Fins: Harley Earl, the Rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit

Wonderful details about the automotive giants of the early to mid twentieth century. How new innovations came about and the personal lives of the leading players in the automobile industry. A great read!

The reviews I read before purchasing the book, were accurate. A most informative book and well worth the purchase price!

From my point of view there is not so much info or images about cars with fins but more about the story of the person who made it. This is not my expectation. I would expect more images of prototypes and production cars.

This book is really the story of General Motors... and the author tells a great story. But the Kindle version that I read has no pictures of the cars that Harley Earl designed, so you'll need to keep a smartphone or internet-enabled tablet handy so that you can look up the models referred to. Earl's greatest invention was lowering the passenger compartment so that it sat between the two axles, instead of top of it. This made cars appear closer to the ground and sleeker to look at... but whether his over-the-top 1940s and 1950s styling has stood the test of time is another matter.

A good read!