Short-wheelbase 1958 Pontiacs, including the top-of-the-line Bonneville hardtop and convertible, were 211.7 inches (5,377 mm) long on a 122-inch (3,099mm) wheelbase; the long-wheelbase Super Chief and Star Chief were 215.5 inches (5,474 mm) on a 124-inch (3,150mm) wheelbase. This Bonneville has neither Tri-Power nor the very expensive optional Rochester fuel injection (an eye-watering $500 extra). Instead, it’s powered by the 285 hp (213 kW) engine that was standard on Bonnevilles with Hydra-Matic. Power is more than adequate, but brakes are not. Lining area is only 178 sq. in. (1,148 sq. cm.) and the drums are poorly cooled, a recipe for dramatic and uneven brake fade.

The primary culprit was a recession that savaged most of the mid-priced brands, but even discounting the economic downturn, the 1958 Pontiac was not a particularly inspiring car. It was powerful — the V8, now up to 370 cu. in. (6,054 cc), had as much as 330 gross horsepower (246 kW) with Tri-Power — but it had dreadful brakes, its new cruciform frame allowed a disconcerting level of body flex, and the newly optional Ever-Level air suspension proved grievously unreliable. As for its styling, if it was not quite as glitzy as the contemporary Oldsmobile or Buick, it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. To make matters worse, Knudsen had decided to hike prices by around $100 across the board in hopes of shoring up Pontiac’s flagging profit margins. As a result, quite a few buyers opted for the Chevrolet Bel Air or the new Chevrolet Impala, which offered similar style and power for less money.

Admittedly, there was little Knudsen could do about the 1958 car, whose design and engineering was mostly locked by the time he arrived. Nonetheless, he worked diligently to improve the Pontiac organization, establishing new procedures to debug pilot production and recruiting a new general sales manager from Buick, Frank Bridge, to reinvigorate Pontiac’s sales organization.

Resuscitating Pontiac’s image was a more complicated problem. The first challenge was to differentiate Pontiac from its GM siblings. Knudsen knew Pontiac could not compete directly with Chevrolet on price, was no match for Buick in prestige, and probably couldn’t rival Oldsmobile’s appeal to middle-of-the-road sedan buyers; Pontiac needed a unique hook. The second challenge was that that hook needed to appeal to the younger buyers who were dismissing Pontiac as old-fashioned.

The 1958 Pontiac had a new cruciform frame and “Quadra-Poise” trailing-arm rear suspension with a choice of steel coil springs or “Ever-Level” air springs (a $175 option). The frame itself was quite stiff, but the lack of side rails allowed the body to twist and flex excessively and it provided very little protection in side impacts. Pontiac abandoned the cruciform layout in 1961. The false air vent on the trailing edge of the roof betrays the Bonneville’s structural kinship with the 1958 Chevrolet — the 1958 Impala Sport Coupe has the same feature.

Knudsen’s answer to both problems was performance. At the time, GM did not have a performance brand as such, although V8 Chevrolets were popular with amateur hot rodders and Buick’s big-engined Century was a sort of businessman’s express. Oldsmobile could have claimed that role following the success of the original Rocket Eighty-Eight, but Olds general manager Jack Wolfram was even more conservative than Bob Critchfield and the Eighty-Eight’s hot-rod heyday had largely passed. There was plenty of room for Pontiac to carve out a space for itself in the performance field.

Knudsen’s strategy was twofold: First, Pete Estes set about improving the performance of Pontiac’s production cars; the displacement and compression ratios of Pontiac’s V8 increased every year and engineer Mac McKellar was developing a series of ever-hotter camshafts. Second, Knudsen arranged for Pontiac to participate in both stock car and drag racing. When GM signed the Automobile Manufacturers Association racing “ban” in 1957, Knudsen continued to support private builders like Henry “Smokey” Yunick under the table, occasionally using his own funds.

Even the interior of the 1958 Pontiac was gaudier than the ’57 — compare the chrome-encrusted dashboard of this 1958 Star Chief to the relatively subdued 1957 dash pictured on the previous page. This interior was apparently derived from a mid-fifties Cadillac show car, adopted for the 1958 Pontiac at Bunkie Knudsen’s orders.

Knudsen’s efforts soon began to pay off. In early 1958, Pontiacs won the first six places in their class at the Daytona Speed Week with one-mile (1.6-km) average speeds of over 145 mph (235 km/h). 1958 Pontiacs also claimed three NASCAR victories. Pontiac was still far from all-conquering, but it was a promising start.

WIDE TRACK

About two months after Bunkie Knudsen arrived at Pontiac, GM stylists got their first glimpse of Chrysler’s all-new 1957 line. The 1957 Chryslers, developed under the auspices of Chrysler styling chief Virgil Exner, Sr., were sleek, low-slung, and dramatically finned, making GM’s 1957 offerings seem bulbous and somewhat dated. The new Chrysler sent shock waves through the GM Design Staff, who had been accustomed to setting the standards for the entire industry.

By that time, there was nothing to be done about the ’57s or ’58s, but design director Bill Mitchell organized a crash program to redesign the 1959s, discarding the designs previously approved by his boss and mentor, styling VP Harley Earl. Inevitably, this volte-face went a little too far, leading to some of GM’s gaudiest designs, but it was a fortuitous moment for Pontiac, giving the division an all-new design for 1959 rather than an evolution of the unpopular ’58 car.

There are several contradictory accounts of the origins of Pontiac’s split grille. Historian Michael Lamm and former GM designer Dave Holls attributed it to Paul Gillan, Pontiac chief stylist from early 1953 to late 1957; Gillan had proposed a similar theme for 1955 only to be overruled by Harley Earl himself. Designer Jack Humbert credited the twin grille to Joe Schemansky, who replaced Paul Gillan in December 1957. In any event, while the Design Staff liked the split-grille theme, neither Bunkie Knudsen nor Bill Mitchell had much enthusiasm for it, which is why it was replaced in 1960. (Photo: “1959 Pontiac Bonneville” © 2009 John Lloyd; used with permission)

The Pontiac studio explored a variety of design concepts for the 1959 model, some of them quite grotesque. Fortunately, the completed design was the most restrained and tasteful of GM’s 1959 cars. Like the 1959 Chevrolet, the 1959 Pontiac now shared the larger B-body used by Buick and Oldsmobile, which was longer and nearly 5 inches (127 mm) wider than the 1958 A-body. Despite that similarity, the Pontiac looked distinctly different, sporting a new split grille treatment and an unusually wide tread width.

The wider track emerged from the designers’ recognition that while the ’59 B-body was noticeably wider than its predecessors, the tread width of GM’s chassis had remained more or less constant since the end of the war. In late 1956 or early 1957, Chuck Jordan’s advanced styling studio had experimentally moved the wheels farther apart without altering the wheelhouses themselves. Knudsen, Estes, and DeLorean saw Jordan’s model on one of their periodic visits and Knudsen took a fancy to it, feeling it gave the car a more athletic stance.

Note the way this 1959 Pontiac Bonneville’s doors curve downward just above the door handle; for cost reasons, all of GM’s 1959 cars shared the doors of the 1959 Buick, including the Buick doors’ distinct downward slope. Pontiac’s designers have largely concealed that slope with the rear fender kickup that becomes the tailfin. Also note the exaggerated wraparound windshield, which adds to the racy look of the hardtop coupe, but can create glare and reflection problems. (Photo: “Pontiac Bonneville 1959” © 2007 clicks_1000; used with permission)

Pontiac’s ad agency, MacManus, John & Adams, latched onto that feature as an advertising hook and copywriter Milt Colson coined the term “Wide Track.” Although Knudsen didn’t particularly like it, considering it hokey, the slogan became very successful. It was not entirely hyperbole; the 1959 Pontiac did indeed have a greater tread width with than any contemporary GM car, fully 3 inches (76 mm) wider than that of the 1959 Cadillac. The wider track did provide some handling benefits, although it was not as miraculous as the ads implied. Lateral weight transfer in turns is a function of tread width and the height of the center of gravity, so the wider track provided more level cornering without stiffer springs or anti-roll bars.

Despite the sporting pretensions of its advertising, the 1959 Pontiac’s suspension was rather soft, albeit somewhat less soggy than a contemporary Oldsmobile or Buick, and its steering was slow even with power assist. The Pontiac’s straight-line performance, however, left little to be desired. The V8 was now up to 389 cu. in. (6,372 cc) and even the two-barrel, 280 hp (209 kW) version could do 0-60 mph (0-97 km/h) in less than 9 seconds. With the 345 hp (257 kW) Tri-Power engine, the big Pontiac could go from 0-60 mph (0-97 km/h) in around 8 seconds flat and reach a top speed of more than 120 mph (193 km/h) — quite formidable for what was still basically a family car.

The 1959 Pontiac Star Chief and Bonneville were enormous: 220.7 inches (5,606 mm) long on a 124-inch (3,150mm) wheelbase, weighing around 4,500 lb (2,040 kg). The 1959 Pontiacs retained the cruciform frame and trailing-link rear suspension, although the latter had revised geometry to reduce brake dive and ride harshness. The brakes were also bigger, with 191 sq. in. (1,232 sq. cm.) of total lining area, but they were still marginal for the big Pontiac’s considerable curb weight. (Photo: “Pontiac Bonneville 1959” © 2007 clicks_1000; used with permission)

The ’59 was the first Pontiac developed completely under Knudsen’s management and it did wonders for the division’s image. Not only was it was arguably the cleanest and most tasteful of GM’s 1959 models, it was an obvious departure from the underwhelming Pontiacs of the past few years. Even Pontiac’s model names had changed. Knudsen wanted to retire the division’s hoary Chief Pontiac emblems, so for 1959 he abandoned the Chieftain and Super Chief nameplates, although the Star Chief name survived through 1966.

The new Pontiac went over quite well with both the press and the public. Motor Trend gave Pontiac its 1959 Car of the Year award and sales rose by more than 75%. Given the division’s disheartening 1958 performance, that was not as spectacular as you might think; Pontiac’s 1959 sales were still below even its sub-par 1956 numbers. Nonetheless, per-dealership sales were up considerably and the new cars were in high demand throughout the model year. Pontiac’s market share was up markedly, an encouraging sign that Knudsen was on the right track.

The Pontiac Bonneville was introduced in 1957 as a limited edition, available only as a convertible; 630 were sold, mostly to Pontiac dealers for use as traffic builders. In 1958, a Bonneville hardtop was added and in 1959, the Bonneville became a regular trim series, including two- and four-door hardtops, a convertible, and a Custom Safari wagon. (Photo: “Pontiac Bonneville Trunk Badge” © 2007 clicks_1000; used with permission)