Aborted pre-E-Unit design and the BL1/2

Okay, was looking at Preston Cook’s articles on the Geeps and the E-Units, when I was reading in Eiden’s sidebar on th Knickenbocker article about the aborted 1st design for the passenger unit with the pics of the mockups. As I picked up the Geep article it was turned to the page with the BL2 pic and do those two’s general nose, cab and window shapes look amazingly similar. Since the article stated that the BL2 came out of Earl’s influence, it makes me wonder if he was, or at least was partly responsible for that first pass at the E-Unit. And, since the BL came after that E-Unit was he or his group responsible for both? Makes me wonder…

I have read the BL-1 's appearance was from the GM automotive design team.