The all-new 1967 Cadillac Eldorado (CC here) was GM’s proud new personal luxury coupe and the most expensive car of its kind. The artist formerly known as The Standard of the World dazzled Americans with its knife-edge styling, front-wheel drive, 340-hp, seven-liter V8 and every available comfort and power amenity known to the fine engineers at GM.
The homely little R-10 (CC here) was an evolution of a line of very compact rear-engine Renault cars dating back some 20 years . It cost about one-fourth as much as the Eldorado, and its list of comfort amenities began and ended with excellent seats.
This admittedly specious comparison is mostly irrelevant, save for one vital aspect: Brakes and tires.And especially brakes, which obviously are among any car’s most critical and fundamental safety devices. The 1967 Eldorado came with standard drum brakes that were totally overwhelmed by the massive weight of its FWD powertrain. A Car & Driver test yielded a shocking 386-foot stop from 80 mph:
“Our Eldo test car carried drum brakes all around and managed to smoke and slew to a halt—sideways in the road—in a pitiful 386 feet…which forced one observer to ask where they [GM] found the moral justification for marketing a car that they knew was too heavy for its brakes. The question prompted a certain amount of hand-wringing and eye-rolling, whereupon they produced a heretofore unseen Eldo equipped with optional disc brakes. This car was much better—stopping in 312 feet with vastly improved directional stability—and was intended, according to Cadillac spokesmen, for the ‘performance-minded customer.’ This evidently means that the poor dolt who is not interested in ‘performance’ is also apparently not interested in being able to stop effectively…and the absence of disc brakes on all Eldorados is simply bad news, especially when the extra $100 added to the base price is relatively unimportant on an $8,000 car.”
Even 312 feet for the disc-brake version was poor performance for a new, top-tier car capable of 120 mph. But to release the Eldorado with drum brakes–a shocking failure that GM rectified in a few years–was another slice in GM’s self-inflicted, decades-long death by a thousand cuts. It’s not as though disc brakes were unknown to them; after all, the Corvette had had them since 1965 (also a few years too late).
Meanwhile, the R-10 came with four-wheel disc brakes standard. It could stop cleanly from 70 mph in 190 ft, and do so repeatedly. In addition, the R-10 was shod with Michelin X steel-belted radials, as had been most French cars for well over a decade. There’s no need to enumerate the vastly superior handling, safety and durability of radials, but Detroit didn’t begin to take them seriously for almost another decade.
Why no discs and radial tires, GM? Too expensive? Maybe a call to Renault would have been in order.
I remember when I had my new 1965 Barracuda. Radial tires were practically unheard of at the time except for people who read R&T or C&D. I found a set of Michelins that would fit the Barracuda; they were weird-looking, dark brown instead of black like tires are supposed to be, and the tread pattern made a whining sound that increased with vehicle speed. But they did contribute to the handling of the car – I thought it was a good tradeoff.
Oddly enough, it was my Dad who decided to replace the 2nd set of 4-ply Goodyears on the ’65 Dodge Custom 880 with Michelin X’s. This would be around 1968 or so. I remember him saying the ride and handling were vastly improved . . quieter as speed. He replaced those radials with Pirellis in 1971.
Both manufacturers started offering American car sizes . . . if I recall, B.F. Goodrich and Firestone started offering radials around 1969 or 1970 . . .
Also remember, GTOs offered nothing but drums for quite awhile.
I remember as a child (please recall that I wasn’t born until 1977) seeing posters in road side rest stops (my family traveled extensively by car) explaining the differences in bias ply vs radial tires and how radial tires had a little “buldge” at the bottom when properly inflated.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh… American makers, all they cared about with tires was that they were black, round, and cheap. As long as the tire was cheap, the first two didn’t matter.
It wasn’t just autommakers, my grandfather would find the cheapest tires imagineable as replacements, and never ever would he replace 4 tires at once, and it wasn’t a money issue, some older folks were tightwads about things like this. I mean those ads explaining radial tires weren’t aimed at car makers were they?
And if the “standard of the world” had stepped up and said; “Radial tires and disc breaks are now standard, your safety as our customer is too precious to us.”
Think how quickly the rest of the industry would have fallen into line. Many of those cheap ass customers who continued to buy radial tires might have actually seen the light. I’m sure many of them had the attitude of: “Well it is good enough for the OEM, so it’s good enough for me.”
Disc brakes were made standard for the Eldorado in 1968, and standard across the whole Cadillac line up by 1969, Cadillac also had 4 wheel disc brakes standard on the Eldorado by 1976. Oh the humanity!
I would still rather have an Eldorado with a tree growing through the hood than a concours quality Renault anything, can we get back to classic car stories and less hit jobs on 45 year old cars and their manufacturers?
Don’t buy it, Carmine. GM went bust and stiffed its creditors for billions because of marketing decisions like this. The whole attitude was, “Well, it’s good enough for average drivers who will never know the difference.”
Well, one by one, they did.
GM went from 60% market share to 15% today. Obviously did something wrong along the way.
Exactly, Canucknucklehead. I couldn’t have said it better.
Sorry I don’t buy that for one minute. I’m not getting into the stiffing the creditors arguement but the market share drop is pure BS. Case point. GM still builds just as many cars as does Ford,Toyota or VW. While the numbers are down did it ever occur to anybody that the demand for new cars is also down? And did it occur to anybody that there are way more models available today than there was 20-30 years ago. Riddle me this? How many Vegas and other H-Bodies did GM sell compared to whatever JapanInc model? How many J-Cars did GM sell compared to whatever JapanInc model? Name a GM model. If anything GMs crime was rebadging compared to your proof of evidence.How many trucks does GM sell now,compared to it’s top selling car models?Buying trends change. History proves it. If one was to believe most of the crap everyone believes that is the gospel than GM would have gone under many moons ago. In other words if GM is such a failure than why do they continue to run neck to neck with the top 3? What market share does Ford,Toyota or VW have here in the US? No matter what you say ain’t nobody ever again will aproach those numbers in market share.
It’s a legitimate point that goes to current attitudes towards corporations versus government and how the roles should fall.
GM, the world’s largest corporation at that time – with 50% market share to show for it – could have easily led the way with properly-sized radial tires and disc brakes but in 1967 it was the bean counters who ruled over the designers…not the other way around as it pretty much was before 1958.
These were the very same bean counters who ordered changes to the 1960 Corvair that rendered a good design dangerous (at least the issues were largely corrected by ’63-’64)…who ensured the Vega would be a total POS despite John DeLorean’s attempts to make it right…read Aaron Severson’s outstanding Vega history…
http://ateupwithmotor.com/compact-and-economy-cars/195-chevrolet-vega-cosworth.html
…and on and on.
As stated elsewhere on CC, I’m actually a GM fanboy who would vastly prefer a ’67 Eldo to any Renault. But I’m not blind and don’t consider this comparo a hit job at all.
Nice thing is, today we can change the spindles and get the good stuff. Back then, had GM made radials and discs standard on Cadillacs…say in 1962-63, the rest of the industry would have fallen in line much more quickly.
What really disappointed me about GM was their cars were, up to about 1967 or so, really honest, well engineered cars that were a good deal for the money. Canada was just chock a block with Chevy II’s and Pontiac Beaumont. The Belair was also popular and all shared Stovebolt power or the venerable 283 V-8. What a classic combo that was.
Then around 1968 they threw in the towel and let the accountants run the company. DeLorean describes it well in his book, in that the company was just so huge and labyrinth it had its own karmically bad inertia that was really hard to change. I know since I worked at a GM dealership and whoa Nellie was that an evil place to work.
To this day I don’t trust anything GM says since they have sold so much junk. I love the constant refrain, “Well, we know our last cars were crap, but this new one is just Jim-Dandy.” Note that the reliability ratings of the much lauded Cruz suck, as do the Malibu.
Some things never change and it’s amazing GM still finds suckers.
the R10 was way more fun to drive. The Caddy was a boat.
Hey, the owners manual of my ’72 Dodge Dart specifically said “do not use radial tires.” Probably because they figured the ride would be harsher without more modern “radial tuned” shocks.
It could also be because they knew that the potential higher cornering forces would exceed the capacity of other components. The wheels in particular but also the undersized ball joints. I tried running radial tires on my factory Scout II wheels and it was impossible to keep a wheel cover on the fronts. Got some rusty chrome modular wheels, put the same tires and same wheel covers on them and the front wheel covers didn’t go flying off when going around a corner any more.
Are you implying the front wheels themselves flexed? If not, what caused the wheelcovers to jump ship? That sounds like a dumb question but I’m curious.
Yes the front wheels were flexing. It is not uncommon with steel wheels. The whale 9C1 Caprices were notorious for it and throwing their wheel covers. The problem was said wheel covers were integral to the cooling of the front brakes. So when the police dept found it too expensive to keep replacing the wheel covers at ~$100 a pop say hello to brake fade and even shorter brake life.
That didn’t work out so well when Ford put under spec’d and poorly made Firestone and then set the PSI too low to mitigate their poor suspension design on the 1st and 2nd gen Explorers.
My understanding is that Firestone wanted the pressure set at 30 PSI while Ford wanted 22 PSI. They both compromised at 26, and we know how that ended.
I owned a ’94 Mazda Navajo (Explorer) that I bought new in Kingman, AZ. When reading through the owner’s manual, I was shocked to see the recommended tire pressure at 26 PSI. 26 PSI! Was that a misprint? Apparently not, for the door jamb sticker also had 26 PSI. Well I tried keeping the tires at an honest 26 PSI for a while and the vehicle just didn’t feel right. I felt like I was driving on 4 marshmallows with the parking brake left partially on. So after a couple of months, I ignored the recommendation and ran my tires at 30 PSI. Now it felt and handled “right”.
Fast forward to the year 2000. After the Ford Explosion debacle, Mazda sent me a modification to my owner’s manual to change the recommended tire pressure to 30 PSI – which I had been doing anyway. And I had gotten rid of the original Firestones anyway in ’98, not due to worn out tread but because of sidewall cracking from dry rot in the hot sun.
Yup I too found the 26psi recommended for my 95 Explorer to be too soft and mushy. I upped it 32psi, and have left it there for at least 10 years, it handles better and rides a bit better actually.
I also lowered mine an inch, which Ford should have done to begin with.
Having owned a Firestone shop, we saw lots of the separated FR480 series tires, which in fact was a fine tire. It just never belonged on an SUV like the Explorer, especially one with about a ton of unsprung, swing-axle weight. The fact was, almost all the tires we saw that were supposedly bad were worn out beyond safe tolerances anyway
I believe there was enough blame to go around to Ford, the vehicle owners and Firestone, that the point is moot now. Though I blame mostly the inept drivers at the time.
I’ve made sure that I’ve kept good tires on it, and as such, have spun it at highway speeds on dry pavement. Tire shop didn’t listen to my recommendation to put 32psi in the two new tires I bought before I went on a trip, and put 26psi in them. low rear tires makes the Explorer tail-happy, and I didn’t catch it before I left. We get down the road, someone cuts gf who was driving off, She yank the wheel hard left, and a perfect setup for a fishtail happens. tried to control it, but she didn’t have the knowledge to correct it quickly enough, it comes around twice at 65mph.
Worst thing was she soiled her pants fearing the reputation of the ‘instant rollover’ Explorer, knocked the dirt off the sidewalls and I drove to a gas station to check tire pressures.
My gut says Ford skated in the media on the whole 1st gen Explorer debacle…then again, as confessed above…I’m a GM guy.
GM’s behavior was par for the course. Even American “performance” cars were caricatures. The dominant trend of the time was to plop a big-block V8 into a mid-sized or compact platform and brag about its 0-60 times. Of less concern was the quality of braking and handling, which could be downright scary.
Auto execs could plausibly argue that American consumers wanted style and speed rather than balanced performance. For example, Pontiac’s GTO sold a whole lot better than its LeMans Sprint, with its overhead cam six. True, but Detroit also didn’t try very hard to sell a more European approach to performance.
What’s particularly odd is that tiny AMC would vainly try to follow in the Big Three’s footsteps rather than bridge American and European design sensibilities.
It was 1995….
I remember making the mistake of taking my fully laden ’70 Sport Fury with the 383 4bbl up to the mountains from Denver with four friends. We made it to the Eisenhower tunnel at 90mph, passing everyone, with the four core rad keeping the 383 nice and cool. Through the tunnel, it was fun going 90+ on the down hill I-70, something I’ve done numerous times in my parents old Taurus with nary a thought.
However, the curves got a bit tighter as the elevation decreased and the closer to Denver we got, while my brake pedal got harder and harder. Growing up in Kansas, brake fade was an abstract concept, something you only get when stopping on measuring tape like on Motor Week.
On one tyre squealing and deceptively sharp curve, I lost a wheel cover due to the heat build up. The brakes were no more, and I was in triple digits- this time not intentionally. Even with Chrysler’s superior handling, this 350hp bathtub on wheels was at its limits, and I didn’t much fancy a Mr Bill style flight over the edge. So I did what any sensible person would do, and made a B-line for the ‘Runaway Truck Ramp’ Or rather velcro gravel pit. They do work by the way- so much so, that the unbelted back seat passengers were flung into the front, and I was splatted against the windscreen.
Getting out, the wheels were so hot you could feel the heat when opening the door. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the car back out without a recovery truck, and while calling one, a friendly highway patrolman came over and helpfully informed me that the ramp was for trucks only. I was not in a position emotionally to respond with a witty reply or logical argument, and his insights into my poor character, assumed criminality, sexual preferences, inability to choose a reliable car, and the lack of common sense of my parents for not using birth control went largely unchallenged. However, at least I didn’t get a ticket- which would have been a certainty had I been my usual bolshy self. It really was a scene from SLC punk- five mohhawked punky kids in the countryside with a brown vinyl roofed Fury buried in the sand and gravel being berated and then strip searched in public by a redneck cop. (who was rather disappointed that we were straight edge and didn’t have anything he could send us down for.
Now, I was 18 at the time, and yes it was stupid. Since then, I wouldn’t exceed the speed limit going downhill- particularly in a 2.5 ton car with drum brakes. Plus, male pattern baldness has blessed me with the inability to grow hair styles that attract the attention and derision of the boys in blue.
Scary story.
Now that’s a tail worth repeating! Glad you were OK.
Downshifting didn’t help? I expected a large V8 to have gobs of engine braking.
You got no meaningful engine breaking with an automatic before lock-up torque converters came along.
Great story Brian. Those old cars are sure cool but they had some serious deficiencies. Especially in the braking department…
I dunno, my th-350 will lock the rear tires momentarily when downshifting at high speeds under braking. it’ll also hang you on the seat belts just coasting down in compression braking
> You got no meaningful engine breaking with an automatic before lock-up torque converters came along.
Not true at all, or else 727s are special in that regard. Also, in my experience, a lockup converter will disengage the lockup shortly after you take your foot off the gas, so it behaves the same as a non-lockup would.
Downshifting into second would have helped tremendously, and avoided the problem. That’s what you were supposed to do on long grades. But you needed to do it before going too fast.
If you’re already going faster than the max downshift speed, the tranny won’t downshift. Even if Brian had tried it at 90 or so, it wouldn’t have worked (depending on rear axle ratio).
I downshifted into second back in the day with my Dad’s ’71 Olds Custom Cruiser (455 4-bbl, THM 400) . . . but I also wasn’t going 90 . . . . I was doing 80! (I-80 westbound from Donner Summit).
Also, the HUGE CC had discs up front . . .
I was gonna say, my 77 will upshift at WOT into 3rd at around 80-85. I think max downshift is 75 into 2nd though.
Mom’s 92 LeSabre was absolutely worthless on grades with compression braking. I set the brakes glowing coming down Pikes Peak in it once, and I had it in 1st, and it would creep up to 40-45. My Explorer creeps up to 25 and stays there, and never once gives me brake trouble going up and down the peak the last 8 times I’ve done it.
That max-downshift speed probably saved a few driveline components over the years. I’ve carelessly shifted into “1″ when I intended to go into “2″. It was cool that the transmission eventually downshifted when it needed to on its own instead of blowing the engine, snapping u-joints, stripping gears, or causing the rear wheels to lock up & cause the dumb driver (me) to lose control.
The THM400s were kind of weird — I decided to nail it in my ex ’73
Bonneville (400-2bbl) on an entrance ramp right after it had shifted into second gear. I nailed it and then immediately dropped it into L1 since it didn’t downshift on its own. The car dropped into 1 but automatically shifted into 2 even after the shifter had been in “1″ a few moments.
I thought I read somewhere that a lot of Turbo 400s will eventually shift into “2″ at high enough RPMs even though the shifter is held in “1″. I cannot validate that fact though.
Yes overspeed forced up shift while still in the “1″ position is built into the TH400 and some other automatic trans.
A 727 will always downshift into 2nd gear. There is only an overspeed lockout when shifting into 1st gear.
would killing the engine help?
or that will messed up the tranny altogether, unlike merc auto tranny which has 2 pumps, one can actually tow start the car when running at 30 mph.
I was just talking about the gravel runaway ramps on I80/Donner Pass a few weeks ago with a CHP Diesel Bear. They are only used every 12-18 months now. Brake fires are much more common, representing ~50% of the calls for the Alta CalFire station.
Thankfully they just don’t make vehicles with brakes as weak and unreliable as they used to. Today having the Brembo red in your wheel wells gets you bonus points for any car with sporting aspirations.
I experienced brake fade once. In August 1970, in my avatar – my 1964 Impala SS convertible, going down one of San Francisco’s many hills, all of the sudden I couldn’t stop and when I did I wound up halfway through the intersection of Van Ness Avenue.
Minor that it was, I have never forgotten that incident and next time I was in the city, I was aware of my car’s limitations.
FWIW, our family mechanic decried the automakers for putting too-small 14″ wheels and inadequate tires on its cars back in the 1960′s.
PN would’ve liked to meet your family mechanic.
“Auto execs could plausibly argue that American consumers wanted style and speed rather than balanced performance.”
That logic is what helped kill the SVO Mustang. The consumer would rather pay a little less to get a GT with 2/3 of the overall package that the SVO offered.
Had Ford offered the SVO’s chassis with the GT’s infinitely superior 302 V8, maybe people would have paid for it. It’s hard to say that people wouldn’t pay for the superior brakes and suspension when they had to take the horrible turbocharged engine to get it.
To rebut both of you, there were few differences with the SVO vs. the GT Mustang chassis. The rear disc brakes was the major item, then the 16″ wheels, after that not much else was different. They both used Quadra-shock rear suspensions, and the front brakes were just as inadequate on the SVO as they were on the GT.
The V8 offered instant (and I mean INSTANT!) acceleration as opposed to the turbo 2.3, but once on boost, the old Lima motor performed rather well. It could not keep up to the pace the V8 set. There’s a lot to be said about easy torque.
There was an air of rarity about the SVO, but I truly believe if Ford had made more of them and priced them better, they would have sold better. IIRC, they were only available fully loaded, and for nearly the same money, you could get into a Turbo T-bird with similar performance and more cachet than a Mustang of any stripe. The $12K GT would smoke the SVO in most of the tasks that appealed to the buyer of a $12K GT.
The SVO had a narrower audience to be sure, but was being challenged by cheaper, faster competitors from within and without Ford. Witness the Turbo T-Birds, the GT Mustangs, the XR4Ti Merkurs. And that was the internal competition from the same company! Going up against the GM twins, the Chrysler twins (Daytona and Laser), assorted turbo Mitsubishis, Toyotas and Nissans…
It wasn’t going to end well for the SVO. I say that as one of the ‘true believers’ from back in the day…
Although the four-wheel discs were commendable, it probably took the R 10 all day to get up to 70 mph (113 kph). I test drove a 1971 R 10 when my older sister was in the market for her first new car. It was a major snooze fest. She ended up buying a 1971 Toyota Corolla. Imagine, the Corolla came with a radio, carpeting, and underhood lighting, all as standard equipment. I think it also had front disc brakes.
The lovely Natalie also had an R 10. Probably one of the reasons why I dumped her sorry ass.
That’s not the point, is it? We’re not comparing acceleration, but deceleration.
Which car would you rather be in if a tanker truck suddenly pulled out 200 feet ahead of you?
I stand corrected, debased, and utterly ashamed. As I constantly lectured the race car drivers that I crewed for, brakes are the analog of the accelerator. In my physics classes I learned that braking and acceleration were one and the same-the rate of change of speed. In the case of the R 10, it was super fast when you hit the brake pedal, not so much when you hit the accelerator.
In answer to your question, I would rather be in the semi tanker.
Even if the tanker was full of gasoline?
Better than empty.
“The lovely Natalie also had an R 10. Probably one of the reasons why I dumped her sorry ass.”
Whoa, whoa. After reading your stories I have quite a crush on the lovely Natalie, show some respect, man.
Hmm, if a tanker truck pulled out 200 feet in front of me, I’ll take the Eldorado! I mean…what if I was in the Simca and YOU were following me in a ’67 Eldorado?
Simca Sandwich!
The Eldo, if your going to go….go in style.
It depends . . Paul. If I had room to maneuver around – the Eldorado with a snap of the pedal and the 425 Caddy V-8 (’67) would’ve left the tanker back in last week. All subjective. If you DID have to stop, yes, the Renault.
Seriously, though: which car do people remember 45 years ago? The dumpy R-10 or a knife-edged, Bill Mitchell Eldorado?
Yes – drums on these cars (Riviera/Toronado/Eldorado) for ’67 was a lame-brained, cost-cutting stupid idea even for the time. Since these were premium cars at the time, discs should’ve been standard . . . either that or they should’ve had bus-sized drums! Hindsight . . .
Which car would you want to be in if the tanker was behind you?
Also when did VW put disks on the beetle? The choice for small import buyers where I lived was the Renault or the Beetle. Those who chose the Renault regretted it deeply, brakes or no brakes.
It’s a rhetorical question. It’s about braking distances, not passive safety.
Yes, VW was guilty, but to a somewhat lesser degree. It did start putting discs on the front of the Beetle 1500 in Europe in 1967, but withheld them from the US market, undoubtedly for penny-pinching reasons.
In the same 70-0 test as the R-10, the VW took 252 feet. But then we’re not talking about a very expensive luxury car capable of 120 mph, are we?
GM put front disc brakes on all Opel Rekords starting in 1965. It was just a family sedan with 4 and 6 cylinder engines, but it got disc brakes because that’s what was needed in the German market.
Triumph had introduced front disc brakes on inexpensive production cars in 1956. If a $2,000 TR3 could have disc brakes, why couldn’t cars that cost considerably more? People that lived in mountainous regions sure knew that what Detroit was selling was inadequate. GM held off on adopting disc brakes in the US because they thought they could get away with it and because every year they did they made $10 more on each of the millions of cars they sold. I find it funny when people defend this behavior. They’re like beaten wives that stand by their man.
One of Detroit’s objections to discs was that the brakes used by the likes of the TR3 were not beefy enough for large (3,500+ lb) American sedans. Of course, one could also say that was a disingenuous argument, since if GM or Ford had seriously wanted discs, there was no particular technical reason their suppliers couldn’t have obliged, as in fact they eventually did.
Disingenuous pretty much covers it. It makes sense that brakes on a 2,000 lb car weren’t sized for a car that weighed 75% more. That being said, it would have been interesting to put TR3 front brakes on a Chevy 210 and see if it did in fact not stop better and more times. I drove a ’71 Plymouth Scamp for a year or two and developed a driving style that didn’t depend on brakes as a result. Thanks to that experience, I was able to drive my 5-speed Audi from Radford to Blacksburg Virginia with complete master cylinder failure. Yaw was involved.
I would had done a more direct comparo with the Renault 16 who was introduced in 1965 (and made until 1980) and had won the European Car of the Year in ’65. The R-10 for 1967 beginned to be dated with some internal competition with the R4, then the R6 and R12 before its retirement in 1971.
Here a vintage French Renault 16 ad I saw on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yNYStP5kiU
It’s not really a comparison of these two highly dissimilar cars; just pointing out a difference in two specific aspects.
I know “Uncle” Tom McCahill was a big fan of early ’60s Imps, and found the fusey cars to be kinda watered down, which they were. But I’m sure I could smoke one of the older models on a road course, if only because of front discs and fresh Toyos.
First rule of HotRodding if it goes it must stop. By 67 most European cars had disc brakes as standard equipment even the lower powered ones had front discs. The likes of Cadillac were well below par never mind standard of the world.
Please note that PN said: “The artist formerly known as the Standard of the World”.
In 1975 my boss bought me a new company car – the first new car I ever had. Didn’t ask for my opinion sadly, so I ended up with a Morris Marina with drum brakes. I’d been driving discs for 7 or 8 years, wasn’t ready for the way the drums pulled to the left some mornings and to the right on other mornings. Always thought the British car industry deserved to go down the pan for making cars like that.
How many drivers out there remember driving cars with drums all around – that were WET!! (pull – squeal – fade and shudder). My avatar ’74 Courier had drums on all fours . . . it was like that.
My 59 Hillman pulls up straight and square drums all round properly setup they do work but it only weighs 1100kg
Remember? You mean from my drive in my truck yesterday?
Hey, I still have an all-drum car (not a daily driver), but that weighs only 1089kg, so…
I’m always a cruiser, so I’d normally take the more luxurious car, but in this case the too long overhangs, Linclone styling, lack of tailfins, and FWD(WTF!) have already lost me by the time I get to the (drum) brakes. But then I’m also a flatlander.
OTOH, I simply loathe the commie-mobile R-10. Disc brakes alone do not a good car make. An in case of the R-10, double minus points for stealing a basically sound design concept (Corvair) and butchering it with absurd proportions. When Porsche stole Tjaarda and Ledwinka’s design, he at least made it look good.
I think you’ll find rear engined Renaults predate the Corvair by many years
Ahem, I’m talking about the styling/design of the car, not the underpinnings. Rear engined Renault or not, R-10 is a Corvair clone, and that is coming from a French-car fan (Peugeot and Citroen though).
It seems the US manufacturers listened to US buyers too much. Even when I was a kid I heard that disc brakes were complicated and expensive. It was harder to change and adjust by a shade tree mechanic it seemed. GM listened………but it also played into their economy.
But being a Ford family (I was 12 in 1967) I knew power disc brakes were standard on the new Thunderbird. Ford got a lot of praise for their brakes back then.
I disagree. They listened to the bean counters.
Truth is, they rarely genuinely listened to their buyers. The “clinics” they used to run were a sham; just something they used to confirm their own prejudices. No effort was made to get in-depth feedback, because the process was too expensive. Detroit (especially its sales execs) were sure they knew best what buyers wanted, until the buyers stopped buying. And even that took 20 years for them to get the message.
When my older brother was returning from Vietnam in the fall of ’66, before his trip to Fort Sam Houston to finish up his ROTC hitch, he had my dad order a ’67 Galaxie 500 for him, and I recall he insisted that it have the optional disc brakes. I’m pretty sure Dad’s first car with disc brakes was the unlamented ’75 Monarch.
Disc brakes are far simpler than drums. There is no adjustment-it’s automatic. When my son cooked the brakes on his 1989 Olds, I found that the left front caliper had seized. Cost of repair: brake pads (front axle) $25.00; Raybestos disc $21.00; rebuilt caliper (with core) $12.00. Where the hell do repair shops get $400 to $700 for this crap?
Disc brakes are more expensive to make than drum brakes. That caliper you got for $12 is a reman unit while for $9 I can get a 100% new wheel cylinder for my IH. In the era of the vehicle we are talking about the price difference was even greater due to the economies of scale.
Paul, I believe that Tim is partially right. When we started to see disk brakes in numbers in the garage, the mechanics hated them, simply because they were used to working on drums. The early ones in GM stuff, especially Corvettes and later E bodies were six piston affairs which were prone to leaking. Exchange calipers were still a way off in the future and the mechanics hated rebuilding the calipers.
The later single piston calipers, although not as good at stopping, were much cheaper and in fact easier to work in than drums. However, it was the advent of exchange calipers that really made the difference. In my shop of ten mechanics, I could really only trust three or four to do caliper rebuilds because if one f-ed it up, we could be on the hook for a fortune.
Kevin, installing pads is 1.2 hours and rotors 1.0. Parts are marked up 100%, so your $20 rotor becomes $40, times two. The $25 pads become $50. At $100 an hour that is $220 in labour and $130 in parts, for a sub-total of $330. Add 7% for shop supplies and 12% for taxes and, presto, there is your $400, or more accurately $392.70.
Crazy labour times, bothfront rotors and new pads on my Citroen less than 1 hour without proper workshop facilities
Canuck: I understand that part about the early ones. But here’s the thing: Detroit is really good at wringing out the costs in things. If they’d started putting discs on Cadillacs back in about 1962 or so, they would have invented single-caliper discs that much sooner.
The same thing happened with just about every new technology that Detroit dragged its feet on: once they were forced to by various externalities, within a few years they figured out how to build them as cheap (or cheaper) than before. They were procrastinators; it was easier to put on opera windows and padded vinyl tops than to buckle down to building a cheap but effective disc brakes.
And I agree with Bryce: I’ve done the pads (and rotors) on our Forester several times, and it’s incredibly quick and easy: 45 minutes or less. How can you say 1.0 hour to install a rotor? With the pads off, it takes 5 effing minutes. No wonder I avoid shops like the plague.
Guys, shops charge right out of the Operation Labor Guide, which lists a standard rate for any job or operation. Pads were 1.2 on everything Chrysler and rotors another 1.0. When you actually time a car from the time it gets put in the bay, repaired, and road tested, this job will take two hours at least. It’s not cheap and that’s why you are way better off doing your brakes yourself or knowing someone who’ll wrench out of his house for cheap.
It’s worth noting that the brake shortcomings Detroit suffered had to do with more than just brakes. Other factors: the switch from 15- and 16-inch wheels to 14- and even 13-inch in pursuit of a lower ride height; the broad adoption of wheelcovers designed with little or no thought of brake cooling; and the switch from four- and six-ply tires to two-ply in the interests of lower cost and a softer ride. (In the early and mid-sixties, a lot of American cars were very close to the rated load limits of their tires even at curb weight, which does nothing good for stopping power.) That coincided with dramatic increases in engine power and the new availability of roads good enough to use it.
Before about 1949, one could argue that American brakes were reasonably adequate. The cars weren’t as heavy, wheels were bigger, traffic was generally lighter, and even if you had a car that could comfortably sustain speeds of 70+ mph, there weren’t necessarily a lot of opportunities to do it. Brakes were still marginal for mountain conditions or sustained high speed use, but that wasn’t typical, so Detroit figured that was what the optional heavy-duty linings were for. The problem was that that mentality persisted well past the point where its assumptions were no longer particularly valid.
Quite agree. American cars up to the early fifties were built with adequate attention to all of their mechanical/engineering aspects, and were well regarded around the world. All that changed in the mid fifties, when the industry decided to chase flash over substance. It was the essence of what made Detroit eventually so vulnerable.
It was the Corvette and, to a much lesser extent, the Imperial mentioned below that shaped early public pinion regarding disc brakes. They heard horror stories.
And Americans can be a conservative lot! We just don’t like change too fast. Remember when the 86 Mustang was switching to fuel injection the next year? It was unAmerican!. You’d think they were taking out the apples from an apple pie LOL.
But we got over it quickly. Dad bought a new LTD in 1968 with PDB. Nowadays a car with drum rear brakes is frowned upon. Even if it doesn’t matter on the rear end.
Just got a front brake job done on my 02 Deville at a Chevy dealer. The brake job, rotors, state inspection, emission, and oil and filter change came to $ 360.00. I don’t think I was overcharged, but still very expensive.
One thing about independent garages. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the first couple repairs seem reasonable and timely. After they get to know you a while, it takes longer to get an appointment, higher charges, and sometimes I’ve gotten the impression the guy thinks he’s doing you a favor by fixing the car. This has happened repeatedly to me in the past.
That’s why I’ve gone to a dealer for my “modern” 02. They fix the car, albeit at high cost, and I’ve really never felt cheated. When I had my 93 Deville, I used an repair garage to repair a water pump, with a lifetime warranty. The guy must have put in some cheap rebuild, so it needed replaced twice in a couple of years. The part was only guaranteed, labor was not included. So each “free” repair job cost me several hundred dollars.
At least the dealer uses quality parts, not some of the junk sold at the chains. Years ago, I bought a master cylinder for a 79 Eldo. Took it back due to cracks and leaks by the line connections. The replacement I got looked OK, but going down a hill a few days later, the pedal went to the floor. Fortunately, I was going slow, shifted down, and no accident occured. I took the junk back to the chain, and bought a quality replacement at the dealer. No further problem.
With old cars, it’s a must to be capable of doing minor repair jobs. Otherwise, they’re too costly to own.
I thought I was the only one who noticed this phenomenon with independent garages. With a few I’ve patronized, you’re King Customer when you first go there. Then, with familiarity comes contempt, or at least indifference. Trying to minimize this, I move my business around, sometimes even using the dealer when the job only requires the skills of a tree sloth.
That statement is only true in the day . . . if it applied to the EXTERNAL expanding discs of the ’49-’54 Chrysler Crown Imperial. Vasty superior brakes for it’s time . . . but . . . very expensive to produce, sell and maintain. Paul’s assessment is right . . . . it was the bean counters. If you wanted the better stopping power and handling to match the (usual) high standard of acceleration, you had to pay extra for it.
The Good Year Blue Streaks and Firestone 500′s back in the ’60s were good tires that performed well . . . but were pricey . . . and optional on even the more expensive, fastest American cars offered at the time . .
Check-out Y-tube Video Nurburgring Crashes 1970. There you will see have easy to get out of control is was in Rear Engine Autos. A little over correction and over you go. 1970s fashions of crowd is cool also – thanks billchrest
Wow! A DS I can agree with 100%
I think GM felt people really didn’t care at that time for a car like this.
The 67 SS 396 Chevelle came with front Discs automatically. Why wouldn’t “The Standard Of The World” have them?
Heck, in a car that was advanced as the Eldo why wouldn’t four wheel Discs be standard?
(As a side note, Outside of the 63,000 SS 396 cars built only around 5,000 standard Chevelle/Malibus took the $79 Disc option.)
FYI, I used to have a black ’69 Caprice coupe that originally had the 396 engine and manual drum brakes!!
I can believe it. GM beancounters and Chevy marketing guys keeping things on the cheap to advertise an attractive sticker price. I believe a 3-speed column shift manual was still standard for the Caprice in ’69 as well.
Fast forward to 1970′s Monte Carlo and P/S, P/B, tinted glass was still optional as was Powerglide and THM!
I know it’s common usage, but I always get a funny bump from “manual brakes”. Manual means done with the hands, from Latin manus. It would be very tough to stop that Caprice with your hands.
Definitely not common usage here, but then again, column shifters were called `hand gears’ as opposed to `floor gears’.
Chrysler had the Plymouth Road Runner; perhaps Chevrolet could have had the Caprice Fred Flintstone Edition?
Of course all the possible combinations and permutations these cars could be ordered in was ultimately one of GM’s major mistakes and led it its belly-uppedness. It simply costs too much to factory build to order, which is exactly what they were doing. The dealers ordered their stock as they saw fit so there were a bewildering number of parts and and operations added into the cost of the car, hence the crappy parts to save money. By this point, the Japanese were making like two models of each car with no options. Much cheaper and allows more quality to into the car.
I totally agree with you from a corporate perspective — I’m glad GM did it the way it did it though — that’s probably the most intriguing thing about these old cars & why I so enjoy pursuing them
+1. I’m patiently waiting for the day when manufacturing will become advanced enough to offer full option sheets again. I mean, why is it that if you want rear power windows, you must also buy the crappy but expensive stereo, roof rails, alloy wheels, and climate control(!)?
That had to be a scary ride. What happened to it?
(And the X-11? Yes, I want your X body)
My friend (possibly ex-friend!) wanted it & since I was using his land to store my cars…I gave it to him. It’s kind of a waste because it will just sit there until it’s stolen and/or hauled off for scrap. it was an oddball car because it had all sorts of exterior options like the hidden headlights, vinyl roof & lamp monitors…but was sparsely optioned inside.
It came black with dark blue vinyl bench seat interior, 396/THM400, power steering, & stereo tape player (the radio is missing), A/C, & that’s about it.
Meet me in Alabama & the X-11 is yours for $50 (what I paid for it!)
Next time I go back down there, I will take pics of all the cars & either link to them here or write something up on them — that is….if any of them are left!
Duh. I was reading this comment and thinking, wow, never knew they made a Citation with hideaways! Then I saw “396″…you are talking about the Impala, not the X-11. But there has to be a drag racer who’s put a Rat in a Citation!
My post had a bit of ADD going on there, didn’t it? Search “push me pull me Citation” on Google Videos for the most incredible Citation ever!
Imagine a ’59 Pontiac Safari 9-passenger wagon with manual steering and brakes!! My parents had one.
I dont believe disc brakes are standard on a 67 396 Chevelle.
You may be right, I’ve found conflicting info. I can’t believe that only 5,000 cars out of almost 400,000 total had Discs. There was a 4 piston 11″ Disc option at some point in 66 and 67. Maybe that was the 5k?
That’s what I think (about the 5k). The SS 396 came std. w/drums.
GM was certainly behind the curve on disc brakes. Studebaker was offering them in the early 60s, though as optional equipment. Ford seemed to be the leader in disc brake technology in the U.S., and discs were getting to be fairly common in Fords by 1967.
I believe that Ford was also the leader in bringing radial tires to the U.S. I remember that my father’s 1970 Continental Mark III sported Michelin X radials, and I believe that they were standard equipment.
My own first experience was in about 1981 when I bought a used set (I was in college) for my 71 Scamp. Purchased, mounted and balanced for $60 for the entire set. By this time, the tread noise had been vanquished. The car’s ride quality was hugely improved. However, with the tires’ better adhesion, the suspension system was taxed a lot more than before. The brakes, however, remained the awful 9 inch drums that were probably not that much better than the ones on the Eldo.
Close. I think it was the inaugural 1969 Continental Mk III that was the first domestic auto to come standard with radial tires. But it is true that Ford was the leader on getting radials on their cars before GM or Chrysler.
As to brakes and handling, this is where the myth of the ‘good ‘ole days’ of the sixties falls flat. Those sixties’ performance cars might have been relatively cheap in comparison to today’s cars, but there was a reason for it.
My Dad’s ’65 Thunderbird came with standard front disc brakes and my ’72 Maverick with Luxury Decor Option (LDO) came with standard radial tires (the infamous Firestone 500s which gave me no trouble at all and ran to 44K at which point the tread was OK but the sidewalls were deteriorating from CA smog).
AMC was a fairly early adopter of radial tires. My parents’ ’71 Javelin and ’72 Ambassador both came with radials (and front discs).
Also Ford/Lincoln’s technology with early ABS…….it was called Sure-Track on Mark IIIs and Thunderbirds. I think it was also available on Imperials.
Yes, Ford had the Kelsey-Hayes Sure-Track system, which became standard on the Mark III and was optional for a while on the T-Bird.
The Imperial had a different system, made by Bendix. Unlike the Kelsey-Hayes system, it worked on all four wheels, which I think may have been a first. However, it was also a lot more expensive ($344, if memory serves) and take-up wasn’t great.
GM also had a rear ABS that became optional on second-generation Toronados and Eldorados.
FWIW, I recall once reading that the ’76 Valiant, Dart & derivatives were the last American cars to come with drum brakes on all four wheels. Front discs were optional — mandatory with V8 engines. I don’t know if there were any imports or trucks available with front drums after that point.
It’s my impression that front drums went from being uncommon in American cars (found mainly in luxury or sports models) to common (found in virtually everything) over the course of just a couple of years around the beginning of the ’70s. I’m guessing that by ’76, very few Valiants/Darts were being built with all drums. My mother had a ’74 Pinto with front discs; I remember that the brake pedal had a “disc brakes” logo on it.
Hey now, I still buy used tires and I’m way out of college! There’s a part of me that just hates to spend so much money on a consumable item. I’ve found some great sets of lightly used tires on Craigslist or at junk yards for small money. What I avoid at all costs are the shops that sell used up crap for $20 a tire to people who can’t afford a new set. Dangerous.
My ’74 Dart has the same drums, I actually think they’re a big step up from the ones on my ’68 F100.
When I was 18 I lusted after a Renault Gordini.
+1,
but I was slightly olde.
It may still be possible! http://www.eurocarblog.com/tag/gordini
I like the Cadillac but would rather have a Thunderbird of that year or better yet the Mark III which would come out in two years. The Cadillac is quite plain compared to the Mark III.
When I was 19, I drove a ’63 Corvair 110 Monza from Denver to LA. Coming down out the mountains on I-5(?- it was a long time ago), pretty much the only thing that saved my butt was the fact that it was a 4-speed, and I could engine brake- the brakes had faded less than halfway down. Having mostly driven Fiat 124s up to that point hadn’t prepared me for babying drum brakes- even ones that weren’t nearly as underpowered as the Caddy’s.
My 1964 Corvair 110 had the best brakes of any car I had had at the time. Just sayin. But I wasn’t doing mountain passes at the time.
When I helped my friend change the pads on his Fiat 124 Spyder, I noticed that the discs and calipers were identical to my 1600-pound Fiat 128. Loved thar car.
The brakes were great- for the first couple miles down. Having the car loaded with my crap and driving for 20+ hours straight prolly didn’t help things any, either. The drums just didn’t get a chance to cool off between uses. The 124 Spider, on the other hand, was only about 2200 pounds, and you really had to abuse the disks. to even get them to think about overheating.
At different times I had a 1964 Corvair Spyder and a 1964 Pontiac Tempest
(4 speed and HO326). From what I now understand they had the same (9″?) drum brakes. (as did the GTO version) Never had any breaking issues with the Corvair but once trying to stop the Tempest from about 90mph the brakes faded out by the time I had slowed to 60, scarey!
I Was an 8 year old guest going to see OLIVER,When I first heard FM Stereo in the back seat of an ELDorado in 67, I Was in Love With Cars And Music All Over Again. This same kid had long blonde hair, played the guitar and Mon Had a Toronado. Up a Steep drive- they needed FWD – the only modern House in town. Coolest kid in town. Rat Packer indeed.
Under Alfred Sloan’s leadership the emphasis was placed on marketing and styling and not engineering–I seem to recall reading that Sloan believed in no more engineering than necessary–as long as the performance of GM cars were comparable to the competition, that was all that was necessary. When GM did try to innovate the results were usually dismal; witness the Corvair, the turboglide automatic transmission to name but two examples. General Motors was a very conservative company and usually resisted change as long as possible.
It should probably be said that the brakes on RWD Cadillacs of this period were fairly decent by contemporary standards. They weren’t discs and I’d be doubtful about their ability to manage a stop from the 115 mph speeds of which a Calais or De Ville was capable, but they also weren’t awful.
The FWD Eldorado presented a bigger challenge because of its front weight bias. Static weight distribution was around 60/40, which meant that if you stood on the brake pedal, you’d end up with something like three-fourths of the Eldo’s 4,900-odd pounds on the nose, with two unfortunate results. First, unloading the rear wheels would lock the rear brakes before the fronts, which could turn into the sort of fishtailing half-bootlegger that Car and Driver experienced. Second, the front brakes would then overheat and begin to fade, leaving you with one set of brakes that was overworked and another that wasn’t meaningfully contributing to slowing down. The same was true of the first-generation Oldsmobile Toronado, for the same reasons. The Toronado was lighter than the Eldorado, but also had smaller brakes, with similar results.
What they needed and did eventually get was discs at least in front and a proportioning valve to limit rear lockup or some kind of anti-lock system. (GM offered rear ABS on the second-generation Toronado and Eldorado, although I don’t know how many people ordered it.) Ironically, the rival Thunderbird had gone that way for ’65 with very good results, giving it some of the best brakes in the U.S. When the Eldorado and Toronado got a similar setup, panic braking was much improved, although for sustained use, cars this heavy really needed discs all around.
In that regard, the R-10 had several big advantages beyond its four-wheel discs: it was dramatically lighter than the Eldorado and, being rear-engined, had weight distribution more conducive to braking. (Rear engines tend to be helpful for that.)
Ok, i get the point, but I don’t see why the Eldo is singled out as the point in time when The General should have gone to discs -and presumably Caddy would only have done so on the one top tier halo car, as a start.
As JP mentions, Stude had them available as an option a few years prior. GM, as you point out, had already been using them on the ‘Vette.
The Crosley Hot Shot had them in ’50, and Chrysler had them standard on the Crown Imperial in ’49. Chrysler seems to have abandoned discs in ’54.
I guess we couldn’t have expected Ford to lead the way as in ’49 Ford was trying out some “radical” spring ideas, coils in front, two longitudinal sets of leaves on the rear, abandoning, finally, Henry’s 1908 spring ideas. (Henry was also resistant to brakes on the front wheels) In fairness, by ’67 Lincoln had discs on the front.
So yes, the Eldo should never have been released w/o 4 wheel discs, and probably radials as well, but surely the General wasn’t any further behind the curve than the other American makes.
I get that the Eldo was very heavy, but surely it’s not the first American car that was too heavy for it’s brakes.
Seems to me that being slow to go with discs was an American deadly sin, not unique at all to GM.
Because of the Eldo’s fwd, the demands on its front brakes where overwhelming. As a result, its braking distance were much worse than typical drum-brake equipped American cars. It was a braking disaster. Yet it was brand new, and the most expensive car of its kind from Detroit. Does that help?
maybee it would have helped to only drive these things backwards, so the brake bias and weight transfer would have sorta equalled out!
Also, as mentioned above, the rival Ford Thunderbird had used front discs and a proportioning valve since 1965, as did the Lincoln Continental. By 1966 you could also get discs on all of the full-sized Chryslers, as well, although they were pretty scarce on Chrysler’s B-body intermediates. So, Cadillac was a little behind the curve here, even for Detroit.
A “proportioning valve” is something that virtually all disc/drum cars use. It is because the typical drum brake needs less pressure to operate and the majority of designs used after discs came onto the scene are self energizing. That means the braking force vs line pressure is not linear while disc brakes have a fairly linear relationship between line pressure and braking force.
You would think such a thing would have been standard from go, but not all early disc/drum systems had proportioning valves. The Thunderbird did, but (for example) the system used on 1966-67 Mopar products did not. See the August 1967 issue of Car Life for their rather harrowing experience with a disc-braked Fury III convertible WITHOUT such a rear-pressure-limiting device. Admittedly, the severity of the control loss they experienced may have indicated that something was out of adjustment with the rear brakes, but the system did not have a proportioning valve and the editors were not happy about it, having put the “panic” back in panic stopping.
I often wonder why these proportioning valves weren’t just incorporated into the master cylinder itself. Maybe they are these days….
Is there more to a proportioning valve than the brake warning light equalization switch & restricting orifices?
In relatively modern cars the proportioning valve is just a part of the combination valve, though the average person calls the whole thing the proportioning valve. On some cars that use the diagonal split system the proportioning valve is attached to the master cyl. Ford did that in the Tempaz for example.
The disc/drum combo valve consists of:
Differential warning valve, that’s the part that turns on the warning light and the first thing in the system.
From there the front disc portion of the fluid goes to the hold off or delay valve. That prevents pressure from going to the front brakes until it reaches a certain point. That pressure is supposed to be equal to the amount of pressure needed to overcome the return springs on the drum part of the system.
The fluid for the drum portion of the system then goes to the residual pressure valve that keeps a minimum amount of pressure in the rear lines at all times to keep the cups in the wheel cylinders pressed against the bore so they don’t leak.
Finally you have the proportioning valve it causes the line pressure to have a non-linear increase. After a set psi range that it responds directly to the input pressure it reduces it to a percentage of input pressure.
The reason it and the residual pressure valve need to be in that location on a conventional front/rear split system is to keep the differential pressure valve from being tripped.
On diagonal split systems they either use no proportioning valve by using non servo, or non self energizing drums. Or they have a Master Cyl with 4 ports and only those lines leading to the front brakes go through a different style of combo valve that only has the warning and hold off valves.
With Disc/Disc systems all you need is the warning valve as used on the old drum/drum systems.
Thank you for your well-written explanation. I never knew that some residual pressure needed to be maintained on the drum systems but I guess it does make sense though — I’m going on the assumption that the “cups” are sort of a “rubber flap”.
I so wish I would have taken the blue-collar mechanic route in my education — I have all this stuff to play with & but not knowing the fundamentals has really cost me over the years.
Toyota trucks have an interesting variation on the proportioning valve. My ’84 Hilux and ’05 Tundra both with disc/drum systems had a load-sensitive valve with a lever arm to increase braking to the rear when the suspension was compressed. No Ford or GM truck I owned had such a system. BTW, in ’71 GM made front disc brakes standard on pickups, but the vacuum booster was still optional. Pedal effort was very high on my ’71 C-10.
That rear brake valve is pretty common, lots of trucks starting around the 80′s have them. I’ve seen them on vehicles ranging from Suzuki Samurai to Isuzu NPRs.
I understand, but you can say the same of the Toro for ’66- front heavy. It’s not that I’m defending the ’67 Eldo, I just think bad brakes were an industry wide phenomenon – a growing problem for all US car makers.
Studebaker offered discs in 1962, Ford in 1965, AMC in 1965 and Chrysler in 1966. That Cadillac waited until 1967, and still made them optional on their top of the line model, a year after the fwd Toronado showed how a heavy fwd car played havoc on drum brakes that might have been acceptable in a rwd application, this tells me that the industry-wide phenomenon that you refer to was getting pretty localized around GM by that date.
A decade or two earlier, GM could well have been at the forefront of development. After all, Buick’s finned aluminum drums of the early 60s were probably the best drum brakes in the industry. But it seems that the blast of engineering creativity that came out of the General that showed up in the showrooms in 1960-63 was the last time that the company would take the lead on almost anything. After about 1960-62, the internal workings of the company became increasingly dysfunctional and really good management became the exception rather than the rule. The Eldo’s brakes are simply a natural result of GM’s normal management of the time.
I don’t see it localized at all. Stude was what 2% of the market? Ford/AMC in ’65, Chrysler in ’66, GM in ’67 – except that GM had been using them on the ‘Vette at all 4 wheels, in ’65. IOWs they all started using them, to some degree, in the mid ’60s. Several years late, and it would be decades more before most Detroit iron got discs on the back wheels.
Paul has found perhaps the most egregious example of outdated/inadequte brakes, but the story of poor brake technology doesn’t start with the Eldo, and it doesn’t stop with offering them on the front only.
Crosley offered disc brakes in the late ’40s but again it wasn’t exactly a mainstream manufacturer
And did I not call it a GM Deadly Sin? http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1966-oldsmobile-toronado-gms-deadly-sin-16-lets-try-a-different-position/
And I will repeat for the last time: The Toro’s and Eldo’s brakes were substantially WORSE than the other drum-brake equipped cars of the era. And the Eldo had no excuse, being very expensive, and since discs were optional. Did you not read my and ateupwithmotor’s explanation as to why that was, due to the weight transfer of a heavy fwd vehicle?
I don’t want to be rude, but you’re either refusing to read our explanations here, or being a GM apologist, or you’re being a bit obstinate.
I’ll admit to being a bit obstinate.
Yes you called it a GM deadly sin but it wasn’t really limited to GM, was it? Unless one considers stopping distances for RWD drum braked cars of the era were acceptable. No argument that the ’67 Eldo was one of the most egregious examples of bad brakes, but it wasn’t like other cars of that era stopped on a dime.
I guess the point I’m trying to make, and I’m sorry if I’m being obstinate, is that brakes were pretty bad on most American Iron from about the mid ’50s up to at least the time front discs became standard on everything. I might even go back a bit further. As cars were getting heavier, and engines more powerful, brakes were not improving. Not much.
The technology isn’t that complex. And discs weren’t invented in Europe. So, as I see it, the whole industry in the US was lagging.
Well, the Toronado was, if anything, worse than the Eldorado, and both were notably inferior in braking performance to a fair number of their drum-braked, RWD Oldsmobile and Cadillac contemporaries.
Disc brakes and radial tires? That’s for them prissy little furrin cars from them commie countries like France and Italy. ‘Merican cars are built to go, not stop. Besides who worries about braking distance when you have the entire length of Kansas to stop and eight feet of good ol’ ‘Merican steel between you and the rear bumper of the next car?
”My cars are designed to go, not to stop,” quoth Ettore Bugatti (French-Italian). Not a builder of ‘merican cars by a long shot. Just saying the French/Italians were not all brake-obsessed. In the 1930s.
At the same time (perhaps later?) Bugattis did have a fairly interesting system where the brake drum was integral to the alloy wheel on the racing cars, meaning that each tyre change they also got a new drum to work with.
Put me down in the camp that there were no excuses (hindsight, everybody-else-was-doing-it, etc). It was one thing to cheap-out on the Corvair, but on the Standard of the World? What a joke – and you just know the engineers wanted to use discs. Leaving aside the early quasi experiments in discs, they had been proven at places like Le Mans for over a decade and used on road-going Jaguars since before the 1960′s. The Renault (not to mention the $100 option) shows they weren’t even prohibitively expensive like ceramic brakes are now.
Having said that I do own cars with non-boosted 4 wheel drums, but they only weigh 1500lb.
this says a lot about the european (italian) feelings towards american cars back in the day: dangerous monster cars with monster engines that just weren’t able to corner or stop properly. I’m sad to say this ’cause I love old american cars since I was a little kid (and the ’67-’68 Eldo in particular it’s simply a design masterpiece to me) but a car like this with those tiny ass drum brakes would have been a joke here, even 45 years ago, expecially if this car, like the Eldo, was trying to give itself a sort of hi-tech image…in the other hand european cars (with few exceptions) didn’t have any seat belts, headrests, padded cabin, collapsible steering column etc…I tell you, cars like this R-10 and every other small cars of the time and earlier on had all the passive safety features of a beer can: if you really have to crash being inside a huge Caddy surely gives you some more chances than being inside of a rear-engined Renault with a gas tank in front of your teeth…if you go at the minute one of this video you can see what I mean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kJUcXkB0pU
The Eldorado’s drums were really quite large: 12 inches in diameter, 2.75 inches wide in front, 2.0 inches wide in back. That was about as big as postwar drum brakes got, discounting racing; standard Cadillacs at 12×2.5-inch drums, Buicks had 12×2.25 units (although Buick had finned drums, aluminum in front, which helped cooling). It wasn’t that they were puny so much as that they were overmatched by the weight, weight distribution and speed potential of the car.
I’m a little late to the party. I once owned a 75 Valiant w/ four wheel unassisted drum brakes. I remember that it stopped the vehicle very well if you knew you had to give the pedal a good shove. In panic braking it would have pulled to one side or the other, but under normal braking stopped straight and true. I always warned friends that I lent it to about applying sufficient pedal effort.
My first car, a 289/auto equipped ’67 Mustang had horrifying manual drum brakes. Even after a complete brake job they still sucked badly in terms of pedal effort and stopping distance. If I let a friend drive it I had to warn them ” at first, you’ll think that the brakes don’t work, just push harder on the pedal”. I later got a ’65 Barracuda (slant 6, manual drums) that was far superior. The cars can’t have weighed much different. IIRC, brakes were about the same size. What was Ford doing wrong?
I never had any problems with 4 wheel drum brakes in any of my early cars. The 68 and 72 full size Mopars stopped as good as any car I’ve had. My 66 Deville also had the drums, no problem. My 78 Eldo, all discs, you can tell you have a lot of car behind you. (5,100 lbs.) Drive accordingly is the rule.
Of course, I’ve never tried a dead stop from 110 MPH. I don’t think the engineers had those speeds in mind when the car was designed.
Well, my 67 Riviera has aluminium drums in front. Its actually stops the car fairly easy and quick. It’s always brakes straight as a line. So it wasn’t so bad for it’s time. In 1967 you could even order disc brakes as an option.
Tire quality is also dependent on consumers. In 1980, my Parents’ bought a slightly used ’77 Buick Estate Wagon. One of the things it needed was new tires.
My Dad put GoodYear’s top of the line radial on the car. It was an aramid/kevlar belted radial possibly called the Double Eagle (not to be compared with the special run flat tire of the ’70′s called the Double Eagle).
Those tires drove great. Handled well, traced well it made the wagon which had the F-41 handling suspension almost handle well! Plus because the aramid belts were light compared to steel when you hit a pot hole you just got a light thup-thup rather than a big whack.
When the tires finally wore out my Dad went back to get another set and the GoodYear dealer told him that they were’nt available any more because nobody bought them. He had to put a set of Arrivas, if I recall, on the car and they were noticeably inferior.
Am I the only that sees some similarity between the Eldo and the R10? Both have disproportionate front and rear overhangs. The R10 always seemed like a caricature compared to the well-proportioned R8. BTW I learned to drive in a car with 4-wheel drums (unassisted) and my first car was essentially the same but with front discs. Huge difference in control and stability, not even counting stopping distance and fade.
I think it’s unfair of you to knock the Eldorado for not having disc brakes. The majority of the American cars in 1967 had drum brakes front and rear, and the few offered them as options tended to be rarely chosen by customers (yes, I am aware a few American cars like the Corvette and T-bird had them standard). To be fair ALL American cars of this vintage were criticized by the auto press for generally poor brakes compared to the European cars. Many of the cars of this vintage, even with disc brakes weren’t much better anyway, although they did generally have better fade resistance and directional stability. The typical American driver didn’t need brakes that could handle many hard stops without fade, which is why drums were generally sufficient, vs in Europe where good brakes were more of a requirement for their driving style and roads. Many good drum systems could stop in comparable distances to disc/drums of this era, as long as they weren’t overheated. Radial tires weren’t really commonly available until about 1973 in the American market, so it’s not really surprising that they weren’t an option.
Yes, GM could have put disc brakes on the Eldo and I am sure they could have put some fancy non-common Radial if they really wanted to. Would the majority of those who bought the Edlo in ’67 cared? Probably not. Should GM following the status quo for the era be considered a “deadly sin”, I think not. In fact if you read the road tests post 1967 when discs were added, the stopping distances hardly improved vs drums. Brakes in general from this era were not great.
I don’t think that it is unfair. The Eldo was the most expensive offering from the brand that proclaimed itself the world standard yet the braking performance was much worse that the average “economy” car from the lesser brands of GM. Now I’m not suggesting that I would expect a car that heavy to be the shortest stopping car, but being the most expensive it certainly shouldn’t be the worst. As mentioned the “lowley” Ford Thunderbird had discs standard and they were available on the Mustang. Even Buick was concerned about stopping power with their Aluminum drums and touting how some reviewers noted that Buicks had the best brakes in the business.
Well, in that same test, the disc brake equipped T-bird (which was hardly “lowly”) stopped from 80 MPH in 330 ft. That means the Caddy was approximately had approximately 17% longer stopping distance that the disc braked T-brid. Both cars had very close test weights (within 100 lbs) and the T-bird had less weight on the front end. Further, disc brakes still were an option for the Eldo in 1967, so it’s not like GM completely ignored the issue. In the same test, the drum brake car was 22% longer than the result from the disc brake equipped Eldo at 312 ft, and the author still attacks this. This is better than the disc brake T-bird at 330-feet, which had Car and Driver though had good brakes. Even with the optional disc brakes, 1967 Motor Trend test comparing personal luxury coupes had a 1967 Eldo with discs that stopped in the same distance as a 1967 Toronado with 4 wheel drums.
From other tests I have, it seems that a drum braked Eldo was typically in the range of 200 feet for a 60-0 stop. This was the SAME stopping distance required for a typical Lincoln pre-1965 that came with 4-drums, also a “world class luxury car”. Many late 1960′s Eldos with discs, were stopping in the 175 ft range from 60 MPH, which still isn’t that great.
So, yes I understand GM should have probably had the discs standard, but was it a “deadly sin”, hardly. The Eldo was well received for the most part by the motoring press, well-liked by the public and is sought after in the collector community today. Car and Driver has always been a drivers magazine, so of course they will be all over the poor brakes. But it’s really not that atypical for an American Luxury car of this era to have very little concern for performance other than straight line acceleration. Bottom line, is American cars of this era had poor brakes period, and the buying public didn’t seem to care (luxury or otherwise) for the most part. So why just jump all over GM when it was really more of a problem of the American car industry as a whole during that time?
Back when the R10 CC came out I had mentioned that my Father had owned an R10 (though his was a ’68 rather than a ’67). He never owned an Eldorado but rather another GM car at that same time (a ’65 Olds F85). Back then most American cars still had 4 wheel drum brakes and bias-ply tires, I don’t remember him commenting about the stopping power of the R10, but it was such a light car (maybe 1600 pounds) and had such a small engine (1100 cc?) I’m not sure he noticed a big difference.
His prior car was a ’59 VW type 1 “beetle” which was also light and had small engine but had drum brakes. I do remember that he really liked the radial tires, such that he even switched to them on his American cars…I’m not sure if he put them on the F85, but we later had two full-sized Ford Wagons not much after he got the R10, the latter of which came with Firestone 500 tires which were also radial tires…but were replaced very quickly due to delamination problem after only a few hundred miles, the sidewalls delaminated and I think he may have gone back to bias-ply on the Ford Wagon. By that time, they started making disc brakes at least optional on the front, so I’m pretty sure the Ford Wagon had the front discs, but maybe bias-ply tires.
At some point in the mid-70′s I think he went back to radials on the Ford Wagon but I think he was a bit leary of them after having the delamination problem.
He also tried putting electronic ignition on the Ford Wagon (from a kit) but it didn’t work out very well…one time on a trip the ignition coil got fried and we were stranded for awhile, which my Father attributed to the electronic ignition kit…so it was awhie later (guess when the first started making electronic ignitions standard on most cars) before he had another car with electronic ignition..he disconnected the kit ignition and we just kept the OEM coil/plugs/points/condensor while we owned the Ford Wagon
I think foreign cars were early adopters of electronic ignition as well as fuel injection (well a few American cars had fuel injection in the ’50s but the numbers were probably very small and it really didn’t seem to catch on with American cars until the ’80s). By then electronic ignition was also pretty much standard, I guess because of the combination of emissions requirements and fuel economy fleet standards.
Now I understand why Dennis Weaver got so freaked out….guess his the brakes on his Valiant wernt up to much!
Being from England my knowledge of US cars is slight, though as I’ve read the threads on the site I’ve learnt a great deal; much of what I’ve read here about American cars really
surprises me.
I knew the big three were behind the technological curve but I didn’t realise just how
Crude American cars were. 2 speed powerdrive transmission, tiny crossply tyres, drum brakes, carburettors, all lasting far longer than here in Europe. The British public is known to be conservative but American car buyers appear to be in another league! So how could a country which dominated the world and had access to some of the greatest scientists and engineers be so backward? Correct me if Im wrong but in many other areas America was far behind Europe; jet engines, aerodynamics, electronics, rocketry, all very strange.
Another subject Id like to understand is the matter of emission control; so often its given as the reason for the failure of European marques in the US marketplace- My Volvo is a car widely sold in America and the emissions equipment (removed now) is very simple though unlikely to make much improvement to its ‘green’ credentials….
Id like to know if emissions equipment really was needed and whether it actually worked, it all seems like an easy way to damage imports- yes I do like a conspiracy theory.
Anyhow to a European the whole story of the American auto industry in the ’60s and ’70s seems a very dodgy, highly political affair- I suppose that’s why its in such a bad state today. Here in England we are lucky not to make any of our own cars anymore and thankfully we don’t have any of the unscrupulous politics that seem to go hand in hand with making cars…
The reason the Big 3 dragged their feet on new technology? You have to ask? Money; it was cheaper not to, and instead spend the money on annual restyling. Americans who didn’t like it increasingly bought foreign cars. Which goes along way to explain why the Big Three are now the Medium Three.
Emission controls were desperately needed. Southern California had atrocious smog; you could only see a couple of blocks down the street. Horrible. Smog controls totally changed that.
And it wasn’t only in LA; many big cities had serious problems. They were absolutely necessary, and have worked very well. Europe started having serious air quality issues too, you know. Things that way are drastically better. Twenty years ago, the European cities stunk with diesel fumes, and the air was dirty from emissions.
The Germans had some very good engineers, and they had lots of funding. But who built the first atomic bomb?
Fair comments Paul- however was it having emissions equipment that ended the smog? Or was it the change to smaller cars which made the difference? London had a far greater problem with smog in the ’50s; however this was ended by banning the burning of coal for heating- the cars continued to pollute as they had done before. As far as I know, no European city has suffered from air pollution attributable to cars- if they had done it might have been Berlin or Prague with all their 2 stroke Trabants in the ’60s.
I know LA had a smog problem but was that as much to do with its geographic position as the actual cars? It just seems that the car is a easy target for environmental legislation.
I can remember in the mid 70s the air in L.A. would be so bad your eyes would water driving down the street. L.A. is still in the same place, and there’s more cars than ever, but the air is a lot cleaner. I would say the pollution controls didn’t hurt.