Completely caught off guard, execs of GM's major competitors were stunned. At the time, Ford and Chrysler knew very little of this new technology and/or didn't thoroughly understand the ramifications of Earl's "design obsolescence" paradigm pertaining to the world of tomorrow. This auto-innovator's brainchild of creating 10s of millions of GM's cars with this ultra-futuristic windshield design --- that would eventually be incorporated on millions of their competitor's car --- was incredibly visionary. During the mid-century years, GM's management was 100 percent behind letting Harley Earl run with his radical new ideas.