The 1954 Pontiac Bonneville Special concept car had a fiberglass body.
Pontiac unveiled the Bonneville Special at General Motors’ 1954 Motorama as the division’s first two-seat sports-car prototype. Its lightweight fiberglass body supported a dramatic grand-touring design, including a Plexiglas canopy, gull-wing window panels, recessed headlamps and prominent tailfins. Fiberglass was especially useful for a one-off show car because it allowed stylists to create complex shapes without the expense of conventional stamped-steel tooling.
The car was conceived under Harley Earl and hand-built by Homer C. LaGassey Jr. and Paul Gillan. Two examples were produced: one metallic bronze and one emerald green, so they could be displayed simultaneously at Motorama venues in New York and Los Angeles. The name “Bonneville” referred to Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats and was later adopted for Pontiac’s full-size performance model. Its fiberglass construction is sometimes confused with the steel bodies of ordinary production Pontiacs.