Prior to World War II, Packard, like most auto companies at the time, did not have a styling department. It was Harley Earl's formidable Art & Colour Section at General Motors that convinced the industry of the importance of styling. But even Earl's efforts did not force rivals to add design departments until after the war. A handful of outside consultants, like Raymond Loewy at Studebaker, occasionally sold their designs to American producers. Sometimes the designs even reached production without drastic changes by the body engineers, who at that point largely controlled the shape of cars. One such design consultant was a Californian named Howard "Dutch" Darrin, whose involvement in the Clipper occurred because Packard was his favourite American make.