Ed Welburn first walked into the halls of General Motors in 1973 as an entry-level designer, and on July 1, 2016 he will stroll from famed GM designer Harley Earl’s modernist office at GM’s Detroit Design Center for the last time. Appointed vice president of design back in 2005, Welburn is only the sixth person to hold the position in GM’s 102-year history. That, combined with his long career, means Welburn has had a major imprint on the automaker, which struggled at times during his tenure there. First, it was hobbled by the regulatory and fuel-economy demands of the 1970s and early 1980s; then there was GM’s ballooning number of divisions and “badge engineering” of barely discernible variants of the same vehicle for different brands; and finally, shortly after Welburn assumed the top design job, there was General Motors’ bankruptcy and government bailout. After all that, we now can see that General Motors’ design has come back, and some consider the company’s leadership in the area to be at the same level it was during the Motorama glory days of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Welburn played an increasingly important role in that renaissance, so we decided to see him off with a few of our favorite designs that he either penned himself or oversaw.
1987 Oldsmobile Aerotech
After becoming Oldsmobile’s chief designer for vehicle exteriors in 1975—and two years before taking over Oldsmobile’s design entirely in 1989—Welburn penned the shocking Aerotech concept. The idea was to showcase GM’s then-new 2.3-liter Quad 4 engine, a four-cylinder that made a then-decent 150 horsepower and 160 lb-ft of torque, by designing a sleek body around it. The Aerotech was crafted with a world speed record in mind—the highest speed at a closed course—a feat it pulled off in 1987 with a two-way average of 267.39 mph. While Welburn’s design was credited for its low drag and stable high-speed performance, the speed record was achieved by dint of a turbocharged, 2.0-liter version of the Quad 4 producing 900 horsepower, and with the help of racing driver A.J. Foyt.
1995 Oldsmobile Antares concept
Still head of Oldsmobile design, Welburn oversaw the creation of the Antares concept, which would later become the Intrigue production car. For something turned out in 1995, the Antares concept looks modern by even today’s standards—simply replace those wide, thin headlights’ internals with LEDs, and you're there. We particularly like the concept’s long wheelbase, sleek cab-forward proportions, and its rather ambitious center exhaust outlet. Inside, it featured a removable “Guidestar” navigation device that was actually sold on Oldsmobile Eighty Eight models that same year as a $1995 option.
2003 Chevrolet SSR
Having been named director of General Motors’ Advanced Design studio in 1998, Welburn directly contributed to the creation of the SSR roadster/pickup truck/ uh, thing. Although a sales flop in the showroom, when it first appeared as a concept in 2000, the truck was a sensation. The auto industry was riding a wave of nostalgia, with retro designs like the Volkswagen New Beetle and the resurrected Mini Cooper taking the market by storm. The SSR managed to carry a whiff of retro, but it was largely new, combining a pickup bed, a novel folding hardtop, V-8 power, and even a six-speed manual transmission in later versions. Sales aside, the SSR never fails to turn heads, and the idea of it is undeniably outrageous.
2006 Chevrolet Camaro concept
After being named vice president of design in 2005, Welburn’s team was charged with one of GM’s most important projects of the 2000s: redesigning the Camaro. Keep in mind that the Camaro had been dropped from Chevrolet’s lineup after the 2002 model year, and it would be another eight years before a production Camaro went on sale again. This concept car established the fifth-generation Camaro’s blocky, muscular, and vaguely retro look, which has been carried over to the new sixth-generation car. The design proved to be a huge success, and after nearly two decades of trailing the Ford Mustang on the sales charts, the fifth-generation Camaro demolished the Mustang during its first full year on sale, 129,405 to 81,508. Criticized for the sixth-generation Camaro’s evolutionary styling, Chevrolet simply pointed to the sales charts and overwhelmingly positive consumer reactions to the 2010 model’s look.
2009 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray concept
Unveiled five years before the seventh-generation Corvette went on sale, the Corvette Stingray concept directly foreshadowed the attractive C7 Corvette. The angularity of the hood, the tidy shape, and the powerful fenders channeled the shark-emulating original Stingray Corvette while clearly reaching to the future. Even though the grille design and tail styling would be toned down for production—and the split-rear-window design ditched for a more visibility-friendly backlight, the concept’s essence can still be seen on today’s ‘Vette. The production Corvette Stingray is said to be one of Welburn’s favorite designs.
2009 Cadillac Converj concept
The Converj, like the ELR plug-in hybrid it eventually would morph into, was a great design that met the wrong execution. An interesting wedge shape with aggressive front and rear lighting and wheels pushed out to the corners suggest sportiness, but the Converj was instead saddled with a plug-in hybrid powertrain and little sporting pretense. Sadly, that didn’t change much when the Converj eventually came to market as the ELR. We maintain that, as a pure styling exercise, the ELR is an eye-catching design (we even named it one of the 10 most beautiful cars on sale in 2014); too bad that wasn’t enough to sway buyers, and the slow-selling ELR won’t be replaced.
2011 Cadillac Ciel concept
If the Converj represented perhaps the peak of Cadillac’s Art & Science design ethos, the Ciel represented the theme’s maturation. Make that Art & Science’s gorgeous, jaw-dropping maturation, because nearly every aspect of the Ciel was a stunner: the car’s massive size, its elegant flanks, and the fact that it was a roofless four-door, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the ’60s Lincoln Continental. The Ciel was more than a concept car, it was a statement about Cadillac—that the luxury brand was back and ready to take on 21st-century luxury contenders. The car boldly debuted at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and it stole the show.
2013 Cadillac Elmiraj concept
After the Ciel wowed audiences in Pebble Beach, Cadillac’s design team set about evolving that car’s look into an updated form of Art & Science that could filter down to production models. Enter the Elmiraj coupe concept, which refined the Ciel’s details and placed them on a more production-feasible, but no less gigantic, two-door pillarless coupe body. The 2016 Cadillac CT6’s clean flanks, thin headlights, shield grille, and even its future twin-turbocharged V-8 engine can be traced directly to the Elmiraj.
2014 Chaparral 2X Vision GT concept
Consider for a moment how long Ed Welburn has worked at GM, and the sort of progress we've seen since he first was hired in 1973. Over the past 44 years, the computer has pushed into mainstream culture, digital rendering has joined the automotive design process, and cars now pack an astounding amount of technology. Oh, and video games are a thing—and getting more and more lifelike. When the Gran Turismo franchise began propositioning automakers to design special, one-off models that would exist only in the digital space as drivable cars in the Gran Turismo 6 video game, Chevrolet answered the call with the Chaparral 2X Vision GT. Welburn oversaw the design of the wild open-wheeled car, and Chevrolet even built a full-size model to show off outside the digital world.
2015 Buick Avenir concept
Besides contributing his design talents to GM for decades, Welburn also played a key role in globalizing the auto giant’s design department, setting up studios around the world. So in this context, it comes as no surprise that the achingly pretty Buick Avenir concept that debuted at the 2015 Detroit auto show was designed in . . . Australia! Its name is the french word for “future”—and the concept directly foreshadowed the 2017 Buick LaCrosse sedan.
2016 Buick Avista concept
Having presided over a significant chunk of Cadillac’s design renaissance, the past few years have seen Welburn working just as hard to turn around Buick’s image. (Welburn designed the concept that eventually became the Encore crossover.) Just as the Ciel and Elmiraj concepts represented boil-over points for Cadillac’s resurgent confidence, the Avenir and the Avista coupe signaled to the world that Buick still exists. Interestingly, while Cadillac’s bold concepts represented bids to be taken seriously by luxury buyers who by and large are still staying away from the brand’s world-class sedans, Buick’s recent concepts are more like celebratory gifts to itself. After all, Buick sales are rising, so there’s really no need for splashy pieces like the Avista. That said, we’d still love to see the Avista come to market, ideally on the same Camaro bones as the concept car, but we’ll need to be content with its styling features trickling down to Buick’s next-generation models.
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