Brooks Stevens, King of the Industrial Designers

Brooks Stevens was one of America's greatest industrial designers, but he never received the recognition that he deserved because he never left his native Milwaukee (or "Sauerkraut Bay", as some so-called sophisticates dubbed it at the time) for world design centers like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. If Stevens has been remembered at all, it was for the dubious distinction of coining the phrase "planned obsolescence."

What has been forgotten is that Brooks Stevens created at least 2,000 products large and small in his lifetime from the first electric steam iron to the Miller Beer logo to the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile to the civilian version of the military Jeep(ster).

Planned Obsolescence

"Planned Obsolescence" was the title of a speech that Brooks Stevens gave at a 1954 advertising conference. The popular meaning of the term, thanks to cultural critic Vance Packard's bestselling 1960 book "The Waste Makers", was the manufacture of products that had been pre-planned to be non-functional after a period of time or product usage. To Stevens, planned obsolescence was a more benign concept of consumerism, where consumers merely desire "to own something a little newer, a little better, and a little sooner than necessary." Stevens looked upon "obsolete" products as those being sold to a second-hand market not dumped straight into a trash heap as was Packard's strong insinuation.

Notable Products

Many of Brooks Stevens' industrial designs have been taken for granted like most everyday usage products. For example, he designed the wide-mouth peanut butter jar and the first electric clothes dryer with a glass window.

In 1938, Stevens invented the forerunner of the snowmobile, a vehicle that steered through snow via toboggan-like skis. Back then, this product was sold primarily to the Russians through the New Deal's lend-lease program.

In 1942, Stevens designed the first Jeepster all-metal station wagon for Willys Motors. This was the first commercial civilian application of military vehicle design.

In 1947, Stevens designed the Olympian Hiawatha, a streamlined train with a dramatic wraparound glass-enclosed observation car called the Skytop Lounge.

In the fifties and sixties, Brooks Stevens designed boats for Evinrude, including the Runabout, an "enclosed station wagon of the sea." He also designed cars for Studebaker from mainstream models like the economy class Lark to the mid-sized sporty Hawk. Some, however, say that his crowning achievement was the Excalibur SS.

Excalibur SS

In 1964, Studebaker Motors was on the verge of bankruptcy. That year, they had moved their base of operations from South Bend, Indiana, its long-time headquarters, to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. At the time, Studebaker was the main Mercedes Benz distributor in North America. CEO Sherwood Egbert hired Brooks Stevens to design a luxury vehicle to rival the Mercedes Benz. Egbert dubbed it a "Mercebaker." Stevens was given six weeks to design a neo-classic sports car body and craft it to fit a Studebaker Lark Daytona chassis. Inspired by the classic design of roaring twenties sports car legend, the Stutz Bearcat, Brooks Stevens and sons David and Steve (also car designers) created the working model within the deadline. Stevens dubbed his creation "the Excalibur." Unfortunately, Studebaker had run out of money and had to back out of the deal.

Brooks Stevens acquired the rights to the Excalibur name, and continued to hand-build these luxury vehicles with the help of his sons and their team. In 1966, their first year of production, the Stevens team built 56 Excaliburs. In fact, the Stevens family continued to hand-build the Excalibur for twenty years.

In 1986, the Excalibur Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but was rescued by a Wisconsin investment group in 1987.

In 1990, the company filed for bankruptcy a second time, and was rescued this time by a German investor. Excalibur ended production in 1997.

Brooks Stevens' design was so strong that the Excalibur had a thirty-year run in total; a worthy achievement for the man who coined "planned obsolescence." And you never know when such a classic design like the Excalibur might resurface.