Another day’s evening commute yielded these two finds, seen from the L on a residential side-street. Spotting either of these two vehicles by themselves would have been a treat. Seeing them both together parked on the street within ten yards of each other was like winning $50 on a scratch-off lottery ticket. Childhood flashbacks immediately ensued.
My visceral reaction to seeing two GM vehicles from my formative years was pure thrill. I find the 70’s to be one of the most intriguing decades for cars. There were many sweeping changes that rocked the auto industry, with safety and fuel efficiency concerns, as well as government regulation coming to the forefront. Different auto makers, both in the U.S. and abroad, came to different conclusions in terms of how to get it all done and still manage to sell cars they thought people would want to buy.
Few could argue against that many cars of that era were compromised in the execution of their goals, but I’m interested in how the problem-solving component of the human brain arrived at some of these answers. Sometimes the thought process is as intriguing as the actual solution. I’m thinking specifically of AMC’s wide, small car, the Pacer, as a case in point, and I do like the first 1975 – ’77 Pacers. They are gobs more interesting than any modern packaging wonder (i.e. Honda Fit) could ever hope to be. Cars of the 70’s ranged from sensible to downright wacky, and I love the 70’s for being that malaise-ridden automotive freak show.
Chevrolet was faced with downsizing its immensely popular and widely-imitated Monte Carlo personal luxury car, and also maintaining some degree of resemblance to the car it replaced. Visually, I feel they succeeded. While not my favorite Monte, this one looks mighty fine to me, especially riding on those Chevy Rallies with raised, white-letter tires. Plus, there’s absolutely no mistaking it for anything but a Monte Carlo. This car was downsized, attainable, blue-collar luxury done right. Similarly, with the downsized El Camino, GM managed to incorporate the new Malibu’s front end sheet metal into a package that managed to improve the looks of what preceded it, with much of the utility left intact.
A more important, personal reason why cars of the 70’s have always captured my imagination is that I remember that time of my life when I was four or five years old, and couldn’t learn enough about the names, makes and models of every car on the street. A trip to the grocery store with Mom could turn into a car-spotting safari. “‘Grand Prix’? Why is ‘Prix’ pronounced like that, when there’s the letter ‘x’ at the end? Why isn’t that truck called a ‘Chevro-let’, and why does its name rhyme with ‘play’? That’s not how they’d pronounce that on ‘Sesame Street’!” Vehicles like this pairing from the late 70’s were new around that time, and were a common sight in the Rust Belt factory town where I grew up.
Seeing these two exotically-named Chevy siblings reminded me of a time when everything car-related could keep me entertained for hours, with my brain soaking up every tidbit of visual information it could like a damp sponge. There are only so many times I can read the same paragraph about a certain year, make and model car written by a particular editor of Consumer Guide, on the same well-worn page of my automotive encyclopedia. I’m thankful for the memory of what it felt like to make new automotive discoveries, and also for forums like this one, which facilitate the sharing of fresh perspectives that remind me of when learning about cars felt so new and exciting.
All photos are as taken by the author in Lakeview, Chicago, Illinois.
Monday, April 7, 2014.
To me, the 79 Monte has always looked like a grown up’s “Zoot suit” re-sized to fit a midget. The fender bulges could be over-sized lapels or huge shoulder pads….depending on your point of view.
On the other hand, the El Camino, at least this generation, looks very elegant, except perhaps in the cheapest, base model trim.
This is not to say I would favor the E C over the Monte, a lot would depend on the colors and engine/transmission of each car.
If I were buying new in ’78-79, I’d have taken a Malibu coupe over a Monte.
But I was also a 4/5 year old then, and I too learned to read from Sesame Street and car badges before even starting kindergarten.
That’s actually a 78 El Camino. 79 -end had the backup lights inboard of the brake lights, 78 was the only year the backup lights were outboard.
I never cared for this generation Monte, they all had the same look with the peeling chrome trim on the bumpers.
Tommy, thank you so much for the pointer on the Elky. I fixed the title.
The best “tell” for a ’78 to ’82 Malibu/El Camino is the grille insert.
’78 -> “Floating block”
’79 -> crosshatch inside 4 primary horizontal fields (looks eggcrate-ish from a distance)
’80 -> vertical bar
’81 -> horizontal bar
’82 -> quad-lamp eggcrate
The ’82 and ’83 Malibus were identical save for the badge font and placement. I don’t know if the El Camino changed at all from ’82 to ’88.
Chris, these are super-helpful mnemonic devices. I’m pretty sure I had these down pat in the past, but it’s been a while since I have regularly seen either the Malibu or El Camino of this generation.
And I do think you’re right about the El Camino not changing from between 1982 – ’88. I really miss annual model-year changes. The yearly, October new-model rollout used to feel kind of like getting to unwrap a Christmas present early.
Never really liked the florid curves of the Monte, downsized or not. The El Camino comes off best in a trimmer package. I was 14 in 1978 when these models came out, and I was pretty car-crazy too. It seemed like an exciting time, with all the changes happening to the auto industry. It was only decades later that we started calling it the “malaise era”.
Those homes in the background with their tall wide front steps and stonework look very elegant.
Hmmm… I was too a teenager. I have distinct memories of borrowing my uncle’s El-Camino when we had to clean the yard and then drifting it on the gravel road leading out of the dump; even with the strangulated V8 it had enough power for all sorts of mischief. Monte Carlos were cars owned by flashy businessmen in Israel back then; the second and third owners tended to belong to the lesser respected members of the society (read: gangsters).
Man, Joseph, you just described my childhood, which makes sense, since we’re both from Michigan and grew up in roughly the same epoch.
I’ve been digging the Monte Carlo from this generation quite a bit lately, not to buy, but just to appreciate.
Great write-up, Joseph. I couldn’t agree with you more about the cars of the 70’s. As a kid I loved looking at all the different makes and models, seeing the different model changes every year and going to the auto show. It was so cool to see how differently equipped cars could be. The color combinations and options were so unique. It is so different now, cars are not what they used to be.
I’m gonna go with ’79 on the Monte. I owned a ’78 and the taillights did not wrap around the edge of the car like the one in the picture.
Damn… I miss my ’81 Elco. Sold it a year ago. That roofline so totally makes it.
Love this write-up. Like you, even as a young child I couldn’t get enough of all cars. I loved finding them on the streets, reading about them in buff books, brochures and Consumer Guide. A lot of my older magazines and catalogs are so worn just because I read and reread them all so much.
As for the 1970s, I agree that they were a wonderfully interesting period for cars, even if the end products weren’t that great in many cases. Expectations, tastes and government requirements all combined to dramatically transform cars. No, it wasn’t the golden years of the mid-1960s, but seeing how the manufacturers handled the evolving market was fascinating.
I also really enjoyed the incredible variety that was on the market at that time. Not just individual brands/nameplates, but the fact that virtually every domestic car was unique in its color, trim and equipment. I always wanted to look inside cars to see what seat trim they had, to discover if they had power windows or locks, etc., etc. Just looking at this Monte, for example, and the wheels in my brain start turning: was it a Landau? Even though it is missing the emblems and pin stripes, I’d say yes, based on the forward-placed vinyl top and the dual sport mirrors. What wheel covers were originally on it? Was it a V6 or V8? What options did it have? And so on… By the mid 1980s most of this variety had vanished, replaced by manufacturing efficiency and focus-group-derived packages. Rather boring, and the end of a unique automotive epoch.
Lots of ways this Monte could have been optioned out!
Well for whatever its worth, the 1978 Monte Carlo, 1978 El Camino and 1978 Malibu were all the same cars in terms that ALL 3 were the former RWD A-Bodies which later became RWD G-Bodies and used the same Separate Body and Frame Undercarriages. No one can debate those of course.
My mother told me that when I was a toddler, there was no such thing as a short walk to the post office – I had to examine every single car that we passed. And I do remember sitting in the car behind a Chevy pickup, reading the name on the tailgate, and one of my parents correcting my pronunciation. 🙂
The only generation Monte that I liked was the first. The second gave me the dry heaves, the third as pictured above looked less bloated than the second but a bit silly looking. I think the Monte was the worst of the downsized GM midsize cars, the Cutlass was the best.
Oh, but that El Camino…….one of the itches I never got to scratch. SO much better looking than the previous generation, and other than that rear bumper with the lights it looked so good! I especially liked the freshening that gave it 4 headlights. There were plenty of these on the road in Southern CA, kept so long because there was nothing to replace them with.
I still want one.
I completely agree with your take that the ’78 Cutlass Supreme was the best of the downsized GM A-bodies. I’d still want a nice one for a summer driver.
I found this clean ’80 one for sale in Detroit for $7K: http://gatewayclassiccars.com/detroit/1980/oldsmobile/cutlass-supreme-S483.html. I’d be tempted if I had heated storage for the winter.
I rate Grand Prix #1, Regal #2, Cutlass #3 (although a ’78 was my first car used at 16 – can’t be picky) , and Monte Carlo #4.
The big difference for me were those dashboards and instrument clusters. I think Grand Prix did the best job with the separated gauges. The Monte’s was the worst and that instrument cluster looked like it was just bolted on as an after thought. Another silly thing that bothered me but cheapened the the Regal/Cutlass/Monte was those power window switches flat on the door panels and most of them were crooked. I like how Pontiac put them in the armrest/console on the Grand Prix.
Well, I was fully of age when these down-sized A bodies came out, and I generally like them. But as others have observed, the Monte Carlo styling just didn’t adapt well, proportionally, to the new size. Whereas the Elky, to me, is just about perfect, especially with the front end of the early years. In my town, while these A/G cars have become rarities in 2 door, 4 door and wagon form, the El Camino is quite popular and I’ll see several daily. If they didn’t still fall under California smog laws, requiring odd-ball feedback carbs and other things for most years, this is the CC I’d most want to own. Early Colonnade El Caminos are now exempt but they just don’t appeal to me like this last generation.
I had the same color but ’79 GMC Caballero clone. CC effect again. The same factory wheels painted the same color as the body. 305 4bbl 350 3 speed auto,ac,ps,and am radio. This was in ’87. My Dad had bought it brand new, and he sold it to a co-worker who stopped making payment to him so we had to repossess it. The paint started lifting off the roof in less then a year and GM paid to repaint the roof only. By the time we got it back it faded to the same chalky look as the one pictured, and the paint was also peeling off the tailgate by this time. It needed some minor attention, was running on 7 cylinders with a plug wire burnt in two and because of this a plugged cat. I got it running decently with a real tune up and then some fuel additive and an Italian tune up on the freeway which netted me a speeding ticket (the bottle and air cleaner laying on the floor with instructions to drive flat out on the bottle shown to the cop along with the fact there was no traffic at 6:00 am Sunday morning saved me from a reckless driving, thanks to an understanding officer who was really pissed that it took him 15 minutes to catch me and that’s only because the car was finally running good and so I dropped back down to 55 in the right lane before he was in sight. It pegged it’s 85 MPH speedo easily.But the really tall rear end ratio combined with the low power 305 made it pretty sluggish around town. Decent gas mileage, however. At the time I had my 70 C10 and was going to replace it with this, but at the time I was towing a lot and it was not really up to the task so I sold it instead. It was a nice driving machine, though and I made a few dollars off of it. I had driven a friends ’68 El Camino 327 4 bbl 4 speed Saginaw and I would have been happy with it if it had the performance that one had. Nice to see one like it still on the road today looking pretty good and original. Nice find. My back up lamp were next to the license plate, never noticed ’78 had them outboard until tommy t pointed that out!
Your description of car-spotting safaris really rang a bell for me. Twenty years earlier, and on the other side of the world, I had similar childhood experiences too. No second car here, so it was always a ten minute walk to the shops – daily. Lots of cool cars to see, the sort we’d drool over now. Standout cars for me were the 1959 Chevrolet with those amazing wings, and the Triumph Mayflower. Two extremes!
And if you thought Chevrolet was pronounced funny, try Renault. “Why is it Renno and not Reena-ult? That’s what the badge says!” Childhood logic! But in hindsight I’m sure glad I never said that to our French neighbours!
Being “car people” we often see things differently than the rest of the world. Back in the day, I saw an AMC Pacer parked next to a Porche 928, both pulled in nose first. I was behind both and there was no doubt in my mind then, that these two cars shared DNA, even though DNA hadn’t been discovered yet. For years I told people about the similarities and they told me that I was nuts. Thanks to the Internet my observation was proven true. The Pacer was the inspiration for the 928! The reason for this story is that the last generation El Camino always reminded me of a Lincoln Zephyr 3 window coupe. From the front they are completely different, but from the side they both have a curvaceous b pillar that blends into a very disproportionate long tail, but on both cars it works. One project that always interested me would be to build an El Camino with an enclosed sloped trunk in the spirit of the Zephyr. There would be nothing else like it at any car show.
The Monte is a ’79 Landau that has been repainted, therefore missing the half-vinyl roof and some of the emblems and chrome. Those oversize wheels and white letter tires don’t do it any favors, either. It always annoys me when people re-do these cars with elements of muscle car style, something a 3rd gen Monte was never meant to be. I still see a Monte as a sensibly sized cruiser with a bit of style, as was mostly the case throughout the 1980s. But once on their second or third owners, far too many Montes ended up as fodder for all sorts of trailer park hot-rod projects, and this kind of revisionism still holds sway. That is the reason the car gets no respect. It is far more palatable on its own terms.
Chevy only reinforced this trend with the Monte SS in 83 with the nascar inspired tack ons. It was like Chevy forgot that it was supposed to be a personal luxury coupe. I guess they thought with the horsepower race going on in pony cars, why not try to turn their last RWD mid size into a later day Chevelle.
I don’t see the two as incompatible. As you mention, a later-day Chevelle, especially once the Malibu coupe had gone out of production after ’81. Anywhere from full Brougham (vinyl roof, tufted seats, wire wheel covers), through a fairly basic coupe, to the SS with T-tops.
It was one damn ugly car “on its own terms.”
The first picture looks like it’s from the 80s
Thank you, Joseph, I enjoyed this post with its beautiful photography. I have always felt the vast majority of cars in the 1970s stunk, but after reading your take on the cars of this decade, I might look at them differently in the future. The automobiles marketed in the US were going through a period of significant change, and there were plenty of awkward (to put it kindly) offerings. If nothing else, they seem to make great subjects for talented photographers.
I sure have a soft spot for 78-79 Monte Carlos and these are great photos that look like they are from the 1980s.
Joseph thanks for this accompanied as always by your great photography. Brownstones like the ones in the background have greatly increased in value so nowadays often come off has overly improved in pictures. These don’t somehow which only enhances the period feel of these fine old Chevies. I suspect the gates are newer, old ones would have more elaborate wrought iron. In the picture they only add to the crime conscious 70s feel.
A wonderful story accompanied by great photos.
The second photo shows what is wrong with this generation of Monte Carlo, in my opinion. With those wheels, and when viewed from that angle, the car looks good. The only problem is that, when these cars were new, no one was putting those wheels and tires on their Monte Carlos, and we never viewed the car from that angle (it looks as though you were lying on the ground, looking up at the car, when taking the photo).
I remember thinking at the time that these Monte Carlos were “off.” The swoopy fender lines simply didn’t work very well on the smaller, narrower body. The switch to quad headlights for 1980 only made it worse. The restyled 1981 Monte Carlo finally got it right.
The El Camino is interesting, because for many years final-generation El Caminos were quite numerous at various Carlisle collector car events – both in the car corral, and as the daily driver of many vendors. They’ve only started becoming rare in the last 5-7 years.
Agreed all the way around on the Monte Carlo comments. And I was almost relieved to see those ’81 G-Bodys from each maker…. except the V-6s were putting in them.
Thanks, everyone. I’m punching this out on my smartphone from the Detroit area (near the Woodward Dream Cruise), so please pardon my brevity and typos. I like these Montes now better than I did earlier. The main problem I had with them was not theur curves, but the extreme slope of the rear deck. Always looked like it needed to pull its pants up. I like the rest of it, though.
I live a few blocks away….these cars are almost always parked there near each other. My guess is they’re owned by the same person.
In preparation for the upcoming Concours D’Lemons this weekend near Monterey, the self-described “oily stain” of the Monterey Historic Car Week, which is otherwise taken up by concours, auctions and races of high-dollar collectible classics, I stumbled across this car, the Leata Cabalero (yes, just one “l”). Monte Carlo, El Camino – and Chevette heritage. It’s existence was totally news to me. After seeing it I will no longer criticize the proportions of this generation Monte Carlo. Never.
http://www.concoursdlemons.com/index.php/975/
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1975-leata4.htm
A few days late here, but I had to comment–love the photos, the subjects, the homes. Pretty much everything. I wasn’t even born when these cars were new, but I came along just a year after this Monte, so they were still very common as I grew up as a car-crazy kid in the 80’s. We had a ’79 Malibu in the family, so I always loved these El Caminos with the slickly integrated pickup bed. The Monte Carlo of ’78 to ’80 always looked a little overwrought, and I do think the ’81 redesign was more successful, but I never *disliked* them and the more time passes, the more I appreciate the design. The raised white letter tires and rallys on this one work quite well!
Fantastic old brownstones as well. Reminds me of some blocks of Richmond, lined with turn of the (last) century row houses, the elegance of the designs more evident with the passage of time.