(Note: A while back the editors at CC discussed publishing email chains to offer a multi-faceted presentation. This first endeavor in doing so has proven to be an enlightening experience. JS)
August 12, 2017
Jason,
By gummy, you are on a real roll. After your captivating article a few weeks ago on the truly superb 1973 Ford LTD, I see you are now working harder than a rented pack mule in writing an article about a 1975 Impala. Good for you! We’ve seen entirely too many 1977 and up GM B-bodies around here, but bring on those pre-1977 sweethearts with all their bootyliciousness.
Just be careful about writing up too many of these big-boned beauties in a short time period. You don’t want everyone thinking you have some sort of weird affinity for these. You should shuffle it up, maybe write an automotive history about how and why Ford has had the same texture on the pads of their brake pedals since about 1953. Just saying.
Paul
August 12, 2017
Paul,
Yes, I pondered quite a while on the affinity thing before starting my Impala article. I try to play my cards close to the chest so as not to divulge everything I think. However, this bare-bones Impala deserves a moment in the sun. Besides, it’s only big Fords and Mercurys (pre-Panther) for which I possess any indescribable fondness. Well, add Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler, too. But not GM. So I suppose we’re good. Dissing GM is healthy and cathartic, is it not?
Periodic contributor Eric703 was recently in Jefferson City visiting family and dropped by my house for a few hours. We were sitting on my deck drinking screwdrivers and swatting at mosquitos when he told me about this Impala he found in New York. Hang the appearances – this near swan song of the biggest of the big Chevrolets was simply too good to let linger. Eric’s price was wonderfully cheap as he just wanted to bask in the aroma my old Ford has given the garage. Not a bad trade.
As you know, the trick with any article is finding the right angle. For this Impala, it struck me how it’s a dead man walking heavily seasoned with the known elements of Julius Caesar’s assassination – there were several things conspiring against Caesar at the same time and similar goes for this Impala. I’m thinking that would be a good angle.
Jason
August 13, 2017
Jason,
You really aren’t that good at playing your cards, especially the Ford one, close to the chest. Take for example your day job; you’ve never said what you do or where you work but it doesn’t take a whole lot to figure it out.
I’ve simply got more experience in playing my cards close to the chest. Since I know you have better sense than to ever show this to anybody, I’ll tell you something – I love these big Chevrolets. The 1971 to 1976 full-sized Chevrolet was simply the pinnacle of Chevrolet. They had correctly sized tires and that damnable Powerglide was gone except for a few weird holdouts. For a current driver, these are great; old enough for a person to appreciate the experience but new enough to easily keep up with traffic and still have built in safety features, such as disc brakes, and there’s room for the whole family. It’s a win-win-win.
This one is just the ticket for me, too. Sadly I can’t ever admit to that as it would ruin my virtual, online persona quicker than a fart ruins a romantic encounter.
Look at that amazing roofline. What don’t you see? That’s right, there’s no vinyl. Steel roofs are like V8 engines, rear-wheel drive, and four-barrel carburetors – it’s the way things are supposed to be. Frankly, I was almost as giddy as a hog knee-deep in slop when I saw these pictures. I’m sure whatever you create will be finer than a frog’s hair split three ways.
The Caesar angle is a catchy one. You can combine discussion about size, political events, and lower powered engines all into one piece. It’ll be niftier than a shirt pocket and a lot of people love a good conspiracy theory. Even better, Caesar will be globally known, unlike that time you compared a Mercedes 450 SE to Conway Twitty. I still think you should have gone for a higher pantheon of singer such as Waylon Jennings.
This Impala looks reasonably well preserved, especially for being in New York where they sling salt like it’s confetti at a New Year’s Eve party.
Paul
August 14, 2017
Paul,
Huh? You like these big Chevrolets? After the way you’ve talked about them for years? You don’t play your cards close so much as you throw a great fake. You perplex me; aren’t you a devout Peugeot aficionado? You sure your influenza from the CC Meet-up in June didn’t reappear? How’s your temperature?
Tell Stephanie that Mrs. Jason has found locally grown free-range chickens work much better in chicken soup as they yield a more robust broth, making them quicker to soothe those under the weather.
Jason
August 14, 2017
Jason,
You sure are naive. There’s a reason all the cabs I drove back in the 1970s were Chevrolets. Comfort and durability were their forte.
Notice I didn’t offer any empty platitudes about it being attractive. This Impala is decent but, as much as I hate to admit it, that LTD you wrote up does look much better than this Impala in an Armani suit vs. bib-overalls kind of way. Ford did have a better idea, as much as it vexes my soul to say that. You better not show this email to anyone.
That Peugeot thing is just so much click-bait. You’ve seen that picture of me wrenching on one. That’s a subliminal message I’m sending. Think about it – only in North America was a big Chevrolet sold alongside a Peugeot. Which car fell on its face with a big, fat, wet smack and which is still going 42 years later?
Peugeot screwing the pooch in the U.S. was a perfect storm of events, not unlike those experienced by this bodacious Impala. Emission standards along with market and regulatory expectations killed Peugeot as dead as a hammer and it was certainly strangling the Impala. Horsepower for the standard 350 (5.7 liter) V8 was down twenty net horsepower from 1973.
When you write this up, take whatever angle you want but the Caesar angle is a good one. However, you might consider including some type of exposé about the profound drop in sales year-to-year for these cars. Be sure to poke fun at either the fuel mileage or the miserable power ratings that were lower than a snake’s belly in a rut. 145 horsepower from a 350 is simply pitiful; 235 horsepower from the available 454 (7.4 liter) V8 is laughable. You can turn that lack of output into a real barn-burner.
I know you’ll do a good job throwing words at a car that is the embodiment of durable but where there isn’t much original to say. You’ve done so before on another big Chevrolet.
Paul
August 16, 2017
Paul,
That’s an intriguing perspective about Peugeot. You got me thinking; the last Peugeot I saw outside a museum was in 1992 and it had just been rear-ended. No doubt its next stop was the scrap yard.
Your suggestions are good ones. Finding old fuel economy ratings for 1975 is pretty easy despite the EPA’s website only providing information back to 1984. Interestingly, this Impala is rated at 18 mpg highway if equipped with the base 350 (5.7 liter) V8.
For comparison, a compact Ford Granada with a 302 (5.0 liter) V8 was rated even worse at 16 mpg highway; with a 250 cubic inch (4.1 liter) straight-six the Granada was projected as being the equal of the 350 Impala in fuel usage. I guess efficient size doesn’t include fuel efficiency.
Stepping up to the 454 (7.4 liter) V8 only dropped an Impala’s estimated fuel economy to 15 mpg on the highway. And, would you believe the 400 (6.6 liter) Impala was rated the same as that eight-cylinder Granada? We all know these early fuel economy ratings were highly optimistic, but I do have a real world comparison.
What’s that, you ask? I had a 1975 Ford Thunderbird with the 460 (7.5 liter) V8. It’s rated at 10 mpg city and 15 mpg on the highway. In highly mixed driving, mine got 12 to 14 mpg, so maybe some of these ratings weren’t completely off-base.
I’m working on sales number right now.
Jason
August 16, 2017
Jason,
Be careful touting those fuel economy ratings too much. So many are of the impression any car from the ’70s was lucky to break into double-digit fuel mileage. Your well-researched and thoroughly remarkable argument may go over as well as playing Tocatta and Fugue at a wedding.
Those fuel economy ratings are a hoot and just go to show where each automaker shined. Chevrolet had homely cars and decent economy while Ford had good looking cars and a bunch of wheezing lumps trying to pull them. Ford’s straight sixes really suffered. The worst of the lot was the 300 straight-six in their pickups. That engine was as embarrassing as having your grandmother walk in while you’re sitting on the shitter.
Before you say it, yes, I’ve professed love for these. Didn’t you say something about throwing a fake?
Another one to think about was gearing as the rear axles had ratios as crazy as 2.56:1 on the 400 and a slightly more sane 2.73:1 on the 350. With a curb weight of 4,200 pounds (comparable to a 2017 Dodge Charger R/T), that lower powered engine for 1975 had to work even harder to move that weight and the tall gearing required a lot more cowbell to get it all moving. Two steps in the wrong direction.
Sales of these big darlings pretty much tanked when the Arab Oil Embargo hit in 1973. That’s too bad, too, because everybody went and bought those Granadas. Well, at least that’s what those in the Midwest bought. I lived in California then. Everybody there bought something else.
Where’s the sales numbers? You’ve got me sitting on the edge of my seat here. I bet somewhere around 1974 their sales dropped quicker than a groom’s pants on his wedding night.
Paul
August 17, 2017
Paul,
Here you go – hot from the Standard Catalog:
Sorry, but this is just a screenshot of a spreadsheet. I’ve gotten pretty stale on graphing anything and that’s a task I always delegate at work – wherever that is. But there are several pretty telling things here.
First, other than sales going downhill quicker than an Olympic bobsledder with his ass on fire (you’ve inspired me here), there was a mild recovery for 1976. Maybe it was fueled by rumors of the downsized cars and the general uncertainty that contains. The CAFE standard for inaugural 1978 was 18.0 mpg but it was set to be 20.0 mpg for 1980. Chevrolet downsized just in time.
Second, it raises the question – has GM ever seen any model sell over one million units in a single model year since 1972? Yeah, I know this included Impala, Caprice, Biscayne, and Bel-Air, but it’s all the same basic car. Not even their pickups are selling at that volume in our pickup-centric times. There’s a lot to think about here.
Did Stephanie ever make you any chicken soup?
Jason
August 18, 2017
Jason,
Everything you said tells me this Impala is indeed a lot like Caesar. So many things were conspiring to eliminate it from the picture and things have been vastly different ever since. Caesar was assassinated by many; this Impala was also. A sad end for a terrific car.
Or not; maybe I faked you out again. Or not.
Paul
Never liked the C-pillar window on the hardtops. To me, the sedan roof looked better, and gave the car a hint of luxury. Not sure what GM was thinking when they hacked the roofs on these large cars.
“Not sure what GM was thinking when they hacked the roofs on these large cars.”
They may have been thinking that it would create marginally better visibility, with an emphasis on “marginally.”
Either that, or they figured hardtop buyers craved airiness, so why not go as far as possible?
I know it was for visibility. My point is that a better looking roof could have been developed. These C-pillar windows look like an afterthought.
I am the opposite. I really liked these Impala and Caprice models with the fender skirts and the C-pillar window.
I suspect classic GM cost-cutting (that big bubble of a rear window on the earlier B-bodies couldn’t have been cheap)…and maybe addressing a hidden issue?
In the mid ’80s, I had a 74 Impala sedan (with the bubble rear window)…which chronically leaked. The trunk was a swimming pool until I applied a full tube of silicone to plug it up. And from looking at the water-damaged parcel shelves of similar-era GM B-bodies, I’d say my experience was far from unique.
My long-gone ’73 Impala 4 door hardtop had that exact same issue but the previous owner didn’t fix it with silicone, he used roofing cement 😀 ! What the heck, it (almost) matched the vinyl top 🙂 !
I think that the C pillar was a styling change to give the hardtops a new look. As far as visibility goes, there is almost no improvement.
For some reason, they look much better on the longer-wheelbase luxury cars (Sedan DeVille, Olds 98 and Buick Electra). They look equally awkward on the LeSabre.
the shape is different. On the C bodies the front part is thinner than the rear which makes for a different look. The B bodies got a thin rear pillar and the front is wider.
Just curious Jason, did that chicken soup contain any “interesting” mushrooms maybe? 🙂
I agree, as much as I like hatdtops, the sedan C pillar is much better.
My Paternal Grandparents had a 1972 model and I’m sure it was 350 powered. I’m also certain that my grandfather probably considered it a step down given that he prefered Pontiac and Oldsmobile. The Impala was still his family car when he passed away in 1983.
I’d rock the current Impala in a heartbeat – leave the bowties front and rear along with the leaping Impala on the C pillar but remove all the other lettering. Very sleek.
The current impala is…okay. The dashboard is way too busy with all those flowing curves and lines. The rear parcel shelf is waaaaaaaay too high. I don’t care for center consoles, as I’m definitely not a fan of the “cockpit” feel; but it’s nearly impossible to get around that nowadays. I miss “the couch” with a column shifter. I do consider the ’72 Impala the pinnacle of “Everyman” cars. Always loved it. In my late teens in the early 80s I had a ’71 Impala 4 door hardtop, followed by a ’72 Impala 4 door sedan. Both had small block 400s. Both were nickel and dime pain in the asses that either chronically overheated or leaked fluids like a superfund site. But they were tough. They could cross ditches, bounce off pine trees, smoke tires, run over countless garbage cans, haul kegs, gray my parents’ hair, and have a wide enough backseat to relieve me of my virginity. One thing they couldn’t do was pass a gas station. The ’71 was driven to a junkyard in Delaware and sold for $150 and a ride to the Philly airport. The ’72 died on the roadside in Florida, the differential finally succumbing to a leaky pinion seal. it’d be so cool to find a nice ’89 Caprice sedan; in fact getting arrested in ’88 was almost worth it to ride in the cop’s new Caprice cruiser. I really liked that box design with the composite headlights.
Wow, I’m glad you did not include my emails in that thread. 🙂
What little love I could muster for these big Chevrolets was gone by 1975. I never liked the 75-76 rooflines. I also thought that the trim details were a downgrade. Who thought those 1954-style wheelcovers looked good? And the bow tie mounting on the grille is just strange, like nobody could decide where to put it so they calculated the average of everyone’s opinion.
Both Ford and Chevy suffered from uninspired styling in 1975. Both seemed to be trying to suck every bit of visual interest out of their respective designs.
The condition of this one is amazing, though. That color looks like what was on Mom’s 74 Lux LeMans, and I am in awe that this one has avoided the horrible chalking that the lacquer finishes of the 70s were prone to. Our car was garaged and I still had to polish it regularly to stay ahead of the chalking.
Edit – a better look at the pictures shows a modern base/clear repaint where the clear coat is peeling.
But someone loved it enough to repaint it at some point! In the correct shade of dark brown, too.
And the soft rubber/vinyl knob is still on the gearshift handle too. 🙂
I am wondering if I have ever seen a 75-76 Impala 4 door hardtop without the vinyl roof.
With the repaint, perhaps the vinyl was eliminated in the process? It also makes me wonder if the vinyl may have helped prompt the repaint.
And, when Eric gave me these pictures I had to think about the last time I even saw an Impala with this roof. I’m not sure I have.
Lack of bright trim around those quarter windows makes me think you’re right about the car losing its vinyl top.
Looking at the interior shot vividly reminded me of all the time I spent riding in one of these as a kid. Kind of even makes me remember how the upholstery smelled. Ours was a green ’74 4-door hardtop. I think Dad sold it around ’77-’78. We got a Mercury Monarch.
I too wondered at the trimless quarter-windows.
What really struck me was the total lack of brightwork below the window line – no wheelarch trim, no mid-bodyside bump strip, nothing. I’m so accustomed to seeing trimmed-up American cars that a bare-bones big car looks – undressed somehow?
I have to wonder why somebody would buy one of these rather than a better-trimmed intermediate.
Easy enough to get rid of dinged up unwanted trim you can’t replace. The first car I bought was a ’71 Chevelle. I got rid of the wheel arch trim and the rocker trim. I had Appliance 5-spokes with knock-offs. Plenty of enough bling.
Don’t know about 75/76, but my 74 Sport Coupe didn’t have one from the factory. However original owner had a aftermarket half vinyl roof put on. It actually looked ok until it disintergrated a few years ago.
Is it possible that Chevy had already transitioned to enamel paints by 1975?
I remember getting some bodywork done on a ’79 Cutlass some time in the mid 80s. I had a conversation with the guy at the body shop about the relative costs of a lacquer paint job on an Olds or Buick vs. the cheaper enamel paint on Chevies. He may have been full of baloney, or I may be remembering wrong. But is it possible that the various GM divisions made their transitions to enamel at different times?
Edit: Just saw your edit about the peeling clearcoat. I do still wonder about the transition from lacquer to enamel.
Enamel paint was clearly bad for the makers of auto wax. Softer lacquers needed an occasional polishing to keep their shine, and they actually benefited a bit from the protection of wax (for a few weeks, anyway). But modern clearcoated enamels look great even with years of neglect.
It was my understanding that GM switched to enamel paints some time in the mid to late 80s. It would also not surprise me that different plants or different model lines made the change at different times. My 89 Cadillac Brougham was still lacquer, I believe, but then it was an old design being built with what was surely old equipment. I needed a paint repair done to it one time and no modern body shop would touch it – someone finally sent me to a shop that specialized in classic cars before I could even get an estimate written.
Edit – I found some info that says GM never did use a single-stage acrylic enamel, but went from its lacquer finishes to a base/clear coat. The change was staggared from 1981 for the Corvette into as late as 1994 (Chevy S series).
Regarding the badge placement on the grill, it is literally exactly where Toyota placed the emblem on the 2002 Camry. Always stuck out like a sore thumb, and fixed to a ‘proper’ location in 2005.
Kramer’s car on Seinfeld.
I always found it kind of unrealistic the way Seinfeld showed this group of New Yorkers owning cars. That said, I guess Jerry was supposed to be fairly well off, so he could probably afford to keep a car in New York in spite of how impractical it is. George lived out in Queens; it might be more common for people to have cars out there. I don’t think Elaine had a car; she was sometimes shown borrowing Jerry’s or Kramer’s. Kramer, though, he was the least likely of the group to actually have a car in real life.
I always thought Kramer having cars were just part of the mystery that was his life.
Like the way he seemed to survive pretty well in that apartment without having to work.
Too many similes. Other than that minor complaint, this was a good read!
Even in the lux edition Impala, the interiors were very cheap looking and feeling; the door panels being the worst offender. This one looks right out of a Chevette.
Oh now, there are a lot of people in this world who use frequent analogies / similes. You made one yourself about interiors! 🙂
I read the comment as “smiles”, not “similes” and agreed except that there can’t be too many. Then the coffee removed the blurriness and I realized my error. Still smiling.
Thanks for putting a new spin on a topic such as this. I wouldn’t even know how to start writing about this one and may not have read it as thoroughly otherwise. Very enjoyable, and I could literally hear Paul saying “screwing the pooch” in my head as I read it.
Having had a Chevette, Those door panels and those seats would have been a HUGE upgrade to what was in them.
Very enlightening. Beware of the Ides of the ‘70s. Next time I find a bare bones mid-1970s large sedan, I’ll send some more pictures your way (in exchange for more of that wonderful Old Ford basking, of course)… you did this car justice.
I’ll break with the majority opinion here and say that I favor the hardtop-design with the C-pillar window. In my opinion, it was a unique styling touch, and a good counterpoint to the proliferation of small and useless opera windows of the day. The combination of the lower-end Impala with the hardtop roof though couldn’t have been a common one.
Oh, and now everyone knows about the Peugeot click-bait routine…
You guys crack me up. Jason Shafer playing his cars close to the chest 🙂
I actually like the late sedan and 4dr HT roofs on these, but this example seems almost TOO stripped as though it’s had a repaint with most of the moldings filled in rather than being replaced after, especially the chrome framing that’s supposed to be around the opera windows.
Shafer; we may have discussed publishing email chains, but I never said it was ok. Can’t you come up with something a bit more original? Or are you as dried up as a popcorn fart?
Having one of the longer tenures here, I’ve indeed been concerned about that spark of creativity drying up. But I’ll think about that after lunch. Right now I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat has been cut.
I’m dying!!! Outstanding.
Even out in the country we thought these things were too big and talked Mom and Dad into getting a Malibu instead. With the 350 V8 it was none too fast-I wonder how that engine strained to move the Impala. But the smaller interior didn’t seem to broadcast “cheap plastic and vinyl” as loudly as did the yards and yards of the stuff in the bigger car. If GM had put one of their ’60’s interiors into that Impala, the sheer size of it might have been less off-putting. You felt like you were buying your car by the square foot.
You guys have been reading too many old Tom McCahill auto reviews.
McCahill creamed his rhetorical jeans over this car in ’74 or ’75. No big surprise; his “reviews” were all about the unbounded fabulosity of Tom McCahill; the cars were just an excuse to lavish lexical praise on himself.
Wasn’t he dead by then, with his son (I think) taking over the reviews for a while?
My ’68 el Camino got 18 highway….with the 250 and a 3 speed stick. Thinking of the torque and comfort of that Impala vs the el Camino makes me jealous.
Did the 305s get 20 mpg in these or were they even offered? I know they got 22 in my father’s much lighter ’78 Monte Carlo.
When I was growing up, my paternal grandfather had a 1972 Caprice Classic 4-door hardtop, dark metallic charcoal gray with a black vinyl top, plush black velour interior, and the optional 400 cubic inch 2-barrel small block.
After gramps passed away while I was in college, I was interested in buying the Caprice off my grandma as a replacement for my unreliable 1968 Mercury Cougar. When I mentioned my interest to my dad, he hemmed and hawed, stalled and stonewalled, and eventually helped my grandma sell the car to a woman in the neighborhood without even giving me the chance to make my grams an offer.
I love my dad, but that’s one of the ( many ) things I’ll never completely forgive him for. I just wish I knew what he was thinking when he did that.
2 years ago I bought All original 7900 miles 1977 Pontiac Bonneville Landau coupe brown/beige . Its Non Brougham version but has 350 4 B engine , power windows , Factory AC , Factory AM/FM . I was always fan of GM downsized B bodies started in 1977
This one doesn’t even have AC! This is more like what I saw in Saskatchewan back in the day.
…»blink«…y’know, yeah!
The email exchange is clever and cute.
The car: ugh, jeeziz, gross. These bloated pigs offend my eyes from any/every angle. They are near the top of the list of car “designs” (if we must) of that era I’m very pleased to mostly never see any more.
I think the 1976 Caprice 4-door hardtop is the best-looking of the ’71-’76 big Chevys.
Emphasis on BIG
Back in 1977 my first job out of college was as a traveling baby photographer for Sears, I was on the west coast doing a loupe that would take me from Seattle down to San Diego – Phoenix -Salt lake City – Boise and all points in between every 2 months a different store every week (2 stores a week for Catalog Stores) Company car was a 1975 Chevrolet, 400 ci big block, 12mpg no matter how fast you went, I drove 50,000 miles in the 6 months I had the job
How often did the oil get changed?
Monthly?
Sears auto center every month or so drop it off while there anyway
Times sure have changed. No more travelling babies, they must be accompanied by an adult and everyone sign consent forms. 🙂
Seriously that must have been a heck of an interesting time, and six months sounds like enough time to have had enough of it.
Wild job with lots of stories, high turnover, after 6 months I had most seniority on the west coast, and yes 6 months was enough, the car was a tank though
Decidedly not a Toyondissan Camcordima.
But no less an appliance.
IMO the ugliest, dullest, most forgettable Chevy since the 1954 model.
Well this was fun!
Have to say though that these are ugly, ugly. The ’71-76 generation was oversized, sure, but there were some sparks of styling greatness. The ’71 Caprice, for example, is a looker. The ’73 Impala, even with the big front 5 MPH bumper, looks good.
Then they added this horrid roofline. The rear 5 MPH bumper didn’t help matters either. A Fury, Monaco or LTD looked better than these. With few exceptions, the ’75-76 models of this generation of B-Body were really uglied up.
Thank you, Mr. Stopford. You could not get a bigger concurrence from me on anything you say, especially about the Fury/Monaco and LTD looking better.
Paul having so much to say about these was quite fortuitous as otherwise this would have likely been just a bunch of pictures with no verbiage.
In the fall of ’76 I bought a very clean one owner ’71 Impala from a couple who had recently taken delivery of a brand new ’77. They were selling their had-since-new ’71, which had been evicted from their one car garage by the new arrival. It was a 2 door sport coupe with the rare non-vinyl sport coupe top that to me was very remincent of an early ’60s bubble top, a 350, auto, power steering and brakes, but few other options. No AC, with AM radio and crank windows. I had it until I bought a brand new ’81 Caprice V8 and sold the ’71 to a family member.
Then while living in California in 1984 I saw a ’74 Impala for sale that for some reason struck my fancy, a blue vinyl top over blue body 4 door with a 400 and AC. It was a mid level optioned car with lots of nice chrome trim, and the whole thing still gleamed like a car that had spent its entire 10 years in dry, sunny SoCal. I spent $1200 for it, drove it as a third car for a couple of years, then sold it for the same money to a co-worker who also had a soft spot for B bodies from that era. It was a nice car, but by the time I sold it in about ’86 I was pretty much over my nostalgia for big, floaty, numb barges from the ’70s.
Big? You betcha. Even advertised as such.