I used the Breuer designed library growing up in Grosse Pointe, and love the Calder mobile still hanging there. I certainly hope all of that discussion about demolishing it for a faux-colonial style library has ended.

As far as auto design influence, I would venture to say yes, it's quite obvious there was a great deal of influence.

One of my businesses is the restoration of mid-century modern furniture and lighting. An interesting story that repeats itself in several furniture factories in the US involves former automotive designers/engineers hired by furniture manufacturers to produce furniture in keeping with the lines of automobiles at the time.

Firms like American of Martinsville, Metz Furnture, Kent Coffey amongst others designed cabinets, tables, and chairs with sweeping lines and rakish angles, pulled from the leading automotive designs of the day. Hardware was almost exclusively supplied in the states by the Keeler Brass Works, once based in Michigan, which had amazing hardware designs, some of which could be misconstrued with car trim or hood ornaments.

Much of the metal detail in Yamasaki's as well as Saarinen's designs for the GM Tech Center in Warren, could claim automotive design as an influence.

Yamasaki's gold anodized screening for the Reynold's Metals Building were actually concepted through Alcoa at the time- they were one of the few firms doing architectural aluminum. Once there was alot of it here in Florida, now mostly scrapped, though a few examples still remain.