(first posted 12/12/2013) While it may be expected that the rearmost windows in a coupe, SUV, or minivan won’t roll down, is it too much to ask for windows that roll down in a sedan? Apparently, because rear windows of all 4-door 1978-83 Chevrolet Malibus (and its A-/G-body siblings) were fixed. Microscopic vent windows were the only way rear passengers could get fresh air in an A-/G-body Malibu – much to the dismay of many tail-wagging dogs I imagine.
I have no official information from General Motors, but fixed rear windows were no doubt a cost-saving measure. Visually, no other design elements would interfere with the functionality of roll-down rear windows. And considering the relatively low amount of safety features by today’s standards on early-’80s American cars, I doubt this move was for safety reasons. That said, I can’t imagine eliminating window roll-down mechanisms saved that much money per vehicle, especially considering that the majority were sold without power windows in the first place.
So maybe it didn’t save GM many pennies per car, but it’s very possible that the decision to eliminate an inexpensive feature prompted buyers to purchase a much more expensive option – air conditioning. It was an evil trick to get customers to buy more, but no less a clever one, and automakers are still using similar packaging tactics today.
Malibus originally came in base and up-level Custom trims. However by the time ’83 rolled around, this Malibu’s final year, choice was reduced to just the base model with a number of available options. Judging from the interior, this one was pretty sparsely optioned. This flat, non-split cloth bench would appear to be the standard seat choice.
Here’s a lovely view of the rear seat confines; at least there’s plenty of glass to see out. I guess a lack of opening rear windows made the Malibu a good choice for police departments. Thankfully GM thought of its smoking patrons when it provided rear seat occupants with an ashtray. If not they’d have to sit with their arm over their shoulder to flick ashes from their cigarettes out those tiny vent windows.
The look of our featured car first appeared in 1978, replacing the Colonnade Malibus. In the process, they lost 8 inches in wheelbase and nearly a foot in overall length, as well as 4 inches of width, and depending on the model, as much as 1,000 lbs. The “Chevelle” prefix was also lost in the redesign.
Malibu sedans originally had a more steeply-raked roofline design. Thankfully, the Malibu wasn’t cursed with the nightmarish fastback roofline its Buick and Oldsmobile cousins were infected with. In 1981, the Malibu sedan did adopt these cars’ more upright notchback roofline, which first appeared one year earlier.
I much prefer the redesigned roofline. It provided a dose more of formality that was right in step with the onward and upward culture of the eighties. Equally welcomed updates in your author’s opinion, included 1982’s redesigned front clip with quad headlights and egg-crate grille. With these new styling features, the Malibu was starting to look like a mini Impala – certainly not a bad thing though.
It could just be because this one’s in white, but this car aches for a vinyl Landau roof. It just looks so plain. This is why out of all the flavors of the A-/G-body, my favorite is the Pontiac Bonneville. I think it’s styling elements best accentuated the simple three-box design.
Now I should probably address something I’ve eluded to several times earlier, that this generation Malibu was both an A-body and G-body. When it debuted as a 1978, it rode on the RWD A-body, as it had in the past. GM having to confuse things of course, decided to name its new FWD midsize platform “A-body”, requiring the former’s name change to “G” in 1982. Our ’83 Malibu here is thus a G-body.
As mentioned, 1983 was the last year for this generation Malibu. Chevrolet put the nameplate on hiatus until it graced another very plain car, the 1997 N-body Malibu. At least its rear windows rolled down.
It wasn’t just GM omitting the roll-down rear door window in that time period. Chrysler did not have a roll-down rear door window in the 1981 K Car either. The vent setup was similar to this Malibu. The roll-down windows appeared for the 1982 model year.
Did other automakers do something similar in that time period?
Whatever savings that could have been made in this very bad idea, was lost in having to create a vent window. There is a whole lot of stupid in that window design.
There was absolutely no benefit and there should have been. Something. If you really wanted to have fixed rear door windows, you could have made the rear doors look differently. What GM did here was design the sedan conventionally, then fool customers by what ended up being, a dishonest design. GM could have turned the fixed window rear doors into an asset by doing something unconventional, clever and interesting with it. What GM ended up doing looks like a dumbass mistake at a time when GM needed to look like it could produce terrific family vehicles.
Why bother with the vent window at all? A large fixed window without the vent pillar would have looked better and would have at least give occupants better visibility. Or, perhaps made it possible to crank a full-width rear door window low enough to get the same effect as the vent window GM put in!
The entire situation made GM look cheap and stupid. At a time when Detroit was making their models smaller, inflation driving sticker prices higher, and GM still reeling from selling Vegas that self-destructed during first year ownership, jacking with the traditional ability of opening the window in a rear door, should never had been considered. This window design forced customers into considering the importance of something that did not need to be considered, instead of moving the car out off the showroom floors.
GM never fixed this problem. Instead of making it possible to open the windows in these rear doors on their sedans and on their wagons, GM spent money redesigning the roof. Or the grille. Or giving the car two headlamps. O decorating the sides. Giving the car special paint treatments. Changing up the tail lights. Why bother to do these other things, yet leave such a dumbass window design as is?
GM never explained why. We don’t know why this stupid idea ever saw production even 30 years later. GM didn’t explain why every time you put someone into the back seat of these cars, they had to put up with the inability to do what every rear door could. It would be as though these cars came with rear seats made like vinyl bean bag chairs, with no damn explanation of options otherwise.
GM didn’t seem to be in the business of winning over customers. With designs like these, GM seemed interested only in putting their current GM owners into something new. These cars play defense against the competition, not try to win sales from GM competition. GM management seemed more interested in who was getting a three martini lunch and with whom, than looking outside the corporate walls.
But they sold tons and tons of these, I remember one being in almost every other driveway, my friends mom had a wagon and his grand father had the sedan, my cousins had the Cutlass Brougham sedan and you know what, most people didn’t give a crap about the rear windows rolling down or not.
My my Carmine
Always the GM apologist. What next dude? You going to say that GM went into bankruptcy not because they made a whole crap load of shit cars that they had to discount to move them off the lot then pay big bucks to have them fixed on warranty claims but that they went in to bankruptcy due to people willing to spend more on Toyota, Kia, Honda, Ford(they did not take a bailout or go bankrupt) and Hyundai vehicles. That GM is the victim of people abandoning it for cars that at least run without a breakdown while payments are still being paid?
Anyway to answer your question about why you saw many of those A/G body sedans/wagons out there back in the day is because they were cheap to buy and roomy and the person/person’s buying the car were not sitting in the back on a sweltering day when the AC craps out or is not cold enough. The days i spent riding in the back of that shit green 1980 Malibu with vinyl seats that my grandfather gave my dad when he bought a 1986 Buick PA, convinced me that no matter what I had to do in order to be able to afford a car with cloth seats, it was a small price to pay to not have to have to deal with a car with vinyl seats.
Oh and about why GM omitted the ability to roll the rear windows down, it had nothing to do with safety or even saving money. It was because some bonehead designed the car so that the rear doors closed flush against the rear wheel wells. That made the doors slightly curved and precluded any chance of putting the regulators and other assorted stuff in the door to roll the window down(even if they got rid of the vent window and made the window shorter lengthwise) there is simply no room in the door. Had they move the rear wheels back even as little as 5 inches the door could have been setup to allow rolling windows.
Your right, GM went bankrupt because of rear windows that don’t roll down, you nailed it, you are remarkably astute.
So they were cheap, roomy and they sold a bunch of them because the person driving it didn’t care that the rear windows rolled down, so essentially by typing that you proved that everything I posted was correct, thanks.
BTW, I never asked the question, I already knew what the answer was.
Also, GM went bankrupt, so what?, that was 5 years ago, so did Rolls-Royce, American Airlines, Delta, Donald Trump, Texaco, Six Flags, Pacific Gas and Electric, Marvel, why are we still using ANY discussion involving ANYTHING to do with GM or a GM product to bring that up.
Jeez, I’m sorry that I don’t share the “everything GM has done or will ever do sucks” mentality that some here seem to share, feel free to move on to the next post.
Another poster is correct about there not being room for the window to go down into the door. I have a 1982 Malibu classic that my family has owned since new and it’s never been an issue for me. I have ridden in this car as a child and as an adult. It amazes me how many people don’t realize just by looking at the door that the window glass won’t fit.
As to the larger fixed window without the vent pillar–that’s what they had from ’78 to ’80 (like the two-tone gold car in the article). There was an extra window *behind* the rear door windows that flipped out for ventilation. That got removed when they “formalized’ the rear roofline for ’81 to rationalize the car with the other formal-roofline sedans. I always liked the six-window look better myself.
“GM never fixed this problem. Instead of making it possible to open the windows in these rear doors on their sedans and on their wagons, GM spent money redesigning the roof. Or the grille. Or giving the car two headlamps. Or decorating the sides. Giving the car special paint treatments. Changing up the tail lights. Why bother to do these other things, yet leave such a dumbass window design as is?”
Because it’s dumbass GM doing it. Or not doing it. Or going bankrupt because of shit like that. Why do these hopelessly ignorant dumbasses still buy GM products? Have they spent too much time away from the planet and just missed the whole news story? Have they never heard of Honda? Have they just willingly stuck their heads up their asses? Do they feel sorry for GM because of their hopelessly SORRY cars? Are they just ‘buy murricun’ goobers? I think so.
Symptomatic of GM’s bean-counter arrogance and cynical contempt for its customers.
Cheap, ugly, the K-Mart of cars.
Yeah, and GM is the only company that count beans?
Many of the best cars that has ever been produced, has been produced from GM, in terms of long lasting reliability. Try to drive a Japanese car every day when it turns 30 years old. Or even worse, an Volkswagen or Audi.
What I find amazing is that no one thought of the safety issues with this beastie. No one I knew of as a kid rode in that spacious backseat with their seat belt on, but if they had, it would’ve been a lap belt nicely and cheaply designed to ram your head into the bench seat in front of you. End result of a T-bone or front end collision and car catches fire, you in the back seat are screwed if that door is locked or bashed shut.
I do remember during an ice storm in Maryland in the early ’80s, two kids drowned in the back seat when one of these plunged into the Rappahanock.
Well, the European cars didn’t even had lap-belts in the rear in the start of the eighties, and well, this heavy BOF american cars from this era is in fact some of the safest cars from the 80s.
“I have no official information from General Motors, but fixed rear windows were no doubt a cost-saving measure.”
Maybe, but I’ve also read that this was done to increase the width of the rear seat, as it allowed the doors to be thinner.
As it downsized the larger platforms in the late ’70s, GM made a big deal in its advertising about how certain interior dimensions and trunk capacity hadn’t changed all that much.
“Maybe, but I’ve also read that this was done to increase the width of the rear seat, as it allowed the doors to be thinner.”
I think that is a bullshit argument. (Not by you, by GM). It’s obviously an afterthought, and just a bad excuse for the unforgivable penny pinching.
What I wonder is how much money they saved with the fixed windows? How much does roll down windows cost? A hundred dollars? Fifty? Was it worth a hundred dollars worth of savings just to infuriate hundreds of thousands of customers? Thirty years after the fact, it’s still the one thing people keeps mentioning, and not in a good way. Was it worth all that?
I’m no fan of GM, but rather than an engineering afterthought I’ll bet the decision was made following innumerable focus group discussions.
“Which would you appreciate more, roll-down rear windows or greater hip and shoulder room?”
Notice a third choice – “both, since if the Japanese can do it so should GM be able to” – wasn’t offered, apparently.
Given the Rube Goldberg-esque mechanism that was used to open and close the vent panes on power window-equipped versions, you have to wonder how much money was saved.
I wonder if another reason for doing this was weight. CAFE was just starting to ramp up at this time, and this was about the time we started seeing odd ways of cutting a pound or two out of vehicles. For example, one particular Oldsmobile had an aluminum hood, but only if equipped with a certain combination of options. Apparently the few pounds that were saved would have thrown to car into a higher weight class, or something like that.
The other problem was that the rear wheel wells were really intruding into the back doors of these cars – they were a lot narrower than their predecessors, or even the late 60s – late 70s GM compacts. So you got to the point where even with quarter lights a la the K-cars, you couldn’t roll the rear windows down more than 1/2 way.
But I still think it was a dumb design move. My dad had a ’79 Malibu as a company car – replacing a ’76 B-body Fury Salon. Man was that Malibu cheap inside – and way under-powered. But compared to what Ford and Chrysler were offering at the time, they were a step ahead. Hard to remember, but true.
I’m not sure they saved any money at all. After all the vent window could be opened, and it could be power operated too. So I don’t think they saved that much. If they instead had “fixed” vent-windows and a roll-down (power or not) rear door window I don’t think the difference in costs would be that much.
Look at the interior picture above of the back door. The arm rest is indented in the door panel, allowing more rear seat width, but preventing a functional rear window. Prior to this, almost all GM rear seat arm rests stuck out from the panel. I remember reading about the cars when new, and GM stated that the reason for this was more hip/elbow room.
Doesn’t hurt that it was lighter weight and less-expensive.
Thank you for pointing that out. I’ve seen various guesses at the reasoning for this odd feature, but that image of the indented armrest as compared to the one in the front finally made me understand the width issue. That has to be the explanation.
As a kid looking at the brochures, I thought the vent window was such a cool thing, until we sat in the car at the dealer and I realized that was ALL you got! Then I thought it was the stupidest idea ever. It was even worse in the earlier models, where the vent was not in the door but back in line with the parcel shelf. All that did was give some minor air to the parcels. Humans in the back seat be damned!
I’ve owned 5 wagons and 1 4-door G bodys and as long as the car was moving with the vent windows open and the fan on med. it was very comfortable. None of my friends that rode there 3 wide from Wisconsin to Tennessee complained until we got in city traffic and the fan couldn’t move air fast enough.
The reason for the windows not rolling down, was to increase hip room numbers. The armrests edge was flush with the door surface, and there was the “indent” to allow the elbow to rest on top. Doing this don’t have the armrest protrude into the interior and reduce the hip room numbers. The doors weren’t thinner, but the indent didn’t allow room for a window mechanism.
These cars were much more narrow in the interiors than the old Colonnade’s, and this was the best idea GM could come up with to keep the hip room comparable to the old Colonnades. Was it a good idea, probably not in hindsight, but they still sold anyway. My brother had a Cutlass Sedan from this vintage and I don’t remember any complaints from rear seat passengers.
Truly horrifying… I remember being trapped in the back seat of one of these cars frequently when I was a kid. No opening window, and no air conditioning. It belonged to one of my parent’s friends. Thankfully, she now has a 1st gen Lexus IS… Complete with opening rear windows!
Another new thing learned on CC,I might be wrong on this but I don’t remember any British or European 4 door sedans having fixed rear windows.I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong
In the early to mid fifties, some small British cars had fixed rear door windows, to save costs. My aunt’s ’56 Austin A30 springs immediately to mind. It too had opening vent windows in the rear, which I thought was fun. And even the front windows had no winder, but just slid up and down by a finger grip at the top. Always thought that was a recipe for car theft.
The Standard Eight was another. As first released, they had sliding windows and no external access to the trunk either – cost-cutting with a vengeance.
My folks bought a base 1980 Malibu sedan, in dark olive green, and mainly used it for my dad’s commute to work. Not a stitch of chrome on that car, and no air conditioning. You could live without both in modest Rochester, N.Y.
One hot summer while dad was traveling, mom used the Malibu to take us kids on a seven-hour drive to Michigan to see family. If my mom’s cursing on the crowded QEW wasn’t enough to make this a miserable trip, sitting on those sticky vinyl seats with no a.c. and rear windows that wouldn’t lower, was. Talk about a sweatbox.
It was the last time she drove that car, and that last time my cheapskate dad ordered a car without air conditioning.
I like the original sedan design better, but give me the coupe over either any day. I’d love to find an original example; it’s on my short list of cars to photograph for CC.
Casting rear window complaints aside, these are very pleasant and easy cars to drive, even with the V6. They are a perfect size and have a very smooth ride. While the styling of these Malibus don’t thrill me, I do find them somewhat attractive in that squarish 80’s style. The front end of this model reminds me a lot of the ’77-’79 Impala front end.
This particular car looks like it’s a low mileage example. The condition of the front seat is very good. Like those funky wheelcovers. Sure beats the aluminum generica wheel choices offered today.
Absolutely; these were the Camry/Accord/Altima of their day. And perhaps not by coincidence, these are within an inch or so of these modern-day counterparts in most dimensions. But let’s not talk about weight. 🙂
Paul once noted that this seems to be a popular size for U.S. sedans, and buyers always seem to gravitate back to these dimensions after flirtations with larger and smaller vehicles.
ITA about the size, driving, and smooth ride. A good friend ordered a new 78 Grand Am with the V8. Perfect size, good interior room, quiet, and comfortable ride. I believe that he ordered the car with power rear vent windows but the factory failed to install them. Hence, the A/C had to be used whenever there were rear passengers. At least two other friends had the Grand Am and Cutlass sedan versions of these cars that included the power rear vent windows – these helped alleviate the problem of non-opening rear door glass.
Another unusual feature of this platform was its full-frame construction; by this point, most automakers had abandoned this method for vehicles of this size. In fact, at the time these were introduced, even GM was using a unit-body with a front subframe for the X-platform, which had a three-inch longer wheelbase, and the Seville, with a wheelbase over six inches longer!
The only reason I can imagine for doing this was to achieve superior isolation of the cabin from road noise and vibrations, which preserved some of the “big car ride” that was valued by buyers of the time.
My sister owned a 79-ish 2-door V6 Malibu, and it drove a lot like a B-body. Very nice and comfortable on the open road. Unfortunately you didn’t gain any economy for the tradeoff in size and power.
BOF is cheap and nasty thats why GM used that method
It was also tried and true and offered nice ride quality. It’s all in what your goal is.
Well, BOF may be cheap, but if it’s so cheap, why don’t they build more cars with the BOF-setup today?
A BOF construction gives a very comfortable, quiet and isolated ride. A unibody can’t compete here. But a BOF car will be a little bit heavier, therefore it will use some more fuel, and it needs some more power.
A unibody FWD construction with McPherson in the front is a cheap and relatively easy construction, and it’s why mostly all of todays cars have this construction.
I think it made the rear elbow-room look better.
Interesting account about the first-gen Malibus of this type:
After we were married in 1977, we decided to look into the purchase of a new vehicle with a family in view down the road, and her 1970 Mustang convertible, while a keeper for the present, my newly-purchased 1976 Gremlin, wasn’t.
One evening in December we drove to a local Chevy dealer and checked out a 1978 Malibu sedan. We drove it. The salesman was with us, and when I let Wifey drive the car, I sat in back…
THE HORROR! I asked where the window switch was. He said there wasn’t any. WHAT? You’ve got to be kidding me! Just the C pillar flip-out vent!
We returned to the dealer. No sale!
Frustrated, we checked out a Nova sedan. Later, back at our apartment, after a short discussion concerning the cost of a car vs. our future plans, I asked Wifey: “What is more important, a new car or saving for the 10% down on a house?”
Easy answer: A house. Car shopping over!
Thanks to that Malibu sedan test drive, that was the beginning of my 1977 – 2004 “hate” for GM and Chevrolet! Thanks a lot, GM, look what you have wrought.
Now you know the rest of the story…
So is the moral of the story is that you’re eternally thankful to GM for these fixed rear windows, because they caused you to do the fiscally responsible thing and instead invest in a (usually) non-depreciating asset? 🙂
(silver lining, Zackman, silver lining…)
The good thing was that that house would have been paid off just before the housing bust in 2007. Again, silver linings.
Was that a Paul Harvey homage at the end, Zackman?
“Was that a Paul Harvey homage at the end…?”
Yes. I thought that was appropriate, as most on here are aware of my window “issues”!
Silver lining, indeed! One of the wiser decisions I’ve – we’ve made. Doubled our money on the house, FWIW, when we moved to Ohio in 1992, and no car payments for 17 years.
…..and the rear door-window could be larger…
All Popular Science magazines are now available to read in full and free on google books and i was reading alot of their car reviews from the mid 50’s to early 80s and the reasoning acording to them for the lack of rear opening windows was to maximize rear room by making the door panels as thin as possible. How they were not crucified in the automotive media for doing something like that amazes me, that energy crisis and the general mood of the country must’ve made people go a little cookoo back then.
Perhaps they didn’t get much bad press for this because most magazine road tests are conducted with only a driver, or at most one additional passenger. If no one is riding in the back seat then non-opening windows, lack of leg room, etc. is not much of an issue. This is something that would likely get mentioned in the test but it wouldn’t be a deciding factor. I have owned several cars with non-opening rear windows and this has never been a concern to me. Of course I don’t typically have people riding in the back seat so for me it’s a non-issue anyway.
I suspect that the other reason that the auto-press left GM alone on the window issue was that the whole rest of the car was such a breath of fresh air in the segment. For many, the lack of a roll-down window in the rear was a small price to pay for avoiding an LTDII or a Plymouth “small” Fury.
I don’t really mind those fixed windows. By that era, the ventilation system in a non-a/c car was so awful anyhow that only the northernmost cheapskates were doing without. Ford did the same thing on my 93 Crown Victoria, at least indirectly. Once the shitty window regulators broke, I fixed them by driving a screw into the window track to keep it closed and called it good. Who needs to roll down rear windows in an air conditioned car?
To show you just how little I paid attention to these, today is the first time I have ever noticed the two separate sedan roof treatments. Yikes. I like the newer one better.
That’s funny about your Crown Vic. A co-worker and good friend owns a similar vintage Grand Marquis, and the front passenger window won’t stay up all the way. I should mention your fix technique to her.
I have paid to have the drivers window regulator replaced twice and the front passenger side replaced once. I have been willing to preserve at least some functional windows, but I am simply not paying that kind of money to fix the back ones. When the a/c goes, the car may too. I know that I could do the regulator job myself, but a) I don’t have a rivit gun and b) I have enough other frustrating projects around my house and garage that I am happy to sub this one out to someone else.
I wouldn’t mind having one of these with a 305. How well did they handle? Were they as good as the Caprice?
Could that have been a ploy to sell more coupes? Wasn’t the profit margin better on them since GM didn’t have to supply the door handles, locking mechanisms, more pieces of glass, hinges, weatherstripping, more interior trim panels and so on?
I remember my father’s ’78 Monte Carlo didn’t have crankable mini-windows in the back. It was a sweatbox even with A/C on because of the vinyl rear seat and the high buckets and headrests blocking airflow to the back from the outlets, I’d imagine benches were better in that regard.
The thinking back then was coupes were better when you had kids because those tiny grasping hands couldn’t open a non-existent rear door and tumble out at 55 mph. Any truth to this urban legend? Did that actually ever happen?
I remember reading or hearing somewhere that the non opening rear windows were a “safety feature” to prevent kids from tossing things or themselves out the window.
The only time I’ve heard of a kid falling out of the back seat of a car was when my sisters boy fell out. Only it was a two door ’65 Lincoln coupe with large doors that went behind the front seat and he was about 2 yrs old leaning against the corner of the door which was ajar. When my sister opened the door to shut it he tumbled out of the car. luckily they were going slowly up to a stop sign so he got away with scrapes and bruises. So much for the safety of two doors. This was before “strap your kid in” laws but my sister made sure all her kids were belted in from then on.
My college roommate tumbled out of the rear side doors of a VW Microbus when his mother turned a corner one day. He was probably 5 or so. Back then, nobody had power locks and nobody wore seatbelts. Give a curious little kid a handle to yank on in an otherwise boring backseat, and sometimes you would end up with an open door at the wrong time. An awful lot of people with little kids had 2 door cars for this reason back then.
Had both a G/A-body Cutlass Supreme sedan (LOADED) and an A-body Celebrity with little options above a console, AC, and mid level stereo.
I still swear the A-body had a better laid out interior with more rear seat leg room and hip room, likely partially a benefit of being FWD. I was not a small child either, I was 5’10” by middle school and got to ride in both as Dad’s passenger and as the driver after I got my license.
Give me an improved V6 A-body over the G-body any day.
You’ve made me think of what may be another GM Deadly Sin. Lack of Confidence in New Models. The FWD A body was among the first where the car it was to replace did not go away. The Cutlass G sedan persisted through 1987. I recall various collisions between X, A, G, B, C, W and N cars depending on the division. They ended up with big rwd cars persisting in the low price divisions while the mid price lines went wanting.
Think about it, the B-body may have stood for Balls forward. In the fall of ’76, there was no turning back, and GM promoted the new cars as the next best thing – and they seemed to actually mean it – and the public took to them.
Write a different history: The FWD A’s replace all the RWD A’s, except for maybe what became the G special coupes. GM’s CAFE numbers go up as needed, and the B and C RWD cars remain unmolested, offering a better selection of traditional engines that would keep them competitive as tow cars, big family cars and luxury cars.
In fairness, it wasn’t (and isn’t) uncommon for some older models to stick around for a while after their nominative successor appears, usually either to spread out the tooling investment or because the older version is still selling well in certain markets, but occasionally just because somebody influential likes the old one. The aforementioned Toyota Crown was one example: The car pictured the other day was a newer Crown Royal four-door hardtop, but the previous-generation Crown sedan soldiered on, mainly for fleet duty, for a good five or six years more.
All of what you say is true. But, it comes at the risk of muddying your marketing and product image. GM eventually turned Oldsmobile into the Cutlass division with way too much product that individually could no longer claim bestseller status. The proliferation of models that showed little change made the line-up seem older. Chevy was eventually selling tarted up Caprice LS Broughams as an apology to Delta 88 and LeSabre buyers, and they were frequently pushing them out the door with better engines than you could find in a rear drive Cadillac. Very confusing product line up that seemed to me to lack the courage of convictions.
Ate Up With Motor:
Case in point: GM ran TWO full-size platforms
after 1977 – B & C-body. The Cs were more, ahh,
exclussssive, yeass. The C-platform was just
inches longer and a hair wider and taller than the
B’s. They probably had just a few more features
standard on them than did the B’s. Only Olds, Buick,
and Cadillac shared the C-platforms, and of those,
only Buick and Oldsmobile produced a wagon
counterpart for their Cs.
Guess what, that wagon was the EXACT SAME
B-body wagon that was counterpart to all GM
B-bodies except Cadillac – which I think ran only
C’s for all it’s full-sized choices! Look up the
external dimensions. I always did wonder
how GM pulled off being able to differentiate the
wagon say, for a Delta 88 from the one for the 98
Regency of those years, or between a LeSabre
and Electra wagon over at Flint.
I feel that this just over-complicated GM’s lineup
unnecessarily, leading to top-heavy bloat that
would affect the firm decades later(2008-2010).
My friend up the street drove me to high school in one of these, probably an ’81, in Classic trim and dark metallic blue. It was sort of handsome.
The ’78 car seems a bit sleeker, it’s a shame that GM felt they needed the cost cutting to go to one roof for four divisions. These were decent sellers, keeping them more distinctive might have been a better move.
That fixed rear window also led to the odd rear door panel with the deep inset arm rest. I’m sure the message was “look, we made it roomier by having a fixed window.” But, the armrest was useless unless you sat oddly forward in the seat.
1983 Was the last year for the G-Body Malibu sedan and all G-body wagons. Buick continued the Regal sedan until 84. Pontiac dropped the Bonneville G in 86. The last holdout was the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme which continued to sell well until it discontinued in 87. It was popular with the AARP crowd. A big chunk of these cars were sold with the Buick 3.8 liter V6.
My father purchased a 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham with 307V8 power everything and plush pillow-y velour interior. He did so on the used market when he was right in the neighborhood of 40 years old. Although the original owner was certainly a member of the AARP crowd.
Proving that the roll down rear windows really don’t matter as much as some here are making it out to be.
Except that the AARP crowd cranks the AC on at the hint of warm weather, drives their cars sparingly and on short trips or use them as a as a spare or second car.
If the car is not cold enough or the AC breaks, they fork over money like there is no tomorrow to get it fixed.
I have a 1985 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham sedan in my driveway and had a 1987 version also. They are plush
It’s OK but the LeMans/Grand Am couple was the best of that generation of A bodies. And people are making a big deal out of the windows, I don’t recall much outcry at the time. After all, millions of families were carrying around kids in personal luxury coupes at the time, without roll down rear windows.
Good point. Plus, only a few years earlier, it was common for rear windows in 2-doors to roll down. I’m sure many just thought the trend of non-opening rear windows was just a natural succession.
Tangentially, my GF had an ’06 Malibu when we met. Both rear window regulators failed by ’09. Not repairable; replace-only, and the cheapies from Rock Auto were $180 per side. There are vice-grips inside each rear door now, keeping the windows up.
Would have been better off with windows that didn’t open in the first place.
Good grief!
This is where Ebay is your friend! I had a regulator go bad on my Alero right after I bought it. I purchased one that was brand new for around $40, with free shipping! I had never done this kind of repair but I had it done in less than an hour. It works perfectly.
Never pay full price for these things!!!
“…millions of families were carrying around kids in personal luxury coupes at the time, without roll down rear windows.”
True, 2 doors were King of the market, and wasn’t until the mid 80’s that import influences put 4 doors in the lead. Then it was required to have all 4 windows roll.
GM’s goof got swept under the rug since Oil Crisis 2 and recession was on everyone’s mind. #1 goal was more MPG, and GM pushed this as ‘saving weight’.
But, also, these cars sold and buyers didn’t seem to care, they just cranked the A/C when it ot hot.
Well I guess this would have made the half way roll down rear windows in my dad’s ’80 Delta 88 Royale seem much more bearable. Even when I was a kid those things used to drive me nuts. If I ever see one of this eras Malibu it’s always a coupe and always a hot rod. Most people don’t hop up 4 doors so I’m surprised to see one of these cars left, although it’s probably a daily driver.
I’m not even sure this car and the Fox-body Fairmont/LTD (by ‘83 I think they had switched to the LTD, not to be confused with the Panther LTD Crown Victoria) were really competitors. Yes they were both mid size but the Fox-body was defiantly narrower. These A/G bodies were much wider and probably roomier cars. I’ve only sat in G-body Cutlasses and Regals and they really aren’t much bigger than my Fox-body Thunderbird or Mark VII. The GM cars were definitely wider.
I’m surprised all you see are 2-doors. I generally only see 4-door Malibus left; can’t remember the last time I saw a 2-door.
I used my ’82 as a daily driver from ’02 to ’04, and my ’79 from ’96 to ’00.
A friend’s GF had a ’79 Pontiac version of this car. I don’t recall it even having opening vent windows in the rear doors. Anyhow, hers also had dark tint installed in the back by a previous owner.
One time we took a trip across the Canada-US border and I was riding in the back seat. Things got very interesting when the border guard ordered us to roll down the rear windows because he couldn’t see inside.
Reminds me of Caddyshack and the Rolls Royce convertible that was RHD.
“TYE! YOU PUT THAT STEERING WHEEL BACK ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE CAR THIS INSTANT!” – Judge Smails
My high school biology teacher was so claustrophobic, he couldn’t ride in a car unless the windows were rolled all the way down. Students who accompanied him on field trips quickly learned to hate him. Driving on the freeway at 60 mph in cold weather with all windows down is not fun. I don’t think he would have lasted very long in the back of this Chevy. He only lasted one year as a teacher!
For the Malibu sedan rooffine, I prefer the 1978-80 ones. I wonder how they might looked if Chevrolet had kept the 1978 sedan roofline and using the quad headlights of the 1982-83 models?
Time for a flashback with the Iraqi Malibu taxicab https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/automotive-history-snapshot-1981-chevrolet-malibu-iraqi-taxi/
Speaking of the Iraqi Malibu, I saw several Malibus in Baghdad several years ago, although I can find only one photo of them. Here it is:
Second try at posting the photo.
I prefer the ’78 to ’80 cars in all regards. I do realize that the styling needed a bit of freshening by ’81, but the ’82 grille looks way too much like the Caprice. No originality there!
These cars always come to mind whenever I run across a Dodge/ Plymouth Neon with power front windows / hand crank rear windows. Cost savings do strange things sometimes. I thought these were a decent looking car but the rear window thing was a deal breaker every time for me.
Hi Brendan,
Interesting spot. Sounds a cheapstake manufacturer to me.
Interestingly, the VW Up! and its Skoda and SEAT cousins, the Peugeot 107/Citroen C1/Toyota Aygo and the Nissan Pixo sold in Europe do not have wind down windows in the rear doors, but the pop out style once familiar on 2 door coupes.
AS again the doors are to thin to accommodate the window regulator.
I drive a 07 Aygo which has the gas mileage of a Honda Dream (C90).
Brendan, this is a very good write-up on a car that I haven’t really appreciated until the last few years. With your living in Massachusetts (where I presume you found it), this is quite the find as the tin worm hasn’t been kind to these.
As others have said, this car hit a sweet-spot in many ways.
Great find.
Thanks Jason. Yeah I actually drive by this car on a daily basis. I’ve been wanting to photograph it and write about it for some time, now I’ve finally got around to it.
Just a few mile away there’s also a ’78-’80 model with the original roofline parked in a half-circle driveway (very befitting for the era of car). Besides these two, I haven’t seen any of these Malibu sedans on the road in who knows how long.
They are getting rare – there is a pretty basic sedan that’s usually parked down the street from the state capital building and this one:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/outtake-follow-up-1980-chevrolet-yenko-malibu-oh-the-plot-thickens/
Any others are rodded and at car shows. There is still the stray Oldsmobile or Pontiac version floating around here; the fwd GM A-bodies are the prevalent survivor around here.
Dad had one like that. Dark blue. GM still put the badges in the rear fender until its demise in 83. Hubcaps in Venezuela were the polished dog dish style for the regular car. Malibu Classic got the hubcaps as the car in the ad.
I remember when we (dad, mom, sister and me) went to pick it up to the dealer.
Ours had vinyl seats, which were promptly reupholstered in (mush fresher) cloth.
These cars drive beautiful, specially on the freeway, but the V6s were badly underpowered.
Unless the badging was placed differently on Venezuelan market vehicles, the rear fender badges only lasted until ’82. For one year only, ’83 like this car, the script Malibu emblems changed to a blocky early 80’s font (see the badge pictured for reference) and moved from the rear fender to the front fender, just ahead of the doors.
Curbside Claustrophobic?
These were all right, but I liked the G-body Bonneville Brougham, Cutlass Supreme Brougham and Regal Limited better. That reminds me, I shot an ’82-’84 Regal Limited sedan in Freeport two summers ago. Man, I’ve forgotten half the cars I’ve shot!
’86 CSB CC here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1986-oldsmobile-cutlass-supreme-brougham-sedan-why-brougham-when-you-can-supreme-brougham/
So what is the rarest four-door G-body? If I had to guess I’d say the Regal Estate Wagon. It was only made from 1982-83 as I recall.
I forgot there was a G Bonneville wagon too! This one looks great with the woodgrain and Rally Wheels. In fact, the Bonneville wagon might be my favorite four-door G-body. Make mine black cherry with burgundy interior, please.
Great find. These cars were once everywhere but are not often seen these days, yet some survive in surprisingly good condition as daily drivers, making them prime CC material. I have accumulated photos of them on and off, but they have always been distant views not worth writing up.
The exception was when I found a white early two-headlight model year car with a “For Sale” sign, in better condition than your find, by the side of the road about a year ago. I was sorely tempted to call the owner, but I was in one of my Banjul Challenge wagon search phases and figured that I should not bother the owner with what would end up being a tire-kicking call and meeting. I took many photos of the car but lost them at some point.
One of these would make a great beater, assuming that all systems were working well. Just-right size, cheapest maintenance and repairs imaginable, metal bumpers for urban use. When I return from Gambia, I should get one of these!
Now I’m starting to look for one….
http://columbiamo.craigslist.org/cto/4183799539.html
Better hurry, before someone peels off all that original trim and turns it into another stupid hot rod.
There is a 78-81 Malibu wagon in beige that I have regularly seen in my town for years. It has no hubcaps, mismatched tires (whitewalls in the back, blackwalls in the front), a good amount of rust, a mashed up front end, a broken grille, a loose muffler, a bad suspension, and never gets washed. But it won’t stop running!
My grandparents bought a burgundy 79 4 door classic and it was the window option that prompted them to get rid of it 6 years later. That Malibu did some traveling though, from NoVa to Florida and to Tennessee and Pennsylvania on a regular basis. It had some silly issues, like the soda can my grandfather found jammed into the seatbelt mechanism and a flat spot on acceleration (both fixed gratis, as you’d hope).
It was sold to family friends – who then gave it back to the family, tattered and torn, 8 years later. Then it was mine. I was given the keys in 1996 and drove it until the transmission wouldn’t shift into reverse.
Get this: I sat the Malibu outside with a For Sale sign and it was gone for my ambitious asking price an hour later.
I have a mostly irrational disdain for these cars. It’s not that there’s anything particularly wrong with them, and I eventually conceded that the G-body coupes are not bad-looking if you like that sort of thing. However, my knee-jerk response is still that the A-/G-bodies (especially the sedans) of this era had lost most of their predecessors’ vintage charm without a corresponding gain in modern virtue. The downsized B-bodies they followed DID seem like a step forward — these, not so much.
The interior is immaculate on the featured photo car, can’t have too many miles, I find myself liking the simple plain purity of the sea-o-blue interior in this Malibu. Looks like she’s been sitting around a while judging from the mold that’s covering the side.
Here is one of the daily driver curbside Malibus that I have seen, this one an early original roofline car:
Nice photo, it looks like it could have been taken in Fall ’77 when they debuted.
Love it! That one’s a 79, they used different taillight designs every year until ’81. A near-twin to my ’79, except lighter blue and the “classic” trim level. And that one is in a lot better shape! Mine:
What is also interesting is the X body cars’ rear windows rolled down, introduced 2 model years later.
I remember these. No power v 6 engine and the horrid windows that don’t go down I the back. Truly awful cars. I used a Buick regal as a cab and it was hated by all. Only good thing about it is the. Steeply angled rear seat made customers loose all their change.
I remember reading the fixed rear window allowed for more elbow room, but looking at the pics, the extra space is too far forward. Also I remember that they had a power rear vent option on some top of the line models, which most reviewers regarded as silly.
My parents purchased a 1981 Malibu Wagon on trip to see my grandparents after our 77 Mercury Monarch blew oil seals. Blue on blue stripper with a/c and vinyl seats. I remember opening those little vent windows on the highway only have it sucked away in the breeze. Dad quickly pulled over and retrieved it damage free. Inserted the glass frame and I never tried to open that thing again!
I’m glad to hear that I was not the only one to have a vent window fall out like with my Grandpa’s 1983 Malibu. Hopefully, you didn’t get blamed for it as I did!
Vastly inferior to the majestic ltd 11 or the cougar available from ford until 79.
Don’t forget the 1977-79 T-Bird. My grandmother had one brand new. Black with white interior and red carpet/dash. I really wanted it for my first car but she sold it in ’91.
My grandparents had a ’79 Malibu wagon when I was a kid. I mostly rode up front in the center of the front bench, but there were times when I would get into a fight with my sister over who got to sit up front and we’d both have to ride in back. The non-opening windows sucked, especially after the a/c stopped working. I remember having my face against the vent window on a hot day hoping for a small breeze of fresh air from the 1/2″ or so that the vent actually opened. My parents also had a 1980 Cutlass sedan with an identical setup for a period as well. As someone else mentioned, I always heard that the reason the back windows didn’t open on these was to allow for a roomier back seat more comparable to the larger 73-77 models. It had nothing to do with cost savings. For the extra inch or so of width, it was not worth it, and a terrible design compromise. Then again, I always hated that the rear windows in my parents Pontiac 6000 and Buick Century only opened half way.
I’m guessing Carmine wasn’t a kid back then and didn’t have to ride in the back seat of one of these things. I remember the “greenhouse effect” in the back of our family’s Pontiac Le Mans and my relief when it got wrecked and my dad replaced it with a Buick Regal coupe. (Back windows didn’t open either but at least we had some shade!)
the rear doors on these cars have room for window regulators.i have one i have had for 30 yrs with over 500,000 miles on it now.the back widow design sucked but it is a great dependable car.gm could have done with these g body cars as they did with the caprice/impala cars .on them the rear window only rolled down half way because of the same design limitations or mistake which ever side of the fence you are on.mine has ice cold air and when you didnt want ac you could open the rear window vents and roll down the front windows and get a good breeze. the rear vents on the manual ones open 90 degrees and move a lot of air.
I’m sure I’m one of the biggest proponents of these cars to post here, and even I’ll admit that the fixed rear glass was not a good idea. It did increase rear seat room due to the concave door panels with the inset armrests, but still not really a good idea! But, I spent 10 years of my life as a regular back seat passenger in a ’79 Malibu, and as my parents kept the A/C in working order and used it regularly, you know what? It was a pleasant place to spend time. So maybe it was a plot to sell A/C equipped cars as well as the rear seat hip room thing. Who knows. Once you get beyond that, though (and the interior plastics that age and fade at different rates, then eventually disintegrate) these were great cars in my opinion. Straightforward, rugged, reliable, decent quality (consider the alternatives in the late 70’s and early 80’s…). Nope, not fast with the malaise-era strangled engines. But they do a lot of things well and look good doing them.
I’ve had two, one a ’79. Bought new by my grandfather, passed to my mom, then to me. Hasn’t run in years but I still have it and plan to restore it someday. (Look for a COAL at some point.) Photo is in a reply above. Second was an ’82, which I bought as cheap transportation for $800 in 2002. Carried me around for two years with few problems. Looked like a black version of the featured car, with the same blue interior. The ’82:
Who opens the back windows anyway? Another triumph for-and from the GM bean counters.
Do anybody know where I can get and quarter glass for the passenger side of a 81 Chevy Malibu or have one for sale
I have an 83 Malibu 9C1 police package car. They were purchased and used by the PA state police, as well as a few other police depts. The fact that the rear windows could not be cranked down was to a police car’s benefit actually. Police package cars came with inoperable rear windows most of the time so these suited well for police cruisers.
Wasn’t Barney Fife driving one of these on the 1986 “Return to Mayberry film?
Great article about a serious design mistake. Here’s something to consider for those who wondered why GM kept the A/G bodies around when the FWD A-body were introduced. Notice that in 1981-1982, GM facelifted the front ends of the RWD A/G sedans and wagons to look more like the big B-body cars. Was this a contingency plan for another fuel crisis? If that happened, would GM drop the fullsize B cars and make the intermediates the “new generation” RWD biggies? I have no evidence that this was so but it seems logical. Brendan already pictured the facelifted Chevy and Pontiac. Here’s the 1981 Cutlass…
…and here’s the 1982 Regal.
I know the wagon went away immediately once the FWD A wagons had their belated (’84 MY) launch because the older one’s lack of a third row and smaller cubic volume made it a tough sell as “full-size” compared to the new ones.
Good point, but by ’83-’84, the fear of another fuel crisis had receded and GM allowed the A/G sedans and wagons to slowly fade away in favor of the FWD cars while keeping the big B cars in production. Pontiac even realized the mistake they made in dropping the B cars after 1981 by bringing back the big Pontiac as the mid-’83 Parisienne (basically a Caprice clone).
This was indeed the plan, at least at Chevrolet. From Popular Science, Sept. ’81.
The official phaseout occured in late 1996 – GM pulled the plug on the GM300 (B body) platform but the Popular Science article was published after the 1979 oil crisis – it was feared that the B body was on the chopping block right after Chrysler Corporation phased out its R platform a few months earlier (Ford was next in line 2 phase out the Panther platform around the mid-80s but both FoMoCo and GM rebounded (the remaining RWDs received some upgrades eg overdrive gears and EFI (GM came out late with EFI) while former station wagon owners ended up transitioning to minivans and modern day SUVs – the latter of which resulted in GM phasing out its B bodies and FoMoCo (in 2011) doing the same; at the time a B body Caprice or Impala was more of a fleet vehicle esp with law enforcement and taxicab livery use…
I must say I like the original grille and roofline better. It’s one of those Chevys that looks classier and costlier than the equivalent Buick, that comes up every 20 years or so. They also had the single large rear door window – the original sedans did across all divisions, using the rear quarter window as a vent. The formal roof’s four-window configuration required using the door-mounted window vents originally designed for the wagons.
I think using the formal roof on Chevy and Pontiac sedans starting in ’81 was a snap decision to amortize the development costs with the fwd A-bodies just around the corner. The assumption in 1980 probably still was that these would go away on schedule and be fully replaced by the FWD As; surely nobody imagined Oldsmobile would still be offering a G-body sedan as late as 1987, unchanged from the ’81 except for the third brake light.
Here in Hot, Humid and perpetually damp New Orleans, LA, USA we depend more on factory air conditioning for cooling and dehumidifying of interior cabin air that windows.
Roll down back windows have been a minor consideration of mine since the late 1970’s.
My parents bought one of these; I’d already moved away from home by that time so I only rode in it a few times. It was a decent enough car; nice looking and nice to drive but overall unimpressive and generic. It was a pretty light blue color with a matching blue interior, including cloth seats. The interior was spoiled for me, though by the “Rubbermaid” dashboard and cheap looking gauges. The un-opening rear windows also came across as cheap, and my parents both defensively said (unprompted) that the salesman hadn’t mentioned it, and that it never occurred to ask as who’d ever imagined rear windows -wouldn’t- open? My father lost faith in it soon after purchase when he discovered that it wouldn’t track properly on the highway, and the dealer (finally) figured out that rear axle wasn’t installed straight – the left rear wheel was ‘ahead’ of the right. My mother, who usually drove the car, liked it well enough until her purse was stolen from the car by someone who apparently “slim-jimmed” the locks. Somehow this bothered her enough that the car had to go.
It was replaced by a V6 Camry which seemed like a luxury car with its sunroof, power everything, and CD changer. After that followed a string of Avalons with the notable exception of a little Tercel(?) 4WD wagon for my mom who was a nurse in snow country. She loved that car, and they had to pry the keys from her hands, crying, when it rusted away to point where even my Dad’s buddy refused to pass it anymore for safety inspection and it had to be towed to the boneyard.
G-bodies of this vintage are getting pretty thin on the ground here in New England, but a few months ago I found a daily driver Pontiac Le Mans in suburban Boston. I chatted with the owner and I remember he said it was a 1979, but I might be off by a year.
I think this Pontiac was the best looking of the 4-doors, with its light, airy greenhouse. In correcting their mistake with the hunchback Buick and Oldsmobile, GM overdid it by putting the “sheer look” formal roof line on all the 4-doors. They also messed up an important detail: the shape of the vent pane has never looked right and should been narrower at the top than the bottom. I can’t think of any engineering reason why they could not have done it the correct way. This always catches my eye.
For the “formal” roof, GM used the rear doors of the 1978 A wagons without any real changes. It was something of a panic move after the sales failure of the aero sedans.
We could wonder what if Chevrolet and Pontiac also had made aero sedans for the Malibu and the LeMans? Would that disaster could had been as big as the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth “plucked chicken”?
Read, you’ve hit the nail on the head with this: I’ve always thought too that the rear part of the roof area on these is just a bit too formal and too upright, and the shape of the ventpane is indeed a big part of the problem. It all just looks a little dorky, especially from the rear quarter view. It’s a shame because here in Canada, I’ve been tempted in the past to pick up one of the “Iraqi Taxi” Malibus that still come up for sale here every once in a while—these are 1981 Malibus that were special-ordered by the government of Iraq, with some very unique features like heavy duty cooling systems and (best of all) 3-speed floor shift manual transmissions. But the deal with Iraq fell through for some reason, so GM Canada dumped them on the market here instead, at greatly reduced prices—and every skinflint in the country immediately made his or her way down to their local Chevy dealer to snap one up. It would be such a fun car to own and drive today—but I’ve never been able to get past that awkward roofline design.
I’ve always wondered if someone was able to use doors from a 75-79 Seville on an A/G body with the formal roof. They appear to share the same rear half as the Cadillac. [All visual I’m sure. GM would never dilute Cadillac’s image like that.sarc/]
Easy to confuse a Cutlass or Regal with one when it’s tarted up with vinyl, bright work and fancy wheels.
Helluva an effort just to get roll down rear windows on a 1981 Malibu, I’d thin.
I’ve drive 2 doors with fixed rear windows, no problem, though it bugs me. A four door with the same produces much anxiety. Having one would always irritate.
Don’t try to analyze it, it’s irrational and makes no sense.
Of course I’d trade that for the visibility of a 78 Malibu any day over currently available sedans, if given a choice.
No. No I wouldn’t. The idea suffocates me. Shouldn’t be an either/or choice in the first place.
The rear window on GM’s 1964-1965 A Body midsize 4doors did not have rear vent windows like Mopars and Fords. The rear window on these GMs didn’t roll down all the way, leaving about 4”-5” of window due to design, it was probably sold as a safety idea too. The ‘66-‘67 A Bodies had a 4dr hardtop, but I imagine the sedan’s window still did not roll down all the way.
When the A Body was downsized in ‘78 GM should of had the rear window on 4dr go down over half way. The fixed window was a bad idea – how I hated riding in the backseat of the Driver’s Ed ‘79 Le Mans. I remember this design was explained as weight saving idea. GM had a history of 2 door fixed windows starting with the flagship 1971 Cadillac Eldorado’s Opera Window, by the eighties it was assumed a new design would not have operational windows on two doors. Maybe the bustle-back Seville should of started the fixed 4dr window trend?!
This facelift has the same exact problem the 1973 Nova had, the reuse of the fenders from the original forward angled nose and the resulting arbitrary cutlines for the new upright header panel. It looks cheap and lazy.
The fixed rear windows thing really stinks in an car where A/C was still optional equipment. Talk about a legitimate penalty box if you don’t check that option off, the turbulence generated from having the front windows down and the rear glass up in a 4 door sedan is intolerable. Though at least those pop out vent windows were added to the new roofline as a partial fix
You’d think they’d change that since they added the side marker light cutout.
1982-87 El Camino fans don’t care about the “arbitrary cutlines for the new upright header panel”.
Also, many buyers didn’t think the car’s windows were “intolerable”. The sedans were meant to be killed off in ’82, but Olds version lasted until ’87 from continued sales.
It’s a subtle indicator of how much care went into the design of the car, I don’t care if El Camino fans didn’t mind it – they also didn’t seem to mind that there was no 1988 El Camino either…
The Olds by nature of being upper trim was more likely to be equipped with A/C, on a Malibu maybe not so much.
Eliminating roll down rear windows was NOT a cost saving measure. It was done to preserve the hip and shoulder room in these downsized 1978 era A body sedans & wagons. It met with quite a bit of resistance at first but was no where near as controversial as the original fastback roof design of the Buick and Olds sedans. That miscalculation was remedied with a Seville-style roofline for the 1980 models.
Despite the non-opening rear windows, I have always liked the G-Body Malibus. G-Bodys were everywhere when I was growing up and I thought the Malibus were best looking out of the bunch; they just have a clean, attractive look to them. They were perfectly sized, good-looking, well-built, and easy to work on; along with the B-bodys, they are truly the last of the great cars from GM. I rode in a lot of back seats of a lot of G-bodys back then and don’t ever remember the windows being an issue as all of the ones I knew of had air conditioning. There are still a handful of G-bodys around here that are still driven daily by their owners, mainly Cutlasses and Regals.
History has also been kind to these cars, there are entire restoration catalogs devoted to them and they are still very popular as hot rods, restored classics, racecars and low riders; cant really say that about their FWD replacements. Anybody seen an ’82 Celebrity lately?
I have a 9C1 (police package) Malibu that is one of the most fun cars Ive ever built. It has a mild 383 with a TH700 and handles as well as any late model sedan. Its the not the fastest or best looking car out there but it does a little bit of everything well and its a blast to drive, truly a testament to the basic design of these cars
LTDan, I’d rock that car in a heartbeat. I’m still a little sore that my parents traded in their 81 Century (a fellow G sedan) right before I got to driving age because I wanted to buy it from them. The Gs are solid vehicles and I still like the styling.
(I’ll get over it eventually, it was only 28 years ago)
G bodies have a huge cult following, and there are many fan sites online and Facebook.
Who wants an to tinker with an old Celeb or Ciera? Those were the ultimate “Granny cars” of the past 30 years. Most are in “FWD only” demo derbies.
Since the vast majority of comments are complaints about the elimination (for whatever reason) of roll-down rear windows in the A/G, it seems almost Chrysler-like in shooting oneself in the foot and could have been avoided, the one negative feature everyone remembers about the car. Otherwise, it was a relatively benign, decent car for the times which, for a late seventies’ GM product, is high praise, particularly considering that the abysmal X-body was just around the corner.
Yeah, we had a ’78 Malibu four door did we get rid of it because of the windows? No. That wasn’t really the problem it was that the rest of the car was half – baked: Three times in four years we had to have the speedometer replaced. Four times we had to have clicking hydraulic lifters replaced. Something continually weren’t wrong with the front suspension, what if was escapes me.
The automatic transmission went bad. There were just a host of malaise -era issues that drive us from the car, into a 1982 Subaru sedan, never to look back at an American car again oh, wait, that’s not true. We just never looked at GM again. My father went out and bought a new, first gen Taurus in 1987? I was wholly into Studebakers by then, driving my first ’66 Commander.
See, people buy whatever crap is for sale. It takes a lot of effort, as GM certainly made, to drive folks from their stable.
I couldn’t believe it when I first found out these had non-functioning rear windows, what a dumb idea.
By speaking about windows theories , what think about a window were you could not even stick your head through just like the one on last gen Camaro ? Glass are too costly ? Lol … and urge you to buy the rearview cam option .
I am not sure why the 81-83 Malibus had fixed rear door windows. However on the 78-80 there was no way that those windows were going to roll down due to the shape of the door and the length of the window. The hump of the rear wheels was too close to the door.
The 81-83 had a smaller window so it should have been able to go halfway down. Perhaps GM knew they were going to kill off the Bu in favor of the Celebrity so they did not waste the extra money on this?
I agree was a dumb idea, and the claim was for “more elbow room”.
But, doesn’t stop them from being popular project cars 30-40 years after production. Many online sites for fans, and more collectable than any Celebrity/etc.
You wanna roll down the rear windows?
This is how you do it.
I even saw one in Kyoto last april.
Malibu Wagon.
Could be worse, could of had the dreadful 267 C.I. small block (mercifully discontinued in 1982). Broken crankshaft, broken camshaft, prematurely worn out block, take your pick of engine ills.
BTW, subjective of course, but I think the original 1978 version was better looking; this thing looks like a horizontal kitchen freezer IMHO.
” [78-82] Malibus originally came in base and up-level Custom trims.”
No, no, no, it was Malibu and Malibu Classic, for 1978-82. For 83, there was a CL trim package.
Here is why Aerobacks is still my favorite: because of this very beautiful lever on the floor without console .
With a *5 speed* offered in 1978 only – or was it 1979? – on the Olds. But I’ve seen a late ’70s Grand Prix with a stick and no console too, so it wasn’t just the aerobacks that offered them. Could you get the manual and center console in the same car? How about with a bench seat?
Even my long-gone ’79 Fairmont wagon had roll-down rear door windows, just sayin’…
Fairmonts were a triple-threat when it came to fresh air ventilation through the side glass area. In addition to standard roll-down rear door windows the Malibu lacked, there were also optional swinging front vent windows. The really unique option though was one that replaced the usual fixed glass in the C pillars with functional louvers that could be opened by rear-seat passengers with a lever, bringing fresh air (but no rain) into the car through the vents visible in this photo. The downside to this approach (vs. GM’s opening rear vent window) was that it reduced outward visibility with the glass panel replaced with the vent louvers. These were optional on two-door sedans as well (but not on the basket-handle Futura coupes), where the fixed rear side windows were slightly reduced in size to make way for the outside louvers and inside vent.
I realize this story is a few years old, but I fixed GM’s mistake. You’re welcome. I used gutted rear doors and regulators from the next-gen A-body (86 Celebrity) and VW window lift channels. Goes down 7″ or so.
That’s awesome! Since my experience with my Grandpa’s Malibu, I’ve always wondered if there was a way to convert them to a regular window that can open.
My Grandpa had a plain Jane 1983 Malibu wagon with those awful rear vent windows. It had air conditioning but unfortunately, my Grandpa never used it because he believed rolling down the front windows was far more economical! That was fine if you were in the front seat but not in the back on a hot summer day. Those vents did provide a little relief but my Grandpa didn’t drive fast enough to create a breeze in the car. Then one hot day, I opened the vent before we left and the entire vent fell out! I managed to keep it from totally falling off.
My Dad got so angry at me for “breaking” Grandpa’s car even though Grandpa said it wasn’t my fault! It turned out it had rusted whatever kept the vent window in place and Grandpa had someone weld it permanently in place. Shortly afterwards, Grandpa bought a Crown Victoria and the Malibu became his basic second car. Looking back, it pisses me off that I got blamed for a major design flaw when I was just a kid who was sweltering in the back and wanted some ventilation! That was the only thing I hated about those cars otherwise they decent vehicles. I actually thought the LeMans/Bonneville versions looked good!
Interesting the fuss over the fixed rear windows.
The Austin A30 similarly had fixed windows in the rear doors, with an opening vent window. I hated riding in the back and not being able to open the window. How do you wave goodbye through a quarter vent?
But it was a British economy car from the austerity era. This was an American family car, from an era of prosperity.
How strange that GM never saw the error of their ways. Throughout the production run, they never modified the design to fix this. The Chevy got a packing-crate roofline, but still without opening windows. They could have made the windows open, surely. And even the Buick and Olds soldiered on with fixed glass.
Weird.
There’s a lot of poo being flung at GM for this, but we had a 1978 Delta 88 and the rear windows only went down a short way. By no means fixed and immovable as these, but not that their other cars windows were fully-opening.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the 1978-81 Buick Century(I owned two 81s) was an A-body. Late-70s A-bodies became Gs ONLY AFTER the new 1982 front wheel drive As were launched.
It frustrates me when people generalize all 1978-and later GM A bodies as Gs out of convenience or just laziness. There is a distinction, folks.
GM touted the fixed rear windows for increasing elbow room by allowing recessed armrests, as well as a slight weight savings. In actuality, the recessed armrests were awful. The recessed section was too far forward to use comfortably; the doorjamb got in the way of your elbow so you had to scoot your whole arm forward from where it would naturally rest, and awkwardly push your arm into the available space. A conventional armrest that juts inward would have been much more comfortable to use, despite technically having less width.
Cars with optional power windows got power rear vents too, controllable by the driver or rear passenger.
Chevrolet made the rear seating even more claustrophobic in 1981-83 Malibus that they already were in 1978-80 by adopting the new squared-off roofline without the windows behind the rear doors (which previously was the openable part), leading to thick C pillars this generation of Malibu didn’t previously have.
The recessed section was too far forward to use comfortably
Yeah, I remember that from my dad’s ’78 Century. It was only useful as a grab handle. He really liked the looks of the Regal but thought he’d need the extra doors. The back seat was used a handful of times in the 8 years he drove it.
I guess GM thought the massive success of the formal Colonnade coupes and the ’74+ B&C coupes meant they could get away with small vents on sedans and wagons.
I’m of two minds here. First, truth be told I very rarely even open the front windows in a car, even without A/C if it has halfway decent ventilation. And the rears, ha ha ha ha ha… But… I do know people who regardless of the weather will open the drivers window before they even start it.
But. There are certain things that are just expected, like say, two windshield wipers. And windows that at least roll partway down in a 4 door car. Even if I’d never use them. So it comes across to me as just another GM **** you. If there wasn’t room in the door, and I bet there was for at least part way, at least put in hinged pop out windows like many 2 doors have. It’s but one of a million reasons GM went bankrupt a couple of decades later. People who do use them remember stuff like this.
You want your product to EXCEED expectations – so doing this to the rear door windows is FAILING to exceed, or even MEET expectations. GM products were built to be “good enough”, which isn’t good enough.
I like the Lemans/Bonneville best out of these. The Malibus always seemed very plain. All of these As/Gs were still a big part of the Carscape well into the 90s.
But GM did make some odd decisions in these years. Why keep the Malibu after the Celebrity was out for 2 more years? It made sense at the depths of the 1981-82 recession to kill off some of the largest cars. The prior 10 years had seen an underperforming economy combined with high inflation and two gas shocks. Even after Reagan won in 1980 the malaise had its final act with the aforementioned recession. Still you would think the H and C body FWDs (which should have been out for 83-84) would have been far enough along that warming over a too small 6 year old design as the flagship would not have been serious. Also it was odd Chevy never got an H body to sell considering how GM was then.
This is all very relevant now. Mary Barra’s GM has bet hard on electric but now she has a situation where the modern version of this class (the CUV) is being neglected by GM, the torch carried by outdated, underpowered products (Equinox/Terrain) Meanwhile EVs keep getting delayed and or selling poorly and Barra admitted GM needs more hybrids. This comes as demand booms for the RAV4/CRV hybrids which blow GMs entrants away. Another time where product decisions at GM don’t make muvj sen