Take Me to Your Style Leader: The 1938–1942 Cadillac Sixty Special

Luxury Cars, Model Histories
6 Comments

For nearly five decades, Cadillac was the standard-bearer for luxury cars in America. That dominance was not won through technical innovation or forward-thinking product development, but through styling leadership. Although the division produced some gorgeous cars in the early thirties that are acknowledged as classics, Cadillac’s position as a true styling leader can be traced to one car: the 1938-1941 Cadillac Sixty Special. This enormously influential model was laden with then-radical features that have since become the industry norm. The Sixty Special also launched the career of William L. (Bill) Mitchell, GM styling chief Harley Earl’s eventual successor and one of the most influential men in the history of the American automobile. This is the story of the Sixty Special.

1941 Cadillac Sixty Special nose badge
Continue Reading Take Me to Your Style Leader: The 1938–1942 Cadillac Sixty Special

Last Time Around: The 1971–1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible

Luxury Cars, Model Histories
54 Comments

Thirty years ago, many believed this car would be the last American convertible. It wasn’t, but it did mark the end of the line for that uniquely American concept: the full-sized open car. This is the history of the 1971-1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible.

1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible script
Continue Reading Last Time Around: The 1971–1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible

The Summer of John Z: John DeLorean and the Pontiac Firebird

Model Histories, Sports Cars and Muscle Cars
20 Comments

Designing, building, and marketing new cars is expensive, even for the largest automakers. If they’re strapped for cash (e.g., BMC in the fifties and sixties) or overcome by hubris (e.g., General Motors in the eighties), it’s tempting to share platforms between models or even slap a new grille a new badge on an existing model and pass it off as a new product for a different division — a technique sometimes called badge engineering. As confusing and potentially alienating as badge engineering can be for consumers, imagine how the people at their divisions feel when they’re handed an existing product and told to make something new and different out of it. Such was the case with Pontiac’s “pony car,” the 1967–1969 Pontiac Firebird and Firebird Trans Am.

1967 Pontiac Firebird badge
Continue Reading The Summer of John Z: John DeLorean and the Pontiac Firebird

First, Foremost: The First-Generation Chevrolet Camaro Z/28

Model Histories, Sports Cars and Muscle Cars
18 Comments

Nobody, least of all Ford, expected General Motors to take the success of the Ford Mustang lying down. Still, it took two and a half years for the General to field its challenger, the Chevrolet Camaro, and despite the Camaro’s fresh styling, a broad selection of engines, and a blinding array of options, the Mustang outsold it two to one.

If they couldn’t beat the Mustang on the showroom floor, Chevrolet decided, they would at least beat it at the track. GM was not officially in racing, but that didn’t stop Chevrolet engineers from concocting a fearsome homologation special to qualify their new baby for Trans Am competition: the Camaro Z/28. This is the story of the 1967-1969 Chevrolet Camaro and Z/28.

1969 Chevrolet Camaro badge
Continue Reading First, Foremost: The First-Generation Chevrolet Camaro Z/28

Primordial Pony: The 1965 Ford Mustang

Model Histories, Sports Cars and Muscle Cars
7 Comments

Do we even need to talk about the original 1965 Ford Mustang? It’s one of the best-known of all postwar American cars and there have been dozens of books about it, some of them quite sycophantic. Still, the Mustang is certainly important and hugely influential — not just in the automotive world. So, once more into the breach, dear friends, with the history of the original pony car, the 1965 Ford Mustang.

1965 Ford Mustang gas cap
Continue Reading Primordial Pony: The 1965 Ford Mustang

High, Wide, and Handsome: The AMC Pacer

Compact and Economy Cars, Model Histories
45 Comments

Even when the compact Gremlin bowed in 1970, AMC knew it would not be enough to stem the tide of imported subcompact cars. By the beginning of 1971, the company was already at work on a follow-up. When it finally appeared in 1975, it was hailed as a revolution. When it died four and a half years later, it was already becoming the butt of jokes. We’re referring, of course, to the unmistakable 1975-1980 AMC Pacer.
197 AMC Pacer badge
Continue Reading High, Wide, and Handsome: The AMC Pacer

Do Not Feed After Midnight: The AMC Gremlin

Compact and Economy Cars, Model Histories
15 Comments

By the late 1960s, the demand for small, compact imports, temporarily sated by Detroit compacts like the Ford Falcon, was on the rise again and Detroit was getting scared. Each American automaker fielded its own response, but American Motors, which had built its market position with economy cars, came up with two. The first was a clever improvisation, the second was a brave attempt to do something genuinely new. Some people call them the ugliest cars of the 1970s — a title for which there are many contenders — but nobody would ever mistake them for anything else. We’re referring of course, to the Gremlin and Pacer.

We begin with the 1970-1978 AMC Gremlin.

1976 AMC Gremlin badge
Continue Reading Do Not Feed After Midnight: The AMC Gremlin

A Tale of the Shark and the Rat: The Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (C3)

Model Histories, Sports Cars and Muscle Cars
9 Comments

When the original Chevrolet Corvette was introduced in 1953, it was a somewhat Pyrrhic effort to create something approximating a Jaguar XK120 using a fiberglass body and a lot of off-the-shelf passenger-car parts. It had neither scorching performance nor roll-up side windows and it sold poorly. It was nearly canceled in 1955 before salvation arrived in the form of Chevy’s new V8 engine, which gave its performance a much-needed shot in the arm. The Corvette also acquired a new chief engineer, a bright and mercurial Russian immigrant named Zora Arkus-Duntov, who did his level best to make it into a genuine sports car.

In 1958, legendary styling chief Harley Earl retired and his longtime deputy, Bill Mitchell, took over GM’s styling department. Mitchell was a car guy, fond of sporting iron and motorcycles. He loved the Corvette, although his vision for what it should be was sharply removed from Duntov’s notions of serious performance. The battle of wills between these two men in the normally stratified and reactionary corporate culture of General Motors would produce many clashes before both Duntov and Mitchell retired in the 1970s, but it also produced the classic Sting Ray and the fearsome third-generation Corvette, known to its fans as simply “C3” — a car of immodest looks and immodest performance. This car:

1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427
Continue Reading A Tale of the Shark and the Rat: The Chevrolet Corvette Stingray (C3)