This shot by John Lloyd of a ’65 Chevy Impala SS set in front of that Camry shows just how much it and other ’65 GM semi-fastback coupes predicted the future with its semi-fastback roof line.
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: 1965 Chevrolet Impala SS Coupe – Its Roof Line Predicts The Future
– Posted on September 9, 2021
Now ruining rear headroom in a sedan near you!
My uncle had one of these in teal blue when I was growing up… Always loved the ’65s!
Paul I think you and I are close to the same age (67) ever think back about “if I only knew then what I know now!?”
The 65s were quite the sensation when they came out.
I’m just a couple of years older than you and I often think about “if I only knew then what I know now!” There would have to be an important caveat: knowing only about one’s personal choices and relationships with others (plus knowing about the future of vehicles). Otherwise, we’d go crazy trying to stop 9/11 and other terrible world events.
Dad’s was a silver-blue SS, 327/Powerglide (of course, it was the easy sell when the new car arrived). Memorable to me because it was the first car that I snuck out of the garage when the rest of the family was on the weekly Sunday drive and actually got serious street time. At the age of 14-15.
Being in the business, your dad obviously knew what would be popular as a used vehicle. That car must have been a honey; the 327 was definitely the engine to have!
It was probably twenty years after he left the business before he finally shook off his old habit and starting buying cars the way he wanted, rather than what he knew would sell within the week of putting it on the used lot.
By that time, though, what he actually wanted was pretty close to what would sell quickly twenty years earlier. My father never had any really interesting cars. It wasn’t in his blood.
Wife had a 66 Super Sport convertible when we got married. Loved that car.
Aerodynamics made that decision for current sedans, not any nod to the past. The sense of carefree motoring portrayed in that 1965 Chevrolet did not, however, carry over to that pragmatic (the most positive word I can think of) Camry.
It doesn’t need to be like a ’76 Seville, but I think/fantasize a formal notchback sedan would sell like gangbusters on the novelty alone. So it loses half a highway mpg. I’m sick of the aerodynamic straitjacket. Might have to do it on a crossover body to get anyone to look at it, everyone’s used to sitting tall now.
The original Chrysler 300c was a good modern example of an attractive formal sedan, but the midcycle refresh tried to make it more sleek and it sapped a ton of the character out of it IMO I truly believe had they have gone the opposite direction and upped the formal traits it would have done much better. I agree, the decline in the sedan market is self inflicted with the obsession with sleek and sporty.
And as far as MPG goes I’ve been part of the MN12 Thunderbird and Cougar community for over a decade, we’ve have an MPG thread going on the forums as long as I’ve been a part of it and you’d be hard pressed to find an conclusive difference between the semi-fastback of the Tbird and the bolt upright back glass of the Cougar from it, the EPA rating tells the same tale, there’s more to aerodynamics than just a slick roof.
Here’s a counterargument about the Chrysler 300C – 2011 vs. 2004: https://www.indieauto.org/2020/09/18/2011-chrysler-300c-the-adults-finally-showed-up/
Well I’ll countercounterpoint; The 2004-2010 was memorable, the 2011-current you forget is even still for sale. I don’t think the original was a perfect design mind you, but adults are boring and the refresh of that car is simply boring. The 2004 design may have peaked at 144k units and ended with only 37k by 2010(which the recession and Chrysler’s uncertain future played more than a little bit of a role in keeping customers away) but what the writer conveniently left out was that the 04-10 moved well over 100k units for 4 of the 8 model years and the 2011 refresh sold LESS than the 2010 before that design’s peak at 70k in 2012. The current design never touched 100k+ sales, and never even has gotten close to the 2012 bump even.
I believe people are willing to overlook deficiencies for novelty when it comes to cars like these, trying to make the thing more “adult” and conventional means people have an easier time comparing it to the overwhelmingly majority of conventional luxury sedans on the market, and the LX platform and Chrysler quality/materials simply doesn’t compare favorably mono a mono against Lexus et al. A good cartoon doesn’t necessarily translate to good live action, the animation is just as important as the script and gags.
I like smaller automobiles but these are glorious and I remember what a splash they made when released .
-Nate
It was so interesting how Chevy went from sleek bubbletop to formal faux convertible top to semi-fastback and back to upright formal in the span of 10 years(and would continue going formal-sleek-formal-sleek right up to the whales really). That Camry on the other hand wore that roofline almost unaltered through multiple restyles below the beltline from 2002-2014
Interesting observation on the back-and-forth, fastback/formal roof styling. It’s almost as if Chevrolet was copying Chrysler. GM certainly knew what Townsend and Engel were doing, so they’d watch and see how successful Chrysler’s GM clones sold, and if they did (which seemed to invariably be the case), GM figured there was still a market for that styling, and would bring it back for another market cycle.
As to the 1965 fastback, I agree with others that it was the peak. It was a winner on par with Pontiac’s stacked-headlight. Widetrack cars, and is almost certainly one of GM’s Greatest Hits.