Pontiac was more than a middle child.

It was tough to be a middle kid- Your older brother set the sports records and got all the girls you never could. Little baby brother on the other hand, was handed a get-out-of-jail-free card if he burnt the house down. So it was at times for poor Pontiac. In the early 50s, Chevrolet was the low price rock star, with big sales numbers that put solid money in the bank for GM. Upper-tier Oldsmobile was just one small notch down from the flagship darling Cadillac, which was still a pretty darn good place to be. That left middle brands Buick and Pontiac to scrap it out at times, working hard to find what made them more than just a badge-engineered Chevy in that big General Motors portfolio. Needing that parental attention often led Pontiac to create bold designs, and by 1955 they started making some serious headway, with designs that still make me smile today:

1. 1955 Star Chief Custom Catalina: The hardtop beauty that sat at the top of the all new 55 Pontiacs. Intro the overhead valve Strato-Streak V-8, split bar grille, and headlight ‘eyebrows’. The light up Pontiac Indian head just made it all that much cooler.
2. The 55-57 Star Chief Custom Safari: Not just a tarted up Nomad, the Pontiac’s were longer, more powerful and far more luxurious (often costing more than a same year convertible).
3. The 1959 Bonneville: The top of the line Bonne model came out in 1957, and was nicely updated for ’58, but the 1959 Bonneville was a low-slung masterpiece. Split grille, 389 motor, and those amazing upper and lower tailfins.
4. 1960-61 Pontiacs. Yup, pretty much all of them… No bad designs in the bunch. The bubble top 60/61 models were so nicely styled and proportioned that I wouldn’t hesitate to pick one up today.
5. 1962 was another banner year for Poncho design, and a bit of a swan song, with the last of the horizontal headlamps and no rear ‘hips’. This one has sentimental value to me as well, remembering my Dad’s super cool ’62 Grand Prix.

I’ve grabbed some of Larry Watson’s custom Pontiac photos to prove my point (previously-posted by Rikster):