(first posted 4/4/2016) After nearly 60 years with no definitive aesthetic consensus on GM’s ’59 models, it might be time to accept them at face value. They were wild but derivative, somewhat tasteless but awe-inspiring, products of their time but timeless (especially the Cadillac). About as soon as they arrived, public tastes shifted from Chrysler’s “Forward Look” heights to the European elegance of the ’61 Continental. It’s tough to judge the ’59s fairly, but it doesn’t hurt to take a cataloging binary stroll.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Buick, with its delta wing shaped fins, was the cornerstone of the 1959 GM lineup. According to Lamm and Holls’ A Century of Automotive Style, the front doors of all ’59s were based on the Buick’s, perhaps due to some latent Harlow Curtice Buick-loving influence. Even when he was the president of General Motors, he drove Buicks (his 1957 Super is sometimes on display at the Buick Gallery at the Sloan Museum in Flint). Of course, Buick’s sales suffered miserably starting in 1957, when one could argue that Harley Earl lost his muse to some extent.
The 1959 models, however, weren’t really representative of Harley Earl’s design ideology, as his underlings ran point on their genesis. And although it represented a new direction for the corporation, it may be a suspension of disbelief to call this Electra four-door hardtop “clean,” with its tilted quad headlamps, ample chrome, and fascinating wraparound rear window. Heck, it even has fins in the front. It is, however, easy to see where Harley Earl’s mutinous rogues admittedly got their influence.
Long, low, and finned, the ’57 Chrysler products like this DeSoto were freely cribbed for GM’s more angular ’59s. Virgil Exner was very proud of swooping in to steal the styling crown from GM, even if it was only for a couple of years. Everyone’s heard the story of how Chrysler just “happened” to leave their yet to be introduced ’57 models in a fenced in parking lot on Mound Road, in plain sight of anybody. Well, anybody happened to include most of GM’s design team over the course of the day. Harley Earl was overseas at the time, and the troops rebelled against the swell, starting with a clean sheet of paper, and basically aping the Forward Look in a GM kind of way.
Exner, of course, was not the Warren Tech Center’s only inspiration. Harley Earl, like many stylists, freely stole cues from airplanes, lifting the ’48 Cadillac’s fins from the fantastic P-38 Lightning. As 1959 was in the midst of the “jet age,” however, the fins on this LeSabre two-door sedan were based on modern jets.
This Convair F-106 “Delta Dart” tells you all you need to know about Buick’s inspiration for its fins: many high speed supersonic aircraft used the delta wing for aeronautic reasons that are clearer to aerodynamicists than they are to me. Lockheed’s ludicrously awesome “Blackbird” used them, so they obviously worked well at ludicrously high speeds.
The Buick’s delta wings harmonized with a parallel piece of stainless trim that climbed (like an airplane?) onto the front fenders, where it flared out to create another fin. The look is dramatic, even on this uncommon station wagon. The Buick was obviously aircraft (and Exner) inspired, yet somehow less garish than the ’58 models, which are perhaps even more polarizing than the ’59s.
It certainly doesn’t take a stylist to see that the ’58 was centered in the early 1950s rotundity that Exner’s Chryslers had made passe. The ’58 was all chrome and curves where the ’59 looked like it was ready to take some reconnaissance photographs. To put it mildly, there are very few on the fence regarding either model.
Instead of looking to the future, the ’58 looked to the past for inspiration, having more in common with my ’53 Special than it did the ’59 models. And as much as I love my ’53 (and words cannot express it), it certainly wouldn’t have sold well as a 1959 model. As Buick’s fortunes waned and Ford crowded Chevy’s now classic ’57 models on the sales charts, Earl seemed to retrogress to an earlier, more successful time, but most argued that the ’58 models weren’t the answer. Similarly, many would argue that the ’59 swung the pendulum in the other direction too far, too quickly.
General Motors’ styling revolution was obviously not a Buick-only event. In fact, at the bottom of Alfred Sloan’s hierarchy was my favorite ’59 by far, the basic two-door Biscayne, whose batwing tailfins and cats’ eye taillamps are often blamed for a too-close sales race with 1959’s conservative Fords. Just as the clean ’57 Ford sold with uncharacteristic zeal compared to a third-year restyle on the Tri-Five Chevy, the ’59 was a seemingly sane alternative to a Chevy that made earlier models look pretty tame.
In fact, the Ford was so restrained that it maintained just a whisper of a tailfin, a decision that Ford would reverse for the more Chevy-like 1960 models, models that were a decided failure in the marketplace. The financial fallout from the ’60 Fords resulted in a return to form with the conservative ’61 models. Of course, by this time, Chevy had also dialed back the crazy. This Country Squire is probably the prototypical American station wagon; it’s certainly a cleaner design, if not quite as exciting as the Chevy.
As much as I’d like a ’59 Country Squire, Ford’s basic Customs don’t excite me like Biscaynes do. Fins notwithstanding, I find this to be the cleanest of the ’59 GM offerings, with a roof that seems more proportioned to the body than a similar hardtop Impala’s. This car, with blackwall tires and a 348, might be one of my favorite cars of the 1950s; I once had a dream that I owned one, and that usually does not bode well for my wallet.
Just up the ladder from the Chevrolet, but with a look all its own, was the full-size Pontiac line, topped by this Bonneville hardtop. Compared to the first Biscayne picture above, the wide-track stance of the Bonneville is obvious, and one could say this car sparked Pontiac’s 1960s popularity. Its split grille and ironing board hood motif became styling staples for decades, much like the earlier “Silver Streaks” had been. I wrote up a Catalina in some detail here.
Its significance transcends GM’s styling upheaval, as it wrought the “Wide Track” advertising campaign that Pontiac used for, well, ever.
None of these GM divisions or their competitors, however, created an all-time icon: only Cadillac did. Its towering fins have been subjects of songs, essays, postage stamps, and cheesy coffee table picture books. They’re the cliched symbol of American excess, for good or for bad.
Garish? Definitely, but there may not have ever been a limousine that looked badder (in a good way) pulling up to a movie premiere, the United Nations, or a wedding than the ’59 Cadillac Series 75. It’s almost shocking in its over-the-topness. Few images distill the hubris of Cold War America like a ’59 Cadillac. In a wild orgy of design oneupmanship, the Cadillac almost assured that 1959 was an end of an era. In one year, GM had caught and surpassed Exner, and then seemed to wonder why they tried. It’s like getting what you wanted and then realizing that it wasn’t what you wanted at all.
Two years later, the teutonic, Scandinavianally clean ’61 Continental would set the mark for American classiness. It had no fins, little chrome, and it oozed modernity. It was perhaps the first car that screamed, no, elegantly uttered, “I’m from the 1960s.” But that was all two years from 1959.
In 1960, all GMs were just a bit more restrained, and never again would GM create something quite as outlandish as the ’59 Cadillac, and never again would their entire lineup take such a stylistic chance. Instead, the engineering department took its turn playing fast and loose with the rules through such mediums as the Corvair, the rope-drive Tempest, and the aluminum V8, and that got them nowhere insofar as sales or lasting engineering building blocks were concerned. In fact, the ’59 designs and the rampant technical innovation that immediately followed could be seen as GM’s last great achievements, the end of an era of risk-taking. And while the 1959s were not quite the sales coup that GM may have hoped for, we’re still talking about them and taking pictures of them today, and that’s something.
Author’s note: You may have noticed that there are no Oldsmobiles in this retrospective. They’re hiding somewhere in my picture database, I’m sure, but they are not easily found. Feel free to add your own.
After 4 or 5 decades of people mostly ignoring cars rear ends, somehow Exner made them the most distinctive feature for a few years. Thinking about that, 1958 may have been the single worst year to introduce a car with as distinctive a front as the Edsel?
Personally I think GM did a pretty good job with all the ’59 rears. Olds may be the least attractive. On the other hand I only really like the Chevy & Cadillac fronts. Olds & Buick are just kind of awkward. The Pontiac seems like a very good design, but just doesn’t grab me.
98 Convertible at the 2014 Olds Homecoming Show.
For me the Olds looks cluttered at the front end – something they were guilty of for many years. The Pontiac looks good from the front, but your rear end pic below shows how ‘heavy’ that rear treatment appears.
Ironic that the Edsel taillights are aped so often on modern cars.
Everything that’s old is new again!
Exner certainly exploited the rump of the car as a an identification point, But the 1948 Cadillac that kicked off the whole tail fin fad that had people talking about rear ends before Exner or the Kardashians. Just saying.
Super 88 Convertible seen at the 2014 Olds Homecoming Show.
Oldsmobile, the Dr. Zoidberg of GM cars.
The 59 Buick for me out of the GM offerings. I like the symmetricality of the front and rear ‘fins’ as well as the side treatment, but I don’t think it works with the flying-wing roof, nor the (I can’t believe I’m writing this) wagon. But if I had to choose any from this cavalcade of photos, it would be the 53. Nice musings Aaron.
I’m of a mind that the ’59 Buick is the most thematically consistent of the bunch. It may not be to taste, but it’s all of a piece. By comparison, I think the Chevrolet looks all over the place and as you say, the Oldsmobile seems fussy. (Though interestingly the Olds lends itself better to two-toning than does the Buick.)
I’ve never been a fan of fins. Ever.
The cleaner 57 Mopars just barely make it into my good graces. What I like about the Buick is the 45 degree cant (in section) of the fins both front and rear. It works given the three-dimensionality of a car’s body. And, as per your description below;
‘The slashing body side treatment makes the car look low and racy, particularly with the trimmer “bubble-top” hardtop roof.’
Nailed it.
Actually, I must qualify my statement. I like fins, but only with a trailing edge profile as per the Cadillac Starlight, Lancia Florida/Flaminia and Peugeot 404 wagon.
I like that! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before!
‘I like fins, but only with a trailing edge profile…”
How do you feel about the Saab 95?
(Repeating myself from another comment): That’s because the Buick is the only one designed as a cohesive whole car. It “won” the internal competition for the definitive ’59s. Everyone else had to use its body and try to make it look distinctive for their division. Some of them succeeded better than others.
The Buick clays are all with the sloping rear roof, and that’s the roof that looks organic to its design. The flying wing was obviously adopted from Chevrolet’s studio, I assume as Carl Renner designed it, and I assume he was at Chevy at the time.
And one more Pontiac in downtown Lansing MI, July 2004
I’m a big fan of the 1960 Cadillac because it illustrates that the ’59 is really a pretty nice shape that gets lost in its trim. (The fake air intake scoops on some models are particularly OTT.) The 1960 revamp dials back the add-ons from 11 to maybe 9.5 and comes across rather well. It’s not as clean as the 1963–64 cars, and one could still say the complicated front and rear grille textures are overdone, but it’s less cartoonish.
The Pontiac has aged the best, if only because it laid out the basic themes Pontiac would use for most of the next decade. It’s not my favorite because I think the divisional themes looked better on the trimmer early ’60s Pontiacs — in comparison, stuff like the dogleg windshield pillars looks out of place.
I’m quite fond of the ’59 Buick, although I can see why it wouldn’t go over well with Buick’s traditional clientele. A two-door hardtop in black looks like the Batmobile, which is great if you like that sort of thing (I do!), but was at odds with the “respectable banker’s car” brand image. The slashing body side treatment makes the car look low and racy, particularly with the trimmer “bubble-top” hardtop roof, but I don’t think two- or three-tone paint does it any great favors.
I like the ’59s because they are so garish and over-the-top. But I like the ’60s even better for their superior design cohesion and flow. Make mine a ’60 Buick or Cadillac, two-door or regular roof sedan. I really dislike the look of the low-roof sedans with the wrap-around rear window on the full-size offerings but for some reason it works for me on the little Corvairs.
I think you could easily argue that all of the ’60 models were an improvement over the ’59s. Maybe one of the few 2nd year facelifts where that is the case.
The one problem I have with the ’60 Cadillac is the parking lights. The four round ones in pods on the ’59 match the headlights so nicely.
I also like the bullet taillights on the ’59, but won’t argue that they aren’t a bit ridiculous. ( I also like the ones on the ’62 Imperial, so obviously my tastes are bit dubious. 😉 )
The taillights on the ’59 Cadillac are fun, but they make the fins sort of like an independent piece of sculpture — you can see them alone (or in a closeup photo) and enjoy them like that, but when you consider them simply as an element of the rear treatment of the whole car, it’s hard not to say, “Okay, maybe that’s a little over the top.”
Or maybe a lot over the top. 🙂
Now I’m wondering what it would look like if you kept the taillight pods as is, but eliminated all the fin above them.
Speaking of over the top. Here are Leo Pruneau’s recollections of Earl’s original 59 caddy fin treatment in a letter to Collectible Automobile.
This was a serious proposal for the Eldorado Brougham, by the way. There was an article on this in Special Interest Autos in the late ’70s, although I don’t remember without digging it out if it had pictures of the clay.
My personal view is that I love the confidence and braggadocio these cars express. I do think the whole sleek-as-a-delta-winged-jet look would have been somewhat improved if GM had ditched the wraparound windshields and dogleg doors. Look at any of the cars above in profile, hold on to all the fins and candy, and just give them a clean, modern A-pillar – I think it would have worked wonders for Biscayne, Buick or Caddy, giving them more apparently (if not actually) aerodynamic lines. The wraparound messes up the relationship between front and back, like a big punctuation mark.
The easiest way to envision what you’re suggesting is to look up the 1959–1960 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, which has simpler fins and a tidier six-light hardtop roof with no wraparound windshield, more like the 1961–62 cars.
You’re right, that does look better. Not ideal (the windshield carries on too far into the roofline and the quarterlights are too small), but I can see a more handsome – albeit essentially googie – car coming through,
Pic from coloradoguy.com – worth a look.
The ‘6 window’ style that GM retained for its four-door sedans right to the end of the 1950’s (in contrast to the ‘4 window’ Fords) also looked awkward and old-fashioned in my opinion.
Incidentally, as I understand them, the chief advantages of the tailless true delta wing were reduced drag with greater strength than swept wings. It also provided lots of internal volume that could be used for fuel tankage, an important consideration given the extreme thirst of early supersonic aircraft with afterburning turbojets. The large wing area also kept wing loading relatively low, which in general is good for maneuverability, though not for low-altitude ride. The big drawback is that you end up with inconveniently long takeoff and landing distances, which is one reason the “pure” delta eventually fell out of favor.
Alexander Lippisch invented the modern delta, influencing the Me-163 Komet. Dassault used deltas for several generations of their Mirage series, & both operational SSTs were deltas.
Bel Air, 40k miles, I put on 12k of that over 16 years. Original paint, upholstery, headliner… everything. The only really crappy bit is the shriveled-up vinyl dash pad but honestly, how many of them were padded in the first place? I’ve only ever seen painted metal dashes, even on the Impalas. 283 PG PS dual Turbo muffs and wide white radials on 15″ Pontiac wheels with original dog dishes. What a cruiser and as is always the case, the 283 sounds sweet and just begs to rev. Love that wiiide springy bench seat with the houndstooth/copper vinyl upholstery. Headroom, hiproom, legroom… everything-room galore, although the long of leg may smash their knee on that jutting lower corner of that enormous wrap-around windshield… once or twice. Smartly driven it gives 20 mpg- curiously only 2 mpg less than the ’74 Nova 283 TH350 dual exhaust I also just commented on in yesterday’s CC.
Check out the ’59 taillights vs Viper headlights…
Every car dad ordered during the dealership days had the optional padded dash if it was available, to the point that a standard metal dash looks odd to me nowadays. Dad was very protective of his young son and daughter.
Ha- with that whole 3/16″ thick foam pad and all those REALLY HARD chrome knobs sticking out!
I haven’t been able to find any reproductions.
Fine set of pictures!
There’s no reason to doubt the “Mitchell revolution” story, but in fact GM’s 59s didn’t take anything from Chrysler. If there was any source at all for the new designs, it had to be the ’57 Mercury. Low headlights, horizontal grille, canted fins, lots of sculpture on the side. The ’59 cantilevered roof looks a lot like the Turnpike Cruiser; nothing from Chrysler was similar.
It’s not that the ’59 GM cars were imitative of Chrysler in a specific stylistic sense, but that seeing the new Chryslers made GM stylists realize that their upcoming designs were going to look really stodgy, triggering a wave of frantic effort to “be innovative.”
Late 50’s GM cars – my all time favorites. Especially Oldsmobiles. Lets not forget the fantastic interiors. Again, especially Oldsmobiles. Love that long thin smooth chrome shift lever angling down to the small PNDSLR display. Here’s a 1957. The 1959 is even better.
Here’s a 1959 Oldsmobile interior.
Some of those old interiors and dashboards were just amazing looking.
Here’s a Bonneville for your consideration, 1959
A red 59 Buick Electra first interested me in American cars in the early 60s. The 59 Pontiac is a nicer looker though, the Buick’s got the angriest face of any car closely followed by the 59 Dodge.
The 59 GM cars were a huge step up from the ostentatious 58s.
I love the ’59 Buick. It was obviously the entire jumping off point for the GM line for that year, because it was the only design that was completely cohesive front to rear. Pontiac came in second with a design that was about as well thought out. Chevrolet third. While the front and rear designers weren’t necessarily talking to each other, they were at least thinking in the same ballpark. Oldsmobile was probably the poorest design of the bunch, a mish-mash of various period design clichés, and it was pretty obvious that nobody realized what they really wanted in the final product.
Like the ’57 Chevy, I do NOT get the fascination of for the ’59 Cadillac. It’s overblown, ugly, and pathetic. It is truly the car of the “Ugly American”. Back at this time, there was of novel of the same name which turned into a pop culture description of all those well-off arrogant Americans who’d go to Europe on vacation and spend the time reminding the natives how poor they were in comparison to us, and making them realize that the only reason they were even alive is that we alone beat the Nazi’s and gave them the Marshall Plan.
This Cadillac was the “Ugly Americans” car. Look at me, I’m rich, I’m power, and f*ck you. And very quietly, in very small numbers, a coterie of educated, tasteful, trendy and left-leaning citizens were discovering Mercedes-Benz and (to a lesser extent) Jaguar sedans. And preferring them to the loud, obnoxious and ungainly Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial mainstream.
The ’59 Cadillac was the beginning of the death of Cadillac. But the momentum was so great that it took 15-20 years for that terminal condition to become apparent.
For me,. the 59 Biscayne, 59 Fleetwood 75 and 61 Continental look like great cars, and the last 2 would most certainly be welcome in the garage.
One question I have is about the leadtimes for these model year changes – you refer to the failure of the 190 Ford leading to a conservative design in 1961, but were Ford able to react that quickly? If not, how did they come up with a strategy that went conservative-flambouyant-conservative in successive model years, without expecting to confuse the market?
That’s a good question. For the ’60 model, I wonder if Ford was actually reacting to Chrysler as well, rather than to GM. That would make some sense, and would give some more lead time.
As far as shifting back to a conservative ’61, I wonder if the Forward Look’s sell-by date (maybe the ’59 model?) affected that decision.
I thought that the 59 Buick wagon was “it”, but then I saw that Ford Country Squire.
Of the GM cars pictured here, it’s a toss-up between the 59 Pontiac and 59 Chevy Bel Air (or Biscayne?) 2 doors. ALL the 1959 GMs are over decorated except for the cheapest Chevys….a carryover from the WAAAY over decorated 1958s.
If there is anything “wrong” with the 1959 Ford it’s that it looks smaller than all it’s competition. It looks like Ford purposely downsized the 59 to make the Mercury look like it was worth the price premium.
Re: trim: I always thought the side spears on the ’59 Bel Air were far nicer than those of the Impala. Evidently GM thought more- or bigger- is always better. The Bel Air spears bring some badly needed front-to-back continuity to the design that the Biscayne trim lacks.
P.S. Re: Overdecoration: That is true; there are dozens of trim pieces that will gladly snag and shred car washing sponges, mitts, and rags, or even cut you if you’re not careful. And there are all those fiddly little dirt traps everywhere, making these cars a detailing nightmare vs newer cars. But that is the price to pay to be escorted by two chrome fighter jets everywhere you go.
My 1957 Olds 88 had these rockets on the front fenders right over the headlights. I believe all 57’s had them.
The car was industry has ratings- a washability index- that grade how easy a car is to wash. The ’59s likely are at the bottom.
That kinda looks like a German “X Plane”-experimental aircraft that were designed during WWll that never saw the light of day in many cases.
Of all the GM ’59 models, my favorite is easily the El Camino. It was a giant FU to the run-of-the-mill pickup truck of the day. Using the roof and back glass of the sedan, with the tiny overhang, was so far over the top that it was brilliant.
A nice analysis. I am in agreement with the concensus that the Buick is the most cohesive of the 1959 GM designs, with the Pontiac and Chevy bringing up the next two spots. When I was a kid, there was an elderly couple down the street that had a low-trim 59 LeSabre sedan that was solid black. There was a presence to that car that few could match.
I also agree with Syke that the 59 Cadillac deserves a special place in Car-Hell – I find almost nothing appealing about it. Where the Buick is crisp and light (no small feat for a Harley Earl design) the Cadillac has a heavy, slightly melted quality about it. Not only is the trim horribly overdone, the basic shape of the car has a cartoonish essence that is almost a caricature of a 50s car. I vote to paint them all pink and send them overseas.
The Olds is a mixed bag. Neighbors had one of these that I rode in periodically, and at the time I considered it cool as could be. Looking at it afresh does the car few favors though. More than the others, body style, color and trim choices make or break the Olds.
+1, I always liked the Chevy as a kid, now I appreciate the Buick more..
Same. There’s an essential ‘rightness’ about the Buick.
That’s because the Buick is the only one designed as a cohesive whole car. It “won” the internal competition for the definitive ’59s. Everyone else had to use its body and try to make it look distinctive for their division. Some of them succeeded better than others.
I think that tail fins are not good styling for a classic look on luxury cars (or for that matter any car). Cadillac’s styling started to go off with the 1956 Eldorado’s, and then got increasing outrageous. The 1959 Eldorado Broughams were a turning point. GM’s styling is much better by the mid 60’s.
Special Interest Autos had an article on the 1959’s, with development photos. This one here, is interesting in that it really seems to be halfway between the 58 & actual 59 Buicks.
(photo on the top)
Thanks for that useful post. Someone wondered earlier about lead times; looks like exterior designs were nearly finalized at the 2- 2 1/2 year mark before production.
There was a discussion a while back about “flat cars” and to me the ’57 Mopars had the prototypical flat-car proportions; long, low and wide *just* to the point of compromised functionality they set the template of “full size” that, apart from a slight further gain in the early ’70s, held until the Panthers’ run ended in 2011.
It would take another couple years before the squared-off edges that really emphasized hood and deck size were set, as Bill Mitchell became fully in charge of GM design and the ’61 Lincoln look trickled down the Fomoco line, but GM’s me-too copying of the Forward Look for ’59 set the Flat Car mold.
Buick’s sales drop off more because they gave up quality control to exceed production capacity in the mid 50’s than for any other reason.
As far as the fin go, GM’s 59 models are really all over the top. Either you like the fins, which are useless except as a styling feature, or you don’t. I like the Cadillac’s overall look better than Buick’s, but I see the point about the Buick’s front and rear style. The Eldorado convertible is probably the best Cadillac for 1959.
According to Lamm and Holls’ A Century of Automotive Style, the front doors of all ’59s were based on the Buick’s, perhaps due to some latent Harlow Curtice Buick-loving influence.
It wasn’t just the front doors. The whole ’59 Buick body was adopted as the basis for the all of the ’59s. The other divisions had to take the Buick body and adapt it for their designs. The issue with the front door is kind of silly, and I’m not sure why that’s been repeated so many times, because its use among the other divisions is really no different than the rest of the bodies: they all used the same basic inner structure, but were allowed to have a different external “skin”. The rear doors of all of them are just as similar as the front doors. And they all use the same windshield, as well as other glass.
In the competition to design the definitive ’59s, the Buick’s ’59 design was simply the first one to be adopted/accepted as the way to go. So everyone else used its body and dressed it up for their division, for better or for worse. The Olds is clearly the least organic of the bunch, although its front end is the most predictive of the future design of GM front ends (including the Corvair’s), despite being a bit too busy.
We’ve covered this issue of the ’59s a few times before here, including the ’59 Buicks with dorsal third fins. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cohort-outtake-1959-buick-just-missing-the-third-central-fin/
I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of the late 50s cars, not unless they appeal to my sensibilities. To me, 1959 was the worst year of cars in terms of design, they were overblown and overrated, a veritable toxic cocktail of mishmash design themes and clashing design choices that make them incredibly garish. Now, normally I wouldn’t mind it so much, in fact I can be a fan of that sort of thing, but what really gets under my skin is that I keep hearing that these cars are “Beautiful” in an un-ironic manner. Likely from the owners or the older crowd, who wear rose tinted nostalgia blinders that have fitted on so tightly that they’re affecting their eyesight. I’m sorry, I just don’t see that, I get that taste in cars and car design is subjective, but I honestly struggle to deal with anyone who would call a 59 Cadillac, Buick, or Lincoln, and tell me that’s one of the most beautiful cars of all time. Admittedly, usually my distaste for something comes down to overhype in some cases than any flaws of the work itself, but hype is nevertheless an important factor, especially the backlash one tends to get if they don’t agree with the peanut gallery and the fanboys. To me, every car that was released in 1959 was either done better in the previous year (Imperial, Pontiac, Plymouth, Chevrolet to some extent) or done the year after when the designers scaled back the goofiness and let the basic shape come through without getting bogged down by details (Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile)
By your reply, I’m guessing that you’re well younger than my just-about-66 years. Back then (mid-50’s when all this was being set up), wilder WAS better. The Jet Age was upon us, cars were merely aircraft chained to the ground, and we were waiting for the inevitable atomic powered car with the reactor in the glovebox ensuring that we’d never have to pump gas again.
It was a time in America where there was nothing we couldn’t do, bigger, longer, wider, lower was the only acceptable trend in automobiles, and America was the greatest. There was nobody who could keep up with us, so why should they even bother trying. (Non-political aside: If you wonder where Donald Trump is getting his campaign speeches, they’re pure 1950’s f*ck yeah, America!)
And suddenly it wasn’t so perfect. October ’57 and those technologically stone age Commies suddenly put up the first Earth satellite. November ’57, our version blows up on the launch pad. Then the Eisenhower Recession hits in ’58. Then there’s this matter of a Missile Gap . . . . . Of course, we’re still the greatest nation on Earth, but it’s suddenly driven home that #2 is on our heels and breathing hot.
And the national mood beings to change. The rampant positiveness of more, more, more, of course we can do anything yesterday, starts to get more rational. And our tastes in cars are among the first things to change Ramblers, those little conservative, unnoticeable cars driven by cheap bastards who are probably Commies are the #3 sellers. Which means either than national mood is changing or the Commies have won. “You Auto Buy Now” is a national, cross-marque (yes, cross-marque, an in every dealer had the signs up along side their brand specific ones) advertising campaign, something I don’t think had ever been done previously.
And all those ’59 cars, finalized in metal back in the fall of ’57 (a few days before Sputnik) are on the market. To a national clientele who isn’t really sure that they look all that good anymore. And the sales showed it, both on the cars own merits and the national recession. The ’60’s, which would have been finalized in the early fall of ’58 (once the recession is already going) are an obviously step backwards.
And any other qualms regarding their designs definitely showed up around ’62 in their trade-in value. I remember dad having a much easier time moving used ’58’s than ’59’s back in 1962 (at this point, I’m twelve and interested and intelligent enough to be asking lots of questions when he came home at night).
But those ’59 designs were definitely the rational way to go in 1955-57. If anything, what finally made the metal were the CONSERVATIVE evolutions of what the designers really wanted to do back then.
Well said. We’re the same age. At the time the 59s seemed so low, wide, long, and cool – modern, as noted here.
My cousin, a telephone operator at the time, single in her early 20’s, became a bottle blonde, traded in her stodgy 56 Chevrolet sedan for a new 59 Olds convertible, white with red interior, with the jet age steering wheel and dash, the ribbon speedo – so much sleeker than the previous year’s model. I loved riding in that car and it gave her a lot of confidence and pride. I’m sure memories of this Olds biases me toward the 59 model today – I still like it.
The neighbors got a new 59 Pontiac sedan in metallic grey. They were enormously proud of the car and that split grille still looks beautiful to me to this day.
Put these cars in carports in mid-century modern ranch houses and they look exactly right. No question they quickly became dated but we forget that much of mid-century modern design was considered passe by many until it became the rage in recent years.
I was just a tyke when these appeared, and I didn’t know if they looked “good” or “bad”–they just seemed *modern*, like The Latest Thing. In hindsight, they were taking the fins/chrome thing about as far as a production car would go, I suppose.
Apropos of nothing: a 1959 TV-trade-mag ad, where the Chevy looks right at home:
“I was just a tyke when these appeared, and I didn’t know if they looked “good” or “bad”–they just seemed *modern*, like The Latest Thing.”
Bingo! You hit it exactly! Modern usurped taste.
And a great GM promo film about designing and manufacturing the 1959’s (was about to write “full-size 1959’s,” and remembered that this is the last year before Corsair, Chevy II, etc. appeared) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACWMbeXd31s
A group of my friends went to the Year 12 Formal (Prom) in a ’59 Chevy. There’s a couple not far from where I live that own 3 or 4 brightly coloured ’59 Chevy sedans and rent them out for special occasions. Pretty cool.
Thus, the ’59 Chevy is the only GM car of this year I’ve seen in the metal.
The Cadillac is far, far too much for me. Cool but not my taste.
The Chevy is menacing and cool although it’s not an entirely cohesive design (as Paul explained).
The Oldsmobile… well, it’s nice but it’s the least exciting.
The Pontiac is stunning.
But the most amazing design out of all the ’59 models is the Buick. Wow! What a looker! So utterly distinctive, menacing and elegant. Easily one of my favourite designs of the decade. But unlike most ’50s cars, these look better in a dark colour. A dark green, or a black… Not the usual pastel shades that generally suit ’50s cars.
’59 Chevy ad I posted a while back–one of everything:
Lots a cool colors!! Sigh. Now we can choose from five if we’re fortunate.
When I was a kid we lived near Acland St. in St. Kilda, and I remember seeing these late fifties American cars driven by some of the rich Europeans. Being Australia, the only new GM cars I commonly saw were Chevrolets and less often Pontiacs; anything else was a private order. The ’59 Chevy really stuck in my memory in those days, mainly for those incredible batwings and taillights, and the cute amber indicators suspended from the bottom of the wings! By contrast, the ’58 Chevy seemed boring, and the much-vaunted ’57 was unnoticeable.
I’ve never seen a ’59 with those indicators before. Are they the result of a government regulation, or just an owner-applied addition to serve… what purpose?
Australia, like Europe then and now, required the rear turn signals (indicators) to be amber, not red as in the U.S. The easiest way to accomplish this was to add on separate lamp housings.
Of GM’s ’59s, the Chevy, Buick and Cadillac are appealing. I’ve always found the Olds and Pontiac a bit awkward, but today I wouldn’t kick a nice version of any ’59 GM out of my garage.
The ’59 Pontiac seems positively restrained and clean compared with the other GM makes that year. Great!
The front ends looked much better than those heavy and bloated looking awful rear ends..
1960 rear ends looked much better.. too bad they couldn’t match that to the 1959 split grille.
http://momentcar.com/images/pontiac-bonneville-1960-8.jpg
The ’59’s were the cars that made people in America realize that the fin/jet/rocket look was completely over the top to the point of ridiculous.
They quickly became dated and the butt of many jokes. A prime example of if some is good, than a lot more has to be better. When they became recent used car models, their resale value was very low, people did not want to be seen in these quickly dated designs.
Interesting how fins started with Cadillac in ’49 and ended with Cadillac in ’64.
That said, the ’59 Buick in black really has a cool, angry look, often copied in cartoons and comic books of the period.
Great article and comments as well, as usual in CC.
I heard that in 55 they built Buicks too fast sounds like 57 Plymouth eh so by 59,they had a
bad reputation that,and the 59 Buick was so outlandish they took a bad ride down the
bottom I wonder if gm thought about cutting buick loose?
Agreed with most folks on here that the Buick represents the most cohesive and striking take of all the 59’s coming out of GM that year. That being said, I really think the “flying wing” Hardtop Sedans/Sport Sedans look their best as Chevrolets this year, especially from the side profile. The strong horizontal elements of the Chevy “bat wing” and long, simple trim really flow with the flat top. I’ve pulled a photo from Laurence Jones’ 2011 write up on the 1959 Chevrolet to emphasize my point:
That’s because the “flying wing” roof was designed by Chevy stylist Carl Renner. It was organic to the Chevy’s design, but adopted by the others.
Might as well drop one more 1959 leftover:
I remember the all new but clearly old school 1958 GM products. Even as a kid, I thought they were all new and all outdated. Rounded shapes, thick roofs, all kinds of various decorative bits all over the place. I remember looking at the baroquely bedecked Buicks in particular and thinking that GM must have realized how dated the thick tall bulgy cars were compared to Chrysler and Ford offerings, and added every chrome anything they could think of to distract buyers. The pictured ’58 Roadmonster has got to be the epitome of GM jukebox styling ever. I doubt any car has ever had as much chrome before or since.
An odd thing about them is that the smaller body ’58 Chevys and Pontiacs were on completely new frames that permitted rear seat floor wells, but the larger cars were on versions of the old straight frames and I assume suspensions. The ’58 Chevys and Pontiacs were the first with coil rear suspensions. The ’58 Chevy and Pontiac basic frame and suspension engineering was carried over into the lower, wider, all new again ’59’s. The bigger cars caught up with new frames and suspensions.
And nice shot of the ’57 DeSoto (although the red reflector filled exhausts in the bumper are wrong). The ’57 Chrysler products, particularly the Desoto-Chrysler versions (mostly the same body), had a Bauhaus simplicity and formal tension that was unlike what GM did two years later. Look at those simple flat angled fins opposed to the also simple rear deck shape punctuated by the inset license plate with no chrome handle. The flat rectangular door handles play along with everything else as well. And how the thin bumper curves up at each end with the exhaust pipes cutting across and then visually continues up behind the small round tail lights punctuating the shape. Genius. Made the DeSoto the coolest version.
Engineeringwise, the ’57 Chrysler products, despite the torsion bar front suspension, which did not use A-arms like everyone else but links like later cars, plus long asymmetric rear leaf springs, were on an adaptation of the old straight frames because Chrysler couldn’t afford all new ones. They should have found the money. It left the much lower cars with a flat rear floor and inadequate rear leg room, an obvious shortcoming at the time. The Imperial had a straight through frame as well, but cheated by flattening it under the rear seat floor, enabling it to have floor wells. (I looked under one once to see how they did it.)
Like others here I think the ’59 Buicks were the best of the GM bunch, as I did back then as well.
The interesting thing about the ’58 GMs was that only the Chevy and Pontiac were all-new; the Buick, Olds, and Cadillac were carried over from ’57 with heavy restyling. For Buick and Olds in particular, their bodies were stretched, and the Buick lost the fully exposed rear wheels that had been a distinctive feature since 1954 (initially on the 2-doors and convertibles).
“… never again would their {GM} entire {full size} lineup take such a stylistic chance.”
1977 GM full size line says “hold my beer”, 😉
Was a huge risk to make ‘smaller’ big cars, after gas prices subsided in 1976, to. So much so that Ford stood by and waited to see if they would flop, before bringing out Panther platform for ’79.
And these cars looks lasted to 1990.
You missed his point. He said “stylistic chance”. The 1977 downsized GM cars were not stylistically chancy at all; in fact they aped the 1976 Cadillac Seville, and were rather conservative.
“Size” and “stylistic” are two quite different things.
Frankly, it wasn’t much of a risk; GM had seen the writing on the wall that cars had gotten too big. And no, these downsized cars were not a response to the energy crisis; GM had committed to them before that even started in late ’73.
76 Seville; “rather conservative”? It exuded “no style”. Remember them in a distinctive shade of blue though. Was not one I remember on other GM’s at that time.
I always known the 1959 Buick was a dream car. I known this all my life. I witnessed it.
Imagine being only 24 years old in 1959 and seeing this Buick. You have two kids and a wife, worked at Great Lakes Screw long enough to qualify with your mother’s signature, for a loan to buy a two door LeSabre that you then had custom painted exactly like the car at the top of this post. Same blue. Same white. Same design.
That was my dad. That car was his muse. His star. His pride and joy. There are easily 100 color slides taken of his car that now lies sprawled about in old cardboard boxes. All my life I was told how he polished each beveled rectangle on that car’s grille. I remember seeing my skinny father polishing every inch of that car. I knew that car was magic.
But the reality was that with a growing family, my dad was in over his head financially. Before he could make the last car payments, he had added two more kids to his blue collar hourly wage. His dream car needed maintenance. His family needed a house. Although he did everything he could, his 1959 dream machine was repossessed. It took twenty years and my older brother’s whisper to discover why the Buick disappeared from our lives and replaced with a used plain Pontiac that smelled of burned motor oil.
So, I look upon these cars and see a wild and bright future forecast. Endless horizons. Thrill and excitement with every trip to church, work and grocery store. Standing on a transmission hump in the back seat looking over my father’s shoulder. A young family man longing for his symbol of success. The tough reality of an hourly wage, diapers, and fatherly responsibilities. The harsh reality of being the sole bread winner of a big family, that snatches away your favorite ride of all time.
It has always been impossible for me to look at these cars and not feel a sharp pang for the sacrifice my father had to make. He always had a framed photo of it in his office and never forgot his dream car. He had other cars. He had moved on. Yet the magic and myth of that 1959 Buick lingered.
I had a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville, white with the maroon multi colored interior in 1964. I was 20 years old, had a cute girlfriend, and a decent job. Then I got my draft notice and went overseas to fight a war. I came back in one piece, but my girlfriend went for someone else and my Dad sold the Pontiac because I couldn’t afford the payments on a G.I. wage.
Oh well, I still miss that Bonneville. Thanks for the thread and photos.
So ’57-59 Imperials must be your cup of tea.
GM obviously over- reacted upon seeing the ’57 Chryslers. I never liked the ’58 GM vehicles they had way too much chrome plastered over them in a tasteless manner and the ’59 GM cars were even worse, the ’59 Cadillac has become the poster child for over styling indulgences. I get the feeling that once the designs for the 1959’s were approved GM suddenly realized they had gone way too far, confirmed by the fact that the 1959 Ford totally outsold the 1959 Chevrolet. Simply compare the ’61 Chevrolet with the ’59-the ’61 is a far better looking vehicle-at least in my estimation.
The 1959 models were glorious, and I was hit with a triple whammy.
My father, under GSA restrictions, purchased a Chevrolet Biscayne four-door sedan. I was not yet old enough to have a driver’s permit, but I was already a transportation aficionado. My father let me sit in the driver’s seat and turn the steering wheel, which was the size of a manhole cover.
The flamboyant design made me think that Studebaker had sent Raymond Loewy and a lot of French wine to infiltrate GM.
My aunt, who lived in Flint, bought a Buick station wagon. It was a ginormous, rolling rain gauge. It was capable of derailing a streetcar.
My older brother sold his 1958 Beetle and grabbed a near-new Pontiac Bonneville four-door hardtop. It was cavernous and six adult Bensons could fit in it without rubbing against another Benson. And Bensons were good eaters.
One day, my older brother asked me if I wanted to drive the heliport with wheels. I pointed out that I did not have the requisite permit, and while I was full-grown, I had a baby face. My brother was intent on my becoming a man and not a wussy, so off we went. I thought that he would find a quiet parking lot, but I wound up driving on Lake Shore Drive. What a flipping rush!
I’m pretty sure I read this when first posted, but would never miss an opportunity to read up again on the ’59s and to check out the Chevy of that year. Despite it’s obvious family resemblance to the Buick of that same year, the Chevy was the best of the bunch in 1959.
Excellent analysis of the comparative styles of the Ford, Chryslers, etc. Great piece, and a mention of your ’53 as well.
Thanks Lee! I’d still love a ’59 Biscayne. 🙂
What I thought was weird on the ’59-60 Cadillacs was not the fins but the gap between the headlights and the bumper. Like a skull with its jaw wide open.
1959 does seem to be one of those ‘hinge of an era’ years. I remember as a kid seeing occasional pictures of JFK riding in a Cadillac limo, and thinking how ‘un-JFK’ the Cadillac was.
Kennedy will of course, for sad reasons, always be associated with the Lincoln Continental, but the huge change in image from Eisenhower, in a top hat in a finned-or-frumpy Cadillac, to Kennedy, hatless in an elegant Continental, seemed a real ‘zeitgeist’ thing. Suddenly, almost, it was the ’60’s.
My fav version is the “Pontiac”; second fav is the Chevy. The Buick (( our neighbors had a gray one)) is soo “menacing looking”.
My mom’ s friend had the “Olds”. It looked like a FL car. (fresh asparagus green/white top/ inside three greens.
Sitting in back seat, felt like the folks in front seat were a half block away.
Think the speedo may have been one of those color changing type. Been soo soo long.
Gets to a certain point and we forget were ever young.