About a decade ago someone (possibly Hillar, I do not recall) was going to interview the designer of the 69 Pontiac (it's Canadian variants especially) but for one reason or another it never materialized. I decided to track him down and do it myself, and indeed he's still alive! Probably far better known for the second-gen Firebird, I don't want to proclaim any one person as "the designer", but if it wasn't Mr. Ewen, he was in the room, as they say.
I asked specifically and he's given me permission to pass his answers back to the Forum.
What I'm asking is for questions - good questions that he has a shot at remembering from 50 years ago, but that you've always wanted the know the answer to!
As a bit of prelude, here's a bit of our back and forth so far. I'll put each in it's own post after this.
Q: Is there any validity to the notion that the 1969 Grande Parisienne was so "well trimmed" out because those parts were originally intended for a B-Body Grand Prix? My understanding is that until Jack Humbert and Irv Rybicki were tasked with the A-Body Grand Prix, it was planned to be on the B-Body.
A: Sorry, but I was in South Africa rebadging right hand drive cars when and if Jack Humbert and Irv Rybicki were tasked with making the Grand Prix and 2 + 2 on the A body chassis. The Bonneville always got the most moldings and trim. The Grand Prix was always the cleanest, little or no trim, so I don't think there is any validity to that notion.
Q: How did the Canadian Engineers fit the shortened Canadian bodies to the US Chevrolet Chassis? Were there complete clay models or was it as simple as starting to bolt bumpers and shared parts to a Chevrolet chassis?
A: U.S Fisher Body division who first engineered the ABC bodies naturally made the body mountings as common as possible to save engineering time and parts. This has been going on since the 1930's and the US car divisions made and mounted their own front end sheet metal. The Chevy B cars had 1" less wheel base than the Pontiacs so when the Pontiac US sheet metal was mounted , the front wheels were back in the wheel house 1". If you were an expert you could see this but the average man on the street never noticed. Also the Chevrolet chassis did not have WIDE TRACK and the Canadian Pontiac looked sad with the wheels buried in the back of the wheel house. I always give the Canadian engineers all the credit for fitting the US Pontiac sheet metal on the Chevrolet chassis. There were never any full size clay model made of any of the Canadian models.
Q: Was the Canadian Styling done in Canada, or done in Detroit?
A: All the styling for North America was done in the same building at the Tech Center in Warren, MI, none in Canada. The Canadian management had no say in the design of their cars but if they were displeased with the designs, I'm sure the designs would have been reviewed and changed.
The one inch wheelbase difference he is referring to must be the inch inch difference in the front axle location I measured comparing my 2+2 to my Catalina. But as we know the total wheelbase difference was 3" with the other two inches found by just moving the rear axle within the existing rear wheelhouse.
As for the 69 bonneville not using the planned 69 B body GP trim his memory may be flawed since the 65-66 GP's used similar big trim like the bonneville and the 67-68 bonneville used the same plain trim as all the other big cars including the cats and the GP. The grille in particular would make sense since the GP had a different sportier grille design in the standard bumper every single year and the bonneville always had the same grille as the Catalina every year until 69.
Interesting that GM Canada had no part in the styling, the next logical question is which US division did the Canadian styling? For The big cars you'd think it would be Pontiac but the Beaumont and Acadian were just chevies with tweaked grilles so maybe chebby did those ones?
All in all very interesting, thanks Dave for making this effort to enhance our knowledge about our niche!
