[…] looking for a healthier company to further his career. He made contact with Ed Deisley, chief engineer for the Budd Company in Philadelphia. He outlined a plan developed by Edward G. Budd, Jr., then president of the Budd Company, to increase the com- pany’s production of bodies for the major automobile companies by establishing an automobile design or styling studio in Detroit, which would give the sales department another tool in developing more business. After meeting with Mr. Budd, Gordon was hired to put together a small staff and start creating designs which could be sold to the auto companies with Budd getting the body building business. Mr. Budd visited Detroit, liked what they were doing and authorized the building of the elegant design studio at Budd’s Detroit offi ce. Unfortunately, Gordon soon found there was one major prob- lem. Budd’s vice president in charge of sales (he never named him) was opposed to the plan from the start. He not only killed a planned press party to introduce the new studio and its staff to their Detroit customers, as the months passed, he never introduced any of the fresh designs Gordon’s team was turning out to their customers. Finally, in frustration, Gordon wrote a letter to Mr. Budd complaining about the situation, saying he was wasting his time and the Budd Company’s money. The response from Mr. Budd was rapid and to the point. He asked for Gordon’s resignation. Gordon returned to Auburn where he did some freelance design work for White Truck company and then King Seeley. In 1940 he did a number of instrument panel designs for King Seeley and was hired full-time, moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was working there when World War II started and all civilian automotive design came to a halt. He then acquired a job as a draftsman with Consolidated Aircraft in San Diego, California, and worked there through most of the war years. Near the end of the war he returned to automotive design when he was hired by Raymond Loewy to manage his South Bend, Indiana, studio where they were already at work designing what would become the postwar Studebaker line. This is where I had a problem getting Gordon to tell me about the second time in his career he was involved in something he was not proud of. Loewy had been Studebaker’s design consultant since before the war, the 1939 Studebaker Champion having been one of the Loewy team’s designs. When Gordon took over as head of the South Bend Studebaker design team, he replaced his friend Virgil M. Exner in that position. Gordon knew he was walking into the middle of not only a design fi ght, but a management war as well. Loewy would make frequent trips to South Bend and if he didn’t like the progress on the designs, he would demote Gordon and put Exner in charge, then on the next trip, still unhappy, he […]