Automotive designer William L. Porter, who helped shape the most famous American vehicles of the late 1960s and early 70s, passed away on April 25th at his home in Whitmore Lake, Michigan. He was 93 years old.
His death was confirmed by his son Adam, who did not identify the cause.
For over 30 years as a senior designer at General Motors, Porter was deeply involved in deciding the arrival of numerous American cars in its enthusiastic, slender designs and curvaceous forms. These were large and refined cars for the long empty American roads filled with parking lots that could accommodate them, from years from compact boxes made for narrow European streets.
The Pontiac GTO model was produced in 1968 and 1969, and returned to its endless hood and smooth, tapering. As Porter interviewed in 2000, “a monocoque shell format with an oval pressure bulge on the wheel” – one of his signature pieces.
GM served as Chief Designer at what was called Pontiac 1 Studio in 1968, and held the position until 1972 before moving on to other senior design positions. In the early 1970s he oversaw the design of the company's Leman, Catalina and Bonneville cars.
“I was photographed with a smarter, curvy look, featuring long, muscular shapes based on the vocabulary of ovals,” Porter, an American design enthusiast and collector that includes Tiffany glasses and art and craftsman furniture, said in a 2007 interview with Hot Rod Magazine.
In an interview, Kevin Kilbitz, chairman of the Association of Automotive Historians and senior manager of GM, said:
Porter was drawn to what he calls “organic shapes,” or what he could find in nature.
“He's going to talk about the roundness of beans,” said Kilbitz, who was familiar with Porter.
Firebird and Firebird Trans Am from 1970-73, as well as the typical American muscle car, also had Mr. Porter's stamps. They were sportier than the GTO and a more compact backend, but had a similar elongated hood.
Along with Firebird, he said he was “consciously trying to build an American sports car.”
Porter's training in art history gave him a rare car aesthetic concept at major American car manufacturers.
“When I opened the Firebird door, there was a subliminal sense of interior and exterior uniformity. “There was a complete car feel, I was inside it, got things and was in the right place.”
He was a designer with sharp attention to detail. What I've learned from the mentor among the general managers of GM is because it's something like finding “maybe a bump in millimeters” in posts on his website.
Porter was particularly proud of the details that were designed for the hood of the Transam. “A very effective pair of ram air scoops placed in the high-pressure area of the leading edge,” he said.
After developing the new Firebird, Porter worked on the Camaro. In 1980 he became the chief designer of Buick, the position he served until his retirement in 1996. He worked on the design of Park Avenue and the Riviera.
William Lee Porter was born on May 6, 1931 in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, William Lee Porter Sr., was manager of the Greyhound bus stop in Louisville. His mother, Ida May (Hampton) Porter, ran through the lunch room at a local elementary school.
He attended DuPont Manual High School in Louisville and received his Bachelor's degree in Painting and Art History from the University of Louisville in 1953.
After graduating from university, he served in the US military and later studied industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He was hired in 1957 as a summer student at GM Styling, the company's design unit. The following year he became a full-time employee. By the time he received his MA from Pratt in 1960, he was already a junior designer at Pontiac Studios.
During much of his time at GM, Porter taught industrial design courses at Wayne State University in Detroit, encouraging students to create objects inspired by his fascinated style, such as art, crafts and art nouveau.
In addition to his son, Mr. Porter was survived by his wife, Patsy Jane (Hambo) Porter. two daughters, Sara Wilding Porter and Lydia Porter Ratocchi; brother, Thomas Hampton Porter; and three grandchildren.
Porter was a rare stylist who saw the shape of the car as a whole, with individual elements being subordinated and integrated into the overall design.
“He was among those who had the ability to go beyond that and achieve the overall aesthetics of the Line,” Kilbitz said. “He will talk about how one ellipse was fed into another, and how there is no true straight line. For him, a straight line was undesirable.”
