“Chevy does beautifully by your budget! Take that Biscayne 2-Door up above. It’s fresh and fashionable, a full size family car with wide, soft-cushioned seats and wonderful visibility. With remarkable handling ease and road steadiness. A new kind of finish that’ll go years without waxing. With all power teams available, too, including a new 6 that saves and saves on gas. Yet, it’s Chevy’s lowest priced sedan!”
Chevrolet customers had to digest a lot in the late 1950s: three completely different designs in as many years meant constant surprise — and certainly didn’t help the resale values. Yet, they weren’t alone: in response to the stunning “Forward Look” Chryslers of 1957, all GM styling went bonkers.
At the dawn of the 1960s, Harley Earl’s three-decade long tenure as GM design chief climaxed in dramatic styling excess: no idea seemed too bizarre to warrant serious consideration, and each GM division seemingly tried to outpace their sister brands in flamboyance and uniqueness. This internal competition extended beyond the glossy surfaces. Suddenly you could get fuel injection, performance parts and big block V-8 engines even in a low-end Chevrolet. The concept of the divisions offering “A Car For Every Purse And Purpose” within a fine-spaced status ladder, conceived by GM president Alfred P. Sloan in the 1920s, had considerably blurred. And Chevrolet certainly did profit from the mess.
Chevrolet could sell more than 1.4 million full-size cars in all body styles, even if these models grew bigger in a time when “compact” cars had become massively popular. Compared to the previous model year, the 1959 Chevrolet gained roughly two inches (50mm) in length, width and wheelbase, but was an inch lower, true to Harley Earls mantra of designing longer, lower and wider looking cars. The “X-frame” backbone and axles of the short-lived 1958 generation were carried over with unchanged track width, which makes the wheels look a little lost under the bloated body. Obviously, Pontiac didn’t permit Chevrolet the use of their “Wide-Track” chassis. Well, co-operativeness is limited when the competition is fierce...
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