1960 Catalina Drawing

Back in the 1950s, Pontiac was perceived as the old man car brand. As the muscle car era began to emerge, General Motors pursued a path to rebranding the marque into a more athletic image. Throughout the course of the 1960s, Pontiac partnered with a variety of dealerships to sponsor factory race cars, as most manufacturers did. To pay homage to this early era, I made this 1960 Catalina drawing.

One of the first and most prominent dealerships to participate in the factory racing sponsorship program was Royal Pontiac in Royal Oak, Michigan (which happens to be just about 20 miles from where we live now).

Dealer-prepped factory race cars are most commonly remembered as the iconic muscle cars: GTOs, Mustangs, Camaros, and the like. What’s fascinating to me is that manufacturers also sponsored full size family cars like this 1960 Pontiac Catalina. It wasn’t uncommon to visit the drag strip and see a pair of 4,000+ pound luxo-barges blazing down the quarter mile.

Besides the GTO, one of the most famous Pontiacs built by Royal Bobcat was the 1960 Catalina. I like the 1960 Catalina in particular because of its unique shark nose-inspired grille area. This car shared the GM B-body platform with other full size GM cars including the Impala, Bel Air, Olds Super 88, and Buick Invicta. The car shares the bubble top greenhouse and wrap-around windshield with the commonly-recognized Impala.

This 1960 Catalina drawing features the Royal Pontiac lettering on the side, steel wheels mounted on drag slicks, and is fully outfitted with factory bumpers. I gave the car a little bit of a reverse-rake, which looks racecar-y to me.