Ed Cole

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Edward Nicholas Cole was an automotive executive for General Motors.

He was born in Marne, Michigan, where his father was a dairy farmer. Cole aspired to be an automotive engineer and enrolled in General Motors Institute, but was forced to drop out for financial reasons in 1933, and was offered a job as a lab assistant. He worked in engineering, rising to co-head a team (with Harry Barr) that developed the 1949 Cadillac V8. He was briefly assigned to run a GM plant in Cleveland, Ohio, when Chevrolet general manager Tom Keating requested his assignment as chief engineer.

He became chief engineer of the Chevrolet Division in 1952. His most important task was to develop a new engine for Chevy's lineup to replace the stove-bolt six; that new engine was Chevrolet's famous small-block V8. It remained in production for more than 40 years, and still remains a mainstay in auto racing and hot-rodding. He collaborated with Zora Arkus-Duntov to revitalize the weak-performing early Corvettes, and was responsible for the 1955-1957 "tri-five" or "shoebox" Chevies, which remain popular with car enthusiasts today.

Cole was promoted to general manager of Chevrolet in 1956. During these years, Chevy was a perennial sales leader, but with only larger cars in the lineup. As general manager of Chevrolet, he directed the development of the Corvair, intended to pursue the youth market with an inexpensive, sporty compact. Unfortunately, the Corvair design was compromised by the "bean counters" on GM's 14th Floor (as the corporation's powers-to-be was known) omitted key rear suspension components such as a rear sway bar to improve ride and handling in order to save money on development costs, which was unfortunate due to the fact that early model Corvairs would later be prone to tricky handling characteristics that led to roll-over accidents. When consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote a scathing report on the Corvair in his book "Unsafe at any speed" in 1965, General Motors attempted to discredit him by hiring private detectives to investigate his personal life including unfounded allegations that Nader was a homosexual.

Cole was promoted to head the GM car and truck group in 1961, then to executive vice-president in 1965, and to president in 1967. He retired from the corporation in 1974.

[edit] Demise

After retiring from GM, Cole became CEO of Checker Motors Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan. The family owner-builder of Checker Cabs hoped that Cole could address some of the company's problems.

However, before Cole had a chance to improve Checker, he was killed in a light plane crash (ironically 50 miles from his birth place), flying solo in the rain and fog on his approach to an airport in Mendon, Michigan, near Kalamazoo, Michigan in May 1977.