Mitchell retired from GM in 1977, and left a parting memorial to his love for the long, sleek, nostalgic and racy. He knew it was the (temporary) end of the road for his kind of car: “Realizing that with the energy crisis and other considerations, the glamor car would not be around for long. I wanted to leave a memory at General Motors of the kind of cars I love”.
Here’s Bill with his baby. Don’t know if it was given to him as a parting gift, though.
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It has a certain Ace & Gary look from the side.
Yes mitchell took it home. I work for him, he’s got it in his meuseum.
Looks like an evolution of the ’69 Grand Prix, had there never been a ’74 oil embargo, and all the other subsequent setbacks and upheavals of our time.
Here’s Bill with his baby. Don’t know if it was given to him as a parting gift, though.
Judging from the heavy tint on all windows including the windshield, my guess is that this is just a pushmobile.
I thought that Mitchell did take home a concept car as a retirement gift, and later GM bought it back from his estate and had it crushed. I could have him confused with Harley Earl in that story though.
While this definitely has a Pontiac inspired beak on the hood, it reminds me of the Caddy V12 and V16 concepts of the 60′s, such as XP-840. The flowing upper bodyline with the sharp dip near the back of the door says Buick to me though.
That was Harley Earl. I believe the car he was given was the Olds F88 Mark III.
I guess that’s what inspired the ugly and damned-near useless side windows on the Subaru SVX.
Looks like the result of a drunken three-way between a Cadillac Eldorado, Oldsmobile Tornado, and a Subaru SVX.
I’m seeing Toronado, a little boat-tail Riviera and (yes, with the windows) some SVX; the red wheel wells remind me of Louboutin shoes. (Er, not that I personally wear said shoes. I live with a woman who covets them.)
The way I seem to remember it at the time, I think by reading it in Car and Driver, was that he indeed got to take it home. I was like 12, but I remember thinking that was the coolest looking car ever, like the ultimate ’66 Riviera.
I read the article when I was in high school and it did say that Mitchell took this car home with him at retirement.
I have runs several web searches over the years looking for this photo again just because of that article.
Great to see this again.
Windows-within-windows really stink. The DeLorean’s were the worst of the worst, though. I think everyone on here knows how I feel about windows opening, so I won’t repeat myself! The car is pretty cool, though. Riviera/Gran Prix/Toronado all mushed into one. Kind of weirdly reminds me of an old toy gun set where the weapon was something like 7 weapons in one! No, I never had one, either. All-in-one printers, anyone?
Look at that windsheild, this thing was defo off a Corvette chassis