Performance Years
By the 1960s, Detroit had figured out that horsepower sold cars, but horsepower was only part of it. Styling, image, special models and a badge with the right reputation could matter just as much as what was under the hood.
This was the decade when manufacturers started carving the market into smaller pieces and building cars aimed straight at each one. Personal luxury cars, muscle cars, pony cars, two-seaters, homologation specials and plain old family cars with engines they had no business carrying all wound up sharing the same showroom floor.
Ford turned its little two-seat Thunderbird into a bigger four-passenger luxury car. The purists complained; the customers started buying.
The Mustang did not suddenly appear in 1964. Ford spent two years testing the idea in public before America saw the production car.
Oldsmobile turbocharged its aluminum V8, then gave the Jetfire a water-and-alcohol system that worked fine as long as the owner remembered to feed it.
GM’s Thunderbird fighter could have worn a Cadillac badge. Cadillac passed, Buick took the program, and one of the division’s best-looking cars was born.
Chevrolet split the rear window on the new Sting Ray coupe, then removed the divider after one year. That was enough to make the 1963 instantly recognizable.
A six-cylinder family sedan and a four-speed big-block SS could wear the same Impala badge, which helped Chevrolet sell more than a million of them.
Mercury stretched the Mustang idea, added hidden headlights and a more expensive interior, then aimed the Cougar at buyers who wanted muscle with a necktie.
GM’s engine-size rule said one thing. Oldsmobile and Hurst found a way to put a 455 into the midsize 4-4-2 anyway.
AMC shortened the Javelin, removed the rear seat and gave buyers an American two-seater that could be ordered with serious V8 power.
The nose cone and towering rear wing looked outrageous on the street because they were built for something else entirely: keeping a stock car stable at NASCAR speed.
Pontiac moved the Grand Prix onto a smaller platform, stretched the hood halfway to the next county and helped redefine the personal-luxury car.
Bottom Line
The 1960s gave Detroit room to try just about everything. Bigger engines, smaller cars, special packages, new market niches and enough horsepower badges to keep the sales departments busy. Some ideas lasted for decades. Others burned bright for a year or two and disappeared.
Pick one and pull up a fender.