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First Gen Rivieras and Mustangs - are the styles Related?


Guest Mr Jones

Does the First Generation Mustang owe something styling wise to the First Generation Riviera?  

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  1. 1. Does the First Generation Mustang owe something styling wise to the First Generation Riviera?

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Guest Mr Jones

I have often wondered if the stylists at Ford borrowed a little from the First Generation Riviera's profile for the first gen Mustangs.

Or to put it another way, could the Mustang style as we know it have emerged without the Riviera before it?

 

To me the Mustang looks like a squared up and downsized Riv  - anyone else have opinions on this or different thoughts?

 

These are not my photos - taken from the internet, resized and enhanced.

mustang gen 1.jpg

riviera gen 1.jpg

Edited by Mr Jones (see edit history)
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                    I see where you are coming from........you are looking at the similarities in the upper rear quarter and roof lines on the two cars.

The problem with that analysis is.............. that part of the Mustang styling is lifted almost line for line from the roof and rear quarter on the 1961

Lincoln Continental. So who copied whom?  There is a car that blatantly  ripped off the styling of the 63 and 64 Riviera..........The 1967 full size 

Chevrolet. Their front ends are a cheap blatant knockoff........it's amazing they were allowed to do this by management at GM.

Edited by Seafoam65 (see edit history)
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Guest Mr Jones
6 hours ago, Seafoam65 said:

                    I see where you are coming from........you are looking at the similarities in the upper rear quarter and roof lines on the two cars.

The problem with that analysis is.............. that part of the Mustang styling is lifted almost line for line from the roof and rear quarter on the 1961

Lincoln Continental. So who copied whom?  There is a car that blatantly  ripped off the styling of the 63 and 64 Riviera..........The 1967 full size 

Chevrolet. Their front ends are a cheap blatant knockoff........it's amazing they were allowed to do this by management at GM.

autowp.ru_lincoln_continental_27.thumb.jpg.ad7e09aafbb2adc63498e22b3986f577.jpgArns_67_pass_front.thumb.jpg.b893f32d0ecc0278d30a46c2c30e6eb2.jpg

 

 

Interesting, I had not considered the Continental at all. I do see what you mean about the 67 Impala, especially the front end.  Still, I think the Mustang proportions; front to passenger compartment, and rear are closer to the Riv than to the Continental.  Everything is somewhat derivative from something before, i.e Rolls Royce..

 

Edited by Mr Jones (see edit history)
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Guess if the riviera was a 63 or 64 with the indents for the horse shoe trim it would have another similarity. But in the auto industry people always pull inspiration from another source, and sometimes outright copy and paste and just slap their own emblem on. I don't think ford copied from Buick or the other way around, it was probably a coincidence since a lot of things from that time had a coke bottle styling and general that's what people in the market for cars wanted. I don't think anyone should be surprised that older cars had some similarities because by today's standard all the damn things look like clones of each other. 

 

And yeah, as time goes on you see more similarities between gm stuff. 

 

 

1967_chevrolet_impala-pic-7974-640x480.jpg

1967 Buick Skylark.jpg

Edited by offdensen (see edit history)
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Guest Mr Jones
9 minutes ago, offdensen said:

Guess if the riviera was a 63 or 64 with the indents for the horse shoe trim it would have another similarity. But in the auto industry people always pull inspiration from another source, and sometimes outright copy and paste and just slap their own emblem on. I don't think ford copied from Buick or the other way around, it was probably a coincidence since a lot of things from that time had a coke bottle styling and general that's what people in the market for cars wanted. I don't think anyone should be surprised that older cars had some similarities because by today's standard all the damn things look like clones of each other. 

 

 

I agree the 63/64 would have been a stronger comparison.  I also agree about the 'sameness' of various generations of cars, but at least these 60s designs are not the bland sameness of modern cars.

1964-Buick-Riviera-American Classics--Car-100889500-c9b8021129315e307a4d5b0a3f75fb4d.jpg

mustang gen 1.jpg

Edited by Mr Jones (see edit history)
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54 minutes ago, Seafoam65 said:

                  Agreed.......the 67 Chevrolet was the best looking full size Chevy by a huge margin. My Dad had a new

67 Chevy company car........he loved it, hated the 69 Chevy that replaced it in comparison.

How can you differentiate a 66 from a 67 Impala.  As far as I know, Chevrolet only did the 'year to year" mandatory changes in grills and tail lights between the two.  Kind of like differentiating between a 66 and 67  Riviera (except for the new engine in the 67 Buicks)  

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Ed the 65 and 66 were slightly different....the 67 Chevrolet was a whole brand new design inside and out. The dramatic

Riviera style front end combined with the new really long swooping fastback roof was the most beautiful full size Chevy ever.

And the dash design in these cars was really cool. I would love to have an SS427 fastback 67 Chevy. In 68 they changed the same design

and totally ruined it with a hokey looking front end.

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Winston,

 

I looked at Google images for 1966 and 1967 and I couldn't see that much difference.  I checked some of the glass distributors and the windshields are the same 65 through 68, but the rear glass is distinct for 67 and 68.  I'll have to look at some pictures again.  What are the chances that all of the full sized GM cars used the same front and rear glass for those years?

 

I've heard that the sales of 1965 RIvieras fell short because of the new fastback lines for the Wildcat and the other GM two door hardtop models.  The '65 Riviera turned out to be a design that was held onto for one year too long - as far as sales go.  Otherwise it's the car that Bill Mitchell would have probably liked to have introduced in '63.

 

 

Ed

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2 hours ago, RivNut said:

How can you differentiate a 66 from a 67 Impala.  As far as I know, Chevrolet only did the 'year to year" mandatory changes in grills and tail lights between the two.  Kind of like differentiating between a 66 and 67  Riviera (except for the new engine in the 67 Buicks)  

 

In each of the pairs of years 59 &60, 61 & 62, 63 & 64, 65 & 66 they followed that pattern. The "tell" is the same dash in each of those pairs is the same. As mentioned the 67 was a redesign year. I owned a 67 Impala fastback when I was in college. It was a great, reliable car. My step-dad was the service manager at the local Chevrolet-Buick garage. Back in those days we got to order a new car every year for our family to use. The only hitch was that if someone wanted to buy it  we had to let it go. If that happened we got to choose any car off of the lot. The 67 Impala we ordered was a nice car and it got snapped up pretty quickly. We replaced it with a Buick station wagon which was cool because they had the panoramic windows in the roof. Another good memory of car ordering was in 1970. That was the year the 454 came out. We ordered a 4 door Impala with the 454, 4 bbl. set up. Probably a pretty rare combo.

 

Bill

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13 hours ago, KongaMan said:

 

IMHO, the Mustang is just a glorified Falcon,

 

Ford had previously put The Wizz Kids together on a fact finding mission that told Ford their buyers wanted an Edsel. In the early '60's they were still licking their wounds.

 

When the public whimpered about wanting a small sporty car like the two seat T-Bird. Iaccoca said "don't believe them for a minute. Here, take this POS Falcon, shorten the deck, and tell 'em it's a sports car." 2.3 liter and a 4 speed. Those tweed people were some of the few whom knew what a liter was, or litre, to the continental types.

 

The first Mustang buyers wore snap down tweed caps, leather patches on their elbows, and smoked pipes. Delorean pushed them into and 8.

 

On the Buick side, Mitchell was trying to pedal his LaSalle II, but Cadillac remembered how LaSalle was hogging sales from the parent name when they extinguished it in 1941. Olds was busy with it's FWD revival of the Cord and stealing many of those '30's styling cues. Pontiac was getting just plain goofy with things they did with the Tempest. They didn't want it. The car defaulted to Buick, mostly because it used off the shelf parts from existing models.

 

There you go, cynical AND opinionated. I was there and still think of my Riviera as one of Buick's small cars. 117" wheelbase. On a Buick!

Bernie

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6 hours ago, RivNut said:

Winston,

 

I looked at Google images for 1966 and 1967 and I couldn't see that much difference.  I checked some of the glass distributors and the windshields are the same 65 through 68, but the rear glass is distinct for 67 and 68.  I'll have to look at some pictures again.  What are the chances that all of the full sized GM cars used the same front and rear glass for those years?

 

I've heard that the sales of 1965 RIvieras fell short because of the new fastback lines for the Wildcat and the other GM two door hardtop models.  The '65 Riviera turned out to be a design that was held onto for one year too long - as far as sales go.  Otherwise it's the car that Bill Mitchell would have probably liked to have introduced in '63.

 

 

Ed

I read Mr. Mitchell planned on the Rivieras headlights to be hidden since the '63. They tried.

It took two years to get the engineering/logistics/money right into the '65.

Nothing a stock Mustang has. A completely different face for a car.

 

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27 minutes ago, PWB said:

It took two years to get the engineering/logistics/money right into the '65.

 

It has taken the next 50 years for the die hard enthusiasts to get them to work right, well, kinda.

Shouldn't all the ribs be parallel when they close?

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I own a 67 Mustang and a 64 Riviera. Engineering wise, the cars might as well be from different planets. The Falcon chassis was designed in 1958, and I believe it was meant to be a "universal" type chassis. The Falcon was 2 and 4 door sedans and wagons, and the Ranchero. I suspect a "sports car" was in the works right from the beginning. The Mustang is a brilliantly simplistic design, and light weight. The Riviera is a sophisticated design that is engineered to survive a war. 

 

I don't believe there's any ties between the cars, other than all the manufacturers were going after the thick sail panel look. I believe because it was new and fresh, compared to the past ten years with the thin post curved roofs starting in the mid-50's. The one thing the cars have in common, is that they were basically one man's vision, and kinda skipped the "committee design" phase. The Mustang was Lee Iacocca baby, and the Riviera was Bill Mitchell's.

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