Chuck Jordan’s rise to the top at the General Motors styling studios was propelled in part by his fabulous 1956 dream car design, the Buick Centurion.
Introduced at the 1956 General Motors Motorama, the Buick Centurion is a remarkable car from a number of angles: Its aggressive and dynamic styling and its striking acrylic plastic roof assembly, to name a few. But we think this is remarkable, too: The Centurion was the first major passenger car design by GM master stylist Charles M. Jordan (1927-2010).
After graduating from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering and joining GM in 1949, Jordan showcased his versatility on trucks and commercial vehicles including the 1955 Cameo pickup and the GMC L’Universelle. (See our feature on the L’Universelle dream van here.) There’s even a railroad passenger train in his portfolio: the General Motors Aerotrain. The Centurion, Jordan’s first passenger car commission at GM, is easily one of the most striking and original cars of the Motorama era.
The Centurion’s imaginative features include a fierce bird-of-prey front-end theme, batwing rear quarters, a clear acrylic roof panel, a back-up camera built into the rear deck, and a dramatic cockpit layout with lipstick red leather everywhere. While it’s been seldom seen over the years, under the hood is a souped-up 322 CID Buick V8 sporting four sidedraft Carter carbs and tuned to 325 hp, coupled to a Dynaflow automatic transmission.
On the strength of the Centurion and his other accomplishments, in 1957 Jordan was promoted to chief designer at the Cadillac studio—at the age of only 30. In 1967 he was sent to Europe to serve as design director of GM’s Opel division, where he led the design of the popular Manta and Opel GT. Returning to Detroit in 1970, he was placed in charge of design for Buick, Olds, and Cadillac, and in 1977 he became design director for all the GM car and truck divisions.
In 1986, Jordan became the fourth vice president of styling in GM history, following Harley Earl and and Bill Mitchell and replacing Irv Rybicki. Memorable cars of the Chuck Jordan era at GM include the Oldsmobile Aurora, the Cadillac STS, and the fourth-generation Camaro and Firebird of 1993-2002. The Centurion is still around in fine original condition, and it can be seen at the Sloan Museum in Flint, Michigan.
I was pleased to have had the opportunity to meet and chat with Mr. Jordan years ago at the Eyes on Design show. What a great gentleman! To me I will always think of the 1960 Cadillac as a vehicle he influenced as that was how he envisioned it looking, not the 59 with those huge fins. Love some of his early sketches when he was doing trucks, simply awesome!
I met Chuck when he had a table by me at a Toledo toy show. He was selling miniature diecast Ferrari’s. While chatting with him, I asked what he did for a living. He simply replied “I work at General Motors.”
A very humble man, I later learned that he was the head of styling for GM! Chuck was a collector of Ferrari models, and I would know he was at a toy show when someone would comment that there was an F40 Ferrari in the parking lot.
Great articles! One comment on font selection is a bit too hard to read on phone, perhaps a bit holder, size OK.
I bet it was like being in a fish bowl under that clear top!
This Buick Centurion dream car looks very similar to the renderings of the Cadillac Interceptor done by Ned Nickles at Cadillac’ s styling studio during WW II.