Wheelspin: A car's roof line can sometimes take your breath away

Let's talk roof lines. Everybody has their favorite car. But how about a favorite roof line?

It took a 50-year-old magazine bought at the Sunflower Swap Meet to remind me of mine. The magazine, Auto Show '61, was billed as "Your guide to the '61 cars." And there wasn't a single color photo in it.

But, oh, the black and white photos brought the thrill of exciting automotive styling back in a rush. And it struck me, thumbing through those pictures, that the apex of roof line styling had to have been achieved in the early 1960s.

It was the age of bubbletop roof lines. Take a look at the slim, gracefully sloping rear pillars on Chris Carlson's '60 Ventura in the story above. It was gorgeous and that roof graced virtually the entire line of GM hardtops.

Even the stodgy, somewhat weirdly designed Dodges and Plymouths of those years had beautifully contoured roof lines. (You just had to take a deep breath before you scanned down below the beltline of some of those cars.)

I've always been a sucker for the '62 bubbletop Impala. What a perfectly proportioned sweep of metal topped that hardtop body, which looked pretty darned good with the more formal roof line, too.

But for me, the ultimate roof line was that of the 1961 Ford Starliner. It had appeared the year before on the 1960 Galaxie hardtop, but almost went unnoticed as the '60 Ford's unconventional one-year styling exercise threw everybody a curve.

But on the completely redesigned '61 Galaxie body, the Starliner roof line swept back in perfect harmony with the rest of the car. I even liked the three medallions incorporated into the rear roof pillars.

Those bubbletop roofs not only looked great, but they provided rear vision unequaled by anything but a convertible with the top down. Cruising the streets with all the windows down in any of the bubbletops has to rate right up there with anybody who appreciates artful automotive design.

This story was originally published March 12, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Wheelspin: A car's roof line can sometimes take your breath away."