Dean's Garage

Dean’s Garage, The Future is Back presents the best posts and new unpublished content to commemorate the first ten years of DeansGarage.com. This exclusive, unique account features a behind-the-scenes look at GM Design from the ’50s through the ’80s.

The eclectic content contains first-person accounts by designers, sculptors, and engineers who worked in GM Design studios. Read about corporate politics, management styles, design development struggles, and personal encounters with Harley Earl, Bill Mitchell, Irv Rybicki, Chuck Jordan, Dave Holls, Ed Cole, John DeLorean, and others.

Dean’s Garage spotlights adventures on wheels, tales from the Inaugural Baja 1000, and automotive fiction, including stories from Road & Track magazine. Recollections from college days at the Art Center College of Design, a gallery of impressive studio art, GM group photos, and studio cartoons and quotes complete this wide-ranging, remarkable history.

Contributing authors include: Stan Mott, Norm James, Robert Cumberford, Peter DeLorenzo, Michael Lamm, Jim Van Orden, Mike Parris, Bill Porter, John Thawley, and Ed Welburn. Original illustrations and renderings by studio designers provide a window into an era that is long gone. Dean’s Garage has 334 color and grayscale photos, is fully indexed, and includes the 1988 GM Design Staff Directory.

About the Creator

Gary Dean Smith grew up in Riverside, California, home of the Riverside International Raceway. He attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, graduated in 1973, and began his career as a designer at General Motors Design Staff. After fifteen years at GM, Gary went west to Arizona and began a second graphic and industrial design career as Performance Design.