The GTO’s 1968 COTY award seems to have been a bit late, given the huge splash it made in defining the muscle car in 1964. But it did get a handsome new body, as well as the first use of a body-colored plastic bumper, which certainly was a foreshadowing of the future. So here’s your chance to redo 1968: is the GTO worthy, or should it have been….?
Jaguar XJ6, just for the pure grace of it.
+1
+2 to the Jaguar XJ6.
My choices would be:
1) Datsun 510 Bluebird
2) Jaguar XJ6
3) AMC Javelin
4) Road Runner
The GTO wouldn’t be it.
Also, just to be a jerk, I could toss in a dark horse vote for the Rover 3500. The 2000 and 2000TC versions of the P6 were the better sellers, of course, but the 3500 was probably the main impetus to the ex-Buick aluminum V8 becoming the premier British hot rod engine. (Yes, I know that the 3.5-liter first went into the Rover P5 3½-Litre the year before, but I don’t ‘think it had nearly the same impact as the 3500.)
Let’s consider the alternatives. What was really new in 1968 that was as revolutionary as that bumper?
I’m sure somebody will come up with something but consider that Pontiac’s Endura rubber styling trick was the beginning of the road to today’s bumpers.
Imagine when the automakers began building body-colored noses en masse, how weird it may have looked if there had not first been a ’68-’70 GTO, or a ’69 Firebird…actually every Firebird from ’69 on.
I’m a big fan of the ’68 Vette but everyone knew it was only a new body over the existing chassis. The GM A-bodies changed things up a little by offering two wheelbases: :116″ for 4-doors, 112″ for two-doors. That was new for a mass-market mid-size car, wasn’t it?
I’m sticking with the GTO.
There was nothing particularly new about multiple wheelbases, though. Plymouth, for instance, had done that back in 1949-1952 — while those cars weren’t marketed as intermediates, they were smaller in every dimension other than the ’68 GM A-bodies.
Also, every GM intermediate went to the split wheelbase for ’68, not just Pontiac. I suppose you could make a case for the GTO being the GMiest of the GM intermediates (or something), but it doesn’t really stand out in that respect.
I recall reading at the time that the GM chassis engineers claimed some sort of ride problem with the 114 inch wheelbase, that that making it either longer or shorter improved the car’s ride. The coupes went shorter and the sedans went longer. Of course, this may have been B.S. for the press releases. I have never heard this critique of the 114 inch wb before anywhere else. Ford did not seem to have a problem with this wb in the 1979 and up Panther cars.
As far as Detroit goes, the only new shapes in ’68 were the D3 intermediates , the Corvette and Javelin-AMX. The GTO wasn’t a new model, but it was in a new shape for ’68 along the other A-bodies. The Torino-Montego wasn’t really earthshaking.
The Javelin-AMX was a contender, but IMHO the COTY it should have been the Road Runner in ’68, not ’69 as MT Magazine did. In ’68 it was a new concept, with fresh sheetmetal.And a concept that was highly relevant for a few years in middle america, the affordable youth market dream machine that didnt scream cheap, at least as long as you didn’t look at the interior.
Yes, history has shown this to be a short-lived market segment, but in the Fall of ’67, the Road Runner was right in the sweet spot of it.
The Dodge Charger might have been fancier, as was the GTX, but thier window stickers were rather statospheric for young buyers.
Well let’s see. Since I was still 9 years from being born in 1968 I had to do some googling around to see which cars were all new or substantially revised for 1968.
Oldsmobile had the 3rd generation Cutlass/F-85 and the 2nd generation Vista Cruiser (notable in my book for being available with the 455 Rocket, big block wagon baby!)
Over at Buick the Skylark was revised and the tooling for the “Fireball V6” sold off to Kaiser Jeep Corp only to be bought back during the gas crisis.
Ford had the Torino as a Fairlane package continuing the broughamification of the Ford lineup on the successful heels of the LTD.
American Motors introduced the Javelin and the AMX, once again showing signs of life and producing cars that were the opposite of their “old man” image.
Mercury had a new Montego, Comet, and Cougar but other than the Cougar not all that thrilling, just more parroting Ford.
No new Lincolns or Cadillacs.
Plymouth introduced the Road Runner, the purest expression of the concept.
A new Dodge Charger and Super Bee were introduced, the Super Bee of course being one of the priciest muscle cars now.
Nothing new for Chrysler or Imperial…
Chevy introduced the 3rd generation Nova/Chevy II with available SS package and the C3 Vette debuted, famous and infamous for being the longest lived design of all the Corvette generations. I would also note it for having a crazy # of engine options through its lifespan if you go back and look at all the engine ordering codes that were used during production. It would also be significant for being the last Vette built in St. Louis.
If I had to pick I’d either pick the Vista Cruiser (the coolest wagon of them all) or the Corvette for being the design that had to weather the storms of going from big block power down to 305 4brl before being saddled with “don’t fire” injection.
It’s a tough question for 1968. So, I’ll just go with the car I’d most want. A 68 Chrysler 300 with the 440, and the 2 dr reverse sport roof. The hidden headlights really make the car. Any leather interior would do. As far as color, probably white exterior. I’m up in the air with interior color.
I’d say the whole 1968 GM A body line up, all 4 divisions, all classics today.
To pick one make, of course the Poncho Tempest/LeMans/GTO!
Ah, the memories. A friend from Minneapolis had one, (in GM metallic green!) and came to visit Chicago in 1970, my senior year in high school. Both of us drove back to MN, and I was behind the wheel when we went through Madison and the aircraft speed markers. Fortunately, they timed me when I was doing “only” 88 in a 70, so the fine was about $40. If they had got me when I had it at 120, it could have been brutal. As it was, I was grounded for 6 weeks.
It didn’t handle all that well, but on the freeway, it did damned well. IIRC, it got about 10 mpg at speed.
Said friend clobbered the engine by using the J.C.Whitney “Fire Injector” spark plugs. Burned a hole in one piston, so there was truth in advertising…
That’s not a body-colored plastic bumper, that’s a rubber covered, painted, steel bumper.
I vote for the Datsun 510. It changed American’s perception of Japanese cars. Fine car too. You basically got a less refined BMW for under $2000.
I’m with Carrot…. a valid choice.
The Datsun was a good little bomb but with poor structural integrity they shake like a jelly on rough roads at speed being a cheap BMW isnt a recommendation for anything good, BMW were still cloning Triumphs at that stage and really only Americans think they handle and are reliable and thats only because of the appalling road manners of US cars.
Going to have to agree with Bryce on the road manners of US cars (Pre 1970 if you think 2nd gen GM F-bodies and Chevrolet Vegas have good handling)
I will second Roger628 on the Road Runner. The GTO’s only noteworthy feature was new styling on the same concept that had been pushed since 1964. It certainly set the style for the next few years, but otherwise it was no different (and a lot less influential) than the 1964-66 iterations.
The Road Runner was a completely new segment – all of the performance of anything offered out there, but at a huge discount. In a rare turnabout, Pontiac would soon be copying Plymouth – with the GTO Judge, a car that was nowhere near as popular and certainly not influential.
I was going to nominate the Continental Mark III, but as with the 64 Mustang, it is best considered as a 1969 model.
Owww.. I was stewing between the GTO and Corvette but YOU had to bring up the Mark III. Now I’m torn between three. All are worthy candidates but I can’t remove my subjectivity (a.k.a. love) from them leaving me stymied.
Make my GTO Verdoro Green with the optional hidden headlights.
The Mark III misses the cut because, although it was introduced in April, 1968, it was as a 1969. Technically, there is no 1968 Mark III.
In a perfect world, the Roadrunner would have been COTY in 1968, and the Mark III would have been it in 1969.
Or maybe even the new Grand Prix for 1969. It certainly would have been a better choice than the GTO for 1968.
The idea of The Judge started of from the LeMans ET which was going to be a Road Runner fighter, but in the end the The Judge became the flagship of the GTO series, more expensive than a regular GTO, higher performance too since all Judges were at least a Ram Air III, so it was not a competitor to the Road Runner, which really wasn’t a new segment anyway, it was a cheap entry into a segment that already existed, the intermediate muscle car.
GM’s answer to the Roadrunner was offering the SS396 package on the low-line 1969 Chevelle 300 Deluxe coupe. Like the Roadrunner, it was a lighter, pillared coupe.
Unfortunately for GM (and Ford with the like-minded 1969 Cobra), the marketing research that showed these cheap, stripped musclecars wouldn’t sell all that well panned out. In their most basic forms, the ‘kid-cars’ (as they were known inside the industry) weren’t very profitable and didn’t sell like the more optioned up versions. While the Cobra lasted a few more years, the 300 SS396 was only offered for one year. The following year, the 300 pillared coupe was eliminated, all 2-door Chevelles were hardtops, and the biggest V8 engine that could be had in the base (now known only as ‘Chevelle’) was a 350-4v.
The Roadrunner differs in the way it was packaged, i.e., licensing the use of the Warner Bros. cartoon. In the past, cheap, strippo musclecars had been available, but the market for such single-minded vehicles was quite limited (mainly to professional drag racers). Some of them were downright undriveable on the street (and not that cheap, either).
A case in point are early sixties ‘Max Wedge’ Mopars. The Roadrunner, OTOH, while nowhere near as fast, was a whole lot more inexpensive and could be used as a daily-driver without any of the same driveability problems. Coupled with the popular, clever little cartoon bird, it was a wild (if brief) success that neither Chevy nor Ford could duplicate.
The other big problem with big-engined, cheap musclecars is the way they cannibalized the more expensive, more profitable carlines. Why buy a GTX/Coronet R/T when you could get almost the same performance from a cheaper, optioned up Roadrunner or Super Bee? That’s the reason the 440-4v engine was never available in the Roadrunner or Super Bee and was an exclusive to the GTX and Coronet R/T.
Well, conversely, you could say why offer the GTX and R/T if the people most interested in them can’t afford them, which is pretty much what happened (albeit as much because of insurance as actual purchase price).
The kid cars may not have been huge profit-generators, but they were generally not expensive to engineer — the Road Runner was basically a police/taxi-package Belvedere with cartoon decals — and they had definite value in terms of publicity and brand-building. Half the reason Detroit got into pony cars was because their research showed that if a young buyer picked up a Mustang or a Camaro as his/her first car, s/he was significantly more likely to come back to that brand for the second car.
And of course Plymouth et al tried very hard to do the same trick as the Mustang, in setting a low introductory price and making it up on options. I remember Car and Driver complaining that their first-year Road Runner tester had something like $1,000 worth of mostly cosmetic extras.
Annother Road Runner fan here….
Letting personal sentiment get in the way, I’d vote Javelin, as a bare-bones ’68 was my family’s first new car. The honeymoon lasted until cold weather set in, during which the Borg-Warner(?) automatic was oft inclined to take the day off.
From a pragmatic standpoint, I’d have no qualms about the GTO getting the nod (or plaque, or cup, or 1/48 scale model mounted on a block of lacquered walnut), though to my eyes the Skylark variants were always better lookers.
The 68 Charger gets my vote. It’s kind of a cliche choice and its styling is derivative, sure, but that 68 redesign is what dictated the “look” for decades to come. There’s not a person I know, car enthusiast or not, that couldn’t instantly identify one(of course it’s heavy use in TV and movies helps bolster that). Even the current Charger sedan is using design cues from it.
While I agree that it should have been the Roadrunner in 1968, the problem was no one (likely including MT) thought the Roadrunner would be the phenomenal success it turned out to be. I have no idea how soon the magazine copy has to be in place, but my guess is when it became apparent the original Roadrunner would be a hit, it was too late to get it into print.
It’s even more odd considering how MT ‘rotated’ the award among manufacturers and it had been over ten years when the last Chrysler product had been named COTY with Exner’s ground-breaking ‘Forward Look’ cars of 1957 (and Pontiac Motor Division had been awarded COTY just three years earlier in 1965).
1968 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. The styling was really something and right out of “The Jetsons”.
After that, all the 1968 GM mid-sizers: Pontiac GTO with that endura bumper stated above. Olds Cutlass 442. Chevy Chevelle SS 396. Buick GS. All awesome cars.
1968 Ford Torino – finally – a Ford that really turned me on!
Chrysler? 1968 Dodge Charger. Those bulls-eye side marker lights – side marker lights – new that year across the industry. Ford, however, was too cheap to put lighted markers on the Torino, but made do with reflectors – how’d they get away with that?
AMC? Sadly, they don’t count, Javelin and AMX notwithstanding
It’s interesting that as the ’60s wore on, it gets harder and harder to name a “car of the year” that actually had much lasting influence. The Road Runner was interesting for boiling the musclecar down to it’s essentials, but by the following year you could order one almost as fancy (and expensive) as any other brand. GM’s intermediates? great cars, but they were really just a rehash of an already established and successful concept. 1968 was all about muscle, so my nomination is the 1968 (and a 1/2) Mustang with the 428 Cobra jet. They didn’t make many, and they weren’t quite as fast as the magazine articles of the day would suggest, but it was Ford’s first real effort to be competitive in the musclecar battles.
Yeah, I know you could get a 427 in various models before that, but very, very few were made, it was expensive and availability was limited to certain models. Ford offered a 390 in the Fairlane and Mustang, but it was a stone in stock form. Even a base SS396 could embarass one, let alone an L-78. Ford may have advertised total performance, but they didn’t deliver on the street. The 428CJ changed all that. Not really much in the greater scheme of things, but in the context of 1968 it’s about all I can come up with.
My first car was a 68 Plymouth Sport Satellite (GTX trim but the 318 engine). Great Car! I will have to go with its sister the Charger for 1968. Unlike the GTO or Roadrunner it was a distinct model which offered several different trim levels, distinct styling from the Coronet, an array of engine choices, etc. The GTO was really a sub-series of the Lemans/Tempest like the Road Runner was of the Belvedere. The Road Runner definitely gets the marketing award of the year.
For my Outstanding Impact in a Regional Market award, the GTO wins. But did it have worldwide impact? Maybe not so much – certainly not insofar as people could identify and name it. But almost everyone worldwide can identify and name a Jaguar XJ, which is my hands-down nominee for CCOTY 1968! (With the Ro80 coming in a close second for the impact its simple and elegant styling has had over the decades since). 🙂
Hard choice, I’ll go with the GTO. However I wonder if awarding the COTY for the Road Runner in 1969, if Motor Trend tried to fix a mistake? 😉
I guess the 1968-69 GTO front end inspired some designers like Keith Kaucher who photoshopped a 1969 Firebird to see how it should had look http://www.hubgarage.com/mygarage/BLKGT350/vehicles/25178/photos/973878
Meanwhile Down Under in Australia, Holden introduced their version of the Aussie muscle-car with the Monaro who was elected COTY in Australia for 1968 by Wheels magazine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KBcIWHhTR8
The new Nova which I owned or the Road Runner which I did not. I liked it so well that I did drive the 69 Dodge Coronet which looked the same to me. if you want to give something to Pontiac go back to about 1964. Covered some miles in one of those owned by a buddy of mine. To be honest with you I thought all the GMs looked the same in 68. As noted above, the engine options in a light body give the nod to the Nova for me. GTO was not special till maybe 69 and the Judge. Forget what year really but you get past the spoilers and it was just the same thing warmed over. Just wish the Nova had still come with a wagon. Everything should.
This is a cut and paste from “American Cars 1960-1972″.
” “The 1968 model year is best known for the vast array of federally mandated safety equipment required for all automobiles sold after January 1, 1968. Among the features required were front seat head restraints, safety belts, and side marker lamps. Most manufacturers had these items installed by the beginning of the 1968 model year, but a few did wait until the last minute to install them. Heated competition amongst the mid-size Ford, GM and Chrysler lines found these models totally restyled for 1968 with the GM models seeing the most significant changes.
The Chevy Chevelle, Pontiac Tempest, Olds F-85,and Buick Special lines all received rounded, smooth-sided lines with a semi-fastback 2 door roofline that would become widely copied. The quartet of cars that were leading the muscle car market were, of course, included in this restyling. The front runner, Pontiac GTO, led the way with an innovative “Endura” flexible front bumper system. This flexible material allowed for no damage to the vehicle during minor impacts. It also gave stylists more freedom in design. As an example, the GTO sported a full width, “loop-style” bumper
that was body color and could be blended into the body lines. Powertrains continued as in previous years, with the base Pontiac OHC-6 adding 20 cubes and additional horsepower.
The new Ford Fairlane and Mercury Montego lines were essentially larger versions of their predecessors. As with all other Ford products during this period, styling became boxier and bulkier. Fastback rooflines were adopted for the sportiest 2-door models, and they became quite popular for high-speed stock car racing. Ford also began heavily promoting their 428 Cobra jet engine, particularly in this mid-size line. Torino, Cobra Jet, and Cyclone CJ’s became very popular with the racing crowd. The compact Falcon continued to share its station wagon body with the midsize Ford lines.
The mid-size Dodge Coronet and Plymouth Belvedere were restyled along with the Charger line. Styling was generally conservative with rooflines following conventional lines, except for the Dodge Charger which utilized a semifastback line with a tunneled rear window like that used on the ’66–’67 GM intermediates. The sporty Charger was an immediate hit and ushered in a new era of mid-size sporty personal cars. Interest in full-size models such as the Grand Prix, Ford 500XL, and Chrysler 300 had waned and buyers increasingly turned to the better handling mid-size cars.
A totally new Corvette with styling based on the Mako Shark concept appeared. This new Corvette was extremely advanced compared with other automobiles on the market, and as such, it would continue basically unaltered into the 1980s. Styling was somewhat futuristic for the time, with highly arched wheel openings, and a rakish windshield and “tunneled” rear window being the most prominent features. Engine choices were either a 350 CID V8 or a 427 CID V8 in various horsepower outputs.
Few changes were made to any of the compact lines, except the Chevy II Nova, which was all-new for ’68. Based on a heavily updated ’66–’67 Chevy II with a new unibody and front stub-frame suspension setup, the new Nova was one of the best handling compacts on the road to date. Styling followed conventional Chevrolet lines. The compact Ford Falcon, AMC Rambler American, Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart continued relatively unchanged from their recent overhauls.
Sporty pony cars were mostly carry-overs with one notable exception. The all new AMC Javelin was the latest interpretation of the pony car style. Utilizing compact car dimensions, powerful engines, fastback styling and sporty interiors, the Javelin was proof that AMC could build successful cars. New powerplants were pulled from the regular AMC line. Underpinnings were based on the compact American, much as Ford Mustang had used the Falcon and Chevy Camaro the Chevy II. A unique spin-off of the Javelin was the 2-seat AMX, a worthy competitor to the Corvette. With a 390 V8, an AMX could hold its own against most any pony car or sports car. The AMX was created by taking 12 inches out of the mid-section of a Javelin.The shortened Javelin sported all the good looks and power in a lighter package.
Full size models for Chrysler, GM and Ford were all given facelifts after heavy redesigns for ’67. Chrysler continued to feature “Coke-bottle” side styling and fastback 2-door rooflines. Ford and GM went for slightly boxier styling based on their 1967 foundations. For the most part Ford and GM full size cars came off looking a lot bulkier than their predecessors. The Checker and Avanti II once again entered the new year with few changes, except for those required by federal law. Most truck lines were also carry-overs, with the obvious exceptions being the Ford Ranchero and Chevrolet El Camino. Both of these lines were based upon their respective mid-size car lines, the Fairlane and Chevelle, and received the full make-over for 1968.” ”
Personally, I gotta go with the AMX for the weirdness that was AMC innovation, but that ‘Vette was an iconic shape that lasted for three decades.
1. GTO
2. Charger
3. Road Runner
Getting a bit off topic here, I find it appalling that GM couldn’t find a GTO with properly aligned headlamp covers to send to the advertising agency that created that ad. Unreal…they should have stuck with the illustrated ads that had been their trademark up till then.
I’ve always wondered why hidden headlights lost popularity so quickly in American car designs. Was it merely planned obsolescence or did technical issues such as difficulty in door alignment (or turning on the lights in icy weather) lead to their demise?
Well, Dave Holls said around 1970, when Cadillac ditched them for the Eldorado, that they were a fad that was getting to be old hat, but there had been reliability issues of various kinds. With the electrically operated covers, the motor would burn out from trying to push the cover through the gunk that inevitably built up on the tracks, while with the vacuum-operated units, the vacuum lines would get crusty, crack, and lose power.
The problem with the appearance of the headlight covers of the 1968 GTO is that the open, inside grillwork next to them sits back further than the covers. They corrected this for 1969 but it’s all too easy to find ’68-’69 GTOs with hidden headlights that don’t match up properly because of the crossbars.
1968 Corvette Stingray……… The ’65 Mako Shark show car come to life. Where the ’68 GTO and it’s cousins the 442, the GS and Chevelle SS disappeared in this body style after ’72, the Shark lived for 14 years total. It was born in the age of 106 Octane Sunoco, 11:1 compression ratios, Muncie rock crusher 4 speeds and it moved out in the age of the engine control computer, oxygen sensor and electronic fuel injection. It raced in the 24 hours of LeMans; it’s L88 427 breathing fire through it’s side pipes. It has been written that it was a crowd favorite of the local French, this upstart American beast. It combined the genius styling of Bill Mitchell and the engineering genius of one Zora Arkus Duntov. The special order L88 was for all rights an out and out race engine. It advertised 430 horsepower but everyone knew this engine was more capable of putting 500 horsepower to the rear wheels. The split targa roof offered convertible freedom and coupe water tight integrity. The removable rear window allowed one to better hear the high compression motors’ exhaust. The rear Kamm tail and built in duck tail rear spoiler offered better aerodynamics and paved the way for other Kamm tailed automobiles to come. The vacuum operated headlight covers and winsheild wiper cover were a Detroit first. The wiper cover allowed a cleaner design with the wipers hidden from view. In the interior was another first-Fiber Optics. Fiber Optics were employed to notify the driver when a front, rear or side marker light was out.
Regardless of Car and Drivers refusal to test drive one due to a perceived lack of quality in it’s build, the 1968 Corvette Stingray was still America’s Sports Car. And to this day, it still reigns! The technological advances I have presented can only mean that this, the 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, is the Curbside Classic Car Of The Year.
My vote would go to the BMW 2002 which really put the Bavarian Motor Works in the
spotlight and rescued the company from oblivion. It became something of a cult car
and BMW continues to thrive today on its heritage. The GTO? It was finished in 1970-
along with all the supercars imitating it. Pontiac itself is dead and long gone.
Over on the NSU thread, someone had suggested the Toyota Corolla. Per wikipedia, it was first introduced in 1966, but went on sale in the U.S. in March 1968. If the Corolla qualifies on the basis of that, I’d have to go with it, as much as a fan of Detoit iron as I am. This was right around the time Toyota pretty suddenly went from minor player to major force in the U.S. market, and I’m guessing that the Corolla contributed greatly to the expansion of Toyota’s influence elsewhere in the world. More than 40 years later, the nameplate is still with us and is still a top seller. If the Corolla doesn’t qualify, I’d go with the GM A-bodies, and would be fine with selecting the GTO as the most memorable of the bunch.
As for some of the others:
NSU Ro80 — an interesting car that I was not at all familiar with, but seems too flawed and too much of an evoluntionary dead end to be CCOTY. It sounds like it wasn’t a great seller even in Germany.
Datsun 510 — not a bad nomination, for similar reasons to the Corolla, as well as its reputation as a driver’s car. But if we’re playing the “Japanese start to conquer the world” angle, I’ll go with the Corolla over the 510.
Jaguar XJ, Corvette — good suggestions but I’d take any of the above (except for the NSU) over them. As much as this generation of Corvette is what I picture when I hear the word “Corvette”, it somehow seems less historically important than what came before it.
Road Runner — in hindsight, the niche it carved out didn’t have the staying power or long term influence (and didn’t really result in *that* many sales).
Nova — worth bringing into the discussion for how long the basic design was built, for being one of the first American cars with stereotypically ’70s styling, for how many were sold (probably the first American compact to ride the rising tide of interest in small cars in the late ’60s), and for how many are still seen today. But there was nothing really groundbreaking here.
Charger/Chrysler B-body in general, Javelin/AMX — interesting cars but I can’t see taking them over any of the above.
Torino — this generation of FoMoCo intermediate doesn’t really do much for me. They sold fairly well in their day (but in an era when Ford seemed to have a certain share of the U.S. market locked up no matter what it put out for sale), and you don’t see many around today.
“Road Runner — in hindsight, the niche it carved out didn’t have the staying power or long term influence (and didn’t really result in *that* many sales).”
This is not completely true, mostly with Chrysler. To this day, every so often, one of the domestics tries to recreate the hot sales of the original Roadrunner by putting out a cheap car with a larger engine (‘kid car’). The old Omni GLHS was one. For a few years in the nineties, there was a Mustang GTS (which was just a decontented GT). Then there was the whole Neon SRT series.
I don’t know what the sales figures are for those cars (the Mustang GTS only lasted for a couple of years), but they must be enough for the domestics to keep trying.
With that said, as much as I like the Roadrunner, I have to admit that the ‘bumperless’ Endura front end of the 1968 GTO would seem to have a substantially wider and further reaching influence than anything about the Roadrunner. For that reason alone, the GTO is likely a better choice for 1968 COTY.
The only other thing the Roadrunner has going for it was the way it was marketed, i.e., the tie-in with Warner Bros.
Truly, there is little new or novel for the 1968 CCOTY. What does everyone bring to the table? The GTO and the other GM A-bodies don’t break any real technical ground. The only true advances are the government mandated environmental and safety ones. You could almost say the same for the rest of the domestic US lineup at the time. The Endura nose or the vacuum(!) operated hidden headlights on a ‘Vette, do not have the impact that the Corvair did several years before or the release of the small block Chevy did in 1955.
Let’s be honest, the 510 Datsun was a thoroughly conventional car, along with the Corolla. There were some nice features on that age of Datsun, but front engine, rear drive, three box design? 1960 Ford Falcon, anyone? Ditto with Corolla.
Occasionally people like to point out that the Corolla name has been around for so many years. It has, but it’s been attached to so many different body styles and configurations that if you remember the original one and compare it to today there would be no way to recognize it as a Corolla. You could call it something else, like Howard, it would have the same impact. If you showed a time traveler a Mustang from 1965 and one from 1975, 1985, 1995 and 2005, the car’s mission and styling (most of all) is similar enough to be recognized by our visitor from 1965. Corolla? Howard? Who knows?
I love the suggestion for the Jaguar XJ6 (sarcasm). Beautiful car, lousy reliability. Not that I know a huge amount of wealthy people, but some of the folks I worked for back in the 80’s were the first to RUN AWAY from their Jaguars when the Lexus became available. Having only peripherally witnessed their issues with the cars, I can’t say I blame them. Just because it was produced for a long time doesn’t necessarily imply greatness. See VW Beetle, Lada, Trabant, Hindustan, etc…
The NSU Ro80 has a legitimate shot at being the CCOTY, only because of the amount of forethought put into the car. The FWD 4 door wedge shaped body configuration was a prescient choice, especially in the mid 1960’s. I don’t know how the folks at NSU managed to see into the future so well, or if it was a last chance effort to stay alive. But the rotary motor? Oh no. What a shame… I’ve often thought of Mazda as the Sisyphus company, pushing that rotary rock up the hill. It was enough to kill NSU, what makes them think continued development will boost Mazda ahead of other Japanese companies? Forget the triangular piston.
Sorry for the amount of snark, it’s not really directed at anyone in particular. I just find 1968 a not particularly exciting year for the advancement of the automobile. After reading many comments above me, it’s clear little new really happened for that year, most of the cars presented here were re-hashes of earlier (or someone else’s) designs.
I think if I were forced to pick one, I’d go with the 1968 Corvair. It was technically refined and still outshined many foreign and domestic competitors, eight years after introduction. Or the EPA and NHTSA.
I’m not sure which, though.
let’s see … for 1968, the European COTY was the Peugeot 504, with the BMW E3 second and the lovely Alfa 1750 third. All three are very legitimate choices in my book, for very different reasons. And I’d love to see any of them in my garage!
Those are from 1969…stay tuned.
D’oh. I nominated the Jag XJ, but just realised that 1968 saw the launch of my favourite car and my bonnet-emblem avatar image: the Nissan Laurel! And it deserves to win for one stylistic feature that no other manufacturer has ever (to my knowledge) copied – Nissan reminded folks when the Laurel was launched by adding “Since 1968” after half the “Laurel” badges and emblems, including the grille on 1989-92’s C33-series Laurel as pictured below. Who’d have thought it – all this debate over what should be the 1968 CCOTY, when we should have just picked the only car that advertises that year on its person!
IMO 1968 was a huge “Jump The Shark” year for General Motors and the GTO in particular. I think the ’68 A-body cars were a huge step down in every single way from the previous generation – except perhaps the ability to order a completely insane powerplant under the hood. The earlier cars were svelte and fashionable, these were over the top and introduced the world to the shittiness of injection molded plastic interiors. A ’68-’72 fake Chevelle SS is the ultimate automotive douchebag trope. The new Corvette was cool for a few years, then became a total parody of itself in the 70’s… what else can I say? The last few years of Cadillac being truly relevant, the last few sad years of Corvair production, the ridiculously overrated 1st generation F-Body, the full-size cars continuing their march into bloated oblivion, the completely OK Nova. The Buick Riviera and Olds Toronado were still pretty sweet in 1968, and IMO the Riviera got even sweeter in 1971, but that’s a story for a different time.
Earlier in the CCOTY series I had a very hard time thinking of anything except American cars. 1968 is the year when that pattern completely reverses and I will have an extreme difficulty thinking of any American cars from here on out.
Add one more vote to the landmark weirdo ferrin scumbag elitist car triumph of the NSU Ro80. This is a car I’ve been madly in love with since forever and also something that represents a true paradigm shift in the worldwide automotive landscape. We didn’t catch up in the US until much, much later… while this country was crapping it’s pants over muscle car silliness this incredibly tiny German company was showing the world what 1990 looked like. The Wankel engine was one of those glorious “shoot-for-the-moon” failures like the Corvair’s air-cooled boxer, but much like the Corvair the overall concept and design was amazingly practical, forward-thinking and influential. Anybody who hasn’t read the Ate Up With Motor article should go do that right this second, it’s one of his best – and it’s amazing that one of these cars is still on the road in North America.
I would say the AMX. It had the looks and the goods underneath. Goats with their drum brakes were abyssimal (not in straight line performance or curves with the HD suspension).
I almost forgot about a car as revolutionary as the Ro80 that I nominate for 1968 CCOTY, The Saab 99!