For the very first Daytona 500 in 1959 the trophy was made from wood. Standing only 3 feet tall, it was decorated with silver figurines, according to "He Crashed Me so I Crashed Him Back," by Mark Bechtel. (The book is a non-fiction account of the 1979 Daytona 500, considered to be among the most memorable in the event's storied history.) By 1998, it was time for a change on the four-decade birthday of the race. At that point a larger trophy was commissioned, which now resides in the "The Official Motorsports Attraction of NASCAR."
From the very beginning, though, the trophy was named after Harley J. Earl, a visionary automotive designer who worked at General Motors and is credited with contributing to the creation of the Corvette, according to FOX News. Earl was a friend of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. Earl served as the second commissioner of NASCAR, and it was Earl who designed the Firebird I prototype that's atop the trophy, as the Daytona Beach News-Journal explains. And although the winning racer is awarded a replica of what's now called the Harley J. Earl Perpetual Trophy (per Britannica), the scaled-down version of the trophy remains quite impressive.
