>> booktv continues now on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> good morning, thank you for being here. thank you also for all the hours you spent in your favorite chair or sitting on a backboard or backyard or the beach. wherever you do it. thank you for reading. i don't know where i would be without you all. i have been a writer for a very long time, going on 50 years, i

think. getting close to that. it's all forever really done. the only thing that people would pay me to do. it seems like. i've written for magazines, newspapers, television, movies, i wrote a poem once. and i wrote, i've written five nonfiction books. nonfiction has a was been my thing. i guess because i started out as a newspaper board. that's what he learned how to do. i learned how to write nonfiction. the current book, which i don't have but i will hold up,. [laughter] it's got a really cool picture. an amazing looking guy. if you do get a chance to see it, he's standing extra car, about this kid, it's not even a car, it's a model model but you uldn't know that. anyway, it's a great shot.

is the story of the rice of the car business and also a particular time in this country when we were supposedly at our peak. arguably. i tell it through a story of harley, isn't very well known today, which is surprising, given that he is behind henry ford, probably the most influential person on the development of car business. in the american car. everybody knows who henry ford is. almost nobody who's not a car, knows who harley is. harley kicked henry ford's ass. [laughter]

he totally languished him. he reinvented the whole business. he changed everything. he greeted how cars were madest. he greeted the entire thing. henry ford idea of a car was a self-propelled conveyance, it carried you and your stuff from point a to point be in the most dependable, efficient, inexpensive way possible. he visit his vision wasn't much beyond that. his great country patient to come up with this way to manufacture a huge number. so that he kept the cost low. let people could afford it at a time when we were moving the mechanical age. i was his model team.

he was just fine with that and he didn't think that should ever be changed. never wanted to change that car. he fought every possible change, he had this -- this relationship with his son, much more artist artistic, then along comes harley. harley is a designer and harley takes it one step further. he says okay, we all know what a car is, it's all settled, it works like this. we can make it, they're all dependable now. what should an american car look like? what should my? that changed everything. he was the steve jobs of his

time. by asking that question and trying to figure it out. whenever i am called upon to talk about my books, which is every now and then, somebody always asks, how did you come to this story? what did you come up with us? wanted to pick this story? , some say i don't pick this story, the story picks me. it's kind of true. you devote three to five years overtime, a sort of happens that way. at least for me. so i'll tell you a story about how i came to it, you'll have to ask later, i'll tell you now and i will tell you more about harley. my earliest boyhood memory is of my father coming home from work one warm spring evening in 1955.

at the time, my family, my mother and two sisters and dad, we lived in a typical midcentury, midwestern, middle-class suburb. a subdivision in st. louis. there were hundreds of houses that all looked pretty much the same, they all had white siding and a little patch of green on the front and back and a long cycling in front. there was a lot of white in all directions. scratches of green. on this particular night, i was standing two doors down my house, a bunch of kids gathered around and i screen truck. who are clamoring from our fudge and creamsicle's, he's drivin driving -- he just men made the

district sales manager. 35-year-old guy, this was a big deal. this was his first day home from a job. he was driving a pink and white buick fire dome hardtop white tires and enough room to be seen from outer space. [laughter] he pulled this huge ship into the driveway and he stepped out. all the kids were like -- the money he got out of the car, he dropped everything and ran away from the ice cream, to the car. he climbed all over and they were doing this and crazy. the guys from the ice cream truck left his truck to look at it and the neighbors came out. they were all gathered around this amazing machine. it was astonishing looking. it's hard to explain how different it looked from everything else. i took note.

i was like wow. from that moment on, i was a car man. i became obsessed with cars. when i was an adolescent, i had 200 model cars in my room and i put together myself and painted. i subscribed to heartland magazine and car magazine and custom craft magazine and i followed drag racing and car races. i could tell you minute differences between the interior and exterior trim and chevrolets delray or bel air. i could do that with every other make of car. european cars and sports car, i knew everything. i knew who the meeting driver was that any one time and grand prix in europe. whether it was graham hill or jimmy, i was in inseparable.

i was obsessed. this is before puberty, interrupted. [laughter] followed me as i grew up. into adulthood. i'd be driving around like it in the back. this was a thing. that's a 57 mark. i was first car that cost $10000. i could feel them in the backseat looking at each other and rolling their eyes. as time went on, they developed an impression of me. they laugh and tell the front what a character i was. that's how it was.

my dad and i bonded over cars. we can always talk cars. he was a car guy his whole life. even at times when we really couldn't talk about anything else, we could talk about cars. we could get right to the place that was usual ground, we both spoke car. that just took away all of the stuff, vietnam and all that stuff. there's a difference between us, we didn't talk about that, we talked about cars. he died a couple of years before madsen came out. the tv series which was one of my favorite. it always reminded me of him when i was watching because dad was the original don draper. was movie star, good looks, like

sinatra. he was had a cigarette in one hand and a highball in the other. he always had new cars. when we were growing up, we got a new car because he could pick every anyone he wanted. we got a new car every 90 days. he had and i for flashy cars, hot cars. i was always the cool kid. all my friends thought we were rich because we had an amazing new car. after dad died and i was sitting there, i'm watching madman one night. is the episode where don, i don't know if you know madman, there's an episode in new york city, it's an office, about the advertising business. the 50s and 60s, in this one episode, don buys a cadillac. he drives it from new york to

his home in the suburbs. when i was watching this, i saw my dad. he looked like my dad. he's driving in and i was like, bam, well. that would make a great series. with this series is missing is cars. this is not the 60s i know. there's no cars in this. there's no subdivisions, no shopping centers. i am medially started releasing this series, we'll men apartment. something like that. it's set in 56 with the ford chasing him over the hill. elvis and his buddies finding cadillacs and all that stuff. i sure seeing your say, chevrolet. [laughter] that's the time. the world is world war two and

korean veterans competing in the most glamorous of all professions, the car business back then was it. if you worked for the car companies, you were a prince. that's where we were in my mind. i thought wow, this is great. i decided this would be great series. i thought i could blow this off. at the time, as you mentioned, had two books in a row, tv series. i thought i could do this. so i started to write this up, as a tv series. the great thing was that i won't have to do all the research. i'd be like this lazy novelist who would just make it all up. [laughter]

who needs to go to the library? this was great. i know all the characters and i could do this. but i did do a little research. i decided to find out more about the 60s make sure i knew because i only remember what i was a kid. i went to this book called 50 50s, that was the researcher i found. there was a passenger mile him. i have never heard of this guy that couldn't believe i couldn't hear of this guy. i knew everything about the car business. is this story about this 6-foot five, crazy one who turned out to be dyslexic, couldn't talk, was a genius, difficult to deal with and i'm thinking wow, imags doing my tv series, and have

characters, he would work work, he would be a real character in this fictional tv series. there was another character, this adorable life -- [laughter] he was going to maybe get a hit record. [laughter] i didn't go that far i wrote this up and i went to the hollywood, i pitched it to developing people at the various studios and they all would like wow, they really liked it. we really like this, the space means they were talking about the 50s and cars. they like that as a space. they were less interested in the fictional characters and my character. they wanted to know more about

harley earl. they were really interested not that. when you get that for five and row, it was like oh, okay. that means i really have to do research and write real stuff and i'm not really good, i'm a lousy novelist. they were interested in my stuff. this was the point of my whole thing, i would have to write a book on him. i would have to go to the research. then i'll come back later and do whatever. so that was the beginning of my journey to learn about harley. and the car business. it was a wonderful experience because every day when i was doing this, outcome across these wait, what? moments. it was endless. does anyone know what the reason

to propel the invention of the car is? this anyone know what that was a reaction to? horse poop. we were buried in it. [laughter] literally. they were measuring how many times each city was producing and had to get rid of every day. 2 million horses and they had to shovel it and get rid of it every day. it was a huge ecological problem. there was a group of young men out there and they were all men, they were working in shops and garages and stuff like that. trying to come up with a self-propelled vehicle that would put the horse in the pastor so they wouldn't poop all over. i didn't know that. it went on forever. the story of harley, i started off with you about the 50s and

he invented corvette. that was my favorite character. and i read that he was the guy who came up with all the cars that my dad drove and i knew right there was the title, it had to be the title. that's the metaphor or the car. as i'm reading about the business develop, but i did notice without the problem, there had been 3 billion books written about the car business. most of them are written to mail they are just not really good stories. they are about the cars into the business and there's never any women. there's nothing i think any woman whatever read.

i found that to beach or. so that told me -- so, i would just keep finding these amazing little stories in there about the things the harley started to come up with. in fact, i never expected this guy i started to write about, the 50s, his father had been a member jack in the michigan pine forest. after the civil war. he went on to california and he established a shop. it became successful. is the nation was in cars, he started doing cars because that was the thing. he moved the family out of alley oop to a little street village in the hills. called hollywood. was the exact same time that they arrived in hollywood to

start making movies. because of all the sunshine. the first thing they needed was stagecoaches and chariots and wagons and things. so harley's father became supplier to all those in the movies. the first thing filmmakers needed when they were moving pictures, they started at the same time. the two businesses, they needed moving things. there was this marriage made in heaven. he became harley, this teenager and he meets all these people, he takes a shine to them. is a close arson. it kind of a showman. he meets all these young kids who come in from all across the country and they became stars in the movies. these were just kids.

... >> so when i was doing the stories beauty of doing research and part of that is

ar car but it showed what he desired if they had all the money that they would say this perk all the way that rich people did back then that chassis is the underpinning and get someone to design a body those that cost $28000 so he learned all of that perk another thing that i learned is that i find out his father was a lumberjack. 's maternal forebears had come from detroit across the country in a wagon train along the way they were attacked by

indians and witness day hanging and lynching then they settled in california and became very well-to-do and ended up in hollywood that's when i realized harley's story goes from wagon train to jetpla. his life spanned that. and then i started to figure learning what it was that he did and he learned how the business worked and step-by-step everything was the most important product.

so when all of a sudden people got tired of henry ford's car there was nothing that moved them to buy something else instant recession. and that was the thing. so harley was a designer and was dyslexic but that was before they even knew what that was. there was no diagnosing that until he was 70. so here is a guy who was a designer and got the movie stars general motors trying to figure out with 62 percent.

there's not enough money in the treasury to make cars is we change the cars more often and made him look different from that was the big thing is making these amazing cars and designing a body like nobody had ever seen so this task he not only did that but there were no car designers it was run by mechanics there were no

artist and those who design cars like the engineers then they make the chassis here is the boxer people sit that is it that is why they look like so cy but rley's idea let's design that first. now they were told make it fit desperate go this is how it will be and but harley had to do how do we do that on a regular basis without shutting down factories we tooling them for a new car cracks so what

he found those who could've been a sculptor and offered th where they pay you to do this. the whole process was to deliver a constant or slight change every year and then they just shot past ford and they never recovered. because henry fd did not know how to do that.

is still astonishes me people don't know who he is. there were so many stories that i learned. but it's about that time and the people. he idolized henry ford. but he liked them because he was the world richest that henry ford was a terrible person which i found out that

he got his ideas what he would do about germany by reading ford's book because the european caucus we made cars for the masses. and then to make cars for the masses and to say i can do the same thing using production techniques and then rebuild the economy that is the right idea and he did execute that and then sketched a car and

and if you saw that it was like a volkswagen. that's what he came up with. and then to have a huge portrait and in dearborn michigan so in his mind coming to america tt

money it was crazy stuff but it all played into the story and we kept coming up with the stories and i won't tell you what it is but if you read the book, this is a tease. [laughter] and in 193 but it was the depression. and then followed by meeting in the penthouse to discontinue the cadillac which was a big deal that was the number one luxury car in

america. not even a close second. as they are getting ready to do this i guy bust in the meetthe hd of cadillac service and says this german guy who started off as a mercedes-benz mechanic they had never seen himore. and said just give me five minutes he was so passionate he said don't do this because i know something about our cars that you don't know. and to sell property outside this area but also found a lot of wealthy black people

doctors, lawyers, but they coult spend their many what you and i could. they could not buy a house in a nice neighborhood but the one thing they could do was y the only thing they could do to show they made it but they could not buy a cadillac because it had a rule they did not sell to negroes. that would take the brand down. will he went to the service centers and saw a black people with a new cadillac. how did you do that cracks? we pay someone to front the sale for us.

back to the industry he was not about to tell them what you are doing is wrong and immoral. why let somebody else take $400? market to them. nobody had ever done that before they said we'll give you 18 months to turn it around for the first time he would market to the black bourgeoisie and cadillac came back and that is one of the reasons ever since he is known as the man who saved cadillac. and how did that happen

in with one reference in the book and then to put into the book if you read it you will find it. but since the book came out i am determined to find out how that could possibly hap. it did but what were the circumstances to produce that? that's the joy of research. so the other things i could tell you. world war ii. and what happened because of what harley did.

but the car business now they started to appeal to america has aspirations. but thinking that americans were different. there was that exuberance. and then they all develop and to make life-size cars. the harley word make these cars out of clay that they would paint that they would look at but then you could get

in them. they looked like the real thing. that's the way they still do it. because they started to appeal just like the movie stars. car sales exploded. and when the war came with world war ii and i'm trying to find all the stories but all i had to do with what he was doing. so when we were attacked by

the japanese we had the 18th laes world and within a couple days of that attack with germany and japan and italy. and were building up their military for years. they had 16 million men under arms to the 400,000. that we had 1000 factories and we were able to on a dime that was producing tanks and we

were the only country on the planet capable of waging global warfare. not only ourselves but all of the allies. and if we could supply. and if you read with my research i found meetings of the heads of the companies and they all agreed to completely sublimate their business because you know what? because they can beat us. it was all very high. of course they did have a good

but they all agreed it got together and organized and all these companies that competed ferociously then all of a sudden shared all their information. each company, they allowed them to make their own deals with the armed services. cadillac could make a deal and the government would help facilitate each service could pick out so my point is that had it not been for harley the second world war might not have gone our way because what harley did drove the sales car t

was our defining prop. all of this because of this one guy. who just happened to be at the connection point between movies and cars at the right time. he was from california inside a different way. there was also business. and that's why all of a sudden it with that exuberance. and to be on top of everything.

that's all i got. [laughter] [applause] and now i will entertain questions. >> what was he doing? >> so what he tried to do was keep the staff together. and then did everything he could.

and then to make camouflage. and then took a contract to design a small agile vehicle to fight the tanks. it was called the wildcat. but those tanks and it was effective in the battle of the bulge.

and also a gray salesman bringing at all the great generals. harley was a big guy. and with the armed services for gm. and the gm world of tomorrow featuring all these cars that never came to market. >> that's all in the book. and then over the top car show. they would be selling cars without television commercials. but the car shows were a big deal. but then harley went to this

event with the broadway cast and dancers and singers and animals. on ten tractor-trailers and with the next seven months to show off their cars. it is just crazy. and then they would design these cars. and then that he designed just for himself was the many millions of dollars. and then made in 1950 and then when it rains the top comes up. those were put into production for four years.

reading your book it is good. >> say that again. [laughter] so tell us about the weird things that he did. >> he was is profane and to the extreme and because he was dyslexic and some when they look at something they can see it from all different angles at once. which causes some confusion but he could see it. he could not draw it and he

also stuttered. and make up words all the time. just make them up. he had a real difficulty and had a hard time explaining to his staff what he wanted so he would have to do 1500 drawings and then he would say that's the one. to hire all these people to say that's it because he cannot tell you. they all had stories. and that what would cost all kinds of money. >> i grew up in detroit we had

a new car every two years we would not buy a ford because we were jewish only the jews and by general motors. and so you grew up knowing the difference between the bel air and the bonneville. how what point did they become more homogeneous you could not determine one from the other quick. >> that was after harley was done. that when he left in 1958 and retired it started to turn. and those were like that.

and then it took ten years. but then they were gone like that. so in the book the junk designers did not like what they were doing. like the 55 chevy. so that's it. okay.

good afternoon.