An unusual piece of trivia: Writing about any Chevrolet passenger car is often a daunting proposition. How so? They are generally common as dirt, and like the dirt in any cornfield, it has been plowed countless times. So one is faced with the choice of regurgitating old information – which is boring – or taking a risk by putting some personal context to it.
But I was sired by a man who was (and still is) vehemently anti-GM. Ever since the four-banger in my mother’s 1962 Chevy II threw a connecting rod through the engine block on their wedding day after being over-revved, he would almost snarl at the mere mention of his acquiring any GM car.
Therefore I have no personal interaction with any 1967 Chevrolet, Malibu or otherwise. So, yeah, this article has been uncharacteristically daunting, something the revision timeline I see on the backend of the site says I’ve been dinking around with since May 5.
However, a spark of inspiration has emerged to help shine some light on this Malibu. It deserves its moment of sunshine so let’s see how this goes. Like I often do when public speaking, there is a certain degree of being extemporaneous; I’m as curious as you to see how this turns out.
A while back, I was looking at the Facebook page for 1980s alumni from my high school. It is a small high school in rural Illinois, with a mere 43 in my 1990 graduating class. The pictures from a recent reunion contained people who were clearly identified but I had no freaking memory of some of them.
It obviously isn’t that big of a school, so my lack of memory is rather humbling, a piece of humility I’ll simply attribute to my accumulation of birthdays. Then again, maybe it’s human nature to mentally purge the brain of people and things that hold little relevance or importance to us.
Seeing these pictures did make me feel better about having gained only 25 pounds since 1990, along with my avoidance of thinned and/or grayed hair.
Believe it or not, this does relate to our somewhat copper colored 1967 Chevrolet Malibu.
Like some of my fellow high school alumni, it seems this particular Malibu isn’t all that memorable either. It quickly blends into the background, as I had simply not realized I had pictures of it despite having looked right at them.
A four-door hardtop is not exactly the most popular or desirable body style. But with various high school memories having recently been exhumed, it makes me realize how the Chevrolet Chevelle line had something for everyone, covering all the major personalities one can find in any high school – with enough generalization of course.
Chevelle’s class of 1967 had 404,000 graduates – a far cry from a puny 43, but we are talking General Motors in Detroit, Michigan, not Egyptian High School in Tamms, Illinois. Few of these GM graduates would stay close to home as they could quickly be found in countless locales from sea to shining sea.
Like most graduates, some simply found more success in life than did others. The charismatic but occasionally smack-talking Chevelle SS396, at 15%, accounted for the second largest percentage of graduates. One could think of it as the captain of the football team or the star basketball player.
Some sources estimate 126.3% of these SS396s survive to this day.
The Malibu Sports Coupe was voted by its classmates as being Most Likely To Succeed, and indeed it was with 166,000 going out the door. The Malibu sports-coupe was the quiet and studious girl who could, when approached and treated just right, be deceptively mischievous and fun.
It could also be considered as Most Popular given its sales volume.
When I was in high school, a goodly number were focused on vocational endeavors. While some didn’t think twice in denigrating those goals and aspirations, that was the wrong and short sighted thing to do. One such classmate was purposefully concentrating on auto-body repair and it could be argued he had the last laugh. He now reportedly owns a series of auto-body repair shops in Tennessee.
These vocational endeavors could easily be equated to the El Camino, that hybrid vehicle that wasn’t quite a car nor was it quite a pickup. One could argue these were the hardest working students in the class.
Our featured Malibu, being the four-door hardtop that it is, could be analogous to the student who had a parent on the school board along with way too many family members working at the school. The Malibu Sport Sedan typifies this sort of student, the one constrained by perceptions borne of things outside his control, the one who could later be found writing for an internet automotive website.
This stereotype holds further water given the relative unpopularity of the Malibu Sport Sedan. There were 15,000 – including export models – produced. At 3.7% of production, some high schools have a higher rate of pregnancy among students.
Between trim and body styles, Chevrolet had FIFTEEN (!!!) ways one could obtain a new Chevelle in 1967. No wonder one could easily overlook the Sport Sedan.
The only type of vehicle currently available in the General Motors arsenal with that many permutations has the word “Silverado” on its nameplate.
Yet wisdom dictates not dwelling on high school; that gets tedious and as I pointedly asked a group of employees at work recently: “hardly anybody enjoyed high school so why do some of you behave as if you are still there?”
Like I mentioned earlier, writing about a Chevrolet isn’t an easy task. If one is so bored as to look at some of my other Chevrolet pieces (such as this or this), you’ll see throwing words at them is sometimes an easy and fun way to go.
BUT NOT THIS TIME!!!
Forget all this high school baloney; stopping at a quickie-mart to get a super-jumbo, full-blown, no-diet-business-for-me, not sold in New York City sized fountain soda (with no ice) the other day, I heard what is without doubt the definitive song for not only this Malibu but perhaps darn near every Chevrolet ever built.
No, Dinah Shore wasn’t involved.
As an aside, even though Dinah sang this song on her show for over ten years, she wasn’t the first one to sing it. Written in 1949 by Leo Corday and Leon Carr, specifically for Chevrolet advertising, See The USA In Your Chevrolet was originally sang by husband-wife team Peter Lynd Hayes and Mary Healy. Dinah wouldn’t start singing it until 1952. Pat Boone would also sing it for a few years in the late 1950s.
This realization of what is the definitive song for Chevrolet fulfills all contractual obligations for having a scintilla of original thought in any Chevrolet themed article and, even better, it’s more relatable to a broader cross-section of the CC audience. How so? It’s newer.
Fast forward to 1971.
That’s right. Tommy James captures the essence of Chevrolet much better than Dinah and company did. What’s better, Tommy stumbled upon it unintentionally and hasn’t been credited for it until now.
No doubt you’ve heard “Draggin’ The Line” is meant as a euphemism for “snortin’ a line” or some such. Nope, not according to Tommy. It’s a song about working for a living – nothing more, nothing less.
To apply this sentiment specifically to this Malibu, our featured car does make a person work. No Powerglide here; it has a three-on-the-tree bolted behind its 283 cubic inch V8.
But let’s analyze this musical analogy for a moment.
In the United States during the 1960s, did any other brand of car ever exceed Chevrolet for working every day in the snow, the rain, or the bright sunshine? With many hundreds of thousands of Chevrolets sold annually since about the time BMW started making cars, countless Chevrolets were doing these things daily for decades.
Didn’t it make you feel fine about getting the good sign of Chevrolet – or Malibu? Chevrolet reliability and affordability offered millions of people peace of mind – except when someone over-revved them.
And who doesn’t want to hug a tree or have a dog who eats purple flowers?
Is this going a bit overboard? Possibly so. But it’s hard to argue with how the Chevelle / Malibu was helping 404,000 owners accomplish a lot of work. For perspective, this volume is on parity with contemporary Camry sales and exceeds Accord volume for every year since 2000.
The Accord and Camry are the sedan workhorses these days; in 1967, the Malibu, in each of its vocations, was helping to drag the line for Chevrolet.
Even better, it looked good doing it – even when it was a straight-laced four-door hardtop optimistically called a Sport Sedan.
Found May 2016 on US 63 south of Rolla, Missouri
Other 1967 Chevelle Malibu comparisons:
The American Big Opel by PN
A Second Year Second Stringer by PN
A co workers dad has a ’67 Malibu 2 door without the flying buttress roof i thought it was a ’65 with a ’67 front clip and ’67 taillights but it is in fact a ’67
I don’t remember seeing any of these growing up
Anyone have any information about this version?
The Encyclopedia of American Cars says that 40,000 Malibu 300 2 AND 4 door sedans with 6 AND 8 cylinder engines were produced, I suppose somewhere there is a breakdown of the 2 door sedans, but that book does not break out this model by body style.
While the 66 and 67 used the same body, I prefer the 67, for starters it looks very similar to the very beautiful 67 Impala.
Jason, you weaved together a brilliant article that I read intently even though this is a car I’ve never had any real interest in. Nice work!
Thank you. This one was a head-scratcher for method of delivery.
I prefer the grille of the ’66. But from ’66-’72, GM was really firing on all eight cylinders, particularly at Chevrolet. And although the cynically engineered Vega would quickly turn out to be an unmitigated disaster, it did at least look good, sold very well in the pre-5mph bumper years, and made lots of money for the company. OTOH, in the long run, it badly cost them in reputation, which only got worse as other GM failures just as bad (or worse) would follow.
I don’t have the figures, but I suspect that 1969 was the peak year for the SS396. It’s certainly one of my favorites, and the top-of-the-line 375hp L78 engine ranks as one of the best during the musclecar’s heyday, right up there with the Ford 428CJ and Mopar 440-6v.
FWIW, whenever I see a mid-sixties Malibu four-door, I’m always reminded of the car in the cult-classic movie, Repo Man.
”Some sources estimate 126.3% of these SS396s survive to this day.”
But of course.
Everyone knows that all documentation of ‘60s intermediates and pony cars has been faked, to allow deniers to claim that there was such a thing as base models, bodystyles other than two-doors and convertibles, and who knows where the rumor started that these were ever offered with – God forbid – SIX cylinder engines!
I’m telling you, it’s some sort of tree hugger conspiracy! 😉
I’ve often wondered if the reason for low Chevelle 4dr hardtop sales was that anyone spending the extra for a pillarless midsize family car would be inclined to pay the “just a little bit more” for a Cutlass.
Speaking of which – wow, the equipment on that one! Four-door hardtop, V8, three-on-the-tree, dog dish hubcaps. They can’t have made many like that. Truly a reminder of when cars came a la carte.
The combination of a Malibu 4 door hardtop with a 3 on the tree was an odd combo in my mind too. But it is a combo that I like quite a lot.
Such creative writing — wow!! This would have been a delightful read even if it wasn’t about a super-cool car (love the 283/3-on-tree combo). Long live the 4-door hardtop.
Thank you. It’s good to see you are still hanging around these parts.
Sigh – it’s the GM cars like these that make us old timers so bitter towards GM. They were beautiful, reliable, comfortable, and affordable. They started every time, and they didn’t (by the standards of the times) break down very often.
And then came the 70’s and then things got worse in the 80’s. Now and then you’d see something that gave you hope – the great designers and engineers were still there – but the bean counters just seemed to start winning more and more often.
While cursing our Vegas, Citations, and Daewoo LeMans, or trying to get our 401 Cadillac and Olds diesels to run, these – the great mid-60’s GM cars, that we’d remember.
We knew GM could build great cars… we’d grown up in them… and then one day it was
“ “General Motors is not in the business of making cars. It is in the business of making money.”
Thomas Aquinas Murphy
VP of GM 1972-1974
Retired as GM chairman and chief executive in 1980. Director from 1980 to 1988.
Murphy, like Roger Smith who followed him, were finance guys, not product or manufacturing guys. They ruined GM, and their kind did terrible damage to American industry in that era.
Nice find Jason. My Grandfather had one just like that, same color, same hubcaps.
I think it was the only brand new car he ever bought. He thought it cost too much but my Grandmother loved it because it was new and clean and reliable.
This tiny photo is the only one I’ve got of it..
Like so many other cars I find, this one was for sale – which is how I knew it has a 283.
Your grandfather having one identical is a definite twist I would not have predicted given how relatively few of these were made!
Basic trim is more common in pragmatic Canada 🙂
I think his was a six cylinder with Powerglide though.
I should attempt a COAL regarding my ’67 Malibu. My aunt bought it new as the ’68s were coming out (rather than the Camaro my mom trued to get her to purchase.) Along about 1970 I was sitting in it with my little sister waiting for my aunt to take us somewhere and I took that Powerglide out of park and we rode that car down the drive way and out into the street.
About 12 years later I bought the Malibu from her sight unseen and dad drove it back from Detroit where he’d been on a business trip. I was in worse condition than I thought. What trunk floor, right?
Dad and i worked on the car and painted it – looked pretty good for a few years (winters) – always ran great. Anyway the body rot was coming back with a vengeance and I discovered soft spots in the frame…so just a few years before one could purchase repo sheet metal for it I junked it around 1990.
I grew up with a 66 Malibu with the annual vacation from Ft. Lauderdale FL to Boone NC. Dad would start the run at 8 pm and arrive by noon the following day. 2 door 327 four speed. Cried when he traded it for a 70 wagon.
My uncle Wilf had a Chevelle – 1 ’66 I believe, that looked a lot like this one. I have but one very poor, out of focus pic of it that was not worthy of posting. I had some rides in it, alas I cannot remember, either the car was unremarkable or I wasn’t paying attention. By contrast, I can vividly recall rides in a neighbour’s ’59 Chevy when I was much younger. Excellent writeup Jason, you have quite the talent for interesting writing!
I always thought these were really attractive cars. I did not know that the 4 door hardtop was so rare. When I was a kid some neighbors had one, a really dark maroon, only his was an automatic. Other than the late 50s Rambler, I think these GM A body cars (through 1972) and the 2 year effort by Ford in 1970-71 were the only mid-size 4 door hardtops to come from the American auto industry. Am I missing any?
You are correct. Chrysler never made one, which is kind of surprising, since they’d already tooled a B-body 4 door hardtop. They could have released Belvedere and Coronet hardtops in ’65 and stolen a match on GM. but they didn’t.
I’ve always felt this generation of GM intermediates were their best, and prefer them to both the overly wrought full-size cars of the same generation, and the A-bodies that followed.
Wow, I had never put 2+2 together about that there was a B body 4 door hardtop in 64 when it was a “big” car but not in 65+ when it was an “intermediate”.
Some random remarks on an extremely entertaining write-up and some very insightful comments that were submitted in response: Many of us have heard the comment that, of the 4000 or so big-block Corvettes of a certain specification built in a particular year, only about 7000 remain. It’s probably quite true that the lure of an only slightly more expensive Cutlass four-door hardtop probably cost the Chevelle a number of sales in those bygone days. There is an analogy in today’s car world, namely, the number of C-Class Mercedes-Benz sedans and 3-Series BMW sedans bought by people who would otherwise drive something like a Buick sedan. Not that one is necessarily that much better than the other, but the more expensive imported models have a bit of cache’ not found in the “lesser” domestic brand. In today’s automotive market, U.S. cars are increasingly in competition with “foreign” autos, including U.S.-built captive Asian brands. I find it sad that, in attempting to compete with European and Asian brands at all price points, most American autos (not trucks) seem to have lost a sense of American identity. I am sometimes hard-pressed to distinguish among a Toyota Avalon, a Hyundai Sonata, a Ford Fusion and a Chrysler 200. Could the internet be partly at fault? I don’t profess to know the answer, but I have fond memories of the days when Big-3 cars were identifiable from two blocks away. Try that with a KIA Optima sometime!
“American Identity” in vehicles these days is anything truck-ish or Jeeps.
Within the context of their era, all cars look largely the same to non-enthusiasts. It’s hardly endemic to newer vehicles.
FWIW, a Kia Optima is among the most recognizable of mid-size sedans (the segment most susceptible to sameness) thanks to the distinctive chrome strip on its roofline.
Did any car ever symbolize America of this era better? I sure can’t think of one.
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet!
As an old man, I can’t recall attending a baseball game in decades. Football and basketball yes. Baseball – no more. My VA doc has put hot dogs and pies of all kinds on a list to avoid. My company car still carries a Chevy badge. However it was made in Australia. Even worse, I’m happy about it. I think Holden made a better Chevy than Chevy. Now they too are defunct.
Luckily I’ll be retired before my Chevy. As a salesman and cheerleader for American manufacturing capacity, I’d feel my job was tougher if I had to pick up a customer for a plant tour in a Camry – even one made in USA.
During plant tours, I used to ask the plant to hide newer Nissan lift trucks and put the older Cats front and center. I had to give that up when the last of the Cats was retired.
All silly I guess, but every generation is entitled to a few quirks.
“I didn’t know ‘dey made Chevelle 4 doors!”
When casual car fan sees one.
But one time I saw online someone commented on pic of a vintage Chevelle wagon and posted “wow, a Chevelle clip on a station wagon, nice custom job!”
High School memories can bring a joyful nostalgia or a satisfaction that that awful time in our lives is well in the past. My personal experiences were not that fulfilling, but I survived, and thrived in the years that followed. It probably had a lot to do with getting into motorcycles. Since then, I had the satisfaction of working my way through college, working through a thirty year career, and raising a family. Much more satisfaction and achievement long after high school. I wish that I could convince Today’s kids that life will get better with age and that high school is just an artificial period in our lives. I do feel sorry for those whose best years and glory days revolve around their memories and experiences in high school.
Oh, I like four door hardtops.
Very creative Jason! My uncle had a ’66 Chevelle SS396 4 speed he bought new and had until 1978 or so. He took me for some white knuckle rides as a kid.. The thing was a rocket! I’m not really a Chevy fan but this car was something special. I wanted to buy it (I had gotten my license in ’76) but he didn’t think it was such a good idea. It still ran good and had little rust when he got rid of it (this was in south west CT).
A big hat-tip to you, Jason, for setting up a not-trite premise and then delivering. I’ll take your word that it took a good while to get it all woven together–and we’re all the ones to benefit today.
Me, I was from a big suburban HS class of 730; two years earlier, before the newest HS got built, 1010 graduates went out the door. [Much smaller today.] That said, your “types” were just as present during my HS days, too.
“126.3%” = knowing bit of humor there!
“3.7%” = I was dumbfounded when my old HS added a child-care unit around 1990—unthinkable in the ’60s-70s, I suppose–but then I figured that it was all to society’s good if these young parents were helped to complete their K-12 schooling.
Enough about that. Thanks once more for all your work telling today’s tale!
1967 Skylark Coupe, of course the tunnelback, 300 CID 2bbl with the Jet-Away with Switch-Pitch converter. That was my first COAL. I guess if it had been a Malibu sitting in the same spot I may have taken that, too! But mine had fender skirts…
Very creative Jason! It felt like I was reading in the style of an older Road & Track or Motor Trend magazine article.
1967, in my opinion, was a high-water mark for GM styling. There’s not a single car line I dislike.
I’d drive this 4-door Chevelle now. ESPECIALLY with the V-8 stick!
Great article
Bringing back the fire into this spot sedan
My wife and I bought an almost identical car (not Malibu, but otherwise the same) in 1968 after we learned we were expecting. We went to a Chevrolet dealership and they had just (minutes before) taken it in as a trade-in.
When our family grew larger, we bought a Mercury station wagon and sold the Chevelle for $888.00!
I should have never sold it!