Classic Hifi Care

I disagree with the first one. They did not mention my favorite, the 1963-'64 Oldsmobile 98 "Holiday" coupe interior. Nor do they mention the 1963-'64 Oldsmobile Starfire interior. Nor do they mention the 1963-'66 Pontiac Bonneville/Grand Prix interior.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCiqeB-gtq8

I was happy to see one of my favorites, the '61 Starfire. The one I remember had two-tone red leather. It was the first really cool car I recall from childhood. My parents favored Chevies, Plymouth, and Fords, not fancy brands. We did have a '60 Fury (wagon), which is one of the featured cars. One gripe was that it had rubber floor mats, not carpeting, so when I got old enough to drive it I bought a front molded carpet set from Sears (everything came from Sears back then). I still have the radio from that car, with its "HI-FI" push buttons (it was the premium AM radio with P-P transistor output).

Chris Campbell

Grandpa's youngest brother drove Oldsmobiles. Even a Dynamic 88 four door sedan had fancier interior, I believe, than a Buick Electra 225. Whoever was the designer responsible for Buick interior must have worked for an ambulance manufacturer or Checker cab. Buick used a plastic dash in 1963 and '64 with the glove box door hinge on top. The plastic hinge is commonly found broken nowadays. A horrible design combined with first-year plastic made for a complete failure and a restoration nightmare. Pontiac and Oldsmobile had their interior designs perfected by the middle 1960's. I think the idea was for Buick to "elevate" its interior design from the gawdier designs from Pontiac and Olds, more toward the vein of Cadillac. More formal interior wore well on Cadillac, not so well on Buick. Buick wanted their bodies more sporty, but used mundane interiors.

Once a friend gave me a ride in his dad's Cadillac, early '60s. I recall being surprised that it had the same vent window crank handle as my Dad's Chevy. That always made me wonder if Cadillacs weren't just Chevrolets with a bigger price tag and more upholstery.

Chris Campbell

I have restored both Chevrolet and Cadillac. I think it is fair to say that very little will interchange between the two. Minor trim items and maybe some motor parts like generator and ignition parts. Cadillac and Buick were built to much higher standards of fit and finish than Chevrolet. Grandpa always remarked when someone bought a Cadillac that they must have money to burn, because they could have gotten a perfectly good Buick and put the extra $100 cost in their pocket.....

One of my favorite 60s interior is the Mustang Pony interior. I might be a little biased on this though.

https://www.decoratingspecial.com/pony- ... 6-mustang/

Those seats would dress up my '86 GT, which has two-tone red velour! On Sunday I did a 140-mile fall tour in my Mustang. Near home I pulled into a McDonald's to prevent death by starvation with a fish sandwich. I parked the '86 right next to a newly-painted lively '68 in dark blue. Wish the owner had been hovering so I could praise his car. I made to stops on my tour and got admiring comments about my car from others both times. And both times I wished I had washed off a summer's worth of dead bugs before hitting the road....

Chris Campbell

I would take one of those Mustangs with the Pony interior in a heartbeat. The original Mustang along with the original Firebird and Camero are my favorites. And look at all the choices back then. Today, pretty much all vehicles' interiors come in just a few colors. Something dark or something light which are boring.

Bill

All vehicles are black, silver, or white these days. Booooring. My theory is that the proper color for vehicles is red, but the Chevy's "Jewel Blue" looks really good with its white accents. The '69 4-4-2, '80 Datsun, '86 Mustang, and '05 Ranger are/were all red. The '62 Corvair was a cranberry and the '92 Ranger was burgundy; those are both red variants. Interiors are less colorful: 4-4-2 and Corvair were black. Datsun and the 2 Rangers, grey. Only the Mustang gets color.

Many here are old enough to remember "two-tone" paints on cars; it was a premium option usually or a feature on the upscale models. In '61, Chevy had an accent color on Impalas but went to plain body color on lower-end versions. My parents' '55 Ford, '56 Chrysler, and '60 Plymouth were all two-tone. The '66 Plymouth was all dark blue and the '74 Volvo was orange (!). As with the styling, the colors gave some exuberance to our cars and our lives back then. I'd vote for more of it these days.

That '66 Plymouth wagon was the best-handling, best-mannered big car I've ever driven. It was nimble and solid with not a bit of wallow.

Chris Campbell