(first posted 9/22/2016) The Compact segment, which had been the rage in the early 1960s, was under pressure as the 1967 model year rolled around. Pony Cars were tempting buyers in droves, while Compacts were seen as “square.” So how did U.S. makers dress up their smallest offerings for ’67? Motor Trend provided the run down in the New Car Issue.
Chrysler Corporation was the only manufacturer to introduce extensively revamped products into the Compact segment for 1967. The strong selling Dodge Dart was given a comprehensive update with crisp new styling that mimicked its larger siblings. Dodge was also committed to making the Dart a genuine Pony Car alternative by offering a range of sportier GT models that included a 2-door hardtop and a convertible. The results were a bright spot for the segment: Dart sales climbed 38% versus 1966.
One of the mysteries of the 1967 model year was the trouncing that Ford took in the Compact and Intermediate segments. Sure, the competition was fierce, and yes the Mustang was strong–but then again it already had been for several years. Changes to the Falcon were minimal, so it didn’t offer any “new news”, though the car had just been redesigned for 1966, and was still quite fresh. But the Falcon was stale to buyers, and sales tanked 65%.
Another Compact that took it on the chin for ’67 was the Rambler American. While far from being a fresh design by the standards of the time (the American continued to wear its circa-1964 clothes), it was still a very functional and conservative choice for thrifty buyers. AMC even offered a “Typhoon” 290 CID V8 and the slightly rakish Rogue 2-door hardtop and convertible to tempt the sportier set. However, the allure of Pony Cars and Intermediates was very strong for 1967, so the compact American sales sank 48%.
For 1967, the Valiant’s appearance was brought up-to-date with the rest of the Chrysler line-up: styling was clean and square-edged. While sister division Dodge kept 2-door hardtops and convertibles in the model mix, Plymouth focused its Valiant refresh on pure practicality, offering only 2-door and 4-door sedans (unfortunately, the useful compact wagon body style was dropped). No doubt Plymouth was counting on the Valiant-derived Barracuda, with 2-door hardtop, convertible and fastbacks, to make waves in the Pony Car segment. However, given the elimination of so many Valiant body styles compared to 1966, it is little wonder that sales for the smallest Plymouth dropped 21%.
General Motors dramatically ratcheted back its emphasis on the Corvair for 1967. Since the new Camaro was a much more conventional Pony Car offering to attract sporty car enthusiasts, Chevy simply dumped the performance-oriented Corvair Corsa models, while removing the larger 140-horsepower 164 CID 6-cylinder as an option for the rear-engined cars. Other changes for 1967 were minimal. So even though the Corvair continued to wear one of Bill Mitchell’s best-ever styling jobs, the market had thoroughly lost interest. Sales plunged 74% for 1967, and the writing was clearly on the wall about the Corvair’s future…
Chevrolet’s other Compact offering, the Chevy II, also received minimal changes for 1967. Once again, all eyes were on the new Camaro, so the marketing emphasis was shifted and the Chevy II became the conservative choice for pragmatic buyers. The ho-hum market positioning resulted in an unsurprising sales dip: Chevy II unit volume declined 19%.
That, in a nutshell, was the issue with the entire Compact segment for 1967: the pragmatic products were out-shined by sexier offerings in other domestic segments. Or worse yet for Detroit, frugal yet adventurous shoppers seeking an economy car were sampling the new imported wares from Toyota and Datsun (1967 sales of 38,073 and 45,496, respectively). And of course, VW popularity was continuing to soar (1967 sales: 454,801), undoubtedly diverting quite a number of buyers who might otherwise have picked a domestic Compact. The sales results told the full story:
| Dodge Dart | 154,500 |
| Plymouth Valiant | 108,969 |
| Chevrolet Chevy II | 106,500 |
| Ford Falcon | 64,355 |
| Rambler American | 62,680 |
| Chevrolet Corvair | 27,253 |
Just a few years prior, in 1965, the domestic Compact segment had accounted for 1,053,765 units. In 1960, the so-called “inaugural” year for Compacts, when each of the U.S. automakers offered small(ish) cars, sales were a sizable 1,441,407 units. Thus, the 1967 total of 524,257 Compact sales was quite a comedown. Unfortunately, U.S. makers took away the wrong signals from the slump. Rather than understanding that many American buyers continued to be interested in high-quality, efficient and functional entry-level cars, Detroit assumed these buyers just wanted “cheap” cars. “No margins in that!” screamed the bean counters, so Detroit focused elsewhere and small car buyers continued to drift away.
I wonder if anyone reading this in late 1966 had any idea that the Dart hardtop and sedan would still be in Dodge showrooms in 1976? Probably not. I still find it one of the most attractive cars of its era, one that aged much nicer than the coke-bottle look of the 1968 Nova.
These sales numbers are tough to make sense of. It has been my theory that in the 1960s, buyers expected a 2 door hardtop in almost every line of American cars, and a convertible for good measure. Dodge and AMC were the only two to offer that full line, but one was at the top of the sales charts and the other at the bottom.
This reminds me of how few of the round taillight Falcons I saw of this generation. It was just not an appealing car like its mechanical twin the Mustang.
I think the secret to the thirdgen Valiant/Dart’s long success is the same reason the Barracuda laid an egg; at a time when the long hood/short deck look was the hot new thing being applied to *everything*, the Mopar A-bodies were either too far along in the design process to gain a foot of wasted space between the radiator support and the grille.
I remember the advertising at the time was attempting to sell the Falcon as a “family Mustang”. Wonder who came up with that loser campaign?
The Dart is still the best looking, and probably best car of the bunch.
And this article really drives home just how much Chevrolet was putting on the Camaro for 1967. I’d always known about the gutting of the Corvair, however I didn’t realize that they’d done an almost equal gutting to the Chevy II/Nova. Guess the Camaro had a lot more profit built into it, so the tactic was to force you into one of those if you were determined to look at a fancy compact.
On paper a smart move. In reality . . . . . .
almost equal gutting of the ChevyII/Nova
The only change was dropping the 350hp 327, which was undoubtedly only sold in very small numbers in 1966. The rest of the engine line-up was still there, and the 275 hp 327 was really essentially the same as the previous 300hp version, as best as I can tell. They needed to reduce its rating to make it look less than the 295 hp 350 in the Camaro.
The big cull came with the redesign a year later – no more convertibles, hardtops or wagons. Somehow the remaining line avoided the persistent dorkmobile image the Falcons and Valiants took on, as judged by how many ’68-72 Nova two-door sedans show up at cruise nights.
The 68-72s weren’t hardtops but they were pretty rakish and tough looking, unlike the Valiant 2 door(excluding later Duster and Scamp) and the 66-70 Falcon. Plus the continued availability of SSs with engines as big as 396s (not to mention Yenkos) did a lot to forever bolster it’s reputation.
I wonder if the Nova’s rep as a performance car came about like that of the Tri-5, as inexpensive used cars. By the early 70s, Chevrolet owned the popular performance market mainly because it was so cheap and easy to toss a 4 bbl 350 out of a wrecked Impala into about every 68-72 Nova 2 door ever made. Chevy’s genius was in making everything it made an easy fit for the SBC V8 (and vise versa), and the Nova responded well to those mods. Every 17 year old wanted Camaros and Chevelles, but the Nova could do the same thing for less, with some work in the garage.
They were also among the easiest cars to fake into muscle car garb. The running joke today is there’s more classic Z/28s, Hemi Mopars, and Boss Mustangs on the road today than rolled out of the factory, well those took some major investment to be credible, cloning a Nova SS takes a 350, a pair of $20 emblems and either rally wheels or an aftermarket mag to appear credible.
The VW is the most puzzling. GN’s assessment of buyers is right; American buyers have always been pragmatic in some ways. But the VW sales disagree. There was nothing pragmatic about a Bug. No room, no comfort, no heat, no ventilation, no wipers, no trunk, no power, no speed, fragile, unreliable, unsafe, and gas mileage equal to an American six.
Valiant/Dart had all the correct qualities, VW had none. Yet VW sold twice as many cars as Valiant/Dart. Puzzling.
Car sales aren’t always about pragmatism. I think that VW had been a pragmatic choice in 1958 or 1960 or 1963, and its popularity then (due to its unique goodness for a car of its segment) had cemented a certain aura that carried it onward for several years. By 1967 it had become the default choice for someone looking for a small car. Just like today where Camrys are hot with AARP members and where millenials are into VWs, middle America embraced the bug because it was “in”. Japanese cars were making serious inroads on the west coast by then, but we conservative midwesterners were still riding the VW wave.
The VW was different, which was a big selling point, and also very well-built. You had to buy a Lincoln Continental or Fleetwood-level Cadillac to get the same level of build quality in a domestic car.
I don’t recall VWs as being unreliable…with an air-cooled engine, no air conditioning, no automatic transmission, no power steering, no power brakes and no power windows or seats, there wasn’t much to break. If the engine wore out, it was very easy to simply pull it and install another one.
I think build quality was a major factor. No matter how negatively they compared in terms of power, size, etc., they were like jewel boxes in terms of fit, finish, and perceived quality/honesty of materials compared to the average North American offering. It was hard not to look askance at a typical North American interior by comparison, despite the self-proclaimed ‘luxury’ content.
There was still a tradition in much of European industry at the time of trying to reconcile pre-industrial concepts of ‘craftsmanship’ with the demands of industrial era mass-production. As a design concept that approach might have been little known among North American consumers, but it struck a chord at some level, conscious or unconscious.
Now that I’m actually driving my 63 Beetle I can say that you are mostly right. You’re only partially right about the room, lots of headroom and legroom in the front, but you almost have to drive with your elbow out the window because there’s nowhere else to put it.
It has wipers, they are so cute little 6″ straight blades which are fun to demonstrate to passengers, haven’t tested them against a downpour though.
Mine is neither pragmatic nor reliable, but it’s over 50 years old now. I can assure you that my various family members who drove them in the 60s and 70s found beetles quite pragmatic and reliable for the time.
There was a strong political component to buying a VW. It was a way for boomers to insult the greatest generation for defeating the Nazis, something that was indicative of the world we’d live in when the boomers came to run all of our institutions.
Actually that may be slightly true, but in my experience it’s mostly wrong.
Many of my relatives drove beetles in the 60s and 70s, both my parents were born in the Netherlands in the 1930’s. My Grandfather is one of the Righteous Among the Nations recipients for hiding Jews, and he drove several beetles.
I asked by mother about this issue once, she has 6 years of direct Nazi occupation experience which makes her more qualified than me to judge, her answer: “We needed cheap transportation to get to work, and Germans needed to eat too.”
Many of the greatest generation were able to forgive their former enemies and move on. Maybe you should too.
My experience too. Growing up, my next door neighbor’s father had been a a POW in Germany, but by the mid60s-early 70s, the family went through 2 or 3 different VWs as well as a German Capri in 1974-ish. In my part of the world, boomers were driving parental hand-me-downs, or else as close to a Mustang or muscle car as they could afford. It was the parents who were buying the VWs.
My ex wife’s father trained bombardiers for the Eighth Air Force and sent them to kill and die over Germany. He died lamenting because he had been kept Stateside as a trainer instead of being accepted as a volunteer to fly over Germany. He was driving a Beetle when he retired from the Air Force in 1964, and the last car he bought was a Camry.
Dad parachuted into Normandy during D day, got 2 purple hearts during the war and still had steel fragments in his body the day he died at age 90. Didn’t stop him from buying his new ’66 Beetle.
Or having German friends. Whatever country you lived in during this time, if you were ordered to war, you fought. The soldiers didn’t start the war. He understood the enemy was doing what they were ordered to do.
CJ, your comment is totally off-base, and political to the extreme, as is your inevitable tendency. I would remove it, but others have already responded.
In the future, when you’re inclined to make absurd judgments like this, STFU.
And here’s a little reality check: new VWs were not bought by political activists; they couldn’t afford them. They bought old ones on the cheap. From folks who had jobs and were using them for economical, reliable transportation. Including folks of all political persuasions, and plenty of older ones. Your generalization is way off-base.
Anyway, your comment is truly idiotic. A lot of boomers may have been against the Vietnam war; they were NOT insulting anyone for defeating the Nazis. Believe me, I was in the middle of that all. I’m truly amazed that you could even come up with that. Wait; I take that back.
I’m 53 and I’ve never heard someone say they bought a Volkswagen to piss off WW2 vets. A retired co-worker owned a couple of Beetles in the 60’s and thought it would be cool to drive one in the later 80’s. Didn’t take long to realize memories can be cruel.
As a baby boomer I have never heard anyone disparage WW2 veterans for their service. Not once did I ever hear anyone during the 60’s or 70’s badmouth WW2 vets, even during the Viet Nam era. My dad was an Army Aviator during that time. My uncles were in the infantry in the European theater. I am proud that they were part of the Greatest Generation, because they grew up in poverty, survived the war, and became productive employees who could comfortably raise families.
That said, the only fault I can give to the Greatest Generation is that they raised a spoiled, self centered, and entitled generation that I have had to deal with all of my life.
I’m of the same vintage as you, Guardstang, and I also never heard my uncles and great uncles – all of whom served in WWII – express disdain toward their former combat enemies.
Quite the contrary. I’ve known many proud veterans of the Greatest Generation, and have actually heard them express admiration for the efficiency and engineering prowess they witnessed in the German people. They just weren’t particularly happy with their leader, and what he and his minions were ordering to be done to our allies, and people of certain races and persuasions within their own borders.
I’m reminded of this article
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/vw-kubelwagen-and-schwimmwagen-germanys-ww2-jeeps/
… and particularly the caption under a period picture of a captured Kubel in North Africa;
“Future American VW owners get a head start on learning the VW valve adjustment ritual (1944)”
He was banned, at least temporarily, from the “other” site. He may be back under a new alias. Not surprising to see him spewing the same bile.
I was around to see the 60s unfold and at no time did I see or hear of anyone dissing vets from WWII, or for that matter, WWI or Korea.
I doubt my father and mother, who were born in 1933 and 1931, respectively, bought VW after VW to spite their older brothers and sisters who fought overseas and worked in the factories during the war. If they’d been older they would have done their part. They appreciated a well built vehicle that was affordable to drive on an enlisted SMSgt’s salary that didn’t crap out it’s guts after the warranty expired.
CJinSD, your comment is way, way out of line. POLITICS ARE NOT THE TOPIC HERE. Old and future classics are. I’ve seen too many blogs destroyed by trolls and bickering over politics. Don’t bring your sneering, snide zealotry here, it’s not welcome.
Paul, wasn’t there a similar discussion a year or so ago? Didn’t we kick some folks out?
My grandparents (both born in 1932) bought beetles when my Mom (a boomer, born 1956) was growing up, my grandpa was an property developer, which is probably considered more of a bane to 60s counterculture, a veteran who fought in Korea and lived in Racine Wi, not even a coast unless you count Lake Michigan. What he was was pragmatic and frugal, my Grandma was always uncomfortable driving larger cars (as I recall she learned to drive after they married) and the Beetle, as well as an Opel Kadett at one point, fit their needs. Helps that the demographics of the area tended to be German decent themselves.
It wouldn’t have been boomers buying VW’s when sales exploded in the 1950’s and early 60’s – unless there was an unreported market among 5-10 year olds. By the late 60’s the very-early-boomers were perhaps starting to pick up used ones from an earlier generation. By the time boomers were buying new cars in volume it would have been the Rabbit/Golf era of the 1970’s and 80’s.
From the mid-50s on, West Germany was also solidly within the NATO alliance against the threat posed by the Soviet Union. As an early boomer myself I don’t remember any association in my young mind (rightly or wrongly) between the democratic Federal Republic of Germany and the previous, hated, Nazi regime. Young people’s memories, for better or worse, don’t extend much farther back than their own childhoods.
I picked up a used VW bus myself in the mid-1970’s. I bought it for its practicality, not as a slight to my father who fought in WW2 and spent several years in German POW camps.
The somewhat snobby ads of Doyle, Dane, and Bernbach encouraged people to think that as VW drivers they were smarter than the average bear. Well before the 61 Lincoln Continental, VWs changed little in appearance from year to year so your older model wasn’t as quickly dated as an American car (and resale prices were excellent). The front seats fit almost anyone and the back seats were reasonable for short trips. VWs were fun to drive, well built and reasonably reliable, and you could arrive in one at school, the country club, or a board meeting as the somewhat superior iconoclast. The car delivered a kind of reverse snob appeal for a very low price.
Mustang soon would capture some of that formula by offering a youthful, sporty image for a low price and keeping the car much the same for the first few years. I recall a number of VW owners moving on to Mustang at the time (and, as Paul recently noted, as the 60’s progressed the improving US economy and higher incomes resulted in the demand from car owners for more comfort, features, and flash).
Chrysler was already quite strong in the compact segment by 1967. That Valiant Signet sedan was quite handsome, and suggests that Plymouth missed an opportunity to really dress it up and sell it as upscale small car a few years before the Maverick with the Luxury Décor Option (LDO). The Dodge Dart was also quite handsome – particularly the hardtop and convertible models. But the Chevy II hardtop was the best-looking compact by this point.
What’s really eye-opening is the collapse of Ford in this segment. The Falcon was selling over 400,000 units in 1960 and 1961. Now it was barely managing to move 64,000. I’m not sure that Mustang sales were enough in 1967 to fill the void.
True, but 8-10 years later, the Granada, a re-worked Falcon got the last laugh. 😉
It is as though Ford, in choosing to try to combine the Falcon and Fairlane into a single platform, ended up making cars not entirely satisfactory in either segment. Not an isolated story, unfortunately.
Regarding the collapse of the Falcon: it is remarkable. Undoubtedly, cheap Mustang sixes were mostly responsible. But the ’66 restyle also just didn’t come off “right” at the time. It had the right proportions for the times (long hood/short deck), but somehow it didn’t work well. Undoubtedly it’s because it is a Fairlane body with a new front clip and short deck. It doesn’t come off as organic. I don’t know how else to explain it.
Ironically, the Camaro platform-based ’68 Chevy II/Nova had similar proportions to the Falcon, but worked much better. Its styling “clicked”, while the Falcon’s just didn’t.
The Nova also benefited from a shift to cheap muscle cars, as did the Mopars,especially with the Duster. The Falcon made zero effort to capture that market. There was a sporty version, but what young kids were looking for was an even cheaper alternative to the Road Runner, et al, and the Nova and Duster were it. No kid bought a Falcon for those reasons. Its image instantly became “old lady-mobile”.
In fact, it may well be that its image suffered so much precisely because of the Mustang’s success. Only old ladies were left to buy them.
The 1966 and later Falcons come across as trying to dress your 65-year-old grandmother in clothes for a 30-year-old woman. It doesn’t work.
Sort of like the automotive equivalent of the Real Housewives shows
The 66/7 Falcon was a hit here it was being assembled locally from kits via Australia but with very few changes severe cracking across the rear below the rear window took a few out early, but mostly it was a good car as was the Dodge Dart rebadged Chrysler Valiant via Australia, these cars sold well along with the Aussie Holden six and Vauxhall Crestas, the UK Ford Zephyr was a dismal effort with odd styling and poor engines it lost in the sales race among Ford buyers to the Falcon.
And it’s interesting that the ‘six cylinder Mustang’ market almost immediately switched to the styled compact coupes like Duster, Nova, and Maverick. They sold 3, 4, or 5 times the numbers of their four door line mates.
The exception was the Hornet, which had the same sedan styling in 2 or 4 doors and didn’t sell a lot of 2 doors. Add in the Gremlin as the ‘styled coupe’ and AMC had the same 2 door \ 4 door split as the big 3.
With the Hornet, I recall reading that, once the Sportabout debuted, it became the best-selling model in the line-up.
It had a niche to itself, especially since that was about when the midsizes became bloated giants. For five years (’71-75) if you wanted a smallish four-door wagon that wasn’t an import, that only came from Kenosha.
Agree with nlpnt and geeber!!
When Chrysler introduced the Aspen/Volare in ’76, a large percentage of sales were wagons which had been missing from this size range since the mid 60’s (exclusive of AMC Sport About).
Still do not understand why the Big Three dropped the wagon in the US. If I understand correctly, there was a Falcon Wagon in Australia
AFAIK, Ford kept the 1966-generation Falcon wagon in the States thru 1969. It was the same shell as the 66-71 Fairlane/Torino, and it was the same size exc that the F/T was longer ahead of the front wheels.
My parents were wagon fans starting in 1961 when they bought the first of two Rambler classic wagons…after the 2nd got totalled in front of our motel room (we’d just vacated out house, preparing to move from Catonsville MD to Burlington VT) and because my middle sister came around in 1964, they started buying larger wagons, a new ’65 Olds F85 then onto full size Ford, than Chevrolet (their last wagon bought new in ’78).
Seems I recall one of our neighbors had a late 60’s Falcon wagon (in the early 70’s) I remember it because it was a 3 speed manual column shift; my Mom who was the primary driver of the wagon (other than when the family was all together) has never been comfortable with anything than automatic, though she learned to drive on a ’51 Chrysler with semi-automatic. But yes, seems like compact wagons were scarce for quite a while, seemed to imply that if you needed space of a wagon, you might as well get a full size (until the ’73 gas shortages anyhow).
Funny thing is, I’ve never owned a wagon myself, but am a confirmed hatchback fan (something that also seems to have become scarce recently). The Sportabout (or a Concord wagon) would have seemed pretty natural for me, but for some reason I like the Hornet 2 door better. It’s one of the few cases where style trumps practicality for me, I just like how they look. Don’t need an Eagle (2WD is fine for me) nor a crossover or SUV…As I’ve gotten older I appreciate the ride of a car, but other than the 2 dr Hornet, a wagon or hatch is what I look for (if they still offer them).
Interestingly, Ford UK had a similar issue with the contemporary Zephyr/Zodiac – a long-hood/short deck body that didn’t look right. Both it, the Falcon, and – IMHO – the 68 Nova sedans all have a pinched feeling in the center section – a bit like the ’53 Studebaker sedans.
Comparatively, the Dart/Valiant sedans feel expansive. And their styling, while conservative, is arguably the best work from Chrysler in the Engel era. Thankfully, we were spared “fuselage” A-bodies!
Plus, by this point, Chrysler seemed to be the only domestic maker who remembered George Mason’s insight that Americans who wanted a small car didn’t want a cheap car. Probably why they did so well in this segment for so many years.
Lastly, Paul, I hoped you noticed the reference to moving on up to a cheap base-level Cornet wagon in lieu of the discontinued Dart wagons!
Most of the MK4 Zephyr Zodiac issues were mechanical the looks werent the main issue other than the lack of a grille on the lower cost Zephyr, the V4 thankfully wasnt assembled here and the 2.5 V6 only lasted 1 year before being replaced by the 3.0 Zodiac engine, which at least had more power, backyard V8 conversions were common but nothing could cure the incredible understeer issues not even 4WD UK police conversions did away with that entirely, The Falcon wasnt perfect but at the Ford store here it was a much better choice.
Ford sold over 600000 1967 Mustangs and Cougars. Even without a dribble of Falcons, Ford was first in both brand and corporate small car sales.
Not a bad car in the bunch. I must concede that the Dart is a better car, and a better looking car too, but I’m going with the Rambler American.
Make mine a Rogue two door hardtop, dark metallic blue with a 290 and 4-speed. PN can’t admonish me for not getting the big block in this case 😉
AMC did offer the 343 V-8 in the American at some point during the 1967 model year. A Rogue hardtop equipped with this engine regularly shows up at local car shows. The owner bought it new, and claims it came this way from the factory.
Apparently the engine was too much for the car’s body, as really flogging the engine often resulted in a cracked windshield, due to body flex.
I’ve seen ads for the 343-equipped Rogue, so they were available. I wouldn’t doubt the body flexing as it just wasn’t designed for that much power. A couple of years later when the SC/Rambler was built with the 390 V8 I believe that AMC reinforced the body to handle it.
What about station wagons? Were the Falcon and American the only U.S. compact wagons left by 1967? I know that for a while AMC was alone in that segment but I think that was a few years later.
I remember reading in the IKA Torino article that the unibody had the Classic convertible’s longer front frame rails substituted, I presume the same was done?
I found that 343 “Rambler American Rogue” ad in the January, 1967 edition of Motor Trend magazine…
Tuning a carb and (presumably)installing slicks… In a factory ad! How cool is that! Not only is that refreshing from today’s milquetoast appliance car perspective but from AMC’s milquetoast reputation up to that point!
At this point AMC was scrambling for survival and going full tilt to divest itself of the “Romney image.” Not long before this their ads bragged about limiting engine size and horsepower, proclaiming that the only race AMC/Rambler cared about was the human race. What a difference a few years makes!
The Rogue is no Mustang but still is not an unattractive car. I find its simple, clean styling to be appealing. I certainly would not kick one out of my garage!
I’m not sure I get your point. I don’t watch much tv, but it seems to me over the past 10-20 years, I’ve seen endless commercials with cars being driven at insane speeds, doing all kinds of things to show off their prowess, with disclaimers at the end (professional driver in closed circuit…etc..) Nobody dared to show cars actually being driven at highly illegal speeds back then. Even the new Prius is being advertised that way. I think we’ve become inured.99.9% of car ads back then were extremely tame compared to nowadays.
But yes, in 1967 AMC got youth market religion, if a bit too late. And they really hung it out there. It was a good effort, that got better with the Javelin’s racing efforts in Trans Am, but ultimately mostly futile.
Other car companies were doing similar targeted ads in the car magazines, especially the hot rod/drag oriented ones.
Anybody can drive any car down the road fast, automakers want to showcase how awesome their cars are. What you don’t often see however are ads like these catering to people who engage in making them fast*er*. That’s generally the purview of aftermarket parts manufacturers. Automakers tend to market the illusion that anything “you” do will mess up what “we” built, even if it’s just throwing on slicks and rejetting a stock carb(or uploading a tune on a modern PCM car) to get the upper hand over the next car.
I’m not saying it’s unique to the 60s or AMC, Scion did the same thing in their earliest ads, showcasing tuner TCs and XBs, but it’s quite rare. Most car ads portray the customers as being aloof about cars, selling them by touting awards or value. Even the professional driver on a closed course ads tend to showcase the drivers as disinterested, just busy individuals in a hurry in our great products.
The Falcon being essentially a stubby Fairlane makes it quite like a Stude Lark but without the Lark’s benefit of having a relatively large chunk of the segment to itself initially. How Ford had any hope selling the Falcon in a configuration such as this in a now very crowded segment is baffling. No hardtop or convertible to top it all off. It’s also baffling 1,675 more buyers would pick the Falcon over the American!
The Dart was a very attractive design, as I don’t think there was a compact with more attractive proportions before or since. Although I’d hold out a year for a 68 GTS with the 340 personally.
The Valiant and Dart were the premier domestic compacts of this period. The combination of Slant-six engine with Torqueflite transmission was nearly indestructible, and the torsion bar front suspension had good handling characteristics. On most of them the bodies rotted out around the drivetrain, it was pretty rare that one would be junked due to mechanical failure.
My only real criticism of these cars was the incredibly numb power steering. When so equipped the steering wheel had all the road feel of the volume control knob on the radio. (Not that any of the domestics were great in this regard, but Chrysler was the worst.)
That’s a great analogy about the 1966 Falcon being a rehash of the Studebaker Lark. It might have worked, too…if it were still 1959. But it was a whole ‘nother ballgame in 1966, with a crowded field of just-as-good (or better) compact competition.
Likewise, Ford was in a different position than Chrysler or GM in that they were very concerned about how a stylish Falcon could potentially impact the phenomenally successful Mustang. And their concerns weren’t unfounded, considering what happened later with the now legendary situation at Chrysler when the very attractive (but low profit) 1970 Valiant-based Duster pretty much killed the brand-new, expensive E-body Barracuda/Challenger. Supposedly, there were a lot of Chrysler executives angry about that one.
So, the overall logic of the 1966-69 stubby-Fairlane/Falcon is understandable. It’s just that the buying public wasn’t exactly interested in a Studebaker Lark built by Ford.
In an ironic twist, when it became apparent that the Maverick wasn’t going to be ready soon enough after the 1969 Falcon was cancelled, Ford came up with the stop-gap 1970 1/2 Falcon which was, literally, a strippo Fairlane pillared 2-door coupe. It’s fascinating that Ford found it necessary to have the compact market covered at all times, when it was such a low-profit segment. Really, I doubt the few sales they would lose in that very short interim period who do them much harm and, in fact, probably cost them more in creating the Fairlane quasi-compact effort.
The ’70 Maverick was brought out in April ’69, about a year before the 70.5 Falcons. The ’69 Falcons were built a few months past the summer of ’69.
Covered in another CC post.
Even more surprising they made the pillared two-door, then, since the ’70 1/2 was covering until the ’71 Maverick four-door was ready.
Likewise, the ’69 Falcon production stopped before 1/1/70 because of lack of a steering column lock, and it would’ve been possible to just drop in the Fairlane dash and steering column.
Yeah, whatever the reason, the whole Falcon/Fairlane/Maverick transition scenario was just strange.
There would have only been a tiny market between the Fairlane hardtops/convertibles and the Mustang. At best, Falcon hardtops and convertibles would have been as desirable as the Valiant-based Barracudas, and those were only attractive to Mopar loyalists, not style-sensitive conquest sales.
Good point about the Duster and the E-bodies. The Duster really was the natural evolution of the original Mustang, putting a sporty body with a lot of options on a compact platform, while both the E-bodies and the contemporary Mustang bloated up in order to house big-block engines. Even then, there was only a certain appeal for all that horsepower.
Falcons were out of style by this time and overshadowed by the mighty Stang. Dart and Valiant led this field, and Duster came along a few years later adding more sales. Only reason Falcon outsold Rambler was the sheer # of Ford dealers.
OTOH, A bodies were so popular, the 1970 E’s had no chance, costing more. Only decades later do they get collector car buyers to empty wallets, but none of that cash goes to Mopar.
Excepting the ‘Vair, if I read all this right, all of the others precluded a 6-cyl/4-speed combination.
Pontiac’s OHC 6 could get a 4 speed, along with 4 barrel carb and dual exhaust. But Pontiac had no compact, mid size LeMans,Tempest and Firebird was where this engine was installed. It does seem to make little sense not to offer a 4 speed with the six, the parts needed were already on the shelf. I wonder if this combination would have been a popular option. In the ’70’s I believe a 4 speed was offered in the Feather Duster with a slant 6.
The Big Three were a bit psychotic about compacts during the ’60s. Sometimes the offerings seemed to offer a lot of value, and were nicely trimmed out, next they would be Spartan and dull.
Falcon was feeling pretty frumpy by ’67, and was such a mish-mash with the Fairlane, that the Falcon lost its value credibility, the Fairlane lost its prestige as a mid-size. A pretty dopey move for the company that got the three size car strategy rolling in the U.S.
Nova was about to go full old maid car in ’68, reducing offerings to rather frumpy two and four door sedans that seemed to sell best as relative strippers. No more sharp hardtops or convertibles with surprisingly impressive trim.
Even Plymouth dumped its hardtop for ’67, leaving it an exclusive offering from Dodge.
My hunch is that when the Big Three introduced compacts, they were really just the first effort at marketing a volume vehicle smaller than a “standard” U.S. car. By ’67, there was a huge three tier system and mid-size cars had loads of sexy offerings. The big three probably thought that their compacts were now just budget cars for the sort of folks that might buy Rambler or imports.
While GM in particular had some cognizance that the imports were sub-compacts focused on entry level economy (they were developing the Vega), I think Detroit still had a hard time getting excited about smaller cars, and saw the bottom half of a growing four size tier system as being for losers. Winners drove Cutlass convertibles. Old maids drove stripper Novas. Worse, kids, lunatics and hippies drove Beetles – no hope they’ll ever be in a Buick, right?
So, just in time to get swatted by the imports, then the ’73 gas price spike, they made their compact lines a bit less attractive. It probably sold some mid-size cars, and a few Datsuns on the side.
“Fairlane lost its prestige as a mid-size…”
True, and then the Torino name took top spot in ’68, pushing it out by ’71. {Then renamed again to LTD II in ’77}
Nova SS with many engine options at least helped the image. Though most of the old maid strippos were later built into drag strip cars.
Buick dealers had Opel, but were ‘bait and switch’ products.
I’ll take that Nova – RIGHT NOW!
Unapologetic Chevy fan that I am, especially of those years.
For me, it’s the most beautiful of the compact car bunch. I did own a 1972 Nova – another car I would deeply regret selling.
Those ’66-’67 327 Corvette-engine Novas were, as one might surmise, killers on the street. They were the beginning of the compact musclecar and were followed almost immediately in 1968 with 340 engine Chrysler A-body cars, not to mention the new, big-block 396 Nova SS. The only reason they didn’t catch on sooner was they were overshadowed by the still popular big-block V8 intermediates (particularly the cheapo 1968 Roadrunner).
Of course, that all changed with the even cheaper, just as fast (and a whole lot cheaper to insure) 1970 Duster 340.
“compact muscle car market”
This is why Pontiac tried to sell the Ventura GTO in ’74, but late to the party.
The ’74 Ventura GTO was a ‘valiant’ (no pun intended) attempt, and seemed to hit all the right musclecar buttons, just in a smaller size. It was just too slow and too expensive relative to the class-leading Chrysler A-body 340 cars.
And then there was the timing, that being the OPEC oil crisis, which pretty much slammed the door on anything even remotely resembling an old-school musclecar, regardless of how much better they might have been in fuel economy than the old, sixties’ big-block brutes when gas mileage in the single digits was the norm.
Of course, the flip-side was that the 350 that went into the Ventura GTO had dimensions identical to Pontiac’s other engines. So, unlike trying to get a bigger engine into an A-body, transplanting a 389/400 (or even 455) into a 1974 GTO wasn’t all that difficult, and would even the playing field with the hot Mopar compacts considerably.
Interestingly, like the much more popular Mustang II released the same year, the Ventura GTO was similar in dimensions to the original ‘senior compact’ 1964 Lemans upon which the original GTO was based.
The ’64 LeMans was a true mid size car, with BOF. The 61-63 Tempests were Y body ‘senior compacts’, related to the Corvair.
I’d kinda wonder who’d go into a Pontiac dealer and leave with a new 74 GTO instead of a Firebird. In a vacuum, the GTO was a nice package for the time, but it’s obviously an old Chevy economy car with a Pontiac grille and taillights, and it didn’t have the performance options of the Firebird. The GTO was a little cheaper than a Firebird Formula. A buyer would have to really want either a GTO badge or a marginally useful back seat for three to choose it over a Firebird.
Minor correction: Corvairs had a 164 cubic-inch engine, not a 230.
I think in this bunch I’d take a Corvair first, a Dart GT hardtop second, and a Rambler Rogue hardtop third. If my Nova was a 327, it might move up the list. The only ones I’d probably leave on the table are the Falcon and the Valiant (surprising since I like the Dart).
Fixed, thanks!
Your list matches mine!
I have been postulating what car of this year I would actually buy. It has always been between a Pontiac Acadian wagon with a 327 and four speed, along with all the HD options and a Slant Six Valiant with Torqueflite, again with all the HD stuff.
And the Valiant wins! They were about the only cars that could survive the winters in Quebec!
One thing that all these compacts shared was light weight. In base form, the highest weight was the Dart at 2840 with the Corvair lowest at 2523. I doubt the lightest compact in 77 could even beat the Dart. It probably comes down to how stripped out they were in base form but the weights look good even today. Only the early eighties front drive compacts got lighter.
The weight of that Dart resonated a bit, so I looked it up. In cheap-o 6 cylinder Champion (not Scotsman) trim, the 57 Studebaker I wrote up last week weighed 2810 pounds. Thus the 116 inch wheelbase 1957 sedan was outweighed by the 111 inch wb 1967 version. Weight creep was not new in the 70s.
Not in 77, but the 78 Fairmont was 2700 lbs.
Was the 1967 Chevy II the last passenger car without curved side windows offered by a domestic manufacturer? Seems that way to me.
It’s somewhat interesting that the switch from flat to curved side windows happened around the same time as the switch from black-and-white to color production of TV shows; virtually all TV series that were still produced in B&W for 1965-66 and were renewed for the next season switched to color.
Lincoln had flat glass through 69. The original clapdoor Lincolns had curved glass, then reverted to flat glass for 64.
Flat glass? How about Checker…1982.
Well, OK, I didn’t think about Checker (even though I recall seeing little display ads in the back of National Geographic at the time, trying to sell the as private cars.)
As for the Lincoln Continentals, they had curved glass in 1961-63, reverted to flat in 1964-65, then returned to curved for the 1966 restyled models. (The same for Thunderbird except that it retained flat glass for one last year of the old design, 1966.)
“…the Dart uses…the same bumper as in ’66.”
Wrong!
REAR bumper is the same
If I were to get a 1967 compact I would choose the Ford Falcon, I’ve always liked the 1966-70 Falcon’s over the earlier models and always felt they should’ve been a bigger seller.
As Bryce has stated further above, these Falcons were very popular in Australia. The beginning of our cars becoming cool,at least for us.
It introduced a GT model (unfortunately a 4 door) with the 289 and 4 speed which won the car breaking 1967 Gallaher 500 race at Mt. Panorama at a time when the cars were pretty much showroom stock.
Those wheelcovers on the Dart suit the cars perfectly, they go really well with the sharp angular lines, very similar to the wheels on the 1968 Hot Wheels toy cars.
In the context of 1967, the Dart/Valiant looked the best. Great designs for the era, as Chryco promoted the performance models. By 1975, they were among the dullest looking cars on the road.
THANK YOU!
Now I better understand how Detroit missed the market when the compact car market bounced back during the Gas Crisis in 1974. There wasn’t a market in 1967! Intermediates were selling, along with personal luxury coupes. Pony and muscle cars were hot. Detroit must have thought that the compact car market was stagnant and profit-less.
This also explains why Ford design a useless Maverick that was impractical to carry beyond 1974 – they hadn’t expected a boom in that market. This also explains why Chrysler had nothing but the Valiant/Dart on the same body style for so long.They’re probably glad they hadn’t made a wagon during those years. GM restyled their Nova, AMC restyled their Hornet – they still had a viable compact in 1974, since they weren’t as dated. AMC got lucky for once.
Detroit was caught ham-handed when the Oil Crisis hit since they hadn’t redesigned their compact cars for so long. I better understand how this happened.
Thanks!
Not specific to compacts (applies to all cars sold in US in 1967 and beyond) was mentioned in the article for the ’67 AMC:
=========attached text snippet from page 113 ====================
“The double safety brake system, stan-dard on American Motors cars for
over 5 years, now has a failure warning light, and 4-way hazard warning signals,
back-up lights and a feature on the direc-tional signal arm that spring-returns it
from the first position are all standard equipment for ’67”
=========end attached text snippet from page 113 ================
I heard that US safety requirements for ’67 mandated the dual-channel hydraulic circuits, but didn’t know AMC already had implemented it (from this, sounds like starting in 1962).
Hard to get excited about back-up lights since it’s been so long that they’ve been required, but sure it made a difference, so you could at least see better what you were backing into at night especially (and let other’s be aware when you’re in reverse). The spring loaded directional arm, maybe easy to take for granted, but so few people seem to bother with turn signals where I live, that anything that makes them more likely to be used, like self-cancelling, is appreciated (at least it makes things easier for those who do use them).
Guess you had to make sure your emergency brake was up to snuff back when single channel hydraulic was all that was required, since if you lost your brakes, you had to rely on it. Actually happened to me almost 40 years ago in my ’78 Scirocco, ironically once I’d moved it from up north where I bought it to central Texas. The rear hydraulic lines were mounted inside the passenger compartment instead of underneath as I’d expect, and from the 5 years or so they got soaked with water from melting snow going into the carpeting they corroded…but as I remember it, I had NO brakes at all, had to use my emergency brake (maybe I’m remembering it wrong? Certainly a ’78 should have had dual master cylinder channels). I replaced the tubing myself, and bled the brakes (forget how I got the car home, don’t think I fixed it on the road, but I don’t remember having the car towed..). For some reason I had brake issues with the Scirocco, that I didn’t have on my subsequent ’86 GTi nor current ’00 Golf (probably the obvious, only the Scirocco spent winters up north ). Also remember brake fluid leaking onto the top of my newly purchased Deer Stag shoes from the firewall into the passenger compartment and fouling the leather (bought same again, first time ever tried them just lucked into finding them). Probably being up north was key cause; my current ’00 Golf still has the original exhaust system (except for catalytic converter which had to be replaced after I let it go too long with bad coil pack and it dumped unburned fuel into it), which is my first stainless steel vs prior aluminized system…what an improvement! On the Scirocco and GTi, I was used to changing whole exhaust from cat back every other year (I drive mostly short distances, so my exhaust seldom burns off moisture) but with similar driving habits haven’t had to replace anything but the cat (albeit for a different cause, they didn’t go on the Scirocco nor the GTi). Also, for some reason, I still have my original CV joint boots on the ’00 Golf..whereas the GTi and Scirocco had them replaced about every other year (but this is my first VW with power steering…wonder if that has something to do with it?)
Back to ’67, my Dad was still driving his ’59 Beetle and ’65 Olds F85 (with single hydraulic circuit brakes) but before the ’65 Olds he had qty-2 Rambler Classics, a ’61 (with single channel I guess) and a ’63 (with dual channel it seems). Both were automatic (my Dad’s first car was a ’56 stripper Plymouth Plaza he bought new, but he hadn’t met my Mom yet, who never was comfortable with standard, even though she learned to drive on a ’51 Chrysler semi-automatic). What I’ve never done, and wonder how people in hilly areas lived with it, was a manual transmission car with a foot operated parking brake. I’ve been spoiled to only have had manual transmission cars with lever operated hand brake, no foot parking brake, where your feet don’t need to be as coordinated on a steep hill starting out, since you have your handbrake to help you get started up the hill when releasing the clutch. Guess you have to practice your feet motion, maybe keep right foot partly on brake and partly on gas while you release the clutch? For me, it’s foreign as driving a model T.
Anyhow, seems mundane now, but you couldn’t take braking for granted back then…front wheel discs and antilock still far in the future for most cars…though my Dad progressed quickly the very next year after his ’59 Beetle was totalled in front of our house, he bought a new ’68 Renault R10 which had discs and radial tires…standard equipment…big difference from the ’59 Beetle I’d bet! He bought the Renault at Almartin Motors in South Burlington on Williston Rd near the airport…it seemed more like a garage than a dealership, as I remember it back then (a few years before I started driving myself).