When I came across a 1966 Oldsmobile Starfire at this year’s LeMay annual car show, it got me wondering why such a nicely styled car failed to catch on in one of the 1960’s hottest market niches.
The Starfire represented the first, half-hearted attempt by General Motors to compete against the Ford Thunderbird. In 1961 the Starfire was only offered as a two-door convertible. This was the highest-priced Oldsmobile at $4,647 — eight dollars more than the equivalent T-Bird model.
First-year Starfire production was decent — 7,600 units versus 3,804 for Oldsmobile’s Ninety-Eight convertible and 10,516 for the T-Bird’s.
In 1962 the Starfire lineup was expanded to include a two-door hardtop that was priced around $600 less at $4,131. That was slightly below the cost of a Ninety-Eight two-door hardtop.
Pontiac enters the personal coupe market
Oldsmobile gained some competition from Pontiac in 1962, which introduced the top-of-line Grand Prix. It had a similar vibe as the Starfire but was lower priced at $3,490 and only offered as a two-door hardtop. Even so, the Starfire hardtop actually outsold the Grand Prix 34,839 to 30,195 units.
For 1963 the Starfire and Grand Prix both received a special roofline with a curved backlight that distinguished them from GM’s other B-body two-door hardtops. That seemed to help the Pontiac, whose sales more than doubled — and even overtook the Thunderbird for one year. In contrast, the Starfire began to lose altitude.
Oldsmobile may have assumed that the Grand Prix’s greater success was partly based on a lower price, because a decontented version of the Starfire was introduced in 1964 — the Jetstar I. That car listed for $3,603, which was well below the Starfire hardtop’s $4,138 price tag. By that point the Grand Prix was going for $3,499.
The Jetstar I generated around 16,000 units in 1964, which was about the same as the Starfire’s output. Together the two sold roughly half as much as the Grand Prix’s almost 64,000 units but were within striking distance of the Buick Riviera’s almost 38,000 units.
It was all downhill from there. Jetstar I and Starfire output in 1965 was down by a third to under 22,000 units. Grand Prix sales also declined, but only by 9 percent to under 58,000 units.
The 1966 Starfire was the last of the breed
In 1966 Oldsmobile reshuffled its personal coupe lineup. The Toronado was introduced, the Jetstar I and Starfire convertible were discontinued, and the Starfire hardtop’s price was dropped to $3,564. That was less than the previous year’s Jetstar I, only slightly above the Grand Prix’s $3,492, and well below the base Toronado’s $4,617.
Despite the price cut, Starfire sales fell to roughly 13,000 units while the heavily promoted Toronado almost reached 41,000 units. That would prove to be the end of the line for the Starfire.
Why did the Starfire fade away?
The most obvious answer is that Oldsmobile arguably didn’t need two big personal coupes. However, the nameplate was losing altitude well before the Toronado showed up — and was far less successful than its corporate sibling, the Grand Prix. Why?
One factor could have been that Oldsmobile was not as hot of a brand as Pontiac. Richard M. Langworth argued that the latter division’s recipe for success could be summed up as “clever engineering, high performance [and] a high level of luxury” (1986, p. 254).
That may have been true, but Oldsmobile was hardly a slouch in any of those areas. I suspect that one of Pontiac’s key advantages was superior advertising (go here for further discussion).
Whatever the reasons, big Pontiac production almost hit 500,000 units in 1965 whereas Oldsmobile failed to break 380,000. Then Olds began a long slide in sales that took them well below Buick’s. The division’s strength would increasingly be in the mid-sized field (go here).
Wasn’t the big personal coupe doomed anyway?
The Starfire might have faded away even if it had initially been as successful as the Grand Prix. The reason why is that the public drifted away from big personal coupes as the 1960s progressed.
Look at the Grand Prix, which saw its sales decline to the point where it was moved to a mid-sized platform in 1969. Then, in the 1970s, mid-sized personal coupes would become much more popular than their larger corporate siblings.
Given the strength of Oldsmobile’s existing mid-sized nameplates such as the Cutlass and 442, it’s hard to see how the brand could have downsized the Starfire in a similar fashion as the Grand Prix.
So even though the 1966 Starfire pictured here looks like a perfectly nice car, it may have been an idea whose time came and went all too quickly.
NOTES:
Specifications and production figures were from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2004, 2009) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1986. The Complete History of General Motors 1908-1986. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Oldsmobile Starfire (1961, 1962, 1963,1964, 1965)
The Starfires had the most beautiful leather interiors in the industry !!!
Remember also GM had the Wildcat replacing the Invicta, and was sort of in the full size personal luxury range. I think that Pontiac beginning with the DeLorean years was moving into a more sporty youthful mode. OLDsmobile remained what was called pre WWII the doctor’s car, postwar as an upscale family car.
Actually, the Grand Prix concept was pushed by Bunkie Knudsen in 1960 for a production G.P. for the 1962 model year. Knudsen even had a special 1960 hardtop created out of a Ventura for his personal driving, which is still in existence, if not yet restored. The special hardtop for the Starfire and G.P. was for 1963.
I’m confused by your “actually” framing. Nothing that you wrote is at variance from what I said.
No, I had no variance to what you wrote. The “actually” was in reply to Kim in Lanark. I think Knudsen, ironically, was thinking about Ford with his 1960 Pontiac custom hardtop. I did not know of the existence of the 1960 prototype until I saw photographs of it a few years back in a junk yard awaiting either restoration or scrapping.
Although the big Oldsmobile news for 1965 was both the new full-size Fisher bodies and the new 425-cu.-in. engine that was derived from a modified 330 block,I think the Starfire’s front clip was rather bland and undistinguished while the rear end was unique and, in my opinion, exciting. The Starfire was luxurious and in the 98 category, while the Jetstar I was basically echoing the Dynamic 88 styling. There was no real need for the Jetstar I, in my opinion.
I never liked that silver insert that ran the length of the ’61 Starfire. It remained the signature feature of all subsequent Starfires. The ’62 Grand Prix was noteworthy for its restrained use of chrome and its lug wheels, which became it’s signature feature. My uncle bought a turquoise ’65 Olds 88 convertible with a white top. With its minimal use of trim, I thought it looked more elegant the the chromed up Starfire.
The 61 and 62, and somewhat less on 63, were visually distinctive from other models on the outside with the admittedly glittery side cladding. Later models needed almost a microbiologist to distinquish them on the outside from lesser models, a common product planning or finance driven failing on many premium models. Also by 65 and 66 the bucket seat and console interiors were widely available on less costly cars like Impala SS and Galaxie 500XL. Starfire just wasn’t different enough at the end to support the premium price, in my opinion.
Good points.
Sad to see the Starfire nameplate re-used later for a H-body Vega/Monza variant. That monicker could have been used for a Cutlass model for example.
Person coupes REALLY became more personal when they were not big family sized, and then, hopefully, more manoeuvrable/lively. ’69 GrandPrix vs ’68 GrandPrix. ’70 MonteCarlo vs ‘ 65 Impala. With the re-thought later personal coupes came the REAL boom. The earlier big coupes, although often well styled, did not quite feed perfectly into “personal and sporty” vibe when the same bodies also hauled the kids and granny on vacations, and the kids and friends to the little league diamonds.
GM tried, but the new ’60s demographic and the big cars did not fit “personal” well enough. Hence the much lower sales vs later very successful re-thought/re-sized models.
Having said that, my walking route to high school took me through the back of the lot of a Chev-Olds dealer in our small 20,000 population city. One day – it must have been in the late fall of ’63 – they had just unloaded a sophisticated-looking red metallic ’63 Olds Starfire as l walked by. It was “capital G” gorgeous and l was smitten!! l can still “see” it – it was THAT nice!
My boss’ dad, who seemed to have good taste in cars, was asked to name his favourite car that he had owned over the years. With little hesitation he said ” ’63 Olds!” (full size).
I think the tragedy of the ending of Oldsmobile as a brand was that the period of 1938 to 1986, Oldsmobile’s management knew what it was to be an Olds. Yes, HydraMatic was not perfect, but Olds’ engineers kept plugging away. Pontiac had DeLorean, Estes and Knudsen that propelled Pontiac ahead in sales over Oldsmobile. The Toronado should have been the big boost, but maybe it wasn’t enough to stop the G.T.O.-mania in 1966. Then the accountants ran G.M. in the 1970s and 1980s, and even though the Cutlass became G.M.’s number one car, the Alfred P. Sloan ladder of G.M. cars was destroyed forever by the dilution of brands and badge engineering line extension to the point of ridiculousness. In my opinion, Olds should have concentrated on intermediates and full-size cars with a Toronado, while Pontiac focused on smaller, more nimble cars with a Firebird, Grand Prix and an intermediate Bonneville. Buick should have been limited to the Skylark, Riviera, the Century-Regal and the LeSabre-Electra…but the dealers would have screamed.