(first posted 7/15/2015) This website is partially to blame for my recent 1970s fixation; therefore, I’ve become no stranger to attending a local cruise and photographing some cars that others might ignore. Of course, I still have the safety of my 1950s and 1960s cars to return to, but who doesn’t care to walk in someone else’s shoes every once in a while? Last week, I did just that, photographing a car that’s generally accepted, one that is maligned, and one that is practically shunned.
Exhibit A is this 1971 Plymouth Road Runner, 383-propelled (if one is to believe the hood callouts). The 1968-70 B-Bodies are so thoroughly adored by the muscle car crowd that this Hemi Orange ’71 might seem to be a bit of a runner-up; however, it’s easy to love its fuselage-inspired quarter panels and loop bumper, facets of its design that spoke muscle even when the engine rooms did not.
This example, however, practiced no such subterfuge, as evidenced by the butch “pistol-grip” shifter and high-back bucket seats. Big-block Mopars have such a distinctive exhaust note, and this Road Runner is so loud and charismatic, that one would almost need a psychological examination not to envy it just a little.
I’m not adroit enough at identifying the differences in B and RB blocks to know if this is an original 383 or not, and it hardly matters, as it’s a reasonable enough facsimile regardless. Only the Mopar Performance valve covers lend it an air of showmanship not sprinkled on the car by Mother Mopar. The only surprise is that air conditioning compressor perched atop the engine; even in 1971, a four-speed ‘Runner with air must have been an uncommon find.
Next on the list is a car with a tarnished reputation, the 1973 Pontiac GTO. Perhaps only the ’74 and the (actually very good) ’04-’06 GTOs spark such criticism. Photographing this example, I wondered if the ’74 may be more of a GTO in spirit than this Colonnade, considering that the Nova-based version did pack an upgraded engine into an existing, trimmer body, whereas the ’73 was basically a 400-powered LeMans with some GTO callouts, a NACA hood, and improved suspension. Oh wait, wasn’t that the original GTO? Oh well. Both arguments hold water, as do neither, as both ’73 and ’74 models arguably pale next to earlier iterations.
Which model is better than the other, however, is one of those senseless debates that nobody can, or will, win. As for me, I was just happy to find such a stock-appearing ’73 at all. While I can imagine why GTO purists would scoff at this car for not being “GTO enough,” I find the ’73 to be fairly clean and unadorned. Of course, this example wears the requisite ’70s brown hue, almost certainly one of seven offered that year.
I imagine that a hardtop version of the GTO would be pretty slick with some judicious rhinoplasty, and Pontiac did oblige to some extent with the ’73 Grand Am, although I’m not totally sold on the idea that the Grand Am’s nose was a significant improvement (the bumper sure was).
The early 1970s were a driver-centric time, even if the cars weren’t always as engaging to drive as their forebears. In the fashion of the time, this GTO’s controls angled toward the driver, leaving passengers with little to look at but a cornucopia of brown plastics and fabrics. The gauges are typically Pontiac, attractive and complete, and the shifter is almost Cuda/Challengeresque. The steering wheel is also neat. Compared to the Grand Am, however, it appears that the GTO got the short end of the stick, with less instrumentation and a subtle downmarket feel.
Finally, we have the outlier of the group, an AMC Matador Barcelona. I’m not sure where to start on this car (a ’76, I believe). The Matador Coupe and its idiosyncrasies of purpose and styling have been covered here before, but this one effects some period modifications that (improve/detract) from it. Front bumper replacement. Ghost stripes on the hood. Side pipes (!?!). Bigs and littles with mags. Rear spoiler! I’ll leave the overall effect to you, but I am loath to leave it out because of its generally questionable glory.
So there you have it–two muscle cars in the midst of some real personality crises and one jacked-up Spanish bullfighter. While the crowds may not ogle and appreciate them as they would a Chevelle, Camaro, or Mustang, rest assured that one intrepid Curbside Classic wannabe auto journalist has them covered.
At long last, my hang-up about Pontiac Colonnades surfaces….they appear to be more aerodynamic in reverse than going forward.
Wow, you have quite the divergent collection here. Even better, the last one anybody would suspect of being modified is the modified one. Plus, the Pontiac steering wheel is freaky similar to the Road Runner’s.
The Road Runner is my pick of the litter.
Mine too. Another reason: It reminds me of Richard Petty & his NASCAR feats in ’71.
Im a 71 Road Runner owner so obviously Im biased but I think that its second only to the 68-69 Chargers as the best looking musclecar ever. Its slightly wider track and lower center of gravity make it more fun to throw into the on-ramps than the 68-70s as well. Aaron, to answer your question; no, there were not very many big block, 4 speed cars sold with air and Chrysler discouraged dealers from ordering them that way due to fear of warranty work on AC compressors burning out. If I remember correctly, a 3.23 was the lowest gear you could get on an AC car.
I also like the 73 GTO but the Matador, not so much.
To me, the Roadrunner is the only even remotely decent looking car in this bunch. I don’t know about the 3.23 gears though. A friend of mine ordered a ’71 Roadrunner, with a 400 and auto, with 3.55 gears, and my ’74 came with them standard with a 360HP/Auto. The same friend started looking a couple of years ago for a copy of his old Roadrunner and found a very close one, a ’71 with a 383, auto, 3.55 gears and it’s in bright red, versus his old hemi orange one. And it has the “Tuff” steering wheel, which IMHO is light years better than the one pictured. The only things it needed was a door panel so they both matched ( I think one was from a Sebring or something higher end) and the dash cluster was in sad shape. It drove great and has had zero issues. He’s very happy with it. I can’t believe how much that dash cost to get redone. WOW, like $800.. But it looked like it came out of a time machine, it’s perfect.
Yeah, No. 71’s had 383, 340, 440+6 or HEMI engines, That’s it. 72 was the first year for the 400, it was a replacement for the 383.
Your 74 had a 360 with about 240hp, nowhere near 360. The 360cid replaced the 340cid.
The 360 HP was what they called the engine, I wasn’t claiming it as the horsepower, it was 245. You are correct about ’72 being the first 400’s.
To me, this Road Runner is one of the all-time best American designs. It is so smooth, so clean, yet also distinctive. It doesn’t need chrome slathered on or stripes everywhere to look good. A pity the sedans weren’t as adventurous – this would have been sensational as a four door.
American car design seemed to go backwards for the next 10-15 years, and only returned to the global mainstream with the Taurus.
The issue with the later, red-headed step-children of the GTO family may be simply that they have a very non-threatening appearance. Comparing the ’73, ’74, and final 2004-06 to the earlier, much more aggressively styled cars seems to bear this out. The earlier cars just ‘looked’ like purposeful street machines. The later ones? Not so much, and that’s a huge factor, particularly with the GTO, upon which marketing and mere appearance played such an important role. Blame it on the bumpers, if you will, but it’s there.
I suppose the same could be said for the Road Runner. The ’71-’74 fuselage cars weren’t bad, but things really went to hell with the formal ’75 Fury Road Runner. It didn’t improve all that much with the Volaré Road Runner, either. Again, the bumpers were largely at fault.
And the Matador coupe improves considerably without bumpers.
That Matador is a rare bird, as total Matador production fell dramatically after 1975. I’m not sure, however, that removal of the front bumper improves the overall look of the car.
The 1973 GTO looks like such a half-hearted effort, particularly when compared to that year’s Grand Am. It doesn’t help that the Pontiac Colonnade intermediate was much less attractive than its Buick and Oldsmobile corporate siblings. I’m surprised that Pontiac sold any GTOs in 1973.
I agree… I’m not sure if the Matador’s bumpers are a visual improvement. I do like the rest of that car, though!
the 73 GTO was a half hearted effort… insurance companies had huge surcharges on anything they saw as a muscle car….the Grand Am was intended to be the replacement as the premium midsize.
I love the Matador. Let’s call it a period piece.
The Matador unfortunately suffers from some typical American Motors-type styling gaffes. There is so much to like, but some of the details just don’t quite gel somehow.
The mismatched side window shapes – what is going on there? I still don’t get it. The headlight bulges and tunnels; but I’ll give them a pass as they later appeared on the Pacer – an American Motors ‘family look’? (Side note – wish they’d done this to the Matador sedan too instead of that Pinocchio-nose). Four round chrome-accented taillights and that overdone licence plate surround makes for a very busy rear, at a time when design was moving toward simplicity. And the whole thing looks vast, coming out at a time when bigger suddenly wasn’t better. Shrink it down about 10% and it might work better, I’m not sure.
I agree with Jason, the R-R would be my 1st choice, too.
Back when these were still lightly used cars I so wanted a 71 Satellite Sebring +, I would have been happy with a slant 6 with auto. Unfortunately, I never found one, “plain” Satellites were available, but even R-Rs were few and far between.
A 74 LeMans GT has surfaced recently on a local Craigslist. I’m guessing the GT is an even lower-powered version of the GTO?
I actually like these Matador coupes, the interior….especially the dashboard really let this design down, but this ones “mods”? UGH. The thing that kills me about a car modded like this is that after making these changes….the owner wants to sell this “masterpiece” for a substantial profit.
The LeMans GT was a cheaper ‘sporty coupe’ level and was offered in 72, and 73, too. They are the successors to the 1970-71 GT-37, which were officially Tempests.
The GTO dash is another gripe I have with the 73, it looks super cheap. Say what you want about the Collonades but they did have some pretty nice looking dashboards on the upper crust models(Grand Am, Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme, Regal) The standard dash on this GTO looks like something Plymouth of this era would do… Oh wait, it looks exactly like it, but with less gauges. 60s GTOs had just as nice of interiors as their contemporary Grand Prix, just in the intermediate package, so the dowdy interior + the dowdy looks + the lesser performance = justified tarnished reputation.
I do love the Roadrunner though, I dragged it’s dash through the mud to illustrate the point but it at least was 2 years fresher and it looks damn fine with a pistol grip by it’s side!
I was fairly certain the Road Runner would be the odds on favorite here. 🙂
The other two are interesting oddities, but the Road Runner looks badass.
I gotta believe the stylists of the RR got their inspiration from the ’60 XNR showcar. I don’t think Hemi orange is the best color for that model, however it’s my choice.
I think it’s actually Vitamin C orange, Hemi orange(Tor Red) is a bit darker
I wouldn’t be easy for me to kick the GTO out of my driveway. It still looks pretty stock. Kudos to the owner.
I’ve always liked the 73 Grand Am because of that beak and grill. I know the 2 door had an available 455 but does anyone know if the 455 was available in the 4 door Grand Am?
The 400 2v was standard but a 455 was available in a 4 door Grand Am but as with the coupe you could only get an automatic with a 455. If you wanted a 4 speed, you had to get one of the 400s. There were also a few, very few 4 door 73-75 Grand Ams built with factory 4speeds. I`ve run across a few for sale in adds but have never actually seen one.
A Grand Am wagon also would have been interesting. Chevy built a Chevelle SS wagon in ’73, with the 454 a (very rare) option, so why not a Grand Am wagon?
Strangely, there was an SS coupe and SS wagon in 1973, but no SS sedan.
Even if the engines may have been detuned, I think I prefer the grille on the ’72 Road Runner over the 1971’s, even if it’s pretty similar. Maybe it’s the little air dams that I like.
The new grille on the ’72 Road Runner is interesting for a couple of reasons:
1. The little cartoon bird head was moved from the grille up to the hood filler panel where the Plymouth medallion had been placed on the ’71.
2. The word emblem on the cars (in the ’72’s case, in the grille) were always in lower case (‘road runner’). Was there a reason for the lower case spelling, or was it just to be different? You never saw anything like that on other cars, like ‘gto’ or ‘charger’.
Original Road Runners in good shape are hard to come by. Although they sold a lot of them, they were a cheap car that were routinely modified and heavily trashed back in the day. Being as the build quality wasn’t that great to begin with, most had short lives.
The Road Runner is my pick too (how can you not like those?) but I also respect the GTO owner for keeping it stock. A real time capsule, not so for the poor Matador… The removal of the original front bumper helps its looks (debatably) but the other mods are just tacky. Maybe that’s the point?
Yeah, although a bumperless Matador is an improvement, best would have been integrated, old-style 2.5mph chrome bumpers. It might have made a big difference in sales.
Or maybe not…
Sending love to the Matador. It is much more attractive to me than the beak of the Pontiac. I like the side pipes and the wheels, although if you know about the car it’s not the most intimidating thing out there.
My vote is for the Roadrunner. I always liked the fuselage cars and this intermediate body wears it well. I think it looks better that the ’68 – ’70 generation, which wasn’t bad either. Performance was still there in ’71, with available 440 and Hemi power. The 383 was no slouch either.
The ’73 GTO is more tragic than anything. By 1973 the muscle car era was in its death throes, due to fuel crises, emissions standards, and most significantly, exorbitant insurance rates. By the early ’70’s, monthly insurance premiums on muscle cars often exceeded the car payment. Not good when your market demographic was young males with limited disposable income. All of a sudden muscle cars became a scary proposition and the GTO, as iconic an American car as there ever was, was finished. It also didn’t help that Pontiac had the Firebird, Grand Prix and new Grand Am competing with it in its lineup. They should have called it a day with the ’72 model instead of trotting out this overweight, underpowered Colonnade.
As for the Matador, I just don’t know where to start. Did anyone actually buy these monstrosities?
Believe it or not, AMC sold over 60,000 Matador coupes in 1974. In comparison, it sold less than 10,000 coupes in 1973 – and 1973 was a much better sales year than 1974.
The problem was that the coupe had no staying power. Sales dropped off dramatically after 1974. Even though the American car market recovered strongly in 1976 and 1977, sales were down to about 7,000 by 1977.
The ’73 Goat was supposed to get the SD455 motor as an option, but then new managers* made it a Firebird only engine. Was also meant to get the Grand Am rubber bumpers.
The downgraded car was possibly to offset sticker shock? Colonnades were was designed when muscle cars were still popular, with the swoopy fastbacks, then was delayed a year, to the 5 MPH bumper era.
*DeLorean and Bunkie were long gone from Pontiac, and it’s amazing the Trans Am survived!
I never understood why these Matador Coupes were built. I have heard them referred to more than once as AMC’s answer the the question nobody asked.
AMC was trying to offer something different from the Big Three. During the early 1970s, GM, Ford and Chrysler were moving toward more “formal” styles in the intermediate field. AMC thought that it could carve out a niche by making the Matador coupe a sort of “anti-Monte Carlo.” It ultimately flopped.
I’m just surprised that rather than building a love it or hate it car for a niche, they didn’t focus on delivering a completely new car for their bread and butter buyers to replace the severely aging Ambassador and Matador sedans.
That misallocation of product development dollars is why AMC ended up under the control of Renault, which then sold it to Chrysler.
The RR does nothing for me. Matador? Blah. I’ll confess that I’ve been a fan of certain Colonnades since they were new, but the GrandAm nose just reminds me how poorly that GM urethane held up to real world weather. So I’ll take the GTO, big chrome bumper and all. Though perhaps not in brown.
The Matador Barcelona was offered in ’78 as a last gasp to compete with all the Personal Lux formal roof cars, such as Cordoba. Hence, the Spanish city name.
The swoopy 71 Chrysler B bodies, Matador, and the GM Colonnades, meant for ’72, were designed at the apex of Muscle Car mania. “More fastbacks!” was the order in 1968.
But, the ’69 GP changed everything for mid size car market. Along with insurance and fuel costs. Then it was “formal roofs!”
Are there any concepts or mock-ups of colonnades with 2.5 mph bumpers? That would be an interesting sight.
Yes, there were, on this very site, but I don’t know the exact link. The one I remember best was for the proposed ’72 Malibu (before postponement to the ’73 model year). Maybe someone could point out exactly where to look.
I believe that Collectible Automobile has run photos of the Colonnades under development. Unfortunately, the magazine does not post its articles on line.
This is gonna surprise a lot of folks here, but I almost (almost, I said) prefer the GTO to the Roadrunner. I have never been a fan of the post-1970 B body for it’s cheap feel and the chintzy materials used inside. The GTO, however, would not surprise me if it was the best handling GTO ever built – those Colonnade GM cars could be built to handle extremely well. And who can argue with the 400 V8/THM 400?
The Roadrunner is SO 1971. And so is the GTO, except that it has a 1973-style front end with those awful bumpers. Some day I may warm to the final Matador coupe. But that day is not today.
The GTO also has the oddity factor that really appeals to me. You can tell that DeLorean had left the building. Jim MacDonald was running Pontiac, and he was a 14th floor corporate suit all the way. Meaning that all of the focus was gone, and the Division was now being run by a big, slow, ineffective committee. Just look at the lineup – aside from the regular LeMans, what was this car? Luxury (Luxury LeMans), muscle (GTO) or grand touring (Grand Am)? Pick one, because they built them all. But not that many of any of them.
That’s pretty good logic on preferring a colonnade over a fuselage. The Mopar might have bested it in appearance, but the Poncho would have been better in just about every other aspect.
It’s a shame that the reins of Pontiac were handed to MacDonald after Bunkie and Delorean. Things might have turned out quite a bit differently if someone with a bit more charisma had been at the helm. That was, after all, what transformed Pontiac into such a winner in the sixties.
That 383 could run burning rings of rubber around the choked goat……
That’s absolutely true.
I was so GM centric in the ’70s and early ’80s that I mostly ignored the Mopar E and B cars. I’ve had a strange bit of B love the past several years. That Road Runner is a little loud for my tastes, but I like it regardless.
GTO tempting, but probably the Raod Runner. Teh rear end of the GTO is starngely appealing but teh rest of the car seems less special, and teh interior not sot special at all.
And in vitamn C orange the Road Runner has an advantage over just about anything.
Honestly, I like all 3 of these as they sit. The RR is obviously the pick of this litter even if the first gen is more desireable, all for reasons others have touched upon. I may be in the minority, but I actually prefer the more traditional look of the ’73/’74 B body coupes’ front clips. They wore the dopey gubmint bumpers better than most anything else on the road at the time. And Ive always been torn on the ‘upkick’ in the bottom lip of the loop bumper on these. Looks like the car is biting its bottom lip. I will say, when its monochromed with the body it looks MUCH better than the brightwork. But this one is orange, a big block and has the all important 4 speed hogleg on the floor. WANT.
These GTOs don’t look bad. The bumpers are obnoxious, but that could theoretically be rectified. Colonnade coupes as a whole were good looking cars for their time, and this was just a product of the times. Cant fault it for that. Unlike the ’04-’06 models, which would have been perfect…10 years earlier.
The Matador is definitely the underdog, but as has been pondered in other CC posts on this car, the factory gubmint bumper is really the big hairy mole on this car. Removed and modded it cleans up pretty nicely, as this example shows. These Matty’s are love or hate. Personally I tend to like things that are love or hate, and this one is well executed on top of that.
Agree that the Federal front looked very good on the B coupes. Mopar was generally the master of the issue.
Not really. Chrysler just got a reprieve from the Feds on bumper standards that allowed them to use the less obtrusive, big ‘ole rubber pads on existing cars to meet the 5 mph requirement, but in a roundabout way.
Since the colonnades were all brand new for ’73, they had to comply 100% and ended up with the railroad tie bumpers. The same thing happened with the all-new formal 1975 Mopars, i.e., no more bumper pads on 2.5 mph bumpers.
For whatever reason, it worked out well for people like me, who bought a ’74 Roadrunner as my first car. My car was one of the very last ’74’s built, and the dealer wasn’t sure if it would come as a ’74 or a ’75. I told him if it came as a ’75, the deal was off, unless they could make a trade for an acceptable substitute. It ended up coming as both! The transporter passed me in mid November ’74, with my car and it’s ’75 “brother” on it on a Sunday evening. I followed it to the dealer and checked out my car before going home to wait for the call to come get it. It was a long night.
While true of the final E body coupes and the 1973 Imperial, I believe all other Mopar products moved to Federalized bumpers on schedule.
I hated the 71 B bodies at the time but they’ve grown on me a bit more now.The Pontiac GTO slipped under my radar at the time,the F bodies were the only GM cars I was interested in in 1973 (and much later).I lost interest in AMC after the 71 Javelin,I remember seeing a new Matador in the mid 70s in FleetwoodLlancashire near Blackpool.
GM lost interest in muscle cars in 1973, and instead pushed a new paradigm of sporty mid-sized cars that offered good acceleration but blended with good handling, luxurious appointments, and (slightly) European-style flair. At Pontiac it meant pushing the new Grand Am; at Chevrolet their was the new Chevelle Laguna, and Oldsmobile got the Cutlass Salon which had a row of international flags to drive the point home. Pontiac and Chevrolet’s cars had rare-for-their-time integrated plastic bumper covers, like the GTO used to but no longer did. The actual muscle car names like SS, 442, and GTO continued but looked phoned in, something reinforced by their performance credentials or lack thereof.
> Compared to the Grand Am, however, it appears that the GTO got the short end of the stick, with less instrumentation and a subtle downmarket feel.
Alone amongst the GM colonades, Pontiac had two distinct dashboards – the Grand Prix, Grand Am, and later Grand LeMans got an elegant wraparound dash with real burled walnut in early models, whilst other LeMans, GTO, and even the 73-74 Luxury LeMans got the plain-looking dash. The appearance of more instrumentation in the fancy dash was mostly an illusion though – the cheap-looking GTO dash had three tiny gauges in that small round opening in the center (fuel, oil pressure, temperature) and two in the larger dial to the left (tach, clock). The only gauge missing from the upmarket dash was a voltmeter. The clock in the Grand-whatever was up high in the left large round opening on cars without a tachometer, but if the tach was ordered the clock was repositioned down low just above the console, in a wide rectangular opening poorly suited for an analog clock. Was a digital clock offered too, which would have fit better? Cars without both a tach and clock had an open compartment where the clock would otherwise go.
CC-in-scale has a definite favourite here. 🙂
This one’s a GTX.
A teen friend in the early 70’s had a Road Runner with the pistol grip shifter; my late brother had a mid 70’s Camaro with a shifter that was the twin of the pictured GTO’s. The former had a great slick feel, the latter was a piece of junk more suited to a child’s toy. Nothing at all alike!
Referring to automatic shifters I’d say it’s cosmetically comparable to the 1970 style slap-stik.
Yes; I suppose that’s true. My impression of my brother’s Camaro’s shifter was the same as the rest of the car – that GM was just phoning it in. I never told him that, though – it was his pride and joy.
The Slap Stick might still put it to shame too, I know the 70 ones with the ball style knob are held in pretty high regard among Mopar folk