Top General Motors’ designers William Mitchell and Chuck Jordan showed glimmers of adaptiveness in an interview with Motor Trend (1971) magazine. However, the luxury of hindsight allows us to see some of the blinders that kept them from fully grasping the enormous changes that would engulf the U.S. automobile industry during the 1970s.
For example, Mitchell hedged his bets when answering the question of whether the future cars of the 1970s would be smaller.
“Well, let’s say they’re not going to be any bigger,” he responded to a Motor Trend query, noting that the added cost of beefed up bumpers and vehicle crushability could result in the need for cost — and thus weight — reductions. And that could mean trimming a car’s size. However, Mitchell also noted that GM’s big cars were so popular that “we just can’t make enough of them” (pp. 88, 90).
Mitchell was antsy about cars getting smaller
Jordan, who had recently returned to the U.S. from a stint at GM’s German Opel unit, noted that in Europe there was a “concern for getting as much interior space in the car for minimum bulk exterior-wise. . . . And I think that influence is being felt over here as we’ve got to keep the room inside the car, but we tend to lean to the bulk of the car” (p. 90).
Here is where Mitchell chimed in with his famous line about it “being easier to do a good looking big car than it is a little car. I say it’s like tailoring a dwarf” (p. 90).
Also see ‘Was GM’s approach to 1970s car design superior to Mercedes-Benz’s?’
Mitchell did acknowledge that engines “have got to get smaller” — and “cars have be lighter.” But in doing so U.S. automakers have “got to [be] very careful. If we went overnight from a Chevrolet the size it is to the way it was seven eight years ago, you’d have a helluva time getting a fellow to trade in his car for that” (p. 90).
Mitchell was presumably referring to the big 1961 Chevrolet, which was trimmed a decidedly modest 1.5 inches in length, 2.4 inches in width and 45 pounds in shipping weight. While it’s true that sales went down almost 13 percent from the previous year, one could argue that the problem wasn’t the smaller size but a recession that resulted in total domestic output to decline by almost 14 percent.
See, we can prove that smaller doesn’t sell!
Jordan, the ever-dutiful wingman, pointed out that when Cadillac offered a shorter model from 1961-63 that “you couldn’t give those things away.” He said that the division came out with a smaller car in response to surveys and letters complaining that Cadillacs were so big that you “couldn’t close the garage door” (p. 90).
The “compact” Cadillac did sell in very small numbers. However, as we discuss here, that model had the distinct whiff of what in time would be called a “compliance car” — it did not appear to be given much prominence. It’s almost as if GM wanted to prove that small didn’t sell.
Even more incredibly, Jordan didn’t seem to think it was a problem that luxury car owners couldn’t fit their cars in their garage. To me that sums up the arrogance of U.S. automakers during the postwar era.
The irony of these comments is that the next-generation big GM cars would be given a substantial enough downsizing in 1977 that they were within the same ballpark as the dreaded 1961 models — yet they sold fine.
NOTES:
Production figures and product specifications are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2004, 2009, 2013) 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, Ill.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- ——; 2009. American Cars, 1946-1959: Every Model, Year by Year. McFarland & Co.
- ——; 2013. American Cars, 1973-1980. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Motor Trend; 1971. “Motor Trend Interview: Bill Mitchell and Chuck Jordan.” July issue: pp. 88, 90, 92.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Chevrolet (1961, 1971)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Cadillac (1954)
Maybe Mitchell just didn’t know how to design a small car. Which would be ironic given that the 2nd generation Corvair was, IMO, a brilliantly styled car.
The pre-5 mph bumper Vega was a pretty stylish GM small car, too.
The so=called small Cadillacs were simply a shorter trunk on the same wheelbase. They had an odd, unattractive look. I’m mildly surprised they sold so many.
I suppose it depends on if your stylistic taste tilts toward long decks — which were a relatively recent phenomenon. Even a decade earlier Cadillacs had less overhang (go here).
For a closer look at the “compact” 1961-63 Cadillac, go here.
The short-deck Cadillacs of the early 1960s didn’t work because Cadillac simply chopped a few inches off the trunk. The cars looked like the automotive equivalent of a Manx cat.
They didn’t prove that people wouldn’t buy a shorter Cadillac. They proved that a successful downsizing effort required a clean sheet of paper. Simply whacking a few inches from an existing design did not work.
GM’s 1961 B- and C-bodies worked because they redesigned the entire car. GM didn’t simply chop a few inches off the hood or trunk of the 1960s models and call it a day.
Mitchell clearly loved to toss about quotable statements. He is correct that, in a GM world of design language it is harder to surface a small car. The smaller surface area available does make it harder to resolve certain forms.
But that did not prevent GM under Mitchell doing some outstanding small cars during his tenure. Both generation of Corvairs, the Vega, the Monza 2+2, Monza Town Coupe (the thin C pillar version of the Landau), look back to some of Mitchell’s show cars and recognize that he did a series of outstanding cars he personally used based around the Corvair architecture.
As for Chuck Jordan. You call him the wing man for Mitchell. I guess that is one characterization that could be considered somewhat accurate. Yet, that really sells him short. He was Mitchell’s #2 of Design in charge of all exterior design starting in 1962.
Between 1967 and 1970 Jordan was at Opel as the Design Director. Here he did a transformation of Opel that changed its image and vastly increased it sales with a string of hit cars; only some of which came to the US. Although he gets credit for the Opel GT that was most done by his predecessor. Chuck’s real accomplishments were the Manta, Ascona, Rekord, and Commodore. So yes, he was very adept at doing great small cars.
The referenced interview was in 1970. The automotive world quickly changed with the two US gas crisis of 1973 and 1979. But, there are claims in the story of the 1st gen Seville that something smaller in concept was already brewing/about to get underway in 1970. One might ask if in this interview Mitchell and Jordan were not telling all they actually knew.
I will also pick on the statement that the 1977 downsized GM cars “sold fine”. That is a huge understatement. They were selling at a fantastic rate with the assembly plants on overtime. Months went by with the Chevrolets at over 10,000 units a week, as reported in Automotive News. These were absolutely home runs.
The interview was published in the July 1971 issue. It’s unclear when it was actually conducted. My sense is that Jordan played the wingman in that interview, e.g., his disingenuous comment about the shortened Cadillac.
I think that my description of the 1977 GM cars selling “fine” was reasonable language. Consider the big Chevrolet: Its production did rebound from 1974-76 but it was still a notch below 1971-73 — and a whopping 60 percent lower than in 1965.
That Mitchell quote about tailoring for a dwarf has always irritated me. Not because I’m a dwarf, but because it comes across as a cheap shot, a slap in the face to all the talented European and Japanese designers who manage to design small cars just fine. The job can be (and was, and is) done beautifully by non-American designers, and quite possibly by some of his own countrymen. And yet – as CJ says – there’s the second-gen Corvair, and the original Vega.
More likely he could do it if he applied himself, but preferred the freedom of a larger package.