Flush with enthusiasm about the Big Three’s new compacts, the November 1959 issue of Road & Track made some bold predictions about what was next. “Detroit Beat” writer Don Mac Donald stated that “Detroit, stung by lessons from abroad, finally is doing some product planning worthy of adults” (1959, p. 31).
Although there will always be a Cadillac, “probably with fins,” the standard-sized car will be “injected with new engineering life,” Mac Donald wrote. For example, by 1963 Ford “will go to front-wheel drive in all of its lines.” Meanwhile, “the big Chevrolet plans to move its engine back to the trunk in that year. Other makes will by then have followed the transaxle route to eliminate the tunnel. This will permit an immediate 4-in. drop in over-all height without affecting road clearance or interior room” (1959, p. 31).
Mac Donald also predicted that cars would become more personalized in the wake of the Thunderbird’s success. Ford was “feverishly planning a line of T-Bird-like cars, ranging from an austere runabout to a super luxurious version destined to replace the misplaced Continental” (1959, p. 31).
In addition, for 1961 a new Edsel would be offered that was “somewhere between the Falcon and the regular Ford in size, but its insides will be more akin to the Mercedes 220” (1959, p. 31).
New car sizes scramble traditional brand hierarchies
Not to be outdone, General Motors would unveil in 1961 similarly sized cars from Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac with an aluminum V8 engine, Mac Donald predicted. “It will be a quality car, selling for upwards of $3000” (1959, p. 31). Even Chrysler was planning a DeSoto entry in this new class.
“Design activity in this area has actually snowballed to where auto men are incautiously talking of two medium-priced fields — one occupied by the Impalas, Fairlanes and Furys of today, and the other by the plush, compact newcomers. What will happen to Buicks, Mercurys and DeSotos as we know them is anybody’s guess” (1959, p. 31).
Also see ‘Road & Track once predicted a Karmann Ghia-based VW sedan’
Mac Donald concluded by stating that while the “roster of makes is more likely to diminish than to increase, the variety available will shortly be infinitely greater” (1959, p. 31). That proved to be one of his more accurate predictions — within a decade low-priced brands saw their lineups mushroom in breadth.
Even though predictions of front-wheel drive proved woefully premature, the fact that this was even being discussed illustrates the unsettled tone of the times. This can be useful context for better understanding why Chrysler management took the dramatic step of shrinking its full-sized Plymouth and Dodge for 1962.
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- Mac Donald, Don; 1959. “Detroit Beat.” Road & Track. November issue: p. 31. Posted at Internet Archive.
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- oldcaradvertising.com: Buick Special (1961); Ford (1963)
I am going to surmise that Don Mac Donald got the message that the 1961 full-size Chevrolet would have its “engine in the trunk” from Ed Cole in mid-1959, which was well before the monthly sales reports started rolling in showing the lowly Falcon outselling the Corvair at just under two-to-one. I also suspect that the costs of engineering G.M.’s full-size cars into front-wheel-drive cars on a 119-to-126-inch wheelbase with totally different architecture had the kibosh boom lowered at the 14th-floor level for two big reasons: The after-effects of the need for G.M. to re-engineer the entire U.S. car line in 1959-1960 and the trailing impact of the late 1957-1958 U.S. recession. With nearly 50 % domestic vehicle production, why would Frederic Donner and his board undertake a total makeover of G.M.’s cars for 1961-1962? We do know that Oldsmobile was testing engineering front-wheel-drive mules at the Tech Center and in Milford. One other factor was that Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Buick engineering staffs were already working on new big-block V-8s to replace their vintage 1949 and 1953 designs, which would lend themselves to front-wheel-drive for 1966-1967. The 1959 British Motor Company Minis were ground-breaking cars, but I cannot believe that Donner and his hand-picked president, John Gordon, would have allowed Ed Cole to venture beyond Tech Center mules at the start of the 1960 model year.
The late 1950s recession provoked an unusual amount of self-analysis and exploration of different directions.
Ed Cole was involved in a rear-engine study at Cadillac in the late 1940s that found that layout impractical in a large, heavy car. I wonder what changed. Maybe the development of the aluminum block V8?
It is interesting that talk turned to the FF and RR drivetrain layouts at this point, since just two months earlier Road & Track was forecasting the combination of a front engine with a rear transaxle–and IRS. Look at “Off Beat Detroit,” 9/59.