Well, it is almost March, but we had a big storm here last Thursday with more on the way this week. I do take comfort in the fact that winter is coming to a conclusion, though, and soon we’ll be seeing convertible weather. Why not celebrate with this nice Wedgwood Blue Caprice?
This one was seen at the River Valley Classics cruise-in last July, and I had to check it out. This one is sporting wire wheel covers with “General Motors” center caps–does anybody else remember those? I also love the white interior with blue accents. What a classy cruiser! Here’s to spring’s and summer’s arrival. Cheers!
While I love white interior what catches my eye is the rat-rod, lowered, primered, green wheeled, L-series in the background and no I’m not talking Saturn I’m talking IH.
I knew you’d notice that Cornbinder Eric. I’ll have to check and see if I have any pics of it in my photo files.
’51 or ’52, as it looks like the door hinges are exposed.
Ill take a ’75 Grand Ville convertible.
A large percentage of the ’75 GM convertibles across all four makes seem to have been in this color.
Yes, very popular. Paul did a Capsule on a ’75 LeSabre ragtop in the same combo: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/curbside-classic-capsule-1975-buick-lesabre-convertible-own-the-last-of-its-kind/
But what I’d really want is a ’75 Grand Ville in triple white with red accents. Rally IIs and whitewalls would also be required equipment.
At the Carlisle events, 1975 GM convertibles in this color show up quite frequently.
We built the B chev in Oshawa, I do remember those wheels.We had to put the package containing all 4 in the trunk, they wern’t light! We didn’t build the rag though. Does anybody know where they were built?
If I had to guess, I’d say maybe Janesville, Wisconsin, since I’ve seen several Caprices and Impalas of this vintage that were assembled there. Could’ve been built in St. Louis too.
Are the wire hubcaps on this car correct for the year? I didn’t think they came out until the 1977 restyling. I thought the Chevy wires through 76 looked like the ones on this example (Image courtesy of ebay).
Yea the style presented in the pic with the red convertible is appropriate for the 1976-and before models. The wire covers in the article picture look almost like they were knock offs that were quite prevelant until the 1990s from vendors like JC Whitney and others. Either that or that they are original 1978-1980 covers with knock off centers. I go to hubcaps.org for visual reference.
I’m with you I think the hubcaps on the blue car are incorrect. My dad had an all original ’75 Caprice and it had the hubcaps pictured above.
Really, these were the pinnacle of sled-dom. Very cool car.
Been lusting after one of these for awhile now. Despite the barge-like proportions, these still have a lot of class and would be big fun to drive on sunny spring/summer/autumn days. Nice ones have been going for a lot of coin recently, too.
Would love to have one of these, but good luck getting one in anything approaching original condition around here (LA). They’ve all been given the lowrider or donk treatment.
There is a very clean, nice ’75 maroon/maroon Caprice Classic ragtop here in Honolulu. Fairly original, not pimped/slammed/Cholo’d out . . .
Did I spot an 8 track cassette on the transmission tunnel?Another great car that would be passed over by the classic magazines for a Charger/Mustang/GTO/57Chevy etc.
Those are actually CD cases.
I want to like these, but they’re just so comically huge. Also, I really dislike the ’75 Caprice front end.
I’d much rather have the Mustang GT ragtop next to it. Unfortunately, everybody now thinks their Fox 5.0 is worth at least 10 grand. No thanks.
I spotted a really nice circa-’92 5.0 convertible last year that I’ve been meaning to write up for CC. Same wheels as the gray one above, but in emerald green with white interior. It was in nice shape too.
Emerald green and white? Might have been one of those 7UP give away cars that they never gave away.
Not this one, it was a GT with the ground effects, dark gray lower cladding and 5-spoke alloys.
My ’88 5.0 LX drop top with leather, original Goodyear tires, and 26,000 miles on the clock, is in my garage. What do you think it’s worth?
I could see paying $10k for an example like that. Unfortunately, people want $10k for ragged out notchbacks these days. I love Fox Mustangs, but I could buy a lot of car for the same money or just a little more; The ’99-’04s are currently a bargain, and about $15k will get you a nice ’05+ GT now. Or, you can go the other way and get a pretty nice ’65-’73 example (especially if you’re not married to having a V8) for the same money.
The prices for collector cars are still ridiculous despite the economy. I get depressed looking at eBay, Autotrader or even Craigslist now. It’s all dealers who want stupid-high money, even for the uncollectable crap. 20k for late-’70s F-bodies. 15k for a Colonnades. Puke. Even Corvairs, which used to be the great unsung bargain of the hobby, are starting to go for 5 figures.
Maybe I just don’t know where to look.
Also, did I miss the COAL on that ’88?
Here’s a nice 91 Mustang GT convertible for under $4K.
http://bham.craigslist.org/ctd/3552935999.html
7 Up? under $3500.00
http://pensacola.craigslist.org/cto/3625052676.html
5.0 Notch $4K
http://santabarbara.craigslist.org/cto/3639402411.html
And that’s just 91s!
I had a new 90 then. Seems the Notchback is going for a premium, lighter and more solid sedan.
You’re dissing Colonnades, yet you like those cheap POS Fox body abortion Mustangs. Yeah, your credibility is about zero.
To each his own Rick, To each his own…
Beauty! I love these full size GM ragtops. I’m not a fan of the aftermarket CD player I spy. You definitely need the original player in a time machine like this!
There’s some custom radios made by Custom Autosound who imitate the style of older radios for Chevelle, Camaro, pick-up trucks but not for Caprice/Impala http://www.casmfg.com/radios.htm They even made a funny politically incorrect ad about their radios. http://youtu.be/XjIzMy1giiM
I stand corrected. Seems you can have them in Impala/Bel Air/Caprice until the 1972 model year. http://www.casmfg.com/Impala_Radios.htm
If it fits a ’72 Chevy it will fit this.
I’m not a fan of the Custom Autosound units.. I installed one in a friends ’71 Chevelle ragtop, and it has less power and poorer sound than the 25 year old Kraco I took out. Was not running an amp in it though, just using the built-in amplifier.
On my ’77 Chevelle, I took the original AM radio out and put in an AM/FM Cassette from an 83 Buick LeSabre to keep the shaft mount style and it looks fairly correct. Even its louder and has better sound than the CA unit- even with all 4 windows down and I still have the non-stereo rear deck muffling the rear speakers, like my friends convertible has the back seat muffling the speakers firing directly into the seatback, and the stereo dash, Mine has the front speakers cobbled into what GM thought was a good idea to put both front speakers in the center of the dash, angled out.
Lovely, lovely car ! I’d like a ’76 front end version even better !
Although I’m a purist, I’d be really tempted to put a ’76 Caprice header panel on that thing if it were mine. Not a fan of that particular front although I very much like the rest of the car.
There is a 75 convertible that I see down here at car shows from time to time that has had the 76 front end put on it.
Or you could just go with a Grand Ville and get square sealed beams, plus a better interior and nice door panels, optional gauge packages, oh…and a 455 of course.
Make mine a ’73 please, green and white. Wait a second…. *FACEPALM*
Daddy’s coming to get you, my Golden Olive Baby….hang in there…
Thats painful…..
Shame that both the GrandVille and GTO can’t be rescued.
I’m going after the Grand Ville later this year. If the property owner relents (doubtful), I’ll eventually go after the GTO.
The one year only Caprice only front end for 76 was attractive with the sharply angled quad headlamps. My uncle’s father had a blue one like the featured car, white vinyl top white interior, four doors, hard top, 6 window with the wire wheel covers and wide white walls very nice driver with the windows down…
I can’t help but love those funky base wheelcovers that blue example is wearing! The Monte Carlo variant of those are quite uncommon (no surprise).
Although I much prefer the styling on the 1971-73, I am warming up to these a bit. When white interiors started to become popular in the 60s, I hated the fact that most of them came with black dashes and carpet. When GM started offering red, blue, green or black dash/carpet combinations, I thought it was a really cool thing.
I think I have to go with William Stopford and declare the Grand Ville as my favorite of these B convertibles.
I recently came across a very nice 73 Caprice ragtop, but it looked to be in the very early stages of being donked. But for now, it looked pretty good.
Much rather have the Pontiac GrandVille with the 455.
These were significant, the last standard size, low priced, 6 passenger convertible car made in the US. It was the end of an era, after this, convertibles would be relegated to high-end specialty models like the Riviera and Eldorado, or pony car/compacts like the Mustang, LeBaron and Cavalier.
The GrandVille is kinda the winner in this series, unlike Buick which dropped the Centurion and kept the lower end LeSabre, Chevrolet and Pontiac droppped their lower end Impala and Catalina convertibles, leaving the Caprice and GrandVille, though the Caprices interior is barely nicer than an Impala, the GrandVille was the full luxe Pontiac interior, with nicer door panels and seats, plus a standard 455. Oldsmobile interestingly only had a Delta 88 through the 1971-1975 last convertible run, where the other started off with 2 convertibles withing their line ups.
If I recall correctly, the Delta 88 convertible was very popular, and may have even outsold the Caprice convertible in 1975. Sales were over 20,000 in 1975, which was a recession year.
My favorite among the GM convertibles is the Oldsmobile Delta 88, although I’d skip the Wedgewood Blue color.
I have a ’72 Delts Royale convert with the Rocket 455 sitting in my apartment garage right now.
Pics please! There’s a well-used Zodiac Blue ’73 Delta living in my basement.
Here ya go JB 🙂 .
Oh yeah! Yours has the killer cornering lamps which are quite rare on the Delta..and unique to the ’71 and ’72…in ’73 they were completely different (my car doesn’t have them). Thanks for keeping the original wheelcovers and posting the pic!
Well, FWIW, LeSabre Luxus/Custom replaced Centurion, and was not a stripper model.
I never called the LeSabre a stripper, but it was the lower series model.
Nothing beats the monster of all 1970s convertibles.
Can’t argue with that. My father bought a white/white/red ’76 convertible from the original owner in IL back in the 80’s after the Last-Eldo-Convertible-Bubble burst. The original owner bought two ’76 convertibles new: storing the yellow-or-beige one and driving the white one. Ours was quite rusty & had a huge dent in the passenger’s side door but it was mechanically sound.
The gorgeous red instrument panel made the car seem so much wider than its B-O-P-C cousins.
To me the Eldorado is a rung above, since its FWD and and E-body. The RWD B-convertibles are one car and the Eldo is something else. It is the Godfather of big 70’s land yacht convertibles.
I took that picture the weekend before last in Florida, despite the Michigan front plate. I would agree that the Eldorado is not a direct sister to the B-convertibles, but given the dwindling numbers of convertibles by the mid 1970s, the Eldorado reigned surpreme as the big daddy of all things open. The whole 71-78 Eldorado design has spawned countless stereotypes most of which remain today. That car as about as anti-Japanese as the Escalade is today, a vehicle design and selection that makes no rational sense on paper but for the subjective bliss that it gives the owner and the statement is makes to the rest of the cars around.
Curious, where in Fla?
I agree with what you say about the Eldorado, its a pure pleasure craft, if it was during the Roman Empire it would have come with maidens that dispensed grapes to the driver.
Naples. On the 16th of February they had their Annual Cars on Fifth Show. It is sponsored by the Ferrari Club of SW Florida and I would say about 2/3 to 3/4 of the cars there were Italians of all kinds but it was technically an open show and there were about 50-60 out of 400 or so total American cars including this one. Plus I later attended the AACA show the following weekend in Lakeland and now just finished up weekend in Daytona (tragically was there for the wreck) and now back home in North Carolina.
I took about 40 pictures of choice vehicles there including this one, which is probably the complete and total opposite of the Eldorado in every way. The Citroen 2CV which was France’s answer to the VW Beetle.
I gotta ask about the buiding in the background? Is it a mall? It looks properly dated.
That would be North Park Mall in Davenport, IA. Opened in 1973 and still going strong…
Well apparently Von Maur hasn’t changed their sign nor their entrance facade since 1973…
Actually that logo is from the ’90s. When I was a kid in the ’80s, the store was “Petersen Harned Von Maur” and signage was in bold, capital letters.
This is actually the back of the mall, our front it is much more modern looking. I kind of like the ’70s look, though.
Well if you really want to see something different in cars, go to the V6Z24 bash that they have in Davenport first week of July. Sometimes up to 100 various J-cars mostly tricked up Z24s from all over the US converge there. I used to own a V6Z24 convertible and while I never attended the bash there I frequented their website: http://www.v6z24.com and even owned the “V6Z24” plate for NC. I realize this comment is not particularly germane to the article, but since its in Davenport and you are you might get a story out of it.
I would have said 70’s too. I need to get a couple of shots with one my old cars infront of some local malls with dated logo-age. Is the mall still 70’s inside too?
Well just go to deadmalls.com and find something close to you and you can probably get all the vintage photographs that you want.
Craig,
Oddly enough, I never heard about the J-car meet and I’ve lived in the Quad Cities my whole life. I’ll definitely have to check it out this year. Thanks for the heads up!
Looks like the `72 Cutlass in the background of the first pic is suffering from the oh-so-common pushed-in front bumper.
I call these B-Body converts David Lynch specials, since they seem to pop in his productions a lot. This is a dead ringer for Leland Palmer’s car on Twin Peaks, and
Kyle MacLachlan drove the Olds version in Blue Velvet.
I remember Leland Palmers Caprice rag top, I think it was dark blue no?
Now I (finally) get the Pacer!
Not the same, but my Grandfather had a ’72 Biscayne 4 door sedan about this same color of blue (but alas with blue interior rather than the white). He traded his ’63 Fairlane for it (while my father did the opposite around that time, went from GM to Ford standard size). It may have been his first (and only) new car, he had it when he passed away in ’86. Neither of my Grandmothers ever learned to drive, so it was “his” car.
Real small points, but I didn’t like the back seat compared to our Ford, it seems you sat very low (the cushion was mounted what seemed much lower than on our Ford. I’m not that short (about 6 feet now) but most of my height is in my legs, so maybe it bothered me more than most (plus now I probably spend much more time in front seat vs rear seat back then). Wonder if the back seat was similarly low on the convertable.
I loved the lap cooler, also the start of the “international” pictograms on the controls (before that I think their function was just labeled in english)….the volume control on the radio had a big picture of what looked like a trumpet (or bugle or some horn) blowing…probably not international symbol standard now, but I thought it was neat.
One thing I didn’t like was the slope of the top of the interior door panels…I’m big on resting my elbow on the top of the door (windows up or down) and don’t like it when there isn’t enought horizontal surface to hold my elbow up….one thing I really preferred on Ford…despite the cheap plastics on GM, the interior panels look neat, but I prefer comfort to fashion for daily use…but this does look distinctive 70’s GM.
What a car! In some ways, I like the Chevy convertible more than the Cadillac. The Chevy projects a classy image, where the Eldorado screams, “I’m a Cadillac, you gotta love me!”
Like comparing Elly May with Marilyn Monroe.
Mmm…how I would love to cruise around in this! Probably 9 mpg around town! Who cares? That is one beautiful car on a nice Saturday and/or Sunday evening or cool afternoon anytime!
A friend of mine had a 1975 Caprice Classic Convertible when we were in college. He’d broken his back on a motorcycle, so the Caprice had hand controls. It also had a 400 small block that had been tuned by a drag racing engine builder. IIRC, it ran the quarter in the 14s, which was plenty fast in 1988. We had some pretty crazy adventures back then, but my favorite memory of the Caprice was another friend of mine trying to drive it home from a party in blizzard like conditions with the hand controls and sensitive throttle response. Good times.
When Good Chevrolet closed down on Park Street in downtown Alameda (California) in 2008, the famiy owners still had two Chevies on the showroom floor. Not sure if there were there for storage or posterity until they could turn the building over, but both were white Caprice Classic ragtops. One a ’74 the other a ’75. White over white; red carpets and dashboards. Would assume these were probably 400’s.
Backtrack to High School in ’76 – a buddy of mine (his Mom actually) had a ’74 ragtop. white but with black interior. We’d cruise that thing – top down – in November/December including forays into the city (San Francisco) at night. Two to four high school guys, top down crossing the GG bridge. We had down jackets on, wooly caps, and the heater cranked full blast. I remember Chas’s Mom’s ’74 had the handling package (rear sway bar and factory radials) . . . . and that one was a 400-4bbl (SBC 400).
Of the last ’75 “B’s”, I am in the consensus that the Pontiac Grand Ville looked the best. And, yes, of all the survivors I’ve seen, apart from the white Good Chevy Caprice Classics in Alameda, all of them were this shade of blue with white vinyl seats. The majority Olds 88’s and Buick LeSabre ’75 rags.
If this car is in Northern IL, it may be one that Lou Backrodt Chevrolet in Freeport IL had on display in their showroom up to at least summer, 1976.
My Grandmother lived up their awhile and serviced her cars there. One visit that summer, got to go to the dealer, and a light blue Caprice was on display. But no one could sit in it, since had a plastic covering. They were selling it as a ‘last of’ and had marked up sticker. Don’t remember the asking price.
And yes, the wheel covers in pic are knock offs. The factory versions were popular as ‘hot goods’ in my old city neighborhood. Many ‘vanished’ from owners’ cars.
Not many of these wheel covers survived a night in a bad neighborhood. Many dealers held on to the “last” convertibles, besides Cadillac dealers,
Actually I think those are legit GM wheelcovers, although not correct for that particular car. I’ve run across two of these covers and the black foil insert in the center of the potmetal center piece had GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION written around the circumference.
I’m guessing these were probably purchased OTC at a GM dealer back in the late seventies or early eighties. I’ve also seen a few similar covers with GENERAL MOTORS actually stamped into the potmetal center cap itself.
They look like the wire wheelcovers that Chevrolet offered on the 1977 and later Impala/Caprice.
Design wise these beasts were the last vestiges of the “longer/lower/wider” design ethos. Styling trumped space efficiency (and every other kind of efficiency).
Here’s a pic my friend Teresa took of a very nice ’75 CCC several years back at some car show. This car is equipped with the base PO1 wheelcovers.
With all this talk of big GM B body droptops, I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the finicky scissor top convertible. My ’74 LeSabre had monthly meltdowns when folding the roof.