Today, nearly all cars feature flexible, body-color bumper systems. The Endura nose on the 1968 Pontiac GTO was the first, and here’s how it was developed.
This may be a little surprising, but in the General Motors design studios the original motivation behind the Endura bumper was not improved impact resistance. Rather, stylists were intrigued by the ability to make the bumper and body the same color, empowering them to create more integrated designs. According to Pontiac stylist Bill Porter, GM veteran Warren Fitzgerald brought the bumper material, developed by GM’s Inland division, to Porter and crew at the Pontiac advanced design studio.
The Inland divisions’s roots were in the Dayton Wright Airplane Company, co-founded by GM research boss Charles F. Kettering and Orville Wright. Acquired by GM in 1919, then spun off and renamed the Inland Manufacturing Company, the company was reacquired by GM in 1936. At one point Inland employed more than 8,000 people, producing steering wheels for GM and countless other products. Based in Dayton, Ohio, Inland was the automaker’s specialist division in the development of rubber and plastic products.
By 1964 a resilient plastic bumper material, a high-density, closed-cell polyurethane that Inland originally called Indura, was ready to pass forward to Pontiac, where it was eventually renamed Endura. To produce the front bumper for the 1968 GTO, a .051-in thick (16 gauge) steel stamping that closely conformed to the shape of the finished piece was fixed precisely in an injection mold. When the microcellular plastic cured, a skin or rind was formed on the part’s exterior to which paint could adhere—and it was said the paint was actually the most difficult part of all.
Pontiac spokesman Paul Richards
While the process and the product would prove to be less than perfect, the Endura bumper was the sensation of the year. Pontiac TV commercials and print ads showed the color-coordinated nose surviving direct blows from crowbars, tire irons, baseball bats, and sledgehammers. When Motor Trend named the ’68 GTO its Car of the Year, a second Special Achievement Award was minted for the Endura bumper.
In December of 1967, Pontiac announced Regular Production Option RPO 674, known as the “Endura delete option,” with a $26.33 credit. Here, a LeMans chrome front bumper, exposed headlamps, and hardware were substituted for the Endura nose. This allowed customers to choose additional colors not included in the 16 supported by the Endura manufacturing process. In GTO lore, it’s been said the delete option was also triggered by the known fit and finish problems with the painted nose, but that has never been confirmed.
That was then and this is now, where flexible, body-color bumper covers (with separate bumpers behind) are commonplace in passenger cars and SUVs. Today’s technology includes a wide variety of plastic materials beyond polyurethane, often proprietary, and sometimes reinforced with fiberglass or carbon fiber. It all began with the Endura nose on the 1968 Pontiac GTO.
When Pontiac ran the Endura ads, a mother wrote them saying her child had taken a hammer to the family car so Pontiac was on the hook to pay for the damage. They didn’t.
Simple, concise & well written article. You hit the important points perfectly. One question; if you know, why was it only brought to Pontiac at first?
I don’t know this but via simple deduction, the unit cost per car would be a challenge for Chevrolet while Buick and Cadillac wouldn’t want it. It’s said Mitchell didn’t care much for it, as chrome was his favorite color.
Yeah, Chevy, maybe Olds, were the only two other possible divisions I could see using it.
I must say that it’s pretty impressive.
Does anyone know why the rear bumper wasn’t also made of Endura?
Cost, possibly? Also, the aesthetic benefit of changing the rear bumper could be deemed to be less. Your question made me look up the 1966 Monkeemobile, which has a color-coded rear section to match the front.