True but that's a factory engineered carb application, not the bolt-on Weber you buy these days. The Weber kits sold today are often performance-type carbs that are really meant for the track. That dinky thing you got on your Fiat was an economy/emission carb, something quite different.
I hated those Fiat 124s for the driveline "whiplash" but I thought the coupe version was a very attractive car. I think the driveline hassles can be solved.
....that Peugeot Coupe IS nice (I assume it was styled by Pininfarina or Guigario? I REFUSE to read ads in all caps, so I didn't scrutinize this one). Never seen one.
Um, why do I find it hard to believe that Tori Spelling would ever have owned a '61 Cutlass coupe (I'm picturing her 16th birthday--NO, daddy I don't want that 325i/500SL/911 convertible, I want an old Cutlass!!!)?
LOL, that was a cute video. I especially liked the end of it where the cop who looked like he spent too much time at Dunkin Donuts waddled after the 7 year old.
I'll admit, I tried to get out of going to church when I was a kid, but I never tried to jack my grandparents' '72 Impala or Mom's LeMans! About the worst I'd do is turn the tv to Oral Roberts and say I was getting enough churching from that! :P
Sadly, it seems like that 7 year old had better driving skills than many adults!
Wow! If Tori Spelling was the type of girl who'd have preferred a 1961 Oldsmobile Cutlass over the typical stuff a spoiled rich princess would've prefered, I'd have thought she was super-cool! My girlfriend was like that. She went to a high school where girls would automatically get a new 3-Series or C-Class for their "Sweet 16" and she instead drove an immaculate 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 sedan!
A nice 62 Galaxie 2 door HT just drove by my window...odd burgundy color.
Barely saw anything over the weekend...we are just coming out of a heatwave in the PNW, so I think the heat kept a lot of cars in the garage. I had mine out, of course.
....yesterday, I saw the most gorgeous '66 Ford LTD four-door hardtop, burgandy with black vinyl top. Only noticable flaw were WIDE white walls. C'mon now.
Also saw a (I'm pretty sure) '69 Dodge Coronet convertible....not an R/T or 440, but still....red, not gussied up much (had some aftermarket wheels, but no stripes, spoilers, etc.). Pretty unusual. Looked like the one Jane Hathaway drove in one season of 'the Beverly Hillbillies'.
I stopped by a local specialty car emporium to see what was in and this car was outside sitting on a flatbed, apparently ready to be taken to a new home>
I think somebody got a nice deal, the asking price was $26.5. It's a '62 Pontiac Grand Prix (1st year) with a four on the floor and a Tri-Power 421 and the desireable 8-lug wheels. Chrome and paint were good, body panels were straight except for some slight waviness at the bottom of the r/s door. Didn't see the inside.
A couple of blocks away I saw a 1961 Maserati 3500 GT Touring coupe, a very rare find with dark gray non-metallic paint, a badly faded beige interior but the car looked otherwise in decent #3 shape. I think I've seen maybe one or two more since the 1960s. Too bad the hood was shut, that Maserati Six was a thing of beauty>
....I saw one of those a while ago at our 'local' Euro/exotic repair shop (it's on Lincoln Ave., right under the 'el', near Wrightwood, if anyone knows Chicago). The lot usually has an interesting variety of forlorn (or at least old) rarities, ranging from Silver Shadows, old 911s, all the way down to VW convertibles. I saw the Maserati, and it was the only car I could not identify....had a pretty interior, with power windows and a/c and, which I thought was odd for an old European gran touring-type car.
I wouldn't expect to find A/C or P/W in a a '61 Maserati, perhaps you saw one of the 3500 GT's successors such as the Sebring or Mexico which would be likely to have those
3500GT Touring: '57-'62:
3700GTI "Sebring" Frua '62- '66
4700GT "Mexico" Vignale '66-'73
I hasten to add any of these are rare, made in the low hundreds, not thousands.
I visited my grandmother today...a couple oddities on her street. A neighbor kid has unearthed a Ford Fairmont - looked very straight, but dirty. And the same old red 63 Impala 2 door HT is rusting away in a driveway several doors down from her that has been there ever since I can remember...I noticed it when I was maybe 10 years old, so it's been there since the mid-late 80s anyway. What a waste.
That Pontiac looks more like a full-sized car, a Catalina? Is it just the perspective? My memory wrong (again)?
Well no, your memory is mostly there. :P The '62 Grand Prix, when it debuted, was a full-sized car. It was based on the shorter Catalina wheelbase, rather than the longer Star Chief/Bonneville. For 1962, it used the same roofline as a Catalina, Bonneville, or Star Chief, but for 1963, it was a bit more formal, with a thicker, more straight-edged C-pillar.
I guess the 3500GT isn't rare for a Maserati, more than 2000 coupes and spiders were made but I can't remember the last time I saw one. Here's another look @ that motor>
For 1962, it used the same roofline as a Catalina, Bonneville, or Star Chief
That faux convertible roofline was seen on everything from Chevys to Caddys IIRC as an alternative to the bubbletop (which you could not get on the GP). For '63 and '64 the GP got a unique formal roof with a concave rear window but after that they wore the same roof as other Catalina H/Ts
I don't think a lot of those 3500GTs were saved. This is not a "hot" car in the collector car world. It's an acquired taste that a few collectors like because it gives them access to certain vintage events without the huge price tag of some other 60s Italian exotics. Ditto the Sebrings.
Now the Vignale Spyder version of the 3500--that's a whole other story. They only made 227 of 'em and they can cost you upwards of a 1/4 mil.
For '63 and '64 the GP got a unique formal roof with a concave rear window but after that they wore the same roof as other Catalina H/Ts
Nah, it was still a bit different. The rest of the big Pontiacs in '65 had a relatively rakish C-pillar, with triangular quarter windows, while the Grand Prix was a bit more upright, sorta like a 1963-65 Riviera. Then in '67-68, the Catalina/Executive/Bonneville coupes went to a fastback style, with the rear window at about the same angle as the trunk lid. The '67-68 Grand Prix was still formal and thick, as if they tried to graft a C-body (Electra/Ninety-Eight) C-pillar onto it.
Much as I like 'em, I think there are better ways to spend six figures on old GT cars (Spyders excepted, I like those better than Ferrari Californias).
They can "ask" whatever they want over in Europe but here in the USA about $85K is the sky, and that's for a very nice car. I'm not sure why anyone would want one of these anyway, given that you could buy an Alfa 2600 Sprint for far less and have just as nice a car. The 3500GT is forever in the shadow of their Ferrari brethren, and extremely expensive and difficult to restore. They are nice "touring cars" however. Many came with Lucas fuel injection, which wise owners pitched over a fence and installed Webers instead. You'd have to be a real Italian car aesthete to go for one of these.
you could buy an Alfa 2600 Sprint for far less and have just as nice a car.
If you say so, I've had the impression that the Alfa 2600 was a bit of a stone.
I remember an article by Ken Purdy in an old Playboy where he said that to the automotive cognoscenti a black Maserati Coupe is just as interesting as a red Ferrari. I agreed and a black 1/24 scale 3500GT sits on my shelf to this day (along with several Ferraris).
IIRC only late 3500GTs had FI, these were sometimes called 3500GTIs.
I've always liked the look of the Frua-bodied Sebrings, are they any good (most had FI)?
Yes the 2600 Sprint is a bit of a stone but you try to take a touring car like a 3500GT and make it a race car and you might end up with a stone anyway. You won't find too many in vintage racing (last time I looked anyway). They always seemed to me to be a bit...um...fragile. Ferraris, you can knock the hell out of them.
Ah yes, the paradox of Ferrari ownership. They'll stand up to tremendous abuse at the racetrack but are expensive maintainence pigs when subjected to ordinary road driving.
It IS a paradox isn't it? Well they are what we call a "narrow-engineered" car, meant for one purpose, and that purpose is not posing. Perhaps the newer Ferraris are more house-broken, it's true, but the older ones would be no more happy in your garage or shopping mall than a thoroughbred race horse being used for children's pony rides. :P
yellow 1974 Mercury Monterrey four-door "pillared hardtop" with black vinyl roof.
That's a pretty rare sight. Even when they were new, those cars weren't all that common. It seemed like the Marquis, with its handsome Lincolnesque front-end, was all the rage, but the Monterrey was fading fast. I guess it was the same with Ford and the Galaxie. By the time the '73 models came out, it seemed like everybody wanted the ritzier LTD.
Cash for Clunkers images by the news media have produced some obscure cars. Earlier it was GM cars that were too old to actually qualify. Last week a local news channel used a front view of a ca. 55 Studebaker for their CFC image...this morning a local station used an image of a decrepit Peugeot 404 pickup as their CFC image. Funny.
Mercury seemed to move Monterey all over the map. When it first came out, it denoted the hardtop body style, similar to Ford's Crestliner, and then soon I think it became a whole series. But then the Montclair came out, and the Monterey got moved downward. For 1957 the Turnpike Cruiser came out at the top end, and again, the Monterey was at the bottom. For 1958-59, a cheap model called the Medalist was brought in, below the Monterey. The Turnpike Cruiser became a trim level for the Montclair, while Park Lane was added at the top.
The Medalist got dropped for 1960, and for 1961 the Montclair and Park Lane were dropped. A low-end model called the Meteor came in for 1961, which put the Monterey once again at the top of the Mercury pecking order. It was priced about at the Impala/Galaxie/Fury/Catalina level, IIRC. At least, I remember my Granddad saying that his '63 Monterey cost around $3500, about the same as his '61 Galaxie.
The Park Lane came back for 1964, and would ultimately be replaced by the Marquis.
Despite all this though, I don't think the Monterey really got moved around much, with regards to pricing hierarchy. It's more like it was one breath of stability at Mercury, as they experimented with new models above and below the Monterey's price point.
on my way the the home improvement store saw a late 50's turquoise/white chevy apache pickup. beautiful condition with a slight rumble. a gray honda insight, the original tiny one. a red with black top fuselage chrysler new yorker also with a rumble to it. and finally, so far, a mossy green 1990's town car, that could have passed for new, no rumble to the exhaust.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
I think what happened here is that for 1953, the DeSotos and Chryslers got a pretty substantial update of the 1949 platform. It was most noticeable in the 2- and 4-door sedans, which got a new, much more modern looking C-pillar. In all the non-wagon models, however, the rear end was squared off and bulked up some, giving it more of a 1950's look and less of that rounded-off 1940's style.
The wagon, however, being a very low-volume body style, was little changed from 1949. They put a new front-end clip on it, and a new rear bumper, and updated the interior, but that was about it. So you ended up with a 1953 or 1954 bumper, designed for a 1953-54 sedan, convertible, or hardtop, stuck onto a 1949 wagon rump, and they just didn't match up.
I always thought it was a shame that they didn't bother to update the hardtop roofline for 1953-54, like they did with the sedans. I think that reverse-slant C-pillar is really attractive and modern looking. But the hardtop carried over the same old 1950-52 roofline, which looked dated in comparison. At least it did get the more updated rear fenders, decklid, etc. I guess if they had gone for an update of the roof on the hardtop, it would've looked a bit like a '53-54 Chevy or Pontiac, which had that reverse-slant in the C-pillar. But like the wagon, the 2-door hardtop was a very slow seller for Chrysler and DeSoto in those days, so they probably didn't think it was worthwhile to put that much effort into updating it.
This is why many people regard 1955 as a watershed year for American car design, and a clean break from the tired designs of the WW II era. Suddenly, cars like Pontiac and Desoto and Chevrolet, for instance, were no longer "old folks cars".
Yeah, and as I recall, vinyl was suddenly being advertised as some kind of space-age wonder material...allowing for brighter, airier interiors, as well as ease of cleaning. Kinda funny how nowadays we look at something like vinyl as being a low-rent material, but at one time, it was considered a bonus!
Was Chevy considered an old folks car back in 1954? I never would have thought of that, although the '53-54 Chevy did look a bit stuffier and pretentious than the cleaner, simpler 1949-52 models, no doubt the result of an attempt to ape Cadillac.
I always thought of Pontiac as one of the few cars that really didn't "make the jump" in '55. While it was a big leap over the 1954 model, it still just came off as a bit old-fogey to me. IMO, it really didn't get the more youthful image until 1957, to a degree, but then definitely in 1959 it became a much more youthful brand.
-Land Rover Series One, sitting on a flatbed being towed by an SUV, had a talk with the driver who had just picked it up at a specialist in Camden, Maine. He was surprised I knew it was an S1 but you could tell by the squared-off body work, the chicken wire grillework over a vertical opening and the tire on the hood and RHD.
The dark green body was good, not perfect withsome waviness but perobably no more than when it was new. The only outward sign of age was a faded canvas roof and a less than perfect fit of the top. It wore a Vermont plate on the rear and a British plate on the right front fender ("ESP 283" for the benefit of Magnette who can tell us the year and location it was originally registered.)
Less spectacular but perhaps even rarer, I saw a red Fiat 850 Spider (S2?), or rather the shell of one, sans windshield, top, bumpers, interior and lights. It had non OEM alloy wheels and a fresh coast of red paint. It was sitting right by the road so perhaps it was a restoration project someone gave up on but there was no FOR SALE signage.
I'd LOVE to see those fancy ,bright vinyl interiors come back again!! Those two and three tones, embossed, etc. They were beautiful.
As long as it's high-quality material, I wouldn't mind. For instance, I wouldn't mind seeing a padded vinyl insert on a door panel, rather than hard plastic slab, or some material that you almost have to punch-out to discover that it's "soft touch"
And one little trick I used to like was when they'd do a colored pattern in the vinyl that matched the cloth, and almost the texture, of the seats. I knew an old guy with a 1959 DeSoto Firedome that was like that. You actually had to touch the material on the door panels to see that it was just vinyl with an embossed pattern, as it was a pretty good facsimile of the woven cloth on the seats. I think it might have been a dress-up option for the Firedome that year, as I've also seen them with much plainer interiors.
It would be nice to start seeing cars with more interior colors than just gray and two different shades of putty. Some colors, though, don't translate well with all the hard plastic they use today. For instance, blue and green. I remember Ford offering green interiors in the 1990's, and they just had a greasy look to them.
I think you can say that for Mercury in general. It went through iterations where it was more like a Buick and others more like a Pontiac. To this day I don't think the public has a clear perception of the brand.
I recall a neighbor who bought a 63 Monterey with the breezeway window becuase it cost essentially what a galaxie would have.
I always thought of Pontiac as one of the few cars that really didn't "make the jump" in '55. While it was a big leap over the 1954 model, it still just came off as a bit old-fogey to me. IMO, it really didn't get the more youthful image until 1957, to a degree, but then definitely in 1959 it became a much more youthful brand.
I agree 59 and "widetrack" was a pivital Pontiac year. I think the 58's marked a more youthful approach. The 58 Bonnie still is a head turner and IMO beats the more popular Impala hands down inside and out.
I think the 55 Chevy is historic because it introduced a lighter, more capable car with a great new engine. However, on a pure looks basis I always felt Ford beat Chevy from 49 until the late 50's, and from 55 through 60 I think in general Mopar had the best styles. However, after Bill Mitchell took over GM design in the sixties it became the styling leader by a wide margin, although Ford and Chrysler did have some good looking models during that era.
I recall a neighbor who bought a 63 Monterey with the breezeway window becuase it cost essentially what a galaxie would have.
Yep, that's exactly why my Granddad bought his '63 Monterey. About the same price as the Galaxie, and with that Breezeway window, he used the thing somewhat like a pre-historic Avalanche, hauling ladders, lumber, etc.
As I recall, his '61 Galaxie cost around $3500. The '63 Monterey ended up being something like $1200 plus the trade-in of his Galaxie.
Interestingly, their '57 Ford Fairlane 500 was also about the same price IIRC, $3500. Car prices sure didn't seem to go up much back in that timeframe.
Comments
I hated those Fiat 124s for the driveline "whiplash" but I thought the coupe version was a very attractive car. I think the driveline hassles can be solved.
"New" car for Andre
Early
"Rally"
The 80s
Woody
Needs a polish and a tuneup
Low grade celebrity provenance
The 70s
Odd on this continent
Canuck
190SL -- pile of junk. Beyond restoration. And no, there were more than that made in 1955....over 1700 of them. Take your few thousand bucks and run!
Um, why do I find it hard to believe that Tori Spelling would ever have owned a '61 Cutlass coupe (I'm picturing her 16th birthday--NO, daddy I don't want that 325i/500SL/911 convertible, I want an old Cutlass!!!)?
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I'll admit, I tried to get out of going to church when I was a kid, but I never tried to jack my grandparents' '72 Impala or Mom's LeMans! About the worst I'd do is turn the tv to Oral Roberts and say I was getting enough churching from that! :P
Sadly, it seems like that 7 year old had better driving skills than many adults!
Barely saw anything over the weekend...we are just coming out of a heatwave in the PNW, so I think the heat kept a lot of cars in the garage. I had mine out, of course.
Also saw a (I'm pretty sure) '69 Dodge Coronet convertible....not an R/T or 440, but still....red, not gussied up much (had some aftermarket wheels, but no stripes, spoilers, etc.). Pretty unusual. Looked like the one Jane Hathaway drove in one season of 'the Beverly Hillbillies'.
was outside sitting on a flatbed, apparently ready to be taken to a new home>
I think somebody got a nice deal, the asking price was $26.5. It's a '62 Pontiac Grand Prix (1st year) with a four on the floor and a Tri-Power 421 and the desireable 8-lug wheels. Chrome and paint were good, body panels were straight except for some slight waviness at the bottom of the r/s door. Didn't see the inside.
A couple of blocks away I saw a 1961 Maserati 3500 GT Touring coupe,
a very rare find with dark gray non-metallic paint, a badly faded beige interior but the car looked otherwise in decent #3 shape. I think I've seen maybe one or two more since the 1960s. Too bad the hood was shut, that Maserati Six was a thing of beauty>
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
3500GT Touring: '57-'62:
3700GTI "Sebring" Frua '62- '66
4700GT "Mexico" Vignale '66-'73
I hasten to add any of these are rare, made in the low hundreds, not thousands.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
The Mexico is not a high dollar car. You can still find 'em under $25K, especially in the 4.2 version.
Well no, your memory is mostly there. :P The '62 Grand Prix, when it debuted, was a full-sized car. It was based on the shorter Catalina wheelbase, rather than the longer Star Chief/Bonneville. For 1962, it used the same roofline as a Catalina, Bonneville, or Star Chief, but for 1963, it was a bit more formal, with a thicker, more straight-edged C-pillar.
The Grand Prix wouldn't go mid-sized until 1969.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
That faux convertible roofline was seen on everything from Chevys to Caddys IIRC as an alternative to the bubbletop (which you could not get on the GP). For '63 and '64
the GP got a unique formal roof with a concave rear window but after that they wore the same roof as other Catalina H/Ts
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Now the Vignale Spyder version of the 3500--that's a whole other story. They only made 227 of 'em and they can cost you upwards of a 1/4 mil.
Nah, it was still a bit different. The rest of the big Pontiacs in '65 had a relatively rakish C-pillar, with triangular quarter windows, while the Grand Prix was a bit more upright, sorta like a 1963-65 Riviera. Then in '67-68, the Catalina/Executive/Bonneville coupes went to a fastback style, with the rear window at about the same angle as the trunk lid. The '67-68 Grand Prix was still formal and thick, as if they tried to graft a C-body (Electra/Ninety-Eight) C-pillar onto it.
Much as I like 'em, I think there are better ways to spend six figures on old GT cars (Spyders excepted, I like those better than Ferrari Californias).
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Now it clicks that you're right. I should have Wiki'd the Grand Prix.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If you say so, I've had the impression that the Alfa 2600 was a bit of a stone.
I remember an article by Ken Purdy in an old Playboy where he said that to the automotive cognoscenti a black Maserati Coupe is just as interesting as a red Ferrari. I agreed and a black 1/24 scale 3500GT sits on my shelf to this day (along with several Ferraris).
IIRC only late 3500GTs had FI, these were sometimes called 3500GTIs.
I've always liked the look of the Frua-bodied Sebrings, are they any good (most had FI)?
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Ah yes, the paradox of Ferrari ownership. They'll stand up to tremendous abuse at the racetrack but are expensive maintainence pigs when subjected to ordinary road driving.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
That's a pretty rare sight. Even when they were new, those cars weren't all that common. It seemed like the Marquis, with its handsome Lincolnesque front-end, was all the rage, but the Monterrey was fading fast. I guess it was the same with Ford and the Galaxie. By the time the '73 models came out, it seemed like everybody wanted the ritzier LTD.
That was a time when the high models of everyday brands seemed to approach the cachet of status brands. People had to have that Caprice or LTD.
The Medalist got dropped for 1960, and for 1961 the Montclair and Park Lane were dropped. A low-end model called the Meteor came in for 1961, which put the Monterey once again at the top of the Mercury pecking order. It was priced about at the Impala/Galaxie/Fury/Catalina level, IIRC. At least, I remember my Granddad saying that his '63 Monterey cost around $3500, about the same as his '61 Galaxie.
The Park Lane came back for 1964, and would ultimately be replaced by the Marquis.
Despite all this though, I don't think the Monterey really got moved around much, with regards to pricing hierarchy. It's more like it was one breath of stability at Mercury, as they experimented with new models above and below the Monterey's price point.
a gray honda insight, the original tiny one.
a red with black top fuselage chrysler new yorker also with a rumble to it.
and finally, so far, a mossy green 1990's town car, that could have passed for new, no rumble to the exhaust.
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lgb/cto/1307081527.html
http://www.hobbycar.com/MLipschImperial54.jpg
The wagon, however, being a very low-volume body style, was little changed from 1949. They put a new front-end clip on it, and a new rear bumper, and updated the interior, but that was about it. So you ended up with a 1953 or 1954 bumper, designed for a 1953-54 sedan, convertible, or hardtop, stuck onto a 1949 wagon rump, and they just didn't match up.
I always thought it was a shame that they didn't bother to update the hardtop roofline for 1953-54, like they did with the sedans. I think that reverse-slant C-pillar is really attractive and modern looking. But the hardtop carried over the same old 1950-52 roofline, which looked dated in comparison. At least it did get the more updated rear fenders, decklid, etc. I guess if they had gone for an update of the roof on the hardtop, it would've looked a bit like a '53-54 Chevy or Pontiac, which had that reverse-slant in the C-pillar. But like the wagon, the 2-door hardtop was a very slow seller for Chrysler and DeSoto in those days, so they probably didn't think it was worthwhile to put that much effort into updating it.
Was Chevy considered an old folks car back in 1954? I never would have thought of that, although the '53-54 Chevy did look a bit stuffier and pretentious than the cleaner, simpler 1949-52 models, no doubt the result of an attempt to ape Cadillac.
I always thought of Pontiac as one of the few cars that really didn't "make the jump" in '55. While it was a big leap over the 1954 model, it still just came off as a bit old-fogey to me. IMO, it really didn't get the more youthful image until 1957, to a degree, but then definitely in 1959 it became a much more youthful brand.
The dark green body was good, not perfect withsome waviness but perobably no more than when it was new. The only outward sign of age was a faded canvas roof and a less than perfect fit of the top. It wore a Vermont plate on the rear and a British plate on the right front fender ("ESP 283" for the benefit of Magnette who can tell us the year and location it was originally registered.)
Less spectacular but perhaps even rarer, I saw a red Fiat 850 Spider (S2?), or rather the shell of one, sans windshield, top, bumpers, interior and lights. It had non OEM alloy wheels and a fresh coast of red paint. It was sitting right by the road so perhaps it was a restoration project someone gave up on but there was no FOR SALE signage.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
As long as it's high-quality material, I wouldn't mind. For instance, I wouldn't mind seeing a padded vinyl insert on a door panel, rather than hard plastic slab, or some material that you almost have to punch-out to discover that it's "soft touch"
And one little trick I used to like was when they'd do a colored pattern in the vinyl that matched the cloth, and almost the texture, of the seats. I knew an old guy with a 1959 DeSoto Firedome that was like that. You actually had to touch the material on the door panels to see that it was just vinyl with an embossed pattern, as it was a pretty good facsimile of the woven cloth on the seats. I think it might have been a dress-up option for the Firedome that year, as I've also seen them with much plainer interiors.
It would be nice to start seeing cars with more interior colors than just gray and two different shades of putty. Some colors, though, don't translate well with all the hard plastic they use today. For instance, blue and green. I remember Ford offering green interiors in the 1990's, and they just had a greasy look to them.
I think you can say that for Mercury in general. It went through iterations where it was more like a Buick and others more like a Pontiac. To this day I don't think the public has a clear perception of the brand.
I recall a neighbor who bought a 63 Monterey with the breezeway window becuase it cost essentially what a galaxie would have.
I agree 59 and "widetrack" was a pivital Pontiac year. I think the 58's marked a more youthful approach. The 58 Bonnie still is a head turner and IMO beats the more popular Impala hands down inside and out.
I think the 55 Chevy is historic because it introduced a lighter, more capable car with a great new engine. However, on a pure looks basis I always felt Ford beat Chevy from 49 until the late 50's, and from 55 through 60 I think in general Mopar had the best styles. However, after Bill Mitchell took over GM design in the sixties it became the styling leader by a wide margin, although Ford and Chrysler did have some good looking models during that era.
Yep, that's exactly why my Granddad bought his '63 Monterey. About the same price as the Galaxie, and with that Breezeway window, he used the thing somewhat like a pre-historic Avalanche, hauling ladders, lumber, etc.
As I recall, his '61 Galaxie cost around $3500. The '63 Monterey ended up being something like $1200 plus the trade-in of his Galaxie.
Interestingly, their '57 Ford Fairlane 500 was also about the same price IIRC, $3500. Car prices sure didn't seem to go up much back in that timeframe.