Since there has been a lot of discussion recently on CC regarding the 1973-77 Monte Carlo, how about a four door version? This Monte Landauyacht sedan is even more space inefficient than the original. Wouldn’t it be fun to parallel park this boat?
Too much? Okay, here’s a much more production-ready variant. There were no Colonnade four door hardtops; perhaps this sedan could have piqued the interest of Monte Carlo fanciers with children.
Still too big? Okay, how about this Mini Carlo? Perfect for that velour lined Brougham experience in congested city traffic. A snap to park too!
For the polar opposite, look no further than the two door Landauyacht. The most inefficient, impractical and most luxurious personal luxury coupe on the market. So, why didn’t Chevrolet make these variants? Well, you know, things like sales, practicality, and not getting mocked, or tarred and feathered by the press during Gas Crisis I – stuff like that!
Those things were homely when new. Age hasn’t improved them.
I want some of what you are smoking…
And Zachman wants one of those hardtop sedans built… PRONTO!
There is something vaguely “Rolls Royce” about the sedan, almost like a group of Detroit designers got stranded in Coventry and were forced to the level of “Will Work For Food.”
RR: Its the curving character line on the rear fender. Wayne Kady at work?
The Mini Carlo looks like the ungodly offspring of a RR Phantom Coupe and a BMW 1 Series. I kind of like it.
I thought the same thing. Definitely something RR/Bentley-esque going on there.
> There were no Colonnade four door hardtops; perhaps this sedan could have piqued the interest of Monte Carlo fanciers with children.
This would not have been a selling feature for parents when these cars were new because special child car seats with 5-point harnesses had not became mandatory yet, at least not where I lived. Back then, some considered a 2-door car safer for children. Throw the kids in the back seat of a 2-door and they couldn’t open the door by themselves and fall out while the car was moving.
I was born in ’75 and I remember playing in the back of my mom’s Coronet. She still had it when my brother was born in ’82. My dad had to drill holes in the rear package tray to install a top tether anchor for my brother’s child seat.
A Colonnade-less Colonnade! I’d like to see the mechanism for lowering the thin glass that would fall between the front and rear doors in place of the wide B pillar! Can you say “rattle” and “flap”?
Even I don’t like that…
Please take the computer away from whoever is indulging in this gross misuse of photo editing software and find them a real job! lol It was a hideously ugly car in any form. Sort of the CTS of its error er, era… Really popular with people with a fondness for bad taste.
I was born in 77, and I was the third of three(car seat less) sons who remembers our Monte Carlo as the first family car. Somehow we all got stuffed in the back seat- me usually in the middle fighting for air from two brothers(born in 68′, 70′) who were always spreading out there legs trying to fit in that space. The tiny triangle left over between them was where I got to be. If i was lucky I’d sit in the middle upfront- but that was usually only on long trips where the boys were sleeping in the back and there just was no room for me. My Mom swore by the back seat of a coupe is the safest rule for years. My Uncle called it a “poor man’s Eldorado”, which was funny coming from a man who drove a “Torino Elite”- the poor man’s Thunderbird? When it was new my Dad was bringing my Grandma from eastern Arizona to southern California, she complained “Can’t this thing go any faster?” so smooth was the ride she thought it was slow but Dad was averaging 75-80 mph!
These look more plausible than I would have imagined! I guess that’s because they’re not that different from the Colonnade-styled Caprices and Impalas which had 6-window styling from 1975-76 on the 4-door hardtops. I like the second “concept” best. The Mini Carlo is absolutely hideous, though!
The only surprising thing, given how ungainly and unattractive these are….is that GM didn’t build them.
The only Monte Carlos I liked were the 1970-72 models. Why? Don’t you know who I am???
The Mini-Carlo? Reminds me of the 1978 downsized versions. I still didn’t like them.
The 1973-76 “Shaft-mobiles”? The only thing those had going for them was the rotating driver’s seat! No, no, and…NO!
Give me what I REALLY want…a four-door Corvette! And yes…you will need a B pillar!
Isn’t a panamerica a sad enough spectacle?
I dig the Mini Carlo. Just the car for me: looks a bit too much like the British stuff, and that’s fine with me.
These Photoshop phantasies are no more absurd than taking a Stutz Bearcat II — which was essentially a pimped-out Monte Carlo — to King of the Pimpmobiles Jeff “Superfly” Dunham’s Dunham Coach Works, to be pimped out a second time over.
More Stutzerrific eyestrain here:
http://www.madle.org/ebclista.htm
The sedan versions of the Cutlass and Century kept the coupes swoppy lines. A Malibu Classic 4 door of the time could have had the MC’s swoops?
I only dislike the stacked quad headlighted ones, one of many GM styling gimmcks. Cordobas quads looked even worse.
I only dislike the stacked quad headlighted ones, one of many GM styling gimmcks. Cordobas quads looked even worse.
YES! YES! GM styled the Monte Carlo to hearken back to the classics of 1930, and then added SQUARE Headlights? Talk about losing sight of the objective.
I could go for the mini-carlo. The rest of the stuff on the page just tells me you’re trying to make the proverbial silk purse Tom. Still looks like a sows ear because they are a sows ear.
The monte carlo is not a car that I ever liked. Take the vinyl off the mini-carlo and it would be even better.
Alas, the Mini Carlo is unlikely ever to reach production. But fear not! The aforementioned Dunham Coach Works can provide you with a two-seater Corvorado. For a price, of course. (The price being your dignity and social standing.)
Honestly, I prefer the original…I’m glad Monte Carlo never came in a two-door.
The production-style four-door hardtop works. The first and last look like styling exercises, but I could see that one as a production car: sort of a Malaise Era Chevy version of the Mercedes CLS or BMW Gran Coupe. Not my speed at all, but I can see a market for it.
Having owned a 74 Monte I would say one thing it sadly lacked was a power assisted door. Those things were humungous and were definitely a problem in most parking lots. I can only imagine the extra dings incurred had one of those four door stretched babies ever made it to the road.
It was absolutely the coolest thing on the road to my then young thirties mind. Dark blue vinyl quarter roof with opera window on dark blue vehicle and matching interior. I’m stylin’ baby!
The four door versions would have been much better than the Caprice from those years… Probably does need the colonnade B pillar, though.
What, no shooting break?
I owned (briefly) a ’77 Monte Carlo… it had some things going for it, mainly looks. Not sure why so many poke fun, people always said how my car was ‘cool’. But, it was a mid 70’s Chevy…. same dash as every other midsize… mediocre build quality… gutless V8’s… and even a modest crosswind dictated which direction the car went far more than the steering wheel did. A polar opposite from my ’77 Grand Prix SJ, which was comfortable, seemed to have an air of luxury about it, had plenty of power under the pedal (400 4V), great bucket seats and it actually cornered pretty decently. Hard to imagine it was built on the same chassis as the Monte. But thinking back, the one thing that irked me the most was the annual changing of the brake boosters and master cylinders in both cars. Still would take a Cordoba again over these GM intermediates any day. But hey, the GM’s were good looking… and if you ever locked your keys in the car, just pull out the window, reach in and unlock the door! Loved that option! lol
Great minds think alike. In his later days at Pontiac, John DeLorean believed that the B body Chevy and Pontiac had gotten too large, and proposed a program where the full sized Chevy and Pontiac would be built on a stretched A body platform. The only fruit of this tree seemed to be the 1969 Grand Prix, which turned out to be a whole different thing altogether. Otherwise, DeLorean’s proposal was shot down in flames by GM’s old 14th floor (as were most of his proposals).
However, if DeLorean had gotten his way, your concepts could have been what the full sized Caprice would have looked like. I am actually liking that gold 4 door hardtop quite a bit.
These “enhanced” pictures have done the impossible; they’ve made the real Monte Carlo look right.
Wow, I’m a little surprised at the number of negative comments on the “real” ’73-’77 Monte Carlo. Obviously, it’s one of my favorites, but I thought it was generally considered good looking. I think its sculptured sides are so beautiful. Of course it’s too long and all that, but so was most everything then. The worst angle is the rear — it looks way too wide for its tires/track back there. But to me the side sweep, opera window, and elegant taper of the front and rear fenders is magic. And I was surprised at how well it translated to 4 doors.
One thing you have to get used to as a lover of the Colonnade cars is constant negativity. I’d spend every penny I dropped on my Chevelle again if I could.
Unapologetic Monte Carlo fan. Say what you want, but I’m going to go ahead and miss my ’78 all the same.
I think the ’78s are cool, too.The way they tried to carry over styling cues from the *very* different ’73-77s to the boxy downsized platform is fascinating. They almost purposely tried to make them look even smaller than they were with the single headlights, but they still had a lot of their previous personalities, especially the Monte Carlo. You still got the side spear, forward canting front end, long-hood/short-deck, and of course, the knight-in-armor regalia.
Has there been a CC on how stacked, rectangular headlight would seem to have universally ruined the cars this particular styling abhorration was applied?
Cars that got side-by-side units faired much better (like the Pontiac Grand Prix). But I can’t think of a single vehicle where the appearance was improved with the stacked version.
Landauyacht. LOVE that term!
Rectangular headlights descended down upon the land like a plague in the late 70s and early 80s, and few cars were spared.
I can’t remember a single example of those vertically-stacked rectangular headlights improving the looks of a car. They were grafted on to rounded and flowing designs like the 2nd-generation Monte Carlo, where they just didn’t fit.
I don’t totally agree. (and not just because those stacked lights are my avatar!)
Most cars already had very angular grilles and other trim elements on the front, so I don’t see how adding rectangular lights was such a clash. It was a great way to update the appearance of the cars for a late-cycle refresh. I do agree that the round-headlight Monte looked great (OK, better) but I like the stacked rectangles a lot too. When I was a kid and these came out I thought they were so cool! Every car that didn’t have the “square” headlights was instantly out of date! Planned obsolescence at its best. As has been pointed out here before (I think), the whole point of the rectangular lamps was a lower profile and greater aerodynamics, so stacking the lights was ridiculous. But I love the all-American exuberance of it! Sort of a tail fin (or dagmar) for the ’70s.
Well, we can agree to disagree on headlights. I like cars to have a “face,” and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person or an animal with square eyes. Say, don’t they still sell 4-door hardtops in Japan? The first 4-Door Monte is a bit much, with the long front and rear overhangs, but the second one could be a hit in the Land of the Rising Sun and No B-Pillars– it doesn’t look bad at all.
I sense Paul is behind this knowing of his numerous colonnade cut-and-paste works that are VERY similar to the photos on the top and the bottom.
Love 73-77 Monte’s; especially in white landau over fire engine red. I am 6’5″ tall and mine was the most comfortable car my long legs have ever been in. I still miss my car and I sold it in 81.
I have 2 and I have other new late model cars. I prefer my Monte Carlos. Yeah stock the small block ones are underpowered but mines not stock. They handle great for a car that size when everything is up to snuff and I cant take either out without someone asking to me to sell it. Im really tired of hearing 70s cars get bashed,what bullshit. Yeah no doubt some where turds but every era has turds. Look at whats available now. About 90 percent of them are grey blobs with no style or soul but have cup holders and mp3 players built in. Grow some nuts.
Monte Carlo was a personal luxury car such as is the Cadillac El Dorado. A car for the driver. Monte Carlo sedan would just be an Impala. Exclusively a coupe like the El Dorado is one of the things that made it special and still appealing, in my opinion.
Additionally, the first year Monte Carlo was much shorter more like a Chevelle and in that regard similar to your “Mini Monte” My favorite models are the ’69 Monte Carlo and the ’77 Monte Carlo
My family had three, one ’76 and two ’77’s
I owned one of the 77’s and drove the 76
The 77’s ducked, 305 engines were shit for power
But, that 76 of my moms with a 350 would run.
I would have raced any thing on the street at that time !