Economy Cars in 1960s

The 1960's saw the American automobile industry consolidating into the Big Three: (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) and American Motors. These firms not only dominated the domestic market with the sales of the 1960s cars, but the global market as well. In 1960 American companies built 93 percent of the autos sold in the United States and 48 percent of world sales .
In the mid 1950s, however,led by Volkswagen and soon followed by Fiat, Renault, Datsun (Nissan), and Hillman, imports began to nibble their way into the rich American market. The growing presence of imports disturbed Detroit, and the Big Three responded with their own small 1960s cars. GM produced the Corvair, Ford the Falcon, and Chrysler the Valiant.
GM introduced three new smaller cars in the U.S. as 1961 models: the Buick Special, Oldsmobile F-85 and Pontiac Tempest.
Oldsmobile F-85 was a compact sedan, coupe and station wagon powered which had a V8 engine from 1961 to 1963. In 1964 the F-85 was upgraded to an intermediate sized car. The Cutlass was initially the top model of the F-85 line but became a separate model by 1964 with the F-85 nameplate continued only on the lowest priced models through the 1972 model year. Subsequently, all Oldsmobile intermediate 1960s cars were Cutlasses.