Bubble-top

Bubble-top. (Photo by Dan Lyons.)

(I wanted to do this last month, but ran outta time.)

—The July 2019 entry in my Tide-mark Muscle-Car calendar is a red 1961 Pontiac Ventura owned by Dennis MacDonald.
When this car was manufactured Yr Fthfl Srvnt was in Eleventh Grade. I was living at home with my holier-than-thou parents who convinced me I was rebellious and stupid because I couldn’t worship my father.
Our family had moved to northern DE by then. I’m native to south Jersey, a child of the ‘burbs. I also consider myself a child of the ‘50s.
By 1961 Pontiac was flowering under Bunkie Knudsen. No longer was it a doughty grandfather’s car. Bunkie made it a performance car.
In my humble opinion the 1961 Pontiac is one of the best-looking cars ever made, especially the “bubble-top” two-door hardtops.
I was so smitten by those Pontiacs I advocated my father buy one. My father was already looking for another car.
I made him extremely angry, that I, his first-born son, rebellious and stupid, would have the awful temerity, unmitigated gall, and horrific audacity (cue Sharpton) to suggest anything other than a used Chevrolet douche-bag. “Disgusting, I tell ya!”
My Pontiac dreamin’ was toast.
We were currently driving a 1953 Chevrolet two-door sedan, the infamous “Blue-Bomb,” the car in which I learned to drive, but a year late, since at age-16 I was “too immature.”
The “Blue-Bomb” became car number-two after a two-tone green 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door sedan, PowerGlide six, came into our family. It was slower than our ’53.
I look at this calendar car and wonder about all that sheet-metal behind its passenger compartment. Were all cars like that back then? They sure aren’t now.
But it’s a Ventura, not a Catalina. The Ventura might have had that longer tail. But it does have the aluminum wheels, a lightweight extra-cost option.
“Bubble-top” since the side-pillars are so thin.
NO WAYwould a Bubble-top survive a rollover. That top would crush.
And pretty as it is, it wouldn’t be pretty to the air. Cars became bars-of-soap, to make them more slippery to the atmosphere. By so doing a car needed less fuel.
Look at cars now and it’s hard to tell which brand is which. They all look the same except for taillights and front fascia.
Not too long ago I was passed by a top-down ’64 Pontiac G-T-O. It too had a gigantic tail; trunk-space that could swallow multiple suitcases. (Remember suitcases?)
You could land a Corsair fighter-plane on its trunklid.
This Ventura looks the same, but is one of the prettiest cars of all time. —A “Cat” looks better.
The prettiest car was the Jaguar XK-E, but narrow. No doubt my saying that will prompt fevered blustering.
Years ago at the Mighty Mezz I declared the greatest rock-n-roll song of all time was “Louie-Louie” as covered by the Kingsmen.
I was bombarded with beachballs.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 13 years ago. BEST job I ever had. I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (I had a heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well. That defect was repaired.)