1961 Chevrolet Biscayne Panoramic Backlight Window Walkaround

Today's post is a follow-on to this post of 24 April 2025.  I repeat its first two paragraphs below.

In the late 1950s General Motors launched a crash-redesign program in response to the redesigned 1957 Chrysler cars.  Given automotive development timelines, those new cars did not appear until the 1959 model year.  I wrote about one aspect of the new styling in the post "General Motors' 1959 Four-Door Hardtops" here.

"A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design" by Michael Lamm and David Holls on page 180 mentions two innovations for the 1959 General Motors models. One was Pontiac's two-segmented grille pattern. "The second was the 'flying wing' or 'cantilever' roof on the 1959 GM four-door hardtops. Credit for the design goes to a young Japanese-American stylist named Bud Sugano, who proposed it in early 1957. Carl Renner, under Clare MacKichan in the Chevrolet studio was instrumental in 'productionizing' the flying wing for 1959. Renner ... extended the flying wing not only to all five GM lines but also to the 1960 Corvair sedan."

That roofline included a one-piece backlight window that was drastically curved.  One can characterize it as panoramic or wraparound -- terms in use at the time, though "wraparound" was what most people seemed to call the fashionable panoramic windshields in those days.

GM continued that style through 1959 and 1960, then included it for some of its redesigned 1961 cars.  Then it was was abandoned on facelifted 1962 models due to declining 1959-1961 panoramic backlight sales for brands such as Oldsmobile and Cadillac.

Today's featured car is the entry-level version of that roof/backlight style.  It is a 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne two-door sedan listed for sale.

Gallery

1961 Cadillac Deville 4-window hardtop sedan - car-for-sale photo
But first, an example of a panoramic backlight on a fancier GM car.  The roof/backlight treatment is more refined than on the Chevy below.  As should be expected.

1961 Chevrolet Biscayne two-door sedan photo set
GM's 1961 redesign was a huge improvement over the 1959-60 cars.  Styling boss Bill Mitchell and his crew had more time to move on from Harley Earl's mostly unfortunate 1957 and 1958 creations.  The new designs included A-pillars having a curious little curve at their roots.  Perhaps a farewell gesture to the wraparound windshield era.

Initial "flying wing" rooflines had mouldings linking the upper rooflines across C-pillars.  That feature is missing here.

Upper backlight frames are actually a bit higher than side window upper framelines.  This slight discontinuity was absent on GM 4-door, 4-window hardtop sedans that lacked the heavier door framing seen here.  At any rate, this discontinuity degraded styling.

Panoramic backlights might have provided all-round exterior visibility for drivers and passenger.

But such visibility was almost never needed under normal driving conditions.

Wheel openings are racey towards their rears, but the passenger compartment greenhouse rear isn't.

Note the extent of window glass in this frontal view.

1959 Oldsmobile Panoramic Backlight Window Walkaround

In the late 1950s General Motors launched a crash-redesign program in response to the redesigned 1957 Chrysler cars.  Given automotive development timelines, those new cars did not appear until the 1959 model year.  I wrote about one aspect of the new styling in the post "General Motors' 1959 Four-Door Hardtops" here.

"A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design" by Michael Lamm and David Holls on page 180 mentions two innovations for the 1959 General Motors models.   One was Pontiac's two-segmented grille pattern.  "The second was the 'flying wing' or 'cantilever' roof on the 1959 GM four-door hardtops.  Credit for the design goes to a young Japanese-American stylist named Bud Sugano, who proposed it in early 1957.  Carl Renner, under Clare MacKichan in the Chevrolet studio was instrumental in 'productionizing' the flying wing for 1959.  Renner ... extended the flying wing not only to all five GM lines but also to the 1960 Corvair sedan."

I happen to be less enthusiastic about the "flying wing" roofline that incorporated a panoramic or wraparound backlight window.  It didn't fit well with the rest of the styling for 1959-1960 models nor with redesigned 1961 GM cars that retained that feature before abandoning it on 1962 facelifts, the Corvair aside.

That backlight window, in combination with all the other windows yielded glass all around the passenger compartment "greenhouse" except for the slender A, and C roof support pillars and B-pillar zone window framing.  On paper, that seems like a swell, futuristic concept -- eliminating all barriers to exterior vision for the driver and passengers.  But a moderately wide C-pillar doesn't significantly restrict exterior vision under nearly all ordinary driving situations.  And for stylists, it provides a location for creative designing and product identification.  So the flat roof and its panoramic backlight soon disappeared.

The featured car is a 1959 Oldsmobile Super 88 Sport Sedan listed for sale on the Internet.

Gallery

This roofline appeared only on some GM 4-door hardtop sedans for models year 1959 and 1960.  Panoramic backlight windows were added to various 2-door and 4-door sedans for 1961, but slow sales of these models saw them facelifted away for 1962.

We see panoramic/wraparound front and rear of the passenger compartment greenhouse.

Although an interesting concept, the C-pillar area seems awkward in its execution here.

Rather than the overhanging slab seen here, I wonder if blending the roof with the backlight might have been an improvement.

Again, what might blending have done?

By the early 1960s, GM stylists opted for wider C-pillars.

Lots of glass visible here.

Instrument panel and dashboard.

1941 American Grilles and Front Ends

In my book "Automobile Styling: From Evolution to Fashion" and elsewhere, I state that the period roughly 1930 (or thereabouts) to 1949 saw car design changing from boxy bodies with discrete elements such as fenders, headlights, etc. to bodies where such elements merged into what some call "envelope" bodies.  I usually cite the 1949 Ford as exemplifying the end of that evolution.

By the 1941 model year, most of the evolution had taken place.  Fenders were still distinct, though largely blended to the main body.  Moreover, car designs were no longer awkward, as they were earlier in the transition period.  An important factor was advances in technology -- sheet metal stamping, curved glass formation, especially -- that allowed stylists' speculative sketches to become implemented in production.

Today's post presents grille designs of the major 1941 model year automobile brands.  Until the late 1930s, grilles had vertical formats that coincided with the radiators paced behind them.  But by 1941, nearly all grilles had horizontal formats, a matter of fashion, nearly as much as technology.

Gallery

1941 Cadillac 62 - BaT Auctions photo
This is a classic grille design that influenced Cadillac styling for many years.  Part-architectural (the rectangular grille elements) and part Egyptian (those wings above the Cadillac crest), the overall composition is excellent.  Well, those round things (horn covers?) below the headlights would have looked better if they had been smaller.

1941 Buick Special - car for sale photo
Next down the General Motors hierarchy are Buicks.  Plenty of bold grille bars.  Note the frame shape -- Chevrolet's (see below) is similar.  And even Plymouth's has a hint of this.

1941 Oldsmobile 98 - Broad Arrow Auctions photo
Headlights are closer to the centerline.  Plenty of grill bars, many at right-angles to the others.  A very busy frontal design replaced by something even more odd for 1942.

1941 Pontiac DeLuxe - car for sale photo
An awkward photo, but included because it shows the red paint in the central details (most other Internet images show grilles where the paint has been worn away).  Pontiac's Silver Streaks on the hood are echoed below the headlights.  The overall effect is more coherent than Oldsmobile's.

1941 Chevrolet Special DeLuxe - car for sale photo
GM's entry-level brand's front mimics Buick's, as noted above.  Like Pontiac, there is red detailing in the central, vertical bar.  And there's more in pinstripe mode on the horizontal bars.

1941 Chrysler Royal - Mecum Auctions photo
Chrysler's grille is simple, though this photo does not show that, in plan view, the bars curve forward to meet at the lower extension of the hood prow.

1941 DeSoto DeLuxe - car for sale photo
This grille set the DeSoto vertical-bars grille theme that was continued through the 1955 model year.

1941 Dodge Custom - car for sale photo
A rather contrived frontal design.  Two segments divided by a painted central element.  Upward frame curves that blend with the headlight assemblies.

1941 Plymouth DeLuxe - car for sale photo
Very rounded frame aside from the painted central element that blends into the hood design.  Horizontal chromed prow strips as on DeSoto.

1941 Lincoln-Zephyr - Mecum
Another example of hood-prow blending.  This makes more sense when view at an angle -- not head-on as seen here.

1941 Mercury - car for sale photo
Central prow plus side openings.  Similar to the Chrysler Corporation brands shown above.  However, this composition is relatively simple while the framing relates to surrounding body sculpting.  Basically, a nice solution.

1941 Ford Super DeLuxe - car for sale photo
Three openings here.  Unlike many of the designs pictured above, there's no solid central element.  Instead, the central part is a vertical opening with a hole for a starter crank.  I suppose the shapes of the flanking openings are rounded to reflect the rounded shape of the main car body.

1941 Packard Clipper - Mecum
Another vertical central grille opening with flank openings.  But the composition is better than Ford's.  Plus, the top of the vertical framing carries on Packard traditional grille frame theme, an important marketing consideration.

1941 Hudson DeLuxe - car for sale photo
Similar in sprit to the Chrysler grille.  Hudson's body dates from 1936, but was heavily facelifted to keep it fairly up-to-date.

1941 Graham Hollywood - car for sale photo
Hupmobiles shared the same body and grille, though the upper zone lacked the chrome seen here.  This grille was applied to the1936-37 Cord body design, not in line with cars seen here that have recent body designs.

1941 Nash 600 - Mecum
Lots of grille bars along with a bold, chrome bow strip.  Very architectural, but pleasant.

1941 Studebaker Commander - car for sale photo
Yet another two-element grille.  Long before BMW grilles became famous.  Simple, something Raymond Loewy usually favored.

1941 Willys Americar - car for sale photo
Smaller than most '41 American cars.  Simple grille design with no central separation.

Plymouth's 1968 Big Facelift

Chrysler Corporation was doing comparatively well financially during the 1960s.  It had the funds to keep up with General Motors and Ford so far as new body and body facelift tempos are concerned.  Recall that this was still the era of the annual model appearance change (facelift), wherein sufficiently different appearance details were applied so that buyers could distinguish new from old looks in model years that were absent a complete redesign.

Today's post features Chrysler Corporation's Plymouth brand's mid-level Belvedere and Satellite models that shared the same basic body over model years 1966-1969, including a major facelift for 1968.  That facelift was drastic enough that casual viewers might easily think that '68 Plymouths were completely restyled.  Which is what Chrysler marketing management hoped would happen.

Shown below are 1966 and 1968 four-door sedans and hardtop coupes.  All images are of cars listed for sale.

Gallery

1966 Plymouth Belvedere Sedan
The basic shape is simple, with a straight-through fender line and matching side sculpting and ornamentation.  Pay attention to door cutlines.

1968 Plymouth Belvedere police cruiser
The fenderline subtly curves on the rear passenger door.  Sides are now ballooned out, so as to eliminate the sculpting seen above.  Door cutlines are the same aside from the forward edge of the driver's door.  However, it's likely that door hinging was unchanged, the cutline reflecting the new side curving.  Window framing and detailing are the same for both cars, though the passenger compartment greenhouse is slightly longer here, with a shallower after profile slope.

1966 Plymouth Satellite Hardtop Coupe
Not a very attractive photo, but I include it because it clearly shows relevant details.

1966 Plymouth Satellite Hardtop Coupe
Like the sedan, the body sheet metal has been pushed out, rounded.  The fenderline also undulates slightly.  The door cutline situation is the same as noted above.  The A-pillar and air vent pane are the same as for '66.  What's clearly different is the rest of the passenger compartment greenhouse.  This especially gives hardtop coupes a "redesign" appearance.

1980 Cadillac Seville Walkaround

A for-sale 1980 Cadillac Seville
According to Wikipedia (here), the Seville appeared in model years 1976-2004 in the form of five design generations.  This post deals with the second (1980-1985) generation.  I last wrote about it here.

The design is interesting in part because it is perhaps the last production design under the influence of General Motors Design Vice President Bill Mitchell, who retired in 1977. Given lead-times of three or four (or even more) years from concept to car dealer floor, it's likely much of the '80 Seville's appearance was in place when Mitchell departed GM, as production began in 1979.

According to Michael Lamm and David Holls in their classic book "A Century of Automotive Style" (page 186):

"Bill Mitchell's last noteworthy production car was the 1980 Cadillac Seville, the embodyment of what Mitchell referred to as the 'London Look.'  This car received mixed reviews at its launch and still [in 1996] provides a controversial cap to Mitchell's GM career.  Some feel that he, like [his predecessor Harley] Earl, was losing it towards the end; that instead of being overly fond of Rubenesque forms as Earl had been, Mitchell was overly fond of razor edges and the Scott Fitzgerald classics.  The 1980 Seville had all the Rolls-Royce elements: the long hood, classic standup grille, raked C-pillar and squared-off bustle."

I too had mixed feelings about the 1980 Seville design when it was new and the cars were not uncommon on the streets of Seattle and Olympia, Washington, where I hung out in the the early 1980s.  Some 45 years later on, I think it might be worthwhile to consider the design again.

Note that Sevilles were shorter and presumably sportier and possibly more maneuverable than standard-size Cadillacs.  For example, the 1980's wheelbase was 114.0 inches (2,896 mm), compared to Cadillac DeVille's 121.5 inches (3086 mm).

Images below are of a car listed for sale.

Gallery

If forced to characterize the Seville's design in one word, that word would be "crisp."

The car looks best in profile.  Big, rounded wheel openings are offset by the sharp window framing.  The basic profile is not statically rectangular, instead curving slightly to the front while stepping downwards towards the rear.  The two-tone paint divider shows this clearly (aside from the trunk step).  The beltline subtly begins to fall off abaft of the B-pillar, something like 1930s cars such as the 1935 SS (Jaguar) Airline Coupe. 

The Seville's rear end was the controversial aspect of the design.

The raised trunk lid  is mostly a single, simple form with only the Cadillac crest and the word "Seville" as decoration.

Tail light assemblies, reflectors, the bumper, they all have rectangular character.  Note the subtle centerline crease on the trunk lid.  A far cry from today's overly-decorated styling fashion.

Here is where the design fails.  The roofline razor edge, the paint divider , and the trunk razor edge all essentially converge to a point.  Nothing basically wrong with that, as it's a logical consequence of the contributing elements. What went wrong, I think, is that the rear facet of the passenger compartment's razor edge sculpting, though narrow, is still wide enough to visually shrink the width of the trunk.  This is hard to explain from these images alone, but in reality, the Seville's rear end appears too narrow, too cramped when viewed on streets, roads and parking lots.  Not quite right.  Worse, I'm not sure this problem was fixable.  For example, one aesthetic solution would have been to narrow the trunk while making the facet noted above wider.  But that would have reduced the trunk's capacity, something that could have negatively affected sales.

Seen from this angle, the problems mentioned in the previous caption begin to fade away.

An unusual 1980 feature is how the windshield framing is blended into hood and fenderline.  The near-absence of a chrome window frame enhances this.  A subtle hint of the 1930s. 

The front end is architectural, very rectangular.  Nothing intrinsically wrong.

Interestingly, consistently, dashboard instrumentation and other features are also rectangular.