| Pontiac Phantom General Motors Phantom | |
|---|---|
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| Overview | |
| Manufacturer | General Motors |
| Production | 1977 |
| Designer | Bill Mitchell Bill Davis |
| Body and chassis | |
| Class | Concept car |
| Powertrain | |
| Engine | none |
| Transmission | none |
| Chronology | |
| Predecessor | Pontiac Banshee |
| Successor | Trans Sport Concept |
ThePontiac Phantom (also called theGeneral Motors Phantom and given the internal code name "Madame X") is aconcept car created byGeneral Motors (GM) in 1977.[1][2]
The Phantom was designed byBill Mitchell and Bill Davis at Mitchell's "Studio X".[3] Mitchell was an accomplished designer for GM who had designed the 1938Cadillac Sixty Special, addedtailfins to the 1948 Cadillacs, and designed both the 1963 and 1968Chevrolet Corvettes.[1][4]
The Phantom was conceived by Mitchell as a retirement gift to himself and was also the last project for his Studio X, which had reopened to design the car.[3][5] The lines of the Phantom are evocative of the late-1930s Cadillacs that Mitchell had designed earlier in his career.[2]
The Phantom is afastback two-seatcoupe built on the chassis of aPontiac Grand Prix.[2][5] It only consists of afiberglass shell and does not have adrivetrain, rendering it inoperable.[1][2]
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The car was considered a "personal expression" of Mitchell's.[1] He described the Phantom as "the kind of car I'd like to drive".[4] Mitchell elaborated that "with theenergy crisis and other considerations, the glamour car would not be around for long. I wanted to leave a memory at General Motors of the kind of cars I love."[2] In the words ofJerry Hirshberg, who would later become head of design atNissan, Mitchell "was fighting old battles and withdrawing increasingly from a world that was being redefined byconsumerism,Naderism and an emergingconsciousness of the environment".[2]
The Phantom project was initially supported byPontiac, although they did not maintain support throughout development.[3] Mitchell sent the car to theMilford Proving Grounds with the goal of impressing GM's board of directors. However, when executive vice president of product planning and technical staffs Howard Kehrl saw the car, he ordered it to be removed from the proving grounds immediately.[2]
After designing the Phantom, Mitchell retired in 1977, holding the position of director of the General Motors Styling Division at the time.[1][2] The car is currently in the collection of theSloan Museum inFlint, Michigan.[2][3][5]
A division ofGeneral Motors, 1926–2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Located in theFlint Cultural Center inFlint, Michigan | ||||
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