Cars in the 60's: A Time of Style

Cars in the 60's: A Time of Style

The muscle cars of the 1960's were the love child of World War II and Flower Power. Americans were looking for bigger and better and the muscle cars shone when Detroit was trying to stop the flood of imports led by Volkswagen, Fiat, Renault and Datsun.

It was the Golden Age of the automobile. The Ford Mustang, the Chevy Camaro and the Triumph Fury are all three dimensional examples of the mystique of the 1960s. They were all designed with great attention to detail and with great consideration of the mindset of changing times. 

The year of the stylist started in 1965 with the Ford Mustang. It was called the "pony car" with it's long hood and short deck and made all the other auto manufactures want to copy the look. The "Stang" premiered as a hardtop and convertible and was placed into the compact car category. With every new year, consumers saw an increase in engine power.

The 1964 auto models were designed with women in mind. If fact, one million women a year were buying these beauties. 

Around the middle of the decade front-wheel drive came back into production. There were also improvements made to electric cars at this time and Ford introduced a sodium-sulfur battery that was 15 times lighter than the average battery.

The 1967 Chevy Camaro was based on the Nova. The design had a unibody from the windshield and firewall back and had a separate steel rail subframe for everythin in the front.. It had independent front suspension and the rear axle was suspended by semi-elliptical springs. Typical of the times, the breaks were four drums and the steering was slow but the 140 horsepower shone through. It was $2,466 at the time.

Stylist and designer Giovanni Michelotti came up with the Fury as an intermediate between the Spitfire and the TRs with its steel body and 2-liter, six-cylinder engine. Sadly, it never made it to production.

The two-door convertible was the first monocoque sports car made by Triumph. It's parts included a 6-cylinder engine with a V8 intended. It lost out to the TR5 because of reluctance to invest in new production line and the tooling facilities needed to manufacture the Fury. 

Resources:
http://www.retrowaste.com/1960s/cars-in-the-1960s/