Remembering Bill Porter
Bill Porter was a mentor and inspiration to many. I was in Buick Studio when he was moved into the Studio as Chief Designer when Jerry Hirshberg left to go to Nissan. I worked under Bill’s leadership for several years.
This post highlights several previously published posts on Dean’s Garage, and lists several anecdote titles that are in the Dean’s Garage book.
The following story is not online or in the book.—Gary
Stickley Furniture and a ’73 Pontiac Firebird.
Bill was an avid Stickley furniture collector (early 1900s Arts and Crafts period). He had a series of Buick B-body station wagons that he would use to transport his finds to his large, dark-green barn he had built by his home on Pierce Street in Birmingham, Michigan. The barn had a large loft where he stored Stickley pieces that were not on display in his home. There was quite a bit of furniture stored up there. Old, dry wood. Very rare and valuable.
Tom Peloquin and myself were visiting one day for some reason. Bill showed us the loft and a large room at the end of the barn used as a studio and for art storage in flat files.
The front of the barn was used as a garage. Parked was his then newly acquired red 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. At the time he hadn’t yet removed the TA hood and the shaker scoop and replaced it with a Formula hood with the twin scoops. Bill wanted his car to represent what he had always envisioned for the Trans Am.
As Tom and I got near the Firebird, we both realized that there was a potential disaster that could completely destroy the Firebird, the furniture, the barn, and maybe the house. And maybe all of the houses on the enite block.
There was puddle of gas under the car. Seems like I remember Bill knowing about the leak, but didn’t seem unduly concerned.
Duane “Sparky” Bohnstedt
Sparky Bohnstedt and Harley Earl
Excerpt from the Dean’s Garage Book. By Bill Porter
It is true that Harley Earl fired Sparky Bohnstedt, but Sparky was so well liked that they hid him for a couple of weeks. But then Harley spotted him one day and really fired him. Sparky went to work at Packard, and I think Harley retired before Packard gave up the ghost.
After Harley retired, Sparky was rehired and became Jack Humbert’s assistant in Pontiac, and later became head of Truck Studio. Sparky wasn’t the world’s best designer, but he was one of the hardest working men I ever knew—a bundle of energy.
Years later if Sparky heard Harley Earl’s name mentioned, he would go pale and have to leave the room.
Stories by Bill Porter in the Dean’s Garage book:
Hiding Scale Models
Second Generation F-Car Windshield
Research Studio Thinking
Sparky Bohnstedt and Harley Earl
Windshield Wiper and Bubble Machine
Ornithopters
Standing Jump Contest
Dirty License Plate
Dean’s Garage posts featuring Bill Porter
Interview with Bill Porter; Pontiac Design in the ’60s
Classic Designer Series—Bill Porter
Bill Porter and Dave Holls from “Hiding Scale Models” in the Dean’s Garage book. Photo: General Motors
Bill Porter never entered the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild, but one of his designs took a 4th place national Guild award in 1966. Joseph D’Mura was an incredible craftsman and entered the Guild year after year with models that always scored at the top for craftsmanship. However, his designs could never break thru enough to get to the national level. I had a photo of a sketch done by Bill Porter. It was Joseph’s last year in the Guild, so I gave him the photo and told him to do something like this. Joseph again did a superb job on the craftsmanship. He didn’t follow Porters sketch exactly, but enough to win him a 4th place national scholarship. I felt that Joseph earned it after his years of painstaking work building Guild models.
Bill was a great guy, not pretentious, he was very easy to talk to and would always tell you exactly what he thought. It might take you a little while to figure it out because he didn’t want to hurt your feelings.
We worked next to each other in the advance design area for a while and we often went out for lunch, to a very nice restaurant in an old house not far from the Tech Center. The specialty was Middle Eastern food. Bill liked all kinds of food and we would go far and wide to special restaurants. One of them was a place on my way home where I was introduced to the soft shell taco. I was told that a Mexican family, once their children got into high school, took a trip to Mexico. There they had Mexican food for the first time and came home and tried to make tortillas with a machine that they bought. They didn’t do it right and put yeast in the dough. That resulted in a puffy balloon of a tortilla and they were sensational.
Bill and I would go there once a week for about three months and I was transferred somewhere else and that was the end of that. A great guy, BILL was so much fun to be with, he had a great sense of humor. A very high-quality individual like all the people that worked at Design Staff. The Harley Earl culture that started with anyone that wanted to work on design ended up with people that were outstanding, individually and as a group. Bill was one of those individuals.
Bill Porter
Delightful, generous, thoughtful
Quiet, amazing gift for Design and
People. He appeared to express an understated coolness . A wealth of information and details
on the arts and automotive history. Bill ( Mr. Porter ) was just a really cool car guy.
At Art Center our seventh semester project was sponsored by GM. They sent Bill Porter to help guide us. I don’t remember any interactions with him other than receiving his critiques and listening to him talk about design. As a result of his being a coach for the class, I ended up redoing my entire portfolio in the eight semester.
My wish is that he could have been more involved with the school. Can any Art Center transportation student imagine taking a class from him! Without design leaders like him, car design is falling into a fractal abyss.