AUTOS The '63 Look

FOR Detroit, it was a shiny, triumphal week. Even the Cuban crisis, which forced Vice President Lyndon Johnson to cancel out as the chief speaker at a black-tie dinner of the auto industry's top brass, hardly diminished the excitement of the 44th National Automobile Show. Most of the million people who passed through cavernous Cobo Hall during the course of the week cheerily ignored the corny musical revue, in which leggy girls and toothy boys noisily attempted to equate car buying and patriotism ("Drive, you eagle, drive,/Hooray for the bright new day,/ Hooray for the U.S.A."). For the real stars of the show were the new 1963 cars, and they had a get-up-and-go look about them.

On the record so far, 1963 promises to be one of those rare years when everything clicks for Detroit: styling, mechanical quality, and consumer inclinations. Latest October figures show auto sales running an astounding 27.6% ahead of last year. General Motors' sales are up 37% from the same time last year, Chrysler's 26%, and Ford's 25%. The nation's auto dealers, always quick to complain when they are being forced to take unsalable cars, now lament that Detroit underestimated the market and is not building fast enough. To a man, they are convinced that the auto industry is about to perform the hat trick by following zooming 1962 sales, which should hit 6,900,000 cars, with an even hotter 1963. Some talk daringly of a sales surge that will equal 1955's record of 7,200,000 cars.

Thus encouraged, Detroit went all-out at its auto show. Virtually every car and truck model produced by any U.S. automaker was on display. Fashion models slouched along a runway beside a 30-ft. revolving tower. Pontiac lined the doors of its Bonneville convertible with peacock feathers, and Dodge dressed up its truck display with two feminine "truck drivers" in short, short shorts. (Stock question from male showgoers: "Do you come with the truck?" Stock answer: "You couldn't afford it.")

Luxurious Functionalism. The '63 cars come in more shapes and sizes than ever before, yet have in common an easily identifiable look. It eschews the finny ostentation of the '50s. There is more sparing use of chrome, and more accent on cleaner lines, giving the new cars a leaner, more angular profile. The '63 look is one of luxurious functionalism.

Virtually all automakers have adopted Ford's Thunderbird roof line, characterized by squared-off lines, knife edges and wide rear pillars. (At Cobo Hall, Ford needled its rivals for their unabashed plagiarism with signs declaring that Ford has "the roof that tops them all.") A more subtle piracy from Ford is the copying of the Lincoln Continental's smooth slab sides by Buick. Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Chrysler, too, is expected to follow this trend next year, now that the 1961 Continental's designer, Elwood Engel, has been lured away to be Chrysler's styling chief.

T-Bird Trend. A distinctive look that may take over once the T-bird roof has run its course is the convex curve from roof to rear bumper found this year on Chevrolet's new Corvette Sting Ray and Studebaker's red-hot Avanti. Detroit jargon calls this the "fastback"; it is actually a revival of a style of the 1940s.

The Thunderbird's outstanding success (400,000 sold since 1955) has sired a new class of U.S. car--the luxury sports model. General Motors belatedly recognized the new class this year with the Buick Riviera, a sleek but massive four-seater that offers all the gimmicks necessary to make a middle-aged broker believe he is Stirling Moss. Riviera is currently the official G.M. luxury sports car (Cadillac will have one, perhaps next year), but Pontiac is challenging the T-bird unofficially with its powerful Grand Prix, Oldsmobile with its Starfire, and Chevrolet with its Sting Ray. And every other automaker pays homage to the T-bird trend by offering even in compact models such pizazz features as instrument consoles, bucket seats, and floor-mounted gearshifts. Figuring that if one floor shift is good, two are better, usually conservative American Motors Corp. offers an extra stick for shifting into overdrive.

Not for Church. The popularity of semisports models has led Detroit back to unabashed selling of speed and horsepower. Pontiac started the trend when it built sales by consistently winning stock-car races. Now Studebaker brags about Avanti's ability to exceed 170 m.p.h., and Ford offers every accessory needed to turn the Galaxie into a dragstrip racer. Plymouth claims to have the hottest stock car going in its "Super Stock 426"--a 425-h.p. job that the company says it will sell only to drivers licensed by the National Hot Rod Association. "It's not designed to take Mother to church,'' quips Pitchman Lee Rengers. "There's a 415-h.p. model for town driving."

Besides getting faster, cars are getting bigger again. Oldsmobile. Buick, Pontiac and Plymouth elongated their compacts this year. Automen's reading of public tastes leads them to expect that by 1964 their biggest sales will be in the intermediate sizes (Fairlane, Meteor, Dart) and in the standard sizes (Galaxie. Impala. Pontiac). The compacts. Detroit believes, will slip to third place in sales volume. Last will come the luxury sports models and big luxury cars.

The professional enthusiasm that Detroit always works up for its products is matched this time by the enthusiasm of those hard-to-fool realists, the car deal ers. "It looks like a heckuva year,'' exults Boston Oldsmobile Salesman Albert Creamer. "We've sold 60 high-price models already." New York's Don Allen Chevrolet claims that the Corvette Sting Ray is so hot it is drawing trade-ins from Cadillac owners. San Francisco Ford

Dealer Earle Dahlen complains that he cannot get enough Thunderbirds and Fair-lanes to meet demand. And Studebaker dealers report that orders for the $4,500 Avanti and a Lark station wagon with a sliding roof are so heavy that they cannot be sure of delivery before January.

After years of famine, Chrysler Corp. dealers, too, are heady with orders. They attribute the turn-around to the hand some new appearance of the '63 Chryslers and the improvement in mechanical quality that has permitted Chrysler to offer a new five-year warranty on engine and other drive-line parts, provided the customer keeps a record of all his maintenance stops. "I figure Chrysler decided this year it was time to do it right or get the hell out of business," says San Francisco Chrysler-Plymouth Dealer Glen Mills.

A Thousand Things. All U.S. automakers, in fact, have come a long way from the shoddily finished cars of the 1950s that drove many a bitter customer to buy an import. ("You had to have a do-it-yourself kit to put those cars in shape for the customer," recalls an Atlanta Olds dealer.) Apart from a few complaints about imperfect paintwork, dealers unanimously praise the quality of the '63s. "It's been a thousand little things," agrees a Detroit automaker. "You put a bigger-size wheel bearing here, solder the radiator a little better there, a better electrical system here, and better corrosion resistance there." Ford has lengthened the life of its front-wheel bearings simply by using a ten-sided nut that permits more precise adjustment than the old six-sided one.

Ford's new nut costs a nickel apiece more, and there was a time when even that small a price difference might have kept any company in the penny-conscious, mass-production auto industry from using it. But no longer, and this changed industry attitude is one of the big reasons why the '63s are proving popular. Recalling the mechanical troubles that plagued Buick in the late 1950s, Don H. Vance of Atlanta's Hix Green Buick exults:

"You can forget how easy it is to sell a real good product." Good quality, in fact, not only makes customers happy but gives a lift to the spirits of jaded auto salesmen. Says Vance: "I've had customers come back and tell me, 'This car is even better than you made it out to be.' That makes a salesman feel better than anything else in the world."

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