A DETROIT DESIGNER’S DREAM To bring us the cars of our dreams, automotive designers cast their gaze into the future, seeking to predict the next big styling trend—or to invent it.

It is always interesting, then, to learn what machines these designers choose as their personal vehicles.

Henry de Ségur Lauve, born in New Jersey in 1910, spent his formative years in Europe; by the 1930s, he was working in France as a designer and illustrator for the fashion industry.

His career trajectory shifted when, in the late 1930s, he was hired by General Motors, reportedly after interviewing with eventual GM head of design Bill Mitchell.

Of course, this meant that Lauve would work under design titan Harley Earl in the pivotal years following World War II—an era in which the American automotive industry was at the height of its power and prestige, when style was evolving at a breakneck pace.

By the mid-1950s, Lauve was chief designer of GM’s Interior Design Studio.

What did Lauve park in the ga...