Grand Personal

There’s a moment when Hugh Lewis and I are discussing his beautiful ’64 Pontiac and he says: “It’s a nice place to be.” We carry on talking about all the various aspects of the car and its story, but that phrase seems to stick. Why? Probably because Hugh has just summed up what Personal Luxury cars were all about.

That two-word description is one most of you will know. Ford coined the term ‘personal car’ for the Thunderbird’s launch in 1955. Quite who it was that tacked ‘luxury’ in there after ‘personal’ has been lost in time, but it may well have come directly from the launch of the ’58 Thunderbird, the bigger ‘square bird’ model that grew a back seat and quite a lot of extra glitz.

“IT LOOKS SO CLEAN TO MY EYES AND I LOVE THE DETAILS... IT MUST HAVE LOOKED INCREDIBLY MODERN IN 1964”

There had been two-door, four-seat cars with luxurious interiors and a hint of sportiness for many years, but