’58 Pontiac

’58 Pontiac Tri-Power Chieftain Catalina. (Photo by Thomas A. DeMauro.)

In 1955 Yrs Trly was 11 years old.
In my opinion 1955 is the year General Motors’ automotive styling got really good, although looking at it from today’s perspective I think it’s stupid.
To me it’s the basic smallness of the ’55 Chevy. From Pontiac up GM’s cars got bigger, but weren’t overloaded with glitz.
Stripped of its chrome trim a ’55 Chevy is depressing. Its shape is Buick, and it has that silly wraparound windshield. (Retract knee before entering!)
At least its shape is basically square; car-guys call it a “shoebox.”
Reinstall the chrome side-trim, and the Buick curves disappear. That trim emphasizes squareness.
At least it’s small enough to be attractive. Olds and Buick looked good too, but appear larger. Not unattractive, but larger than the ’55 Chevy.
GM cars were variations of different wheelbase lengths. Chevy was smallest, although I think Pontiacs were available Chevy-size.
Oldsmobiles were slightly bigger, Buicks bigger yet. Really big were Cadillacs, although I think Buicks and Oldsmobiles were also available Caddy-size.
Boomers think the ’64 Mustang initiated Detroit’s hotrod phase.
Not this kid; although I’m a pre-boomer.
To me it’s the ’55 Chevy, and Chevrolet’s fabulous new high-revving V8 introduced that year. What later became known as the “SmallBlock.”
Chevrolet developed “Big-Blocks” for its trucks. Those Big-Blocks were also hot-rodded into high-performance car engines.
The Mustang was vastly important, but mainly as a marketing concept. It has Ford’s version of Chevy’s SmallBlock.
It succeeded Ford’s “Y-block,” which compared to Chevy’s new V8 was a turkey.
If General Motors had been smart enough they could have beat Ford introducing the ponycar concept.
It had the motor (the SmallBlock), four-speed floorshift, and demand was apparent with sporty Corvairs.
For 1958 GM blew it. Styling started downhill in 1957. Buick and even Oldsmobile became bloated.
For 1958 all the General’s cars became chrome-laden, quad-headlight bloat-mobiles. Even Chevrolet; thus ending the fabulous Tri-Chevy of ’55-’57.
The April 2017 issue of my Hemmings Classic Car magazine has a feature on a restored 1958 Pontiac.
It’s by an independent, not the magazine’s Editor, Richard Lentinello.
Many are by Lentinello, and are pretty good.
The Pontiac is best-looking of GM’s 1958 bloat-mobiles. If you get past that grille, which looks dreadfully plain, and un-Pontiac.
The ’58 Impala looks okay too, but it too has the grille problem.
Both lack the finning very much in vogue at that time. But for 1959 both went extremely bonkers with fins. Most ’59 GM cars look horrible; only the Buick looks okay.
I’ve said it before: the ’59 Chevy is the worst-looking Chevrolet ever made, and I’m a Chevy-man.
The car featured is a 1958 “Tri-Power” Pontiac.
“Tri-Power” means it has triple two-barrel carburetion, what hot-rodders were often doing to increase performance.
The car is a Chiefton Catalina, “Chiefton” meaning it’s the low-priced model, and “Catalina” meaning it’s a hardtop.
And it’s from Pittsburg, PA, not southern CA or FL.
The car’s owner, Chuck Brown, wanted to buy a ’58 Pontiac like his father’s car, but I bet Tri-Power wasn’t planned.
The car wasn’t drivable when he considered it. It needed a battery, and the Tri-Power was in the trunk.

Off the beach, onto the highway; a ’58 Pontiac is leading, barely hanging on in the sand.

Tri-Power was also raced; Detroit’s attempt to make its cars unbeatable versus other Detroit cars.
Oldsmobile also did triple two-barrels.
The racers were actually stock; National Association of Stock-Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).
Not any more. Current NASCAR racers are hardly available at a dealer. Identification is often little more than appliques.
Although a car pretending to be a Ford will have a Ford motor, and a pretend Chevrolet will have a Chevy motor.
The feature car is three-on-the-tree, but its serial-number has the letter “H,” meaning it was originally Hydramatic.
In 1958 handling wasn’t within Detroit’s purview.
I remember a picture of a ’58 Pontiac leaning and all crossed up through Daytona’s old north turn from beach back to highway. Cars would slide the sand. —That was before Daytona Speedway.
Handling was what racers could get.
The picture above is not the one I remember.
That ’58 Pontiac is drifting, but looks more under control than what I remember.
It probably has track-bars and anti-rollbars not available from a dealer.
Brown’s Chiefton is still a bloat-mobile, but the Pontiac was best-looking of GM’s 1958 bloat-mobiles.
Especially if looked at from the rear, as illustrated.
Brown’s car is drivable, which means you might encounter it on the street.
“Hey Dad, look at the antique car.”
“Antique my foot! If that thing’s antique, so am I.”