(first posted 2/15/2013) My dear Pontiac fans, I hate to offend you. However, your brand had absolutely no identity for the majority of its life on the automotive landscape. And here’s my pre-Golden Years of Pontiac example. Until 1959, all you got was an Oldsmolet. Not like that was a such bad thing.
Through the early fifties, Pontiac basically offered a Chevrolet with finer appointments, Hydra-matic drive and a Straight Eight. Although that wasn’t much more than Mercury offered over a comparable Ford, you can’t say the same about Dodge after 1953. With the new Red Ram V8, Dodge threw out the convention that your semi-premium car had to be sedate.
Pontiac (along with Packard) was the last American car with an old-school flat-head straight, with its modern OHV V8 arriving in 1955. It all came in an new body that was the same basic shell as the A-body Chevrolets. In the case of the line-topping Star Chief, however, the trunk extension added up to some rather B-Body type bulk. And like the Olds Rocket V8 that precedded it by several years, the new Strato-Streak V8 would prove to be an enduring design.
The process of Pontiac fully embracing its new-found performance image took a few years. We’re still a few years away from the lustful, carefree and youthful advertising we typically associate with Pontiac in this restrained ad. Everyone still looks at least forty here. And therein lied the problem. In a field of cars that inspired youthful upward mobility, Pontiac aspired to be the choice of your school principal. Even Plymouth had shed that aspiration by 1956.
A few more baby steps away from the cradle of conservatism happened during 1957. One big leap was the limited edition Bonneville convertible, but it could only tug the rest of the line up so far. It didn’t help matters much that both Dodge and Mercury did flamboyant far better for ’57, making the Pontiac line up appear more the wallflower than it ever did before.
Although the silver streaks that dated back to the 1930’s were finally gone, there’s still enough bric-a-brac that tried to add up value beyond the Bel-Air that sat a few dollars below. Granted, the longer wheelbase and fenders helped the A-body chassis look less stubby compared to its appearance on a Chevrolet.
But the overall approach for 1957 says “rejected Oldsmobile proposal” to me. We can all acknowledge that General Motors quite often had a corporate “face” more years than not. But in the transition to being the “excitement” brand, Pontiac seemed to borrow the former party planner in the GM hierarchy’s dress and gloves.
Granted, there’s a bit more massaging going on in my brain, but how far is this from the 1956 Oldsmobile “Jet Intake” grill? It’s cleaner and less “Catfish” like compared to the 1955-56 models, but less unique than those years too.
These ovoid tail-lamps look suspiciously like the morphing “Jet exhaust” tail lamps that went from bullet shaped to ovals at Oldsmobile in 1957. Granted there’s a bit more Chevrolet tail fin too, and the lamps are mounted mid fender instead of in the tips.
None of this would have been too disappointing if we didn’t have The Forward Look to compare these Pontiacs to. But Dodge, especially so, had been solidifying an identity since 1953, while less continuity could be accounted for in Pontiac styling. While Dodge refined it’s Red Ram image with ever increasing aggressive faces, Pontiac went from over-jeweled Chevrolet, to reminding people of fish dinners, to being the most non-descript product of General Motors.
It didn’t get any better for 1958. Harley Earl’s last blowout meant all ’58 GM cars were struck with a case of bloat that Gas-X wouldn’t be able to clear out until 1959. It’s hard to believe, but Pontiac possibly ended up with the most pleasing-to-the-eye GM products that difficult year.
Pontiac would finally get its own image in 1959. And until Brougham plague confused it at the dawn of the 1970’s, it served Pontiac extremely well, pushing them quite often to number three in sales throughout the 1960s. After ignoring this heritage for some truly dark years in the mid 1970s through the early 80’s, this is the legacy that Pontiac (quite rightly) tried to recapture until it died.
But in reality, most Post-War Pontiacs have the lack of identity dilemma that the 1957 models did. The marque’s glory years were truly confined to 1959 through 1972. There’s been flashes of excitement in between, in the form of Trans-Ams , 6000STEs and Fieros. But they often had to share space with barely distinguished from Chevrolet price-leaders and Brougham Bordellos worthy of a Regency or Limited badge.
This is where I have to say: I don’t really miss Pontiac. Except for the brilliance of the 1960’s, it never stood out enough against the popularity or legacy of all the other General Motors brands. I wonder how much my own sentiments toward the brand carry over to the actual cars.
If it ain’t a GTO or Firebird, who really cares about a Pontiac?
A pretty car but there were some real lookers to compete with at the time.The Mopars made the rest look a bit plain.
My grandmother had one this year & color. She had a lead foot sometimes, that car would pass one on a 2 lane fast..
We had three Pontiac wagons in a row – a ’63 Catalina, ’65 Bonneville (two-seat with a/c but few other options), and ’67 Executive with nearly all options including vinyl roof, cruise control, and the newly available 8-track player. The 1965-68 large Pontiac wagons were the best wagons GM offered, and (except for the ’68) the prettiest as well.
We did have a GTO too – a ’67 with a/c, positraction, and automatic on the column (no console). But the full-sizers were better cars, less prone to rust among other things.
It’s pretty amazing what John De Lorean et al. cooked up to reorient Pontiac in the marketplace. No small feat to achieve and maintain #3 in sales as long as they did. But missing Pontiac? I missed them starting decades before they actually ceased production.
Delorean was really the third guy in the relay. Bunkie Knudson took over the division around 1954 or so, and led that charge. Pete Estes was his chief engineer, and took over the division (1961 or so) and made Delorean the chief engineer. Delorean took over around 1965 (IIRC) and ran things until he was transferred to run Chevrolet in 1969. So, for about a fifteen year stretch, Pontiac benefitted from really good management and leaders with a vision to make the cars something special.
I would throw in Jim Wangers at MacManus as well who really created the performance image that Pontiac became known for in the 1960s.
I actally interviewed at MJ & A right out of high school. That was in 1973, and the economy was a bit soft and copywriters were relegated to pushing brooms. About the same time I was offered a spot at the Royal Oak Tribune; I nearly took that but I got in at the Ford Axle Plant, and that started my career in Automotive. Anyway, my favorite Pontiac was a 1976 Bonneville Brougham 4 door hardtop. Silver with the red velour bordello interior. I drove that car for 10 years until it literally rusted out from under me. I had a couple 1967 GTOs, project/parts cars, but never a runner. I still have a 1975 Grandville convertible that I drive about once a year; nobody wants these as they’re so hard to restore. It was painful watching Pontiac die a very slow death. They lost my interest after the late 70’s.
One thing DeLorean pointed out afterward is that in the ’50s and ’60s, Pontiac benefited from having a relatively small non-manufacturing staff. Therefore, it was possible for a conscientious general manager with a decent memory for names and faces to know who everybody was and have at least a general sense of what everyone was doing. Knudsen, Estes and DeLorean would frequently make the rounds to keep an eye on things, offer opinions and so forth.
I think it would be fair to say that Pontiac’s size (a) made it possible for the personality of the general manager and chief engineer to influence the division’s direction far more than would have been possible otherwise and (b) made the division particularly dependent on the general manager. When it was someone dynamic, the division tended to be dynamic; when the leadership was conservative, the division followed suit. It was quite different from Chevrolet, which two orders of magnitude bigger.
Of course, all that changed with Roger Smith’s reorganization, but that was the case when Knudsen et al were running things.
Thanks for that insight.
I had never really paid attention to these, but the 2 door hardtop roof just screams 57 Chevy at me. Perhaps it is also those damned Chevy rally wheels that I have seen on way too many 57 Bel Airs. (I’ll take this one, Junqueboi) Those wheels conspire with the roof to turn this car into an ugly 57 Chevy.
The only one of these I have really studied was the wagon, which I wrote up last year. Looking at the artwork in the ads, the views they used really camouflaged the Chevy that was clearly in the car. The big flat wheelcovers that Pontiac used also helped it to be different.
Looking afresh at this car, I have to conclude that Pontiac was the only GM car that improved from 1957 to 1958. If we can get past the looks, these were really quite attractive cars from a mechanical point of view. Strong 347 ci Strato Streak V8 mated to the same 4 speed HydraMatic used in Olds and Cadillac – who wouldn’t take that combo over a 283/Powerglide?. A very nice find. There can’t be many of these out there. With strong competition from Dodge and Mercury, Pontiac had a bad year. I wonder if any of these 2 door hardtops has been stripped down to its A body underwear and turned into a 57 Bel Air? It would not surprise me. The difference in value is probably stunning.
Strange how a more expensive car when new is now cheaper than it’s poor relations!
Turned into a Bel Air? Let’s not forget that these Pontiacs sat on 122″ and 124″ (Star Chief) wheelbases. That would take some doing to turn them back to 115″ wb Chevies. Might be cheaper to buy a new ’57 Chevy body?
You are right, of course, about the repro body. However, I still have to believe that somewhere deep down under all of the outer sheetmetal, the Fisher Body engineers had a common set of inner stampings for, say, a 2 door hardtop A body, that would be adaptable to the different wheelbases for both Chevy and Pontiac duty. Pure guess.
Good point, Paul. That was a Pontiac selling point back in the ’50s . . . that “for a few dollars more” you did get a “bigger” car on a longer wheelbase. The U.S. Pontiac 122’s/124’s did make the cars look somewhat sleek, hiding it’s Chevy roots. For Canada, (constraits based on volume, market size, tarriffs, etc), the integration of Pontiac/Chevy on a Chevy 115″ (for these “tri-fives”) looks pretty strange. Objective as we’re all looking at these cars from a 21st century perspective . . . .
JP, having once replaced a Tri-Five Chevy door with a Pontiac door, I can attest the doors and windows absolutely interchange. The extra length and wheelbase was all ahead of and in back of the passenger compartment.
Paul, I’d believe if someone was desperate enough and had access to a Tri-Five frame, the Pontiac body would work as long as the trunk area with the wheel tubs, and rear quarters, were changed to the Chevy’s.
Lotta work…I’ll bet someone’s tried it though. Just like I’ve seen people convert their 4-door sedans to 2-doors.
Laurence hits a sad reality concerning American Pontiac (remember Canadian Pontiacs sat on Chevy frames and used Chevy drivetrains all those glory years)…that the entire marque’s legacy as “excitement” rests on the period 1959-72…I’ll take that a few years further into the early 80’s. Aside from a Bonneville here and a Fiero there, Pontiac went back to its original stated purpose from the 1920s…fancy Chevy. And as such had no reason to continue to exist.
Amazing to think that the ‘excitement’ period was so short. It seems to loom so large on the US automotive landscape.
Well, interchangeability is nothing new in the car business and certainly not confined to the domestics. If anything, its worse now than ever before. Someone please explain to me the difference between a Nissan Maxima and an Infiniti G35. Its all in the marketing and how the cars are perceived by their intended buyers.
I would think that, despite the common platform underpinnings, that it would be difficult to use a Pontiac as a donor car for a TriFive Chevy. That market is so saturated now with parts suppliers, you almost do not need a donor car any longer.
The G35/G37 is RWD and the Maxima is FWD. I could fairly ask that question about the Altima and the Maxima, though.
Yea I forgot that small point, but the body design is about the same. My greater point is that the imports have done as much if not more parts interchange than the domestics over the years, so that in and of itself isn’t a core problem. My point was it had to do more with marketing and perception than anything. Lexus, Infiniti, and Acura are mostly recycled hash from Toyota, Nissan, and Honda respectively except for a few models like the LS400 (or whatever it is known now) etc. But there is a perceived difference to the buying public and/or that the initial buyers of those vehicles simply did not care. Domestic buyers always tended to be more influenced on styling and overt prestige so when cars became similar, like they did in the 1980s, it hurt more. Imports, even now although not as much, tend to have longer product cycles than domestics.
Craig you are 100% correct – it is all just marketing, now as it was back then. Component sharing across brands within a family is probably bigger now than ever before given the aggregation of brands under fewer ownership companies. For example, there are common components in the VW empire in everything from a Seat to a Bentley!
Back in the ’50’s the challenge was to present basically the same product, ie a chrome laden barge, in various editions with just enough incremental (often perceived) difference to justify a higher price. In a corporate conglomerate like GM in the 1950’s, everything else – brands, dealership networks, styling, special size and performance combinations – goes to serve the single purpose of differentiating the product just enough to get more money from the consumer. Indeed Pontiac from my understanding is the perfect example – a brand specifically created for marketing purposes, just like Lexus and others were created more recently.
These “created” brands are not born from any great engineering innovation or traditions of craftsmanship, rather it’s all about the $$$. Sometimes, like Pontiac in the 1960’s, they can offer good products to a specific market segment, but they rarely seem to maintain their relevance. That is what happened with Pontiac and more recently with Mazda’s premium brand of the 1990’s. I would argue that a similar fete awaits Infiniti and Lexus if their products are not kept significantly different from their cheaper Nissan and Toyota stablemates.
Seeing this brings back a memory: 1968.
One of my goofy friends who lived in Times Beach, MO had one of these, same color, 4 door sedan. 347 cu. in. auto.
He drove up to my house one Sunday and my buddy and I hopped in and we took off. Back in those days, Jennings, MO was real close to the river and we used to cruise over in Illinois in the Wood River/East Alton area, especially on the levee roads.
This particular day, we were tearing up a levee road along the Chain-of-Rocks barge canal near old U.S. 66. Goofball starts yanking the wheel back and forth and that lead sled Poncho didn’t like that very much, especially around 50 mph!
Well, I was in the back seat (figured it was the safest place to be with him driving), all that sashaying going on – well, he got a little too crazy and over-sashayed the right rear tire off the gravel and the back end of that old bomb stated wanting to go down the 30 ft. levee into the canal!
Fortunately, he was pretty quick with his reflexes, didn’t over-correct and got the old heap back on the road and slowed down! No more sashaying, either – never after that!
I’m sure all our eyes got as big as biscuits and I couldn’t take my eyes off the water in the canal below!
To this day, my buddy and I still refer to him as – pardon me – “Crazy-A$$”! He was.
He sold that car, and his next car? Another 1957 Star Chief! This time a two-door hardtop, Earl Sheib two-tone green. He took that to the car wash one day and the wand removed all the cheap paint from the non-prepared surface from the roof in one big sheet!
The memory banks are getting warmed up, now!
I don’t think he is living in Times Beach anymore!
I just happened to have seen a peach colored StarChief convertible yesterday in SW Florida. I wish I could have got a pick – wow what a car. The only thing it was missing was the fuel injection.
And to think everyone blamed dioxin for the contamination of Times Beach.
Those are some ugly ducklings. Time just doesn’t seem to make some things any better.
Here is a good article that sums up the changes in the late 50s and 60s at Pontiac:
http://www.pontiacserver.com/mtchiefs1.html
If you can appreciate the Pontiac’s for what they were before they were marketed as the performance division from 59 until (not sure when it ended, in my opinion it never did, some will disagree) then you can see what they were. Dependable entry level luxury before the term was coined.
Bunkie showed up in 56 and was told to “save” the division. Yes, it was on the chopping block way back then too. The first thing he did was remove the silver streaks on the soon to be released 57 models (all he could do at the time) and take it from there. Its funny to think it was his father, Bill, who added the silver streaks way back in the 30’s.
So the Pontiac was the slightly faster, slightly better looking/equiped and more luxurious Chevy, or cheaper Oldsmobile. That theme stayed until the end also. More of a Desoto than a Dodge, and it would have been killed off like Desoto if Bunkie didn’t inject a performance image into it.
If I recall correctly, before Knudsen arrived, the plan was to fold Pontiac into Oldsmobile, and, if sales were still lackluster, eventually discontinue it.
My favorite mid 50’s Pontiac is the convertible that Ricky Ricardo bought to drive cross country with when he was signed to play “Don Juan” in Hollywood. He probably used his advance to buy the car after he was signed, and so I assumed Pontiac was therefore a aspirational car. Of course the reality was it probably was just a sponsor of “I Love Lucy”. I pretty much think the analysis in this article is spot on. I always thought of GM as having three brackets, 1) Chevy, 2) Pontiac & Olds, 3) Buick & Cadillac. Group 1 was for mass market and frugal types. Group 2 is for climbers with Olds having a definite faux luxury character and Pontiac being strictly “better than a Chevy” and not much else before it sold sport. Group 3 was for well to do, Buick being for conservatives, and Cadillac for flashy types. My wife drove a Sunbird because it didnt feel as base as a Cavalier and she didnt want faux luxury. I think Kia and Hyundai nowadays have a bit of that Pontiac-Olds dynamic going on. I rented a Chevy Cruze recently and was pleasantly surprised by it, but still felt it was too base, but the Verano is way to expensive for what it is, I guess I didnt really want a Buick. I could have really used a Oldsmobile, but alas. Which I guess is why I find myself drawn towards contemporary Chryslers, I like that whole faux luxury on a budget feel, I realize as I get older I probably would have been an Oldsmobile buyer. Oh well.
The Verano wasn’t so much too expensive, at least in base form, as it’s too obviously a hatchback with a trunk tacked on, without the unaltered hatchback model being available, in a market where sedans are no longer aspirational. The Encore – which to my not-that-old eyes looks like a Pokemon of a Buick – is selling like warm bread.
There’s something about General Motors that they were never comfortable in the price range that was one small step above Chevrolet. We talk about the lack of identity of Pontiac, yet that was the successful effort, having relegated Oakland to perpetual obscurity.
Oakland? GM made a car named Oakland? Yeah, it was one of the original founding brands. Pontiac was the companion marque, priced to fit in to the price gap between Chevrolet and Oakland. And to this day, nobody remembers anything about it. I’ve read more about Marquette and Viking (companion brands to Oldsmobile and Buick, respectively), and anyone with an interest in pre-WWII cars knows LaSalle (Cadillac’s companion brand).
As to the 1957’s, Oldsmobile was the looker in that crowd even if its looks were based on innate conservatism. The ’57 Chevy is one of the more overrated cars in history (in my opinion) while the Pontiac was “shove lots more chrome on a Chevy” without really caring what the final product looked like.
’58’s? The less said about, the better. Take a Chevy Impala, and go even more wrong than you did in the year before. At least it looked better (aka, not as overdone) as Oldsmobile and Buick.
Well, here’s the thing about the slot just above Chevrolet: By the ’50s, that slot was perhaps the most hotly contested one in the industry because you had Chevrolet trying to move up for greater profits and Oldsmobile and particularly Buick moving down to try to increase volume. Since Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac together represented something like 70 percent of the market, you can see the problem.
GM cars here sat in two slots below Chevrolet and one above that was the entire range Pontiac down to Chevrolet below that Vauxhall then lowprice leader Holden,
Actually we had Cheviacs from Canada not sold via Chevy dealers so nobody would notice the trick but assembled by GMNZ.
My grandfather had a ’57. Not sure what model but he kept it until ’66 when he bought a brand new Impala 4 door hardtop.
I have to agree with you Laurence in that I too do not really miss Pontiac. The featured CC car here was decades before my time. When I think if Pontiac I think of plastic lower body cladding and cheapo interiors. They overdid the boy racer look. The all too common Sunfires, Grand Ams, and Gran Prixs seemed to appeal to two types of buyers: little old ladies and low-income people in their 20s (at least from what I personally see). The G6 was the first and last Pontiac I ever found reasonably attractive.
Great write-up though. My knowledge of early Pontiacs is far inferior to what I know about many other brands so I’m always glad to learn more.
In the first photo, it’s obvious that the Pontiac shares the Chevrolet’s roofline, but has a lengthened body to differentiate it from the “little brother.” The result looks somewhat awkward. In the head-on shot, the heavy grille and bumper combination emphasizes the car’s tall and narrow dimensions, particularly compared to a 1957 Dodge or Mercury.
Despite that, I believe that Pontiac consistently outsold Dodge and Mercury during these years.
That Star Chief sit s on a 124″ wheelbase, nine inches longer than a Chevy. But all that additional length is in front and back of the main passenger compartment. That really does affect the proportions.
“Silver streaks”, is that what they’re supposed to be called? I always referred to them as “luggage straps” and imagined that they were really holding the trunk/hood down. Getting rid of the silver streaks was a smart move. 🙂
I never realized until now that the optional custom grille treatment for my AMT ’49 Merc model kit is the center grille bar from a 1954 Pontiac.
My first brand new car was a 1990 Grand Am sedan. I got to “enjoy” the Quad 4 and all of its “wonderful” electric problems that left me stranded more than once. Isn’t it cool having a brand new car that won’t start after sitting for more than a couple of hours?
Anyway, I always wondered why Chevrolet didn’t grab some Pontiac models and turn them into sporty Chevys after Pontiac went belly up. Well, the GM gods must’ve been listening, because now the Holden Commodore (also the former Pontiac G8 sedan) is coming to America as the 2014 Impala SS. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Holden Commodore SS: (just imagine it with Chevy/Impala SS badges and you’re there)
There was speculation as GM was going through bankruptcy that Pontiac would stay as a limited production high performance brand but I think Chevy dealers whined too hard about “BUT WHAT ABOUT CHEVY SS MODELS!?!?!?!?!?”
We get the Vauxhall VXR 8 it’ll tear your head off if you floor it!
Chevrolet couldn’t “grab” anything, they are not an autonomous car company. GM management has to decide who gets what to sell.
Are those rear bumper exhaust ports? I always liked those for some reason.
Going back to an older CC I still wouldn’t mind giving a straight 8 hydromatic combo a try. It has to be more fun to drive than a Buick Straight 8 hooked to a “Dyna-slow”.
I think so, depending on if it was a single or dual exhaust model? I’ve seen some with a solid plate and then some with what looks to be exhausts, but still mounted in a plate. This one was missing either of these options.
Those bumper-exhaust ports were briefly popular in the late 50s, but soon played havoc with the chrome plating on the bumper. I am not sure if it was some chemical compound in the exhaust or just the combination of warm moisture constantly bathing the salt-crusted bumper plating. Either way, every one of these I ever saw that made it into the late 60s had horrible rust all around those exhaust ports.
Mr. Jones makes his argument well that the 1957 Ponchos were not as stunningly handsome as Exner’s Mopars of the same year. What was? I can also agree that the styling looked a bit like a ’57 Bel Air that had been dipped in the J. C. Whitney catatlog.
My father had a 1956 Bel Air convertible with the factory 4-barrel and dual exhaust (I believe the displacement of the SB V8 was still 265 that year). According to him, it was rather quick for the day. The next year he and my uncle (Dad being the only one of the pair of legal age) thoughtfully traded my grandmother’s 1948 Buick Special for a 1957 Pontiac Super Chief two-door hardtop.
They thougthfully left off options that would not make it go faster such as power steering and air conditioning. The latter was still an amazingly expensive option in the late 50’s anyway, even if the car would be purchased and used in Texas. They did check off the automatic transmission though to convince my grandmother that it really was purchased for her use. After all, it was coral pink with a white roof and side spears and a gray interior.
Use it she did! The 347 cu. in. V8 with Hydramatic was quite a hot rod. My grandmother garnered quite a few speeding tickets in the first few years she owned the car. I remember, as a young child, being beside her in the front seat (no child safety seats or even seat belts then) for the presentation of one of those citations.
Mama (we Cajuns pronounce that “maw-maw”) drove that car daily until just before she died in 1984 – over 27 years. During the last several years she lived she had to decline offers to buy the car on an almost weekly basis. She drove the Pontiac a very short distance to work five days a week and to church EVERY Sunday. When she passed the odometer showed only 46,000+ miles.
My uncle took the car, refurbished it (respray of the faded paint and rebuild of the transmission) and still has it today. He is in his early 70’s now but I do not know what his plans are for disposing of the Pontiac when that time comes. I doubt seriously he will sell it while he is still living.
No resortation was needed thanks to the benign south Texas climate and the fact that the car was always garaged and maintained by a very meticulous lady. Notably tomorrow will be the 100th anniversary of Mama’s birth. She was born in Sunset, Louisiana, a small village near Opelousas. As a young woman living in the rural south during the depression she had a great appreciation for frugality.
What became of my father’s Bel Air convertible? About a year before I was born he traded it for a new Wide-Track; a 1959 Catalina 2-door hardtop in sunset amethyst with white roof and black and white interior. What a contrast it was to see it parked next to my grandmother’s car which was only two years older.
A one-family-owned 57 Pontiac hardtop (especially a pink one) would make quite a “My (family’s) Curbside Classic” piece if you were so inclined.
+1. And to back peddle I did go a little harsh on Pontiac, as whole, with this piece. But they were still great values over a comparable Chevrolet.
But in the Mid 50’s Pontiac had to fight against Oldsmobile’s performance rep while building its own, added to Buick’s sweep into it’s territory with dirt cheap Specials and none too much more expensive Centurys.
Granted Pontiac (I believe) was still ahead of Dodge and Mercury in the midst of this, but the competition between Buick, Olds and Pontiac was particularly fierce. It hurt matters in the short term that Pontiac was the weakest in perception in the middle market. But I’m sure how well built these Pontiacs were in comparison to the Ford and Mopar competition helped a lot when it all came together for the 1959 models.
I will forgive your stern take on this car. After all, you were nicer to the 58 Oldsmobile than I was. 🙂
I’m a man of sick perversions. And a 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88 Four Door Hardtop would be a car tucked away in the dungeon section of the garage that I’d only drive at triple digit speeds under the cover of night.
Laurence Jones says “I’m a man of sick perversions”.
Me too Laurence. Don’t forget to set the speed minder of that 1958 Olds Super 88 (good choice because: bigger engine, smaller body) to 120 so the buzzing doesn’t interfere with your midnight drive.
Good write up of reality of Pontiac history.
When brand was dropped, there was all the hand wringing. Car fans would say “Pontiac was performance from Day 1!” and “They killled all that heritage!”
As if there were 1926 Pontiac GTO’s with Ram Air, and they were still making 400/455 V8 muscle cars in 2009.
To some, the glory days of the 60’s lasted 100 years, rather than 10. But have to be realistic. When high insurance costs, and large supply of used 60’s cars, killed off factory muscle cars in early 70’s, Pontiac went back to ‘mid luxury’ as Olds/Buick.
The Trans Am avoided extinction, but then became a 70’s fad car. The Grand Prix had some unique style, until it was just a Cutlass clone.
The ‘excitement’ of body cladding, round holes in dash, and red gauges were not enough to sustain sales. Then, when pulled cladding off and had G6, was just a ‘who cares’ car.
Can go on and on about G8 and GTO RWD cars, but they were Holdens and better off as Chevys.
“Can go on and on about G8 and GTO RWD cars, but they were Holdens and better off as Chevys.”
AMEN. And I think they will be. The new SS Performance sedan bows tomorrow.
I’m as nerdy as most car guys about model years. I can usually guess 70s and 80s models correctly, even imports, and can go back to the late 40s on Cadillacs, Chevys, Buicks, Fords and the Germans.
But to this day if it’s an Olds or Pontiac before 1963 I have to pause for second before figuring out which it is. It wasn’t until stacked headlamps and John Delorean that Pontiacs started to stand out for me.
In 1957 I think the Ford Fairlane 500 2-door was the best looking hardtop.
@In 1957 I think the Ford Fairlane 500 2-door was the best looking hardtop.
You hurt me.
I understand the 300-C’s purity, but I love the frilly details of 1957 DeSoto’s better.
Those cars are beautiful and classic in design and highly collectable now, but had a terrible build quality in 1957. Torsion bars would snap on a regular basis and the bodies would flex. Chrysler corrected most of the flaws by the later years so the initial technology was sound. Again, people tolerated these things because the cars were beautiful and people still wanted them.
People didn’t tolerate them for long. After stellar 1957 sales, sales of the 1958 models of all five Chrysler brands dropped like stones, much more than any of the competition. 1958 and 1959 Mopars have always been fairly rare things. I owned a 59 Fury, and I can tell you that not all of the problems (like water leaks in the body) were fixed.
Even with the early Unibody cars, quality was poor for a variety of reasons, including cheap parts due to kickbacks from suppliers. It was not until 1962-63 that Chrysler started to recover.
Should have said the ’57 Ford was my favorite, not best looking. I can appreciate the Forward Look cars now and think that 300C is gorgeous. But the FLs had two strikes against them for a budding young car enthusiast; the fins made them look old and the faces were frightening. Even that beautiful ’57 300 was (and still is!) kinda of scary up front.
I didn’t care for car designs from the late 50s, which is odd because models from just two years earlier — like the Mark II and 1956 300C — were some of my all-time favorites.
In 1961 it must have looked like an epic battle of good vs. evil in the marketplace. Chrysler unleashed a “fury” with its highly pissed off 61 Plymouth. Ford fought back with the friendly T-bird and Continental and ultimately won the good fight for children everywhere.
What a radial time that must have been!
YOU hurt ME. How could anyone prefer the hideous 300 grille over the New Yorker? (though I’ll admit my personal favorite of 1957 is the DeSoto next to it, preferably in hardtop Adventurer form)
And of course, the ’57 DeSoto Adventurer had one of the very best interiors ever put in a car:
That interior is simply superb, for 1957. I’ve not seen one in a very long time, and forgotten how fine it is. Thanks for reminding me!
It took forever to track down a picture of that interior, the wood must have been a rare option. I saw this car at the Houston Keels N Wheels Concours in 2005 or 2006, and it just blew me away. This is apparently one of the more famous Adventurers (gold-on-black with a tan top and interior towing a matching black/gold/tan finned boat), because Google images has plenty of pictures of it at various car shows (but no interior pictures). The hard drive that had the picture I took crashed a while back (one of the many reasons I’ve gone back to film), but after a couple years I was able to find this picture online (and I was finally able to rescue my files off that old hard drive for good measure). The standard interior looks great too, but this one with the wood trim really blows all other interiors away.
Here’s the more common interior, for comparison. Still great, but not quite the Mercedes-killer that the other one is. I especially like the mid-century-modern seat pattern.
Wait. Is that real? I might have just seen heaven.
I can’t quite accept the shot of the Adventurer’s wood dash. The Torqueflite’s button panel is not right. The photo does not expand so I’ll simply say it looks all wrong IMHO.
My guess is there was no such option; this is a custom dash job and they even modified the Torqueflite’s 5 button array. It does look pretty, but it does not look right; I do not think it came that way from the factory.
Below is what the shift buttons should look like on all 1957 Desotos with the five button Torqueflite (left of the steering wheel). These were used with the thumb on the buttons and the index finger and hand curled under the panel for stability because when going from 1 to 2 under full throttle the shift needed to be from 1 to 2, and not 1 to ?. No one I know ever used their index finger on the Torqueflite’s panel the way the ads pictured it.
I’m not going to say good old days; just old days.
I thought that wood was too good to be true. You’re right; it looks like a custom job with real wood.
Chrysler push button Ad (with gloves no less). (This shows Powerflite, one less button than Torqueflite to hit or miss).
Maybe some little old lady. But not THE Little Old Lady (from Pasadena).
She was a Mopar fan too!
A special service for those younger CC readers who missed this little automotive musical pearl:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xikimp_the-little-old-lady-from-pasadena_music
It was a close call, but then I am a devotee of the Forward Look in general. The New Yorker was the first car that popped into my mind, but I decided on the 300 for its clean, unadorned trim.
I’m not sure I agree that Pontiac didn’t have an identity for most of it’s existence. It can be difficult to pick up the small nuances that seemed important to people of the era.
When Pontiac appeared as a companion car it was quite a success; the only companion make to survive. It was a decided step up from a Chevy, yet at a bit better price than an Oakland. I’d suggest it largely retained this distinction -a worthwhile step up from a Chevy- until ’55.
As Paul points out, Pontiac offered several inches of wheelbase. This put it in the catagory of a junior Packard, as far as size. Additionally, the Straight 8 was available and for people of that era the S8 still spoke of power and prestige.
My dad had a ’54 Star Chief. It might be a stretch to call it a poor man’s Packard but not much of a stretch to call it a poor man’s Buick. IOWs, a pretty substantial step up from basic transport, by the standards of the time.
I would suggest the identity crisis took hold in ’55, but that it hit four of GMs car divisions all at the same time. Caddy remained the pinnacle, but over the next few years it made less and less difference whether one opted for Chevy, Buick, or the other two in between. Buick came down market with their Special and Chevy could be gussied up by ticking off the options list. Pontiac and Olds could no longer count on people stepping up for a few inches of wheelbase, especially when every maker was now offereing a modern V8. Pontiac and Olds were increasingly irrelevant, and Pontiac’s management knew it, and did something about it.
Pontiac enjoyed it’s “wide track” and performance/excitement image for a while, until the brougham era.
So, I’d suggest Pontiac had a definite identity for at least half it’s existence. It changed identities successfully then inexplicably went back to an identity (a step up from a Chevy, but not quite an Olds, to say nothing of Buick) that had largely ceased to exist as a market niche.
Thats as good of a description as I’ve ever heard it put.
I think Pontiac would have easily kept its performance image if the GM after Delorean wasn’t totally against any kind of performance image at all. He is the one who shut down the Super Duty 455 program, neutered the GTO and generally stopped the party that Delorean created.
Macdonald and Caserio basically shut the lights off for the car guys at Pontiac until the 80’s arrived.
Most of that was dictated by sales and other externalities like insurance, CAFE, energy concerns, and the general mood of the market. “Muscle” cars collapsed long before the first OPEC crisis and CAFE would not have allowed a large volume of cars with gas sucking engines. By the mid 70s the popular cars were personal luxury cars of all various kinds and that is what sold. I do believe that, without DeLorean Estes and Knudsen, Pontiac did lose some of its innovative edge that it had in the 1960s.
Also, let’s not forget that until 1955, Pontiac offered an eight, where Chevrolet had only a six. That was a big point separating the two.
1957 Pontiacs certainly don’t have a lack of identity among car collectors nowadays, particularly Bonnevilles, as a look at HMN or eBay will attest….
I enjoyed the dig “…Pontiac aspired to be the choice of your school principal. Even Plymouth had shed that aspiration by 1956.” because my high school principal, a rather conservative fellow, had a white and bright turquoise 1956 Plymouth Belvedere 4-door sedan.
My own experience with the 1957 Star Chief was limited. A friend who stayed with us for a while had a 2-door hardtop that was white with metallic coppery brown top and side streaks, and matching-color leather seats. This was a pretty plush rig, but it had had ten years of a hard life. The driver’s seat was torn, the Hydramatic transmission only had 2nd and 4th gears, and the windshield wiper mechanism hung down onto the floor from under the dash. Once I got it moving the 347 V8 had great performance, and the car was a typical western Washington car in that for all its infirmities the body and exterior trim were still very nice.
I’ll admit to liking Pontiac. I’d take a ’57 Safari over a Nomad in a heartbeat, and among my other favorites are the ’61 Ventura, 63 Bonneville, and the mid-80s Parisienne, which was easily the cleanest and most timeless of GM’s full size offerings of that time, both inside and out (I love my 1984 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight and it is definitely roomier and more luxurious, but it looks downright baroque compared to the Parisienne). I’ll agree that there were definitely some ugly years for Pontiac (the early-to-mid-1970s and mid-80s to the end, except for the Firebird), but the rest were pretty great.
We only had one Pontiac in the family, a ’55 Catalina. It was my dad’s first new car and he was probably in the minority of Pontiac customers, as he was still in his 20’s. It was the cheapest base model 2-door sedan in mint green, three on the tree and a heater.
It did fit the image of a conservative young engineer and family man at least a little bit. I’m sure he went for the value proposition over a fancier Chevy Bel Air. The Poncho had more engine for the money.
He went back to Chevy just four hears later, when he couldnt resist the flamboyant ’59, but the family had grown, so this time it was a station wagon.
To this day my favorite car of all time is the 69 Pontiac Grand Prix. The wrap around console, guages, long front end, pointed grill, big block 400 was just such an awesome combination.
I can’t disagree with this thesis of mid 50’s Pontiac in their day but 60 years later when I wheel my ’55 2 door post sedan (cheapo Chieftain 860 model but with all of the legit appearance accessories) down the highway or into an automotive event it gets much more attention than ’55-’56 Belairs, 98’s or Roadmasters.
Steve, That is a beautiful machine!
This 1954 Star Chief somehow hides its Chevy DNA pretty well.
The ’54 Star Chief was one of Misterl’s initial extended deck, a formulate that generated untold income for GM. One can imagine him saying ‘”Take that A-body Chieftain, add a couple inches to the wheelbase, hang a long coupe deck on it, price it up a couple hundred bucks and we’ll clean up!”
My personal favorite is a 1961 Catalina HT
Have not seen one in many years while attending several dozen car shows In the Mid West. A friend owned the exact 1957 Star Chief model shown here on the top photo same color combo, the only diff. was his had a continental kit added. I drove it several times and the 348 cu engine was peppy, he decided to sell it and had a hell of a time finding a buyer in the mid 1990s
A 57 Chevy Bel Air would have sold super fast for a lot more $$$
W.Johnson writes “My personal favorite is a 1961 Catalina HT”.
Me too. When I was 17 my family had a new 1961 Ventura 4 door hardtop (that’s a Catalina with a fancy interior and slightly different side trim) and I loved it. I had their permission to drive it when they didn’t need it. On cold winter Sunday mornings, after they had come in from a late night of socializing, I’d get in (the engine was still warm) and take it out to Jones Beach causeway and let it do its stuff. I was too dumb to think about the drum brakes or bias ply tires or lack of seat belts, or other sane stuff.
To me it was a maroon 389 cubic inch rocket ship.
It was teenage heaven, and a whole lot faster than my six cylinder fluid drive Chrysler.
The editor of Hemmings Classic Car has been restoring a 61 for several years, W. That’s one, I guess !
They’re also offering a blue and white 2 door model in 1:18 scale.
Up until 1956 Pontiac was usually the 5th or 6th in sales it does not sound like it was
doing too badly I don’t understand why GM was in such a panic ,and about
ready to cancel the division . At least by 55 they no longer offered a dorky
six like Dodge
Chevrolet was fairly basic transportation until 1955, when they began “stealing the thunder from the high priced cars”, moving firmly into Pontiac territory and perhaps beyond. Could save some bucks by shutting down a redundant division.
ChryCo was flexing Plymouth in similar fashion, so DeSoto would soon have no reason to exist. Dodge was further up Ma MoPar’s ladder.
Ford had no equivalent until Edsel, and we all know how that turned out. But since we’re viewing the landscape from 1955, it’s not really pertinent.
This article outlines why I like Pontiac cars, but was never a fan of Pontiac itself. Whereas they had amazing cars like the Tempest, GTO, Fiero, first-gen W-body Gran Prix, and Solstice, they were for the majority another brand in a new wrapper. The Catalina, the Gran Ville, the Bonneville, the Trans Sport, and the Sunbird/Sunfire were all cars that felt like or actually were cars from other brands with a Pontiac badge and some body cladding. Which is a shame, because by the time Pontiac finally found that ’60s magic again with the GTO, G6, last-gen Grand Prix, and Solstice, they were already on their way to to graveyard. It’s such a shame.
The point outlined in the comments that Chevy only had a 6 available until the mid 50’s, as well as Chevy moving up in the price point category by offering more options and luxuries (as well as Olds and Buick offering cheaper models in their lineup) made Pontiac more dispensable. In a lot of ways, I kind of view this as the first real start of “badge engineering”, because the individual divisions stealing sales from others could only go on for so long before certain divisions died. At some point, homologating the cars became more of a controlled way of preventing their demise, as well as maximizing sales to capture as much of the potential market out there. I suppose that GM thought that it would be better in the long run to lose a sale to another division, than to a rival car brand. But by doing so, they had diluted what made each division unique, and Pontiac (and Olds’) demise seems like it was drawn out much longer than it should have been. One also gets the sense that GM probably didn’t like guys like DeLorean all that much; the Banshee concept got the axe for coming too close to the Corvette’s territory, the GTO was maybe one of the most successful insubordinations in auto history, and the OHC six had got axed after DeLorean had left the company. At some point, the motto became “don’t be different”.
Pontiac, like Mercury were both dead to me by the late 80s. Cynical re-badges not worth the price premium over a Chevrolet or Ford.
And after the Montana, Torment and G4 what was the point ? A brand can only be whored out for so long.
Dropping the name Grand Am name for G6 was an ignorant move. Throwing away years of market awareness for an alpha numeric mish mash did not do Pontiac any favors.
My Grandfather had a yellow and white 56 2 door hardtop that I was playing in while he was visiting my parents. I hit the lever for the transmission and the thing rolled backward into a curb. I was four years old but remember that event to this day.
Compared to, say, a ’57 Ford that thing’s a dud.
Interesting to read this article and all these comments, as I just purchased a 57 Chieftain 4dr HT with 347 2BBL (252hp) and Hydramatic. I was never particularly drawn to mid-50s Pontiacs, especially the 55-56 models which looked odd with their “suspenders” silver streaks. I kinda liked the simpler, cleaner 57, and then again didn’t like the “busy” 58. Like much of America, I loved the 59-61 cars and fully expected to buy one of those if I ever got a Pontiac.
But looking at it now, the low-level 57 is a rather sensible, cleanly-styled car. I like it in the way that I prefer the 56 Chevy to the other Tri-Fives. It is a sensible car with a bit of style that implies strength. And the 347 is a good engine that backs that up. I also notice that my unrestored 69K-mile car is rough on the surface, but very solid. An East Coast car with no significant rust and the doors and windows close like the day they were built. Also, mechanically almost everything works, though nothing appears to ever have been rebuilt. No leaks so far and the car is 60 years old. Maybe that slower-than-Chevy production line paid off?
Maybe Pontiac was underrated in 57….then and now? I think so.
No one mentioned the ’57 Super Chief? That was the sleeper that year- big engine, smaller body, would outrun just about anything but a Chrysler 300. ’57 was actually a breakthrough year for Pontiac- the Super Chief was Pontiac’s first effort as GM’s performance division.
I believe what you got was more of a Chevrobile than an Oldsmolet.
A Chevrolet with more chrome. I remember reading in Brock Yate’s book “the Decline and Fall of the American Auto Industry” that GM management was seriously considering closing Pontiac down in 1955, as only its foundry was turning a profit. Pontiac’s image change came after DeLorean, Estes and Knudson came in and started shaking things up with the “wide track” image. Pontiac’s glory days were in the ’60s when it was putting big engines in small cars until the Supercar thing imploded in 1970 because of skyrocketing insurance rates and passage of the Clean Air Act.
Pontiac tried to keep the performance thing going but after the 1973 Trans Am 455SD the performance days were over. The firebird did get something of a reprieve with the Burt Reynolds movie “Smokey and the Bandit”, but that was short lived
By the late 70’s or so, Pontiac was becoming increasing broughamized and basically a more youthful Oldsmobile. And with increasingly centralized management at GM in the 80’s, and badge engineering running amok Pontiac basically had no real image left. It’s cars became bland and in effect returning to its image in the early 1950s-a slightly more expensive and fancier Chevrolet or a cheaper Oldsmobile.
I remember my mother’s 1985 6000; it was a totally bland vehicle, there was nothing to really separate it from the other GM cookie cutter cars of time, unless you were a loyal Pontiac person-as my mother was-far removed from Pontiac’s glory days.
As others have noted, here in the great white north we got a Cheviac. In my little town in the ’70s and ’80s there was a very well built Canadian ’57 2 door hardtop with an L-78 396 in it. It was the same 2 tone green as the one pictured further up in the comments. I really liked it and thought it made a nice change from the usual shoebox Chevys.
Pontiac did have a bit of a performance resurgence in the late ’70s with the WS6 Trans Am and Formula Firebirds, which was kind of their last hurrah. I do miss them because here in Canada there were years when Pontiacs were the best selling car in the land and almost every one of us of a certain age either had one or knew someone who did.
Even if they were just gussied up Chevys…
“If it ain’t a GTO or Firebird, who really cares about a Pontiac?”
Grand Prix. 1969 to 1972.
428 HO and a 4-speed please.
And here is Nanas Pontiac.
Snowbird