In July 1977, the selection committee bypassed Chuck Jordan and named Irv Rybicki as the new design VP. The corporation tolerated Mitchell’s behavior, albeit reluctantly, because of his obvious value to the company, but they wanted his successor to be more politic.
He was a heavy drinker and stylists Stan Wilen and Jerry Hirshberg (later head of design for Nissan), both Jewish, say Mitchell was a font of racial epithets Mitchell’s former secretary added that she would have had grounds for a whole raft of sexual harassment suits. For all Mitchell’s brilliance, he had many faults. Having been hand-picked by Bill Mitchell was not necessarily to Jordan’s advantage either. While Jordan was greatly respected for his charisma and obvious talent, his temperament reportedly made him a number of powerful enemies within the corporate hierarchy, including former Oldsmobile general manager Howard Kehrl, by then a GM board member. Like Mitchell, Jordan had strong design skills matched by what long-time colleague Stan Wilen described as an equally formidable temper. On Mitchell’s orders, he spent the late sixties as chief stylist of GM’s Opel division in Germany, where he was responsible for the Opel GT and Opel Manta coupe. Chuck Jordan had joined General Motors in the late 1940s, becoming head of the Cadillac styling studio in 1958. Jordan, who had been his design director since the sixties. Mitchell’s chosen successor was Charles M. market share, which in the year of his retirement was close to 50%. Mitchell’s leadership played no small part in maintaining GM’s remarkable U.S. He was not always easy to get along with, but he upheld the styling leadership that Harley Earl had established back in the 1930s. Sharp-tongued and stubborn, Mitchell feared no one, and his ferocious temper was as well-honed as his design skills. Although he never enjoyed the power that Earl once commanded, Mitchell was a formidable presence within General Motors. In 1977, GM Design vice president Bill Mitchell reached the age of 65 and followed his legendary predecessor, Harley Earl, into mandatory retirement. Behind the Reatta’s placid exterior, however, lay a ferocious internal battle that also gave birth to the Cadillac Allanté, ended the four-decade dominance of the once-mighty GM Design Staff - and set the stage for the decline of GM itself. The short-lived Buick Reatta two-seater may seem like the most innocuous of cars (indeed, that was part of its problem).
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