1959 GM and Chrysler Rearend Gymnastics gone wild.

[Gunsmoke]

This photo montage showed up on Facebook today, stunning example of 2 of the Big 3's over indulgence with fins, chrome, mindless sheet metal gymnastics on cars that were otherwise pretty mundane performers. If I have it correct, this was about the end period for such excess, some love it, some hate it!

[Pfeil]

Interesting photo of the 59 Pontiac Bonneville. 1959 Pontiac styling was considered the most conservative of all the GM divisions of 1959.

Can you see the correctness of that statement.

   < Funny Chevrolet doesn't have a full front and rear bumper and use a valance underneath.

[avgwarhawk]

59 Buick is GMs most the beautiful design ever produced.  Just one man's opinion. 

[Marty Roth]

8 minutes ago, avgwarhawk said:

59 Buick is GMs most the beautiful design ever produced.  Just one man's opinion. 

Make mine the Electra 225 Convertible please,

White with red interior and white top,

or 

Red with white interior

or even yellow with white interior

Delivered with all power options and A/C

[Jubilee]

1959 was THE year in my opinion.

I’ve always been impressed by excess. Automotively speaking.

[EmTee]

Our family had a '59 Catalina sport coupe when I was very young.  I'd like to have one now...

[Gunsmoke]

Thanks Pfeil for including the fronts and rears in same post. Your montage underlines the styling excess of the day, and as a designer myself, also underlines the arbitrariness of all the elements. I am reluctant to call it design or styling, but would prefer to call it "frivolous excess" (and some car aficionados love excess). Other than the Buick where there is some attempt to have front and back treatment share a "theme" ( corner upsweeps which serve no real purpose other than like a person having big ears), the rest of the fronts and rears could be from 2 entirely different cars. Needless to say, good visual design for any product should be based on an overall theme which carries on from one end to the other in a fluid/organic manner. In 1959, the people (I'm not going to call them designers or stylists) sketching out these rears (and fronts) must have been simply given free rein, or early users of LSD! I'm guessing one person was responsible for the front treastment, another for the rear.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

The awesome '50s!   A time when the sky was the limit and anything was possible.  Today is no comparison.  Unfortunately!!  We, as a people, have come a long way since then.  Just perhaps not on the right path.

 

  I like the 1958 AND 1959 cars.

 

  Ben

[John_S_in_Penna]

I have read late-1950's magazines and subsequent

collector-car books.  Beginning then, and continuing

into the 1980's, many people felt the finned era was

a low point of styling.

 

In late 1958, in a Motor Trend essay contest where

readers told why they stayed away from 1958 cars,

someone summed it up well:  "Why should a car look

like a plane any more than a submarine or a steam

locomotive?"

 

In the 1970's, people still abhorred the tailfins.  The

1959 Cadillac was a "theater of the absurd on wheels."

I infer that by the 1980's, people's opinions were changing.

[Pfeil]

5 hours ago, Gunsmoke said:

Thanks Pfeil for including the fronts and rears in same post. Your montage underlines the styling excess of the day, and as a designer myself, also underlines the arbitrariness of all the elements. I am reluctant to call it design or styling, but would prefer to call it "frivolous excess" (and some car aficionados love excess). Other than the Buick where there is some attempt to have front and back treatment share a "theme" ( corner upsweeps which serve no real purpose other than like a person having big ears), the rest of the fronts and rears could be from 2 entirely different cars. Needless to say, good visual design for any product should be based on an overall theme which carries on from one end to the other in a fluid/organic manner. In 1959, the people (I'm not going to call them designers or stylists) sketching out these rears (and fronts) must have been simply given free rein, or early users of LSD! I'm guessing one person was responsible for the front treastment, another for the rear.

When you said this; "also underlines the arbitrariness of all the elements." I must remind you that at GM the stylist designer were under some constraints. Those constraints were canopies and some body parts. For example, the two door hardtop coupes all use the same doors. The basic door had bolt on pieces to make them different on Olds and Buick.

1959 Pontiac inside of the door frame has the bolt holes that will attach a Buick or Olds door extension to it.

1959 Olds below, you can see the added-on portion to the door, it's painted black. Same door though as Pontiac-Chevy etc. 

That connector portion connects the front fender flair to the rear quarter flair. The connector just bolts to the door.

 

 

[Gunsmoke]

Lest the FOMOCO and other brand lovers feel left out, here are some of their offerings in 1959. Mercury, Lincoln, Ford, also Oldsmobile, Studebaker and Rambler. By this time, all manufacturers had given in to the drunken scribbling of others. The Rambler photo I included as it shows an example of the further contortions the companies went to in the Station Wagon lines, sometimes even more painful!

[rocketraider]

Always found it humorous that Nissan Armadas copied the Rambler wagon's reverse-cant rear door window and roofline. Twice the size of course.

 

Tortured sheetmetal spaceships on wheels...

[Bhigdog]

An early example of group think, similar to what we see pretty much everywhere today.....bob

Edited September 26, 2023 by Bhigdog (see edit history)

[Gunsmoke]

If you take the time to imagine the $billions the Big 3 (and 3 or 4 smaller companies) spent every year re-tooling their sheet metal presses, making dies and presses for chrome pieces, setting specs for glass revisions, taillight assemblies, hubcaps, mirrors, door panels, etc, etc, you have to wonder what they were thinking. Meanwhile, the technical, safety, mileage, and quality control standards were ignored. Little wonder in the end, by 10 years or so, the foreign car invasion began. While the invasion cars had their own problems, the opportunity gave them a big boost and eventually led to the quality, cost, and designs of their products taking a huge chunk of the market.  While a lot of Big 3 executives and designers of the era get regular praise on here, in hindsight they were very poor at looking into the future desires of the average automotive buyer. 

[TerryB]

The 1959 Ford styling lines look so clean and well defined compared to the Lincoln and Mercury offerings with their tack-on trim pieces. 

[Oregon Desert model 45]

One more 

[Pfeil]

2 hours ago, rocketraider said:

Always found it humorous that Nissan Armadas copied the Rambler wagon's reverse-cant rear door window and roofline. Twice the size of course.

 

Tortured sheetmetal spaceships on wheels...

I'll bet they never knew what a Rambler wagon was.

[Gunsmoke]

A couple of more from the Big 3, the Imperial was always flashy, but the poor previously lovely 55-57 T-Bird was by now developing excess. The only exception to the excess may have been the lovely shapely behind on the 1959 Corvette (pls ignore 1989 reference, typo), sleek, purposeful, timeless, even if bumper is a bit sinuous. Why companies did not take cues from such designs remains a mystery.

[Pfeil]

19 minutes ago, TerryB said:

The 1959 Ford styling lines look so clean and well defined compared to the Lincoln and Mercury offerings with their tack-on trim pieces. 

1959 Merc. has a nice front-end IMO, I don't know what happened to the rear, and it's not like they didn't know the rear styling was overbearing because it's an outgrowth the 57-58 Merc.

>1959>58>

57>

 

[John_S_in_Penna]

On 9/26/2023 at 7:59 AM, Gunsmoke said:

...as a designer myself...I am reluctant to call it design or styling, but would prefer to call it "frivolous excess"...   

the fronts and rears could be from 2 entirely different cars...

23 hours ago, Gunsmoke said:

If you take the time to imagine the $billions the Big 3 (and 3 or 4 smaller companies) spent every year re-tooling their sheet metal presses, making dies and presses for chrome pieces, setting specs for glass revisions, taillight assemblies, hubcaps, mirrors, door panels, etc, etc, you have to wonder what they were thinking. 

Gunsmoke, I never knew you were a designer.

Are you currently with one of the domestic auto manufacturers?

I'm very much appreciating all of your knowledge.

 

When I was a regional AACA newsletter editor

for one of the club's largest regions, and always

looking for excellent insights into car history in articles

to publish, I interviewed Bob Lutz on car design.  I would

have been happy to tap some of your expertise too.

 

[Gunsmoke]

Well, I suppose I should confess I graduated in 1970 with a Masters in Architecture. While most people associate that discipline with the design of buildings, the 6 year long program focused on all the principles of good design, which can be aptly applied to virtually any field of design. I started by taking 2 years of basic engineering which gave a solid foundation for design of structures, mechanical systems, drafting, surveying, strength of materials, etc, and paved the way for a later better understanding of good design from both an aesthetic as well as a practical viewpoint. A key principle of all this training is to approach a project holistically and as a complete entity, i.e. design every element as part of a unified whole. This design philosophy is what I carry with me when I look at car design, seeking a unified whole, and an overall image that is clean, solid, purposeful and pleasant to the eye from every angle, and free of arbitrary cosmetics or foreign elements. I've long considered only 2 cars from the Big 3 in the 1950's met that measure, the early Corvettes and the 1955/56 T-Bird. The 1950 Ford was my favorite among the family sedans. JMHO?   

[60FlatTop]

Isn't there an old saying that "Beauty is in the eye of the designer".

 

I think that is why architects work alone and engineers work in teams.

[Gunsmoke]

Gee 60FlatTop, hard not to reply, (1) "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder" is certainly an old saying, and few people challenge it. I've never heard of your homemade variation. (2) Architects on any large project work with junior architects, draftsmen, spec writers, and a full range of mechanical, electrical, and civil engineers (specializing in structural, acoustics, landscaping, ground/soils analysis etc), so the team is large. Architects in fact rarely if ever work alone. Their role is typically to ensure the integrity of their design concept (which their client has approved) is followed thru to fruition, and to guide the others in finding resolution to any challenges that show up during the process. Senior Engineers serve the same role in their projects, leading and coordination a team to ensure the product envisaged comes out as they intended. These roles are never simple, and require vision, leadership, good problem solving and inter-personal skills, and attention to details. Both are usually working for a client who expects the best possible end result.

[mrspeedyt]

American  excess. 1958 and 59 and 60 were the epitome of it. of course I've owned a 59 Chevy El Camino and a 60 Cadillac. Even had some '62 (and 63s and 64s and 65s and on) Chevrolets and Cadillacs and even a 60 Ford... and of course most the foreign cars were hilarious!

 

the single best looking car from that era is the Porsche.

Edited September 28, 2023 by mrspeedyt (see edit history)

[Pfeil]

I can't help myself from liking the era and its magic for me. BTW, I've eaten at all the restaurants/diners below-back in the day.   

 

The cars just go with the buildings.

aa

Edited September 28, 2023 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[EmTee]

Now, THAT's what I'm talkin' about - I love the original 'wide-track' Pontiac! 

 

[pkhammer]

I can't quit looking at that 1959 Studebaker Hawk! That car is BEE-YOU-TEE-FUL!!

[Gunsmoke]

mrspeedyt wrote "the single best looking car from that era is the Porsche". Hard to disagree, the Porsche 356 was a wonderful timeless design, I'd love to own one. However it is not a North American car, which this topic is primarily focused on.

 

If we stray off the continent into Europe, the 1950's (and specifically 1959) had some stunningly beautiful cars, whether it was British makes like Jags, Astons and Healeys, or Italian (Ferrrari, Alfa, Maserati, Fiat ) or German (MB Gullwings and coupes, BMW's, Porsche, Karmann Ghia), and even France with the iconic Citroens. I know many will poohpooh the idea of these being nicely designed cars, as these makes when brought over were often criticized for technical issues, many of which were due to a lack of dealership and service support. But that's a topic for another day, and another post!

 

In 1965 I bought one of these, my earliest FUN car, and an attention getter where ever you drove.. 

[60FlatTop]

21 hours ago, Gunsmoke said:

Gee 60FlatTop, hard not to reply

The comment was inspired by many design meetings with cynical old engineers trying to have an enclosure for a cogeneration plant built. It could have been a longer than expected sitcom run. The episode with the choice of double D finish bricks was a treasure.

[Pfeil]

2 hours ago, Gunsmoke said:

mrspeedyt wrote "the single best looking car from that era is the Porsche". Hard to disagree, the Porsche 356 was a wonderful timeless design, I'd love to own one. However it is not a North American car, which this topic is primarily focused on.

 

If we stray off the continent into Europe, the 1950's (and specifically 1959) had some stunningly beautiful cars, whether it was British makes like Jags, Astons and Healeys, or Italian (Ferrrari, Alfa, Maserati, Fiat ) or German (MB Gullwings and coupes, BMW's, Porsche, Karmann Ghia), and even France with the iconic Citroens. I know many will poohpooh the idea of these being nicely designed cars, as these makes when brought over were often criticized for technical issues, many of which were due to a lack of dealership and service support. But that's a topic for another day, and another post!

 

In 1965 I bought one of these, my earliest FUN car, and an attention getter where ever you drove.. 

Probably one of the most affordable almost hand-built cars. I have a blueprint that shows where every welded seam is (all hand welded and leaded in, filed, (no plastic fillers) sanded and painted. My brother-in-laws father bought a new 59 Ghia, black over red and unfortunately died a few months later so the car became my brother-in-laws. I remember the storage behind the rear seat (when folded down) that my niece and nephew used to crawl into while driving.

Thanks for that memory Gunsmoke. 😪< they call that a sleepy face, but it looks like someone with a tear in their eye. It did to me.   

Edited September 29, 2023 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[Pfeil]

5 hours ago, EmTee said:

Now, THAT's what I'm talkin' about - I love the original 'wide-track' Pontiac! 

 

The color of mine.

Last year of reverse flow heads, first year wide track. First time a "stock" car would break into the 13 second bracket drag racing and the first "stock" car to average over 150mph at Daytona, 170mph off the backstretch. Motor Trend car of the year and the coast-to-coast mileage run by TomMcCahill 1-1/2cents per mile for gas. Car averaged 21.7mpg and fuel cost whole trip of 2442.7 miles was $35.79 !

  

Edited September 29, 2023 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[mrspeedyt]

that was back when gas was 30 cents a gallon... My dad was driving a Fiat 600 because of the gas mileage... 27mpg. our family car in socal during the fin age.

Edited September 29, 2023 by mrspeedyt (see edit history)

[TerryB]

1 hour ago, mrspeedyt said:

that was back when gas was 30 cents a gallon... My dad was driving a Fiat 600 because of the gas mileage... 27mpg. our family car in socal during the fin age.

That thing is so weird it’s cool!  And I was worried my dad was going to buy a bathtub Nash and I would have to be seen riding around in it.  Sorry, you win!