posted at the Cohort by Matthew
(first posted 5/5/2016) I can’t remember the last time I saw a ’75 – ’76 Caprice sedan. And it almost looks strange to me, as if I somehow just never really took in this new roof line for the Caprice and Impala for their last two years of this generation. It’s just not a car I ever really noticed much, or it just failed to make much of an impression on me. It was just a rather forgettable over-sized Chevy, but now that they’re rare, it deserves the attention in never got back in 1975.
The four door hardtop, with its C-pillar window, sold better and is decidedly less forgettable, or forgotten. And the coupes; well, we had a COAL on a ’76 here recently. But the sedan? It’s making its first time appearance here at CC.
Big car sales took a beating during the ’73-’74 energy crisis. Although they rebounded some, it wouldn’t be until the new ’77 downsized cars that sales of the big Chevys got really heated up again. Traditionalist buyers came back for ’75 and ’76, but the bloom was off some, and folks were starting to call them dinosaurs. And other names.
The ’75s were the last year the Caprices had round headlights; rectangular ones were the hot new thing for 1975, and the top-line Chevy sported them, while the Impala had to make do with the rounds. There were even bigger changes under that endlessly long hood. HEI ignition made its debut, as well as catalytic converters. Both were a big step into a new era, until electronic engine management and three-way catalysts appeared in the 80s. And lo! Steel belted radials were now standard on full-sized Chevrolets, something Citroens and Peugeots had been sporting for several decades. Better late than never.
The changes improved efficiency somewhat, but not performance. The standard 350 (5.7 L) V8 still was rated at 145 net hp. A 175 hp 400 small block and the 235 hp 454 big block were optional. A four barrel 350 with 155 hp was available too, but only in CA.
Today’s sedans are over a yard shorter, a foot
narrower, yet up to six inches TALLER than
this example. Much more efficient use of space
and resources, with a cabin and boot actually
only slightly less roomy, but – with ZERO of the
charm and style of the ’60s-’80s domestic era.
There’s something about these solid-citizen sedans from the mid 1970s (not just the Caprice, but all the midsized and fullsized cars of the era) that appeals to me and always will. I know everything that’s wrong with them — bloated design, bad fuel economy, indifferent assembly, soggy engines and suspensions — but I like them anyway. Part of it is that they’re the cars of my childhood, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s the way they represent a time before we were all trying to out-cool each other. We are actually returning to such times with our vehicles; one CUV is just like another and we all realize now that ownership of such a vehicle no longer sends the “I live an active outdoor lifestyle” message. But cars like this Caprice send no message other than “I have places I want to go, and I want to be comfortable while I’m going there.” What’s wrong with that?
Nothing’s wrong with that…agree completely.
+1
I’m with ya 100% 🙂 .
Never liked the extra window on the C-pillar of the hard tops. I realize it was for visibility, but it looked like an afterthought. GM could have designed a better roof for those models. The sedan roof gives the car a more formal look.
Know what you mean. That funky window on the hardtop looked like a tacked-on afterthought, a cheap way to give it some differentiation from previous years.
One of the few times where the sedan looked better than the hardtop. The C pillar and the little window in the rear door evoke a 7 series BMW.
GM full-sizers of this era always reminded me of Elvis in his later years, bloated and aging and desperate for a make-over. The new generation that appeared for 1977 was terrific, but their great reviews were no doubt embellished by comparisons to these.
GM’s 1975 big cars predated the 7-series by 3 years.
I’m assuming there was some arcane body-engineering reason why the bottom of the extra window didn’t line up with the others. Take it down about two inches or so and it’d look better.
The 75-76 Chevy never did it for me. The earlier versions had a certain something that even the big bumpers of 74 couldn’t kill. But these just seemed blah, like an attractive design that had all of the good parts removed. Like the way the 64 Impala got dumbed down from the earlier versions. And the sedan roof made it worse.
But it’s not like the 75-76 Ford or Plymouth were any better.
I beg to differ. The ’75 Gran Fury sedan looked very comfortable in its skin, which you can’t say for the Caprice. The proportions were much better than the cartoonish Chevrolet. The Chevy was three inches longer on the same wheelbase, apparently all as additional rear overhang.
Mating the BMW-inspired rear pillar and rear window to that windshield and lower body – both obviously designed in the longer-lower-wider ethos by Bill Mitchell – doesn’t quite work.
It’s no wonder that the four-door hardtops sold better than the four-door sedan.
It’s also no wonder that the Oldsmobile Delta 88 began showing increased sales strength as the market began recovering from the first fuel crunch. Our local dealer sold Chevrolets, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs. I can imagine that convincing a Caprice prospect to move up to a Delta 88 was an easy task in 1975-76. The Delta 88 was probably a bigger threat to the full-size Chevrolet than either the Ford or Plymouth competition during those years.
IMO the Nova wore the Hofmeister kink much better. And not just the Delta but also the Cutlass was eating big Chevy sales, although more from the two-doors. But then the last of the Boomers were starting to age out of being ferried around in the big family car and the first of them still hadn’t paired off, so the ’70s was the Coupe Decade.
As a kid we had family friends who owned a Caprice hardtop in the same color scheme as the one pictured above. He was an attorney, she was a part-time volunteer at their 2 kids’ elementary school. Very solid and upstanding indeed. The Caprice was traded around ’81 or ’82 for an Audi 5000 sedan. Part upward mobility I suppose, but also a clear sign of changing times and changing values. These were the cars I remember as standard family fare back then. Impractical when viewed through today’s lens, but at the time it didn’t get much more practical or ordinary than this.
MTN:
That Audi must’ve felt like a Corvette(handing-
wise) coming from the full-sized Chevrolet!
The hardtops were always the way to go with the big 71-76 Chevies, but truly, Chevy vastly improved the looks of the pillared sedan with this refresh. The 71-74 look was truly generic.
I actually think the 71-74 pillared sedans looked best!
Uncluttered by the small rear door window, with a graceful B-pillar
I actually think the 72 Impala (pictured) is the best-looking 71-76 GM full-size car
+1
I always found vintage car advertising to be interesting, as they tried to show how their car can be incorporated into an idealized version of the buyers’ lifestyle, like going to a swank hotel, out at the opera, at a horse farm etc.
But I imagine this 1975 pic shows our owner rummaging through her purse for gas money!
I wasn’t around then but as an enthusiast for all old cars I’m surprised I never took in the sedan roofline being new and unique either, in fact if someone would have asked me yesterday what the differences were between a 74 and a 75 I would have just said “the ugly front end”. Interesting, same basic faux BMW roofline as the 75 Novas.
And didn’t they reuse it (kind of) for the J-cars in 1982?
Yep.
Not faux BMW! first seen on the ’53 Kaiser by “Dutch” Darrin.
Cool find! I often overlook the sedan bodystyle as well, so much that I never noticed how the roofline looks exactly that same as the smaller Nova/Olds Omega sedans.
Peak malaise-era big Chevy, weighted down and choked up and pretty hard to love. However, I do have a nostalgic fondness for these big barges, as my parents each had a ’75 GM big car, so our driveway showcased the full array of roofline and headlight changes for the model year. My mom had a ’75 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight LS, with the C-body hardtop roofline including the new c-pillar window and up front it sported the new square headlights. My pop’s company car was ’75 Buick LeSabre Custom with the same pillar-sedan roofline as this featured Chevy (it was also the same red color), though the lesser LeSabre, like the B-body Chevrolets, made due with the round headlamps. My clearest memory of these cars was how huge they seemed. The joke was that both cars were so long that they couldn’t fit fully under our carport–the rear ends jutted out and were exposed to the weather–not the best for going in the trunk and kind of defeated the purpose of having covered parking.
I was around then – working at Hertz in Denver part time during school.
The full sized sedan was a staple in the fleet but Hertz was mostly Ford. There were dozens and dozens of LTD four doors but only about five per year Impala four door sedans. I remember them but not with any particular fondness or pleasure.
The ’74 – ’76 Impala four door sedans had cloth interiors and in the Hertz fleet were generally pale, inoffensive colors: light green, light blue, light tan. And again, only a very few in comparison to the almost generic Hertz car of the era – LTD sedan (or Torino sedan or Granada sedan).
My almost irrational fondness for ’70s Chevrolets pretty much forces me to like this, but beyond that…how does a car that old stay in such good shape? From the pictures, it looks immaculate, and that’s not the kind of car that most people restore. It would be fun to hear about the history of this one.
These still seem to sneak on to the market from the garages of very elderly people. I see a different very solid sedan or hardtop every year or so.
You get the old chap who drives it as much in a month as I do in a day, keeps it clean and garaged, and has a pickup on the side come winter, and you’ll see a few good oldies in the Prairies. I am amazed it survived rust, considering our winters.
The general manager of the company I worked at in the late ’70’s and early ’80’s drove one, though I can’t remember if it was a sedan or hardtop. He upgraded to the new downsized Caprice and the old car was turned over to the engineering department when we moved over to an off site location, about 2 miles from the HQ and factory. The car was could be checked out by us if we needed to go to the main site, on a first-come first-served basis, and was popular with those who had carpooled to work in someone else’s car, or taken the bus, or if 5 or 6 of us needed to go at the same time, and preferred to ride in style rather than cram into a Vega, Corolla or Fiat. Unfortunately, the car had a tendency to lose hubcaps when cornered with brio, not to mention starting to show steel on the outsides of the front tires very quickly. That evidence, coupled with the big white whale being spotted a few times by our boss, running at 85 or so on the 35- limit industrial park streets, led to its disappearance. I remember it as being massive, floaty, but quite brisk compared to what I was used to driving at the time … though I don’t think I ever took it over 70 🙂
I love these 4 door hardtops, (and yes, I mean pillarless). I always thought they had good proportions, with or without the c-pillar opera window. Mind you, as a guy who is just 5’7″, I might find driving one of these cars a bit intimidating!
Me too! Especially with the fender skirts they just look so elegant. I remember when I was about 11-12 in the mid-’70s these were everywhere, but I hardly remember ever seeing the plain-jane pillared sedans.
I agree…the skirts make the car.
Been thinking about putting skirts on my 74. But for some reason, they just don’t seem to look as good on a cheap Impala. So I probably won’t.
Count me in the camp that likes what Chevy did to the ’75 – ’76 version. Chevy had the best of the modified GM rooflines and made them work.
These look absolutely fantastic as a long, sleek convertible – part of my dream garage.
I had a lot of exposure to these. The neighbor across the street had the ’75 Caprice coupe. My buddy up the street got a hand-me-down ’75 sedan, much like the subject, except a white top. It was my ride to high school for about a year. Those cars both held up pretty well, and served for a decade each. Both were 350 cars, and seemed a good notch better behind the wheel than my dad’s ’76 351 Ford LTD.
I liked to think that GM was on top of its big car game enough that the changes for ’75 were planned to provide some design continuity for the big changes coming in ’77. The sedan roof, with its fixed quarter window in the rear door was certainly a lead up to ’77, the rear design theme was mostly carry over to ’77, and the ’78 got taillight lenses much like the ’75 – ’76. The front end theme was also quite carry over especially with the transition to rectangular lights for ’76.
I never understood why someone would order an LTD with a 351. Everybody knew such a powertrain couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, and if it wasn’t a Windsor it suffered from the dreaded cracked block syndrome, much like….the 400, which was the logical choice on paper,except for the aforementioned block cracking. This left the 460, which delivered only slightly less real world fuel economy (forget the EPA ratings) as the only real choice.
Owned several and have known many, of the Ford 400’s back in the day and read a lot about them through the years and NONE have had the “cracked block syndrome”.
Not saying it was one of the great engines because it wasn’t.
There were some 351M’s and 400’s from one engine factory prior to 77′ that had the issue but it wasn’t a “chronic” issue.
Had a 73′ LTD 140000 miles when traded and ran like a turbine, 2 79′ trucks, a F150 supercab short bed and a 79′ F250 supercab long bed.
The 150 had 115000 BRUTAL miles when traded and was fine, the 250 had over 200000 by 2001 and made about 90 horsepower on 7.5 cylinders and was basically DONE, but it still ran and was totally reliable and put in another 14 years as farm truck, may she NOW, FINALLY, rest in peace.
God speed Chocolate Lady !
Had several friends and relatives with 400’s, cars, trucks, Marks, Continentals, tow trucks, flatbeds, Broncos, vans…..
They all got acceptable to excellent service from them and at least 5 i can think of were pre 1977 but they were for the most part post 1977’s.
My friends 77 T-Bird with the 400 got the MCC block crack. I agree, the 460 is the only choice in a LTD. Just think, in 77 you could get a price credit in a LTD if you ordered the 302. In 78, it actually became standard on base cars. Considering how slow my 79 T-Bird is with one, I can’t imagine it in a slightly heavier LTD loaded up with the family for a vacation to Colorado.
In my experience the 400’s were peppier than the 460’s around town.
They were all torque and not much else, so when you punched a 400 at 70 mph not much happened cause it was out of wind but the same car with the 460 punched at 70 mph would still pull.
We had a 77′ LTD with a 460 4bbl and it was W E A K, but it was a super low compression, retarded timing, smogged up behemoth with every option and a 2.26 rear axle.
It was a great car for trips.
Also it was the second most reliable vehicle we ever owned with just a fuel filter, water pump, and one front end rebuild through 15 years and 180000 miles.
It still ran perfectly and looked great and the original A/C was blowing ice cold when i totaled it like a dummy in 1992.
The most reliable vehicle we ever owned was a 71′ F100 with a 302, 3 on the tree, no power nothing.
There was really nothing to break and nothing ever did, it had a Sears diehard in it in the 80’s that went 7 years.
Really the battery had little to do cause the thing always started the second you touched the key.
I had a 75 and a 78 LTD with the 400’s. They were reliable but the fuel mileage sucked in the 75 ( in town average 7.5!). My 76 Grand Marquis with the 460 gets 12 in town. My 79 Lincoln with the 400 gets 16 on the hwy courtesy of its 2.47 axle, but it is slow. The 400’s in the 75 and 78 did have the flickering oil pressure light at idle because the mains were worn, but never made any internal noises. They never blew up. I still prefer the 460 in a big car. I also have a 71 4Dr Maverick that is about as basic as your truck and yes, even after 45 years ( it was built in Dec. 70) it never needs repairs. It just runs and runs and runs.
I had one somewhere aroung 1990, then already a big, complete obsolete car, specially in Europe, but I loved it. Mine was silver with a black vinyl roof, and black interior, full options, what a great car that was.
That mangled front end with the after-thought roofline. Just not a winner and worse with the rectangular headlights.
The front bumper that is flat in the middle and then angle back at the ends never nade sense design-wise. Almost as bad as the 74 Matador four door.
For 75 and 76, Impalas got ‘hand me down’ front ends from previous year Caprice. But with plainer grille inserts.
Impala always impressed me as a low-end,
entry level full-size – after Caprice was
intoduced. So what Tomcatt suggested
doesn’t surprise me.
The hardtop sedan roofline left a more “Cadillac” impression, But I’m actually OK with both. No one is gonna have this variety today!
I know everyone likes the pillarless four door hardtop look but in 1975 my father bought a LeSabre hardtop and at the time I wished he had the sedan. On the highway there was a constant whistle from wind leaks and when we went through a carwash the whole family had to hold towels against the windows to catch the water pouring in. By the way, that 75 LeSabre was the most reliable car either of us have owned in a combined 100 years of driving. In the 10 years he had it nothing, absolutely nothing went wrong with it. Nothing broke off, everything worked.
One of my friends had a ’75 hardtop. What I remember most about that car was its horn. I never knew if the horn was stock or aftermarket (car was bought used, but almost new) but it had a great, commanding sound. By comparison, my ’74 Catalina horn was almost tinny.
Probably the famous triple note horn. I wonder if anyone still offers those?
T Type: Wait a minute: First you said the
75 Le Sabre leaked water like the Titanic
going through a car wash, and toward the
end of the paragraph you state, “nothing
went wrong with it”?
More than one full sized 4 door hardtop, with those HUGE side windows, would leak water from the gasket between the front seat and rear seat side windows, going thru the HIGH pressure car washes of the 1970’s.
If you ever have tried a European car with frameless windows, you would know that you bring som towells with you to the car wash if your car has frameless windows. 🙂
I wouldn’t mind a sedan one of these to go along with my 74 Sport Coupe. But for some reason, they have become very expensive, even in rough or DD shape. Certainly more than I’m willing to pay. ‘Course anyone who reads my posts knows I think all cars like this ought to be $400-$1000 tops. I’ve also noticed on EBay that NOS parts for these are also WAY more expensive than the Ford equilvalents. I wanted to put bumper guards on my 74. They were being bid to over $100 a pair! Luckily I found some very reasonbly priced for a 74 Monte Carlo and they fit pretty good.
Big cars like these, especially 4-door hardtops appear to be VERY popular and in-demand with a certain urban demographic who outfit them with insane sound systems, 22″ rims, etc. They’re also in vogue with the “Donk” crowd, so yeah…the prices reflect the newfound demand. There are only so many of these left, and there’s a demand for them, so there you have it. 20 years ago when these were (obviously) 20 years newer and much thicker on the ground you could have had your pick for $800.
Oh yeah. That’s why I cling so strongly to the cars I do have. I paid what I considered fair prices for ’em albeit back from 83-04. Although a friend sold me his 94 Taurus last year for $500. But today, people seem to want more for one than I paid for all 16 of mine. Which by the way is $8325. Spread out over all those years. And speaking of demographics, every time I take the Impala out, well, let’s just say it looks like a Alamo reenactment.
You are my hero, Guy Ulrich
75/76 Chevy sedans were not common on Long Island in the mid late 70s. I remember more wagons than sedans. There were more Ford LTDs. Quite a few 71-73 Chevy full size. I remember more LeSabres/Electras and Olds 88/98, pillared and hardtop than Chevys. And legions of 77-79 Chevys, colonnade Cutlasses as well as lots of mid size personal luxury.
But 75-76 chevrolets, relatively few
IMHO an extremely handsome sedan, especially in that color. That roofline just looks… “right” to me. I would proudly cruise that car and I’m a hard-core Ford guy 🙂 .
These were one of the very few cars where four door models looked better than two doors. The coupes looked especially bad when saddled with a half vinyl roof. In fact, the half vinyl roofs kinda looked like saddles.
Compare the third light placement in
the subject vehicle:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Chevrolet-1975-Caprice-sedan-side.png
To its placement in a distant descendant:
http://zombdrive.com/images/2002-chevrolet-impala-6.jpg
Suggests the more modern greenhouse
was long(er) enough to move the third
light out of the rear door.
That kickup in the rear side window first reappeared on the B body Caprice and Impala SS in 1994 onward to 1996….before reappearing on the 2000 FWD Impala
Well that’s unexpected…the sedan looks so much smaller than the hardtop. Must be a trick of the proportions I guess!
I’ll take this beauty over a repulsive crossover any day.
Here’s a photo of a friend’s 76 4dr Impala next to mine circa 03.
Loading one of the Caprices up at the time meant you saved decent money from a Buick or Olds, yes? I was never crazy about the hardtop roof – the sedan seems ,uch more elegant….
All the 1971 era GM B Bodies would have benefited immensely, from a well-engineered, and reliable, diesel engine option. By the early 80s, it was highly passé to be seen driving one of these dinosaurs, given the stunning popularity of the downsized generation.
One of the slowest, dullest, most numb & boring cars that I have ever had the misfortune to drive.
Topped only by the same year Ford Galaxie/LTD.
Ontario is a large province, and police car contracts appeared to be awarded to each of the Big Three almost simultaneously, in the mid 70s. In 1975, I recall seeing many full-sized/mid-size Dodges/Plymouths in my eastern part of the province. And LTDs in Northern Ontario. Never knew at time, the ’75 Impala was used in parts of Southern Ontario.
OPP PSA:
Hey, that’s a real treasure, that is, for a linguistics geek like me. There I was, nodding my head along with what’s now considered “well, duh” general knowledge about crashes and seatbelts and such, chuckling at the 1975ness of the folksy, strummy guitar-‘n’-fiddles-‘n’-harmoninca song about the human collision and the sudden stop, when all of a sudden at 11:30…wait, what? What’d he say? I didn’t know that pronunciation of ‘laboratory’ was ever a thing in Canada. And at 11:56 and 12:29 we hear what Americans insist sounds like “aboot”. Yes, this is only one speaker of one variant of Canadian English; yes, there are other variants with even greater divergence from American pronunciation of the word…no, there aren’t/never were any who actually say “aboot” (for the record, what this film’s narrator is saying would find itself closest to “a boat” on an American map, though he’s not actually saying that, either).
Backing up past your cue point: at 2:59, the officer says “windscreen” and then “windshield” in quick succession. As far as I know, “windscreen” isn’t in current Canadian usage.
(At 14:39: “You can learn a lot from a tour of a wrecking yard”. Oh, yes, you can!)
Glad you spotted this Daniel. I posted it specifically for you. I knew it was right up your alley. You would have loved growing up in Ontario around this time. I remember watching this PSA in public school. Yes, the music is so predictable, and the acting, so poor. But these productions really convinced my generation to wear our seatbelts. Lots of immigration to Canada still came from the UK and British Empire at the time. And I don’t think the Ministry of Transportation was too particular how some words were pronounced in their productions. The metric conversion videos from this era were some of my favourites. Though sadly Canadians adopted metric half-heartedly in the end. After a promising start.
The federal government put out tonnes of commercials like this:
This logo (and music) was drilled into our heads as impressionable young students:
Oh, wow, that’s going on the list with some of the NFB classics—The Waltzdriver’s Log; The Big Snit; The Cat Came Back. Why, it’s got everything! A very, very serious-sounding narrator; that was mandatory, of course. Moog-y music + vigourous nod to the opening notes of Brandenburg Concerto № 3 (@0:10) = somebody was a big fan of “Switched-On Bach”. There’s even graphical fodder for noxious conspiracy theorists!
That CBC/NFB accent, like the mid-Atlantic accent in 1930’s American films, has virtually disappeared from the public airwaves. This used to be the ‘voice of authority’ (maybe that’s why it fell into disfavour), but I prefer it to the nasal twang of so many commercial/newscaster voices of today.
Pet peeve expressed…feeling better now. 🙂
Daniel, you would have enjoyed the camp of Lloyd Bockner’s delivery. Supporting robadr, another classic Canadian narrator.
@1:13, HEY, WATCHIT; THE ROAD GOES THAT WAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!
Oh, I don’t imagine the MTO cared so much if a word were pronounced onehow or another; what strikes me as unusual is a Canadian saying anything like this “luh-BOR-uh-turry” at all. And there are five distinct syllables there; he’s not imitating a Briton or an Australian (etc) who would tend to say it with four (luh-BOR-uh-tree) or four and half (luh-BOR-uh-t’ree).
As to the metric conversion: I’m full of snarl about its halfassedness in Canada and its, what, three-seventy-sevenths-of-an-assedness in the States. And I sorely wish I had metric as a first language, but it will always only ever be my second, which means using a mix of memorised values and mental math. I note this movie was designed to equip people to, as the road signs used to say (and still do, here and there), “thinKMetric”—it relates centimetres not to inches and feet, but to direct experiences. Nevertheless, as soon as the narrator said “Three centimetres”, I automatically thought “That’s a little over an inch”. Grumble.
Bill McVean was a popular radio host on CFRB in Toronto for years. And his voice work was often heard on CBC. As his obituary notes, he was well-travelled, hosting a radio show on travel, produced by his wife. I’d suggest, his vocabulary and pronunciation of words would be acquired, derived and/or evolved, from his wide travels. And he’d be the master of how he chose to apply them. Not so much a reflection of him being Canadian. Or a native of Southern Ontario.
The Liberal Canadian government really tried to make metric work. They marketed metric conversion, through the Metric Commission, for years. And they did a decent job. But units like kilos or hectares, never caught on. By the early 80s, most of us, were sick of the commercials. Though Generation X was ready to go all the way, as we were taught the system in school. The Conservative government at the time, successfully played up the familiarity of the Imperial system, and our historical ties to Britain. As you might expect. As metric adoption evolved little further, as we now use the hybrid approach you see.
https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/thestar/name/bill-mcvean-obituary?pid=198172672
I don’t know what it was like at the time, but by the time I came round, CFRB was about as close as Toronto got to U.S. anger-porn talkback radio: a narrow variety of shrill, professionally-offended reactionaries barking and braying and taking calls from thoughtless twits with Words To Say. Many years later, once his bread was conveniently no longer buttered on the one specific side, one of CFRB’s linchpin personalities allowed as how he’d been wrong to throw all that scorn and hatred at a particular minority group, and he shouldn’t have so eagerly opposed their civil rights and equality (Aw, gee, thanks, Michael; I don’t forgive you). Yechhk.
As to the metric conversion being deliberately sabotaged and made to fizzle out like that: just try to imagine all of my considerable shock and surprise. This is why we can’t have nice things.
I’ve never understood the “aboot” comment. What is different about how Americans pronounce it?
The American pronunciations have a different range of diphthongs than the Canadian pronunciations. Without going too far off into the weeds with phonetic alphabet, etc, a generic American pronunciation could be roughly approximated as “uhBAOwt”. Regional variations can have it as roughly “uhBAYowt”, “uh-BEEyowt”, “BAOwt”, “BAYout”, “uhByaat” and “uhBAAdt”.
A generic Canadian pronunciation could be roughly approximated as “uhBOHwt”, with regional drift into “uhBEHwt”, “uhBUHwt”, and otherwise like that.
There’s pretty good, very technical coverage of the subject at Standard Canadian English – Wikipedia
Thanks for clarifying.
Only thing that’s changed is “the decision is up to you”…
Well that and more crashworthy cars.
Oh, the decision is still up to you. It’s just now the stupid choice costs in money, too.
In the 60s, a big GM pillared sedan would have a good 2 inches more rear leg room than the hardtop version. The greenhouse on this one doesn’t look longer than the hardtop’s, so I don’t know if that was true in the 71-76 B body (pillared version dropped in the C, except the Fleetwood). I think it would look better if they had chromed the entire window frame instead of just the inside edges.
My next door neighbor, elderly had a similar 1975 Chevy sedan (Saddle Tan, so not exact). I watched him park this beast in his 40s one-car garage every night. It was a half hour show. I recall one time he took about 3 feet of paint off the quarter panel maneuvering the beast into the garage. It disappeared one day replaces by a 1982 Cavalier.
My step-monster made my dad sell his nice house and move into a high rise when he was about 70 (he’s now 94 and living with me and in the 1940s half the time). She had to have a parking space near the elevator, and it was at a terrible angle and next to a column. She had to have a Trailblazer EXT. All four corners and two doors got scraped, as did the corners of Dad’s LeSabre that was sometimes parked there. In 2013, she keeled over and died getting out in that parking space, so we’ll keep the Magic Chevy, even though it looks crappy.
My great-uncle’s last car was one of these, white. He’d long been a Buick driver but a Caprice of the time was pretty close after all. On all his cars over the years, he had an odd habit of, on a cold start, gunning the engine for several long minutes before he’d let it settle into a normal idle.
That was just a normal car back in the day, but sure looks strange, now, with the extra-long trunk.
My driving lessons were taken in a ’73 Impala wagon, this thing’s cousin.
I remember sightseeing Montreal and neighbouring towns and recalling puzzlement upon first seeing a ’75-76 Parisienne four-door post sedan like this one. Here I’d thought the Parisienne was the Canadian equivalent to the US Bonneville, but the Bonneville of this generation was sold only as a hardtop. To further confuse me, the Bonneville hardtops (2 or 4 door) used the greenhouse from the longer C bodies (98, Electra, deVille), with their small opera windows, making me think the Bonnie itself used the stretched C body. It didn’t, but the earlier models of the Grand Ville did have an extended body, only not extended like a C body would be and was still considered a B body. That’s before I try comparing American and Canadian big Pontiacs to see where the Laurentian and such fit in.
“The ’75s were the last year the Caprices had round headlights; rectangular ones were the hot new thing for 1975, and the top-line Chevy sported them, …”
Huh? I think meant to say “For 1976 the top line Chevy had square lights”.
Also, in US, Bel Air trim was still around in ’75 for a final run for fleets and ‘low price shoppers’. CDN had it until 1981.
There was a one-year-only Impala “S” (Chevrolet’s quotes, not mine) sedan in 1976, which was basically the ’75 Bel Air with a new name, aimed at fleets and the occasional tightwad. It warranted about a paragraph in the brochure, unlike the earlier Biscayne which wasn’t even mentioned toward the end.
I recall looking up the word “tumblehome” for the first time as a teen reading a Motor Trend comparison applied to this era of Chevrolet. My AMT model kit of same is long gone but I remember comparing it to other models I had made. It does somewhat resemble a battleship sitting in the water.