Robert Doehler began his career in the automotive industry attending high school at the Ford Apprentice School at the Rouge. After completing the program, he was hired into the Ford Design Department in 1941 working in clay modeling, later moving to layout work, and then to interiors. In 1953, he moved to Studebaker and where he worked the remainer of his design career until the company ceased operations in the mid-1960s. After this, he opened his own auto body shop in Milwaukee which he ran from 1965-1982 when he retired. Doehler’s oral history focuses heavily on his time at Ford Motor Company, particularly his early career and respect for Henry and Edsel Ford and Bob Gregorie’s design work. He discusses the changes in the design department when the GM design group was brought in during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Doehler talks about many of the different personalities in Ford design and how this affected his career there. He discusses his work on layout drawings for vehicles during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as well as his work on interiors, specifically instrument panels for the 1951-1955 model cars. In 1953, he moved to Studebaker as a layout designer and clay modeler, eventually working his way up to chief designer in the early 1960s. He discusses the difficulties of working in design after Lowey’s contract was canceled and again during the company’s money shortages and eventual closure. He also discusses his work on some experimental designs, layout, and clay work for the Avanti. He ends his oral history discussing his auto body business and the work they did on import cars.

Collection contains 4 cassettes, 5 WAV files, 5 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 2 loose transcripts, 1 bound transcript, and 1 PDF transcript. Uploaded July 23, 2021 and December 4, 2024.