Pontiac's 1958 One-Year-Only Body

General Motors was rich during the 1950s because it dominated the American automobile market.  So when it made a marketing mistake it was able to throw money at the problem to correct it.

A case in point was the body type used by 1958 Chevrolets and Pontiacs.  This was during the last years of Harley Earl's reign as GM's styling supremo.  Normally adept at leading styling trends, by the mid-1950s Earl began losing his touch, running out of new ideas.  In part this was because the design evolution of the 1930s and 1940s had run its course, so it wasn't clear to those who had lived through that era what might be done next.  In Earl's case, he reverted to the rounded (large radius curves) kind of shapes that he usually preferred.  Unfortunately for him and GM, Chrysler Corporation's new slim 1957 line proved hugely popular while making GM car seem bloated and stodgy.  So GM launched a crash program to redesign all its cars in a somewhat Chrysler-like manner for the 1959 model year.

The 1958 Pontiacs were styled before Earl and his crew knew what Chrysler had in the works for '57.  Production lead-times from concept to showroom in those days ran about three years at best, so nothing much could be done for those Pontiacs aside from fiddling with ornamentation.

Below are examples of the 1958 Pontiac line.  Unless otherwise noted, images are of cars for sale.

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A Pontiac from the final year of using 1955 bodies.  It's a 1957 Star Chief Catalina four-door hardtop sedan.  Its side-trim theme will be carried over into 1958, a common GM practice for maintaining brand identity when new bodies are introduced.

And this is its 1958 counterpart, a Star Chief Catalina four-door hardtop sedan shown in a factory photo.  Note the side trim theme.  The rest of the styling is new.

A Star Chief Catalina 2-door hardtop.

The same car from a different angle, showing rear-end styling.  'Fifty-eight Pontiacs got quad headlights, so stylists added quad tail lights.  Note the chromed fake vent abaft of the door.

Side view of Chieftain Catalina 2-door hardtop.

Chieftains ranked below Star Chiefs in the Pontiac market hierarchy.  This is a Chieftain 4-door sedan.

Factory 3/4 view photo of the same model.  Note the heavy, rounded roof above the side windows.

The top of Pontiac's '58 line was the Bonneville.  Here is a Sport Coupe shown in a Barrett-Jackson photo.  The side trim design is jazzed up in the baroque manner found on 1958 Oldsmobiles and Buicks, though not so extreme.

Same car.  Ornamental clutter includes the following: Four stars on the rear fender flanks rather than the three on Chieftains.  Four horizontal hash marks abaft of the front wheel opening.  What seems to be an air exhaust port above the backlight.  Grooves on the trunk lid.  And that outrageous  faux- rocket-like exhaust at the front end of the rear fender two-tone panel.  The car pictured here had fuel injection (rare on '50s American cars), so it had dash along with the flash.

A 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Vista Hardtop Sedan to show what Pontiacs looked like with the new crash-program GM bodies.  Much cleaner, but still not a well-coordinated design.

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General Motors' C Body Cars: 1941 Facelifts

In my post dealing with General Motors' new C body designs for the 1940 model year, I stressed that styling was inadequately modernized.

To summarize: Most American closed-car designs in the period approximately 1934-1940 were awkward.  In part, this was because body and production engineering could not evolve rapidly enough to deliver sleek streamline-influenced designs stylists were capable of dreaming up.  For the 1940 model year, General Motors finally produced attractive closed cars in the form of its redesigned C platform.  But while these cars were attractive abaft of the front axle line, their front end styling seemed a little more dated.

This changed when GMs C body lines were facelifted for 1941.  An important factor was integration of headlights into front fenders, something GM was slow to do apparently because Engineering had objections.  The other improvement component was grille design.  Grilles for 1941 (with one possible exception) were much better matched to the rest of the styling.

Below are comparative images of 1940 and 1941 frontal designs.  Missing is a comparison for 1940 LaSalles because that brand was dropped at the end of the 1940 model year.

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Pontiac front end styling was greatly improved over the too-delicate 1940 design seen in the Mecum photo.  All fenders took on a squared-off "suitcase" motif with side ribbing.  Headlights are essentially blended into the fenders, though are still placed inboard of the fender sides.  The front of the hood has been flattened slightly to blend with the rest of the flattened face of the car.

Oldsmobile grilles retain all the 1940 element themes for '41 but are made bolder, as can be seen in this likely "for sale" photo.  Aside from the reworked headlights, Olds frontal styling is the least-changed of the lot.  A fussy design.  Unlike Pontiacs, sheet metal is almost unchanged.

Buick headlights were completely integrated, unlike those on Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles.  Better yet, they were placed near the sides of the reshaped fenders as seen in the for sale image.  The grille is now horizontal, not the equivocating '40 outline.  Grille bars are larger, adding strength to the design.

Cadillac faces for 1940 were strongly old-school, whereas the '41s received a classic design that set the theme for many decades of future Cadillacs.    The upper photo is from RM Sotheby's, the lower is a for sale photo.  Front fenders and the hood were less curved, headlights were integrated and placed outboard.  Note the fender crease that notionally passes through the headlight center and whose line becomes the upper edge of the grille.  I rank the 1941 Cadillac design as the best ever for that marque.

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General Motors' C Body Cars for 1940

General Motors is usually considered the American styling leader through the 1930s and for many years beyond (due in part to its market dominance).  But that doesn't mean that GM designs were attractive.  My view is that most American car designs for closed cars from around 1934 to about 1940 were awkward.  That was because of the shift from boxy-yet-functional pre-1934 styling to streamlining-cum-component-integrating designs during that period.  This change required changes in body engineering and production technology that took time to be mastered.  Hence, awkwardness.

But GM's new C body introduced for the 1940 model year shed most of the kind of awkwardness just mentioned, though it wasn't until 1941 everything fell into place.  That is, the basic body design was attractive, but brand-identification details carried over from previous years along with passé headlight assembly forms held back the styling promise of the new body until those elements were better integrated.

Below are examples of 1940 C body cars from Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, LaSalle and Cadillac (no Chevrolets got the new C bodies that year).

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Here is a 1940 Pontiac Torpedo Coupe (Pontiac marketers labeled C body Pontiacs "Torpedo").  Ignore everything from the front axle line forward and you'll see the attractive, not-awkward styling.  The only archaic detail in this zone is the exposed running board that got covered in 1941.  The partly integrated head lights and Buick-like grille detract from the overall appearance.

GM marketers made heavy use of retouch artists in part because newsprint reproduction quality was comparatively poor in those days.  This worked-over photo shows the aft end of a 4-door C body Pontiac.

Side view of a 1940 Oldsmobile 90 sedan via Barrett-Jackson.  Styling is basically rounded, but not nearly as heavy-looking as before.  This is due to the thinner top and well-integrated trunk.  Front fenders are more blended into the rest of the body than on the other brands with C bodies.

And here is a side view of the Buick Roadmaster.  Note the longer trunk.

Buick Super, the next level down from the Roadmaster also got C bodies.  Note how the windshield divider line carries into a slight crease on the roof panel.  Again, the front end styling strikes me as being slightly at odds with the rest of the car.  Grille orientation is neither horizontal nor vertical, and the headlights are not quite integrated or separate.  Call all this "hesitant" or "ambiguous" or to put it most kindly, "transitional."

I find the LaSalle in this "for sale" photo the most attractive 1940 C body car even though it shares the same headlight problem as the others.

Side view of a 1940 Cadillac 62 Coupe from RM Sotheby's.  Cadillac's headlight housings remained discrete entities perched on the catwalk between the front fenders and the hood/grille assembly.  This was drastically improved the next year.

Barrett-Jackson photo showing rear 3/4 of a 62 four-door sedan.  The rear elements are nicely composed, whereas the front fenders are of the more squared-off "suitcase" variety.  The separate headlight assembly can be glimpsed here.

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General Motors' Companion Cars (1): Oakland and Pontiac

A major factor in the rise of General Motors during the 1920s was Alfred P. Sloan's establishment of a price-prestige hierarchy for GM's various brands.  Over the 50 years from 1941 to 1991, when the Saturn brand appeared, the hierarchy from low to high was Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  But during the late 1920s so-called "companion" brands were introduced to fill what seemed to be price gaps in GM's line.  In 1930 the hierarchy was approximately (there was price overlapping in a number of cases): Chevrolet, Pontiac, Marquette, Oldsmobile, Oakland, Viking, Buick, LaSalle, and Cadillac.

The first, and most successful, companion brand was Pontiac, introduced in 1926 as the companion to the sagging Oakland brand.  Pontiacs, being considerably lower priced than Oaklands, quickly out-sold the established brand that was phased out in 1932.  Pontiacs continued into the 2010 model year.

This short series of posts dealing with GM's companion brands focuses on styling differences between the established brand and the newcomer -- especially differences in the design of the grille, the chief recognition feature for most brands.

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We begin with the 1926 model year, Pontiac's first.  The first image, from a car sales site, shows a '26 Oakland, and the lower photo is a Barrett Jackson image of a Pontiac for that year.  The main grille differences are at the top, where the Oakland has a narrower chromed frame and a bulge holding the brand's crest.  The Pontiac's frame is wide at the top with some sculpting by its badge.  Radiator mascots differ, Pontiac featuring the head of Chief Pontiac, a feature it will retain through 1954.

Now it's 1929.  Both brands feature divided grilles.  The Oakland in the upper "for sale" photo has slightly more rounded curvatures at the top where the frame blends with the central chromed vertical divider.  The car also has a different hood louvre pattern than the Pontiac's shown in the lower photo.  Beltline trim and mascots also differ.  Nevertheless, as in 1926, differences are pretty minor.

Oakland's final model year was 1931, when the Great Depression was further driving sales downward. Comparing the Oakland in the upper, Mecum auction, image to the Pontiac in the "for sale" picture below, we find the main brand-identification difference aside from mascots is in the badges at the top-center of the grille frame.  So the Oakland phase-out is almost complete.

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1956 Pontiac Club de Mer Concept

Golden Ages seem pretty common.  That is, there are plenty of them  -- golden age of illustration, of comic books, of etc.  So I might as well add one more to the pile: Golden Age of General Motors Dream Cars.

I place that about 1954-56 when a good many interesting designs appeared in GM's Motorama traveling shows.  Today's subject is the Pontiac Club de Mer that appeared in the 1956 Motorama (Wikipedia entry here).  The car itself has little if anything nautical about it, but GM publicists took care to show it in seashore environments for non-studio photos (note the photo above and two of the photos below).

The Club de Mer's styling is actually a kind of blending of aircraft and racing car themes in the form of impractical details.  Examples include a small tail fin mounted atop where a trunk lid would be (there was none), and dual streamlined windshields that would probably stream wind directly into the driver's and passenger's faces (note the height of the windshields compared to the position of the model in the photo above).

But, Hey!, the Club de Mer was just a show car.  And a rather fun one at that.

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Studio publicity photo of Harley Earl (left) and a Club de Mer clay model.  In the background is an airbrushed profile view.

Publicity photo showing the Club de Mer by la mer, probably in Florida.  This, and most of the photos below indicate how low the car was: Wikipedia has it as 38.401 inches (975 mm).  But it was drivable, so perhaps the car's main value to GM apart from publicity was in the engineering steps taken to make it work.  Note the low air intake -- something this extreme not seen on mid-50s American production cars.  Also, the familiar Pontiac "streaks" have been reshaped and merge with air intakes near the cowling, a nice touch.

Another pose near water.  Some relief is found in the (possibly non-functional) air outlets on the door and the character line that wraps to the rear.  The little four-pointed stars on the side are another Pontiac brand cue.

Even though the Club de Mer has a relatively simple, rounded-off shape, GM's stylists were able to impart enough of a sense of tension to eliminate a flabby look.  Being a show car, no front bumper was needed.

Another view indicating how low the car was.  The symbol above the Pontiac name was a brand identifier that didn't appear on production cars until the 1957 model year.

As the Wikipedia entry states, the Club de Mer was destroyed, though a scale model survived.  Eventually an enthusiast had this replica created.  I include this Barrett-Jackson photo to show what the rear end looked like.  Clean, aside from that silly fin.  And there is a rear bumper of sorts.

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1941: Harley Earl's Very Good Year

I am not alone when I claim that the 1941 model year was the best for General Motors' styling chief Harley Earl, though I think 1949 comes close.  Several designs were outstanding and the others were very good -- all this in the context of their times.

The 1930s were a time when designs evolved from largely angular bodies and assemblages of many discrete parts (fenders, headlights, running boards, spare tires, etc.) to smoothed styles where most of the formerly discrete parts were largely blended into aerodynamically-influenced ("streamlined") compositions.  Between those points, a good many awkward designs were marketed by GM and the rest of the industry.  For General Motors, 1941 models were safely beyond that, as stylists and body engineers were now comfortable with with the new concepts.

GM had three basic bodies for 1941, but they were fairly similar.  Most attention was paid to using ornamentation as brand identification.  Each brand had its own theme (with one exception), and those themes were distinctive.  The exception was entry-level Chevrolet, which was given a grille similar to that of the upper-middle brand Buick.

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Buick Sedanette - Hyman Auctions photo

Cadillac - for sale photo
My favorite year for Cadillac, and a design that established brand identification indicators for decades to come.

Chevrolet Special DeLuxe Club Coupe - RM Sotheby's photo

Oldsmobile 98 Club Coupe - Auctions America Photo

Pontiac - for sale photo
I am partial to '41 Pontiacs because my father owned one (a model not nearly as sleek as the one pictured here).

Here is the 1941 LaSalle that never entered production. The image is part of page 46 from Automobile Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2001.  This would have made for a very fine production design.  Sadly, a Cadillac model was substituted.  (LaSalle was a "companion car" to Cadillac -- companion brands being a late 1920s GM experiment.)

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The Transitional 1949 Dodge Wayfarer Line

The "Big Three" American automobile makers -- General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation -- held off introducing post- World War 2 redesigns until the 1949 model year.  (Exceptions were 1948 Cadillacs and Oldsmobile 98s.)

The prewar notion that streamlined-looking fastback styling was the wave of the future was largely abandoned, though every GM division did market some fastback models for 1949.  Chrysler did the same, but on a much smaller scale.  Plymouth built an entry-level fastback 2-door sedan, and Dodge had a semi-fastback similar in character to Mercury's '49 roofline.

And there was even more Chrysler experimentation in Dodge's Wayfarer line.  This experimentation required extra tooling expenses for what turned out to be fairly low-volume cars.  In those days, Chrysler Corporation ranked ahead of Ford in sales and was doing well financially, so its management must have thought that the risk of losing some money to gain market knowledge was worthwhile.

Let's take a look at Dodge's Wayfarer line.  Color images are of cars that were on Internet for-sale sites.

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Let's first view a 1949 mainstream Dodge Coronet 4-door sedan to provide context.  The sun visor above the windshield was a popular accessory in the late 1940s and early 50s.

This is a 1949 Wayfarer business coupe.  Business coupes had only one bench seat, but this allowed for larger trunk space for hauling business-related items.  That body style was dropped early in the 1950s.

And here is the Wayfarer Roadster, essentially a convertible version of the business coupe.  Only a small proportion were true roadsters with side curtains instead of roll-up windows -- most Dodge "Roadsters" were built with the latter.

Front three-quarter views of '49 Dodge Wayfarer sedans.

A 1950 Mercury showing its semi-fastback / semi- bustle-back styling.  The Dodge's bustle-back is smaller and gives the impression of being mostly a fastback.

Rear view of a '49 Wayfarer.  Compare this to the 1949 Plymouth P-17 fastback below.

This car and the Dodges shown above used the same roof tooling, the main difference is that the Dodge's B-pillar slants and the Plymouth's is vertical.  The Dodge bustle-back is due to a 4-inch longer wheelbase and 14 inches (35 cm) more overall length.  This added length would have required a different, more expensive fastback roof shape towards the rear, so the cheaper semi-fastback option was taken.

Finally, the Dodge Wayfarer sedan's fastback competition, a 1949 Pontiac Streamliner 2-door.  Much sleeker than the Dodge, but perhaps with a bit less trunk space -- a problem that led GM to dropping  fastbacks after the 1952 model year.

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