posted by Ralf K (Don Kincl)
I’ve always thought these ’59-’60 GM wagons a bit fussy in the styling, and not for just the usual reasons. It’s that little triangular window behind the rear door. Why is that there? It’s not the same as on the sedans, although it’s undoubtedly meant to evoke it. Why not just a single big rear side window, like they did in 1961?
Like this. But then that was 1959 and this was 1961, and a lot changed in those two short years at GM.
Yes I agree !. they should of used the HT flat top body as they did with the 57-58 Buick / olds !! I grow up with a 61 chry. wagon ! love the clean lines ! alas GM stopped 4 DRHTs in 76 but only in the sedans ! cars in general are just boring & bland ! sad.
I’ve long thought the same thing, not only on the 59-60 GM wagons but also the first-gen Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Lancer wagons which were even worse since they had a reverse-angled pillar behind the extra window. These too used a different window than in the sedans, so it was just the weird-for-weird’s-sake typical of early ’60s Mopars.
I don’t think the 1961-64 GM wagons got it right either – the starkly vertical C pillar, along with flat glass, made them look cube-van utilitarian.
Question: Is the pillar behind the triangular window a C pillar or a D pillar? If the latter, the one near the tailgate would be an E pillar but I’ve never heard it called that. But if the former, what would the pillar between the bonus window and rear door window be called to distinguish it from the ‘other’ C pillar?
To your eye, maybe. To mine, the ’60-’62 Valiant/Lancer wagons look exactly like they’re supposed to, in accord with Scripture. 🤓
My first answer was going to be “because the car was a rush job and they decided to adapt sedan doors” but after looking at some pictures of the 59-60 sedan I don’t think that’s true. That rear door window shape is completely different from either the 4 door sedan or the 4 door hardtops.
Harley Earl certainly loved his 6 window greenhouses, and maybe he just liked the look? I was so completely used to these as a kid they never looked odd at all. Looking just now, with the picture you use, the car looks really awkward in the rear half of the body.
I wonder how Harley Earl liked the look of the ambulance and hearse versions done by Superior like this 1959 Pontiac version?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31411679@N08/48458605227
The ’61 greenhouse is certainly better IMO, but I never liked the bolt-upright C-pillar. I always thought the C-pillar would look better if it were angled like the D-pillar (if a bit less practical for ease of ingress and egress).
The 1961-63 Y body wagons were styled almost exactly like their big brothers with that very same bolt-upright C pillar. GM abandoned that look on the 1964 A body and 1965 B body versions.
I’ve owned and loved wagons, and much prefer a squared-off rear door and perpendicular c-pillar. Your eye passes over it, leaving the d-pillar to be the defining finishing touch on the styling and shape. Makes the car look longer and sleeker.
I just don’t believe that anyone at GM really wanted the 1959 redesigns once the were on the assembly line. The moment these cars hit the streets, the entire appearance of the auto landscape became ridiculously overwrought and gimmicky. Sometimes, it seems that too much change ends up looking too much. These cars crossed that line. The 1959 redesigns were not through out, studied and considered before committing them to build.
The 1961 redesign was what GM wanted to do to remedy that earlier disaster. GM got the Fisher bodies synched up, cleaned up the ridiculous finned monsters from the years before, and then produced some epic auto designs in every brand and in every size.
That white ’62 Pontiac wagon is just beautiful.
I’ve always thought that the little triangle window behind the back door on these wagons mimicked the styling of the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham of 1959 and 60. The trouble was that they didn’t do it well.
To my eyes the greenhouse of the 1959/60 GM station wagons was awkward and poorly done.
The 1961 update is a much cleaner and pleasing-to-the-eyes greenhouse/window area.
Here is a way-out-in-left-field-idea. The way the C pillar resolves with the roof and long rear side glass on the 59-60 B body wagons is an awful lot like it was done on the 57-58 B body wagons. The slope of the C pillar and the dip of the top of the greenhouse where the rear side window meets the slanted pillar are oddly similar.
This “undressed” version shows a similar design idea, though it is clear that the C pillar has moved backwards to about the center of the rear wheel on the 59-60 and the quarter window added. I highly doubt that any stampings carried over, but I wonder if some of the tooling could have been re-worked a bit to keep the engineers from having to start from scratch in doing unique body panels for the wagons. There would also have been a similar 4 door hardtop panel to work with, so who knows. Or maybe Harley Earl just liked that wagon roof from the 57-58 B Olds and Buick wagons?
Here is an assembled version. I also presume that wheelbase differences from Chevy to Buick were handled in the rear doors on these? If so, keeping the roof flat above the doors simplifies the use of different door lengths.
There is clearly a lot of length added between the B and C pillars on the 59-60 compared with the 57-58, but then the rear ends on the newer cars look longer too.
Thinking about it, I am leaning to Harley Earl liking that C pillar treatment in the 57-58 and finding a way to adapt it to the new design. It is hard to imagine GM resorting to the expedience of re-using old tooling, although the tooling for those 57-58 B body wagon roofs could not have been fully amortized.
Jim, you’re missing a very key distinction between the ’57-58s and the ’59-’60s: The former used the same rear doors as the sedans. Hence the C pillar drops down low over the rear of the rear doors.
In ’59, they went with unique rear door frames on the wagons that are perfectly flat at the top all the way to the rear of that main side window. It’s a different door/window frame than the sedan, whose rear window drops down along with the sedan roof line. See below.
It appears that the styling of the wagons with that little extra rear window was designed to evoke the sedan’s styling, but the pieces are all different.
There certainly wasn’t anything carried over from that older tooling; it’s very different. That’s something Studebaker might have done, but not GM. The ’59 bodies are 100% new.
Yes, the clearly different rear window/door was part of my original comment above. I was just fascinated by the little continuity in detail between the 57-58 and 59-60 where the roof and the windows come together at the top of the rear doors.
Having spent a few minutes longer looking at that ’58 Olds wagon than I really wanted to, I can say that it is a truly wretched design. Nothing really new, but lord, is it horrible. The way that rear door extends way past the C Pillar is almost surreal. It looks like its been cut up and welded back together, and not in a good way.
1958 was truly the nadir for GM design.
“1958 was truly the nadir for GM design.”
That’s the way I feel about the entire 1957-58 B body program at GM – the 58 was horrid and the 57 was not a lot better.
FWIW, I suspect that rear door window on the sedan is forward of the rear of the door because they offered the wagon in both 4 door sedan and 4 door hardtop forms on both Olds and Buick. I’ll bet that window design was necessary for the glass to roll down into the door on the hardtop version, and they kept that same C pillar configuration for the “sedan” version instead of the sedan version getting a somewhat different roofline as usually happened with regular 4 door cars of the period.
FWIW, I suspect that rear door window on the sedan is forward of the rear of the door because they offered the wagon in both 4 door sedan and 4 door hardtop forms on both Olds and Buick. I’ll bet that window design was necessary for the glass to roll down into the door on the hardtop version, and they kept that same C pillar configuration for the “sedan” version instead of the sedan version getting a somewhat different roofline as usually happened with regular 4 door cars of the period.
I’m struggling to make sense of this. The only difference in the glass size between the hardtop and non-hardtop sedan/wagon version would have been very minor, right? The glass in the sedan version rolls up into the frame’s channel. The hardtop version rolled up into/against the rubber gasket. So maybe a half inch taller and wider? Maybe a full inch max.? That doesn’t seem enough difference to make a meaningful difference.
Clearly these ’57-’58 B Bodies (and ’58 A Bodies) all used the same basic roof for cost savings. The only difference between the hardtops and sedans was the lack of a window frame in the doors. That was of course quite different starting in 1959, when the sedans had a totally different roof from the hardtops.
Or maybe I’m missing your point? If so, It won’t be the first time. 🙂
The glass on the rear doors of 4 door hardtops typically had to be smaller to be able to lower fully down into the door. This 56 Olds shot shows how it was often done, by moving the C pillar forward a bit (the alternative was the dreaded Ford 1957+ chrome triangular blanking panel).
I will agree that the 58 Olds seems like overkill.
If you take a good look at the ’58 wagon and the ’59-’60, you’ll see that the area of the rear door, its window frame and the curvature of the C pillar are all very different. The ’58’s C pillar drops down well ahead of the end of the rear door already, and cuts deeply into the rear door side window.
I also presume that wheelbase differences from Chevy to Buick were handled in the rear doors on these?
The middle section of all these ’59-60 GM cars was shared, including the roofs (on sedans and coupes) and the doors. The only difference is that the Buick had its rear axle set 3″ further back, so that its rear doors didn’t require the little cutout that the Chevy had. But the length and the rest of the door are the same.
The rear section (behind the C Pillar) of the Buick’s wagon body, including its roof and side window, are of course longer than the Chevy. That’s to maintain the Buick’s longer overall length.
I always considered the 1959 Ford sedans more attractive than most of their GM counterparts, despite the trend-setting lower/wider GM styling introduced that year.
It was years later that I realized Ford had abandoned the 6-window look in 1959. It definitely made the cars look ‘less fussy’, as Paul puts it.
The 59 Ford, just like the 57 Chevy was the last year of a platform. They look good when looking back over a long period of time. But when they were introduced, they were old and out of style with the longer lower wider Mopar cars of 1957 and then the GM cars of 59
Here’s a lowered one in lucious-lime green. Pretty cool in my book.
Thanx for all the great wagon images ! .
Subscribed to see more I hope .
-Nate
I’m guessing they squared up the rear door window for the same reason as on the ’61-64s – for easier step-in to the forward-facing rear seats, especially with Chrysler switching to rear-facing seats in ’57. The curve and quarter window was just for style.
The Buick and Olds bodies for both series were built by Mitchell-Bentley, in Ionia, MI. I believe Fisher built the Chevy and Pontiac bodies in house.
These GM wagons had rear facing third seats. The Pontiac’s were very wide too…
I imagine they had complaints about rear seat access in the ’57-8 wagons. Even in the days before seat belts and child safety seats, parents had to lean into the rear compartment to clean up or drag a brat out. The ’56 wagons had vertical C pillars.
That ’61 redesign not only looked cleaner, but a lot cheaper to build. two fewer pieces of glass and no expensive wrap around rear quarter windows, just a flat piece.