1947 Pontiac Torpedo Sport Coupe

"Refinements in appearance and mechanical design highlight the 1947 Pontiac. Pontiac's reputation as a fine car has long been accepted. Now this reputation is further enhanced ... for here is truly a 'Fine Car Made Finer.' A glance at its striking new styling or a few minutes behind the wheel will tell you what more than a million owners believe ... that Pontiac offers the industry's finest combination of beauty, performance, dependability, economy and value."

The softly sculpted front fender of this Pontiac sure is a comfortable place to take a rest. Yet, rest assured: this won't do any damage to the thick sheet metal. These cars were built in an era when things were made to last, which is one reason why they are still up and running after all the years.

Pontiac followed suit with the general industry trend right after World War II, by selling warmed-over prewar cars. The 1947 Pontiac was essentially a 1942 model with new makeup, sporting a revamped front grille design, fresh chrome trim and wider bumpers. Being merely a better appointed Chevrolet, mechanically it was quite a basic car. You could only opt for a three-speed manual transmission until Pontiac offered the new "Hydra-Matic Drive" automatic transmission for the first time in 1948. The biggest distinction compared to a Chevrolet was the optional inline Eight-cylinder engine, but although running smooth and quiet with good low-rev torque, this iron-cast powerplant was heavy, and so didn't contribute much to make the car livelier. 

In Cuba, by the way, "Torpedo" is widely used as a common designation for all sorts of fastback bodystyles, and particularly for Chevrolet's 1949-1951 Aerosedans and their corporate siblings. Yet, this name is clearly inherited from Pontiac, where it ironically was just being used as a model name, no matter if classic sedan, fastback or coupe. Introduced in 1940 for Pontiac's top models, by 1947 it already had been moving down the ladder and was used for the base models. Pontiac's fastbacks now were called Streamliner. We imagine, the name Torpedo did sound pleasant to Cuban ears, and thus over time it became the common-sense designation for these fastbacks. A truly befitting name, don't you think?