(first posted 3/10/2016) There haven’t been a whole lot of cars in the American market whereof the wagon variant seems as prominent in metal and mind as the betrunked models, or more so. The Volvo 240 might be such a one, and so are the ’73-’77 GM A-bodies. That platform gets a fair good lot of love here at CC; much has been written on the Colonnade 2-door hardtops and on the 4-door sedans. But there were also wagons—lots of them.
Americans still bought station wagons back then, and still called them that; marketeers were still content to brand them “Estate”, having not yet filled their collective diaper with the silly term “crossover”. SUVs existed—Wagoneer, Suburban—but they weren’t nearly so popular in those pre-CAFE days.
These A-body wagons offered the winsome elements of the 4-doors, but replaced the sedans’ cramped trunk with a capacious “wayback” (as we kids used to say when calling dibs on riding back there in what is now called the crumple zone), and married the front to the rear with a neatly-reworked rear door. Or rather, a reworked rear door window, fully rectangular without the sedan’s downward curve at the upper trailing edge. Abaft of that, the C-pillar was almost a cut-and-paste copy of the B-pillar, which allowed for a clean, uncomplicated quarter glass. The overall effect in conjunction with the front doors’ design and the arrow-straight beltline, was a greenhouse pleasantly trapezoidal as viewed side-on. This was a solution much more artful than some of the fussy contortions and unfortunate distortions done in the name of pressing sedan doors into wagon service. The tailgate, too, was a tidy top-hinged hatch design, though that tidiness came at the cost of banishing the taillamps to the bumper bar where they were difficult to see, easy to break, and even easier to obscure with mud or salt.
The backglass didn’t roll down or swing up; it was gasketed into the hatchgate (and, equipped, at least optionally, with a defogger grid—still not a very common item at that time, except in New York where back glass defoggers became mandatory for 1974).
The roads used to seemingly crawl with these wagons (maybe not to the degree as the boxy ’77-’90 GM B-body wagons, but those were made for almost triple the timespan of these). For most of their production run they had round headlamps, one per side, but the ’77 Chev featured here has stacked rectangulars, two per side.
The automakers, especially GM, wheedled and cajoled NHTSA into approving small rectangular headlamps by arguing—with a straight face—that they were needed for fuel economy: the 7-inch round headlamp was too tall; it was getting in the way of good aerodynamics, they said. Small low-profile rectangular headlamps just four inches tall wouldn’t reduce nighttime vision too awful badly, they said, and would bring about low-profile, wind-cheating frontal design, they said. NHTSA eventually said okeh, and the automakers, especially GM, immediately started perching them one atop the other. Four plus four equals less than 7; it was the era of new math.
I spotted this ’77 Malibu parked in a mixed industrial area of Seattle. Its owner, a virtuoso mechanic of expensive cars, came round the corner and wondered why I was photographing the interestingly-sunfaded starter-generator-alternator rebuild shop sign on the block. Once he figured out I wasn’t casing the place, we had a nice little chat about the wagon. He says it’s the only one still plying Seattle’s streets, and I don’t doubt it. Originally a 350, it’s now got a warmed-up three-sixty-some and a 4-speed Turbo-Hydramatic 700R4 has supplanted the 3-speed TH350. He was on his way home from work, and he probably still had his doubts about me, so we didn’t chat long before he hopped in. The engine started immediately and ran flawlessly, as Consumer Reports used to say back when that wasn’t a given. By the sound and smell of things, this particular car’s breathing seems no longer impeded by the pathetic GM pellet-type catalytic converter it would’ve come with from the factory—or any other type, for that matter.
Although they were certainly available in a variety of colours, the metallic sky blue (officially “Light Blue Poly”) of this example seems especially correct for this kind of car. Some colours are like that on some cars. But regardless of Light Blue Poly or Cream Gold or Firethorn Poly or d’you suppose anyone ordered one of these in Light Lime, this would still be a very well preserved and maintained example of a breed no longer often seen.
Such was the power and momentum of GM at the time that they could still build this wagon, and actually SELL some of them alongside the all new similarly sized, but more efficiently laid out, B body wagons. At the time I can recall being slightly offput by the squareness of the new B body, and I imagine that sold a few of these wagons in their final season.
Since making this comment years ago, I’ve acquired additional documentation. My perception that GM moved a decent number of Malibu wagons in ’77 despite the arguably similar but better new “full-size” Impala and Caprice wagons was correct.
Malibu 1976 Wagons: 64,721
Full-Size 1976 Wagons: 72,813
Malibu 1977 Wagons: 72,629
Full-Size 1977 Wagons: 121,932
Of course the “New Chevrolet” full-sizers were a hit, and 1977 was a banner year for car sales, and the Malibu certainly held its own with a strong competitor in the same showroom. And, people were not slumming buying the older car, the Malibu product mix moved sharply toward the high trim Malibu Classic for ’77.
Is that a Pontiac Firebird steering wheel??
It would fall in line with the modifications mentioned in the story.?????
Sad to say it appears to be a ’77 – ’78 Skybird Steering wheel: a super-rare piece not offered in any other car. What a waste to see it on this thing. I need it badly.
Its owner seems to have chosen it deliberately and seems to be enjoying it; how is that a waste? It would be a waste if it were slapped onto a beater by someone who doesn’t care a fiddle or a fig.
These sport wheels were standard issue on any Firebird Esprit with a blue interior, or ordered as an option on a base Firebird with blue interior. Shouldn’t be impossible to find.
We called that color Salesman Blue because so many fleet cars were that color. I think it is one of the nicest GM colors ever.
Tons of friends raised their kids in these. Price was right, cars were durable (for that era), and reliability was “much better than average”. They are pretty much an appliance but a very useful one.
it’s a very nice colour.
Looks like a slightly lighter version of the original color of my ’82 Malibu sedan (which was, according to the ’82 brochure, simply know as “light blue (metallic)”.)
“The wayback is now called the crumple zone” — That’s classic. And so true.
It’s hard for me (and I’m sure many others) to look at pictures of these cars without a flood of memories. My parents owned a very similar ’76 Century wagon for 8 years when I was growing up. I can’t say a single thing bad about that car, and we still saw it driving around town 10 years after my folks sold it.
Reflecting much larger carbuying trends, my parents replaced their A-body wagon with a Plymouth Voyager in 1984.
These were everywhere during my high school years; I always thought the rear was awkward and incomplete looking, ill suited to the squarish front.
And like Mopars of the era I can ‘hear’ that robust, confident Chevy V8 starter…
I find the rear end treatment refreshing and daring. A smooth, sweeping, unadorned tailgate and unconventional lights looked so different from the ‘me-too” setup of every other wagon out there.
Its very distinctive, as if a tasteful customizer had reworked the car.
It just needs that tasteful customizer to do some work on the front.
I remember these as a kid in the late 70s. There were quite a few–though I seem to remember more 77-79 full-size GM wagons, and more of the 78-82 downsized GM mid-size wagons on the roads of Long Island.
This one looks to be in great shape! Those seats look original–I wonder if they are. I’m also curious: the cargo hold trim looks scratched & faded (it was used), but the bottom of the door panels appears sun-faded, while the tops seem in great shape.
I wonder if they look good because they were redone, or just the use of ‘cheaper’, harder plastic on lower door trim.
The lower door panels on these were molded plastic while the upper parts were a more traditional padded vinyl on top of hardboard. I despised those molded panels that GM was so fond of in the 70s. They looked cheap, cheap, cheap and they degraded badly from sun.
+1 The white, light blue, and red plastic (in that order) disintegrated the quickest. The black & camel(barf) stuff lasted the longest unfortunately.
Imagine what these would have been like with a decent diesel engine and a manual
transmission.
Great write up on an unusual car. You’re also a talented writer with a strong descriptive capacity. Bonus points for using the word “abaft” in your article!
+1 on all accounts… especially “Abaft.”
Just using the more familiar word “aft” would’ve saved a byte or two…
Sure, but where’s the fun in that?
With the name Stern, you must have heard “abaft” a lot.
»doffs cap« Thank you kindly.
+2
I remember cars like this from when I was a boy. Depending on the year, I found them to be attractive, while other years looked hideous. I don’t know how well they would’ve sold if GM offered a diesel engine. As much as I like diesel engines, I doubt that it would’ve sold well.
When this generation of Malibu hit the showrooms for 1973 I thought they were VERY bold looking, and not in a good way. The 74 through 77 versions got even worse looking, in my opinion. All the other GM divisions had better looking wagons, even if not hugely better.
A few years ago I saw a 75 Le Mans Safari on the Orlando Craigslist that was that dark green color with wood trim on the outside….I was very tempted by that car as it looked almost showroom new.
This one, to it’s credit is tastefully “modded”, I just don’t care for the stacked rectangle headlights….on any car that comes to mind.
A Colonnade coupe is not a “hardtop” by the general acceptance of the word in auto-speak. The rear glass was a fixed panel separated from the door glass by a thick B pillar. Just because the door glass was frameless, as long as there is a B pillar, no pillarless “hardtop”.
BTW, those colonnade wagons were HUGE, and considered “mid-size” at that!
Never a fan of them, just too large and one huge box to drive around in.
Zackman: true. Which is why calling the MINI a “hardtop” is so galling.
At least the rear windows rolled down, unlike the downsized versions.
Right—sorry ’bout that.
My favorite memory pertaining to these A-body wagons was leaving a grade school soccer game…my dad ran into our local Olds dealer, whose demo was a Cutlass Supreme woody wagon…his wife and kids were already in the car, getting ready to leave. When my dad expressed an interest in looking at the Cutlass, Mr. Pulte ordered his wife and kids to get the heck out of the car so we could examine it.
My dad wound up with a late-76 production Cutlass S sedan, creme with buckskin top and vinyl seats….and a voucher for the spare tire. Apparently there was a strike at the tire companies that summer and nobody got a spare tire until later in the fall.
Interesting. I always wondered why I’ve seen so many GM window stickers with “spare tire will be furnished to dealer when available” and build sheets with “DELETE SPARE” in the RPO list.
I had forgotten these ever existed. And when I look at the hideous stacked rectangular headlamps, the unnervingly featureless liftgate, and the enormous support beam masquerading as a rear bumper, I’m anxious to forget it again.
yecch.
I thought much the same of them when they were current and recent, and even more so when they were ratty old beaters, but today they’re uncommon enough that the novelty of seeing one outweighs most of the unfortunate aspects of that era of car design. I find this effect is on a case-by-case basis; it doesn’t rescue ’70s Fords, for example.
the ’74 Thunderbird is a particularly egregious example.
Yes. One of far too many.
Did some of these wagons have slip-out vent windows in the rear quarter glass? Maybe the ones with the 3rd row of seats did?!?
A quick look at some old Chevelle/Malibu brochures suggests that that may have been the case, but it remains ultimately inconclusive.
Here’s some specific evidence, from a 1975 Chevy wagons brochure. If you bought a 3-seat Malibu wagon (any trim level), it came with the rear vent windows.
Thanks for that research; I’d wondered why some had the wings and some didn’t.
I was wondering about the missing rear vent windows?
My aunt had a 77 Olds Vista Cruiser similar to this Malibu and had those windows you are talking about, yet I cannot recall seeing these on the Chevy version.
If it has swing out quarter glass, its a 3rd row wagon, a solid quarter glass means a two seater originally.
Very nice. I didn’t think much of these when they were common, but I like them much more now, especially the wagons.
GM had a thing for those vertical C pillars in wagons – they had done the same thing in the B body wagons of 1961-64. Also, the liftgate reminded me of our 61 Olds F-85 wagon that had the same arrangement, although the back window rolled down in that Y body design.
Looking at this one in this color and without the extraneous trim, I can see for the first time how overtly 70s the back end was on this. In your 3rd and 4th pictures particularly, I see the kind of space-pod shape of the back of the AMC Pacer. The rear is so clean and modernistic while the front is so upright and classical, the two ends shouldn’t really go together, but this car somehow makes it work.
NOt a fan of stacked rectangular headlights, However, a reason can be given. it was a matter od expense. Manufacturers wanted to use them but did not want the expense of pressing new hoods and front fenders. so they used the existing panels. which were designed around the round lamps. Much cheaper to stamp a new header panel to accept the stacked rectangular lights. Chevy was not alone (The Monte Carlo did the same thing) The Buick Skylark and regal used the idea, only Pontiac and olds went to the expense with horizontally placed rectangular lamps At ford the same savings was realized with the LTD II, and Chrysler did the same with their midsizers as well. This was only done until the first major redesign. Simply put, it was bottom line design.
That’s a good point. Bottom-line design has long been something American automakers are especially good at.
I’ve always thought it was a way to eke out one more cheap facelift of an aging model.
Buick only used the stacked lights on sedans and wagons. The 76–77 coupes had all new sheetmetal (exc greenhouse) inc horizontal quad rectangular headlights.
Those stacked lights using the same fenders as the round single ones look as awkward as Chrysler planning for quad round lights for 1957 and not having them approved in time. GM’s first use of rectangular headlamps did look really good on the Cadillac Eldorado.
From the frontal aspect I like the styling of this wagon better than its sedan & coupé counterparts; however, the rear bumper may as well be a railroad tie, though it made sense for the purpose.
For some reason I love these wagons now. A LeMans of the same vintage would be my ideal pick of all the GM wagons of this generation. At the time (bear in mind that I was 7 when these debuted) I can remember thinking they looked “weird”, like they’d been cobbled together out of pieces of random vehicles. There was something not cohesive about the design in my young mind, but looking at these today they just seem so right.
That interior reminds of so many of the cars I grew up riding to afterschool functions, sports events etc. in as a kid. The colonnades were EVERYWHERE while I was growing up. It was as if they were issued to parents much like we got our gym uniforms. Those ‘multi-fade’ interior panels in the subject car ironically don’t look much worse than some of the cars I can recall riding in at 10 years old. My mother’s ’77 Monte Carlo actually came out of the showroom with at least 4 different shades of tan plastic and vinyl interior panels. (Not on purpose, mind you)
I agree! The Lemans was the looker of the family.
GM hadn’t gotten any better at the plastic matching by ’79. Our Malibu was 6 years old when it was given to my Mom, and from my earliest remembrances (I was one model year newer than the car) there were always several different shades of tan going on. As the years continued to pass, some of the tan shades turned pink.
Incidentally, the fade-prone plastic panels notwithstanding, these interiors did apparently hold up fairly well. One note of interest is that the seamed, perforated, sewn fabric headliner went the way of the dodo when the downsized ’78’s came out, never to be seen in a GM vehicle again in favor of the lovely mouse fur that we see flapping in the breeze today in any vehicle over 5 years old. The subject wagon might be criticized for those crummy interior panels, but hey, they’re all original, all still there, and most impressively they all seem to be sitting under the original headliner.
On a more sad and morbid note, Chilean dissident Orlando Lettelier was assassinated in one of these via car bomb in 1976.
We had the ’74 Buick version of this when I was a kid up until 1980 or so. I don’t remember a lot about it, other than the vinyl seats sucked and it was starting to rust at that point. Ours had the 3rd seat and the back vent windows that went with that.
I do still like the design. Even with the stacked headlights here.
We had the ’73 Century for 4 years. Lots of rattles, and sluggish 350 that died often. Put me off vinyl seats forever.
There were lots of these things around in the mid-’70s when I was 11-13. I always thought the rear end was a bit awkward looking compared to the front. That tailgate looks HUGE. Putting the taillights down low on the bumper was never a good idea, same for the downsized A-body wagons which had the same terrible design. Other than those gripes I do kinda like it!
In the ’70s we might’ve said that about the tailgate’s apparent size. In today’s parlance we say it’s YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE.
(And yes, that taillamp location continued being dumb on the downsized A-body wagons)
It continued being dumb on the El Camino even longer, all the way up to ’87. Personally I thought it was a unique look, but probably not the best thing for not getting rear-ended.
Those rear doors were not reworked for the wagon, same door and glass as the Sedan. The quarter window on the sedans was fixed to the body and jutted over the door windo sill much like the Wagons C pillar did.
No, sir. The sedan’s rear door glass is not the same as the wagon’s. That’s plain to see just by looking, but further proof is as close as the nearest Hollander interchange manual—or its more readily accessible online equivalent:
You’re right. https://www.hollanderparts.com shows a simalar difference.
Different glass, I have a 77 sedan, and the rear door glass is different, the wagons are more squared off, where the sedans taper off in the rear.
The doors are the same, but if you swap a wagon door onto a sedan, you’re gonna wind up with glass all over the place the first time you slam the door with the window up. and if you swap a sedan door (glass and all) into a wago, you’re gonna have a big hole.
Nice ride. Its a good looking wagon anyway but those wheels are what set it apart from a clean and well kept old car vs a really COOL old car. They look like US Mags to me. Those have a bit more of a ‘peak’ on the centerline of each spoke, as opposed to the smoother, more rounded spokes on ARE Torq Thrusts. Just as sharp looking, but different enough to notice.
The owner told me about some of the undercar upgrades (big sway bars, etc). I’m sure there’s a lot more (brakes?), too.
Agreed, the wheels make the look. That style, whether it be these, torq-thrusts, or anything similar, really work on just about anything from the mid 60’s to the early 80’s. And later, considering how similar the factory wheels on the Bullitt Mustangs were.
Minor point; this is a “Malibu Classic wagon” not a “Malibu Classic Estate wagon”. “Estate” in Chevy-speak meant the model with fake wood paneling.
Ah! Thanks for that.
It’s hard to overstate how clean and dare I say it, “European” these wagons looked in the Seventies, despite their size. So uncluttred and elegant compared to the competing, overwrought Gran Torino Squire! Maybe that’s why the A bodies never looked quite right with wood trim. That rear door and window is great, so practical, no contorting to make a sedan window work here!
There were a lot of moms who didn’t want to be navigating around something as large as a Caprice Estate or Country Squire, in the Seventies these were the perfect choice for them.
Yes and no and yes and no: you’re not alone in “European” coming to mind in re these cars. I don’t think I agree about the woodgrain di-noc looking wrong on these cars; would you really say no to this or this on account of the woodgrain?
Totally agree with you about the drunken design (if we must) of the Ford wagon, but not about the size of the ’77+ Caprice Estate, which was slightly shorter and dimensionally very similar to the Malibu wagon:
Malibu: 215.4″ long, 76.8″ wide, 55.8″ high, 116″ wheelbase, 43′ turn circle (between walls; no figure published for between curbs), weight 4255 pounds.
Caprice 214.7″ long, 79.1″ wide, 58″ high, 116″ wheelbase, 45.3′ turn circle (between walls; 39.7′ between curbs) weight 4200 pounds.
(Of course, if you meant to compare the ’73-’76 Caprice Estate, then yes!)
Yes, I was referring to the leviathan ’71-’76 B Body wagons.
I cannot think of anything good to say about those cars.
The best looking ‘colonnade’ wagon to me is the 76-77 Cutlass Supreme version. With the proper side by side square headlamps. This was what was meant by better aero, not the stacked ones.
Totally agree, though perhaps with the de luxe backswept Cutlass S prow:
As a car-conscious kid in the 70s, I was MORTIFIED at the waterfall front end on my mom’s 76 Cutlass S sedan…that meant my parents cheaped-out, compared to the kids whose parents sprung for the Supreme with the squared-off header panel. It was bad enough that we stepped DOWN from a Delta 88 instead of stepping UP to a Ninety-Eight, but then to get the el-cheapo model was just bad.
Both the backswept and the square variants have waterfall grilles. That just means an array of parallel vertical lines. I don’t dislike the square version, but I think the backswept version looks a little nicer. What’s odd is the difference between the backswept version shown in the photo I posted yesterday (which matches all the other photos I find) and the considerably more elongated version shown in this image—perhaps it’s a rendering or an airbrush job or…?
…and hey, wait a minute, who says that backswept nose was only on the low-spec versions? Looks like it was used—with a different grille—on the 442, definitely not a low-spec version.
The backswept version was only on the coupes, though. I can only assume, since he’s talking about the sedan, that the ’76-’77 Cutlass S sedans continued to use the old round-lamp header?
Naw, all the ’76-’77 Cutlasses, no matter what spec or which trim level, had side-by-side small rectangular headlamps.
This version and the Pontiac were my two favs!!
I concur, I really liked the Cutlass coupes after they lost their ‘jowls’ in ’76.
The lights in bumper idea is one I never understood on these wagons(and el caminos), I mean wasn’t a key point to the 5mph bumper law that they protect the lights in an impact up to that speed?
Kinda? Sorta? Maybe? There’s a detailed description of the various phases of the US bumper laws here. It’s vague about “safety-related parts”, mentioning headlamps and fuel systems but not taillamps.
I always figured that right before these wagons went into production, someone had to have blurted out, “Oh shit! We forgot the taillights!” and that’s why they ended up where they did.
Help me out, wasn’t there actually an SS option for these in ’73?
Sure was! They could be ordered with 454, 4-speed, buckets, console, etc. also. Super rare.
Didn’t know, but apparently so!
I’ve seen one of the SS wagons in the wild. Rough, but looked legit, 350 callouts. If I had something better than a crappy night shot from a non-image stabilized camera phone, I would have written it up.
I’ve seen it once since, under a car cover, so I think I know where it lives.
No, all ’76-’77 Cutlass models had side-by-side small rectangular headlamps.
My mom had a 76 malibu classic estate when we were growing up. She had it from 83-89 it was a pretty good car. We took lots of trips in it. Good car, lots of good times. My parents replaced it with a 85 pontiac paresienne, another good car but the mailibu was much quicker. The 305 in the pontiac was no match to the 350 in the malibu.
I think it was called the Laguna S1 or something like that. It had bucket seats that swiveled out just like some Mopars of the late 50s early 60s.
An SS trim package was available on Malibu V8 coupes and wagons in 1973. The SS cars had chrome bumpers. The top Chevelle series in 1973 for coupes, sedans, and wagons was Laguna. It had the urethane front fascia, and wasn’t marketed as the sport model. Swivel buckets were a general Chevelle option.
From 1974–1976, the Laguna S3 was the sporty trim option, only for coupes. It combined a urethane front fascia with sporty trim items. Otherwise, the top Chevelle trim was Malibu Classic with chrome bumpers on coupes, sedans, and wagons.
“It had the urethane front fascia…”
Uh… better make that “It had the ILL-FITTING urethane front fascia…”
I hated those.
My parents had the ’76 Buick Century wagon, the 2-seat version and the back windows were fixed. The only non-Ford/Mercury I think my Dad ever bought. Dirt-brown with the fake wood-grain too! My Dad build a custom box that fit right inside the tailgate to hold our camping kitchen, and we toured around almost every summer in the thing as we were growing up. The only time it ever let us down that I can recall was a fried alternator. It did eat A/C compressors though.
It did take a snow-shovel to the tail-light lens at one point. A lens from a truck clearance light was wedged into the resulting hole, and life went on!
When I learned to drive c. 1983, we still had it and I did get to drive it frequently. By that time we had fixed rust several times, home-painted it outdoors at the cottage so with lots of sand in the paint. It was dubbed the war-wagon by my teen-aged peers as it was just so ugly that it looked like it had seen action. But they never refused a ride!
With the 350 4-barrel’s 280 ft-lb of torque, it did pick up when you stood on it (by malaise-era standards, of course, and in comparison to my DD, which was a ’73 Austin Marina). Mechanically, it survived as primary transport until about ’85 and then on a load-hauler-only basis until around ’89.
Fond memories! Thanks for the trip!
The original metallic produced by Ditzler were called polychromatic in house, but the Automobile manufactures used their own trade names. GM called theirs Firemist so the proper color of this car would be Light Blue Firemist, and not light blue poly. It was the aftermarket suppliers that started using the term poly to denote any metallic paint whether it used the tiny Firemist style flakes or the larger ones used by other companies.
That doesn’t appear to be correct. Per this apparently complete 2-page list of 1977 GM paint names and codes, certain GM divisions used the “Firemist” name and others did not.
That’s backed up by looking at the PPG paint chip charts, too; the ’77 Chev chart linked in the post shows that the colour of the car in this CCC is PPG № 2955, “Light Blue (Poly)”. Buick had a “Blue Firemist” (PPG № 2872) in ’77, and Cadillac that year had a “Cerulean Blue Firemist” (PPG № 2981)—even called out as such on the PPG chart—but Chevrolet did not, as it seems.
The PPG chart and the one you linked is absolutely worthless is determining the auto mfgs name for a color.
As I mentioned the first commercially available metallic paints were called polychromatic by the paint mfg that developed them. The auto mfgs that used them often coined their own usually trademarked name to refer to their metallic colors. Suppliers of the paints to the collision industry didn’t want to deal with trademark issues so they used the term poly to refer to any metallic color.
The other part of the aftermarket paint chip naming scheme has to do with the fact that auto mfgs sometimes changed the name of a color from year to year or across different brands and models. So on a 77 Chevy paint code xyz my have been called baby poo brown while that same color and code put on a Buick may have been called chestnut brown. Then a year of two later they may have thought that it was the name baby poo brown that kept sales of that color low so now on a Chevy it was medium brown. And of course a few more years down the line they may still have a medium brown that was now several shades darker or lighter.
Show me an actual GM, Ford or Chrysler document, like a brochure that lists any color as xxxxx poly.
Er…no. You’ve made an assertion, so you’ll need to be the one to support it. Repetition doesn’t count as support.
(I don’t own a ’77 Chev, but I do have a ’62 Dodge, the colour of which is referred to in the factory service manual as “Glade Green Poly”—same as on the paint chip chart.)
Then lets see a scan of that factory service manual that calls it Glade Green Poly. And of course that would only prove that Chrysler used that terminology and not GM.
You are the one that offered up the paint chart that you claim supports your assertions but since it is based on aftermarket information it is useless because of the reasons I listed above.
I can show you links to GM materials that do call their metallic paints Firemist but that doesn’t prove that they didn’t call it poly in some year on some model.
You’ll note that in that chart you provided the link to many of the colors also have a Ford or Chrylser code and you can bet that for other than something like black all 3 did not call them by the same color, even though they likely purchased the paint applied at the factory from the same industry supplier.
Oh, brother. See here and don’t forget the mouseover.
Someone mentioned Consumer Reports. I remember reading a CR review of the Colonnade wagons vs. their Ford and Mopar competitors – seems that the slant of the lift back tailgate cut into its cargo carrying ability (to hold a large box).
Now you compare that with the boxy shape of the Volvo wagon then- and despite being shorter in length, it had a lot of usable space because the life gate was almost straight up and down in shape.
Yes, that sounds like something Consumer Reports would say. I also recall their tsk-tsking about the Caprice: “You must rotate a medallion to access the trunk lock, a nuisance.”
Stacked rectangular lights are atrocious as a retro fit. But would stacked rectangular lights have worked in a car that was actually styled for them? Something more angular, straight edged, like a leaned out down scaled 65 Galaxie?
How much worse are the sealed beam rectangular than round in terms of lighting performance? I seem to recall the round headlights in my parents 77 Ford Econoline and the rectangular in their 81 Delta 88 both being horrid.
The stacked rectangular headlamps look okeh to my eye in Chev-GMC C/K pickups and G-vans and Dodge B-vans, somewhat less so in Dodge D/W pickups, and now I’m out of examples that look anything but dumb.
On low beam especially, most of the small rectangular headlamps are markedly worse than most of the large round ones. They’re the same technology (parabolic reflector, transverse filament) and wattage is usually similar, so bigger = better and smaller = worse and corners, walls, floors, and ceilings aggravate things. There’s a lot more to it, but I’m saving it for an article on the subject. Stay tunèd!
In November 1976, I received a brand new one of these as my company car. It was dark green with saddle tan, vinyl upholstry. It was actually a pretty nice car for a kind of clunky station wagon. A speed demon? No, but it moved smartly with its 350 – 4Bbl. V8 engine.
Two interesting memories:
1977 was the first year for the painted blue Chevy small block V8 after 22 years of having any color you wanted as long as it was orange. This ’77 however had an orange engine; I guess that was due to its early in the model year build date.
I tagged a ’69 Buick Skylark one day that had run a red light. I mean really tagged it, caught it over the left rear wheel at about 35 MPH and bent the entire back of that Buick sideways. The Malibu ended up with a turn signal bulb, not the lense, the bulb, blown out. That’s it; it was a pretty solid car indeed.
About six years ago I looked at a well-kept ’77 Caprice with a late-’76 build date and an orange 350 (which was in front of a TH-200 ProbleMatic transmission, echk).
We had a 77 LeMans Safari and this article sure brought back memories of riding in the back. Now maybe someone can answer this, the subject car has the round dial dash that was standard in the Monte Carlo, my wife inherted a 74 Malibu Classic but it had the standard dash. Did someone add the Monte dash to the subject car or did the original owner order it that way?
Well spotted. From this and this, it appears there was no upgraded optional instrument panel for the ’77 Chevelle-Malibu, and from this it surely looks like the Monte Carlo panel would swap right in. Given the other upgrades this blue wagon owner has done, the IP swap doesn’t surprise me.
Daniel, this post brought back a lot of fond memories. I grew up learning to drive and getting my license in the family ’73 Chevelle Deluxe station wagon. My dad ordered the car in late ’72 and it was delivered in October of 1973. Despite picking the colour ahead of time, we were still shocked when it came home on a snow covered day – it was orange! Actually, Light Copper Metallic, but we always referred to the colour as orange. It was a big car, more than enough room for our family of five. It hauled everything from fishing gear to Christmas trees to sofa beds. I named the car “Jack” because it was literally a jack of all trades during the 9 years it stayed with the family. Its best features were: a strong 350 2bbl V8, which had plenty of passing power on the highway – I frequently drove trips of 400+ miles and despite the Chevelle’s size and weight, it never lacked punch when I needed it; the Turbo-Hydramatic had good kickdown; a great air conditioner; lots of cargo space. The car’s worst features: frameless doorglass that rattled in the cheap plastic-covered door panels; lack of rain gutters; off-set steering wheel which meant you could never sit straight behind the wheel; a patience-challenging spare tire & jack compartment; a tailgate window that collected debris and rusted in the lower right corner – oh, and that stupid embedded radio antenna that never gave decent AM reception, lol. This Chevelle was essentially my first car. I loved its smooth V8 power and versatility and it sparked my life-long appreciation for station wagons. The rocker panels were rusting out a second time so despite the low mileage, my dad felt it was time to let it go in 1982. Nice to see that there is a decent example of one of these ‘Colonnade’-era wagons still plying its trade for someone.
Most of a year’s wait between ordering the car and receiving it…from GM…in the 1970s? What did your dad do, order some bizarre combination of equipment the factory really didn’t want to build?
I remember the rattling door windows, too; my dad had a ’77 Cutlass sedan. And yes, those dumb GM embedded antennas really didn’t work well.
LOL, thanks for catching that Daniel. The car arrived in late October 1972. I remember going to see it on the dealer’s lot, sitting under about a foot of snow. In the dark, it didn’t look as orange as it did the day my dad brought it home. BTW, if Chevy had taken a year to build it, maybe it would have had better quality 😉
Are you insinuating that American vehicle build quality was…ah…inconsistent in the 1970s?! 😉
I’m pretty sure there was a “GM: Mark of Excellence” logo on the door sills. That was supposed to mean something, right, lol?
Well, there’d’ve been a “Mark of
ExcrementExcellence” logo on the seatbelt buckle release buttons. On the door sills would’ve been “Body By Fisher”, which for some strange reason we were supposed to care about.Daniel, I hang my head in shame for not remembering that it was the “Body By Fisher” logo that appeared on the sills! Imagine if every time someone closed the door on one of the millions of GM cars that had those hideous molded plastic door panels and frameless door glass they heard a solid thunk instead of a hollow rattle.
Now that I think of it, the extra-wide hatch – which necessitated putting the lights in the bumper* – may have been to ensure that one could fit 4′ wide sheet goods into the cargo area. The Colonnade wagons were narrower than the B-wagons.
The next-gen wagons had a much more usable split tailgate.
*It might have been prettier to put the taillights IN the hatch, but that would have been illegal because the lights would not be visible if the car was driven with the tailgate open.
This is my opinion/speculation, but I think GM odd 70’s tailgates was to try to “out-do” Ford’s 2 way, that they initiated. GM’s pre-71 B and pre-73 A wagons had a nice 2 way gates.
They were unwilling to license Ford’s 3 way (glass up or down as a door). They were able to use the same liftgate on all 4 divisions’ wagons.
Mounting the taillamps and licence plate in the rear bumper allows the taillights/directional/backup lights to remain open when the liftgate is opened during driving (holding a large, secure load hopefully), as well as seeing the licence plate without resorting to fancy hingey things, and it all makes the tailgate opening as wide as possible. Also allows sharing of bumper with El Camino. Does make it hard to identify brand from the rear, as 71-76 full-size GM wagons all looked distinct from the back even though they shared the clamshell gate and windows.
This wagon’s a two-row model; three-rowers got vent windows just in front of the D pillars, and an ashtray in case the kid wanted to light up. (things were different in the ’70s). Having sat in front, middle, and back of both the Colonnade and box B wagons, I can’t find much difference in roominess or space utilization between the two designs. The thin pillars and frameless glass made the Colonnade wagons feel airier, and the interiors seemed slighly wider.
I’ve never understood why Malibu wagons got away with bumper mounted indicators? Didn’t that become unlawful after 1973?
No, it did not.
I purchased a nearly-identical (no third seat, round headlights) 1975 model in 1983. Truly enjoyed it until the cold weather arrived, when the car became victim to the “frozen” power steering spool valve malady. As it was explained to me, due to the Teflon Saginaw used in construction the valve would flat-spot overnight in cold weather and the steering wheel would have to be cranked hard left and right to break free. Out of warranty, of course, but I called the zone office in Chicago anyway. They sent me a fat envelope of microfiche communications from other GM owners who owned cars which suffered the same condition. Never heard much about this defect.
Thanks for this information! I’ve had one (out of a dozen) GM models with this condition, and I’d never before knew of this. I’m guessing that since it’s rare, it must have been some defective teflon, but how can a plastic product of teflon has different properties?
This car is a great find. The Colonnade coupes are showing up at various car shows, but the wagons remain a rare sight.
I never cared for the stacked rectangular headlights that Chevrolet used on the 1976-77 Malibus and Monte Carlos, and Buick used on the Colonnade four-door sedans and wagons. The single, round headlights were a key design element of the front of the Colonnades when they debuted in the fall of 1972. These square headlights were an obvious attempt to make the cars look “new” without spending too much money. The Oldsmobiles, Buick Regal and Century coupes and Pontiacs wore the new headlights the best – because they weren’t vertically stacked.
The interior shots remind me of how the various materials faded at different rates on these cars. After about six years, the interiors became multi-colored, while the exterior plastic-chrome trim around the opera and quarter windows was fading and warping. These cars didn’t age very well when it came to appearance, although the 350 V-8s and automatic transmissions were bulletproof.
I like this wagon, and it is well preserved, especially given that the interior plastics and vinyls of these cars did not hold up well under any level of ongoing sun exposure.
However, the wagons are afflicted by the same styling glitch as all other four-door Colonnades — there is a weird optical illusion that makes it look like the B-pillar ends in midair about a half-inch above the doors. It doesn’t, of course, but you can’t see the part that curves inward and goes behind the doors. It’s a design challenge created by wanting to have frameless glass and also to have the doors meet (i.e. to cover the B pillar).
The 1971-76 Cadillac Fleetwood, which also has frameless glass and a thick B pillar, shows two other ways to address the problem. For 1971-72, the doors don’t meet and the B pillar is visible all the way down to the rockers. On the 1973-76 cars, the skin of the front doors was extended rearward to meet the rears and hide the lower B pillar. Nevertheless, the pillars on those cars don’t have anywhere near the “suspended in midair” look of the Colonnades. The gap is smaller (or looks smaller), and the trick of extending the front door means the entire upper B pillar is over the trailing edge of the front door, which somehow is less disconcerting than having the gap between the doors centered under the seemingly suspended pillar. Also, the Cadillacs usually have a vinyl roof in a contrasting color, which makes it OK visually that the B pillar isn’t “continuous.”
These are really sharp design insights. You’re right, that hovering B-pillar is a bit of a weirdness on these.
Part of the problem was GM’s build quality and labor relations were so poor in the 70s, the engineers had to make allowances for inconsistent panels slapped together with shims by disgruntled or hungover workers.
Cadillac got that bit right, after 2 years, but they (and the Electra and some years of the 98) had a few inches of the C pillar’s vinyl roof edging stuck on the top of the rear door edge, with the panel gap above it. Looks like all the C body rear doors could have been designed to avoid that. It wasn’t as if vinyl roofs were new or rare features by then.
Ive had one of these when I was 19, really cool car to have in the Netherlands but it was on its last legs. Atleast girls loved it! As long as it managed to drive…
It was a black 1974.
Can anyone ID the exact year and model of this Chevy?
Y’mean the one in the post? The blue wagon? Yes; look at the headline of the post; it is a 1977 Chevrolet Malibu Classic station wagon.