I’ll admit to being a bit apprehensive. This is my first post about the fantastic ’59s. One should tread carefully on this pinnacle of American automotive excess that were the 1950s, if for no other reason than they’re so damn pointy all over. I’m also anxious because I’m pretty sure that Chevy is liable to bite me if I’m not nice to it. Impala by name, but certainly not by nature.
In my imaginary Bestiary of Angry and Aggressive Automobiles, the 1959 Chevrolet is one of the few that seems dangerous at both ends. The front end seems almost tame at first, like a quad-eyed teenager with thick eyebrows and braces. But I don’t trust it. It’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security, and I can tell.
The rear end is way more threatening, of course. Those malevolent red eyes, almost out of their orbits and topped with that prominent angry unibrow, which looks sharper than a butcher’s blade… the stuff of nightmares, frankly. Some called this curious feature bat wings, others went with gulls. I’d say: get the flock out of here. This is not a bird, it is not a plane, it’s a panicking conglomerate.
As has been well documented, GM’s 1959 line-up was the product of GM designers seeing the Forward Look Chrysler cars in late 1956 and thinking that their ’58 and ’59 cars would look like obese dinosaurs by comparison. It was too late to do anything about the ‘58s, but styling work on the ‘59s was just beginning, so a complete turnaround was achievable by then. Which is exactly what happened, as the success of the 1957 Chrysler line-up became obvious to all.
For the Chevrolet division, the difference between early clays made in early 1957 and the ones dated from June onward is stark. One thing though: one of the early clays already had horizontal blades at the rear, but that was coupled with vertical fins, too. Kind of like a Philips head. Or rather a Philips tail. The bulky, bottom-heavy early attempts gave way to longer and wilder experiments. Headlamps stacked in the centre of the grille, giant boomerang at the back. It could have been so much worse. But the horizontal theme was kind of there from the start for the back end. The front, on the other hand seems to have been in much more flux.
It’s not surprising that arch-rival Ford were neck-and-neck with Chevrolet sales-wise in 1959. The Chevrolet design was about as polarizing and controversial as it could be. Middle America, along with the Eastern, Central, Pacific, Southern or any other America you might conjure up, and I’ll throw in Canada too, looked at the 1959 Chevrolet and thought “Nah, not having that thing peering at me from my garage.”
That’s one of the reasons why I like these. They’re just outrageous. Although Detroit’s designers had raised the bar for weird very high by the late ‘50s, the 1959 Chevy deployed its rear wings and wafted over it like it wasn’t there. Nothing was as extreme as this car in 1959. This did not last long, as Virgil Exner said “Hold my beer” and produced even stranger things for 1960-62, even as GM toned it down almost as quickly as they had hammed it up. So the 1959 Chevrolet really stands out among Chevrolets in general.
One might even argue that it stands out compared to the other GM offerings for 1959. Yes, the giant-finned Cadillac is also quite noticeable, but then it’s supposed to be the top dog. Chevrolet, as the cheapest car, was never noticed for its styling, usually. For ’59, with all divisions basically sharing the same underlying body elements, the little Chevy became as wide as the Buick it was based on. But though Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick were plenty weird in their own right, they were more restrained than Chevy and Caddy.
Once the beast has swallowed you, things actually looked rather pleasant. The green fabric matches the exterior colours (Aspen green / Classic cream) very smartly. Bit of a let-down, in a way. One would expect more flashes of bizarre googie design – or at the very least a gear selector shaped like a bone, but no. It’s just a nice interior. To Mr Jim Klein: Yes, that’s the black ’63 Sting Ray over there. It’s beautiful and all that, but it just didn’t photograph all that well. Black cars need a little sun, or at any rate a lot more light than what they have at Megaweb. If there’s one thing I’d change at that place, it would be the damn lighting!
I’m hoping to see one of these curbside someday. It could happen. I saw a 1960 sedan on the street not long ago (alas, no photo was taken – I was too shocked to take action!), so why not the real thing? The ’60 is tone-deaf rather than toned-down, a poor approximation of the gloriously eerie ’59.
Fly, my pretty! Stretch those ghoulish fins and soar into the moonless night, like a batwing out of hell!
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne – The Original Art Car, by PN
Cohort Outtake: 1959 Chevrolet Biscayne – Bat Wings for Cheapskates, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1959 Chevrolet Impala- Holy Batwing Die Cast Dreams, by Laurence Jones
Cohort Outtake; 1959 Chevrolet Parkwood Wagon – Lots of Woods, But No Woodie, by PN
CC Capsule: 1959 Chev El Camino – Been Here A While, by JohnH875
Curbside Classic: 1959 Chevy El Camino- Unrestrained Exuberance, by David Skinner
Curbside Classic: 1959 Chevrolet El Camino – I Have Seen Many Strange And Amazing Things In America, by PN
Nice essay on these interesting automobiles. It was the era of garish appearance. Gm kept up with the crowd.
Ghastly.
The mid to late 1960s was the golden era of automobile design.
This was also the era when the car companies had real car designers. Today, GM and the others employ monkeys with computers turning out one over-priced SUV after another. Hopefully GM will bring back car designers when they get some real leadership in there.
We can only wish for old
Car designers to come back
Put some design character
To these cars
My parents called them “salami slicers”. Don’t know if that was a common nickname for them.
I recall Consumer Reports used the term “tortured sheet metal” to describe the quarter panel styling. Also they said that the flat-roof 4-door hardtop greenhouse was reminiscent of a tugboat’s bridge.
Interesting how you captured this vehicle at Megaweb, a museum in Tokyo dedicated to all things Toyota. Maybe the designers of the current Lexus line have been looking at this car for inspiration a little much.
It’s really not, while owned and curated by Toyota, Megaweb features interesting cars from all over the world and the collection rotates fairly often. We’ve done a few posts on the entire museum and those show some of the depth that there is.
The background of the pictures here show a Corvette, a Mustang, and a DeLorean for example. There are also a number of European cars as well as significant Japanese cars that aren’t Toyotas.
These ’59 Chevys always fascinated me as a kid–and now I own one!
The tail lights are airfoils, positioned like cat’s eyes, with the rear bumper (mouth) bearing little fangs (bumper guards). Up front, the theme is continued as the airfoils are stretched out and reversed, gliding above the grille, like eyebrows. The forward-leaning “A” pillar and graceful downward slope of the roof form a greenhouse also in the shape of an airfoil. The entire effect is long, fast, and sleek, combined with an otherworldly spookiness. What kind of a mind thinks up something like this?
“Middle America . . . looked at the 1959 Chevrolet and thought ‘Nah, not having that thing peering at me from my garage.’ ” I don’t think that’s true, considering that it was the #1 selling car in 1959, with 1,481,071 sold, which was more than the full-size 1958 and 1961 Chevys.
Although not ALL shoppers were convinced:
Keep in mind that there was a severe recession in 1958 that hammered industry sales, and a milder one in 1961.
After 1958, sales recovered somewhat for 1959 across the industry.
GM expected the all-new 1959 Chevrolet to thoroughly dominate the competition – as, ironically, the 1958 model had done. But Ford actually closed much of the gap in 1959 that Chevrolet had opened up in 1958. And this was with a heavily face lifted car, as opposed to the all-new Chevrolet.
So while the 1959 Chevrolet wasn’t a flop, GM was expecting better things from it.
I hear that comment so often that the Ford was heavily facelifted. Nothing personal, Geeber, but when I look at the US ’58s (not what we got in Australia) and the ’59s, I’m hard-pressed to find any outer sheetmetal (or glass) in common at all. To me it looks more like a complete reskin rather than a facelift. Thoughts?
What I heard was that the ’59 Ford was really a facelifted ’58 MERCURY. And if you look at both cars, you can see similarities.
The ’59 Ford was essentially a face-lifted ’58 Mercury. We’ve established that in the past here before. This picture makes it quite clear, as do critical dimensions and such.
Aha – that explains it. I must have missed this in the past. Thanks!
I waited out for the 1960 impala
Liked the new taillight design so
I bought one along catching the
Eye of a great girl still married to
She still brags to girlfriends about
The car and how she snared both
Of us my wife old girlfriend have never veered off of our impala so
Disappointed when impala line went off line last one we oned was a 62 impala ss
Good choice glad you lived in those times
Love the color combination of this one. I always found it interesting that Chevrolet used a Corvette-inspired instrument panel, with centered, round gauges, in 1959-60. By 1961, Chevrolet was back to using the horizontal strip speedometer in its full-size cars in a layout that was anything but sporty.
I never thought about the dash before, but on reflection it was probably the one part of these cars I liked. Later Chevrolet dashboards were so boring!
Absolutely love the instrument panel in the 1959-60 Chevrolets. A round speedometer would not reappear until 1967, but then it was gone again in the following year.
the ’59 and ’60 dash has been used in hot rods and customs since new. I’ve even seen a ’69 Camaro with a ’59 dash! The steering wheels are coveted for hot rods too.
GM Design in ’58, ’59 and ’60 provided some of the most HIDEOUS looking cars ever put on U.S.of A. highways!!! Of course, that is simply my opinion as a retired Industrial Designer. OTOH, as noted in the very creative write up….Ford $ale$ were darn close to Chevy in 1959!
My dad bought a 3 on the tree 6 banger ’60 Biscayne: what a LUMP! It gave ones’ arms and legs a pretty good work out while driving thru town with a column mounted stick and “armstrong” steering. Altho I did figure out how to handle the big monster with my High School seetie snuggled up to me………aah wot FUN!!! :):):)
As far as todays’ designers go; a CAID software program will let those who know no better build and blend any horrid surface treatment a designer who can run a mousecan regurgitate . GIGO!!!! I see very, very little clean yet creative Design out there now. The new Ferrari ROMA appears, from pictures, to buck todays “explosion in a mattress factory” look for one of refined, flowing simplicity. Now where did I put that $230K I would need? Uhhh……DFO
This is the colour of the 1959 Chev that I fell in love with as a kid. The neighbour down the street would take his granddaughter and I out for ice creams. Every other day of the week I would look at the car from the back parked down in his driveway.
I can’t remember if it was a two door or four, but if a two door, it would have had the flowing roofline like on the Chev in the black and white picture. A four door would have given it the flat top roof.
Those lines! What an exercise in styling! Excellent photos and writeup Tatra.
I don’t believe the story about seeing Chrysler products. The ’57 Eldo Brougham was already doing everything that Chrysler was doing. It closely resembles a ’57 Plymouth, except for the Lancia-like suicide doors. The story is obviously a pretext for the needed palace revolt.
One thing I’ve noticed recently about the ’59, which I didn’t realize when I owned one: The fins don’t really protrude horizontally or vertically. The rear half of the car is rectangular, not trapezoidal. The fins appear to protrude because of the deep sculpture under them.
I don’t believe the story about seeing Chrysler products.
Why am I not surprised?
It’s been extremely well documented, and the timelines all corroborate it. The ’57 Eldorado did not have the key elements that defined the ’57 Chryslers. If you can’t see that, there’s no point in trying to explain it.
The fins appear to protrude because of the deep sculpture under them.
I’m glad you finally figured that one out. 🙂
I’ve read an interview with prominent GM stylist Chuck Jordan describing driving over to Chrysler and peering thru the fence at early ’57s. They came back and started a palace coup with Harley Earl away in Europe at the time. It’s well documented.
This car will always remind me of Pinky Tuscadero, who competed in a demolition derby on Happy Days while driving a ’59 Chevrolet 2-door post sedan.
My first impression of the ’59 was that Chevy had put an undersized chassis under it. From the front, the track width looks like it should have been increased at least 6 inches. Just compare it with the Pontiac. I’m surprised the ’59 could negotiate any kind of curve without rolling over.
My father in law, a supervisor at a Chevy assembly plant, got a new Chevy every 2 or 3 years, and among those was a ’59 4 dr hardtop. That thing rode like a marshmallow and had the widest interior of any car I can remember. I think 4 adults might have fit in the rear seat.
Your right my girlfriends dad owned a 60 4door chevy impala
She once came over my home driving it she looked really small
Behind the wheel back then
I’m surprised that concept with the center stacked headlamps even made it to clay. Someone should have stopped it when it was on paper with a loud “are you f***ing kidding?”
I’m really amazed at some of the designs that made it as far as clay, and not just from GM.
At least they didn’t go with any of the clay proposals shown above. The far lower left rear view looks like it has ’58 Pontiac tail lights. Indeed the designers of that era had vision and imagination, unlike today’s designers who seem to take the NASCAR approach and pass around a template amongst the car companies and tack on what ever geometric shape appeals to them.
I actually must be in the minority in liking the 1960 version, I could take or leave the angry rear end treatment (but I do think round lights are more fitting on a Chevy) but I really repulsively dislike the front end eye brows. 60-61 trucks are marred with them as well.
I’ll side with you on this one. My parents had a ’59 Impala, but a neighbor had a ’60, and even then (’67 or so, I was around 4) I felt that, given the constraint of having to reuse the basic shell for one more model year, the ’60 was better executed, a respectable pullback from the previous year’s excess.
I was always a fan of the ’59 – it’s the first car I remember asking about as a kid – but I can see that it would have aged very quickly. The ’60 would have fitted in much better with what followed, and not looked as out of place in, say, a high school car park, as that wild ’59.
I had a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville in 1964….enough said. Beautiful car! Sold it when I got drafted and went to Vietnam where there were no GM cars.
1959 anything..just all around weird. IMO, 1958 runs an even-up in the bizarre design dept.
When everyone talks about replacing 1 year 58 models, they are too Chevy-centric. GM had finally gotten its A-B-C body system back on track. The B and C body (Olds-Buick & Buick-Cadillac) were new for 54, the A body (Chevy, Pontiac) new for 55. The B/C cars were due for replacement by 1957 then again for 1960, so using the B/C as the basis for the shared 59 line only pulled the program ahead by a year for the B & C body Divisions.
The other thing that was interesting is that while GM got through 1959-60 on a single shell for the big cars, Chrysler needed 2 and Ford needed 3.
The 59 Chevy makes me think of something Duke Ellington is reported to have said to a young jazz pianist – “My, you play so many notes.” I don’t think it was a compliment. 🙂
Yes, you are exactly right regarding your first paragraph. Everyone seems to forget the 57 Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Cadillacs were redesigned, 3 years after their last revision in 1954.
I believe besides the Chevy-centric thinking, the 58 Buicks and Oldses were so heavily restyled and elongated that many didn’t realize the same basic bodies from 57 were carried over. Looking at the greenhouse/cowl gives away the secret.
I’ve been remarking to people with amazement, for decades, that the GM bodies were all new for ’58, and again for ’59—wondering that they could afford to do that. Turns out I was wrong ?
About 20 years ago, an employee at the local supermarket had a 1960 four door Impala, same color scheme, in cherry original condition, paint, interior, and so on. Still had its original wheel covers. I assumed he had inherited it from his parents, who probably hadn’t driven it too much. I’d see it parked in the far end of the parking lot, where the employees parked. After a while, I stopped seeing it, and figured that he had taken another job somewhere.
A few weeks later, while junkyard hopping, I came across the car in a pick-your-part lot. It must have just arrived, as it was complete, but had suffered some left front fender damage. No doubt the insurance company had totaled the car, rather than try to source the fender and trim pieces. Watching the car get quickly stripped down, over the next few weeks, could have made me cry. The stripped out shell, in the white-over-green, was heartbreaking to see.
The thing is, I am not a fan of these cars at all. But one has to respect and appreciate one of them being kept up so well, all through its days. It also shows how important color can be, as the white-over-green made this car an exceptional eye-catcher, well beyond what the condition and originality did for it, while driving by it in the parking lot.
We had a ’59 Brookwood wagon. This body looks best in base model trim, without as many chrome decorations. The ’59-’60 dash is the nicest version of the design that started with the ’57.
I love these – they look like they could fly. I have or had a Corgi model of the sedan, but not such a nice colour.
Do I see shut-lines in those bat-wings or is it just a join in the bright-work ? I always assumed the area above the wings lifted for access.
There is a black 59 down the street from me that I see out in the open once in awhile. Bit of a low rider vibe to it but damn if it doesn’t catch your attention as it is gorgeous. Noticed last week a 4 post lift outside with another Impala body, no engine or front clip, on top of it. A new project?
I’m of Hispanic culture and all in
My bunch were chevy guys because our grandad and dad’s all
Drove chevy impala or chevy biscayne true to this day I look out
My window and there’s 3 Gen motors models sitting out there
Suburb,equinox,silverado pu
My manager of Northwest Plaza Cinema where I was an usher in high school
Had a whole fleet of 59 chevies Nice guy and good taste
In cars too !
I’d never really noticed how ugly the front of the ’59 Chevy was. I’m loving the green exterior and interior though.
The optional front bumper guard with the black bullets does it no favors. I wouldn’t buy a ’59 with that thing on there!
Compare:
They’re just outrageous.
But I still find them better than the ’58s. The bits of the ’59s I don’t care for much (the fins on the Pontiac and Olds, the canted quad lamps) are one thing, but the slathered-on goop, especially on the sides, are just too much in not even a good way, and would removing some of the chrome make them better?
Yes, the Biscayne two door looks much cleaner. I agree on the ’58. No saving that one.
Ah! I’m not alone in thinking the ’58s were messy. 🙂
I’m glad they didn’t facelift the ’58s for another go-around in ’59.
This is a car that was very memorable and distinctive in my childhood (I turned three just after at the end of the 1959 model year). Later, I grew to recognize a few other 1959 cars, but the ‘59 and ‘60 Chevies, especially the ‘59, stood out even to a little kid, because they were so different than the ‘58’s and ‘61’s. Sort of the ovoid ‘96 Taurus of its time, only more so.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but bro your not even close.
When I first began driving (on the public roads) these were widely available as used cars for a few hundred dollars, depending on condition and equipment. It was generally agreed that the 1959 Chevrolet was sort of odd looking, but there were numerous odd looking cars then. Heck, compared to a ’59 Cadillac the Chevy was tastefully restrained. One thing you can safely say about cars from that era is that they did not all look alike. Today, if the external badging was removed, most people would find it difficult to differentiate among a Camry, an Accord or a Sonata. The cars of today are certainly better cars than the ones from the fifties and sixties but they are not nearly as interesting, at least not to me and my generation. I have no doubt that 40 years on some people will look back fondly at the Toyandasan they were driving in high school and college.
Very true cars of my age had character no girl would mistake your chevy for some other model
I know my girl knew my white over
Blue chevy coupe over other model cars when she made up her mind she was going to make
Her husband when I showed up in
1962 blk impala ss with red interior her girlfriends didn’t know
My name but they knew of oh yea
Your going with the guy drives that cool black impala she was very proud of that fact
This reminds me of Radar Oreily of MASH, writing during his creative writing course.
Give me big eyebrows and bat wings! They may be strange but I have been fascinated with the styling of these for 50 years… I’m generally not a Chevy fan but would love to won one of these…
I always feel that the ’59 Chevrolet front end doesn’t match the rear. The rear is so flamboyant, but the front is relatively plain. Each is nice in isolation, but when combined it looks like they put the front of one car on the rear of another. By comparison, on a ’59 Cadillac, the front and rear have matching levels of design and look like they’re intended to be on the same car. Ditto the Buick’s slanting features; but the Pontiac and Oldsmobile not so much. Having said that though, too-narrow wheel track aside, the ’59 Chevrolet is one of my favourite designs. They were sold new in New Zealand, RHD, and a neighbour had a 6-cylinder Impala sedan throughout the 1980s while I was growing up. Although in tired condition, it really made an impact on me!
NZ only had Bel Airs locally assembled
I will stick with my 66 ss.chevelle. at least it doesn’t make faces at me..ugh..1959..dark ages for cars..come on 1960…r jones
The ’59 Chevrolet has always been a special car for me. Bear in mind our family car at the time was a ’55 Morris Oxford. The average family car back then was the FC Holden, a sort of a Corvair-sized ’54-55 Chevy mishmash , with plenty of cars smaller than that on our roads. American cars were an expensive luxury few could afford.
I was going shopping with Mother one day, and seeing a ’59 Chevy parked by the side of the road I asked “What’s that?” It was so huge, so long, so low, so flat, with that huge greenhouse, and, being an Aussie model, those cool, little amber indicators (newly required by law) hanging like roosting bats from the underside of those fins.
I blame the ’59 Chevy for sparking a lifelong interest in cars. Or do I thank it?
Naturally CC-in-scale has a ’59. Several in fact. Here’s my favourite.
This reminds me of a rather famous 1959 Chevy, shown here in its “before” state.
And then some 4 years later in its “after” condition, not looking much for worse when viewed from directly behind, at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
And yes, the fins DO protrude outward horizontally from the bodywork — it’s not because of the perspective of this photograph.
Nice model! Did you build it? If so, kudos!
Although I got pretty good at spray painting back in the day, I never could work up the courage to brush paint the chrome moldings on the bodysides or window frames.
Edit – this was supposed to be in response to Peter Wilding’s post.
Thanks! Yep, it’s all built from a kit. This particular one has separate chrome pieces for the side trim (in addition to the usual bumpers, grille, wheels, etc), and I use an adhesive-backed metal foil for the other chrome.
I was 8 when these cars came out. I remember they and the Edsel were the subject of endless cartoons. Sure enough when I Googled the subject (good stuff):
http://www.xframechevy.com/1959-chevrolet-cartoons/
That’s a great link there. I’ve referred to it in my comment below.
Kinda like the 59 Chev even looked at buying one once but the rust it had was incredible it was also a rare for NZ six cylinder Bel Air most of the local assembly cars were 283 manuals no automatics at all it could even have been Australian built but I kept away from it in the end it was really rotten in places.
Chrome, chrome, on the range
On the spear, on the over-done flange.
Where seldom was heard
A re-straining word,
And the lot still cause seizures today.
What’s not to love? Cars of these dimensions were inherently devoid of reason anyway. Say, there’s little point in being by far the richest and most powerful country in the world and not flaunting it.
And anyone could buy this extravagance, even if it was just a manual six on credit. The next target is the moon; why not have cars that are fantasies of that future? It’s America as Hollywood, a mobile film set of glamour. It is a very imaginative mirror.
It’s not a beautiful car, but there is some care to the excess that was quite absent in, say, the later Exner Chryslers. I can’t define it, but where they achieved only unharmonious drama, this had some sense of a whole. A wild, wild one for sure, but one nonetheless.
It’s most interesting that these crates were pilloried in period. CA guy has a link above to period cartoons cracking funnies about the anger or excess of the look, but also several that pick on the impracticality of the design for folk inside. That’s significant. People disliked having to go low from when it started, disliked style over function. As has long been pointed out here, the much-complained of SUV height and shape of today was where folk always preferred to be. And not trying to pilot or park 500 sq feet of chromed daggers and carbuncles from down at street level!
When the stylists had the final say in a lot of cases.The Golden Age of Detroit!One correction on this 59,the color is Highland Green.This is my 59 Impala.This is Aspen Green though both colors shared the same interior color combination #825
Nice car congrats