SIZE MATTERS

Why do cars get bigger? Since the 1920s, most automakers have been committed to frequent redesigns of their wares -- at some points, every year -- in order to encourage buyers to trade up. With these frequent changeovers comes a challenge: how to justify the superiority of the new model, year after year. Genuine technological innovation is expensive, and while stylists can always make something look different, different isn't automatically better. Size, however, is something that even the least-erudite buyer can see -- and show off to envious neighbors. Adding a few inches here and there is relatively cheap, especially if the extra length is tacked on to the nose or tail, where it doesn't affect interior volume or packaging. Of course, the extra bulk adds weight, which does nothing good for performance or fuel economy, but bigness its own reward, or so the salesmen will tell you.

By the late 1950s, American cars had reached such extremes of size and overwrought decoration that customers began to rebel. Spurred on by a recession that began in late 1957, buyers turned to smaller, more economical alternatives like the AMC Rambler line or imported compacts like the Volkswagen Beetle. Sales of most big cars took a significant hit. Detroit hastily responded with an array of domestic compacts like the Ford Falcon and Plymouth Valiant, many of which proved quite successful.

Introducing new products was one thing, but what to do about the existing ones? General Motors, under the auspices of new styling VP Bill Mitchell, did discretely trim a few inches from many of its 1961 models, whose styling was also far more restrained than before. Nevertheless, even the "low-priced three" (Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth) were still decidedly zaftig. Reducing them back to their 1957 dimensions would have made rational sense, but selling that change to a public that had been hammered for years with the bigger=better equation was another matter.

Chrysler found this out the hard way in 1962. Back in 1960, then-president Bill Newberg had come to the erroneous conclusion that Chevrolet was going to shrink its big cars for 1962. Fearing that Chrysler would be left behind, Newberg ordered a crash program to downsize the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth lines, accomplished by having them share a stretched and widened version of the compact Valiant's body shell. From a practical standpoint, the idea had its virtues -- the '62 Dodge and Plymouth were nearly as roomy as before and significantly lighter, benefiting acceleration and fuel economy -- but it was a stylistic disaster. Worse, Chrysler made no effort to publicize the benefits of the downsized models, which left dealers in the difficult position of selling cars that were smaller, uglier, and no less expensive than their principal rivals. Sales were so dire that midway through the model year, Chrysler had to contrive a bigger model for beleaguered Dodge dealers.

Needless to say, Chrysler hastily retreated from the downsizing concept, although Dodge and Plymouth did find the silver lining, transforming the Valiant-based '62s into a new line of midsize cars. Chrysler's harsh lesson was not lost on the rest of Detroit, where the size and weight of nearly every model resumed their steady climb for the rest of the decade.

EYES ON THE PRIZE

William L. Mitchell replaced Harley Earl as head of GM styling in the fall of 1958. While Earl's tastes had run to lavishly chromed cars that looked as big as they were, the designs produced during the early years of Bill Mitchell's tenure tended to lean, confident shapes with a comparative minimum of ornamentation.

There was perhaps no clearer example of Mitchell's aesthetic than the early Pontiac Grand Prix, a personal luxury coupe aimed in the general direction of Ford's popular Thunderbird. Although introduced in 1962, the Grand Prix reached its styling apogee in 1963, when it was restyled under the auspices of Jack Humbert, who became head of the Pontiac design studio shortly after Bill Mitchell's tenure began. The '63 Grand Prix was a two-door hardtop coupe, sharing its body and much of its sheet metal with Pontiac's low-end Catalina, adding a concave rear window shared with the contemporary Oldsmobile Starfire. In sharp contrast to the usual American custom of the time, the Grand Prix had less brightwork than lesser Pontiac models; other than the grille, bumpers, and the ribbing over the taillights, it was largely free of chrome. Stripped of unnecessary embellishments, its crisp basic shape, with sharp lines and a subtle Coke-bottle flare to its fenders, did all the talking. It was a masterpiece of restraint by American standards, both sporty and tasteful.


The Grand Prix was available with a choice of five V8 engines, three 389 cu. in. (6.4 L) and two 421 cu. in. (6.9 L), ranging in (gross) horsepower from 230 to 376 (172 to 281 kW). Most -- including this 421-equipped car -- had the optional automatic transmission, the unhappy Type 10 Roto Hydramatic three-speed introduced in 1961.

Despite a base price some $630 more than a Catalina hardtop, Pontiac sold 72,959 Grand Prixes in 1963, more than double the '62 volume and almost 10,000 more than the '63 Thunderbird. The Grand Prix set a stylistic tone for the industry, and helped to make Pontiac #3 in the industry for the second year in a row. It was another feather in the caps of general manager Pete Estes and chief engineer John DeLorean, who succeeded Estes as head of the division in July 1965.


Although it looks lean, the Grand Prix was by no means a small car. Still sharing the Catalina body (albeit with a unique roofline), it stretched 211.9 inches (5,382 mm) on a 120-inch (3,048-mm) wheelbase and weighed around 4,200 lb (1,905 kg).

MIDDLE-AGE SPREAD

As is customary in the auto industry, the Grand Prix kept getting grander. Since it shared the B-body of the bread-and-butter Catalina, as the Catalina grew and gained weight, so did the Grand Prix. By 1967, the latter looked distinctly bloated, like a former athlete gone to seed. The Grand Prix's appeal had been based on its clean, sporty image, which was rapidly becoming a memory. "It was propped up by some very good advertising and marketing," recalls former Pontiac ad man Jim Wangers. "It really didn't have anything else going for it." Sales fell to around 40,000 units a year in 1966 and 1967, and dropped under 32,000 in 1968. Bill Collins, then assistant chief engineer for chassis engineering, called it a disaster.


1967-1968 Grand Prixes had concealed headlamps, which were starting to become passé in the late sixties. The '69 reverted to exposed, horizontal quad headlamps, more in keeping with the neo-classical motif. Note the distinctive bulge in the hood, which stylists called the "ironing board." Like the GTO, the Grand Prix could be ordered with Pontiac's gimmicky hood-mounted tachometer, a pricey option. More conservative buyers could specify the rally instrument cluster (standard on the Model SJ), which included a conventional dash-mounted tach.

By early 1967, even before the '68s went on sale, there were serious discussions about whether Pontiac should cancel the Grand Prix entirely. "We'd done just about everything we could," Wangers explains. The question became "Do we drop it, or do we totally restyle and resize it?"

DeLorean felt that the GP's bulk was at the heart of the problem. In his memoir, On a Clear Day, You Can See General Motors, he wrote, "I felt we needed to do something soon to recapture the 'Pontiac feel' for these cars." In fact, the ballooning size of the B- and C-body cars hadn't done any particular harm to sales of the Catalina and Bonneville, although it was definitely not good for the Grand Prix. In an ideal world, the GP would've had its own body, but for it to be economically viable, it needed to share an existing body shell. Nobody said, however, that it had to be the B-body...


The prow-like grille was a theme shared by many 1969 Pontiac models (and, curiously, the 1970-1971 Ford Thunderbird, which was overseen by former Pontiac chief Semon E. "Bunkie" Knudsen). The new beak looked more at home on the Grand Prix than it did the awkward 1969 Firebird. The horizontal grill bars are among the details that mark this as a '69; the nearly identical 1970s had vertical bars.

HAT TRICK

The solution to the Grand Prix dilemma came from Benjamin W. Harrison, who had founded Pontiac's Product Planning department in 1966. "He had a real good knowledge and understanding not only [of] what made a car, but [of] the market and why people bought a car," Jim Wangers recalls. In a memo dated April 17, 1967, Harrison outlined his idea. The essence of sporty-car styling, as epitomized by the Ford Mustang, was a long hood and a short deck. The upcoming 1968 A-body intermediates, including Pontiac's Tempest/Le Mans/GTO series, were slated to use two wheelbases, 112 inches (2,845 mm) span for two-door models and 116 inches (2,946 mm) for four-doors. Why not, Harrison suggested, create a special long-wheelbase coupe (with a 118-inch (2,997-mm) wheelbase, 2 inches (51 mm) longer than the sedan), using the extra length to give it an impressively long hood? Such a car could still use the existing inner-body structure and chassis of the A-body -- keeping tooling costs at a manageable level -- but it would have a distinctive look, in keeping with the sporty Pontiac image. In essence, Harrison proposed transforming the Grand Prix into a long-nose GTO.

DeLorean liked the idea, and asked design chief Jack Humbert to develop styling concepts for such a car. Designer Wayne Vieira, later chief stylist for Saturn, soon developed a look for the smaller Grand Prix, which the design staff hastily transformed into a full-size clay model. It combined the long-nose, short-deck theme with a dramatic, prow-shaped hood and a unique roofline, with broad sail panels and slightly concave backlight. DeLorean approved it immediately.

The problem now was getting the corporation to pay for it. While Harrison's concept used many existing components, it still needed a modified A-body frame and some bespoke sheet metal. The biggest challenge was the new roof, which would put Pontiac over its tooling budget. Costs were particularly critical, because production engineering for the B-body '69 Grand Prix had already begun, and the engineers would have to scrap all that work and start over.


This is a Model J, the base model, probably with the base 400 cu. in. (6.6L) V-8. It had 350 gross horsepower (261 kW) with a single four-barrel carburetor; a two-barrel engine tuned for regular gasoline, rate at 265 gross horsepower (198 kW), was a no-cost option. The Model SJ, which cost $315.96 more, came standard with the 428 cu. in. (7.0L) engine, rated at 370 gross horsepower (276 kW). A 390-horsepower (291-kW) H.O. version was optional on both models. Standard transmission was a three-speed manual, but the vast majority of Grand Prixes had the three-speed Turbo Hydramatic.

Undaunted, DeLorean approached his old boss Pete Estes, who was now the general manager of Chevrolet. In those days, GM's divisions were far more autonomous -- and far more competitive -- than they later became. If one division developed a new feature or concept, the other divisions often knew little about it until production began. DeLorean knew Pete Estes very well, however, and they were of a similar mindset. DeLorean presented the A-body Grand Prix to Estes and asked if he would be willing to share the tooling costs for the new roof. Several years earlier, Estes' predecessor at Chevy, Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen, had rejected the idea of a sporty "personal" Chevy on the grounds that the division had too many models already, but Estes was more receptive. He agreed to split the tooling costs, but to allow Pontiac exclusive use of the new roofline for the first year.

With the support of Estes and executives at Fisher Body Division, which built the A-body, DeLorean presented the new Grand Prix concept to the Engineering Policy Committee. The committee liked the design, and approved it for the 1969 model year. To distinguish it from the standard A-body, the new Grand Prix was dubbed the G-car.


The '69 Grand Prix was 6 inches (152 mm) shorter than before, but 9.5 inches (241 mm) longer than the GTO, riding a 118-inch (2,997-mm) wheelbase. The long nose may have contributed to the disconcerting rocking-horse motions to which the Grand Prix was prone on bumpy pavement, something the optional heavy-duty suspension didn't entirely quell. This car has the Rally II styled steel wheels, which were an $84.26 option.

SIDEBAR: MINORITY REPORT

In his 1979 memoir On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. DeLorean's Look Inside the Automotive Giant, John DeLorean asserted that the Grand Prix was only one part of a larger plan to move all of Pontiac's B-body cars to a stretched version of the A-body platform. He said that Pontiac built various intermediate-based, downsized big cars, which he showed to various GM execs, to generally good response. He received approval for the Grand Prix, but said that every time he pushed for a decision on other downsized vehicles, senior management stalled him without make a decision. Eventually, it was too late to proceed, and the idea was quietly dropped.

We've so far found no evidence to support DeLorean's claim that he proposed a more sweeping downsizing, although the tactic of killing a project by simply not responding is characteristic of GM's management tactics. Given that DeLorean knew GM's downsized 1977 cars were in development when he wrote his account, he may simply have been trying to claim a measure of credit for that idea. Even if DeLorean had made such a proposal, Chrysler's dismal experience with the same basic idea only a few years earlier would probably have made the GM brass understandably wary. In any case, the B-bodies did not get any smaller, and in fact grew almost every year through 1976.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

The model year usually begins in the fall of the previous calendar year, which for the 1969 models meant September or October of 1968. DeLorean and Pontiac chief engineer Steve Malone had to scramble to get the new car ready in time. The G-car rode a stretched, "A-Special" version of the standard A-body chassis, 2 inches (51 mm) longer than the sedan frame. To create the Grand Prix's exaggerated proportions, the wheelbase's extra length was all forward of the firewall. The couple (distance from the driver's hip joint to the rear axle) was the same as the A-body coupe, and the engine was set well back under the mammoth hood, allowing the Grand Prix to retain the standard A-body driveshaft.

Like its forebears, the Grand Prix was relatively lean on chrome, but it was far from understated, with voluptuous curves terminating in sharp peaks. Car and Driver called the styling "ersatz Eldorado," but Humbert and Vieira's stated design goal was to evoke the multicylinder gran routiers of the 1930s. Pontiac played up those classical associations with the Grand Prix's model names, Model J and Model SJ, borrowed from the prewar Duesenberg.

Big American cars had never been noted for their efficient use of space, and Grand Prix was not going to win any prizes for packaging, either. Since the Grand Prix's engine and transmission were in exactly the same position as in the Tempest/Le Mans/GTO, there were acres of empty space under the mammoth hood. Inside, however, passengers actually had less interior room than in the smaller GTO.

Pontiac advertised the Grand Prix as having a "cockpit-style" interior, which mostly amounted to radio and heater controls angled towards the driver, with loads of thick padding that cut into hip room. Even the normally sycophantic Motor Trend allowed that some might consider the GP's interior claustrophobic. (Admittedly, generous passenger room had never been a priority for personal luxury cars, which were generally a triumph of style over substance.)


The body may have been downsized, but the Grand Prix's price most assuredly was not. At $3,866 to start, it was $169 more than the '68 and a whopping $710 more than a '69 GTO. Furthermore, that price didn't include automatic transmission ($227.04), power steering ($115.85), radio ($248.56 for stereo AM/FM), or the much-needed front disc brakes ($71.62). The padded vinyl top on this car cost $142.18, and air conditioning tacked on another $421.28. A fully loaded car ran around $5,500 -- as much as a well-equipped full-size Buick, but still a lot cheaper than the typical Thunderbird.

If the '69 Grand Prix wasn't any roomier than its predecessor, it was at least usefully lighter. It was heavier than a two-door Tempest or GTO, but around 400 pounds (181 kg) trimmer than the Catalina-based '68 Grand Prix. Furthermore, any of the multitudes of engine and suspension tweaks available for the GTO would work just as well on its bigger brother. The Grand Prix even had a potential edge, since it could be ordered with Pontiac's biggest engine, the 428 (7.0 L), whereas GTOs were limited to the 400 (6.6 L) version. To make the point, in February 1969, Car and Driver ordered a 428-powered, manual-shift Grand Prix and took it to Royal Pontiac in Michigan for that dealership's famous "Bobcat" hop-up treatment. The modified car was capable of 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) in less than 6 seconds, running the standing quarter mile (402 meters) in 14 seconds at 102 mph (174 kph). Even base-engine GPs with automatic could manage 0-60 mph in less than 8 seconds and the quarter in the low 15s. The G-body's reduced weight did not particularly improve gas mileage, which averaged about 12 mpg (19.6 L/100 km) in gentle driving, and could dip well into the single digits (over 24 L/100 km) in aggressive driving. The GP was also a little less nimble than the GTO -- itself hardly sports car agile -- and its brakes were only adequate.

EXECUTIVE HOT ROD

Whatever its mechanical virtues and limitations, the new Grand Prix was an astute exercise in brand building. Far sportier than its oversize predecessor, it was the most aggressive American personal luxury car since the 1965 Buick Riviera Gran Sport. A casual observer would be hard pressed to recognize its structural kinship to the A-body cars, but it definitely looked like a Pontiac. The Grand Prix was a car to which former GTO owners could aspire, and it appealed to the same sort of affluent sports who today buy BMW coupes. "It really was the perfectly imaged Pontiac," says Jim Wangers.

A cynic might say that the '69 Grand Prix succeeded because it abandoned any past pretense of good taste. The early Grand Prixes were brash, but by American standards, they were extremely understated.  The Oldsmobile Starfire, the Grand Prix, and the Buick Riviera suggest that Bill Mitchell and his designers presumed that affluent buyers would respond to strong, simple lines and restrained trim. What they seemed reluctant to grasp was that Thunderbird buyers loved the T-bird's shameless gimmickry. They weren't looking for restraint; they wanted gimmicks that would dazzle their friends at the country club. The '69 Grand Prix's mix of contemporary Supercar and neo-classicist styling cues was dramatic to the point of vulgarity, but it finally gave that audience what it wanted. Sales for 1969 were over 112,000 -- more than three times the previous year's dismal figures, and enough to outsell the Thunderbird by more than two to one.


Pontiac made great hay of the Grand Prix's mammoth hood, although the title of "industry's longest hood" was hotly contested by the new Lincoln Mark III, which also bowed for 1969. The Grand Prix actually had a slightly longer wheelbase than the Mark, although it was about 6 inches (154 mm) shorter overall and more than 800 pounds (363 kg) lighter. The radio antenna to which the ad alludes, by the way, was a thin wire embedded in the windshield, a feature GM used in various cars of this era. Its reception wasn't the greatest, and GM eventually went back to conventional, mast-mounted antennae.

After a strong start, the Grand Prix's sales took a nosedive for 1970. The decline didn't reflect any weakness of the basic concept, just the inevitable second-year decline of a fashion-driven model. "When you do a real original, and aggressive statement and repeat it for a second year, you're going to see a sales drop for the second year," explains Jim Wangers. "If they didn't buy it the first year, they're not likely to the second year. The people are looking for change." By 1970, there was also new competition. A year after the debut of the new Grand Prix, Chevrolet introduced its own G-car, the Chevelle-based Monte Carlo, sharing the Grand Prix's long-wheelbase, long-hood proportions and the roofline Chevy had helped to finance. Since the Monte Carlo was significantly cheaper than the Grand Prix, it probably stole a fair number of Grand Prix customers. So too did Oldsmobile's revamped Cutlass Supreme, which adopted the same roof, albeit on the standard coupe wheelbase.

TIME MOVES ON

In early 1969, about eight months before the Monte Carlo went on sale, John DeLorean replaced Pete Estes as general manager of Chevrolet. At Chevy, DeLorean shepherded the development of the second-generation Monte Carlo, which bowed for 1973. The new Monte continued the same themes as the Grand Prix, but it was even more baroque, with swooping front fenders whose curves carried into the doors, like GM's prewar "torpedo-body" cars. The enthusiast press was generally bewildered, if not appalled, but the new Monte was a smash hit, one of Chevy's biggest successes of the seventies.


The Grand Prix's tail was its least-distinguished aspect, not even as zoomy as the lesser Pontiac Catalina, with its boomerang-shaped tail lamps. The '69 GTO also had its tail lamps mounted in the bumper, although the Grand Prix's rear bumper design was quite different. For 1971 and 1972, the Grand Prix's rear deck got a sculpted bulge, much like the one on the hood -- a much milder version of the 1971-1973 Buick Riviera's distinctive "boattail."

The Grand Prix's '69 design survived with only modest changes through 1972. Its successor was even more popular, although it still didn't match the success of its Chevrolet rival. Nevertheless, the Grand Prix did good business throughout the doldrums of the mid-seventies. Since it had relatively modest tooling costs and a rather hefty price, it was one of Pontiac's most profitable cars, consistently earning around $1,500 per car, two and a half times what the division made on its other A-body intermediates.

Downsized again for 1978, the Grand Prix became far more anonymous, and sales eroded. In 1988, Pontiac applied the name to its new front-wheel-drive W-body model, which from 1990 on included a four-door sedan, as well as the familiar coupe. By the time the Grand Prix was replaced by the G8 in 2007, it had become a generic big sedan, no longer a personal-luxury car, and no longer particularly special.

THINKING BIG, GOING SMALL

Why did the Grand Prix's downsizing succeed commercially, while Chrysler's smaller 1962 cars  flopped? Probably because Pontiac wisely didn't try to sell the Grand Prix based on size (or lack thereof). While DeLorean, Harrison, and other Pontiac execs definitely wanted to make the Grand Prix smaller, the G-car was sold as an extravagantly styled personal car, a flagship for Pontiac's carefully cultivated rakish image. The fact that it happened to be smaller and lighter was, from a marketing standpoint, incidental. Buyers enticed by the look and the attitude didn't spend a lot of time comparing dimensions.

By the same token, if Chrysler had had a more confident styling theme for its downsized Dodge and Plymouth lines, if it had marketed the tangible virtues of their more compact dimensions and more efficient packaging, those cars would probably have been more successful than they were. AMC's George Romney did just that with the Rambler, with good results. (Indeed, one may argue that American Motors didn't really stumble until after Romney was gone and Roy Abernethy started trying to make AMC's cars more like the Big Three's mainstream products, although that's another story.)

The moral of the story is that buyers don't like feeling like they're getting less of anything, even if it would make financial or environmental sense. If you want to sell smaller, more efficient cars, it's important to focus on what buyers are getting, rather than what they're giving up.

NOTES ON SOURCES

Our primary sources for this article were "Less is More: 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix" by Arch Brown, from Special Interest Autos #84 (November-December 1984), reprinted in Terry Ehrich, ed., The Hemmings Motor News Book of Pontiacs (Hemmings Motor News Collector-Car Books) (Bennington, VT: Hemmings Motor News, 2001), pp. 96-103; "1969-1972 Pontiac Grand Prix" by the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide (7 September 2007, http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1969-1972-pontiac-grand-prix1.htm, accessed 4 June 2008) Don Keefe's three-part article on the history of the Grand Prix, "Luxury and Performance," from High Performance Pontiac, reprinted on Richard Rauch's Classic Pontiac Server Library: "The Legendary Grand Prix: Part 1, 1962-1966" from the June 1990 issue of High Performance Pontiac (reprinted at http://www.pontiacserver.com/gph1_0.html, accessed 1 June 2008); "Part 2: Homing in on a changing market -- 1967-72" from the August 1990 issue (reprinted at http://www.pontiacserver.com/gph2_1.html, accessed 1 June 2008); and "Part 3: From 1973 to the present -- and then some," from the October 1990 issue (reprinted at http://www.pontiacserver.com/gph3_1.html, accessed 1 June 2008), and John DeLorean and J. Patrick Wright, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. DeLorean's Look Inside the Automotive Giant (Chicago, IL: Avon Books, 1979).

We revised the text following our telephone conversation with former Pontiac advertising executive Jim Wangers on September 18, 2009, which was the source of Wangers' remarks herein.

We also consulted "Shakedown in Michigan" by Julian G. Schmidt, from the September 1968 issue of Motor Trend (Vol. 20, No. 9, pp. 37-41), "Luxury with a Flair: Thunderbird, Marauder X-100, Riviera, Grand Prix, Toronado" by Bill Sanders, in the February 1969 issue of Motor Trend (Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 74-85), "Two Pontiac Grand Prix" in the February 1969 issue of Car and Driver (Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 31-34, 82-83).

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