The ultimat decade of change ushered in the first wave of compacts, intermediates, sporty cars, muscle cars, Japanese cars and the Brougham Epoch, and all within the first half! Yes, there will never be quite another sixties; a hard act to follow indeed. And all that tumultuous change inevitably led to plenty of turkeys, although the seventies would be hard to beat for that. So let’s crank up that proto-boombox in the back of that station wagon, get groovy, and do the Turkey. Gobble-gobble-gobble….
My first impulse was to name the 1962 Dodge Dart/Polara and Plymouth, based on their ugly styling, but they were very good cars underneath. The facelifted 1963 and 1964 models were clean and attractive, sold well and were, in many ways, nicer cars to drive than the Ford and Chevrolet competition.
The first choice would be the 1965-66 Rambler/AMC Marlin. Putting a fastback on a conservative Rambler Classic does not a sporty car make. An American-based fastback, just like the Tarpon showcar, probably wouldn’t have been a huge sales success, but it probably wouldn’t have been a complete dud and object of ridicule, either. AMC put the Marlin on the longer Ambassador wheelbase for 1967, and gave it a new, attractive front clip shared with the Ambassador, which helped its looks, but, by then, it was too little, too late.
The second choice would be the 1961 full-size Plymouth and Dodge, which were cursed with some of the most bizarre styling ever to grace a car aimed at the mass market. They were also not very well built, and the interiors were not very attractive, either.
The third choice would be the 1960 Lincoln/Continental, but that was really a design of the 1950s.
Yes, you called my turkeys, the ’62 Dodge and the Marlin, on the very first post.
The 1962 Dodge was an utterly catastrophic self-inflicted turkey. Insanely ugly. The wrong size for the market. Sales crashed 25% while competitors’ sales went up. All because of what a moron Exec VP misheard at a garden party.
It’s all here in Aaron’s superbly detailed trail of tears: http://ateupwithmotor.com/family-cars/146-chrysler-downsizing-disaster-1962.html
Sure great engineering, efficient size, slant six and all, but it doesn’t matter because no one could stand to be seen in it.
Oddly, I quite like the 1962 Plymouths.
Likewise, moron execs drove Ramblers into big cars, to compete with the big three, when they should have focused on their specialty. They’d have cleaned up in ’73. The Marlin is the most complete expression of what clueless egotistical suits did to AMC.
The 1962 Plymouth is a goddess compared to the 1961 model. And in comparison to all 1962 cars it wasn’t *that* bad looking, although it morphed into a remarkably faux elegant little big car for 1963.
Turkeys? Wow. The 1965 & 1966 Mustangs, 1961 full-size Chevys, all early Corvairs until they were restyled properly and resembled slightly smaller Camaros. All pre-1965 Fords. 1968 & 1969 full size Chevys. All 1st-gen Valiants and Darts thrown in for good measure. Anything I missed wasn’t on my radar back then or now.
Yes, my interest was and is still very narrow from back then. It gets narrower from there, too.
Interesting, Zackman…the 1961 Chevrolet is, in my opinion, the best-looking full-size Chevrolet of the early 1960s, and third on my list of 1960s full-size Chevrolets, after the 1965 and 1966 models!
@geeber:
My second car was a 1961 Bel Air 2 door sedan. Aside from the fact it was a rust bucket – what midwest car wasn’t? – but these, especially so, I thought they looked “fat”. The 1962 models appeared leaner, certainly more linear and cleaner.
HOWEVER a 1961 Impala or Bel Air “bubbletop” is beautiful, so on that note, I stand corrected, geeber, thank you! I hereby take that model off the list! Remember, this is a guy who has never owned a pillarless hardtop, and my impression was of the sedans and personal experience!
Wow, not even roll-down back windows can save these cars from the wrath of Zackman 🙂
I would be interested in your reasoning behind turkey designation of the 65-66 Mustang. Cannot be looks, sales, general capabliity or quality. I would agree that they suffer from the same kind of over-exposed hyper popularity of the 57 Bel Air, but I am not smelling turkey on this one. We are inquiring minds and want to know.
Wow – I guess I have some ‘spainin’ to do!
I include the early Mustangs solely because they were just re-skinned Falcons and crude compared to the 1967/68 models, which, to me, were more refined. The enormous impact they had on the market is not lost on me, for I salivated over the one my elementary school gym teacher owned who lived at the top of my street only a few houses away!
As far as roll-down back windows, yes, it hurts me a great deal to condemn to turkeydom all those 50’s and 60’s classics in spite of the fact that they were quite servicable and functional, but I’m just writing based on personal taste and even narrower experience.
Hope that helps, JP!
I also heard that the original Mustangs are better restored now than they ever were (especially in terms of assembly quality) out of the factory. I know I had experience with them 20 years later, but a early Corvair door wasn’t as hard to close or didn’t seem to sag as much.
Add in you still got that wheezy 170 Cube inline 6 as a base engine, and all of the crudeness of the Falcon with none of the space efficiency, and I could easily think of the Mustang as a turkey. I’d be one of the weird people holding out for a 1965 Corvair had I been in the market at the time.
The 1965 Corvair was lacking in structural rigidity. Making all of four-doors hardtops didn’t help in that regard.
When it became apparent that the Mustang was whipping it in sales, Chevrolet rushed the Camaro to market, and basically ignored the Corvair. That neglect apparently extended to quality control. Car Life tested a 1968 model, and the testers loved the way it performed, but the list of things wrong with it was serious even by the lax standards of that era.
I’ve seen some all-original first-generation Mustangs. Interestingly, their workmanship isn’t bad for that time, especially considering the price. These cars were competitive with the small Buicks and Oldsmobiles of that time in terms of workmanship. They were pretty simple cars, which helped in that regard.
In the Popular Mechanics “Owners Report” on the first Mustang, there were very few complaints about sloppy workmanship (and they centered on squeaks and rattles, not poorly fitted parts or body panels), especially compared to many cars of that era.
Restored models are all over the map. Because the car is so popular, and replacement panels and parts are readily available, workmanship of “restored” cars ranges from concours level to done-in-the-backyard-after-a-few-beers level.
Some are gorgeous, and some you just want to tell the owner to start all over. Some restored cars are WORSE than what came from the factory.
There was a definite quality gap between the first and second generation Corvairs, hence me saying (and personally preferring) the first generation cars. They seem more tastefully screwed together than a comparable Nova those years.
But the Mustang, to me at least seems floppy and crude in it’s first generation. Ironically the further it got away from it’s intended mission as a stylish runabout the more it seemed “put together” (especially the 1967-68 models).
I wouldn’t call the Mustang a turkey (at least not in the 1960s) and I don’t even like Mustangs. It was the car that defined the pony-car genre after all.
I guess you’d take the Barracuda out behind the barn and shoot it too? It’s just a fastback Valiant after all.
(This doesn’t answer the question at all, but…)
Every time I see drawings like this one, I feel like an entire future was lost. Somewhere, time branched, taking the path of least resistance (and style). Maybe it’s just my obsession with “futures past,” but this is a fascinating glimpse into what could have been.
In short, I don’t understand what’s going on in that picture, but I want it 🙂
I agree, kind of like Walt’s original vision for Epcot, or reading Golden Age Science Fiction the future turned out to be just like the past with ABS and cellphones. Where’s my atomic flying car?
I nominate the DAF Daffodil. While mostly a carryover from the late 50’s 600, this one’s a Turkey because it was already obvious that Dutch consumers did not want the Variomatic transmission but in true stubborn Dutch fashion they decided that people are stupid* and kept it for the next model.
* Actual quote from a DAF executive I read in an article
Nissan having copied the idea for it CVT is using the same mindset its awful unloved and well put it in everything.
CVT is what you do to squeeze the last drop of efficiency out of the gas engine. That arrogant executive probably believed the Dutch needed to use less gas, 100% imported.
Right there with you zourtney! I get the same sense of nostalgia for a “future that never was” looking at images like that myself.
Veering still further off topic, there’s a brilliant William Gibson short story based on this same phenomenon: called “The Gernsback Continuum” it centres on exactly that kind of yearning for the future of the past… well worth a read if you can find it.
I am so with you on this. I was a total Elroy Jetson child of Tomorrowland. In the late seventies I came back from a hard autumn day slogging around in the muddy upstate NY woods cutting (free) firewood for winter and it hit me. Hard. This was not the future I was told to expect.
Fact is, the fifties were insane. After the Depression, WW II and Korea, I can’t say I entirely blame them. But it still hurts.
We have to build that future ourselves.
I sometimes wonder about this stuff too, when I see Popular Mechanics style retro-future drawings, or watch old sci-fi movies like 2001. Where’s my flying car? Where’s my housekeeper robot? …vacation to the lunar colony? …holographic movie projector? …supersonic space planes?
I read an article about this not long ago. It basically said that the free market has spoken, and the general public does not value most of these things enough to commercialize them. It was a depressing article.
1967 “Buick Opel”
As C/D vividly expressed in their review’s photos.
1. 1960 Corvair. (With apologies to PN) – The dangerous swing-axle design coupled with its too-far-out-there packaging concept made the car uncompetitive from the start. The result of “hey, lookee what we can do” engineering. Any market segment not led by Chevrolet in 1960-63 was purely self-inflicted injury. The 61-63 Tempest, F-85 and Special suffered from this phenomenon as well (minus the swing axles).
2. I second the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge. What ugly, ugly cars.
3. 1961 Imperial – a great car with truly bizarre styling.
4. Anything after 1961 with a 2 speed automatic, a Roto Hydramatic or a 352 V8.
5. The 65-68 big Ford – such a great car in so many ways, but who ever heard of a dissolving frame?
6. The 1969 big Ford – should have been the best big car of the 60s, but instead of dissolving frames, they made the rest of the bodies dissolve instead.
7. The Studebaker Lark and its successors (1960-66) – See above re. dissolving bodies. As much as I love them, they were hopeslessly outclassed and uncompetitive cars.
8. The 1967-68 Thunderbird – just so wrong.
Edit. 9. The 1961-62 short deck Cadillac. A shortened rear end does not necessariy make a better proportioned car. This was the only awkward looking Cadillac of the entire decade.
I’d only say the 1960-61 Corvairs (and the non Monzas) were absolute Turkeys (and in cost cutting, not necessarily any innate flaws). And they were turkeys because of Marketing, really. Had they not had to meet such a dire price point, the needed suspension bits would have been there from the beginning. Chevrolet didn’t understand what it was creating by doing a European style compact: A car innately fun to drive.
Those bits showed up as options by 1962, and were in all of them by 1964.
I can’t hate the 1962 Dodges and Plymouths. The styling was awful, but the cars were quite good in other areas. They cleaned up nicely in 1963 and 1964.
So many to choose from… I’d probably have to say the 1964 Austin 1800 “Landcrab” (ADO17) especially if you include the subsequent other models (Maxi, Tasman, Kimberley and 3-litre) BMC inexplicably decided to inflict the landcrab’s unlovely midsection on as a fixed starting point for their designs. Not only was the 1800 itself a Turkey but it also Turkeyfied a whole raft of subsequent models!
Throw in the 1967 Citroën Dyane as well. Mostly because it’s the only vehicle to have ever made me car sick (riding in one as a small child while my Mum test drove it – she bought a FIAT 127 instead.) but also because it flopped at what it was designed to do (compete with the hugely successful Renault 4)
seconded. ADO 17 was just “wrong”, what were they thinking? apply a succesful small car concept to a large car merely by inflating the dimensions without a second thought?
the british motor industry’s descent into badge engineering hell needs to be on the list, me thinks.
Yup “Hey, the Mini’s an awfully good design, let’s stretch it!” A BMC folly which found it’s ultimate expression in the Austin 3-litre (ADO61) an even bigger Turkey! Since that was basically just ADO17 with longer overhangs and a big engine though, I figured lumping it together with the Landcrab was fair – glad you agree!
I was saving the excesses of British badge engineering for the 70s, but you make a good point, it was even more rife in the 60s – How about we tip in anything sold as a Riley, Wolseley or Vanden Plas between 1961 and 1969 in for good measure?
BL front drive cars in general, Jaguar 420G unloved everywhere it went, Hillman IMP needed longer in the oven and less govt interference,Holden Torana HB Brabham, Holden Brougham,
I’d forgotten the Jag 420 – good call! Seconded.
Sorry but I can’t let you get away with this. I might have cosidered the “Landcrab” a turkey when it appeared , and I certainly did when I first drove one in the UK , but my first vists to Ireland were spent driving one of these cars, and it would cruise at 70 mph on roads where a rear-drive Ford could not maintain a straight course between the ditch on one side and on-coming traffic on the other. No rubber bushes in the suspension – all needle-roller bearings. Structural rigidity to beat everything. Over-engineered ? Maybe. Un-appreciated? Maybe. Turkey ? No way. You have to remember that it was intended as a replacement for the Farina A60 models that were conventional, obsolete at birth, and dynamically rubbish.
One of my favourite things about this exercise is how every car has it’s defender.
Having experienced rural Irish roads first hand I’m terrified by the image you paint there, but will grudgingly admit to having a little more respect for ADO17 for coping well with those conditions… it makes sense: one of the two saving graces of this monster is always said to be its road manners (the other being cavernous interior space).
But then you hit the nail on the head of it’s Turkey-ness:
remember that it was intended as a replacement for the Farina A60 models
Yes! Mid-range, mid-sizers – which for Europe in the 1960s meant cars in the 1500cc range – and what happened? Design-creep and classic BMC mismanagement left the resulting “replacement” so much larger, heavier, more powerful and more expensive than the cars it was supposed to replace, that the woeful Maxi had to be rushed through development to fill the gap in the range! Gaining the unmarketable 1800’s ugly midsection in the process, out of expediency (or desperation).
It’s a Turkey. A Turkey that begat Turkeys even! It’s clearly a Turkey you’re fond of and (I can see why.) But it’s still a Turkey.
All the Studebaker’s till the death of the company. Things got so bad they had to start using GM engines.
AMC Marlin, so much promise ruined by an obsession with a big guy being able to wear a fedora while driving (and I say that as a man who loves fedoras.)
GM for holding onto the X-frame for so long and for cheapening and bluring the brand distictions, for trying to squeeze every little bit of profit out of the Corvair by holding back on an inexpensive suspension part, chickens that didn’t come home to roost until the 1970s.
America for not appreciating the understated Imperials of the mid to late 60s.
Oh, come on Dan, sure the company was a colossal Turkey but late Studebaker Larks are quaint, especially with the GM engines.
Right with you on the Marlin though. Too bad it wasn’t a deep fried turkey so it could’ve been done sooner.
Hmmm…I must be the only guy who really liked the Marlin! I do wear fedoras, too, so I suppose that has something to do with it…
Not all Studes, surely not the Avanti. It was drop dead brilliant. Meaningless. But brilliant.
@MikePDX, that’s the thing. If it had saved the company, sure but since it was an excercise in futility then it starts to look like a turkey.
@DougD, I think my problem is I still mourn the fact that ALL the independents didn’t merge when AMC was formed. I don’t know if that ultimately would have been a plus or a minus over the AMC that came to be but it would have been more interesting.
All of them merge into one? Interesting. To the Nash-Hudson lack of capital, you can add Studebaker’s out-of-control overhead; and Packard’s lack of production facilities and dependence on Briggs.
So, what would have happened? When Briggs got sold to Chrysler, Packard would still have been in the soup. Yes, the world would have been spared the Packebaker. But the end result would have been the Packard name disappearing about as fast.
AMC’s first V8 would be based on Packard designs, not Kaiser-Frazer. David Potter, the engineer who was jettisoned from K-F with his V-8 plans under his arm, would have had to find work elsewhere; instead of just showing up with plans he’d done a year earlier.
Nash and Hudson models would have been as unsaleable, with or without Studebaker and Packard baggage.
HOWEVER…Packard MANAGEMENT might have infected the AMC boardroom. Granted, 1960s AMC leadership wasn’t exactly blindingly brilliant; but at least George Romney left them in a good position to start with. Suppose, instead, Romney’s team had been supplanted with the Packard “no-can-do,” gotta-diversify mindset they showed as the Studebaker boardroom.
Well, we’d have lost AMC, which might or might not have mattered. But probably Jeep would have gone with it…no buyers for the line after Henry Kaiser’s heirs decided to sell. Or perhaps a short-life niche brand at GM, like Geo later turned out to be…but much of the SUV market would never have been.
And, without the Franco-American team to revitalize Chrysler in the late 1980s, where would an aging Lido have taken the company? Into the toilet?
The mind boggles…
I think if the GM bean counters hadn’t had their way with the 1960 Corvair we all might be singing a different tune. The car became quite competent as the first model cycle progressed…but like Paul I too am partial to those early ‘Vairs. I’ll take a ’61 Monza and swap in some key parts from newer models.
The 1960-61 Chevy trucks were just ugly. But with a different hood/grill, they became very attractive from 1963 on.
It’s easy to go after the downsized ’62-’63 Plymouths and Dodges…but I just look on then as different. Ate Up With Motor has an excellent history of those models…
http://ateupwithmotor.com/family-cars/146-chrysler-downsizing-disaster-1962.html
…it’s a must read.
1965 Ford Fairlane…the homely styling merited its own CC.
Even though Geeber is correct that the ’60 Lincoln was a late-’50s design, it was still a 1960 model and as such gets my vote for biggest turkey of all. Although any Thunderbird after 1966 (until 1977) comes pretty close.
If those 1962 Dodge and Plymouth was launched the way they was originally planned we might sing a different tune today. I spotted some pics of proposed mock-up clays for the 1962 Plymouth on the Forwardlook forum
http://www.forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=29648&start=101
My dad had a ’60 Chevy pickup–I never thought it was ugly…just beautiful in the way a bulldog’s face is beautiful (i.e., only a mother could love it). 😉
Turkey of the Decade (1960’s edition)? Hmm…probably the Marlin. Just way too grandiose for AMC, or for anyone to make it work. Although I remember that my babysitter when I was a kid had one (she was a little old lady who had probably kept it when her husband died) and I wanted one then. Just one of many weird cars that have appealed to me over the years.
Since it’s Turkey week, can we expect to see a car from Turkey? (And my guess is, a car from Turkey might be a Turkey as well.)
I thought about Turkish cars for this week, and did a bit of research. The Anadol was an interesting series of cars. Fiberglass bodies, which developed a reputation that animals liked to chew on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anadol
The Devrim (pictured) is a sad story too. The president made a big deal about how Turkey had to industrialize, he set a ridiculous prototype deadline, less than a year, and in the rush for the big event it ran out of gas on the president’s ride. That was that and no more were built.
If I’m not mistaken, today Turkey has a substantial auto industry but they’re all other countries’ designs. They build cars for the EU like Mexico builds cars for the US.
1960/61 Holden FB/EK sorry the 57 Chev look has been and gone,65 HD Holden, way to go GMH follow your best ever seller with the ugliest Opel design you can find,
1964 mgb. Had a manifold made to replace the side draft junk and finally was able to drive more than 500 miles without adjusting the carbs.
Electrical unreliability turned me into a routine motorcyclist because I never knew if the car was going to start or not. The yamaha always did.
Best thing my ex wife ever did for me was to wreck that car.
1. The AMC Marlin. Bill Teague’s original concept based on the American while it wouldn’t
have been a tremendous sucess was better than making a fastaback of the Rambler Classic. Then the prez of AMC insisted on raising the rear roof so he could wear his hat-in the back seat.
2. The “60-’62 Plymouth and Dodge-they looked like they were styled by a French pastry chef.
3. The early Corvairs with the swing rear axles.
I’ll have to go with the Corvair as well. Bean counters made it “unsafe at any speed” and the marketing was just stupid. “We put the engine in the rear where it belongs in a small car.”
The final generation of the Falcon is also a turkey. The success of the Mustang convinced them that they should make the Falcon look more like a Mustang which killed the space efficiency that was a good reason the early Falcon was such a success.
The 1966-69 North American Falcons leave me scratching my head. The wagons and the 1966 Falcon Ranchero are nice-looking cars, though. But the sedans…what was Ford thinking?
I always kind of liked the later Falcon sedans, particularly once they went to the square taillights (1968?). A little known fact is that there were some 1970 Falcons built in late 1969 up until the 1/1/70 effective date of some new regs (I believe that it was the locking steering column). A high school friend’s family had one of these 1970 models. With the 200 6 and a 3 speed on the floor (to replace the crappy column shifter), it drove just like a Mustang. Actually, I preferred the look of that sedan to that of the Maverick sedan.
1966 Rover 2000. (I can still hear it gobbling.)
I can’t think of any cars from Turkey, but Chrysler Corporation built trucks there in the 1960’s. This pic I found is later:
http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/truck-and-van-blog/DeSoto.JPG
…and I suspect this one’s from Argentina because that looks like an Argentina plate in the windshield:
http://www.roadkillontheweb.com/images/60desoto1.jpg
In the US the 1961 DeSoto cars were killed off early, which is a good thing considering their ugly front end styling.
The Rover 2000 was a landmark car. Even the fact that the structure was compromised to allow a gas turbine engine to fit turned into a godsend when they came to install the ex-Buick V8 in it.
true. And a beauty, I think.
Thank you. You beat me to it.
The P6 Rover 2000 was an absolute beaut. No Turkey there.
Actually, I’d say that like so many good things, the Rover was a landmark car and a turkey at the same time- just like the early Citroen DS. However, the Rover followed a different trajectory. The Citroen started out underdeveloped and later got better, while the Rover started out incredibly well built, and as BL took over, cost cutters cheapened it, labour relations deteriorated, and by the early 70s they were cars to avoid. Having a ‘monday car’ Marina is one thing, as there are fewer parts to go wrong, but trying to sort out a poorly assembled car like a P6 is nigh on impossible. I read in an old Autocar that a 1974 Rover held the title for the worst BL car of that year- worse than Allegros, Marinas, etc for number of return trips to the dealer.
Rovers fared even worse in the US than in the UK. In the UK, P6’s were often purchased by engineers and others who had a passion for their esoteric engineering. Thus, many owners were not just meticulous about maintaining the things, but also about re-engineering parts on the lathe in their garden shed to overcome design difficulties. (my father in law is a chief engineer on large ships and was I think typical of many owners at the time).
In the US, they sold to trendies, professors, doctors, and designers on the coasts, which is where the dealers were, to people who wanted to appear cultured and European. These owners expected American style turnkey motoring, and were sorely disappointed.
I also have to agree with Uncle Mellow about the Landcrab, which is not a turkey, after its first couple of years. These were the strongest bodyshells designed, incredibly roomy, and in Wolseley form, very luxurious. They were also usefully reliable, and rally winners!
If I may be controvercial, I’d say the Mini is the real turkey. It cost more to make than it sold for, was hideously unreliable and rust prone from the first car in 1959 to the last in 2000. Any car with that long of a lifespan that hasn’t had the bugs worked out needs to die. This is particularly obvious when its siblings- Allegros and Metros, got better over their comparatively short lifespans and turned into quite good, or at least class competitive, cars with decent reliability.
Fair point – buying anything made by BL in the 70s was pot luck, but as this thread is Turkeys Of The Sixties, I stand by the P6 being a beaut.
With the Landcrab, as I said further up I love that every car has its defenders.
As for the suggestion of the Allegro ever having been “class competitive”? thanks for the biggest laugh I’ve had all day! But we’re getting ahead of ourselves again – Turkeys Of The Seventies will be here in good time…
Let’s not forget it was quite a remedial class the allegro competed in. By the allegro 3 it was a decent car, quite spacious nippy and refined. Shame it took bl 7 years to work out the bugs.
it was quite a remedial class the allegro competed in
Really? I mean OK there were plenty of other Turkeys around but there were some real gems like the first and second generation Honda Civics, and the Mk1 Golf, not to mention worthy-but-unremarkables like the F10 and N10 Datsun Cherrys, or the Mk2 Escort (which deserves at least an honourable mention for the RS2000)
F10 worthy? I don’t know what country you are in but the US versions with the US emissions were such a mess that to prevent vapor lock, and other driveablity problems there was a fan, not unlike the fan you’d see screwed to the dash of big trucks of the time, under the hood pointing at the carb. When that fan died which they normally did pretty early on then good luck restarting the car when warm unless it had sat for at least an hour, that could be cut down if you opened the hood.
The main reason my Rover 2000 was a turkey was the fact of its godawful lack of reliability. It was indeed a beautiful car and when it was working it would outrun Volvos and Mercedes without difficulty. It had wonderful handling, nice styling, and great-smelling and -looking leather seats. But I couldn’t keep the bloody thing on the road.
1) The 1964-66 Oldsmobile Jetstar 88 (and to a lesser extent) the decontented 1964-67 Buick LeSabre. Mid Size Engine, Brakes and Tranmission choices in B bodies slightly more expensive than a Pontiac Catalina. It brings to question of when the actual blurring of divisions at GM started to happen, when they were all after the same market point: the $3,000 sedan
2) The 1961 Studebaker Hawk: The most obvious hold over from the 1950s.
3) The 1968 Up Nova. Cause there’s a point of having a Compact that’s just as big and heavy as the A body mid sizers. We really should have just had the Holden Torana in the States as a compact
4) Cadillac Calais 1967-up. What were you really getting over a Ninety Eight or Electra 225 other than the name and worse gas mileage?
5) The 1967-68 Pontiac Grand Prix. So lost in the Woods. Luckily it found its way out. Few cars are as lucky.
I agree about the Jetstar 88 and the Calais. Completely pointless cars. And, if I recall correctly, wasn’t the Jetstar I a completely DIFFERENT model, with a different target audience, than the Jetstar 88? Talk about clueless marketing. It’s almost as bad as plastering the Cutlass nameplate on everything in the 1980s.
Yeah, The Jetstar I was a decontented Starfire (No leather, power anything, or standard Roto-Hydra Matic). Which was another moot point, since the Starfire was clinging to dear life identity-wise.
I guest Oldsmobile wanted to ditch the very 1950s sounding “Super” badge. It’s weird that in reverse of Chevrolet, Oldsmobile tended to move names in all directions (because of the Jetstar, the basic Dynamic 88 moved up a notch, or stayed in the same place while being undercut). I think my opposition to the Jetstar versus it’s equally ridiculous replacement, The Delmont 88, was the fact that you could upgrade your Delmont to proper “I Have a Turbo Hydra Matic and a non Cutlass Engine” status. But the name was so… Mercury… (Park Lane, Montclair, sounds like Delmont would fit right in…)
Oldsmobile’s marketing and product planning were adrift from about 1960 until the debut of the Toronado and Cutlass Supreme. It was John Beltz, however, who really whipped the division into shape. Things went well, and then started to drift again around 1983.
Despite this, I think Oldsmobile had Million plus sales years Thru 1986 … never again IIRC.
At least their weren’t four Jetstars at once.
Hard for me to consider the Calais a turkey, just because there were so few of them sold. I suppose it was just trading on the prestigiousness of the Cadillac name.
AS for Cadillac, I fel stylistically 1961 was the most Homely year of a beautiful long low and Elegand Decade of Mild Changes, 1966 being rather weak restyle of 1965’s all new look. 1967 looked even cheaper to me, ditto 68’s triangle side markers within the chrome.
But I loved how they looked in 69; Calais on up. Ditto 1965, and I like that the Base Model, like CatalinA had, its own cachet, an identity of simplified Cadillac Quality and fine interiors, though perhaps less over the top. Less bragadocia about it, you bought it for the Cadillac Quality, not the glitz bougeois interior.
Was a sad Day when the formerly semi luxurious DeVille became the Base model .
a bad move in this market.
I’d say the Hillman Imp. Under developed design and inexperienced workforce led to quality issues. Sales never met expections and that combined with warranty costs led to the demise of the f Rootes Group (and sale to Chrysler).
Don’t hang me here..
1967 Mustang.
The year that they started hanging monster Big Blocks over the nose of these they started losing their magic.
Still a beautiful car and I wouldn’t kick it out of the garage for eating crackers..
(The same could be said for the Camaros and Firebirds too when they started running 396s down their gullets.)
I’m with you. The original Mustang was light and right for the 289.
I’ll nominate the 69 Mustang. It looked like it had been molded in rubber and over-inflated. One of the malls near Chicago offered one as a raffle. I couldn’t persuade myself to try to win it.
(The 76 Celica fastback looked a lot like that Mustang. Not a happy choice.)
I’ll put in one more vote for the 1964-66 Studebakers. For different reasons.
Why, why in the name of all that’s sacred…did that car even EXIST? The company wasn’t interested in updating it. It was a warmed-over model; it was made because the tooling was there; there was no styling department and the engineering department was three guys trying to figure out whether a Ford, GM or Chrysler part would work best.
There was almost NO promotion on these models. And what there was, was laughable – basically advertising that the company could no longer afford the model changes other companies, and once Studebaker, took for granted.
The whole reason for its existence was….to avoid paying the penalties in terminating dealer franchises. How do we know this? Because the Hamilton plant general manager, Gordon Grundy, who was the highest guy left in the car arm of the company…had written to Byers Burlingame, asking for the company to recruit more dealers. Burlingame wrote a withering response, pointing out that the average Studebaker dealer had sold one car a month over the past year – and they should be held to higher quotas before more dealers were solicited.
That letter is telling. What we learn is that the car division was being set up for failure and the fingers were already being pointed at the poor hapless dealers…who signed up to sell Hawks and Champions and Champs and Avantii; and instead were getting post-Larks with Chevrolet engines and no future plans, no engineering, no prospects.
The customers, the old Studebaker families (by this time headed by people who really WERE old) were the pawns in this strategic move to obliterate Studebaker without the aid of Bankruptcy Court.
It was the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 which probably led the Board to finally pull the plug. Changes would have to be made; certifications obtained; standards adhered to. That, and Grundy’s enthusiasm for his job…he had to be smacked down. He went to the board asking for a pittance for 1967 models; and instead he was ordered to close the plant.
Turkeys…all of them. Except, maybe, Grundy.
Very true. Studebaker wanted to exit the auto business, but didn’t want to pay fines or termination fees for not supplying the dealers with product. The lack of changes in the 1964-66 models, along with the publicity surrounding the closure of the South Bend plant in December 1963, pretty much killed sales of the car. I’m surprised that there were any dealers left by 1965.
Much of what went wrong in American cars came from “businessmen”. Studebaker was smothered as the board tried to play the “conglomerate” game that was huge in the sixties.
Quoting from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conglomerate_(company)
“Conglomerates were popular in the 1960s due to a combination of low interest rates and a repeating bear/bull market, which allowed the conglomerates to buy companies in leveraged buyouts, sometimes at temporarily deflated values. As long as the target company had profits greater than the interest on the loans, the overall return on investment (ROI) of the conglomerate appeared to grow. This led to a chain reaction, which allowed them to grow very rapidly.
“However, all of this growth was somewhat illusory. When interest rates rose to offset inflation, the profits of the conglomerates fell. By the late 1960s they were shunned by the market, and a major sell-off of their shares ensued.”
I don’t think they wanted to play that game, so much as they got forced into it.
Ever read the Jack London short-story, “To Build a Fire”? That was Packard management as they bought Studebaker as their one-time shot to viability. What they found out was that they were duped; that Studebaker had been cooking the books; that what they bought was a whole lottta debt and overhead.
Their one chance was shot. Next, like London’s hero, they tried the unrealistic – running with freezing feet, or cutting the front and rear off the Scotsman to make a stopgap compact. It did work for awhile; and what Studebaker, nee Packard, did, was buy small non-automotive businesses – everything from STP additives, to Gravely lawn-tractors and Alco locomotives.
It worked; but the plan saved the shareholders’ value by killing off the car business. In that they avoided a messy bankruptcy, they were successful.
But as a stand-alone company, Studebaker-Worthington without cars, was chum in the waters for investment bankers. McGraw-Edison finally gobbled them up.
I have not read that story, I will, thanks.
Strange closing of the circle, an Edison company buying out Studebaker. Their first cars, built while they were still the leaders in wagons and carriages, were electrics.
One of London’s best short stories. And it has nothing to do with autos, of course; but a lot of where overconfidence and bravado will take a greenhorn into.
And what desperation will lead a man to.
Story’s here; on a single page:
http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html
i thought there MUST be a German car to add to this so far pretty-biased-on-US-product list: here it is.
VW Type 4 / 411.
it’s staggering how much engineering prowess went into this very desperate attempt to convince the public into buying an outdated and flawed concept.
Good point. I drove up to the VW dealership in my ’62 Lincoln convertible, so the saleslady tried to sell me the 411 as a luxury car.
The 1960 Edsel and 1960-1 DeSoto lineups tie as the most useless of the 1960s. They are all great looking cars, but who said turkeys have to be ugly. Everyone knew by 1959 or even earlier that these brands were toast, so Ford and Chrysler should have just pulled the plugs on the 1960 models. I guess its hard to give up on trying to be GM.
By the way, I think that the 1961 Dodges and Plymouths are absolutely gorgeous. Their bizarreness is intriguingly sexy.
The Rambler /AMC Marlin ? In it’s 3 short years it was on 2 different sized bodies… to how many sales? and I guess AMC Rambler as a whole drifted at best in the 60s, its best decade ever…
My Dad was rooting so hard for them to make it. I Understood why.
The Marlin was actually basically a 2 door Ambassador Sport + at its peak. My Dad loved his Ambassadors. I remember the 72 Brougham coupe as being something of a later year Marlin, in Brogham disguise. Is that too much of a stretch? I don’t think so.
The 1969 “fuselage” look at Chrysler Plymouth. Made all the full sizers look entirely Too Much alike coming, and Going. Plus when they fell apart they were like lead sleds with lousy brakes.
I just remember after the relatively beautiful 68s, the 69s looked Cheap…. nothin’ but bland sheet metal.
Imperial looked like a Plymouth with turn indicators slapped on. and a fancy sitting room inside was plush. But not up to the simple clean lines and elegance of the year before, which was itself an update on the 1965 Chrysler models.
Sadly, I can’t find much fault with that argument. I’m not a big fan of the fuselage styling, especially the 1969s. To the non-enthusiast, the Fury, Chryslers and Imperials probably all look the same, rounded and fairly nondescript.
The Dodge Polara/Monaco looked a bit different at least, with stylish taillights and a hint of “coke bottle” shape to the body. That would be my favourite 69 C-body.
At least they started to differentiate the styling again going into the 1970s. My favorite fusey-era C-bodies would be the 70-71 Sport Fury and the 72-73 Imperials like 73ImpCapn have. A far cry from 1960-66 though, when I think just about all fullsize Mopars looked distinctive and beautiful.
I still hated to see Plymouth, and Imperial die. I wish there were 2012 Models of these cars to talk about!
Where is that guy Steve or Steven who drew up those “WHAT IF ” cars ? These I would love to see his interpretations of.
Not that he will ever see this, as I am catching up, after company over the T-G holidays.
I do love these model choices being there, even if I Critique their every reason for even being. It sure is boring when it comes to model selection relatively today.
How about the Morris Major?
Morris Major Austin Lancer, Wolseley 1500 Riley 1500 all the same car built on tjhe Morrie Minor platform odd little beasts the first two are Aussie only except for the odd Kiwi export the other two are the regular BMC badge swaps.
Renault Daulphine. No explanation needed.
The Dauphine was the most attractive car of its’ time and a huge sales success.Obviously the handling was as bad as a Beetle, and it rusted away as fast as any other Renault, but it was no turkey.
I can only speak for my mom, she bought a Dauphine new and had it less than a year….it broke down often, would never start in cold weather, and was never reliable. She has often said it was the worst car she ever owned. She bought Buicks for the next few years.
Mohs Ostentatienne Opera Sedan from 1967. Production: one. If you Google an image you will see why.
As a Kid I was Obsessed with finding 1969 Mercury Marauder X-100’s with the black matte finish on the trunk. I Found a plastic one in my Honey Comb cereal, and I longed to see this rare(tho Oversized) beauty.
I’d say That version laid a big fat egg in the marketplace compared with the Marquis, which, WAS beautiful in its own right, much More so than The rather ugly 69 Form IMO.
I too Hated the 60-61 Dodges and plymouth full sizers. They were hideous Sci-fi monsters compared to the competition. Though I do prefer them to the bland melted butter look of the 1962 Ford Line.
Other 1960’s Turkeys were The 1968 Grand Prix…
The 67 Chevrolet coming after the beautiful 66.
Olds 67-68 Delmont 88… I thought this era Caddy looked kind of Fat as well. Ditto Buick’s Fastbacks in Le Sabre trim.
AMC REBELS. Studebakers. Desoto was DOA…