Those Look-Alike 1982 General Motors Cars

Above is the embarrassing (to General Motors) Fortune Magazine cover of 22 August 1982 showing A-body cars from four different divisions with the same paint color.  Some background on the matter is here.

The similarity was a cost-cutting measure at the time the corporation was beginning to experience financial constraints due to loss of market share.  Thereafter, GM made a greater effort to make its various brands more visually distinctive again.

This post features front end designs of the models shown in Fortune in order to show what effort GM had made on that critical part of the car's brand identification.  The Fortune cover cars were posed to maximize their similarity.

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Taking the brands in alphabetical order, here is the 1982 Chevrolet Celebrity.  It features rectangular quad headlights paired with rectangular running and turn-indicator lights.  Between is a typical Chevrolet grid grille sporting the brand's traditional "bow tie" emblem.  The bumper is an unadorned horizontal element.

Chevrolet is GM's entry-level brand, whereas Buick in those days was slotted between Oldsmobile and Cadillac.  Shown here is a 1982 Buick Century from a Canadian brochure.  It too has rectangular quad headlights, but turn indicators are at the front of the fenders.  The grille, mounted higher than the Chevy's,  has a more elaborate grid design and there is a Buick badge at the center,

The 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera has a grid grille with a center plate holding the Olds badge.  This design was on other Oldsmobile models of that time, adding some brand flavor.  However, still other Olds models had different grille themes, so the effect was watered down.  Lights are arranged similarly to the Buick's.  The bumper is cut down a little to accommodate the grille design.

The '82 Pontiac Phoenix lacks quad headlights and has a version of the brand's divided grille theme put in place around 1960.

The sides of the four cars are indeed pretty similar though a close look reveals some character line and other subtle differences.  Brand differentiation was largely carried by the front ends, each version having identity cues similar to previous or concurrent models.  Besides the grilles, hoods were given different metal stamping treatments related to the shapes of the upper edges of the grille openings.  That entailed extra tooling expense, though the results are too subtle for most people to distinguish unless examples from the different brands were placed side-by-side.

My personal experience at the time was that while I could distinguish A-bodied brands from one another, I was strongly aware of how similar the cars seemed overall.  When the Fortune issue was published, I nodded in silent agreement.

UPDATE:

A reader (in a comment, below) with sharper eyes than mine notes that the appropriate Pontiac was the 6000, not the Phoenix. This becomes obvious when looking at four-door models rather than the two-door variety. Here is an image of a 4-door 6000 that I quickly grabbed off the web.

Here the hood stamping seems the same as that seen on the other cars, or nears so.  Another likely win for the bean counters who influenced this unfortunate experience for GM.

Functional Design: 1929 Chevrolet

When I was a lad reading up on pioneering industrial designers, modernist architecture and the like, along with taking the first-year architectural course at the University of Washington (I majored in ID for a while), the big deal was Function -- to which Form should follow.

A lovely ideal, that.  But utterly pure Platonic function-shaped forms are hard to come by.  Setting aside the exquisite chicken egg, I really can't think of a single example of architecture or industrial design that is universally acclaimed to be perfect.

In part, that's because objects used by people usually have more than one function to fulfill.  For instance, a knife has to have a blade that will cut.  But different kinds of things are best cut by different kinds of blades.  And knives must have handles, and those might vary in shape and material.  So there is no real-world Platonic knife.

Automobiles, as I've pointed out more than once, have the function of being sold, something that at times can be at odds with design purity.  Setting aside the current needs for aerodynamic efficiency and compliance with government safety regulations that affect appearance, one might consider functionality in terms of the visual expression of a car's major visible engineering components and how well the forms express these.

As it happened, such conditions and expressions began to disappear when cars designed by styling staffs began to dominate the American market in the early 1930s.

Let's take a look at a typical American car design at the point when they were about to be succeeded by professionally-styled models.  In this case, the 1929 Chevrolet AC.

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Harley Earl, General Motors' first styling supremo, made his mark with the 1927 LaSalle.  The new 1929 Buick design came from his new studios, though details were supposedly altered while the car was productionized.  GM's high-volume brand then and now was Chevrolet.  As the "Sheet Metal" list above indicates, 1929 Chevrolet bodies were minor modifications of 1928s that would have been designed before that year, so Earl had little or nothing to do with 1929 Chevrolet styling.

This, and the following photos were taken by me in September at the Saguenay, Québec cruise port.  This 1929 Chevrolet was on display.  The card behind the windshield describes the model (click to enlarge photos).

Everything is pretty clear.  Passengers are carried inside a box with doors and windows.  At the front is a radiator requiring a nice blast of air while the car rolls along.  Behind it lies the motor that is protected by box that folds up for access.  Headlights are prominently placed so that their beams can illuminate darkened roads.  At the very front is a bumper to protect the car's front from impacts.  Fenders are present to protect the body from splash.  Between front and rear fenders are running boards, steps allowing easier access to the passenger compartment.  Many functions, each clearly expressed.

Side view.  That small lip above the windshield is an external sun visor -- inferior to internal visors, but common in the late 1920s.

Rear three-quarter view.  One hint of things to come is the rounding of the aft part of the top.  For instance, 1927 Chevrolet tops were angled.

The two lower tail lights are not stock, being added to make this car street-legal nowadays.

View of some front end details.  Very spare, very functional.  Attractive, in a way, though I can't call it beautiful.

Facelifting the 1955 Chevrolet

The 1955 Chevrolet (Wikipedia entry here) was a sensation when it was unveiled.  For many years Chevrolet was usually the best-selling American brand.  But Chevys were seldom very exciting until the '55s came along.

An extremely important excitement factor was its new V-8 motor that supplemented its long-standing "stove-bolt six."  Then there was the new styling -- General Motors' A-body version of its B and C body themes launched for 1954.  Differences from 1954 Chevys included slab fenders (with a flowing top line), the trunk lid at about the level of the fender tops, a lower hood not much above the fender line and, most important, a wraparound or panoramic windshield.

Another departure for Chevrolet was its grille.  Heavy, chromed sculpted bars were replaced by something that looked like a tipped up storm sewer grid ... or perhaps a grille inspired by Ferrari (take your pick).  Because it slanted forward and its vertical grid bars were set ahead of the horizontal ones, the grill opening usually looked like a dark, rectangular hole aside from the chromed frame.  This was at odds with GM styling supremo Harley Earl's preference for sky-reflecting chrome trim.  All-in-all, a curious feature that also was oddly likable.

Regardless, '55 Chevys sold very well.  But even as they were being announced to the buying public, stylists were working on the obligatory (in those days) facelift for 1956.  Moreover, a redesign wasn't scheduled until the 1958 model year, so there had to be a facelift styled for 1957 as well.

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A front three-quarter view of a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air via Auctions America.

Publicity photo showing the side.  The car looks better without the two-tone paint over the trunk and rear fenders.  Basically, a nice, trim design.

Rear view of a Bel Air convertible.  It seems plain by today's standards, but fancy rear ends were still in the near-term future.

1956 Chevrolets got new side trim and a more conventional grille.  That grill still slanted forward, but it was more heavily chromed.  Its ensemble took in the width of the car, unlike the narrow '55 version.  All much more conventional ... and not very distinctive.

Rear styling took a small backwards step with the cut-out tail light assemblies replacing the sensible '55 version.

The 1957 facelift was more extensive.  Another new grille design appeared, following the industry trend to integrating grilles and bumpers.  headlight housings got longer hoods and odd, fake air intakes were added to the hood.  Side two-tone paint and trim were replaced by another trim design with space for either paint or a textured metal panel.

This rear 3/4 view of a four-door hardtop shows how the rear fender tops were converted into thin blades hinting at the tail fins that Chrysler Corporation began promoting in 1956.  Tail light assemblies took on a jet fighter or sci-fi space ship look with the red lenses at the top, white backup lights at the tips of the bumper guards, and a fake exhaust pipe opening at the bottom.  (Actual exhaust pipes ended beneath the bumper.)If memory serves, I think it was Bob Cumberford who revealed that the 1957 Chevrolet facelift was something of a casual effort creating change for change's sake.  And it shows.  Ironically, I read that '57s are more highly valued these days than the truly important 1955 models.

The Fencer's Mask Grille Fad of 1936

Even when American automobile design was evolving from discrete collections of parts to unified, "envelope" bodies during the period 1929-1949, fad and fashion did not take a holiday.

One styling fad was that of the "fencer's mask" grille that started in the 1935 model year, peaked in 1936 and was largely done by 1937.  These grilles were convex affairs that extended engine compartment ensembles about as far forward as the fronts of the fenders.

Which I think is why the fad collapsed so quickly.  Even in fairly minor frontal collisions, fenders and grilles could suffer damage.  The fenders could be pounded back into shape fairly easily in such events.  But the grilles with all their decorative bars and other details were more expensive to fix or replace.  So 1937 models featured grilles that were moved back a short ways and lost much or all of their convex shapes.

Roughly two-thirds of American brands took part in the fencer's mask fad.  Those that essentially didn't included Cadillac, LaSalle, DeSoto, Ford, Lincoln-Zephyr, Packard and Studebaker.  Those that did are shown below.

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1935 Oldsmobile
One the first fencer's mask grilles was on redesigned 1935 Oldsmobiles such as this one I photographed in Brussels a  few years ago.

1935 Pontiac with actress Helen Twelvetrees
The other early "mask" was on the '35 Pontiac that shared the Olds' body.  It also was the first year for the brand's famous (at the time) Silver Streaks.

1936 Buick - Barrett-Jackson photo
When Buicks were re-bodied for 1936, they too received a fencer's mask style grille.

1936 Chevrolet
The Chevrolet version's convexity was more restrained.

1936 Chrysler Airstream - for sale photo
Chrysler's fencer's mask fronts were extreme versions of the style.

1936 Dodge with movies star Ginger Rogers
Dodge shared Chrysler's body, but its grille is more restrained.

1936 Plymouth Mayflower - Mecum Auctions photo
Chrysler Corporation's entry-level Plymouth's grille thrusts about as far forward, but the painted central strip visually counteracts part of the convex effect.

1936 Hudson
Hudsons were redesigned for 1936 and received an especially fussy convex front.

1936 Nash Ambassador
The Nash fencer's mask version was clean-looking and raked back.

1936 Graham Cavalier - unsourced photo via Flicker
Like Plymouth, sheet metal diminishes the fencer's mask appearance on the Graham.

1936 Hupmobile - Streetside Classic photo
Hupp's grille is raked back in Nash's manner but nevertheless follows the fashion.

2015 Chrysler 200
This recent Chrysler 200 does not have a fencer's mask grille.  But its above-the-bumper grille-plus-headlights ensemble illustrates a theme on current cars that strikes me as being just as fad- or fashion-like as those grilles of 80 years ago were.

Corvair Insurance: 1962 Chevrolet Chevy II

The 1960 model year found each of America's "Big Three" automobile makers introducing "compact" cars (in the American sense at the time) in light of increading sales of smaller imported cars such as the Volkswagen Beetle as well as American Motors' Rambler and Studebaker's Lark.

Chevrolet's entry was the Corvair, which I wrote about here, a radical (for the USA) design featuring a rear-mounted air cooled motor.  Shortly after it was introduced, Chevrolet management realized that Corvair sales would be eclipsed by the conventional Ford Falcon.  So, as this Wikipedia entry reports, a crash program was started to produce a car that could compete with the Falcon.  The entry quotes stylist Clare MacKichan regarding how rapidly the design had to be productionized ... a matter of around 18 months instead of the usual three or four years.

The first-generation Chevy II (1962-1965 model years) was almost exactly the same size as the Corvair and Falcon.  Respective wheelbases were 110, 108 and 109.5 inches (2,794, 2,743 and 2,781 mm) and overall lengths were 183, 180 and 181 inches (4,648, 4,572 and 4,593 mm).

Back around 1960, entry level American cars were seldom very exciting from a design standpoint.  The Chevy II fit that pattern well, being bland and having no distinct character -- though the same could easily be said about the Falcon as well.

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1962 Chevy II four-door sedan.  The American tail fin era was in the process of winding down, so the design is that of an unadorned "three box" style.  Greenhouse windows are large and the hood and trunk lid are about at fender level, this giving the car an airy look.  The side strip relates well to both the headlight and tail light ends of the fender.

This side view of a Chevy II hardtop provides a better look at the C-pillar that is wider at the top than on its bottom.  This is a subtle touch then helps to give the greenhouse a lighter appearance.  The thin roof is another important contributor to that effect.  That curved character line that passes around the rear wheel opening and finally touches the upper edge of the back bumper is not strictly necessary.

One nice feature of the relentlessly horizontal front end theme is the lack of quad headlights.  So far as I'm concerned, the American variety of quad headlights circa 1957-1970 almost always degraded a car's design.

Chevy II's rear design is simple, but enough in the way of insets and other metal folding details adds interest to what otherwise might have been a visually sterile zone.  Still, the design does not excite.

1955 Chevrolet Biscayne Concept Car

The Chevrolet Biscayne was one of a batch of what are now called concept cars shown at the 1955 version of General Motors' Motorama.  That was a 1950s cars-plus-entertainment show that usually debuted in New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel and then moved on to a few other large cities.

A discussion of the Biscayne can be found here.  Like many other GM 1950s dream cars (what they were popularly called at the time), the Biscayne was to have been destroyed. But by a quirk of fate it was not, and is now part of the Bortz collection of concept cars.  Some background on this can be found here and here.

The Biscayne is interesting because its size.  It was designed at a time when American sedans were becoming wider and longer.  I couldn't find size statistics, but estimating from photos, my best guess is that the Biscayne's wheelbase was about 108 inches (2,743 mm), in the range of "compact" cars introduced by GM, Ford and Chrysler for the 1960 model year or early 2000s Ford Mondeos.

The nicest feature in my opinion is the treatment of the passenger greenhouse.  It's light and airy while the roof's side curves and the C-pillars add the right touch of solidity.  The interaction of the aft side windows, the backlight (back window) and C-pillars works very well.  The side sculpting that extends around to the rear is also well handled.  In contrast, the front end has a number of odd features.

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Here are two studio photos of the Biscayne.  The windshield is doubly wrapped -- around to the sides and up and over to blend with the car's top.  Production windshields with these features would appear on some 1959 GM cars.

The five images below seem to have been taken at the same photo shoot because the same house is in the background.  Colors vary due to aging of the original photos.  I adjusted these internet-based images as best my iMac would allow.

The Biscayne's rear is cleaner than the front.  And there are bumpers of a flimsy sort, unlike the unprotected front.

The two side views above help show the size of the car.  They also illustrate door hinging and the black & white photo offers a peek at the interior with its large (by present standards) steering wheel.  The rear-hinged "suicide" doors probably were included to eliminate the engineering required for a stiffened half-B-pillar such as was used on GM's 1956 production four-door hardtops.  However, the classic early-1960s Lincoln Continentals did have rear-hinged doors for backseat passengers, though with a stub B-pillar.

A closer view of the front end.  The bug-eyed, toothy look is distinctive, but in an odd sort of way.  A production version would have required a bumper even in those pre-regulation days.  And that addition would have destroyed the the entire frontal design theme aside from the headlight arrangement.  A production Biscayne with today's technologies might retain the general appearance of the show car's front, though the fender fronts would have to be rearranged.

Chevrolet's Last (for now?) Monte Carlo

According to its Wikipedia entry, Chevrolet's Monte Carlo model was introduced for the 1970 model year and went through six generations, the last one for 2000-2005.  It is the subject of this post.

Allow me to admit that I've become somewhat jaded regarding model names that marketers and management dream up.  Consider "Monte Carlo."  A few people might associate it with the Monaco Grand Prix race, even though Chevy Monte Carlos were coupes and not Formula 1 race cars.  If those Chevrolet people were hoping to come up with a name with sporting associations, then more potential buyers might associate "Monte Carlo" with the Monte Carlo Rally, though few, if any, Chevrolet Monte Carlos could be considered serious European rally machines.  Moreover, that event is little-known in the USA.  The Wikipedia link above states that the name simply had to do with Monte Carlo municipality, a part of Monaco.  That would imply a ritzy gestalt of some sort, a common theme for American car models over the years.  Or maybe the name had to do with the Monte Carlo Casino, the famed Côte d'Azur gambling den.  After all, finding a reliable American car during the 1970s when Monte Carlos first appeared was more of a gamble than it is now.

The Monte Carlo launched for the 2000 model year was based on the same platform as Chevrolet's Impala sedan.  It featured a curiously short, cramped-looking passenger compartment and, when viewed from certain angles, a pronounced bustle-back trunk.  I always considered this Monte Carlo variation awkward-looking.


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Front three-quarter view.  From this perspective, the passenger cabin seems quite short and the trunk area quite long.

Seen in profile, the can looks better-proportioned, though the rear seat area seems a bit cramped.

Rear three-quarter view.  Compare to the 2000 Impala in the image below.

Both cars had a 110-inch wheelbase, though the Impala's length was two inches (5 cm) longer than the Monte Carlo's.  In these views we can see that aside from the small Monte Carlo greenhouse, the strongest visible differences were in the trunk / rear bumper area and some side stamping details (flatter sides and some character lines for the Monte Carlo).  The doors are longer for rear-seat access, though hinged like the Impala's front doors.  Wheel openings and gas filler lids are the same.

Given General Motors' increasingly precarious financial position around 2000, the tooling differences between the Impala and Monte Carlo seem to me surprisingly large for a car that had been selling at the rate of around 70,000 units per model year.  However,  total production was around 380,000, about the same as for the fifth-generation Monte Carlo, so perhaps tooling costs were amortized over the entire production run.

It will be interesting to see if Chevrolet ever revives the Monte Carlo model name.

America's 1970s Opera Window Fad

I'm inclined to blame management rather than styling staff for the fad featured in this post.  That's because the feature in question was essentially a non-functional (aside from generating sales) frivolity.  It was what was called "opera windows," perhaps a reference to features of certain horse-drawn carriages.

For mid-1970s American cars, opera windows were small windows placed on C-pillars so that distinguished back-seat passengers on their way to cultural events presumably could discretely peek out at the unwashed masses along the way.  Actually, I doubt that was ever the intent; the real intent was to add a bit of retro-sophistication to certain car models.

One thing I find a little puzzling is that they appeared in classical form on 1973 Lincolns while in the same model year some General Motors cars introduced somethings fairly similar in spirit.  Those were small rear-quarter windows that could be interpreted as large opera windows.  I suspect the reason for this same-year introduction by two different firms had to do with the usual auto industry grapevine along with reports from stylists hired from competing companies.

By the late 1970s every American car maker was selling some models with some sort of opera window feature.  And opera windows rapidly disappeared on 1980s models.

Below is a gallery showing some of those opera windows.

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1973 Lincoln Continental Mk. IV - Barrett-Jackson auction photo
An early instance on Ford's luxury brand.  The small oval window can be seen on the C-pillar.

1978 Lincoln Town Car - auction photo
Five years later there is one on a Lincoln four-door sedan.  Most cars featuring opera windows or something similar were two-door models.

1974 Mercury Cougar XR-7 - sales photo
Here is a squared-off opera window.

1977 Ford Thunderbird Coupe
An unusual variation is the small window on this Thunderbird's B-pillar.

1977 Ford Granada Sports Coupe
And then there are the louvered slit windows on this small Ford.

1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
The same year as the Lincoln in the top photo General Motors placed small quarter windows on this body used by several of its brands.

1978 Buick Riviera Coupe
Five years later we find a smallish quarter window surrounded by vinyl.

1975 Chrysler Cordoba
Chrysler did the same thing for its Cordoba.

1977 Chrysler New Yorker
An interesting variation on this New Yorker.  Note the unusual shape of the roof vinyl covering and the large C-pillar zone.

1975 Dodge Charger - auction photo
This Dodge has slotted opera windows.  Stylists seemed to be working overtime to come up with distinctive variations on the concept, as these images indicate.

1977 Plymouth Gran Fury Brougham
Chrysler's entry-level brand got a scaled-down version of opera window and vinyl shape as compared to the New Yorker shown earlier.

1978 AMC Concord D/L
Even American Motors, the smallest car maker, felt the need to join the opera window rush.