Those clean, lightly Coke-bottle sculpted cars appeared during the Permanent PFC phase of my Army enlistment (that's how I beat the Draft). I would have bought one, but alas, my monthly across-the-army-blanket pay was far too meagre to afford one. By 1965, I was out of the Army, but the Grand Prix had a new, lesser design ... and I still couldn't afford one, being in grad school.
Today's post presents the '63 design and related designs for your consideration. All images below save one are of cars listed for sale.
Here it is. A far cry from American styling fads and excesses of the late 1950s such as three-tone paint jobs, mounds of chrome trim and tail fins.
Here is the first Grand Prix model, based on 1961 Pontiac restyling. 1963 Pontiacs were facelifted from this.
The Grand Prix's companion is the Bonneville hardtop coupe. Its passenger compartment greenhouse has the faceted roofline seen in the previous photo. Side sheet metal shaping is simplified down to the horizontal character line running from the top of the front wheel opening aft to the end of the fender. Above the crease is a grooved chrome strip that harkens to Pontiac's once-traditional Silver Streaks that were found on hoods and elsewhere from 1936 through 1956.
That Silver Streak evocation is missing on the Grand Prix. An addition is horizontal bars in the grille.
Bonnevilles had 123-inch (3124 mm) wheelbases and their basic price was $141 less that the Grand Prix's.
The shorter (120-inch, 3048 mm, wheelbase) and more expensive Grand Prix's out-produced Bonneville Sport Coupes 72,959 to 30,995. It seemed superior styling sold better.
More detail on the greenhouse roof shaping.
The Grand Prix lacked the roof faceting and its backlight window was, unusually, concave. Tail lights are by the trunk lid, not the ends of the fenders.
Oldsmobile's Starfire was that brand's version of the Grand Prix, sharing the same basic body.
Note the concave backlight window. 1963 Starfire hardtop coupe production was 21,148 units. They were more than $600 more expensive that Grand Prix's (that's perhaps a $6,000 difference in today's dollars), which was a factor of some kind.
Starfire styling had far more elaborate ornamentation and detailing that the Grand Prix. Note the large side strip and the small tail fins.
ReplyDeleteSomeone somewhere just did a piece about the 1961 Lincoln and its stylistic influences. This GP was mentioned, as well as the '65 Cadillac and a couple others - all the same as what I always thought.
In some ways the other big Pontiac body styles - the 4-door hardtop and the post sedans - carry more of the Grand Prix style down the line than the 2-door hardtop (I always thought the faceted, faux-convertible roofline looked frumpy). I prefer that year's Catalina side trim to the Bonneville as well, and at least from the perspective of someone who wasn't there at the time (I was born in '74) the base Catalina 2-door post looks stylish enough to compare well to the top trim level Chevy-Ford-Plymouth 2-door hardtops its' price was in line with.
ReplyDelete