I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I was reading an article from the ” Worlds Most Excellent” automotive publishing enterprise – Hemmings. An article in the January 2017 issue of Classic Cars publication is a piece written by Jeff Koch (who is their – West Coast/Southwest guy) on GM’s Flattop designed cars of the 1959-1960 era. These were massive cars with huge trunks and tons of wrap around glass.
This a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Flattop 4 door- ain’t it huge?
According to the article these were just a two-year deal – ’59-’60. So that got me to thinking how many were made?
Over all car production for 1959, which still saw the likes of DeSoto, Edsel (its last gasp of breath), Studebaker, Imperial (as a separate brand…again) and even the Metropolitan, as producer of cars. The leader for that year was Chevrolet in first place with just over 1.46 million cars produced followed by Ford in close range with 1.45 million cars produced. The rest of the field looked like this:
Plymouth with 458, 261 (in third place which gives you an idea how the rest fared) followed by Pontiac with 383k, then Oldsmobile with 382K and Rambler with 374k. Buick managed 285K and Dodge produced 156k, which was just slightly than Mercury with 15ok and Cadillac with 142K cars produced. The field rounded out with Studebaker driving 126k out of the factory and a substantial for Chrysler with just 69, followed by Desoto with 45k, Edsel with 44k and Lincoln/Continental with just 26k. At the bottom stood Metropolitan and Imperial 22k and 17k respectively.
So an estimated 2,655,686 cars were produced by GM in that year. That’s a lot of flattops this include Cadillacs that didn’t escape the design.
Nor did the Corvair!!
So where are the now? I just don’t see that many around and I’m sure it’s due to the 2 year only style and finding all that wrap around glass.
Have you seen one of these cool designed GM Flattops? Drop me a note and pic and I’ll publish it up.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
#TheyMadeHowMany
#projectsprotsroof
