What with the recent frenzy and all, feels like as good a time as ever for another instalment of the Colonnades of Melbourne. This week’s episode features the Grand Am, a styling standout from the period at General Motors. For me, it marks the last excellent body-contour nose-cone on a road-going Pontiac. And to answer Paul’s QOTD; it’s my third favourite colonnade.
The roots of the body-contoured Pontiac nose-cone can be found in the 1967 fullsizers. The Grand Prix had nearly half its frontal area unadorned by chrome, as if the body was wrapping round itself.
That year marked the last of the stacked lights for the standard fullsize face. Even these magnificent creations had quite a bit of bodily real estate folding over the front.
The intermediates were following a more traditional stacked light and grille arrangement, with the GTO continuing to receive detail changes while keeping Tempest sheet metal up front.
But with the new Pontiac A-bodies in 1968, it was the GTO that got the unique bodywork. The nose of the car now blended completely into the whole form’s contours.
The skin now seemed to be folding back into itself, giving a superb extruded effect.
The cone was made of endura, a specially formed closed-cell urethane foam that was bonded to a steel frame. It was famously hit with a sledgehammer in the hands of John DeLorean, showing little after-effect from impact.
And it allowed the body shell to be capped in its own kind.
The Grand Prix was also up for some more wrapping, but that was back when it was going to be a B-body. Instead, in 1969 it became a mini-Mark III with all the family silverware on display.
As top-halo, the Firebird should have been the first car to use endura. Given the quantum leap it enabled the stylist, the exotic F-body seems the logical place to start.
But it was rushed into production the year before endura, so it got looped chrome like the fullsizers. In 1969 it went halfway, with a body-coloured non-endura (I think) nose-cone with protruding chrome grille rings. The treatment was sophisticated, but no match for the simplicity of the previous iteration.
1970. Peak body-contured Pontiac nose-cone.
The Firebird landed a superb shape all round, with a front end providing a sophisticated counterpoint to its gorgeous Chevrolet sibling.
It extrapolated quite nicely into Trans Am and Formula, and for three years it was wisely left virtually untouched.
The 1970 GTO earned a great nose too.
Ironically, 1970 also saw the single worst face ever on a Pontiac.
Plenty of folded-over real estate, so little poetry.
This tendency to ugliness started to permeate the GTO. The 1971 nose cone saw larger grilles with protruding rim, and it felt like seeing the 1970 model distorted through a rain-dappled lens.
Things were looking up for the 1973 GTO, which was to be based on the incoming colonnade A-bodies.
I love the bottom sketch, Gena Loczi uses a great technique of ghosting the tyres and undershadow to make the car look like it levitating. The sculptural elements leading to the point of the nose are a perfect corollary for those fendor contours.
It takes that whole contoured nose thing into even better territory.
Ultimately, though, the 1973 GTO was to wear the bread-and-butter LeMans nose-cone and chromed bumper.
Sales of around 40,000 in 1970 had plummeted to just over 10,000 for 1971. And it didn’t recover. 1973 saw 4,806 being built. 1974 saw the GTO transferred to the compacts (cheers Leon).
The Grand Am was the GTO refined. Out was outright power, and in was an emphasis on driving dynamics and finish. In a European way. While Oldsmobile was adorning their cars with the flags of the world, Pontiac was identifying in the opposite direction.
The story of the shape’s evolution from How Stuff Works;
Wayne Vieira, who would become chief designer for GM’s Saturn small-car subsidiary, confirms that “Charley Gatewood was the designer who came up with the original front-end sketch. Charley’s a very modest person, and he would tend to say something like, ‘Oh, actually . . . I remembered an old sketch that Ted Schroeder did years ago. All I did was to do Ted’s sketch over again.’ But it was Charley who sold the idea.”
Vieira continues, “And to help sell the design to Bill Mitchell, Charley did this full-size air-brush rendering . . . a white rendering with black grille slots. It really stood out from across the room. In fact, when Bill Mitchell walked in, all he said was, ‘Jeeeeeeezus Christ!’ And we were off and running. He brought people in to see it, and it was really quite exciting. The graphics on the front were so strong and unique compared to what was on the road at the time,” Vieira recalls. “In fact, we all felt that when the car came out for 1973, it had by far the best front end of anything in the industry.”
As Bill Collins is showing us, this nose-cone was also made of endura.
A totally integrated shape. There’s no telling where the panels end, as if the whole body is sculpted out of a single piece of material. And a significant plus; it’s the assimilation with the bumper that makes this the overall success it is.
Looking down the hood brings even greater pleasures; clean forward-thrust supported by an absence of bumper in the fenderside.
The Grand Am was no quick-and-cheap application of a stabilizer bar, blackout trim and a vaguely foreign-sounding name to make a Euro-fighter. This was no Ford Granada ESS or Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport. The Grand Am was the ne plus ultra of the Colonnade cars, something that was distinctively American with a dash of something exotic and new. Daringly styled, dynamically poised – is it any wonder the Grand Am is a key member of my dream garage?
For anyone not familiar with this car I recommend you feast on William Stopford’s overview. He makes this a 1975 due to grille accents, and says that year there was no manual available.
They paid proper attention to the whole fenderside. The upper and lower taper like a well-relieved flame spear.
It worked nicely at the rear too. The rear bumper didn’t get as unique a treatment, but it still worked well in body colour.
My problem with the colonnade two-doors is that they look imbalanced to me. The ends are too long for the middle.
Both the 1972 Torinos and 71 Satellite/Sebring put the colonnade in the shade.
But with the colonnade, the sculpting into the flatter proportions gave the car a self-assured shape – in some ways more natural than any GM intermediate before it. It didn’t even need four headlights, and it still looked long and low.
As with Paul, I think the colonnade shape needs air. The sedan cabin gives those long ends sufficient distance between.
The Grand Am nose works on the other body configurations as well. The wagon, a desirable factory prototype; the pickup, a very appealing homebake. Hat tip to Krautwursten.
That said, the 1973-75 Grand Am is the best of the two-doors. This semi-fastback roofline suits the curvaceous lower body much more than the upright alternative. And the face on this one is the most integral of all the range.
GM were doing interesting things with endura. The Lagunas were themselves the most appealing of the Chev A-bodies. But not as successful in comparison to the Pontiac.
For the Firebird in 1974, the purity of the last three years couldn’t be worked around the bumper laws entering full effect. The chisel approach here was no match for the Grand Am’s bumper integration.
There were apparently plans for a 1976 Grand Am, but I’m not sure if it had a unique nose-cone against the newly overhauled intermediate front clips.
Above is a 1974 Grand Am All American, with added spoiler. That’s all I know about this. Over to you.
This 1975 Grand Prix concept shows some really nice touches. The frontal treatment here is more sculptural and better integrated than anything that would enter production from here on, making this in a sense the last of the superb body-contoured Pontiac nose-cones.
I first came across this one a few years ago. It was parked down the road from another first, the 1973 Buick Centurion I wrote up here. I figured they both belonged to the same person, but the while the Buick is there to this day, I’ve never seen the Grand Am there again.
But I am seeing it all the time.
Around Toorak Village, where this one lives.
And that’s not all, within a couple of hundred metres of this lives yet another colonnade. Go figure.
CContributor Jim has captured our hero car from his office window.
His shots show the actual colour; mine were taken from a cellphone camera that was rapidly developing a warm bias. I actually prefer the more magenta hue on this shape.
So the Grand Am – whether it be two-door, two-door plus tailgate, four-door or five door – is my third favourite colonnade.
Second: Buick sedan.
Not because Kojak, but because even in poo-brown this shape shines as the best of the sedans. A great basic face, with narrow jutting chrome bumpers emphasising the horizontality. The semi-fastback sedan greenhouse trails so well into that falling trunkline which both echo the 3D sweepspear. Nice.
Number One (a) and One (b). 1973 Olds or Buick wagon.
The more I look at these, the more I love them.
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1973 GTO/Grand Am concept sketches at Dean’s Garage
William Stopford’s CC on the Grand Am
The Colonnades of Melbourne Part 1
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In 1973-74 the motoring press was all agog over the Grand Am and I did not get all the love. I am more into it these days and like you, I prefer the sedan.
Having spent 6 years looking at a 74 LuxLeMans sedan from every conceivable angle, I have naturally thought about these issues quite a bit.
Pontiac’s treatment of this body may have generated more different looking cars than anyone elses. The GA coupe with the louvers just looks wrong. This body in coupe form needs the weight of a real C pillar, which it gets in the Luxury version with the small opera window. And I still go back and forth on whether I like the GA front or the high trim front of the 74. In fact, I find the 74 LeMans line more improved over 73 than anything else among the Colonnades.
I would take the GA front end to get the good interior with that cool 3 spoke steering wheel and the dash with all the gauges. And the 4 speed. Otherwise, I think the Luxury LeMans has it all over the Century and Cutlass sedans.
Oops, the picture. It is funny how the skirts and the small rear quarter/opera window completely transforms the car.
And for comparison the LLM front end with the deeply recessed grille. A huge improvement over the too-flat front end of the 73, despite the added bumper heft.
BTW, I believe that the front facia on the non-Grand Am models was basic fiberglass or some other material. But it was not Endura, which GM seemed to be backing away from.
I can see what you’re saying about the thicker c-pillar on the fastback. But the skirt looks just wrong to me.
The 60s intermediates and good looking cars, the later you go , the less so.
How come Australia had right hand drive US cars? I only remember seeing a 63 Ford convertible, and a Pontiac Parisienne in the UK with right hand drive.
Its no wonder the sales were miniscule, large left hand drive cars are unpleasant to drive on our roads
Perhaps it’s because Australia was like the US in that it had wide open spaces, plenty of long straight roads, and cities that weren’t laid out in the 9th century AD.
I do know that, my querie was more the fact that they did produce right hand drive cars, but for some reason didn,t offer them to the UK buyers who did want an American car
Commonwealth markets often were supplied from Canada.
Lee, these cars were 3rd party or private imports because GM stopped bringing in North American models after 1968 or so. They would have been a lot more expensive than the factory imports so very small numbers would have been sold.
I don’t know how many others Don has in the hopper, but it won’t be many.
Thought there must have been a good reason, I did wonder if the conversions were done in Oz not the US, are there different laws regarding left-hand drive over there?
Lendrum and Hartman in London did offer right hand drive Sevilles for a short while in the UK , but I read somewhere that they used a chain? After seeing and riding in a Seville I am not surprised so few sold, the only reason to buy one at a vastly inflated cost car was simply to be different
I also believe that AMC did sell right hand drive Ambassadors in the UK,
I’d stand to be corrected but were any RHD cars built in the US? The previous exports were from Canada. Either way, after the CKD exports ceased it was typical for the cars to be imported and converted because there would have been various local requirements beyond the position of the steering wheel – although not as many back then.
A conversion using a chain was definitely post-factory – connecting the stump of the original LHD steering column under the dash to the steering wheel on the right! Easier to get wrong with disastrous results.
AMC cars were assembled RHD in Australia in the 1970s which I believe were from CKD kits so I suppose they could be sent to the UK too. AMC had more incentive to chase sales than GM – to stay alive!
The 73 — 75 Grand Am nose was lost on me because of the afterthought grille treatment. It looked like an air conditioning compressor. I liked the bold, upright split grilles of the 70 GTO and Firebird.
I have to earnestly disagree with you on the 1970 Bonneville that is one the nicest front end on any car. the Grand Am is truly stunning in the red.
I thought someone might disagree with me there. I’m in the 67 camp; that is one of the great front ends in automotivedom.
Fine article but oook on that 1975 Grand Prix proposal – it’s awful. The 1969 Firebird had a stylistic problem with the black fillers between the nosecone and the metal fenders/hood. It wasn’t so bad on a dark car, but on a light car, those filler pieces were distracting and obvious.
The 69 Firebird might have been a nice sketch. In the metal, it looked like parts from three different cars tacked onto one.
‘oook’ huh? You need to watch your language around here. hehehe
These cars will always have me conflicted. They were/are very good looking. The 72 Torino was a good looking car, as was the 71-72 Satellite in 2 and 4 door trims. BUT, but, the 73 LeMans made those cars look kind of old, not sure if I would say it put either car in the shade, though. Unfortunately for Ford and Chrysler, 73 was a brand new car (after several years of a facelifted model) over at GM while it’s competition would be locked in to rapidly aging cars for several years.
Unlike the Chevy Malibu, the Pontiac Colonnades seemed to get better looking over time. Aside from the 73 Laguna models, the Malibu just got dowdier looking over time. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the Chevys always seemed to be painted in duller colors or shades of colors than the other Colonnades.
BTW, this write-up doesn’t mention that there was a short lived model called the CanAm. (Or is my aging memory playing tricks on me?) The CanAm looked VERY similar to the picture of the All American model shown.
My biggest gripe about the styling of these cars? Whether or not it is real, the trunk/rear fender lines look like they were drawn with very little to no regard for actual trunk space/shape.
CanAm came in 1977. I agree the post-76 face looked better on the standard Pontiacs.
I still struggle with these. I get what you’re getting at, but overall these will never be a really good design in my mind, probably just because they’re too space inefficient and over-wrought. I know some will think that space efficiency shouldn’t have anything to with judging their design, but I differ, and that’s probably my European background, or just the way I think.
I believe that every car (except of course exotics or such) needs to be a solution to to the packaging needs, essentially starting from the inside out. The fact that the ’77 GM B Bodies had such a significant better packaging with the same footprint tells the tale. These cars, especially the coupes, were just absurdly inefficient with space, materials, fuel, etc., for their intended task. But such was America in 1973.
The point of comparison would be the VW Rabbit/Golf Mk1. It could seat four better than one of these coupes. That to me is inexcusable.
Enough of my rant.
And yes, I’m Americanized enough to be seduced by aspects of the GA.
But your second choice, the Buick sedan; Yukk; I can’t even go there. Look at that Kojak Buick picture again: from that angle it’s an utter disaster. Bulges protruding sideways like a body builder who overdosed on steroids and is wearing size 7 shoes.
The whole front end looks like it was literally swapped in from a big Buick. And doesn’t fit right. To me, it’s by far the worst of the Colonnades, except for the front end of the Malibu. But otherwise even the Malibu is much better.
But to each his own!
I understand your packaging POV, but my love for the US shape transcends such criteria. The full sizer shape just rocks in its own universe, without regard to space efficiency or suchlike. I think generally speaking, the colonnade does a better job than most of the previous A-bodies (vistacruisers and some Pontiacs aside). It just seems more mature. But in competition with the 71/72 GM b-bodies; not even close.
I was going to say, if these Colonnades’ Aussie owners wanted something like a Colonnade but better packaged, they’d have gone with an HQ-HZ Holden. Those were Nova-sized but probably with not much less room than the A-bodies…also, doesn’t the subject car’s (hackjob?) RHD conversion point to it having been down there for quite a while?
If it was imported in the last decade or so it doesn’t have to be converted, but occasionally someone might because they don’t want to deal with LHD. But yes, a RHD conversion generally indicates its been here for a while.
Nice article.
I think Pontiac made the best looking of the Colonnades. I love the hood on them. If you look closely at the hood, it seems that Pontiac had a bit of a Arrow head theme going on there.
There was a GTO in 1974 but it was based on the Ventura/Nova and I actually think it looked pretty good looking. The GTO moniker was wrongly placed on the colonnade. It did not look like it belong on that car.
I will also go on record as saying that I think the 71-74 Ventura was better looking then the 71-74 Nova. The front end on the Ventura was better looking then the Nova’s which had a unfinished look to it.
I was going to point this out, but it also gives me the opportunity to point out that the original 71 Ventura nose resembles the bottom sketch of the 73 GTO, just with a bumper added underneath
thanks Leon
I used to like the Endura thing, but in practice it should have been as much as a passing fad as the hideaway headlights it debuted with. Dent resistant, not scratch resistant, and here we are today, where every last car has emulated this aesthetic and you can’t park in a city and leave unscathed.
Frankly, I find the chrome bumpers were just as pretty on the 68 LeMans and GTO(yes, there was a rare option to delete Endura in 68), and the exposed headlight variants circa 1970 and afterwards really weren’t all that attractive, the hidden headlight 68-69 GTO was by far the best execution of it. Almost every other supercar circa 1970 on the other hand had comparable or better looks to the GTO with conventional chrome bumpers, and it can be argued the Camaro was the better looking of the 70-73 F bodies with its small chrome bumpers, even the non-RS variant. The Grand Am only works because big bumpers marred everything else so badly in 1973, but it’s not timelessly attractive, it’s got as many contrived angles and details as the rest of the Collonades bodyshell gets criticized for.
I completely differ with Paul on his views on space efficiency, but I’m completely with him on his dislike of the Buick. I don’t think a single detail is attractive, I think it’s the second worst front end used in the entire lineup and run of Collonades, first being when they hastily applied stacked headlights in place of rounds to this basic front on sedans – yuck! The grill is too small and the lights are too far outward and protruding.
If I’m reading my Standard Catalogue of American Cars correctly, I think the endura nose was also an option on the 72 after the GTO stopped being a series.
The Endura was the only nose for the GTO. It was optional on Le Mans. Here’s a Le Mans wagon with the Endura nose from the movie The Taking of Pelham 123.
https://pics.imcdb.org/10795/0142.jpg
pic
Fantastic find hubba
I have very mixed feelings on Colonnade styling. I don’t know if there is any one Colonnade car that I think has a great overall design. I agree with Don that the ’71-72 Plymouth and ’72 Torino were better looking, but the Colonnades did make these cars look dated rather quickly. Not so much because they were better styled, rather they went beyond the old coke bottle, short deck, long hood look of the late 1960’s. The colonnades did bring forth a new language and GM did a decent job at updating and keeping it relatively fresh (at least the big sellers).
The Grand Am causes me real turmoil. I love the concept of the car, powerful with road manners is right in my wheelhouse of interests. This particular coupe looks decent from the side profile, even with it’s short wheelbase, long overhangs. But for me the nose just doesn’t work. Some of the details pointed out by Don are very nice, like the absence of the bumper on the front corner, but I still think the overall execution of the front end is unattractive to me. That said, I don’t think the GTO or other LeMans front ends were all that nice either.
I generally don’t mind the Colonnade coupe styling, although I prefer the semi-fastback roof to the formal roof. The sedans are better balanced, but never did much for me. The wagons were nicely styled though.
I think for me, I have always though the Chevrolet Colonnades had the nicest side profile. It’s just too bad the front and rear ends for all years were so plain and quite frankly unattractive. The creases and curves were just a bit much on the BOP cars, while the Chevrolet with the semi-fastback roofline always was attractive and far cleaner in my eyes.
This is my Dad’s old Malibu that I grew up with (now my brother’s car). This car has no trim or vinyl top and to me it shows the basic attractive lines on the car. Too bad for the front and rear ends though.
I though the ’74 Laguna had the best combo of overall styling for Chevrolet, although it was still not the most attractive on the front or rear. I prefer the 1973-74 style Endura Chevrolet front end. I never cared for the ’73 rear styling, and even though rather bland, I think the ’74 back end is a better match for the car.
Yep, that Laguna’s nice. It goes to what JPC was saying about the thicker c-pillar on the fastback.
Nice sled! The wheels and tires definitely tie it together nicely! GM had factory wheels on total lockdown in this era…no one did them better.
Great piece Don!
Truly a wonderful dive into a Pontiac that had generally not been toward the top of my favorite Colonnade list. However, you have made me reconsider this.
I like the 70 Bonneville very much. The grand am is hideous.
The red feature car just looks confused. The solid red color, slick top and window louvers say ‘I still got my muscle car roots’ but someone’s Seville wants its wires and whites back. Put some Cragars and RWL BFG T/A’s on that! The front clip on these has always intrigued me. Its a polarizing design, which means I lean towards digging it .
Never owned a Colonnade era car (though one of my friends owned a ’76 Malibu); my Dad had an F85 back in the 60’s but had moved away from GM and up to standard sized car by the 70’s…he did move back to GM B body at the end of the 70’s with his Caprice Classic wagon.
I drove them though in my driver’s ed training in high school (I was first licensed in July 1974). I never liked the poor vision to the rear that especially the 2 door cars had, not very conducive to seeing where you’re at when parallel parking. Later I was driving a Datsun 710 sedan which was smaller and though didn’t have great rear view either, (and no right side mirror which I guess is pretty much standard now on all cars), it was smaller than the Colonnade cars and thus a bit easier to park.
Speaking of wagons, the Caprice Classic (and other B body wagons) were first to abandon the clamshell tailgate and espose the “Ford” style 3 way tailgate…but on the Colonnade wagons they abandoned the 2 way GM intermediate tailgate on the ’72s and prior wagons for a 1 piece “hatchback”, kind of what was used by import wagons prior to that time. I’m a big hatchback lover, so I’m used to the 1 piece configuration, but I also liked the tailgate on wagons, since you could open them like a door and get closer to the load floor than you could when lowering the tailgate. I wonder why they used both configurations, a different one for intermediate “Colonade” wagons vs B body wagons?
The Y body compacts (Special, F-85 and Tempest) of 1961-63 used a liftgate too. I always figured that GM just didn’t like following Ford’s lead and kept trying for that next great thing to make the 3 way doorgate obsolete. It is funny how the Colonnade liftgate eventually became the standard for almost every minivan.
Anyone know how much the doors weigh?
Spectacular write-up, as always, Don. Thank you.
You know my feelings on these. Always a pleasure to get more Grand Am goodness on here! That lead photo is beautiful, too.
Great find Don! I’ve driven down that street, there is a Chev pickup or Blazer somewhere around there too.
I can only imagine there must be something special in the garage to keep the Buick convertible parked outside.
This topic has brought out a lot of discussion. Seems everyone has a different favorite colonnade version. Mine is the 1973 Buick Gran Sport. available as a 2 door only, it’s lines just flowed. Front end nice, back end nice. Landau vinyl front half of roof looked great, something I believe unique among the 2 door colonnades. Also one of the last great big block engines available. A real muscle car with futuristic styling; a whole new package. Unfortunately, the new Regal stole it’s thunder. It was a matter of where the market was going. I think all GM colonnades benefited from the 1974 refresh, especially Pontiac. No one did 2nd year refreshes better than GM in the ’60s and ’70s. Ford and Chrysler usually went on to ruin their looks in their models 2nd or third year. Not GM. Their good looking cars only got better the next year. Also, I always loved Pontiac front ends, even that 1970 full sized model!