It’s 1962, and we’re off to the Rockies again for our vacation. I have my notebook and pencil in hand, and am diligently keeping track of the make of every car that we encounter; coming the other way, passing it, or being passed (more likely). As we roll by the big wagon on one of the newly-finished stretches of I-80, another “I” is entered on the ledger next to “Pontiac”. It’s my way of determining what cars (and trucks) Americans are really buying, and and to determine whether the manufacturers are cheating in their ads when they make a claim about their sales. Yes, Chevrolet really is Number One.
How I wish I still had that notebook; I do remember very clearly that White/White-Freightliner was a solid #1 in the big truck category.
The folks across the street in Iowa City had one of these wagons, in navy blue, along with a matching 1960 Bonneville four-door hardtop; a real hers and his combo. How I wished I was their kid…but I got some memorable rides in it, with their hot-rod crazy son behind the wheel, fetching parts for his and his brother’s old Ford hot-rods/jalopies, which hardly ever seemed to run. But the Big Pontiac sure did, with its husky 389 V8 teamed up to the four-speed Hydramatic.
He tried to pull the wool over my eyes, telling me it had a Tri-Power under the hood. Yeah; right. I’d lifted up the hood before and knew what was under there: a four barrel; yes, but no Tri-Power. But the big Vista wagon could still have run circles around his ’52 Ford coupe with its flatulent flathead; even when it actually ran.
Related reading: 1960 Pontiac Ventura CC Auto-Biography Part 4: The Facts of Life Revealed
About 1967, my dad bought a beautiful running and, to look at, ’60 Bonneville 2 door hardtop; white with green leather and it was loaded up with all options including Magi-Cruise. My dad noticed after he bought it, some rust staining under the trunk mat. He started scraping it with his screwdriver and the metal started to just flake away. This car was seriously rusted but had been undercoated to look good from underneath. Effectively, it was rusting itself to death from the inside out. All these years later, I will never forget the sick and disgusted look my dad had on his face because he thought he had bought a nice car. He cut his losses and sold it cheap to a lady my mother worked with who needed a car. The last time I saw it, was about 2 years later sitting in a junk yard. It had a cheap paint job and color change to green. Strangely, it still didn’t look too bad. Everytime I see a 1960 Pontiac, I think about my dad and how disappointed he was with his ’60.
Yup, suddenly it’s 1967.
I came home from the hospital as a newborn in a 60 Pontiac. We had those hubcaps hanging in the garage until about 1988.
4 barrel family cars – ah the 60s. Makes me smile.
My Aunt Norma and Uncle John had a 60 Catalina sedan in that same metallic copper as the wagon in the brochure. They kept that car for a long time, well into the 70s. By that time, it was the high school kid car. I remember that it lacked a radio, so it may have had the smaller V8 as well.
That wagon would really be a sight to see on the highway. I have always been fascinated by styling on wagons of this era. It was always so interesting to see how the sedan’s styling themes on the sides of the car reached an alternative resolution on tail ends of the wagons.
It’s weird, or maybe intentional, but the three-quarters view doesn’t make the car look anyhwere like as long as the ad images do. Almost like I need to reset my wide screen monitor to match what could become a wide track Poncho.
Those ad illustrations were grotesquely malproportioned.
This. If the length wasn’t exaggerated, it was the whole size of the car. The compact Kaiser Henry J sure didn’t look like it in the brochure.
Ad illustrations were really bad for doing that in that era. The would shrink the wheels and tires a little and lengthen some body lines horizontally to make the car look about 30% longer and wider than it really was.
Mid 60’s in Lake Wenatchee, Washington state park…camped across from us was a family from Seattle with a dual axle travel trailer. They towed it with a 63 Bonneville 4 door hardtop. They kept the car specially for towing the trailer over the mountain passes. I assume it was a 389 4 bbl. I was envious as all we had was a Canadian market 65 Valiant, slant six towing a homebuilt tent trailer…manual drum brakes too!
When I was a kid, the differences between these wagons and other body styles fascinated–maybe even disturbed–me. This Pontiac with one rear light per side instead of two is a prime example. There were also others, like the 58 Chevy, again with only one light, and other Pontiacs with completely differing treatments (59?, 62?).
That was a good thing about our ’59 Chevy Brookwood. Somehow, Chevy managed to integrate the full “batwing” treatment, including taillights into the wagon body.
And I thought *I* was the only kid that ever did that!
When we went from our little town on the Texas coast to New Mexico, I had a legal pad on a clipboard, on which I had written all the companies’ names, and then all the models within company. I made hashmarks the whole way…every single car was noted.
It was exciting when there was one I didn’t know…I had to scramble to write the ‘new” model in and make my hashmarks before any more flashed by.
This was in the mid-’60s…and I wish I still had that pad, too!
I had a similar, but slightly different experience.
In the summer of 1977, my family drove from West Texas to New Hampshire in our ’70 Chevrolet Townsman, the wagon equivalent of a Bel Air. To pass the time somewhere in the Midwest, my older sister and I had a competition to see how many cars we’d spot for each make before we stopped for the day.
I claimed Chevrolet immediately, being a loyal Chevy kid, and with the downsized ’77s selling like hotcakes, I was racking them up quickly.
My sister was no fool. She knew Ford was then the #2 make, so when I picked Chevrolet, she naturally chose Ford. Still, I was winning, and then she sneakily started counting Mercurys. I protested loudly. If she got to count Mercury, by my reasoning, I should be allowed to count Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick.
My Dad ruled in her favor. Maybe he recognized Mercurys weren’t much more than gussied-up Fords, while the B-O-Ps from GM were sufficiently different from Chevrolet (the Chevy engines snuck into Oldsmobiles notwithstanding). So she continued counting Mercurys along with the Fords.
And I still won.
Back when you could tell one car from another…and they didn’t all just look like squished plastic blobs!
Ah, yes. The inevitable “all modern cars look the same/stupid” comment. Good night, everybody.
One reason why I like my 2010 CTS so much; it’s certainly no squished plastic blob. Whether or not you like Cadillac’s Art & Science look (I obviously love it), it is at least distinctive. You’re not going to mistake a Cadillac for a Lexus or vice versa.
I did the exact same thing in a notebook. No DVD players in the back of headrests back then, and this was a great way to pass the time on a long trip.
I was about ready to leave home for the Navy when these showed up in Dodge City. The milk delivery man was a hot rodder and he bought one of these new. It was a little heavier than the sedan but the weight made it run a class lower IIRC. The deal was that with the 389 and a few other era V8s the rear weight distribution mattered. His was hot to my teen eyes. What’s todays equivalent to the hot rod wagon? A turbo caravan?
Today’s equivalent to the hot rod wagon? Why, the hot rod wagon. Maybe there aren’t any at a price most can afford but lively estates are alive and well. Within the past 10 years or so, we’ve had CTS-V Sportwagons, M-B E55 (and maybe E62?) wagons, Audi S4 and S6 Avant, Volvo V70R…pretty sure Subaru made a Legacy GT wagon for a while…heck, even Mr. Niedermeyer’s TSX wagon might qualify.
Kia Sedona? 🙂 With 271 horsepower through a 6 speed automatic, it is plenty quick. Could stand a tire/wheel/strut/shock upgrade, though. Of course, same with any 60s-era GM wagon.
Paul: What do you recall about new or late model Studebakers? Wait, I know – they were few and far between…
Not in Australia! I remember taking note of what cars I saw on the highway on long trips, and in the sixties Studebakers were nothing unusual to see. I can just remember when my state’s police used ’64 Daytonas.
Now if I’d seen a Buick or an Olds – of ANY year after ’48 – on our travels, that would have been a day to remember!
Yes count me as another who kept a tally of cars and trucks while on a road trip.
The ’60 Pontiac grille was influenced by Mitchell who wanted it to look like a Miller Indycar, he didn’t like the ’59 split grille. When the ’59 was a sales hit they had to revive the split grille motif for ’61.
My old man was Pontiac all the way owning ’49, ’55, ’58, ’62, ’68, ’71, ’77 and ’86 vintage.
I well remember as a kid being very disappointed when the 60 Pontiac came out – I’d loved the split grille on the 59 and couldn’t believe they’d gotten rid of it for this bland looking one. I also much preferred the sleeker taillights on the 59. Your dad owned some great years of Pontiac.
“Real Pontiacs have noses!”
I felt the same way about the ’61s. Pontiacs should have BEAKS, dangit!
What a lovely station wagon and what a lovely pair of license plates.
+1,some GM wagons looked very strange around the tailgate and lights,not this beauty though.
Good to hear other people counted cars in an organised way on long trips.
In the UK, the new year for registrations was 1 August, with the new reg being identifiable through the last letter of the plate. So a K plate was Aug 71 to July 72, an L from Aug 72 to July 73 etc.
So on our summer holiday, my brother and I would diligently (and pretty accurately) count the first 100 cars showing the new reg…..
And how excited were you when you spotted the new plate for the first time? I remember when my friend’s brother bought his first car back in ’73, and it had the first of a new series of plates on it!
Even in our fifties, my wife and I still compare notes when a new series of plates comes out. She works in town, so she usually sees them before me.
Considering how much effort GM put into making the rear ends of its 1959-60 station wagons resemble those of the other body styles, I’ve always been a bit perplexed that the ’60 Pontiac wagons got single tail lights, while hardtops, sedans, etc. had pairs.
I used to identify cars on road trips but it astounded me that my Dad knew what they all were right back to the then still common upright vintage models still in use in 60s New Zealand, He gave me some GM model identification charts to help me out so I could the pick out Chevrolets and Vauxhall cars back to the 1920s and Bedford and Chev trucks back to 29, by model name or prefix.
You had a great Dad!
Were these Pontiac station wagons ” Body by Fisher” assemblies or Iona Body assemblies?
Chevrolet and Pontiac were Body by Fisher. Buick and Olds were Ionia Body.
One of my earliest car memories was being shuffled to the doctors office in a rose colored 1960 Pontiac sedan.
The year was 1961 , and though I was only five at the time i still remember its new car interior smell.
Here’s the equivalent ’59 (Bonneville in this case), on the Pacific Coast Highway, Seal Beach, CA in December 2005, with the obligatory surfboards on top!
Just beautiful – no reason to trade that baby in, still looks good!
I love that these old wagons are still on the road! I prefer the ’59 to the ’60, but I wouldn’t kick either of them out of the driveway.
Much prettier than any SUV, and probably roomier too!
Mate o mine had a 60 sedan but the Cheviac version 6 cylinder flat out at 80mph not the fastest beast around or the best handling it ended its day banana shaped after going sideways into a light pole not the strongest car out there either, X frame methinks still it was a good cruiser while it lasted.
I had a little cardboard rectangle with cutouts for different car brands, with little blue plastic slides that could be slid to the right to indicate that I had seen, say, an Oldsmobile. My parents bought it somewhere, and I used it on trips, for years, to note which kind of cars I was seeing.
We did a simpler version with my little sisters called “SlugBug”…every time we saw a VW Beetle, we would yell out “SlugBug”. The nighttime version was “Pididdle”…any car we saw with a burned out headlamp was a “pididdle” and the first one to see it yelled out the word.
I used to play a game where I had to spot a car make/model for every letter of the alphabet. E was a bitch, as Edsels were mighty thin on the ground by 1970, and Buick Estate Wagons were not much more common. If I could get past E, things usually went fairly well.
The wife and I still play the game on long rides, in Austria I was the clear winner with the first ”Lederhosen!” and only seconds later ”Dirndl!” Surely the Dirndl was the nicer model…