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Pontiac Strato-Streak
The Pontiac Strato-Streak was a show car built by Pontiac for the 1954 General Motors Motorama. Based on the Star Chief's underpinnings, it had a 124-inch wheelbase and was only 54.7 inches high. The Strato-Streak was designed as a fiberglass 4-door hardtop, with four swivel bucket seats for easier entry, no center "B" pillar and the 4-door sedan opened from the center outwards. The interior was done in beige leather and gold metallic nylon. It was initially finished in metallic green, but was repainted iridescent metallic red and renamed the Strato Streak II. The "Strato-Streak" name was later used on Pontiac's all-new small block overhead-valve V-8 engines from 1955–1957. The concept car was used to introduce the all-new Pontiac V8 engine and introduce a Space Race The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and was the largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008. General Motors operates manufacturing plants in eight countries. Its four core automobile brands are Chevrolet, Buick, GMC (automobile), GMC, and Cadillac. It also holds interests in Chinese brands Wuling Motors and Baojun as well as DMAX (engines), DMAX via joint ventures. Additionally, GM also owns the BrightDrop delivery vehicle manufacturer, GM Defense, a namesake Defense vehicles division which produces military vehicles for the United States government and military; the vehicle safety, security, and information services provider OnStar; the auto parts company ACDelco, a GM Financial, namesake financial lending service; and majority ownership in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac Bonneville Special
The Pontiac Bonneville Special is a Pontiac concept car unveiled at the General Motors Motorama in 1954, the first 2-seat sports car prototype the division had ever produced. Conceived by renowned designer Harley J. Earl and hand built by Homer C. LaGassey Jr. and Paul Gilland, the "Special" is a grand touring sport coupé that incorporated innovative styling like a Plexiglas canopy with gull-wing windows on a sleek fiberglass body. The name "Bonneville" was meant to convey high performance, inspired by a trip Earl had taken to Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to observe speed trials there. It was the first GM vehicle to carry the name, subsequently given to the Division's full-size performance car, the Bonneville, which carried it for 47 years. Two "Special" prototypes, one painted metallic bronze and one emerald green, were built in order to unveil them simultaneously at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf in New York and the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles in 1954. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac Club De Mer
The Pontiac Club de Mer was a purpose-built, experimental car that was built by Pontiac for the General Motors Motorama in 1956 to celebrate General Motors' commitment to futuristic design. The brainchild of GM engineer-designer, Harley Earl (Paul Gillian was also involved being the Pontiac Studio head at the time), the "de Mer", or French for "of the sea", was a two-door sport Roadster that incorporated innovative breakthrough styling like a sleek, low-profile body encasing a large powerplant, a design trend used widely in LSR (land speed record) trials at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah during the 1950s. One Club de Mer prototype was constructed and unveiled, along with another ¼-scale model, in Miami, Florida. As per GM's "kill order", it was reportedly scrapped in 1958. Only the model exists today, which was owned by Joseph Bortz of Highland Park, IL. until it was sold to noted car collector Ron Pratt at the 2007 Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction for $75,000. A running ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac (automobile)
Pontiac or formally the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors, was an American automobile brand owned, manufactured, and commercialized by General Motors. Introduced as a companion make for GM's more expensive line of Oakland automobiles, Pontiac overtook Oakland in popularity and supplanted its parent brand entirely by 1933. Sold in the United States, Canada, and Mexico by GM, in the hierarchy of GM's five divisions, it was slotted above Chevrolet, but below Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. Starting with the 1959 models, marketing was focused on selling the lifestyle that the car's ownership promised rather than the car itself. By emphasizing its "Wide Track" design, it billed itself as the "performance" division of General Motors, which "built excitement." Facing financial problems and restructuring efforts, GM announced in 2008 that it would follow the same path with Pontiac as it had with Oldsmobile in 2004. It would discontinue manufacturing and marketing vehicles und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac Star Chief
The Pontiac Star Chief is an automobile model which was manufactured by Pontiac between 1954 and 1966. It was Pontiac's top trim package on the Pontiac Chieftain, with later generations built on longer wheelbases, and serving as the foundation platform for the Pontiac Bonneville. The car was easily identified by its chrome star trim along its sides, a feature all Star Chiefs were equipped with. __TOC__ First generation (1954) Between 1954 and 1957, the Star Chief was Pontiac's prestige model and was based on the Pontiac Chieftain. In 1954, Pontiac also introduced air conditioning with all the components under the hood, a first for the price range. Seat belts were added as options in 1956. The Star Chief was available in Deluxe and pricier Custom trim, with the top trim level hardtop called the Catalina. Prior to the introduction of the Star Chief, all Pontiacs had shared the modest wheelbase of the Chevrolet since the beginning of Pontiac. The introduction of this new premier ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardtop
A hardtop is a rigid form of automobile roof, which for modern cars is typically constructed from metal. A hardtop roof can be either fixed (i.e. not removable), detachable for separate storing or retractable within the vehicle itself. The '' pillarless hardtop'' (often referred to as simply "hardtop") is a body style of cars without a B-pillar, which are often styled to give the appearance of a convertible design. Pillarless hardtops The pillarless hardtop (abbreviated as "hardtop") is a post-World War II car body designed with no center or B-pillar styled to resemble a convertible. If window frames are present, they are designed to retract with the glass when lowered. This creates an impression of uninterrupted glass along the side of the car. Although having a rigid metal roof, the stylists sometimes make the "hardtop" cars appear to be like a convertible with its top up. Even the smaller automakers like Packard introduced two door hardtops in 1952 "as a response t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swivel Seat
A swivel, spinny, or revolving chair is a chair with a single central leg that allows the seat to rotate 360 degrees to the left or right. A concept of a rotating chair with swivel castors was illustrated by the Nuremberg patrician Martin Löffelholz von Kolberg in his 1505 technological illuminated manuscript, the so-called Codex Löffelholz, on folio 10r. It is purported that Thomas Jefferson drafted the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 while sitting on a swivel chair of his own design. Types and examples Swivel chairs may have wheels on the base allowing the user to move the chair around their work area without getting up. This type is common in modern offices and are often also referred to as office chairs. Office swivel chairs, like computer chairs, usually incorporate a gas lift to adjust the height of the seat, but not usually large (e.g. recliner) swiveling armchairs. A draughtsman's chair is a swivel chair without wheels that is usually taller th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bucket Seat
A bucket seat is a car seat contoured to hold one person, distinct from a flat bench seat designed to fit multiple people. In its simplest form it is a rounded seat for one person with high sides, but may have curved sides that partially enclose and support the body in high-performance automobiles. Before the World War II, the term ''Kübelsitzwagen'' (meaning ''bucket-seat car'') became popular in Germany, for light open-topped, cross-country and military vehicles without doors, because these were typically equipped with bucket seats, to help keep occupants on board, in an era before the adoption of seat belts. This body style had first been developed by in 1923. They are typically standard in front in fast cars to keep drivers and other passengers in place when turning at speed. Rear "bucket seats" are typically hybrids of bench and true bucket seats, being contoured generally like the latter but fixed in place, even when divided by a center console, and thus lacking a free- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
B Pillar
The pillars on a car with permanent roof body style (such as four-door sedans) are the vertical or nearly vertical supports of its window area or greenhouse—designated respectively as the ''A, B, C'' and (in larger cars such as 4-door station wagons and sport utility vehicles) ''D-pillar,'' moving from front to rear, in profile view. Nomenclature Car pillars are components that support the structure of an enclosed automobile body. This is similar to that of a house with pillars supporting the roof over the floor. Car pillars are designed to stand in near vertical or inclined positions to support the roof. The consistent alphabetical designation of a car's pillars provides a common reference for design discussion and critical communication. This is used by insurance companies to identify damaged components and rescue teams employ pillar nomenclature to facilitate communication when cutting wrecked vehicles, as when using the jaws of life. The A-pillars on each side of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small Block
The Chevrolet small-block engine is a series of gasoline-powered, V-8 automobile engines, produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors between 1954 and 2003, using the same basic engine block. Referred to as a "small-block" for its size relative to the physically much larger Chevrolet big-block engines, the small block family spanned from to in displacement. Engineer Ed Cole is credited with leading the design for this engine. The engine block and cylinder heads were cast at Saginaw Metal Casting Operations in Saginaw, Michigan. Generation I and Generation II LT engines are distinct from subsequent LS-based small-block engines. The Generation II engine is largely an improved version of the Generation I, having many interchangeable parts and dimensions. Later generation engines have only the rod bearings, transmission-to-block bolt pattern and bore spacing in common with the Generation I and II engines. Production of the original small-block began in late 1954 for t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac V8 Engine
The Pontiac V8 engine is a family of overhead valve 90° V8 engines manufactured by the Pontiac Division of General Motors Corporation between 1955 and 1981. The engines feature a cast-iron block and head and two valves per cylinder. Engine block and cylinder heads were cast at Saginaw Metal Casting Operations then assembled at Tonawanda Engine before delivery to Pontiac Assembly for installation. Initially marketed as a , it went on to be manufactured in displacements between and in carburated, fuel injected, and turbocharged versions. In the 1960s the popular version, which had helped establish the Pontiac GTO as a premier muscle car, was cut in half to produce an unusual, high-torque inline four economy engine, the Trophy 4. Unusual for a major automaker, Pontiac did not have the customary "small-block" and "big-block" engine families common to other GM divisions, Ford, and Chrysler. Effectively, Pontiac's V8s were all small blocks, sharing the same connecting rod le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, and became part of the symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic space probes to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon. Public interest in space travel originated in the 1951 publication of a Soviet youth magazine and was promptly picked up by US magazines. The competition began on July 30, 1955 when the United States announced its intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year. Four days later, the Soviet Union responded by decl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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