Art and Color Section Based on sketches Mitchell created as the official illustrator for the ARCA, Harley Earl recruited Mitchell to General Motors' then new Art and Color Section on December 15, 1935.
Chief Designer, Cadillac In 1936 Earl appointed Mitchell as the Chief Designer in the then newly created Cadillac design studio.
Director of Styling (under the Vice President of styling section) On May 1, 1954 Mitchell became General Motors Director of Styling under Harley Earl.
Vice President, Styling Section (in charge of all styling at GM) In December 1958, Harley Earl reached GM's mandatory retirement age of 65 and thus retired from his position as chief stylist. The 46-year-old Mitchell succeeded him as General Motors Vice President, Styling Section. Mitchell set out to break with the styling cues used under
Harley Earl, wanting to eliminate chrome excess, fat fins and similar signature marks.
1960s was one of Mitchell's famous designs during his tenure as Chief of styling at GM. In the 60s, Mitchell promoted what he called the "sheer look," a more
aerodynamic, "shoulderless" drop off from a car's windows to its sides. Mitchell gave GM designers the assignment of combining
Rolls-Royce and
Ferrari styling cues to create Buick's classic 1963
Riviera. According to a popular story, Mitchell got the idea for the Riviera in
Paris. He had originally envisaged the design for Cadillac Division, as a new
La Salle, "a baby Cadillac". The Riviera also featured frameless glass in the front doors, giving hardtops an even sleeker look. An encounter with a shark, while skin diving in the Bahamas, inspired Mitchell's Corvette Shark show car, his
Stingray racer and the production 1963
Corvette Stingray, largely designed by
Larry Shinoda, under Mitchell's direction. The designs for both the 1963 Corvette and the 1963 Riviera were accepted by their respective divisions on Christmas Eve 1961, in what Mitchell referred to as perhaps the greatest moment of his life. Mitchell's fondness for split rear windows as featured on the 1957 Buick and on the 1963 Corvette Stingray coupe was not shared by some of his fellow stylists or the buying public and both cars dropped the feature after a measure of public resistance. The split rear window would be eliminated (and re-worked into one pane of curved glass) for the 1964 Corvette coupe. The 1963-1967 Stingray (in both coupe and roadster editions), with its slightly bulged front and rear quarter-panels, would be one of the first General Motors cars to feature what came to be known as "Coke bottle" styling, creating an aggressive and muscular look. Mitchell also influenced the dramatic styling of the second generation 1965 rear-engine
Corvair, which, like other GM models introduced for that year, used curved side-window glass to enhance its "Coke Bottle" profile.
1970s During the 1973–74 energy crisis, which brought on a greater demand for smaller cars in place of the larger cars that had been GM's bread and butter profit machine for decades, Mitchell oversaw the styling and design efforts of GM's downsized full-sized and intermediate-sized cars which were introduced in the late 1970s, some of the last designs that he would lead—and all largely based on themes first developed in his 1976 Cadillac Seville. Mitchell designed the popular 1977
Chevrolet Caprice. However, when it came to compact and subcompact cars, Mitchell, who often struggled with alcoholism, reflected that "Small cars are like vodka. Sure people will try them out but they won't stay with them." Mitchell stepped down as chief stylist in July 1977 following his 65th birthday. The last car he designed at GM was the 1977
Pontiac Phantom concept, which now resides at the
Sloan Museum. He was also instrumental in the design of what would become the 1980–1985 Cadillac Seville. On August 1, 1977,
Irv Rybicki succeeded Mitchell as Vice President of General Motors Design.
1980s Following his retirement from General Motors, Mitchell ran William L. Mitchell Design, a private design-consulting firm, from 1977 to 1984. He was a vocal critic of the new
fourth-generation Corvette's styling, which he referred to as "bland." Bill Mitchell died at the age of 76 from heart failure at William Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak, Michigan, on September 12, 1988. ==Awards and recognition==