To think that the hideous Arts and Scientology (!) design disaster tried to emulate tasteful design from classic Cadillac periods made me laugh. The philosophy when launched through today has always looked haphazard, pre-dented, and without any continuity of design (other than purely hideous). The design was cheap looking and made the cars look frumpy and thick bodied when Cadillac needed svelte looking products that were actually evocative of classical periods to offset its infusion of professional grade Chevrolet frosted SUV's and trucks.
@@laserwizard2 You can thank US governmental regulations for today's styling restrictions.. Designers hands are tied for the most part.. Don't hate the designers
The first car I paid for was '68 Black Cougar "Dan Gurney Special"...$2,828.00 out the door! The nice & thick burgundy interior shamed Mustangs! It was pretty cool!
My girlfriend's father owned one. He knew nothing about cars, so I figured it was a pooch with a 2V 289. Turns out the Roman numerals on the front fenders spelled out a number much higher than 289. In fact it was a 390 4-barrel and we had many adventures in it.
Fully agree. One could argue that the interior of the 1967 Thunderbird is the top of the heap of attractive high end interiors of all time. It would be great if such good materials, so brilliantly executed could happen again.
AGREE. The T bird takes it. All of these cars are far better looking than the cars made in the last two decades. Size matters when it comes to true style and luxury.
As mentioned by Hans, the ‘66 Thunderbird was the tops in my view. To see a 66 Bird at night on a dark road, would invoke images of a UFO… with the red floating bar of full width tail light. A real sight to be seen. Then it had the sequential turn signals too. The 67 was a follow on design of the 66. Lastly when you stepped on the brake, the faces of the people in the car behind would light up red….. no need for the high mount center brake light.😊
The similar '60 DeSoto taillights were also quite attractive, the last pretty DeSoto. All Chrysler products overall styling went to Hell in a handbasket for '61.
@@billolsen4360 A person I know has a 67 GTO convertible and these things seem to be very rare. Another friend who passed away, many years ago. Was a true pontiac enthusiast and build even racing engines in the past. I admit Pontiac had some of the most outstanding styling i have ever seen.
If one wishes to buy a 60's era classic Grand Prix, try to find a John Delorean designed '69 SJ with four on the door. These are the Holy Grail of GP's, a tastefully styled exterior and interior luxury muscle car with few ever rolled off the assembly line do to the salesmen invariably recommending the automatic. These have been "rediscovered" and after a lull, prices are moving up again.
Riding home late at night as a kid, I’d be perched on the edge of the front bench seat and tell my Dad the make and model of all the cars ahead of us on the freeway. Fantastic time when an 8 yo can distinguish individual models by the warm glow of their red taillights! True excitement when we came up behind a Thunderbird or Buick Electra with full width tail lamps. Sequential taillights on the new Ford Mustangs and some Audi’s take me back!
@@tholmes2169 The mechanism was very basic. I wasn't even good at shop class, but I could figure those out. You can get electronic replacement versions now.
1966 Chrysler 300...the curves in those lights are amazing! *I have a 66 Chrysler 300 2 door hardtop,buckets,console,440 TNT factory! I love looking at it's rear end!
Our family had a 1967 New Yorker. The taillights wrapped around the fender and formed a kind of side marker, one year before the were mandatory. I thought those were unique. The front end mimicked the look with the parking lamps.
My favorite tail lights: 1. 1966 Ford Thunderbird 2. 1966/1967 Lincoln Continental 3. 1966 Cadillac DeVille 4. 1967 Buick Riviera Best wishes from a US car enthusiast from Germany! :) I appreciate Your videos very much and I'm impressed of Your amount of knowledge.
Excellent choices for your top ten. The '67 Eldorado is just so cool it just blows my mind. I will be 67 years old tomorrow and I am very glad I was around when most of these vehicles were produced and on the road. What an amazing time for automotive design. Thanks, Mike in Denver.
YESSSS totally agree -- surprising Adam didn't 't include more full-width taillights besides the 1967 Thunderbird. Also: 1967 Buick Electra 1970 Chrysler 300 1970-71 Thunderbird -- big improvement over the 1967-68 1972 Dodge Monaco
Here’s one for my Grandma… The 1963 IMPALA Sport Coupe always looked sleek and beautiful walking up Grandma’s driveway… I had no idea she was so pretty…but she was..!! She had great taste, but she also read the room…and always looked JUST TREMENDOUS!
Tail lights are one of the biggest facets of a car's character, and used to change nearly every model year. This - of course - was back when you could identify a car at 50 yards. Today, they're mostly exactly the same, brand by brand, model by model..... the same stretchy amoeba shape - more on the side of the car than on the tail - that looks like every other car. I seriously can barely tell one car from another.
Excellent job on top pics! I agree with your number one, 67' Eldie. I also love the 67' Riviera taillights, the 65' Chrysler New Yorker, and the 60' Desoto Adventure.
I don’t really have a favorite. As a kid I was always looking forward to the next year’s changes in style. I could name the make and year of cars passing by on the highway from the grille or the tail.
Yeah, being able to distinguish between model years of cars started disappearing or getting much more subtle in the 1980s. If I had to guess the main reason why, it probably had to do with keeping design costs down. As the years went by, it became pretty much impossible to tell the differences between model years. And, even if somehow one could distinguish between model years of vehicles, the fun of it, along with that wondering about how that new or updated design was going to look, was long gone.
68-70 Dodge Charger, 67-70 Mercury Cougar, 66-67 Pontiac GTO, 63-67 Corvette, 67 Ford Galaxie, and 64 Ford Galaxie have by far the best looking rear ends.
I think that most of the viewers would agree that modern car brands/models aren’t as distinctive as their older predecessors. You could identify them a block away. It’s even getting tougher to distinguish different models within certain brands as design elements are shared to the point that model distinction is lost. (I’m looking at you Mercedes). It speaks volumes when once upon a time tail light design was more interesting than many entire cars today.
Pretty much any Cadillac from the 50’s,60’s and 70’s. Also the impala from 1958 through 1977. The 55 Chevy has a beautiful rear end(the whole car is just beautiful)
One thing Cadillac had going in the 1940s through the 1970s was elegant styling consistency. design morphed mostly slowly until it shifted dramatically.
Still a "Carnut" since '51& having 'bout 80 vehicles, and since we're talking tail lights, loved them on my '68 Cougar & '70 T-Bird! However, the most dramatic example I've seen & with only one light needed, was a local biker who took that Polara wedge tail light, wrapped into a "Sissy Bar" with black pleated leather for his Harley!! Extremely cool!!
The '62 Meteor and full-size Merc taillights were similar to the last sparrow-strainer Imperial gunsights of that year. The rest of the cars were almost identical to the corresponding Fords. Note, the Meteor wagon taillights were not that great.
Good call on that Olds custom 98. Those quad taillights really were stunning . Just 2 taillights was an awesome look also. The Pontiac 65 with the hidden taillights, #1 ,gets my vote.
The small, or thin, taillights of the mid to late 1960s are my favorite!!! Like the '69 Lemans. Pontiac got that right throughout their lineup. Thunderbird/Cougar should get an honorable mention, for their mechanical sequential turn signals.
So many bulbs in the taillights of that 67 Thunderbird. Growing up when they were common on the roads I never saw one that didn't have at least one bulb burned out.
I remember, back then, it was fun to drive at night. Especially around town. The myriad of easily distinguishable taillights were just awesome, for a kid.
I think the 68 Monaco full width design was much more interesting than the 67....and one of my favorites is the 64 Olds Starfire, a beautiful silver treatment between the taillamps and those red lenses had a very unique chrome design placed over them. Nice job, though, Adam!
Your selections are excellent, although my favorites would include the 1966 and 1967 Buick Electra 225. The rear end styling of this model was, in my opinion, supremely elegant.
If you're in the Phoenix area, the Martin Auto Museum (Thunderbird Rd, Glendale) has a few hundred cars that you can actually sit in, including a 70-ish T-bird and a Superbird. Very nice place.
Awh man Adam, all are so beautiful...makes me so nostalgic for the 1960's autos! I will say my favs are: 1968 Park Lane, and the1960 Lincoln.... agree on the entire interior of the 1967 Thunderbird, I call it the "Montblanc"!
It made it easier to differentiate the various models of the full size Chevrolets....the lower trim Bel Air and Biscayne models would have two taillights on either side...move up market to Impala or Caprice, you would get 3. Overall, as a kid I was always mesmerized by the sequential turn signals used on the Cougars and Thunderbirds.
I agree the ‘67 Eldorado is #1. My college roommate’s father had one. One day he came to town for a business meeting and took us to lunch. We were living in the fraternity house. He told the pledges to notify him when his chauffeur arrived.
As a Wisconsin kid I always have place in my heart for AMC's. We had a bunch of them. So I would like to give a nod to the Marlin. All model years had basically the same rear. Since they didn't make this list, they would certainly make it in if you did "The Most Sinister Rear Ends of the 60's". Fun video.
Excellent list. If purely iconic comes into the equation ... the twin dual round Corvette tail lights and the twin triple vertical Mustang lamps certainly come to mind. You knew what it was just by the lights even far away
That was an exquisite line up of fine automobiles, Adam. It just took me back to when these were common place. The Canadian Grande Parisienne in my memory had more tail lights across the back than the Grand Prix but I could be mistaken. They were absolutely beautiful especially cars especially with those awesome hidden headlamps. As you said, the halcyon of American styling. The bejewelled 64 Ford tail lamps could be an honourable mention.
A great list, Adam. I was (somewhat admittedly, as I own one!) disappointed not to see the '67-'68 Cougar on this list. Nice clean rear, very symmetrical and clean, sequential turn signals with grilles that match the front of the car. And while I like the '65 Grand Prix rear end, I somehow think the '64 has a blt cleaner rear design.
I gotta say that the 1964-66 Imperials have some of the best overall styling in ANY full size US luxury car. Those sword shaped tail lights in conjunction with the trapezoidal continental spare hump are nothing short of diabolical looking! Those 64-66 Imperials were truly evil looking cars.
My all time favorite tail lights from the '60's is no contest...1968 Buick Wildcat. The way they light up the whole back of the car, curve and then wrap around the corners. Plus the detailed, horizontal chrome banded bezels.....absolute perfection.
Hey man! I really love you videos! They are always straightforward and bring up really interesting topics that aren't the same old stuff we've all heard forever in the automotive world! I would really love to see you do a podcast series. You would be one of the most high quality car podcasts out there by far. There are car podcasts out there, but they are either too goofy, dumbed down, overproduced or just not very interesting. If I could just listen to you behind a mic on a streaming service on my way to work man that would make my year. I'm sure many others agree.
The 60's was the best decade for Automotive design. Both form and function. In the 50's they were getting it figured out. They nailed it in the 60's. Then the 70's had the government mandating things that hurt the styling. The 80's they started figuring out how to blend styling with government mandates. So the government kept making things harder. Now we have roads filled with garbage crossovers with unnecessary technology. All vehicles are the same. Between fuel economy, pedestrian safety and crash safety. There's no room for real design. I wonder if they realize that if you could actually see out of your vehicle. You wouldn't need cameras and sensors everywhere. And you wouldn't have to worry so much about pedestrian safety if you could see people walking around the vehicle. I don't get it. I think things have gone so far that even if they wanted to change it. They wouldn't know how. I don't like any vehicle made after the 90's. Except the C8 Corvette. I might have to get over my anti-tech feelings to drive one. But if I had a choice between a C8 Corvette and a stripped down economy car from the 60's. I would most likely take the 60's car. They're just so much better in every way that matters to me
Wow! The1962 imperial taillamps are simply BOLD. I Love that design. It’s my personal favorite of those presented. It simply stands out from the pack. It’s no shrinking violet. It’s just “gaudy” enough to grab attention without crossing over into excess.
I couldn't imagine picking only 10 great taillights, lol. There's so many great ones. From the Tbird's huge sequential lights to the simple Camaro/Vette/Charger round lights. So many classic car butts looked really good.