More: Were 1961 General Motors Cars Facelifted 1959-60 Models?

For many years I had assumed that 1961 General Motors cars without panoramic windshields were a new design.  Finally, I began to have doubts.  In February 2022 I posted "Were 1961 Chevrolets Actually a Huge Facelift?"  It included photos of Chevrolet body structures in the firewall / A-pillar zone.

At the end of the post I stated: "Bottom line: The 1961 design was mostly different.  But there seems to have been some carryover from 1959 in terms of front doors and some sheet metal shaping in lower side panels (those wheel openings)."

The present post continues the exploration of the massive facelift idea.  The answer to the question in the title above is probably known by body restorers who have worked with General Motors bodies from model years 1959-1962 or a little after.  Few stylists, engineers and product planners active in those days are still with us, so that source seems to be closed absent published information I'm unaware of.

Cars shown in the Gallery are hardtop sedans, along with two regular sedans.  Unless noted, photos are of cars listed for sale.

Gallery

1960 Pontiac Ventura
Wheelbase 122 inches (3111 mm).  A Pontiac example of the 1959-1960 body.

1961 Pontiac Bonneville
Wheelbase 123 inches (3124 mm).  The 1961 body on a Pontiac with a similar wheelbase.  Pay most attention to the door cutlines and the passenger compartment greenhouse's window profiles.

1959 Oldsmobile Super 88
Wheelbase 123 inches (3124 mm) for this and the Oldsmobiles below..

1960 Oldsmobile Super 88
Facelift of the design in the previous image.

1961 Oldsmobile Super 88
The truncated B-pillar has been moved slightly forward, but otherwise the door cutlines seem the same (allowing for adjustments related to the reshaped rear wheel opening).

1959 Buick Invicta
Wheelbase 123 inches (3124 mm) for this and the Buicks shown below.

1960 Buick Invicta
The 1960 facelift.

1961 Buick Invicta
Aside from the A-pillar and beltline, the window profile seems the same.

1959 Buick Electra
Wheelbase 126 inches (3200 mm) for this car and the one in the following image.  Now for cars with a longer wheelbase.

1961 Buick Electra - unknown photo source
Again, a wider rear passenger compartment door.  Here the C-pillars and backlight windows are similar enough that some carryover structure seems possible.

1959 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
Wheelbase 130 inches (3302 mm).  Now for examples with the longest wheelbase.

1963 Cadillac Sedan DeVille - BaT Auctions photo
Wheelbase 129.5 inches (3289 mm).  Same general story.

1959 Buick Invicta - photo via driveshare.com
Conventional sedans had full-height B-pillars and six-window fenestration, so I thought it might be interesting for a comparison to a 1961 Buick sedan with the same wheelbase..

1961 Buick LeSabre - BaT Auctions photo
Again, the B-pillar is farther forward, enlarging the rear side door.  However, this is a four-window -- not a six-window -- design.  The shape of the greenhouse is different, unlike the case of hardtop sedans.  So the evidence of a possible massive facelift  is quite weak in this instance.

First-Generation Panhard Dyna Walkaround

I called the Panhard Dyna X a "styling crime" in a 2014 post.  Now that I'm older and more mellow, I'm tempted to take back that harsh assessment.  But yes, the design is indeed pretty ugly.

On the other hand, the circumstances of its creation in the chaos and aftermath of German occupation of France in World War 2 make the design more understandable.  Also, Panhard chose to accept the Pons Plan (scrolll down), a French government initiative to control its automobile industry.  Panhard was to shift its market to small-size cars, and the Dyna was the result.

As I mentioned in that post, "During World War 2, [the famous engineer Jean-Albert Gregoire] worked on a small sedan design that, among other features, weighed comparatively little because much of the body was made of aluminum.

"His AFG design interested the Panhard firm, but when Paul Panhard licensed the design from AFG and Grégoire in 1943, it was stipulated that Panhard had the right to modify the design.  And modified it was, as the images below indicate.  As best I can tell, the redesign was handled by Louis Bionier and Panhard staff."

The Wikipedia entry for the Dyna X is here.  It mentions that its wheelbase was 84 inches (2130 mm).  Other, better-known, French postwar small cars included the Citroën 2CV with a wheelbase of 94.5 inches (2400 mm) and the Renault 4CV whose wheelbase was 82.5 inches (2096 mm).  Volkswagen's Beetle wheelbase was the same as the 2CV's.  So the Dyna sedan and the Renault were seriously short by 1948 European standards.

The image at the top of this post is a Panhard publicity photo.  Images below of a 1951 Panhard Dyna X86 are via Bonhams Auctions.

Gallery

General appearance is 1930s, not mid-1940s.

The main Dyna body type was the Berline 4-door sedan.  Four doors was the conformation preferred by French car buyers for many years.  Note how constrained the rear door is, thanks to the short wheelbase.

No trunk lid.  Access was by tipping the rear seat back forward.

The separation of the passenger compartment greenhouse and rear lower body is covered by a chrome strip.

Trunk space was enhanced by placing the spare tire outside.

Fenders are very 1930s.  The greenhouse's side windows are proportionally large, giving the car a lighter appearance.

Headlight assemblies are also typical of the 1930s.  The motor was air-cooled, so the grille opening was scaled to its cooling needs.  Frontal detailing is more decorative than related to body shape details.

By the way, the license plate code 42 signifies France's département Loire.

The instrument package décor echoes the grille's, and ancillary frontal lights framing theme.

General Motors' 1961 Y-Body Coupes

The title above refers to 1961 model year cars, but most 1962 versions had essentially the same styling as the '61s.  So I'll include 1962 examples in the Gallery below.

I compared styling of 1961 generation "compact" (Y-platform) 4-door sedans here.  Today's post deals with coupes.

This platform was noticeably smaller than the "standard" size cars produced by Detroit's three largest automobile makers. For example, Oldsmobile's compact F-85 had a wheelbase of 112 inches (2845 mm) compared to 123 inches (3124 mm) for its standard size 88 models.

This was in response to American Motors Corporation's Rambler compact car line that was rapidly increasing its market share in the late 1950s, while Studebaker introduced its compact Lark model for 1959.

Chrysler Corporation introduced its compact Valiant for the 1960 model year, and Ford Motor Company launches its Ford Falcon and Mercury Comet compact cars for 1961.

As was the case for brands and models sharing the same basic platform, Y-body cars shared many features in the interest of development/production economy as well as brand-specific differences needed for marketing purposes.

Unless noted, images below are of for-sale cars.

Gallery

1961 Pontiac Tempest - BaT Auctions photo
Model year 1961 saw the return of Pontiac's two-segment grille that was introduced for 1959, but abandoned for '60.  Thereafter, two-segment was a visual brand identifier for Pontiac.  The grille design seen here differs from two-segment grilles on 1961 standard size Pontiacs.

1962 Pontiac Tempest LeMans
For some reason, Tempests lost the two-segment theme for 1962, yet returned to it for '63.  An odd repeat of the 1959-1960-1961 pattern of the standard size line.

1962 Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass
"Cutlass" was used to denote F-85 coupes.  Later, it was applied across much of Oldsmobile's line.  The car pictured here has fancier trim than the Pontiacs shown above.  That would be expected becuase Oldsmobile was one notch ahead of Pontiac in General Motors' brand portfolio.

1962 Buick Special
Buick Specials featured the same projecting, tapered leading fender profile as standard size '61 Buicks had.  All 1961 Y-body coupes were just that -- Buick added a hardtop (pillarless) version for '62, as did Olds.  There were no compact Pontiac hardtop coupes until the 1964 redesign.

1962 Pontiac Tempest
Fronts and rears differed for reasons of brand identity.  Sides were more uniform.  The bold, near-beltline character sculpting is found on all 1961 Y-body coupes.  Tempests had a faux air exhaust vent abaft of the front wheel opening with an attached character line extending back over the rear wheel opening.

1962 Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass
No faux air vent, but the lower character line is the same as Pontiac's.

1962 Oldsmobile F-85 Jetfire - Jay Leno Collection
The Jetfire hardtop coupe was added to the F-85 line for 1962.

1962 Buick Special - BaT Auctions
1962 Specials looked nearly the same as '61s from the side.  The lower character line and side sculpting differs from Tempest's and F-85's.  The line does touch the tops of the wheel openings, however.

1961 Buick Skylark
Buick's '62 hardtop coupe.

1962 Pontiac Tempest LeMans
Rear quarter views.  This car lacks vinyl roof covering, revealing the crisp metal sculpting.

1962 Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass
Similar to the Tempest.

1962 Buick Special - BaT Auctions
Buicks ranked above Oldsmobiles in GM's hierarchy.  So side sculpting takes a scooped-out form.  The backlight window is wider than on the other cars.

1965 Ford Galaxie Hardtop Coupe Walkaround

In this post I considered that 1965 Ford Galaxie styling was very good, almost at the level of the 1963 Pontiaac Grand Prix.

I stated: "Like the Grand Prix, the Galaxie had a trim, taut look: no visual flabbiness.  Also like the Grand Prix, its quad headlights were stacked and set in angular, "frenched" housings.  I never liked cars with four headlights, but they looked their best on the Galaxie and Grand Prix."

Today's post's subject is a walkaround of a Galaxie 500 hardtop coupe.  The subject car was listed for sale on the Internet.

Gallery

The generally clean appearance.

Aside from the wheel openings and some areas of rounding, the lower body seems almost geometrical with horizontal and nearly-horizontal elements from beltline to rocker panel.  The passenger compartment greenhouse design is carried over from 1963 Galaxie 500s.

The chrome strip separating the roof from the lower body suggests that the roof might be lowered or removed -- though it cannot.

Simple rear end design aside from the tail light assemblies.

Tail lights have notionally six-sided framing that relates to body sculpting.

That character line abaft of the front wheel opening trails off to the rear as it become less strong.  A subtle touch that relieves the otherwise strongly horizontal theme.

A nearly-flat hood.  The upper side character line starts at the level of the gap between the headlights (a professional touch), but does not touch or interact directly with it (another subtlety).

Most of the grille projects forward.  Grille bars are simple -- but the 1966 facelift remade it into heavy, stacked, horizontal elements -- a retrograde touch.

Front quarter high perspective.

Rear quarter high perspective.

The dashboard features rectangularities.

Renault's 1998 Vel Satis Concept Car

Automobile styling has been "internationalized" for several decades.  Back when I was young, American cars looked American, British cars usually seemed British, Italian cars Italian, and so forth.  Those distinctions were fading by the 1960s, in part because Italian designers such as Pinin Farina and Giovanni Michelotti were hired by the likes of Nash and Triumph to style production cars.  By the 1970s the great Giorgetto Giugiaro's ItalDesign firm had its hand in the design of cars from as far away as South Korea.

One rear-guard attempt to preserve a national design feeling was France's Vel Satis executive car by Renault.  In 2013 I wrote "Renault's Not-So Vel Satis Adventure" that dealt briefly with it and its concept version.

The man behind the design was Patrick Le Quément, who became Renault's Vice President, Corporate Design in 1987.  As this Wikipedia link notes, although Le Quément was French-born, he was raised and educated in England.  Much of his early car styling experience was at Ford's British subsdiary as well as in Germany at Volkswagen.

That said, his early efforts are Renault had to do with creating a French look to Régie Nationale des Usines Renault styling.  An important part of that was the Vel Satis concept car's design.

By the way, Wikipedia notes: "The name Vel Satis is a portmanteau of Velocity and Satisfaction."

By the time the concept car appeared, the "Frenchness" of the Citroën Traction Avant and DS 19 was well as Peugeot's 1930s 302s and 402s was long past.  I suppose the concept's 1989 Frenchness lies in the fact that the design was different, distinct, compared to what was common at the time.  And yes, some details seem to be examples of French la logique.

Photos below are all probalby via Renault.

Gallery

Frontal air intakes seem too small, and I don't notice a chin-level intake.  That said, it was powered by a transverse-mounted V-6 motor that required a radiator.  Perhaps it wasn't driven long enough to overheat.  Or else there was a hidden source of air to cool the radiator.

Rear styling has a completely different theme from the frontal.

Simple fender line.  Largely flat sides.  Round wheel openings.  Very basic design components.

This profile image shows the rather odd (French?) proportions.  Long, slanted hoodline and frontal overhang.  Minimal rear overhang and a chopped-off roofline at the rear that contrasts with a rounded lower rear body.  That rounding corresponds to the round aft wheel opening.

This shows the passenger greenhouse sculpting.  The crease begins at the fender front, becomes the A-pillar, then flattens and transitions to side window upper framing, and finally wraps around to become upper framing of the backlight window.  Interesting, maybe French la logique.

The short, rounded aft body is echoed by the curved backlight with its contrasting flat roof.  The trunk lid is necessarily tiny.

View of the car in fairly normal lighting.  An interesting design, more intellectual than attractive.