An Interesting Question for Annual Builders & Collectors

[StevenGuthmiller]

I was recently doing a paint stripping & parts inventory on an AMT 1963 Pontiac Bonneville hard top for an upcoming project.

Upon inspection I found that the chassis was supposed to have separate lower A-arms for the front suspension that were missing.

I remembered a recently acquired 1962 Bonneville hardtop kit having these same parts & assumed that a pair of '62 Bonneville convertible built ups that I had should also have them to swipe for the '63.

To my surprise, neither of the convertible kits had the same chassis arrangement as the '62 & '63 hard top kits that I have.

I would assume that the '62 Bonneville hard top & convertible kits would be exactly the same kit except for the obvious parts.

Why did the convertible use a different chassis than the hard top?

 

There is a happy ending to this story however.

The '62 Bonneville hard top kit has 2 sets of A-arms included in the kit.

One set white plastic & the other chrome.

So, at least I'll have a set for my '63.

But I was very curious as to why the convertible & hard top kits would have used different chassis in '62.......& possibly '63.

I don't have a '63 convertible, so I'm not sure on that one.

Any body else notice this?

 

Steve

[Snake45]

Well, I know that the AMT '63-'67 Corvettes had many different parts (though not the chassis) between the coupe and the roadster--wheels, engine parts, etc. And IIRC, one of them had the seats molded into the interior tub, and one had them separate. (I think all recent reissues of the '63 have the seats molded in, coupe or roadster.)

The original AMT '66 Mustang fastback and coupe/convertible had quite a few different parts, too, where they could have gotten by with one common set for both.

[StevenGuthmiller]

Just seemed a little odd to me.

Usually these annuals from the early 60s shared all of the same parts except the top boot & body between the hard tops & convertibles.

Especially the full sized cars.

As we all know, they even shared the same interior tub generally.

Why they would have switched out the chassis & not the interior tub is a mystery to me.

I guess my question is, could it have been a "mid year" thing?

Getting the tooling ready for the '63 models.

Seems unlikely, but I thought that there must be some sort of explanation.

 

Steve

[Tom Geiger]

In real life, convertibles can have beefed up chassis to support the missing roof.  I don't have these kits so I cannot really comment.

[StevenGuthmiller]

In real life, convertibles can have beefed up chassis to support the missing roof.  I don't have these kits so I cannot really comment.

The 2 chassis look pretty much exactly the same except for the front A-arms, so I don't think it had anything to do with a beefed up frame on the convertible.

Besides, I doubt that AMT would go that far with a chassis difference in '62 when they didn't seem to be worried about the interior differences.

 

The frame painted black is from the '62 Bonneville convertible kit & the white one with the separate A-arms is from the '62 Bonneville hard top kit.

 

Steve

 

[gtx6970]

The newest ones I have are the  62's ( a Buick and a Bonneville.,,, ) Both are convertibles and both have the molded in lower A arms ). If that's what you wan to call them.

 

Never went looking for the hardtop versions,,,so I got nuttin as far as differences

[Mark]

I found this out too just the other day, and posted it on another forum.  I hadn't paid attention to it in the past.  Every so often, there are differences like that.  The '62 Galaxie convertible kit has the front bumper and grille as two pieces, while the hardtop has them as a single unit.  The '62 Buick convertible has dated bumpers ("1962" in the license plate area) while the hardtop parts are blank, even in the original annual kit. 

Sometimes the custom parts differ in small ways too.  There are the (then) $2 hardtop kits which had a bunch more custom parts than the $1.49 convertibles.  I'm not talking about those; the hardtop in those instances usually have the same, more basic items that are in the convertible, and then have a bunch of stuff over and above that.  But sometimes things like the custom wheels differed between hardtop and convertible versions of the same kit.

[Exotics_Builder]

Interesting.  I have a 63 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible unbuilt in the stash and it does have separate lower front suspension A-frames.  As does the 64 Bonneville Hardtop and convertible (which I don't have).

By the 1965 models, they are back to the molded in chassis parts.  1961 and 1962 Pontiacs had the molded in as well.

Also interesting is the 65 Impala had molded in front but separate rear and partial molded in exhaust