ARUNDEL, Maine – In 1954, Milinoket-born Alan “Rod” Williams appeared on the Bangor Daily News when he was hired by Ford to help design cars in Detroit.
Williams was 23 at the time, just in the U.S. Navy, and had zero formal design training. However, he was a master at painting and painting screaming, futuristic cars.
Nearly 70 years to this day, Williams – now 94 – is back in the public eye.
A batch of his paintings of retro cars will be on display at Maine Museum of Classic Cars in Arundel. The show opens on May 14 with a gala public reception in honor of the now legendary industrial designer.
“His work is so beautiful and has never been shown before,” said museum curator Karen Siegler. “We have all of his original concept drawings.”
Also on display will be two classic Americana pieces that Williams co-created: the 1957 Ford Fairlane and the 1957 Ford Thunderbird.
“Do you know that little porthole window on the back of the Thunderbird?” He did it, “Sigler said.
Williams’ career in art and design began far from Motor City, at the Milinocket Dairy Farm, where he was raised by a single mother and grandparents. Encouraged by his family, he spends hours painting flowers in the yard, airplanes and imaginary cars that have not yet been invented.
At school he was a poor student, often in trouble from scratching and daydreaming.
“Stearns High School didn’t even have a teacher of fine arts at the time,” Williams said.
After high school, he tried out at an art college in New York, but found that his first year of courses was a remedial education. Williams couldn’t afford it either.
So he joined the US Navy to join the GI bill and its educational benefits.
It wasn’t long before his superiors recognized Williams’ exceptional artistic skills. He soon created dramatic historical oil paintings for admirals and their families. One of his works was even presented to President Harry S. Truman, who shook his hand.
“It was a beautiful job, son, and then to the next person,” said Williams, still smiling at the event.
Eventually, Williams eventually designed visual training materials at the Navy Training Center in Boston. There he had a huge studio all to himself.
“Every night after work I painted cars until 11 o’clock,” he said.
There, a Navy reservoir illuminated the photos of Williams’ cars and sent them to Mechanics Illustrated magazine, which published them widely.
“A week later I had telegrams from Ford, Chrysler and GM offering me a job,” he said. “I drove to Detroit, slept in my car for a few days and had interviews with all three.
He accepted Ford’s offer, but had to wait a year to get out of the Navy. Within days of his discharge in 1954, he married his beloved in his hometown of Caroline and headed to Detroit.
Williams was introduced to BDN in July 1953, shortly before making the move in ’54.
“Williams’ most radical design to date is a jet vehicle designed to travel at 150 miles per hour,” it said.
The story goes on to describe how the jet car was supposed to travel on the Maine highway back in the 1970s.
But both Williams and his wife hated him in Detroit. The city and the hypercompetitive car business were too many.
“I don’t think she was ever south of Bangor at the time,” Williams said, “and it was a headache.”
Still, they endured it for several years, while Williams helped build some of the most classic American cars with a queue for both Ford and Chrysler.
“He created icons,” Siegler said, “and set the pace for many years to come.”
While working in Detroit, Williams plans to return to New England, looking for a freelance job every time he returns east on vacation. He eventually set up his own industrial design firm in Massachusetts, where he and his wife, now married for 68 years, raised their four children.
His company designs many useful things such as X-ray equipment, chocolates, industrial kitchen gadgets and original packaging for all Tom’s of Maine products. He even had a hand in inventing the appearance and function of Wang’s first computer.
But Williams has never designed something as sexy as an American car since the 1950s, which is good for him.
“Detroit was such a political race with rats,” he said.
Although he has long since officially retired, Williams now loves helping start-ups from farm to table with logos and packaging. It feels like I’m coming home, Williams said, from cows to cars, to cows again.
Williams, still energetic and sharp, with excellent hearing, smiled as he got behind the wheel of the 1957 Fairlane, which he helped create on Friday at the museum.
“Ayu,” he said, taking a photo pose, “it’s satisfying to find that people still like my designs.”
The reception for Rod Williams is at the Maine Museum of Classic Cars on Route 1 in Arundel on Saturday, May 14 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $ 20.