(EXPANDED FROM 7/14/2023)
I grant you that top-whatever rankings can be clickbaity, but I decided to do this story for a specific reason. In the postwar years Detroit tended to assume that rapid-fire restylings were the key to success. Indeed, automakers often invested in one-year-only redesigns. My goal here is to illustrate how that strategy sometimes backfired.
What follows are the 11 worst single-year redesigns of U.S. cars during the postwar period (1949-79). The cars are listed in rough order of worstitude. However, the specific rankings are less important than questioning the point of the redesigns. At least some of these cars might have actually had stronger sales if they had been given less dramatic changes.
This story originally included 10 cars but I have added one more in response to reader feedback. With one partial exception, each design was produced for a single year. That exception saw sales fall so low that the car arguably should have been killed after its first year.
NUMBER 11 — 1970 Buick Riviera
The partial reskinning of Buick’s personal coupe in 1970 was not as bad as that of its corporate sibling, the Oldsmobile Toronado (which you will find below). Even so, the Riviera’s busy grille and chunky rear quarters were arguably a step down from the fairly clean 1969 model.
The changes might have made more sense if they had helped smooth the transition to the radical 1971 redesign, but the opposite was the case (go here for further discussion). So what was the point? Did General Motors think that throwing lots of money at the large personal coupe market would allow it to overwhelm Ford, which had pioneered the field?
That’s not how things worked out. Whereas in 1969 the Riviera outsold the Ford Thunderbird for the first time, in 1970 the Buick fell far behind. In this recessionary year, T-Bird output went up 2 percent while the Riviera dropped by 29 percent.
Note that for 1970 the Thunderbird also received a facelift. That included a hotly controversial long-beaked fascia (go here for further discussion). Somehow more people liked “Bunkie’s beak” than the more formal, European styling of the Riviera.
NUMBER 10 — 1973 Plymouth Fury
For 1973 the federal government began to phase in new bumper standards. Chrysler Corporation designers responded by giving most of its cars new fascias with beefier bumpers. The Plymouth’s facelift was arguably the least successful.
Whereas the previous-year’s model had a unique-looking, double-donut bumper with hidden headlights on top-of-line models, the 1973 Fury was plastered with a dime-store radiator grille that looked bland and derivative. In addition, Plymouth’s traditionally horizontal taillights were made vertical for one year only. Why?
Overall Fury sales were relatively stable for 1973 but the top-end Gran series saw output drop 21 percent. In contrast, Chevrolet Caprice and Ford LTD production went up by 17 and 19 percent, respectively (go here for further discussion).
In retrospect, it might have been better to stick with the existing look. If the Imperial and Dodge could accommodate the new bumper regulations without major front-end redesigns, why couldn’t Plymouth?
NUMBER 9 — 1966 American Motors senior wagons
American Motors’s mid-sized lineup received new rooflines for its two-door hardtops and wagons. The more modern hardtop styling made sense even if it was in production only one year. AMC was quite naturally trying to appeal to the growing number of consumers who wanted sporty halo models.
The wagon redesign was more perplexing. It’s true that the Classic and Ambassador were on the small side for intermediates, so it made sense to widen the tailgate opening and make the cargo area look bigger. In addition, a more stylish wrap-around roofline made the wagons look less frumpy than previous Ramblers. However, it is hard to see how such a major sheetmetal change could pay off in only one year of production.
Nor did it help sales. Wagon output fell by 36 percent 1966, which was a roughly 10 percent bigger drop than for the overall senior AMC lineup.
NUMBER 8 — 1968 Pontiac Grand Prix
From 1963-66 Pontiac and Oldsmobile shared a unique roofline for personal coupes based on GM’s big-car body. Oldsmobile discontinued the Starfire a year after adding the 1966 Toronado to its lineup, but Pontiac quite rightly kept alive its Grand Prix.
For 1968 Pontiac could have gotten away with relatively minor updates similar to the rest of its big-car lineup, but instead the rear end was substantially redesigned. It now looked vaguely similar to the new mid-sized Pontiacs, in that the C-pillar was more integrated with the rear fenders. However, the design’s execution wasn’t nearly as effective. One of the biggest problems was weirdly shaped taillights.
Grand Prix output fell by 11 percent in 1968 despite Pontiac’s big-car lineup seeing production increase by 5 percent. Fortunately, this was a one-year wonder, because for 1969 the Grand Prix was downsized to an intermediate, where it found far greater success (go here for further discussion).
NUMBER 7 — 1961 Rambler Ambassador
For 1961 American Motors CEO George Romney was apparently feeling so confident about the Rambler brand’s growth that he decided to compete more directly against the full-sized Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth with a facelifted Ambassador.
Another major change was discontinuing the Rebel, which had been equipped with a 250 cubic-inch V8. In 1961 the only Rambler that offered a V8 was the Ambassador, which came with a standard 327 cubic-inch engine.
The main goal of the Ambassador’s new styling was apparently to better differentiate it from the less-expensive Rambler, which was now called the Classic. In the past, the Ambassador’s front end was stretched nine inches but had only minor grille and taillight differences. For 1961 the Ambassador received a swept-back fascia and knife-edged bumpers that made the car look longer.
The new styling certainly stood out, but it strikes me as bizarre and ill-proportioned. Not surprisingly, sales were mediocre. Thus, in 1962 the Ambassador lost its longer wheelbase and unique sheetmetal. Production almost doubled (go here for further discussion).
NUMBER 6 — 1970 Dodge Coronet
For the final year of a three-year run, the third-generation Dodge Coronet received a partial reskinning. The new rear styling was fairly benign but the front end was more problematic.
Chrysler designers apparently assumed that slapping on a then-trendy, double-donut bumper would keep the Coronet looking current — and better distinguish the nameplate from its corporate sibling, the Plymouth Satellite. In theory this wasn’t a bad idea, but in practice it backfired.
The new fascia had a rather angry look. Perhaps that would have worked okay today, when vehicles are purposely designed to look menacing (go here for further discussion). That didn’t appear to be the case back then. The Coronet’s output in 1970 fell by 42 percent — 8 percent more than the Satellite’s.
NUMBER 5 — 1958 Buick
The 1958 model year was a particularly bad one for General Motors’ styling, but I would give Buick the top prize for sheer ugliness.
The Oldsmobile was almost as bad, with its brutalist look, but the Buick’s toothy grin was downright macabre. Meanwhile, the Olds’ rear end looked normal compared to the Buick’s weirdly thick and chrome-dripping rear fins.
Oldsmobile, which for years had been outsold by Buick, shot ahead in production. Oldsmobile’s big cars would continue to be more popular through 1965 (go here for further discussion).
Fortunately, the 1958 Buick was a one-year-only design because GM reportedly got spooked by Chrysler’s low-slung 1957 cars and expedited dramatically redesigned models for 1959.
NUMBER 4 — 1956 Hudson
The 1956 Hudson has already earned Indie Auto’s Ugly Car of the Year Award for remarkably bad styling. As we have discussed here, the so-called “V-Line” grille, trapezoid side trim and tacked-on fins added up to a masterpiece of ugliness that killed what was left of Hudson’s already shaky viability.
Technically, this wasn’t a single-year redesign. Hudson’s basic styling was largely carried over for one more model year, but output was so low — under 11,000 units — that American Motors might as well have pulled the plug at the end of 1956.
Perhaps that didn’t happen because it could have resulted in the death of the Hudson brand, thereby triggering dealer-franchise costs. At that point American Motors was reportedly struggling to stay solvent (Foster, 2017), so perhaps it was cheaper to keep the car around for one more year.
NUMBER 3 — 1961 Plymouth
A number of Chrysler products designed under Virgil Exner could be proposed for this list. Consider, for example, the 1960 Imperial, 1961 DeSoto and 1962 Dodge Dart. However, I am inclined to agree with Indie Auto commentator Michael B. Nicolella that the 1961 Plymouth most deserves acknowledgement.
From many angles the reskinned Plymouth looked sort-of okay. For example, it lost huge tailfins in favor of a rounded, horizontal rear end. The outboard taillights looked a little funky, as did some of the side trim. However, what really killed the car’s styling was a shark-nosed front end.
Here Plymouth took a page from the 1938 Graham, with its sharply thrust-forward fascia. It looked angry and aggressive — almost like it could eat little children.
Production of the full-sized lineup fell by 18 percent, which resulted in Rambler bumping Plymouth out of third place in output. Even so, the big Plymouth did manage to once again outsell its Dodge counterpart. In 1960 Dodge had soared past Plymouth in sales due to a new lower-priced lineup as well as a dealer reorganization. This leads me to wonder: In 1961 were more people drawn to Plymouth’s shark nose than Dodge’s more conventional look, or did the traditional strength of the Plymouth brand reassert itself?
NUMBER 2 — 1970 Oldsmobile Toronado
The original Oldsmobile Toronado may have been a bold design, but it didn’t sell all that well (go here for further discussion). As time went on and the broughamization of Detroit accelerated, the Toronado lost even more altitude.
In theory, it made sense for Oldsmobile to give its personal coupe a partial reskinning in 1970 as a transition to the 1971 model — which was much more conservative and boxy. Alas, the 1970’s “anteater” front end was an aesthetic disaster that had little in common with its baroque successor.
Ditching the fuselage styling around the C-pillar for traditional rear-fenders shoulders was a better move, but the new “clown pants” wheel-opening blisters were too massive.
NUMBER 1 — 1965 Ford Fairlane
The 1965 Ford Fairlane did not land in first place because it was uglier than other cars mentioned here. As a case in point, the front ends of the 1956 Hudson, 1961 Plymouth and 1970 Toronado were arguably much more horrifying. What makes the Fairlane so ignominious is that this redesign utterly failed in its mission.
Ford wasn’t planning to give its aging intermediate a major redo until 1966, so a quick reskinning was deemed necessary to keep the nameplate competitive. It didn’t work very well.
Although the slab-sided sheetmetal was more in sync with the new-for-1965 big Fords, it was so poorly executed that the car arguably looked even more old hat than the previous-year’s model.
Despite 1965 being a banner year for car sales, Fairlane output fell 19 percent — and was even surpassed by American Motors’ struggling mid-sized lineup (go here for further discussion).
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on July 14, 2023 and expanded on Jan. 16, 2026. Production data was calculated from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006), Flory (2004) and Gunnell (2002).
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Foster, Patrick; 2017. George Romney: An American Life. Waldorf Publishing, Grapevine, TX.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Rambler Classic (1966)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Buick (1958); Dodge Coronet (1970); Ford Fairlane (1965); Hudson Hornet (1956); Oldsmobile Toronado (1970); Plymouth Fury (1961, 1973); Pontiac Grand Prix (1968); Rambler Ambassador (1961)
The 1965 Fairlane, if the rear tailights and the front end was designed to look like its bigger sibling Galaxie with its stacked headlights, we could wonder if things would have been different despite the GM intermediates who continue to take some market share and Chrysler’s “plucked chicken” Polara/Fury morphed into Belvedere and Dodge rectified a mistake by reviving the Coronet monicker?
As for the 1970 Oldsmobile Toronado, did the designers was inspired by the front end of the customized Toronado roadster done by George Barris who was used during the first season of the tv show Mannix?
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2017/08/24/mannixs-puller-barris-built-oldsmobile-toronado-roadster-heads-to-auction
Worst single year redesigns of postwar cars. Notably missing was the absolute bizarre 1961 Plymouth. Weird, ugly, no redeeming value to the large front eyebrows. A back end that came from nowhere. What were they thinking? Presumably the early sketches were more attractive but the translation to sheet metal was horrific.
Yeah, I agree on the Plymouth’s ugliness. It had slipped my mind that the 1961 models were given a reskinning that was only used for one year.
I nominate the 1958 Ford, which managed to totally screw up the nice 1957 styling.
Then you may not like this story, which offers a counterpoint to Jim and Cheryl Farrell’s critique of of the 1958 Ford. Not that I think the 1958 was so great, but their story had some holes in it.
My top 10 post-war uglies, and I realize that there are a few included that are not single-year restyles: 1. The 1956 Hudson “V-Line”; 2. The 1970 Buick Riviera; 3. The 1965 Ford Fairline; 4. The 1961 Plymouth; 5. The 1960 Plymouth; 6. The 1958 Packard; 7. The 1958 Studebaker; 8. The 1961 De Soto; 9. The 1967 Oldsmobile 88-98; and 10. The 1973-1974 Ford (“E.S.V.”) full-size cars. Coming in at 11. The 1963 Dodge 330-Polara; 12. The 1967-1968 Dodge Polara-Monaco; 13. The 1971-1974 Javelin; 14. The 1974-1978 Matador four-doors, wagons and Ambassadors; and 15. The 1961 Ambassador. I did not find the 1973 Plymouth full-size car even worthy of this list, but one cannot argue taste or perceptions. While the 1958 Buick was, in my opinion, was Harley Earl’s over-wrought swan-song as were all of the 1958 G.M. cars, but not among the worst. The 1968 full-size Pontiacs should not be on the list, although it was the final iteration of the 1965 platform, a slight retrenchment from 1967’s styling and continuity for the 1969 facelift.
I do not know if it is fair to include designs prior to 1952, but the only bulbous “bathtub” designs that looked right to my eyes were the 1948-1954 Hudsons, with the ’54 final “Step-down” my favorite. The 1948-1950 Packard using envelope sheet metal to disguise the 1941 Clipper body looked the worst with the Airflyte Nashs and the “cross-eyed” Lincolns somehwere in the middle. I don’t know what to think about the 1950-1951 Studebakers…The definition of a polarizing design !
It’s strange that while a year is such a short slice of time, US automakers seemed to for so long been determined to make a visible change every year – even when the result looked awful. Sometimes I have to wonder whether the economic cost of designing and implementing these changes was worthwhile. On the rare occasions we had a yearly change in Australia, it seemed like we’d just got used to the ‘new’ Holden (or Falcon, or Valiant) and it was old already!
Of your top ten, we only got the Ambassador down here (I’ve only ever seen one in a magazine test) and perhaps a Hudson or two, but I’ll throw in some brief thoughts anyway.
’70 Riv – That chrome side body trim looked straight out of 1957. Heavy and obsolete.
’73 Plymouth – Hood doesn’t match grille, headlights look weak. Just messy. This was the best they could do?
’66 AM wagons – Taillights look like they were swiped from something else and just balanced there. Otherwise okay.
’68 GP – Pontiac stylists: Wrong way, go back.
’61 Ambassador – Looks like details from about five disparate designs welded into one.
’70 Coronet – Those guys were serious? Great as an R/T or Super Bee, weird on a sedan.
’58 Buick – My one point of disagreement; the Oldsmobile was uglier. It looked like two different cars cut and welded at the B-pillar. At least the Buick looks like it was designed as one car.
’56 Hudson – No argument from me. What WERE they thinking?
’70 Toronado – Peculiar. In a word, Peculiar. Front end seems to have inspired the TIE fighter in Star Wars.
’65 Fairlane – Front and rear just didn’t look right, and chrome side trim like that was out of fashion.
The Fairlane could have looked decent with some relatively minor fiddles; some of the others were beyind redemption. Personally I’d have put that Ambassador as #1, PLymouth in second and Hudson third.
The Riviera is an interesting case since it looks almost identical to a GM customized show car- The Silver Arrow II. This was a ’67 Riviera that ended up looking like the production ’70 model. From what I’ve read, Bill Mitchell wanted his stylists to “put some Delage into it.” I think that Mitchell wanted to preview his Neo Classic look that was best showcased by the upcoming ’71 ElDorado. The ’71 Boat Tail was such a change of appearance that did reflect any traditional Riviera design cues. While it’s amazing that GM would make this a single year model, but remember the entire GM line up of 1958 was for one year only.
I remember the 61 Ambassador. It looked like it had the mumps. A neighbor of ours owned a 56 Hudson. For some reason the front end reminded me of a juke box.
Re two of the American Motors models mentioned, it may be interesting to note that the “unusual” new ’61 Ambassador front clip/grille was the first AMC design assignment for Dick Teague…
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1961_Rambler_Ambassador_sedan_in_black_1of4_at_Rambler_Ranch.jpg
…who came from Chrysler where he had recently worked on a new front for the ’60 Imperial.
https://notoriousluxury.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/lebaron-3.jpg
Some similarities can be seen.
Similarities can also be seen in the continuing sedan-to-wagon conversions for the [revised] “new” ’65-’66 Rambler Classic and Ambassador and the [really] “all-new” ’67-’78 AMC Rebel/Matador and Ambassador roof, tailgate, taillight, side and rear window wagon design — maybe even with some shared stampings in places unseen. Therefore that “single-year” spending surely was amortized in some ways during the first few years, and it definitely increased profit over an incredibly-long life of the last mid-to-large-size AMC body.
The new ’66 vertical taillight was something of a nod to the best-selling wagons in America as well as an “upscaling” of Classic to look more like Ambassador. At least at the rear.
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1965_Rambler_Classic_770_Cross_Country,_rear_right.jpg
https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A211613
And vertical lights still seem to signify “upscale style.”
Roadmaster, I appreciate the effort you put into your comment. I edited out photographs that were likely to be copyrighted.
While the 1964 Fairlane was a good-looking car without the 1961 Ford fins, this is where knowing what was going on in terms of the business side would be key as it looks like somebody forgot to update the Fairlane until the last minute. Yes, the 1965 full-size Ford and Mercury were the priorities as well as the 2+2 Mustang. But the Falcon wasn’t botched so why was the Fairlane “squared-up” in such a way that it became the successor for the 1961 A.M.C. American “Ordinance Wagen”.
What if “The Fourteenth Floor” had over-ruled Bill Mitchell and the “rogue” stylists and kept the 1957-1958 B-bodies and C-bodies as the basis for the 1959s rather than the longer-lower-wider full-size cars ? The only way it came about was because Fred Donner’s G.M.A.D. was only a dream in the summer of 1957 and Fisher Body could shift gears quickly. Then there is the ’58 Buick grill that looks like somebody bought enough square drawer pull knobs to fill the space. (I wonder how cooling in urban areas was with all of those heavy thick pieces in place, especially if the B-58 was equipped with A/C.) I would love to know what conversations were exchanged in the board room. The odd thing was that the 1959-1960 full-size bodies only lasted two-years before the 1961 downsize.
The premise may be subjective, but so is barbecue sauce, and we still argue about that with near-religious intensity. Your list is absolutely debatable, and the first problem is that it’s wildly AMC-heavy. That brand doesn’t need representation—it needs containment. AMC should be its own exhibit, preferably roped off, with warning placards explaining that enthusiasm sometimes outruns good judgment and tooling budgets.
The 1961 Dodge Dart being buried in a sidebar is borderline malpractice. This car isn’t a supporting character; it’s a headliner. If there were justice in the world, it would be flirting with the top five, if not the podium. The front and rear ends appear to have been designed by two rival teams who never met, never spoke, and actively resented one another. The middle section is pure Plymouth—caught in the crossfire, innocent, and doomed. The front looks like a catfish mid-asphyxiation on a citrus wedge. The rear resembles a folded cocktail napkin after a bar fight. Those “taillights” were so legally questionable that some states apparently just squinted and waved them through. This was not a car—it was a rolling cautionary tale that made children cry and crossing guards reconsider their career choices.
Including the 1958 Buick—correctly, I might add—while ignoring the 1959 Chevrolet is an unforgivable oversight. The ’59 Chevy didn’t just dip a toe into psychedelia; it cannonballed in, pupils dilated, yelling about the future. Yes, the 1960 model shares DNA, but that’s not disqualification—that’s evidence of a crime spree. The fact that this design made it past clay modeling proves two immutable truths: America was once brave beyond reason, and General Motors had already started treating restraint as an optional accessory. No other nation on Earth would have signed off on that car, and that’s exactly why it exists.
And then there’s the 1960 Ford, a vehicle born entirely of panic. Somewhere in Dearborn, someone caught a glimpse of the ’59 Chevrolet and yelled “OH HELL NO,” triggering a design scramble that abandoned decades of brand identity in favor of a full-scale aesthetic meltdown. The Quicksilver concept was rushed into production with all the grace of a folding chair in a windstorm. The result wasn’t innovation—it was confusion, and buyers responded accordingly by staying home. Sales cratered. Ford immediately sobered up, went back to the drafting room, and produced the 1961 model—the car the 1960 should have been before everyone lost their nerve. The 1960 Fairlanes and Galaxies weren’t ugly; they were simply homeless, belonging to no era, no lineage, and no coherent plan.
In short, the list isn’t wrong—but it is timid. And timid has no place in a discussion about cars that looked the American public straight in the eye and said, “You’re gonna see this whether you like it or not.”
“(T)he specific rankings are less important than questioning the point of the redesigns.”
I’m feeling pretty weighed down by the seriousness of world events at the moment so I can’t find the motivation to debate whether, say, excluding the 1959 Chevrolet is “borderline malpractice.” However, I would quickly note that this is a journal of opinion, and I do tend to focus a fair amount on independent automakers (note the title, Indie Auto).
Amen, Brother. If it wasn’t for the old car hobby as a distraction, a lot of us would throw in the towel. To be honest, I always thought the “Indie” in IndieAuto referred to the opinions rather than the manufacturers. Either way, keep up the good work; I always look forward to Fridays and getting your take.
Thank you for your kind words. Regarding Indie Auto’s meaning: It partly reflects a commitment to questioning the narratives that tend to be repeated over and over without a whole lot of self reflection in the automotive media. However, it also reflects my hypothesis — not conclusion, but rather hypothesis — that the domestic automakers might have had a less dramatic fall if an oligopoly had not developed in the early postwar years. That’s why I pay an unusual amount of attention to antitrust policy as well as the inner workings of the independent automakers — and question those who have insisted that the latter were “doomed.” Some find this irritating.
I’ve been wondering for some time how the smaller domestic automakers such as AMC became known as “independents.” It’s not as though the Big 3 were government entities and were dependent on government funding. I’ve never seen an explanation of how this term came about.
If you’d been sitting at a back table in the Grounds for Divorce in, say, 1958—coffee gone lukewarm, cigarette doing all the work—nobody in Fort Stockton would’ve needed a white paper to explain what an “independent automaker” was. They’d just gesture with their chin toward the highway and say, “Well… they ain’t GM.”
Back then the Big Three—General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler Corporation—weren’t called “dependent” because nobody thought of them as needing anything from anyone. They were more like West Texas land barons who owned the wells, the pumps, the pipelines, and the town bank besides. They poured their own iron, stamped their own steel, shipped their own glass, and told their dealers what color optimism would be this year. If a model flopped, they shrugged, lit another cigarette, and rolled out a new grille next fall.
The independents—names like Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, Packard, Kaiser, and later American Motors Corporation—were different in a way Fort Stockton understood instinctively. They were the outfits that had to buy their engines from over here, their transmissions from over there, and hope the supplier didn’t go belly-up between Christmas and inventory. They didn’t own the whole operation from ore to odometer. They stitched cars together the way a rancher patched fences: with ingenuity, pride, and the quiet knowledge that one bad storm could undo a lot of work.
Capital mattered, too, and folks in town knew that word even if they didn’t use it much. The Big Three could afford to swing and miss. An independent had to connect every time or start selling off the silver. One slow year didn’t just hurt—it lingered. Tooling costs didn’t care how clever the engineering was, and bankers were far less sentimental than car guys. Around Fort Stockton, that was the difference between owning the hardware store and shopping there nervously.
Dealer networks told the same story. A Ford or Chevrolet dealership was as dependable as the post office—brick building, big sign, service bays humming. An independent dealer might share space with a feed store, a refrigerator salesman, or a man who also sold tractors on Tuesdays. If that dealer folded, the brand vanished from town like a traveling carnival that didn’t come back the next summer. Independence had a way of turning into isolation once the sign came down.
And then there was culture. GM ran like an empire—layers of management, committees, forecasts, and men in pressed suits who’d never changed a tire in their lives. The independents felt more like family businesses with engineering degrees. They tried things. They gambled. They put good ideas into production and prayed the public noticed. Sometimes they did. Often they didn’t. Fort Stockton had seen that movie before, usually starring a man with a clever plan and a short runway.
So when AMC came along—born from the marriage of two already tired fighters—it inherited the name “independent” the way a kid inherits his daddy’s boots: a little worn, still useful, and already marked by hard miles. By then the word wasn’t political and it sure wasn’t about government funding. It simply meant you weren’t inside the big fence. You were out on your own land, buying what you couldn’t make, selling against giants who could afford to wait you out.
The irony, of course, is that independence sounded noble—and was—but it also meant living year to year, model to model, hoping the next one would be the one. Around Fort Stockton, folks respected that. They also knew how it usually ended.
As Trixie from the Klip-N-Dye might’ve put it, flicking ash from her Chesterfield into a saucer: “Independent just means you got nobody to blame when it all goes sideways.”
Nash, Hudson, Packard and Studebaker did not buy their engines from outside suppliers. They engineered and built their own engines.
During the 1910s and 1920s, there were smaller manufacturers who relied on outside suppliers for engines (Jordan, for example). As the market matured, new-car shoppers and the public increasingly looked at whether a company engineered and built its own engines, or bought them. The former were viewed as stronger companies.
The independents that survived until World War II with decent sales – Hudson, Nash, Packard and Studebaker – designed and built their own engines.
Beautiful. You put into words what I could not.
From what I can tell, the descriptive term “independent” was being used in the late 1920s. GM, Ford and Chrysler were already the three largest automakers by 1929, and all three offered more than one brand of vehicle. The smaller companies offered only one brand, although Nash did join Kelvinator in the 1930s, and that union helped Nash lead the industry in the development of modern heating and ventiliation systems for automobiles.
There were even distinctions among the smaller companies. Hudson, Nash, Packard and Studebaker were known as “the Great Independents” because of their higher sales, and they didn’t have to buy their engines from outside sources.
There were a lot more car manufacturers then. Of the 25 independents that were making cars on Black Friday 1929, only the four mentioned by Geeber and maybe Willys were making civilian cars by 12/7/1941. Actually some had companion makes, but they were pretty much here today and gone tomorrow.
I’m not surprised the ’61 Dodge lineup dropped relative to Plymouth. The front end was bland and really suffered from the neoclassical front fender bulges, while the tunnel taillights were even more bizarre than Plymouth’s hanging rockets. My family had a C-P dealership until 1967, and we had a ’61 until I was three in 1968. (Unlike a lot of car dealer families we tended to keep our cars for a while.) I remember being fascinated by those taillights.
We also had a ’73 Plymouth Fury hardtop in that unfortunate gold color w/no vinyl top. And my grandfather’s last car was its Dodge Monaco Brougham stablemate in triple green. My dad never ordered a vinyl top because he knew what Pittsburgh weather and road salt would do underneath, but those 2nd gen fuselage C-Bodies really looked better with them, as did the fuselage B-Bodies.
But only the Dodge Monaco and the Imperial retained their 1972 front and rear clips. Dodge had a similar and IMO even blander front clip. The Chrysler was a bit better, but they were all unfortunate bolt-ons.
Lastly, never liked the ’70 Toro or Riv, but there’s at least a hint of the boattail in the rear bumper, which is an evolution of Buick’s W-shaped fronts in the 60s, and rears in some years too. The boattail is really the ultimate expression of that idiom.
Which really goes back to the point you made up front. Many of these failed because the brands didn’t have a distinctive design identity as all GM divisions had through most of the sixties — Chevy with its chrome fence grilles and double and triple taillights, Pontiac with its split grille and arced taillights, Olds with its barbell front clip and vertical taillights, Buick with its W front and rear clips, and Cadillac with its egg crate grille and stand-out headlight pods. Buick, Olds, and Pontiac were more disciplined, but all were the leaders in their price classes.
The 1965 Fairlane looked like the generic not-new car on the cover of the parts store flyer circa 1968.
It might be beyond the scope of this article but I always thought the 1991 Chevy Cavalier was a step back from the fairly attractive 1988-90 facelift, and the 2008 Ford Focus’ hatchback- and wagonless lineup and plastichrome-slathered look were worse than what came before in almost every way.
The 1958 GMs don’t really fit the stated criteria. Yes, they were bad. But to understand the 1958 recognize that they were not supposed to be a single year design. They were created as a standard multi-year program. The early discovery of the 1957 Chrysler Forward Look is what changed the plan. The 1958s were too far along so they continued but with the addition of troweled on chrome to dazzle to eye. This led to the completely new direction for the 1959s and the taking over of GM’s the design direction by Bill Mitchell.
One could argue that only GM could afford to by all new tooling for one year then to switch again for the following model year.
But wasn’t the 1959 Buick originally supposed to get another facelift?
If you’re going to argue the above point then why not also complain about the 1961 Ambassador, which presumably was originally slated to carry over its front end for 1962 given Rambler’s normal practice during that time period? Romney instead decided to reposition the nameplate for 1962.
I think that my punchline still holds: That at least some of these cars might have actually had stronger sales if they had been given less dramatic changes. For example, the 1957 Buick could have been given quad headlights and relatively minor changes . . . and ended up looking better than what they actually came out with in 1958.
I don’t know when the “go” decision for the GM 1959 program was given. There’s not much online, about all I found online were some early full size clays that like most early full size clays were over the top. Actually the 58 Chevys and Pontiacs were outstanding to me, and the one year Buick was elegant and restrained compared to the rest of the lineup with the chrome snowboards on the side.
GM stylists first saw the new 1957 Plymouths in the factory holding area, before they were delivered to dealers. This would have most likely been in September 1956.
After Bill Mitchell saw those 1957 Mopars, he ordered the stylists to scrap the planned 1959 models, and begin work on what became the 1959 models GM did produce. Harley Earl was out of the country at the time, and the new designs were well under way by the time he returned.
I’m guessing this all transpired in the final months of 1956, so the official decision to go ahead with the new designs would most likely have been made before January 1957.
No doubt top GM management would have officially approved the new direction soon after the 1957 Mopars hit the market in late October 1956, and began selling as fast as Chrysler could build them.
I should have written “the one year Buick Limited”
What I am attempting to get across is that the GM 1958s were not intended to be a one year solution. I find that your original criteria was pointed at what were intended to be single year changes.
This does not absolve the 1958s from being the substandard designs they were. Even if the excessively troweled chrome trim is removed the shapes were questionable.
Are you arguing that the originally-planned 1959 models were slated to have only minor changes rather than another round of facelifts? A Century of Style has images of proposed designs that had substantial changes even though they carried over the basic body.
They look like a bad AI rendering of Bruce McCall’s Bulgemobiles. What are the two black dots on the upper right photo, Dagmars?
You have me thinking of a different but related list that’s out there to be written: The one year body type. Think of the 1939 Chrysler/DeSoto/Dodge Hayes coupes, or the new for 1970 Buick Estate Wagon, replaced by the clamshell a year later. And if I recall correctly, the roofline for the 1966 Chrysler 300 2 door hardtop.
Any others come to mind? A body type, which can appear on multiple brands, but only for a single model year.
If you’re counting the 1966 Chrysler 300 hardtop, the 1951 Ford Victoria is on the list. The GM hardtops were so popular that Ford had to adapt a hardtop roof to the convertible body before the redesigned 1952 Fords were released.
The 1961 Plymouth is hardly a beauty queen, but the 1961 Dodge Dart and Polara are worse, in my opinion. The Plymouth is at least a cohesive design. The front matches the back. One gets the impression that a single team worked on the entire car.
The Dodges look as though three separate teams designed the car – one for the front, one for the middle and one for the back. And they never talked to each other.
Plus, the tailfin fad was definitely over by 1961. At least Plymouth had shaved off its fins. Dodge not only kept the fins, which was bad enough, but reversed them, which compounded the error. Supposedly Chrysler stylists nicknamed those fins “elephant ears,” and the name fits.