General Motors' 1961 "Compact" Cars

General Motors introduced "compact" (by American standards of the time) Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs for the 1961 model year.  I compared their styling to that of standard-size cars for each brand  here.  In this post, I consider how GM stylists differentiated those models by brand, given that they shared the same body platform.

GM introduced another compact line that year, the Chevrolet Corvair. It was based on a different platform, so a comparison is not worthwhile. I wrote about the first-generation Corvair here.

Images of four-door sedans are shown below.  They are either factory photos or pictures of cars listed for sale on the Internet.  For each viewpoint they are shown in ascending price order: Pontiac Tempest, Oldsmobile F-85, and Buick Special.  Since all versions were given different grille / front end designs for reasons of brand identity, I'll mostly focus on other details.

Gallery

This is a rare entry-level Tempest survivor.  Upscale versions had chrome trim on the sculpted sides abaft of the front wheel opening suggestive of a hot air outlet.

All of these cars had a similar fold below the top fender line -- For F-85s, it was identical to the Tempest's.  Both cars also had a character line starting the the rear of the aft wheel opening and curving upwards as it extended forward.  The F-85 has a chrome strip to emphasize this.  However the cars differ on the panel forward of the front door, where the F-85's line extends to the front of the car while the Tempest's forms a downward J-curve.

Buicks were the most up-scale of the three and perhaps for that reason received greater differentiation.  Here the Special's upper fender fold forms a sort of spearhead shape at its front, unlike the Tempest and F-85.  That shape also was used on full-size Buicks, as noted in the first link above.

Now side views.  This entry-level Tempest shows the basic body without any brand identification frills aside from the J-curve noted above.

The F-85 has a dab of a character line abaft of the rear wheel well, blending with the rear bumper.  Otherwise, apart from the extreme front, things are the same as on the Tempest -- even the wheel cutout profiles.

As mentioned, the Buick has more differentiation.  The lower character line does not curve around the rear wheel well opening, but extends all the way to the rear of the car.  And the rear wheel opening is shaped differently than on the Tempest and F-85 (be aware that this photo probably incorporates some CinemaScope-style horizontal distortion, something fairly often seen on promotion images).  Finally, there is a noticeable sculpted wedge under the upper fold starting about the aft point of the greenhouse and extending to the rear.

As might be expected, the rear end treatment of the Tempest is simple.

Again, the F-85 is quite similar to the Tempest in this part of the car.  Even the rear bumper seems to be the same, though it is blended into the side sculpting mentioned above.

The Buick Special's rear has more elaborate sculpting than on the other makes.  But note that the bumper is the same as on the others, and that the detailing below it is a variation on the F-85's theme.
From the 1940s through the 1970s, General Motors stylists were well practiced at creating brand identities from the same basic body shell.  We have seen it here, where most major design elements are the same, yet the three models have distinct appearances.  The Pontiac Tempest gets my vote as being the most successful design, whereas the Buick has too many seemingly arbitrary tack-ons.