(originally posted 3/5/2012) In 1971, when General Motors unveiled the redesigned B-body and C-body lineups of full-size cars, the gap between the bread-and-butter Chevrolet and top-tier Cadillac narrowed even further. However, this was nothing new. Chevrolet has a history of trying to be a junior-class Cadillac.
In 1932, the Chevrolets were beautifully restyled, and a popular choice among collectors these days. Both the Confederate Standard and DeLuxe adopted styling that looked suspiciously like that of the Cadillac V8, V12 and V16 models, including the grille shape, hood side vents and overall body proportions.
Although Chevrolets became more and more luxurious between the 1930s and 1950s, the next truly Cadillac-inspired Chevy was the 1958 model. While they didn’t sport the trademark fins, the 1958s looked a lot like contemporary Cadillacs – particularly at the front end. And the new, top-of-the-line Impala was clearly a luxury vehicle, with its multi-tone interior and two-door hardtop and convertible-only body styles. It made sense to add a bit of Cadillac style to the Chevrolet; after all, both makes were part of General Motors, and it gave people with Chevrolet pocketbooks a taste of the General Motors flagship.
The problem was, GM took it too far. Bel Air gave way to Impala, then Impala was superseded by the Caprice as the luxury Chevrolet. At the same time, Cadillac was slowly but surely de-contenting their vehicles in the interest of sales volume and greater profits. I’m sure the cost accountants were very happy though. In 1971, the new Chevrolets and Cadillacs, while not exactly carbon copies of each other, did look suspiciously similar.
This is the 1971 Chevrolet Caprice. As you can see in the ad above, Chevrolet was clearly marketing the Caprice as a Cadillac (or at least a luxury car) alternative.
This is a 1971 Cadillac Coupe deVille. Paul has a much more detailed analysis of Cadillac’s watering down of styling and quality in his 1972 Coupe deVille post, but suffice it to say that the Chevrolet owners just loved their faux Caddys, while Cadillac owners continued to buy new ones–for a few more years, anyway. Not all of them, however, as Mercedes and BMW started seeing an uptick in their North American sales during this period. Not everyone was fooled.
The 1972s were little changed from the all-new ’71s. The grille was lowered, parking lights moved from the fender corners to the front bumper, and tail lights were integrated into the rear bumper. Engines ranged from a straight six to a 454 CID V8. As this was about a year and a half before the gas crisis, most had a V8 under the hood. Less than 3,900 full-size Chevys had the six-cylinder engine. Caprices were V8-only.
As had been the case since 1966, the lineup consisted of the ultra-basic Biscayne, slightly less austere Bel Air, mid-range Impala, and luxury Caprice. In 1971 the Caprice had been available only as a two-door or four-door hardtop, but a pillared sedan was added for 1972. Oddly enough, the convertible was only available as an Impala. Strange, considering a Caprice convertible would have fit right in with the luxury image. Chevrolet must have realized that, and in 1973 the convertible became a Caprice-only model.
While the Impala was the volume model, the Caprice held its own considering its prices ran about $700 higher. 1972 Caprice production consisted of 78,768 hardtop sedans, 65,513 hardtop coupes and 34,174 pillared sedans.
Chevrolets of the 1971-76 period were as big as they were going to get. The 1973 gas crisis, increasing safety and environmental regulations, and CAFE all spelled the end of the gigantic standard-size car. It would result in one of the greatest full-size six-passenger cars, the 1977 GM B-body. Huge monsters like this 1972 Caprice were soon to become an extinct breed.
Special thanks are due to TheProfessor47, who posted these excellent photos to the Cohort. Thanks, Professor!
Haha! You picked up one of my great unsolved mysteries. Or why did GM destroy Cadillac? Jack Baruth wrote an interesting piece on this for SpeedSportLife, which I have on my Bookmarks. You can check it out here: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/02/avoidable-contact-how-fake-luxury-conquered-the-world/
Also check out its companion article (with which Paul vehemently disagrees): http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/02/avoidable-contact-rich-corinthian-swaybars/
Suffice to say that this trend was started by Ford with LTD, but then Ford had no high-end brand to cannibalise (Lincoln was a joke even then), while GM strangled Cadillac through this, to the delight of Mercedes-Benz, and, to a much lesser extent, BMW.
GM killed Cadillac by going for volume over exclusivity. The new idiot who is running Cadihack is making a mockery out of it by adding new models and still not seeking to reduce production to make it a premium item.
Cadihack would be well off to get rid of the awful ATS and replace the new Seedy Six with something that looks premium – that interior is a joke with that huge grey plastic central display surround.
Cadihack would be better off with just CTS and a new premium product, SRX and a larger CUV and get rid of the Escalator which is simply a joke for fools thinking it is not a GMC.
Then build every Cadillac to order with premium materials and wide array of colors. The aim should be to make no two Cadillacs the same.
Mary Barra has killed General Motors.
Nice to see one of these Caprice still rolling. 🙂 There was an article of Collectible Automobile about the 1971-76 B-boby Chevy (December 2005 issue) and it mentionned once a road test of Motor Trend who compared the Caprice to a Cadillac.
I like those 1971-76 B-body. I spotted some Canadian B-body oddities. The Biscayne nameplate survived in Canada until 1975, I spotted a picture of a 1973 Biscayne wagon on Oldcarbrochures.
Close but no cigar, I spotted a picture of a 1970 Bel Air coupe http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3189826&postcount=15
These were not bad cars at all in the sense drove and handled quite well, especially when equipped with radial tires. The F-41 suspension models were pretty good handlers, too. The thing that really killed them was the 5 mph bumpers. The cars were never designed to take them and added a huge amount of weight, in the neighbourhood of 300 lbs. Thus what was already a heavy car became obese.
That said, many, may cars new tip the scales at more than the 4300 lb, 454 CID Caprice four door hard top, the Chrysler 300 and Ford Taurus immediately coming to mind.
I may be in the minority here but I adore both of these cars. My dad had a ’72 Sedan DeVille and a friend had a 73 Caprice. Ironically, I found the Caprice with the “little” 400 2 barrel to be more fun to drive than the big 472 powered Caddy.
Dad’s Caddy was unbelievably bad on gas.
Any insight on why my earlier comment shows `Your comment is awaiting moderation.’, and what to do about it? Thanks.
OK, it just became visible. Never mind.
The blog software takes comments with more than one URL up to moderation, to keep the spamming robots at bay.
72 model year was the best selling of the 71-76 biggies, according to stats provided in Collectible Automobile . The ’71 was hampered by the big UAW strike.
Looking back, the 72 is the best of this generation. No big bumpers or gaudy trim, and the 71’s bugs are gone. My 2nd favorites are the 76’s, only since they were the last beasts.
While I’m not generally a fan of GM’s ’71-’76 full-size cars, I do like the clean nose styling of the 1972 Chevrolet with its small grille and wrap-down header panel. Huge, toothy air intakes (like on the ’71 or ’73-’74) have never been my thing.
I was brought home from the hospital in 1975 in a ’72 Impala coupe. Such a huge car. My parents nursed it along until 1983 and then sold it and bought a used Omni, talk about a change!
It’s too bad that the quality levels weren’t where they needed to be on these, because despite them being HUGE, they are great looking cars.
My Dad bought a 72 impala in 1982 for 400 bucks. At the time it was going to be the donor motor for his Indy car replica he was working on- he got as far as the frame before the project stalled out. My Mom’s 73 Monte Carlo died around 1983 or so so the Impala became the family mobile. I have fond memories of both cars- one time Dad armor alled the vinyl seats on the Impala and then took a sharp turn only to find himself sliding across the bench into the passenger seat. (regular seat belt use might have stopped this from happening) That curved rear window and sweeping decklid added alot of visual character to the car, and set it off from the other GM cars. My Uncle had a 72 Coupe deville and my god mother a 72 Buick Centurion, and my grandmother a 72 Electra- they were all pretty close in size but I remember the interiors were alot nicer(maybe it was just the brocades) in the Buicks and the Caddy.
I became a seat belt wearer during my days driving a ’71 Plymouth Scamp with a vinyl bench seat. Fear of the door flying open on right turns didn’t do it, but one too many left hand turn at high speeds leading to a visit to the passenger side convinced me of the value of belts. Just lap belts at the time though. The shoulder belts were separate and inconveniently non-retracting, so they stayed wrapped around their hanging hooks.
Similar story only in a 1970 Electra coupe with vinyl seats- started wearing the lap belt and then got in the habit of wearing the shoulder belt too. About 6 months later was in a head-on crash and the lap and shoulder belts probably saved my life or at least from eating the steering wheel.
I Still can clearly remember the fall day when I first saw a 71 Chevy coming at me as I walked home from school.
I Thought I was seeing the New 71 Caddy, and I Thought It Was a Gorgeous front end… imagine my shock when I saw The Chevrolet Taillights as it drove past…. I Could Not Believe what an improvement from the 70.
I Never felt that way about the 71 Caddy. But I do remember cussing the strike, as it was a long time before I saw more 71 Chevy’s after that first one.
In 1972, It felt like they Purposely uglified the front of This Caprice. Who Do away with the turn signals of 1971 otherwise?
Same here; I remember confusing those ’71 Chevys for Cadillacs from the front. When the ’72 appeared, I kinda wondered if the huge bowtie was slapped up there to make sure you knew this was a Chevy, dammit!
The 76 Caprice may be the only one I like from the 71-76 period. Something about the way they set up the quad rectangle headlights on it’s face just gets me.
GM had some cool wheel covers in the early-mid 70s.
The nose of the ’76 Caprice with the quad rectangular headlights is a real looker. I almost think it’s the best of the B-bodies that year. So handsome with a trace of menace.
Ahhh…the last of “the good old days”! I really liked these, but they were so enormous and I remember how bad on gas these monsters were from hearing all the crabbing from those who owned these cars – Ford and Chrysler included. I don’t care if gas was 25.9/gal – with what the average guy was making, it still added up – especially for me at the time as a sergeant in the air force. It took a lot to feed my avatar, but then, I couldn’t stand still in those days and all my cash went into the tank! If only I would park it for awhile. I did that fall of 1972 – I finally got a bit wiser.
These cars? Wow, they did suck the gas. The most memorable thing I have was the GM “Mark of Excellence” – the full-depth crack in the top of the padded dash from windshield to edge! That – and 80% of them were that mist green color…or tan.
Still, a beautiful ride.
The 72 Caprice is a very beautiful car. My Dad gave up on Chevy due to his 64 Biscayne 2 dr sedan rusting out. Although he kept it until March 1972, it was an ugly rustbucket since 68 or so. My mother would have made him keep it longer, but I had been drafted, and she was so upset that I would be sent to Vietnam that she didn’t care if he bought a new car.
So my Dad bought a new 72 Dodge Polara 2 dr HT. He was always extremely proud of that Dodge. Since I never went overseas, the story had a happy ending all around.
Really like the 32 Chevy roadster. It does look like a Cadillac, albeit smaller.
Interesting comparison between the ’32 Chevrolet and the contemporary Cadillac. It was probably a smart move, too, since the ’32 Ford looked awfully Lincoln-like.
One thing I think is important to understand is that really until the seventies, the decision to make Chevrolet more upscale came primarily from Chevrolet, not from GM. While the corporation did have approval over divisional decisions like new models, senior management didn’t often dictate such things — it happened occasionally, but I don’t think it started becoming standard operating procedure until the seventies. So, I think a lot of the aspirational efforts at Chevrolet, like the first Impala, were because the divisional leadership wanted to spread a wider net, rather than because it was part of some larger corporate strategy.
For what it’s worth, I think the initial target of the Impala was not so much Cadillac as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick — an Impala hardtop was $51 cheaper than a Buick Special and within twenty bucks of a Pontiac Chieftain, so buyers who were not fanatically brand-loyal could decide if they wanted to buy a fancy Chevy or a rather basic Buick for about the same money. Of course, at that point, Buick, Olds, and Pontiac still had other offerings that were bigger, fancier, and more expensive than even the Impala, but that would change over the next few years, for the reasons you mention.
I can only imagine what GM product planners were going through at the time. I wonder if anyone stopped to think all the model overlap going on was going to hurt them somewhere down the line. I doubt it.
When the divisions were sufficiently differentiated, you had to make a conscious choice between the fancy Chevy with the Chevy engine or the less-opulent Buick with a Buick engine. When the only automatic you could get in a Chevy was a Powerglide, you might have wanted to spend a little more to get the Hydra-matic in an Oldsmobile. And if you were an Oldsmobile man since you got back from the war, no way in hell were you looking at anything else.
Even the Camaro and Firebird had their adherents who wouldn’t be caught dead in the other one. Go with the big Pontiac engines in the Firebirds or save some weight and get a Camaro with a hot 350. The 1970-81 cars were only 25 percent interchangeable.
Remember GM wouldn’t have stuck with this hodgepodge of a product lineup if they didn’t sell. And when dealers had single product lines, a Pontiac dealer could get really sore if the Chevy guy down the street had compact cars to sell and he didn’t. With everybody under a single roof as Chrysler is now, there’s no point to having all those brands.
GM’s market share in those days was 50% and above. And one out of every four cars sold was a Chevy. So I highly doubt anyone thought the overlap would hurt. Plus there was speculation that GM might be found in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and broken up, with Chevrolet being the spinoff.
Seems implausable from our current vantage point, doesn’t it?
I co-owned an ad agency a few years back. Automotive was a specialty and sure enough we heard from a well-connected multi-line GM client about Pontiac franchisees demanding their own Cobalt and Aveo to sell. And so came the G5 and G3.
I think the worst thing for Cadillac in those days was not so much that Chevy got so close (although that didn’t help!) but that Cadillac had become perceived as “common” to its original target audience. Having run in those circles during my 3 1/2 years in advertising, I came to understand the “exclusivity” factor among people of means. When Cadillac chased market share in the late 60’s, even if they had managed to maintain the quality and content level of earlier models, the mere fact that so many…well, ordinary people could now buy one was a game changer for people wanting something exclusive. This dynamic has been well-documented elsewhere.
To clarify, a G5 is not a Cobalt, its is an Epsilon car, like a Malibu, the G3 was Cobalt based and there was an Aveo based car to, but I am not sure that made it to the US, it was available in Canada.
A couple days late, I know, but you’re incorrect here. G5 was Cobalt based, G3 was Aveo based. The Epsilon car you are referring to is the G6.
I test drove a G5 back in ’07, and being in Detroit I see the Aveo-clone G3s all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_G5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Aveo_%28T200%29
My grandfather had a ’72 Caprice 4-door hardtop. Beautiful car. Metallic charcoal gray with a black vinyl top, black velour interior, He bought new and kept it looking and running like new until he passed away in 1991.
I wanted to purchase it from my grandma to replace my dying ’78 Granada, but my dad sabotaged any prospects of me getting the car. He made the half-baked excuse that seeing the car would make my grandma sad. Now, I knew my grandma well. My grams was very sentinmental about people, but NOT cars. My dad didn’t even tell me he helped my grams sell it until a week later. I was pretty mad about that.
They ended up selling it to a lady in the neighborhood for only $600!!! This particular lady was severely obese and slightly eccentric. From my dad’s description of her, I doubt that car survived for very long.
This wasn’t the first time that my dad pulled a fast one on me, and it wouldn’t be the last. I love my dad a lot, but I’ve never completely forgiven him for that stunt.
You can’t take your Caddy downmarket and your Chevy upmarket and expect it turn out well. The true collision of this was when Caddy went to tiny little FWD cars in the 80s and suddenly Caprice sales pick up and Lincoln Town Car sales take off. Somedays I think that GM wasn’t just killed by bad moves, I think it committed suicide.
Like most of the manufacturing economy we once had, GM got murdered by the Wall St. casino.
“Chevrolet owners just loved their faux Caddys, while Cadillac owners continued to buy new ones, for a few more years anyway.” A division and its dealers could always get short term gains by stepping into another division’s turf. In the old days GM corporate knew it would be poison in the long run, so they wouldn’t permit it.
The stock market got obsessed with short-term corporate earnings, excluding all else. How could corporate execs resist when Chevy promised a quick earnings boost with a Caprice? Grab the upside today, get out and let others suffer the long term cost.
Cadillac never stopped offering a RWD Brougham.
Well, yes, but it was saddled with a horrible series of engines in the 80’s (1981 V8-6-4, then the self-destructing HT4100 in 1982-85, then a few years of anemic Olds V8’s), and it got no updating to speak of, so the 1991 was hard to tell apart from the 1977. GM was so cheap that they didn’t redesign the interior to accommodate airbags until the ’93 redesign, so for 1990-92 the alleged flagship of the Cadillac line had those unfortunate door mounted seat belts. In the meantime Lincoln had totally redesigned the Town Car twice. By 1992 the Town Car had the quiet and decent-performing modular engine and S-class levels of build quality. The 1993-96 Brougham was a good effort but late, and it was killed off to use the line to build more trucks and SUV’s.
@MadHungarian, Amen and +1. Even offering the mid 1980s Corvettes 200 odd hp V8 would have been an improvement.
I love the ’80-’84 Buick/Olds/Cadillac C-bodies and the Cadillac De Villes/Broughams up through the end of the run in ’92. It’s a shame GM did not add fuel injection to the Olds 307 sometime in the mid-’80s to keep it competitive with Ford. The driveability and responsiveness of the carbed 307 versus the injected 302 were miles apart. It was at that point that Ford really gained market share and GM dropped the ball.
My dad bought his first Mercedes and ditched his last Cadillac in 1972, not because of what the Chevrolet looked like, but because the Caddy had become an unmanageable beast. His last caddy was an 8.2 liter Eldorado that was 224 inches long. So long that it took 2 passes to get it up the parking ramp where he worked. Yet the back seat would not accommodate his not very tall sons.
morning paper route in ’71, gonna get my permit next year, taking a bit to get used to the 2nd gen Camaro, and… WHOOP!
Impala coupe sitting still, mean -looking in the streetlight, and the curve of that backlite window just turned me on!
I had an elderly very-well-to-do aunt (San Mateo County) who went from Lincolns and Caddies to nothing but Caprices and Monte Carlos because you could doll up a Caprice/LTD quite nicely to comfort and driving wise it rivaled (sometimes exceeded) the high priced luxury make. Until she died around 1982, this Auntie would alternate between a Caprice Classic or Monte Carlo every few years. Her trades, I recall, always had less than 15K after 2-3 years of driving.
I’d visit Grandfolks in Missouri every summer in my youth. By the mid 70’s, every third car it seemed was a Caprice. The Farmer’s Cadillac! Why, a ’74 Caprice Classic with 400 2-bbl, vinyl top, a/c and power windows might set you back $5300.00!
My dad bought a ’73 Impala coupe new. It was probably the nicest car we ever owned…until it started to rust out after a few years. Mechanically, though, it was pretty good and the 350 2-barrel wasn’t bad on gas. It was a good car for towing, and it was also the first car I ever drove – my dad started teaching me to drive on it when I was about 14. I still wouldn’t mind taking an old one for a spin sometime. Three years ago, my wife and I drove up to the cottage in a rented 2009 Impala. I drove my dad around in it, and he really liked it. Besides the better handling and much better gas mileage, it was put together a lot better than the ’73, and he laughed when I told him you could fit the whole thing into our old ’73 with room to spare.
So these are called 71-76 GM B bodies? I never knew. As a kid, say about 1982, I remember doing an informal survey in our little town and these were the most predominant car out there. You could literally have them for the asking once they got rusty and leaky. Now I weep.
of the 1971-76 period I thought the 1971 full sized Chevy’s had the best looking front end and the 1972 full sized Chevy’s had the best looking rear end, I always thought the 1971-72 GM B cars are very underrated vehicles, I didn’t care for those built after 1972
Great memories of a friends father’s 73 Chev wagon–I want to say Caprice but I no the top wagon had another name–first car I was ever in with A/C and you just turned a dial to the temp you wanted. With a turn of a key the rear window rolled up into the roof and the tailgate powered down into the body. One of the middle seats flipped up to get into the 3rd row–454 with the air cleaner lid flipped–great times hauling the gang around.
By the way the Bel Air was sold here in Canada untill 1981–I remember seeing a lot of them as taxis
In the 70s, the Chevy full-size wagon was known as the Kingswood, or at least the mid to top line range. The Di-Noc fake wood veneer, top of the line model was known as the Kingswood Estate.
My dad had a plain green 73 chevy wagon with no fake wood on the side and only a 350. He traded it in on a top of the line loaded 75 LTD country squire with a 460 and claimed the two cars got the same gas mileage. In hindsight, he probably should’ve gotten a loaded 2WD Suburban with a 454 and optioned like a car…no roof rack, no running boards, no brush guards, no external spare tire carrier, no two tone paint, large single rear door, hubcaps, whitewalls, etc.
My dad came within inches of buying a silver ’72 Caprice 2 door with the 400 cid V8. I had just turned 15 (legal driving age in Louisiana at the time) , and I had visions of driving that car up and down I-10. At the last minute, he chickened out for fear of the doors sagging in a few years causing highway wind noise. I was devastated!!
He held out a few more years and eventually bought a ’74 Comet (white with a black vinyl top and interior) where the A/C struggled to keep cool in the Louisiana heat and humidity. I turned it down when he offered it for prom night.
To this day, I still smile when every I see a ’71-73 Impala/Caprice!!! Things might of been different.
Would be even more Caddy like if it had leather, split bench armrest front seat ,and maybe nicer hubcaps, but a nice looking car anyway. A neighbor had a `71 impala coupe , 400, red with white top and interior. Sharp looking car, middle class luxury.
It looked like Chevy cheapened the front ends on the Impala/Caprice in 72….although they did replace grill plastic with more metal by shortening the grill……After a few years of use, the painted sheetmetal above the grille was probably chipped from stones and wear and tear….Highway driving is not kind to the front ends of cars with stones and whatnot being tossed up by traffic ahead.
I can only imagine how lost the 250 would look in the engine bay. “Say, uh, where’s the motor?” Even a 307 would be better and would probably get the same mileage.
I think beginning with the 1959 model year, a top of the line Chevrolet was nearly as nice as a low end Cadillac. Much can be made of how Cadillac’s of the 70’s were not up to the standards of the early 60’s or even the mid 60’s, but the lower end of the Cadillac line was not much nicer than a top of the line Chevrolet, bigger but not really better.
Junior Cadillac? Really? I think not. I’ve looked at both the Caprice and Caprice Classic, and I see no connection. Try as Chevy might, Cadillac was definitely at the top of the totem pole in terms of American Luxury.
And looking at the 1972 Chevy Caprice vs earlier Caprices, I found the front end to be the least attractive of anything Chevrolet offered at the time.
I always liked the later-model ’75s and ’76s, esp. the Caprice models with the skirted fenders and square headlights – so elegant looking! I was 11 and 12 when these cars were new so didn’t know about their problems (flexing frame, body rust etc) until much later. I remember the hoopla when the downsized ’77s came out, and they seemed better in every way. I had a sense even then that the world had changed and we’d entered a new era. Nice to look back on these huge cars 40 years later and reminisce.
US landyachts from the mid seventies were still offered here, regardless the 1973 oil crisis and fuel prices. For the man who didn’t give a damn about gas mileage, turning circles and the size of parking spaces.
Here’s a mid-seventies ad from US car importer Hessing De Bilt. At the bottom of the ad you can see that the company imported all Big Three-brands. The Chevrolet Caprice was one of them.
A showroom impression.
Source, and more: http://ibuko.com/hessing-de-bilt/
Interesting company motto “voor stijl-en prijsbewusste mensen” – doesn’t it translate into something like “for style- and price-conscious people” ?
I can agree (somewhat) with the style part, but I’m not so sure about the price… What were the purchasing prices of American imports in the Netherlands, compared to ‘domestic’ (European) brands?
Your translation is perfect ! I don’t know the prices back then, but I’m sure that a big and loaded Buick or Mercury V8 was a lot cheaper than, say, a Mercedes W116 S-class with a V8. I’m sure that the dollar / guilder exchange rate back then was also involved.
And there wasn’t much choice in the early and mid-seventies when you wanted a big and luxury V8 sedan or coupe. Continental Europe only had the Mercedes W116 and the Opel Diplomat with the Chevy 327 V8. And if you wanted something REALLY big -as in landyacht big- there was nothing.
But I do remember that -in the nineties- a brand new Ford Thunderbird V8 had about the same purchase price as a top of the line (not an M3) BMW 3-series with an inline-6.
Right. Here’s an example, I found it between all the ads showed on the website I mentioned above.
19,850 guilders (excl. VAT; 23,026 guilders incl. VAT) for this Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. In short, the ad says that’s easily 10,000 guilders cheaper than a European car. I only wonder what would be a comparable Euro-car back then….
Oh man, I LOVE these…’72 Impala/Caprices are absolutely in my ’70s top five.
I’m reading “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors”. I managed to read all of about 4 pages today, but that included the page where DeLorean outlines his decision to spend a few dollars more on a Caddy-style grille for the Caprice. Spooky.
He does mention that the people at Cadillac Division weren’t best pleased.
According to my memory, Chevys were not the biggest cars. Chryslers and Imperials were. But it seems to me the Chevy had the widest bench seat and roomiest interior. When I was a skinny teen, and all my friends were skinny teens, I remember fitting a petite teen female on the bench seat between the driver and the driver’s door and seating 5 across the front seat of a Caprice.
I do not know why a 1972 GM buyer would get one of these when for the same money, or a bit more, he could have had a Buick LeSabre.
The Buick was more restrained and had Buick/Flint build quality. I’ve owned a ’72 LeSabre (as a well used car – not new) and it was an excellent vehicle.
I thought back then, in 1972, and do now: why buy a Chevrolet when you can have a Buick?
My childhood friend’s dad had a plain silver Buick LeSabre 4door hardtop with leather seats and a 455 motor. Nice car.
A 73 Caprice four door hardtop was my first car when I got my license in the mid 90’s. I believe we had 10 people in it one night on the way to the movies. Still have the car, and we actually got it going last summer. Might be a COAL in there yet.
Ah yes, the early-mid 70s series Impala! First car I owned all myself summer of 1980 – couple years earlier I went halfsies on a Buick straight 8 with a buddy. My Impala was a 73 Caprice coupe, 400SBC, brocade cloth interior, green with a black vinyl top. Big sucker got, maybe, 16mpg on the highway and the tierod ends/ball joints were shot. I drove it anyway, whirlpool in tank, wobble and all. Easily sat 4 full-sized buddies in the back seat. Sold it a year later for exactly what I paid for it – $600.00 – and bought a year older two-door Maverick, small 6, 3 speed on the floor. Didn’t have anything like the ‘presence’ of the Caprice but used a lot less gas and was waaay easier to park! No real nostalgia for the Caprice but I can appreciate them – the down-sized follow-up was a much better car.
I’m not one to jump on the bandwagon attacking GM for look alike ’71 full-size cars. As the article itself points out, cars from multi-line companies tend to look alike, and cars across companies tend to look alike during a given year. The occasional outlier tends to be either the next trendy look or the next famous failure.
For a short period, roughly 1955 through 1963, there was some exceptional styling variation – also known by many people as a period of excess that got tiring pretty fast. The ’61 Continental ushered in a return to more conservative and more look alike cars.
As the ’60s progressed, the big three saw rapid platform proliferation. GM started the ’60s with the standard big car, the Corvette and the Corvair. By 1971, they had subcompact, compact, intermediate, personal luxury, standard, standard wagon, standard luxury, premium personal luxury and the Corvette platforms. And, some captive import platforms. Keep in mind total market sales didn’t grow proportionally to platform growth. New platforms cannibalized old ones.
It isn’t a surprise that more sharing occurred within platforms, and GM easily remained the industry leader in providing unique sheet metal and unique interior bits within platforms / across brands – through the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s – really through the present. Part of the reason for sharing was also likely the idea that within platforms, the buyer was pretty much the same – people that wanted standard full-size cars expected a certain look and feel, people buying personal luxury something more flamboyant, subcompacts something economical.
I was around a lot of ’71 -’76 era full-size GM cars, and eventually owned one for several years. Take my word for it, the look, comfort, features, performance, price and prestige of the bottom end Chevy Biscayne and the top end Cadillac Fleetwood were quite different. Cars for cops vs. cars for corporate CEOs. Cars that shared frames, firewalls, windshields and little else.
The ’71 and ’72 big Chevys were about the best-looking they ever made in my opinion. I owned a ’71 Impala, an uncle and aunt each owned one and my dad owned one, all at the same period. Dad’s was likely the best-looking of all, since he had the Impala Custom with that reverse-curve rear window.
Chevrolet styling often aped upmarket GM brands: The ’39 looked like Cadillac but the ’40 looks like a Buick and the ’49 looks like a junior Oldsmobile. Mechanicaly though (When there was a difference), Chevy was more Junior Buick, (OHV,Torque tube, all coil spring suspension,ETC) It was GM cheapening Cadillac, rather than Chevy styling that damaged Cadillac.
Dad came within a breath of buying a brand new silver ’72 Caprice 2 door with the 400 V8. He changed his mind at the last second because he was afraid the doors would sag as time went along. He waited another two years and bought a ’74 four door Comet which is another story in itself.
Every time I see a ’72 Impala or Caprice coupe, I think back to Dad test driving the big ass Caprice. Too bad he hesitated!!!
Sorry: Can’t find a silver Caprice, Green will have to do. But the memory is still there.
The thing I remember most about 72 Chevys (when they were plentiful on the road) is that most seemed to have the front tip of the bumper slightly pushed in/up. Must have been easy to misjudge where the tip of that pointy front end was when parking.
Mother had a Park Avenue (78) in the Late 70’s to early 80’s. Suffice to say it was nicer than my grandparents 71 and 79 De Villes in interior appointments and rode just as well. As a current owner of a low mileage 72 Coupe de Ville and having previously owned a 67 Eldorado is is astonishing the how much assembly and material quality had deteriorated in 5 years. In fact I might venture to say the chassis is not even as solid. My grandfather had an fully optioned 70 Bonneville he used as a everyday car (to preserve his Cadillacs for long distance traveling). Once again it came pretty close to the 71 Cad in terms of comfort (had all the options of a Cadillac including ATC) and would blow it out of the water in acceleration. As a little tot I still remember that feeling in my gut when grandpa would mash the accelerator on that Bonneville. Too bad for rust. In reality these B/C Caprices, Bonneviles/GranvVilles, and upper tier Buicks and Olds could easily become Cadillacs with the right checks on the option box. Yes the Cadillac still held some status compared to the former but in reality by 1971 were not better cars that the rest. My parents generation did not see the value, quality or prestige.
My buddy was given the family 72 Kingswood Estate when he started driving about 1978–Oh the memories of loading 10 people in the car–the 3rd row seats faced forward and the middle row tipped up to allow passage. Watching the rear glass and tailgate disappear into the body was something else. I remember getting a ride in the car when it was new and marvelling at Autotemp air conditioning and tape player.
My Grandfather had a ’72 Biscayne, which I think he traded his ’63 Ford Fairlane for…it was a medium blue color…I remember all the religious medals he had inside (I guess to keep everyone safe while driving). I remember driving briefly probably in the late 80’s, after he had passed, with my Grandmother in the back seat, Dad in the front, my mother in the back too, probably down rte 115 from Wilkes-Barre south (we ate in the Effort diner I remember) to try to visit with one of my Grandmother’s brothers, whom I think we missed.
I’m not sure what happened to the ’72 after that, my Uncle probably inherited it after my Grandmother passed (or even earlier, since my Grandmother never learned to drive), and I think it was replaced by a ’69 Olds 98, which my Aunt used to drive (she had a stroke and for many years was in a nursing home, so she didn’t drive it…she was a spinster so I think my Uncle probably inherited that car too, but it eventually disappeared replaced by something newer (I seem to recall a Dodge Aries, but my uncle had many different cars then, and I can’t quite remember the sequence, especially since we didn’t live nearby, and would only see them when we were there for a holiday or other event).
There’s a simple explanation for why all of the GM divisions started tarting up their top of the line models to rival what Cadillac was offering. A memo was issued by the President of GM discontinuing the free car program that allowed the head of each division and its senior management to drive whatever GM car they desired each year for free. They were all inevitably choosing to drive Cadillacs. After the Memo came down, they had to drive the cars offered by their respective divisions. Hence we saw the introduction of high end Chevys, Olds, Buicks and Pontiacs that had all of the same luxury amenities that Cadillac cars were offering in the late 60’s and early 70’s. It was yet another case of GM shooting itself in the foot instead of respecting the market segments created by Sloan for each GM division.
The more immediate reason for the Caprice to have come into existence was Ford’s original Galaxie LTD. Corporate respected the Sloan Ladder enough not to have allowed Chevrolet to go that far upmarket on their own initiative, but the “USA-1” sales position was important enough that Chevy would’ve been allowed to match Ford Division model-for-model.
You’re repeating a long-debunked myth. Nothing of the sort.
You really think for a moment that the execs at Chevrolet were driving Cadillacs? No way! And at the other divisions? That would have been corporate suicide. No one would have dared.
The Caprice was 100% a response to Ford’s ’65 LTD. They rushed it into production as fast as they could, by mid-year of the ’65 MY.
Full story here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/cohort-outtake-1965-chevrolet-caprice-the-ltd-reaction/
I recall reading a magazine, I think Motor Trend, that did a DeVille vs Caprice comparison with ’71 or ’72 models back then. The Chevy showed up well in many regards. I recall their comment that the Cadillac rode and handled like a Caprice with a 1,000 steel plate welded underneath.
“I recall their comment that the Cadillac rode and handled like a Caprice with a 1,000 [lb] steel plate welded underneath.”
That has stuck in my head, too. I drove my grandmother’s ’72 Calais quite a bit and owned a ’74 Fleetwood but never drove the Chevy. They handled OK with radials if you respected its mass. The steering wasn’t numb like a Ford’s.
The ’71 Caprice looks more like the ’70 Cadillac than the ’71 (which was a huge disappointment to me at the time). Loved the chisel-tip fenders. The ’71 was retro gone wrong, especially the Eldorado.
A five star resort is one of a kind.
A four star resort can be replicated in other locations.
A three star resort is a place for value
A two star resort is a small, older, simpler overnight stay.
A one star resort is even smaller and older.
With this in mind, a five star vehicle is a one-off with impeccable design and engineering.
A four star vehicle is a high quality brand with dealers in most metropolitan areas.
A three star vehicle is one with high value and mass sales
A two star vehicle is one with a dated design, that is a practical value.
A one star vehicle is a daily driver for local commutes.
Five star brands don’t exist – vehicles like this aren’t commonly on our roads.
There are many four star brands highly desired and often high priced.
There are many three star auto brands being sold around the world
There are very nice two star auto brands available as first cars.
There are a growing number of daily driver local auto brands.
The 55 and 77 Chevrolet designs punched well above their weight class. They stood outside of the Sloan ladder. They were declasse, much like the Accord and Camry came to be. They exuded a much higher status than their price would imply. GM missed the boat when they didn’t come out with an H body Chevrolet in 1986. This could have been their Taurus/Accord/Camry. Deadly sin of omission.
I think you mean classless, not declasse
In 1974 I bought a triple black ’72 Caprice coupe with 25k miles. It had the 402/240 hp under the hood. The large “400” emblem on the front fender chrome body molding was the clue. Smaller “400” emblem on the front fenders ahead of the wheel well denoted the 2bbl. version.
Had a vinyl roof too. I ran dual exhaust separately back from the manifolds.
Kind of an oddly optioned car; had power locks but not windows, a/c & tilt wheel & Am/FM stereo but no 8-track. Also had the bright aluminum wire wheel wheel covers with the knurled center knob. But this was back in the day when you could still pick your options instead of being forced to buy a package to get something you wanted.
This was the car I made my stupid mistakes on. I thought it was cool to cut holes in the door panels for speakers after I put in a Pioneer cassette player & even worse I put a power antenna on the right rear fender. Head slap here!
With the all black & wire wheel covers sure had a nice classy look to it. This was my second car after owning a ’70 Caprice coupe that was Gobi beige, gold vinyl roof & gold brocade cloth interior. Wish that ’70 had the knit cloth & vinyl one. 400 small block.
I meant to say classless- yes- in the sense of occupying a space outside of the Sloan ladder. The Accord does not really rank with a Ford, yet they are- or were- similarly priced. The 55 Chevrolet was the template that the Japanese used to devastate Detroit. A Brooks Brothers suit at an affordable price. GM could have pulled this hat trick with a Brooks- like (not Cadillac- like) design for an H body Chevrolet in 1986.