1968, excluding the war years, thousands of models were built and submitted to GM for judging. Many of the winners did become top designers at GM. I have indicated with a (GM) all of the models that were built by teens who became real car designers.

Those 1/12 scale model cars carved of wood or cast in plaster were the boy’s dreams of what the car of the future would look like. Some of the details did end up on production cars, but none of them ever made it to production. However, like myself, I always wondered what my model would look like as a full size car.

With the advances provided by digital Artificial Intelligence computer programs like Vizcom, we can see what these models would look like as real cars in real life settings.\

I have tried to make them as true to the original model designs as possible. But now you can see the interiors, open doors and even show passengers in the cars.

I would like to thank GM Photographic for providing the original Fisher Body model images from the 1930s and 1940s.

Ron Will created the images unless otherwise noted.

Ed Welburn, former head of GM Design created the John Mellberg red three wheel model image. Bob Munson, GM designer, created the image of his own Guild model using Vizcom. Milt Antonick provided the image of himself at the driver’s wheel of his 1955 Guild model using Photoshop. All of the other images were created using Vizcom.

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