(first posted 1/7/2017) Car and Driver started its 10Best list in 1983, but Road and Track had been doing something similarly for some time earlier, although not regularly. Their first 10 Best Cars For A Changing World was in 1971, and this is the second one, from 1975. And the the world was changing indeed. The first energy crisis (1973-1974) was the single biggest shock to the automobile industry, and unleashed a wave of efficiency improvements (and regulation) that is still at work today. And emission controls, safety regulations and 5 mph bumpers all compounded the challenges that the manufacturers scrambled to meet.
So with this update for 1975, R&T set out to find the 10 best cars that managed these changes with the highest degree of driver satisfaction intact, keeping in mind that for this publication that meant the criteria were performance, handling, engine response, ride, noise, comfort, space, luggage capacity, brakes, fuel economy, maneuverability, quality, reliability, and esthetics. Are you surprised that not one domestic car made the list?
Well, one domestic rated a Special mention, the AMC Pacer. But they did that with a caveat: that they rather expected AMC to follow through with hints dropped by them that the Pacer would continue to be developed, with FWD and a more suitable powerplant. Fat chance of that happening.
I wonder if you’ll start seeing things like the Mazda RX-4 and Audi 100 at car shows in the near future? I’m already seeing Z-cars, Pacers and the occasional 1970s-era Mercedes. You’ll also spot those old Rabbits on the road for those who haven’t been so lucky (they’re cheap and still run). Funny to think of the many, many of these cars that existed they have almost all disappeared.
It would be nice to see both, though I can’t recall ever having seen an example of either in my 36 years.
And you are unlikely to see them in the future. There are almost no examples of either one still left. Combine that with the notion that there are almost no spare or reproduction parts available for either one, and no cars left in the junkyards to crib parts from, and they become unicorns.
Many old cars have active aftermarket parts sources and collector communities. The Audi 100 and Mazda RX-4 do not. The only time you are likely to see an example of either one, is when a car is pulled from long-term hibernation in a garage somewhere. At which point if there are zero to one interested buyers of the thing, it will go for very cheap. If there are two or more interested parties, the price of the thing could go very high. The strange economics of very rare, but not extremely old or particularly desirable old cars.
Audi 100s? Here you are! Got to admit I have been owner and collector of these for more than 40 years now. And yes, there is a small but proud collector community – all of us are well experienced in searching for parts from Bavaria to Uruquai like digging for gold.
Look at that. Awesome! Here in the U.S., ‘70s Audis are rarely seen.
Pre-RX7 Mazdas are just as rare here, but I am an “old Mazda” guy. There are a very few still around, and they are appreciated by their owners. The internet has definitely helped people locate parts for these rare cars and to make ongoing connections over time.
The last Audi 100 I saw on Bring a Trailer was sold for $17,750 in 2017. (By Audi 100, I mean the late 60s thru 1976, pre Audi 5000)
They are definitely an acquired taste.
R&T says “Ten cars for a changing world”. Almost 50 years later, the ones to get were the Porsche 911, Datsun 280Z, and the Mercedes 450SE.
They proved to be well-built, likeable, and serviceable enough for several to still be on the roads in 2023.
The others are long gone from the roads, or exceedingly rare. Even the VWs and the BMW 530i, which would have been MY favorites in the late 1970s.
I’ve seen several RX-4 Coupes and even a couple of wagons at auto shows. (Usually shows for Japanese imports.) The following for old Japanese cars is growing out of its “cult” status and they’re becoming more mainstream. It does seem limited to areas where they didn’t use salt on the roads.
“Are you surprised that no one domestic car made the list?” Yes, I was surprised at that. I would have thought at least Cadillac’s Seville would be there as the way of future luxury cars. But it was introduced in early ’75 as a ’76 model, so perhaps that’s why it didn’t make the list.
At least the Pacer got honourable mention.
What surprises me is that the American auto industry kept their collective heads in the sand in spite of evidence like this R&T edition. On second thought, maybe I am not surprised.
Why didn’t anyone mention the Austin Marina ? Or the Dodge Colt ?
No complete shitbox category for the Marina, and rebadge queen category for the Mitsubishi Colt.
If you read British auto magazines of the time, they would tell you how wonderful British cars were. I think the Marina was their car of the year for one of them.
Road And Track always favored imports.
road and track, car and driver and motor trend all should have their magazines published in europe as all they do is worship foreign metal. i got to a point where the only reason i bought the magazines after the mid eighties was just for the pictures. they would pick an import over any domestic car for the most rediculous reasons. like their hubcaps fit better…………i like to read magazines that are unbiased and honestly test a car.
It was ideed as changing world. But the only one on this list that intregues me is the Alpha.
*Alfa. Damned autocorrect….
Thanks, PN.
This post reminds me of the “Ads & More” posts I did a while back. The first issue that started the series was June 1978, which featured the third “10 best” R&T article. Note how by then they called it “changed world”, past tense…:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-ads-and-brochures/classic-magazine-ads-and-more-road-track-june-1978/?preview_id=170881&preview_nonce=85fde6677f&_thumbnail_id=-1&preview=true
There was so much progress in just three years. Accord replacing RX-4, Audi 5000 replacing 100LS, RX-7 replacing 280Z, Porsche 928 AND 911 Turbo and finally an American car on this list!
You won’t find more industry improvement in three years than there was during this period which makes the repeat performance of the Scirocco, Alfa and 911 all the more impressive.
If you were a young car guy you really did think the malaise era was over. I guess some folks continue that to 1983 because of the second round of engine downsizing that came after the ’79 oil shock but I never saw it that way.
As a college student, I worked summers 73-76 selling at a VW-Mazda dealer in Appleton, Wisconsin. I hated selling someone a VW Rabbit because the early models were so troublesome. The car drove and tested great when new. The front drive made them great for snow. Unfortunately, the cars weren’t sorted. So many Rabbits made an enemy instead of a friend. I much preferred to steer VW buyers to a Beetle. Obsolete by then, but reliable and good in snow. Mazdas were a different story. The RX4 got a new engine in 74. The older engine was well sorted, but the new engine had some reliability issues that were not yet completely solved even by 75. We sold the RX3 and the RX4 side by side. The RX3 used the earlier engine. It was a gas guzzler and antipollution mods were choking performance. However it was reliable. The RX4 had the new engine. Performance with pollution mods was better as was fuel mileage, but reliability was less than the older engine. Never as bad as a Rabbit though. Though fuel mileage was better, the RX4 was a tough car to sell because of the unfavorable publicity rotaries in general were getting along with the 1st gas crisis of the early 70s. This also killed the little rotary truck which I loved. Mazda addressed the problem by introducing a piston engine version called the GLC. Unfortunately, it had rear wheel drive which made it a tough sell in Wisconsin when competing with Honda’s front drive Civic. I lost a lot of Mazda sales to the Civic. In retrospect, I’d say both the Rabbit and RX4 were both flawed cars. The Rabbit was a great design whose reputation was forever tarnished by serious and widespread reliability issues. The RX4 – though not completely sorted – was light years ahead of the Rabbit for reliability. However, its reputation was tarnished by the general impression of rotaries as gas guzzlers during a gas crisis. The design was a victim of bad timing.
It was not a great time for small cars, generally, you had either rather well sorted rear drive cars, or new front drivers that had durability issues. Despite being an ancient design, the ’75 Beetle received durability enhancements to the engine and transaxle; they were tough cars. Rear wheel drive Toyotas, Mazdas, and Nissans were pretty reliable as well. The front drivers were less so from virtually any manufacturer, in my experience the Hondas were just as flawed as the front drive VWs. If I had it to do over again, I would have bought something like a GLC or Corolla, or if I was flush with cash, a fuel injected ’75 Opel Ascona (1900).
Front drive small cars needed several more years of development before becoming truly durable. Just because they were available in the market doesn’t mean they were a wise choice for everyone. A car is no good to me if it keeps breaking.
Yeah, and 1975 was the year our family moved to Vermont (2nd tour, 1st was ’65-69). My Dad was looking for a 2nd car, and really wanted to get something FWD for the traction…but as a 2nd car he wanted it a bit cheaper, so Saab wasn’t considered. The others were either out of his consideration (Fiat…I had a bad experience around that time with one) or pretty expensive (VW, Honda). He looked at the Datsun F10, but didn’t like a vent on the hood near the carburator, to him it looked like a last minute engineering change. He ended up getting a Subaru DL, back the most of their models weren’t AWD yet, though he did get FWD as he was looking for.
My taste in cars seems like it is a bit tilted towards 1975…a few years offset. In 1981 I bought a ’78 Scirocco, then an ’86 GTi, and my current car a ’00 Golf (which I think of an overdeveloped Rabbit). In ’77 and ’78 I worked as a transporter for Hertz where I drove a lot of domestics (Hertz mostly rented Ford back then) and a few imports, so I got to drive a bunch of cars of that vintage…which was in transition, as a few years later many of the types of cars I drove then were no longer available, as the push to economical FWD cars was going full tilt. Never drove an exotic, but I’m kind of a plain guy so they probably would have felt strange “on” me. I seem to pine for cars which aren’t available anymore or there aren’t many choices if they are (which mostly I guess means cars instead of crossovers or SUVs or trucks). Guess I’m looking for cars in an un-changing world now.
This is a fascinating article. It’s hard for me to think (and it was even harder then!) that these cars are only six years removed from the American car highwater marks of the Chevelle SS396 and Olds Toronado.
The other interesting thing for me is that I seem to remember all of these cars except two (the Porsche and the Mercedes) as problematic vehicles. The quality on the VW’s and the Audi’s, the rotary engine of the Madza, the head-cracking thermal reactors of the BMW, the shoddiness of the Pacer, the jaw-dropping rust of the Japanese cars, and the overall ‘Fiatness’ of the X-19. I will say nothing bad about the Alfetta, out of love and respect, but I am sure that others will have plenty of anecdotes about them.
It was indeed an interesting time to be a car buyer.
The Alfetta is the one car on the list that would would work as a viable choice for a modern, updated retro-mobile from FCA.
Barring that, it’s the one car that would be worth the investment in time and money to keep in good, operational condition (one of the few from the mid-to-late seventies).
Hard to think of more than a handful of cars from the entire decade worth owning, especially in unmodified form. 70 1/2 Camaro would be at the top of that list.
If I could do as I wanted with any 1970s ride, then gimme a ’71 Vega Kammback, which I’ll strip, dip and then drive an ’06 turbo Solstice underneath.
R & T did in fact choose the 1971 Camaro as a ’10 Best’ in it’s August 1971 issue.
What a miserable decade the 1970’s was.
The 2020s: “hold my beer”
Bwa-ha-ha!
Does that list bring back some memories. My father drove a 73 911E Targa as a company car because he could. I had a 1973 Audi Fox as a company car for ten months. My mother had a new 74 Audi 100LS eventually for eight years. The Fox was no great thing that is for sure.
However, my company car in 1974 was changed to a dark green Duster with the 225 slant six. I really liked that car. My 1975 company car was a yellow Nova with their great six and I really liked that car. Of course I had neither for the long haul but I suspect they would have held up just fine.
I think it’s comical that the RR Camargue drew forth the statement “you can bet it’s going to be the prestige car of our age”; how quickly forgotten it was.
The Camargue was more forgettable than the AMC Pacer! I remember reading a Car & Driver road test that was amazed that at this lofty price this car had dull styling, surprisingly questionable workmanship and no tilt steering wheel. Things were not always better “back in the day”!!!!
Morgan as the most defiant. Now 42 years later that is the understatement of century.
At my age (61) the most depressing thing was I instantly recognized every one of the vehicles pictured before I even saw the printed list beneath. Even so – 40 years ago, I used to lament how cars weren’t as individualistic and distinctive as they were fifteen or twenty years before. Little did I know what lie in store for us in 2016. EVERYTHING looks alike.
It’s interesting how significantly more advanced modern and sophisticated most cars on the list were, compared to American products. R&T was obviously on the right track with respect to design and engineering.
The Porsche and Mercedes in particular could be dropped directly in today’s traffic and still provide a contemporary driving experience.
Too bad all choices were deeply flawed, usually for rust, high depreciation, expensive and frequent repairs etc. Most examples disappeared from our roads in a few short years
Not a single Toyota.
I really liked the first-gen Audi 100LS – especially the earlier ones with the small bumpers and chromed-metal grille-trim. But having owned a few Audis from that era, I can attest to how trouble-prone they were.
I’m surprised the Mercedes 240D didn’t make the list. While considered a compact by American standards in those days, it would be called a ‘family-size’ car today.
They didn’t rust quite as fast as the Japanese and Italian competition, could get around 30 mpg, and they were certainly reliable.
Happy Motoring, Mark
I remember my younger brother’s ’74 or ’75 Audi 100… White paint with a dark coffee-colored interior and pretty roomy, compared to the competition. A very handsome car, but that thing nickel and dimed him to distraction. The last Audi he would even consider buying, it was either MB or BMW from that point forward.
I guess by 1984, VW got the Rabbit sorted out. I have the rarest still going at 240,000 miles…..the 1.6L diesel. Most of the car is still original with the exception of the brakes/suspension, and shift linkage, all of which I rebuilt about 10 years ago.
Even with todays traffic, it does a pretty good job. Adequate performance, handling, and brakes. It’s somewhat noisy but it handles the state 65 MPH speed limit where necessary and I find it comfortable.
The only thing not safe by todays standards is safety equipment/crashworthiness. For that reason alone, I don’t drive it more than a few hundred miles a year now.
I owned a ’74 X1/9, which had about 5 more hp and weren’t encumbered with the “ladder-style” bumpers like the ’75 thru ’78 models were. I still remember taking a ’75 for a test drive and how noticeable the loss of that 5hp was, lol.
But that ’74 was my first new car purchase and remains my sentimental favorite. It was a great car.
That 55mph limit… a work colleague of my wife had a husband who had bought a ’76 911 in early ’76 and we – he and his wife in their 911 and me and mine in the X1/9 – were driving from SoCal to Las Vegas on I-15 out beyond Barstow where the old road ran parallel about a mile east of the new interstate. There we were, both moving along at about 70 when I looked to my right and saw a CHP car pacing us on the old road, so I caught Bob in the 911’s attention and we both slowed to 55. About a minute later, the CHPer was able to hop on the new road and we both saw him approaching in our mirrors and braced for a couple of speeding tickets. Thankfully, he just honked at both of us, got our attentention and pointed down in a few quick motions with his index finger. We got the message… 55… at least until we hit the Nevada border, lol.
Wasn’t it in Nevada where the State Police would run patrol cars two by two at 55mph, forcing all drivers to convoy behind them? I remember some western state doing that in the early days of the 55 limit, at least until they got tired of the logistics.
55 limit: Brings back memories of my Vega GT, a Bianchi track bike, and I-90 outside of Erie.
That’s certainly possible but in my (limited) experience with the Nevada state police they basically just ignored the 55 MPH speed limit and drove at the speed they wished. Actually the 55 MPH limit was pretty much ignored by everyone in many western states. The police would typically not bother you up to 80 or so, as long as you weren’t weaving in and out of traffic or otherwise acting stupid. I can remember being passed several times by the Nevada state police while I was driving at 70-75; the only response I ever got was a friendly wave.
I remember that issue! But when it came out, I was still a few months from buying my first car. Looking back now, I can see that I owned a few cars from their list, either of the same generation or one gen newer: 1st gen Scirocco, E12 5-series (528i, not 530), 2nd gen Honda Civic, and an Alfetta (a 4 door Berlina, not the GT). The Honda was the only car that was both fun and reliable, though it was also the only one that I bought new.
Those Mazda Capellas were quite good cars, ours didnt have a rotary only the piston engine also badged 929 they were a good average reliable car.
I know it’s difficult to predict the future, but in retrospect, a buyer (read, myself) would have been money ahead by buying, for example, a V8 Cutlass Supreme, live with the 10 MPGs, but have few, if any breakdowns for the next X number of years. As noted by many above, most of these things listed were reliability nightmares, MPG be damned.
What a gut punch that must have been to the US automakers. Pity that they chose to ignore it at the time.
C&D had as big of a blind spot as the American auto industry did, only in a different direction. Japanese cars were barely better represented than US models. Yes, the future belonged to Europe.
In fact, the future belonged to manufacturers who would design and build high quality cars at reasonable prices. And by 1975, most of them were Japanese.
The other piece of the future they missed was a smaller car that would appeal to the traditional buyer of American barges. The 1975 Granada was that car. Sure, it had some long term quality issues, but that would only seem to recommend it all the more looking at this collection.
Keep in mind that they were evaluating and rating cars on a very specific set of criteria. And the domestics and Japanese cars simply didn’t perform as well on them. R&T wasn’t in the business of predicting reliability; that was CR’s job.
It’s the same dilemma that always faces automobile testers. The cars are new, and long term durability is just not possible to evaluate in a road (and track) test.
It’s the same reason certain cars always tend to do well in tests and Top10 lists and such.
But that all started to change very soon, after the Honda Accord arrived one year later.
If it had been a subjective list, as in just a list of cars to recommend as being suitable for various specific purposes (and reliability), I’m sure the list would have been quite different.
It’s interesting to note in reading all these old R&Ts from the ’75 and up era, how the exceptional future reliability/durability reputation of the Japanese cars was of course not yet properly established. Yes, the perceived quality of them was noted, but it was just too early to know how well many of them would age so much better than many domestics (rust excepted).
FWIW, R&T did do long-term tests, and some of their favorite cars did not do well. Stay tuned.
But yes, R&T was very pro-European at this time, because they had a deep tradition coming out of the sports/competition world and also tended to hew to very objective criteria (theirs). Car and Driver was actually much more subjective, and tended to like any cars that could be fun (in a variety of ways) and could be exploited to those ends.
Paul’s analysis of “R&T” and “Car & Driver” is spot on.
R&T had a distinct European bias for decades. They loved cars that were trouble prone, rusted away in your driveway & were totally unsuitable for American roads, distances and slacker drivers.
C&D loved or hated all nation’s cars equally. They loved cars that had some driving enjoyment to them, compared to Detroit’s dull-but-reliable cars. When Detroit did make a fun & reliable car, the editors at C&D would let it’s readers know.
Placing two cars in that list in their debut year was a monumental achievement for VW. Everything was pretty deserving except for the Audi 100LS and maybe the RX-4. That Alfetta GT was such an interesting car to me. Along with the VWs and 5-series it showed us what the 1980s would look like.
A very interesting line up and a great decade for cars in many ways.
They may have been innovative for the time, but they weren’t very convenient or reliable. I think the domestics of the era were the better cars imo.
How can you call a Mercedes 450 SE/SEL a SPORTS sedan?
I think the answer is right in your username.
The “ivory towers” editors of “Road & Track” seldom took into consideration these “Real World” costs of ownership: initial purchase price, insurance, reliability (or lack of, in several of their stellar choices), routine maintenance costs and parts availability when the car did break (and several of these broke down quite frequently)
It’s one thing to test drive a brand new car for a couple of weeks in the sun and moderate climate of Newport Beach, California. It’s quite something else to have to live with these cars for 3, 4, 5 years east of “La La Land”, on a daily basis.
Wow the prices were incredible.
Back in the day, those prices were considered high, so much so that 1975 sales dropped. Average income certainly wasn’t the same level as today.
And an average new car, including critic’s choices, would last 100,000 miles.
Last 100.000 miles just, but be completely worn out by then too
Kind of what I was thinking. I was particularly surprised that the Alfetta was that expensive–was Alfa’s market position that premium at the time?
I don’t know the “official” market position (not being all that knowledgeable about imports generally). But I thought they were “above” most. (maybe just to me).? Alfa Romeo and Peugeot were the only European marques I had any interest in then.
Citroen, Alfa and Fiat, really?
And first gen Rabbits were hardly bulletproof as the later Civic and Corolla became known.
17.5 mpg out of that Mazda? I’d call that pathetic but pathetic doesn’t go far enough. Damn… my raggedy old ’05 P71 winter beater has hit 26mpg on the highway and has never given me worse than 18. Sheesh.
With a 1.8 piston engine those Mazdas do 30mpg, with some loss in performance obviously but they ran forever.
1975 v. 2005. What sort of mileage did a 1975 Ford police interceptor return? It was probably a single digit.
I remember reading that article in 1975. Pity the people who followed their advice, virtually every one of those 10 cars ended up being a money-pit repair nightmare! If I’d had the $ I’d have gotten the Alfa or 530i. Oy! Sometime practical is better than “Best”!
Very true.
The MSRP on a 1975 BMW 2002 was $5,940. Although the BMW was aging, I think one would have still been a better sports sedan than a Mazda RX4. Maybe it would have been too reliable for inclusion in the list.
The 2002 was better than the RX-4 in almost every way. But the Mazda was $4,497 MSRP, and $1,400 was a lot of money back then. I think, too, that R&T was trying to get newer models into the rankings, rather than cars near the end of their production runs. They would not have been completely oblivious to the marketing (and ad buy) possibilities of filling the list with cars near the front end of their shelf lives. The RX-4 was the recently introduced flagship of sorts for Mazda, so I am guessing R&T threw them a little bone on this one. As a past owner of multiple RX-4s, I would call them good cars for their time, but not great ones.
I agree that they were probably trying to be forward looking with their picks, but that doesn’t excuse the inclusion of the Audi 100LS. The Audi was introduced in Europe during 1968, and it had spent five years on the US market earning a dreadful reputation when this article was written. The BMW 2002 was only a decent ventilation system away from being competitive into the ’80s. Many BMW enthusiasts of the era considered the E21 a retrograde step in every other area of execution.
In my recollection, Audi was an almost completely unknown brand in the US in 1975. Even as a 10-year-old gearhead kid, I really didn’t know much; I just thought of them as a fancy variant of the VW Dasher, I guess mostly because Audi stores were combined with, or near to, Volkswagen stores. It really wasn’t until the US introduction of the 5000 that most Americans even heard of Audi.
The 100LS was around for years in low numbers, but the Audi Fox was the car that started the Audi success story in the US that hit pause when Morley Safer had the opportunity he was waiting for to skewer some Germans. The VW Dasher was actually a badge-engineered Audi 80/Fox that reached the market a year after the Audi.
I had totally forgotten about this issue. And I’m surprised to realize that I’ve owned several of these cars, though some as different variations:
– 1st gen 5 Series, though 528 not 530
– 1st gen Scirocco
– Honda Civic, though 2nd gen not 1st
– VW Golf, though 7th gen not 1st 😀
– And an Alfetta, but mine was a sedan (Berlina) not GTV
Those “Rabbits” were being built in western PA, about 45 miles from where I grew up.
I remember folks trying to get jobs at the plant.
Was a short distance off the PA turnpike, New Stanton exit.
I think that might be part of your ‘problem’ – our Golfs were made at Wolfsburg (and admittedly were not strangulated with A/C and emissions plumbing) so were considered pretty reliable, if still a but rust-prone.
It was instrumental in creating the German-car worship we suffer from in the UK.
Admittedly, our own cars were utter crap by any quality standards, which resulted in the Japanese crushing the industry.
I can only empathise with the US position regarding Malaise-era dinosaurs which suffered so much from legislation. Merely a vehicle generation too slow in the downsizing and efficiency stakes.
I agree it was perhaps the most fascinating period though – the move to rationally-designed mostly FWD-layouts was clearly underway, yet there was still some experimentation going on.
Convergent evolution seems to have made the automotive landscape rather boring these days.
The 1975-1977 US-market Rabbits were all made in Germany, and they were the ones that wiped out VW’s hard-earned reputation for making reliable cars.
So we’re the later American made models more reliable?.
Not by much, based on my experience. I had a ’75 Rabbit, built in Germany, followed by a ’79, built in the US (Westmoreland, PA plant).
The former was utter junk, so the latter only seemed acceptable by comparison. BTW, the first US-produced Rabbits were 1979s (mine was purchased in October 1978).
The 1970s were not an innovative period for American cars, alas.
The Countach “may be the swan song of this whole breed of supercars” and “probably never will be” sold in North America. They certainly ended up eating those words.
Sad, already by 1975 no Americans listed in there. The regulations put on our automakers really destroyed American car makers.