William L. Porter, Designer of Classic American Cars, Dies at 93
As a senior designer at G.M., he helped create the exuberant, elongated shape of 1960s and ’70s cars like the Pontiac GTO, the Bonneville and the Trans Am.William L. Porter, a car designer who helped create the shapes of some of the most celebrated American vehicles of the late 1960s and early ’70s, died on April 25 at his home in Whitmore Lake, Mich. He was 93.His death was confirmed by his son, Adam, who did not specify a cause.As a senior designer at General Motors for more than three decades, Mr. Porter was intimately involved in determining the appearance of numerous cars that were uniquely American in their exuberant, elongated design and curvaceous forms. These were big, sleek cars for long, empty American roads, and for cities filled with the parking lots that could accommodate them, light years from the compact boxes made for Europe’s narrow streets.Mr. Porter made this sketch of the Pontiac GTO body in 1962, when he was just beginning to conceive of the car that would become the 1968 GTO.via Porter familyA 1969 iteration of the Pontiac GTO design.iStock Editorial/Getty Images PlusThe Pontiac GTO model produced in 1968 and 1969, with its endless hood and smooth, tapering back — its “monocoque shell form with elliptical pressure bulges over the wheels,” as Mr. Porter put it in an interview in 2000 — was one of his signature creations.G.M. made him chief designer at what it called the Pontiac 1 Studio in 1968, and he held that position until 1972, before going on to other senior design positions. In the early 1970s, he directed the design of the company’s LeMans, Catalina and Bonneville cars, which had tapering forms with jutting trunks, in keeping with his aesthetic.“I was taken with a plainer, curvaceous look featuring long, muscular shapes based on elliptical vocabulary,” Mr. Porter, a connoisseur and collector of American design, including Tiffany glass and Arts and Crafts furniture, said in an interview with Hot Rod magazine in 2007.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More