The personal luxury car, as a concept, is generally agreed to have been invented by Ford with the 1958 introduction of the four-seat Thunderbird. Though the first generation Thunderbird had been a success, providing dealers with a sporty product to draw customers into showrooms, being a two seater meant it wasn’t going to sell in large volume. It wasn’t strictly a sports car anyway, more a sporty car with prestige and luxury as part of the package. Why not add a couple of seats to widen the appeal, asked Ford President Robert McNamara? By retaining a low stance and compact size, FoMoCo would maintain the previous car’s sporty aspect whilst widening its appeal. With an industry-first standard center console, bucket seats, full complement of gauges, pillarless styling and big V8, Ford had a showroom winner.
The fabulous four-seater Thunderbird for 1958
With the sales success of the larger Thunderbird, other manufacturers scrambled to produce a rival. Ford may have handed the sports car market to Corvette, but that didn’t satisfy General Motors. They were not going to sit idly by and allow Ford to have a newly discovered market niche all to themselves. For 1962, Pontiac hurriedly introduced the Grand Prix that became an instant hit thanks in part to an award-winning series of advertising art by the great Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman. In 1963 Buick followed with their sensational new Riviera. Now there were three…
1965 Pontiac Grand Prix print advertisement - another example of superb commercial artwork by Fitzpatrick & Kaufman
So, what exactly constituted a personal luxury car? It was a luxurious but practical car designed primarily for the pleasure of its driver and owner, rather than the comfort of its passengers. Full-sized American luxury cars placed the comfort of passengers (both front and rear) at least as highly as the driver. After all, many people with the means to buy such a car might choose to be driven by someone else. A personal luxury car, on the other hand, was designed to appeal to those who wanted a vehicle for their own personal transportation.
1965 Oldsmobile Starfire coupe. Although the ‘62-66 Starfire is often categorized as a personal luxury car - we’re focusing on the Olds Toronado due to its longer production run. As the above picture shows - the Starfire was indeed a highly styled, expensive two-door in the classic personal luxury car tradition.
With the exception of the 1967-69 Thunderbird four-door, personal luxury cars were two door hardtops, rear seat passengers were not the major priority. Some manufacturers offered a convertible option, but not all. Seating for four or more was provided in reasonable comfort since most buyers who could afford such a car had families. With only two doors, stylists were free to give personal luxury cars a racier, stylish profile. And style was what personal luxury cars were all about. They were designed to make an impression, buyers wanted people to not only know they had money, but that fashion, performance and taste were important to them. Personal luxury cars were about lifestyle - if you believed the advertising copy of 1960s Mad Men.
If it was style you were after, the 1963 Buick Riviera had it in spades…
Personal luxury cars were generally priced below full-sized luxury cars such that they appealed to a wider audience than the high priced, full-sized sedans from Olds, Lincoln, Cadillac and Imperial. For those able to afford more - a personal luxury car could be fully optioned to the point where it cost as much as a larger traditional luxury sedan. Many customers were looking for something more enjoyable to drive than a prestige land barge…price be damned. Buyers were generally males in their 40s, though women were targeted too, in particular Thunderbird and Riviera with interiors carefully designed to appeal to both sexes.
1960s T-birds were designed to appeal to women as well as men. Note the Jackie Kennedy lookalike!
Though not strictly performance cars, the personal luxury car had serious horsepower, at least until engine compression ratios were dropped to cater for unleaded fuel in the early ‘70s. Whilst acceleration was always respectable, the personal luxury car's forté was effortless cruising – a long-distance mile-eater rather than stoplight dragster. Suspension was tuned for comfortable highway driving rather than negotiating winding roads at speed. Steering was fingertip-light in the manner of the larger luxury cars, top speed generally high thanks to tall final drive ratios designed for high speed cruising in silence (my 7 litre ’66 Thunderbird could theoretically cruise at 125mph, if I were brave enough)
If the standard 390 V8 wasn’t enough, for 1966 you could add more thunder to your ‘Bird with a 428
Engines were almost always big block V8s in the American tradition. Low revving, smooth, reliable, silent, and effortlessly powerful – in contrast to muscle cars with their lumpy idle, solid lifters and loud exhaust. Transmission was always automatics with shifts designed to change up or down with syrupy smoothness to minimize passenger disturbance. Some makes offered performance versions of their personal luxury cars - Buick with the Riviera Gran Sport, Chevy’s SS454 Monte Carlo and Pontiac the 1970 SJ 455 Grand Prix to name three.
Chevy offered an SS454 performance option on their hugely successful Monte Carlo
The cars were well-appointed, offering a certain level of standard equipment that were options on lesser models – power steering, big block V8, power brakes, radio, bucket seats, plush carpet and so on. Wood-grain vinyl was more likely than real wood accents, but drivers of these cars were well pampered. The option list was long – sunroof, convertible, leather seats, AM-FM radio, integrated tape player, power seats, door locks, antenna and even trunk release.
Along with the whole world, Ford was looking to the moon in 1969 where ‘the view is high, wide and heavenly’ for those who ordered a sunroof on their ‘69 Tbird
The very top end of the personal luxury market was dominated by Lincoln with the Continental Mark series introduced in 1968, and Cadillac with the new 1967 Eldorado. Both offered impressive levels of technology in addition to passenger-pampering opulence. Lincoln featured Sure-Trak anti-lock braking from 1970, while the Eldorado came with fiber-optic monitoring of all external lights, as well as front-wheel-drive and automatic ride leveling. Read more about Cadillac innovations here.
Cadillac Eldorado may have bristled with technology, but Olds was first to market with front-wheel-drive on the 1966 Motor Trend Car of the Year - Toronado.
The last personal luxury car to enter the field was the Chrysler Cordoba released in 1975. Smaller than its’ competitors and therefore offering a better power-to-weight ratio, it offered spirited performance (for the time) from a 400 cubic inch V8. A big success for Chrysler from the get-go, Chrysler’s advertising campaign for the Cordoba featured television and print advertising starring Ricardo Montalban of Star Trek fame. The tv ads were so successful Montalban was later offered the role of Mr Roarke aka The Boss, on the successful Fantasy Island series; ‘Boss! The plane! The plane!’ Not even Montalban could save the decline of the Cordoba after a few years, but it wasn’t alone in sliding down the sales charts in a rapidly changing late 1970s automotive landscape.
Ricardo Montalban & 1976 Chrysler Cordoba, available with ‘Fine Corinthian leather’ like the ads said
The beginning of the end for the traditional personal luxury car came with the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Gas prices soared overnight. Within a year, potential buyers of personal luxury cars were looking for smaller, fuel-efficient alternatives. Many turned to European brands. Suddenly, personal luxury cars had not only gone out of favor with much of the public, they were looked on as anti-social gas-guzzlers.
The era of the great American personal luxury car lasted until around 1978, though many models continued well into the 80s and even beyond - shrunken in size, lower powered…but far more practical and fuel efficient. Detroit had little option but to quietly kill off their fabulous big block gas hogs - there were few buyers still wanting huge, impractical two-door cars with seven liter V8s.
Cadillac’s imperious Fleetwood Eldorado for 1971. With 8.2 litres of V8 hauling 4,900 pounds and 18.5 feet (5.6m) in length, such cars would be seen as anti-social within a few short years.
Before the rot set in, when gas was cheap, the economy strong and confidence high, when America put man on the moon and cars were status symbols like never before or since - the personal luxury car was the ultimate symbol of success for millions of aspiring Americans. And millions of Americans bought these dream machines, from the four-seat Tbird of 1958 through to the last of the traditional breed in the late 1970s. In between those wonderful years, Detroit dreamed up, styled, designed, built and sold some of the most fabulous cars ever made.
You’d struggle to find a car with more sheer road presence in 1971 than a Lincoln Continental Mark III
Today, a personal luxury car is worth considering if you're in the market for a classic. For decades the demand has been for muscle and pony cars so that personal luxury cars, far more expensive than a Mustang or Camaro when new, are now cheap by comparison. And you get a lot more car for the money, they can represent terrific value provided a full resto is not required. Climbing into an old muscle car can be a bit of a disappointment today due to basic, no-frills interiors. Not so personal luxury cars of the era. Get behind the wheel of a Tbird, Grand Prix, Riviera, Mark III, Eldorado or Toronado and you won’t fail to be impressed by the level of flashy detail. Chrome and brightwork is tastefully applied, the instrument panel stylish and functional, while door trims and seats are finished in quality materials with tasteful appliques and insignia adding to the overall feel of prestige. If style alone doesn’t grab you - plant your foot and feel the instant surge that only mountains of big block torque can provide.
The five personal luxury cars of 1967 from top: Olds Toronado, Pontiac Grand Prix, Ford Thunderbird, Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Riviera
Tunnel Ram has put together a collection of galleries celebrating the magnificent personal luxury cars up to the late 1970s. The list here isn’t definitive - there are certainly other models that one could class as a personal luxury car. We’ve chosen what we believe to be the best selling and most iconic. Click on the below links to view original print advertisements and promotional material put together by some of Madison' Avenue’s finest advertising firms. The Mad Men of the ‘60s really knew how to capture the essence of these great cars…I daresay quite a few Mad Men were the proud owners of a personal luxury car in their heyday. Which would you choose?
About the author
Raph Tripp is the former owner of a 1966 Thunderbird (among others), is a passionate classic car enthusiast and writer, and founder of TunnelRam.net. If you wish to publish this article in part or in whole, please credit Raph Tripp and tunnelram.net . This is an original Tunnel Ram production ©2020 Tunnel Ram. All images remain the property of the original copyright holders.