Ideally this would be a 1971 Chevrolet Impala, to make my title truly accurate; but close enough. The ’74 is almost identical except for the 5-mile bumpers and a new front end design. But what are the odds of finding the best selling cars from 50 years ago and today? Close enough. And a rather stark contrast they do make, representing the evolution of not only their body shapes, but just about everything else too.
This overlay by Chris Cieslak shows just how different these shapes are.
And this chart shows it in numbers. Without digging up an options list, it’s probably a fair guess to say that a 1974 Impala with some of the basic basic comfort/convenience features like automatic, radio, a/c, and maybe power windows probably takes it right about to what a RAV4 starts at. So some things have changed less than others.
We all know what a RAV4 looks like, so let’s ignore that and take a look at this Impala, a none-too common sights on our streets anymore. The ’74 had a much better front end than the ’73, which looked really cobbled up.
If a wide but low bench seat is your idea of automotive, you’ve come to the right place. I spent quite a bit of time in a similar but more spartan Biscayne Chevy taxi, motivated (barely) by a six and a Powerglide. A 350/350 makes for a much better power train, although none too economical. The only person reporting on the fuel economy of a 1974 Chevrolet at fuelly.com is averaging 8.2 mpg, the lowest of any full size Chevy through the decades there. Maybe it’s got a 454, or more likely it’s just a reflection of the driving patterns, but in any case, getting double digit mpgs in one of these was not a given. The RAV4 is rated at 30mpg combined, but the popular hybrid checks in at 40 mpg. Now that’s some serious progress.
Sorry, but I have zero desire to crawl back down in one of these low and wide caves. My nostalgia for the good old days does not include the packaging and seating accommodations of the cars.
That goes for the back seat. The seat cushion in my taxi was not attached anymore to the body, and kept sliding forward when braking. That did very little to enhance the urge to tip me generously by my fares.
Go ahead and wax nostalgically about this fine old Chevy. I’ll be waiting in my RAV4.
Needed a 40’s woody wagon parked behind the Chevy – What goes around, comes around”.
Or a ’20s high-and-square rigged sedan.
Those big GM sleds were just horribly built. When young, I rode in plenty of them and they were all loud, creaky rattle traps.
I don’t miss them at all.
And rust prone.
GM’s “Magic Mirror” lacquer paint jobs faded down to the primer shortly after the warranty expired.
A walk thru a crowed parking lot, in the mid/late 1970’s, would show all kinds of inventive usage of caulking & duct tape to stop the windshield and rear window rust leaks on this vintage of GM cars.
My brother gave up trying to stop it up and drilled several drain holes in the lowest point of the immense trunk.
Agree with comments, but the photo does show a pretty decent looking Impala. Probably not original, but still a nice example of a car built during what was a horrible period for most all automobiles.
I had a summer job where they gave me a 1975 Pontiac Catalina 4 door sedan to drive around town. What a boat. It was the biggest car I had driven to that point, and it took some getting used to for its size. Floaty is how I remember the suspension. I don’t think the seats offered much lateral support. I much preferred it when they gave me Le Mans two door cars that had been destined for the sales staff instead.
Looks like a filler panel is missing on this Chevy, next to the rear bumper! I liked the looks of these cars. I have read (on here I think) about how Chrysler cribbed the front end from these for later year Newports.
If only the rest of the car was up to the standards set by GM’s always excellent #HVAC system and precise power steering system!
Remarkably this is hardly just an American thing. The RAV4 is the best selling vehicle in the world, last year (the pandemic year!) Toyota sold 994,000 of them around the globe. That’s with ONE body style. Different engines, a few factories producing them, and some different trim options but wow, that’s an impressive quantity.
I am considering a RAV 4 as my next daily driver. They are a compelling product. I think you wrote a review of them and the Escape competitor.
Ed Snitkoff did a comparison review of the RAV4 and Escape Hybrid versions.
I reviewed the RAV4 Prime, the plug-in one. Both are up in the “New Car Review” tab at the top of the page under the CurbsideClassic image.
We bought a 2021 Rav4 Hybrid for my wife about 6 months ago. It is much better than I expected, and has no annoying traits, which is saying something. It has averaged over 43mpg in mixed driving over the 6k total miles it has accumulated. Not interesting, but pleasant to drive, and more than adequate acceleration.
I’m curious as to what you expected would be not good or what is better than expected? It seems that people often get preconceived notions about things or cars in their mind but never take the time to actually confirm them or figure out the reality for themselves (not you).
The previous generation Rav4 Hybrid had, what I considered, rather clunky electronics all the way around, poor acceleration, seats I found uncomfortable, and unimpressive fuel mileage. The revision has rectified all those issues.
My wife, who looks at vehicles as functional objects and nothing more, is very pleased with it, more so than with any other vehicle we have had over the course of 20 plus years together.
i love the overlay and spec comparisons. How would the chevy compare to the OTHER most popular US vehicle, a ford f150 extended cab short bed? many would argue that is the new family barge…
I don’t have to nostalgically wax about driving an old Chevy of this vintage, although mine is a “mid-size” (read more than full sized by todays standards) Malibu. I have been using my old car to commute lately and I also drive our Rav4 at work quite often, so I can relate to both quite well. Sure the Rav4 is far more space efficient, has way less length, gets better fuel economy, is safer and has better performance overall. But there is no nostalgia about it, I still like the old Chevy better. It’s just more enjoyable for me to drive. The RAV is good, but its like an appliance. It does it’s job so well it’s boring; there is no character or visceral feeling. And while the longer, lower, wide mantra isn’t exactly logical or space efficient, it sure makes for a much better looking vehicle in my eyes.
FWIW, our next daily driver will likely be a Rav4 Hybrid.
I would expect that the sense of nostalgia and character will come to the RAV4 when the generation of kids whose parents have them now comes of age with it imprinted on them as the default car of their earliest memories.
I am not so sure about a Rav4 having many nostalgic owners decades down the road. Look at the 80s cars, which are starting to have strong followings. How many people are trying to buy and or restore an old 80s Dodge Caravan, Ford Taurus or Honda Accord? The only ones left are survivors and they aren’t exactly sought after. The appeal of these old 70s cars is that they are simple and cheap to modify/restore. Plus they anachronisms with completely different styling, power delivery and handling. It doesn’t take much to improve their lame engines and suspensions to be as good or better than their more loved 1960s predcessors. Like I said above Rav4s are good, so good I am likely to buy one, but I have no passion for that Maytag on four wheels.
“ The only person reporting on the fuel economy of a 1974 Chevrolet at fuelly.com is averaging 82. mpg, the lowest of any full size Chevy through the decades there. ”
Am I reading this wrong, do we have a typo, or was it idling down the highway on a trailer?
To be fair, any of the three is an equal possibility. It’s early and I am not very deep into my first cup of coffee.
In any case, by 74 the Impala was a caricature of itself with more of all the things you could see and less of the qualities (heh) that had made them so enjoyable in the 60’s.
Go back another 50-ish years, to the 1920’s, and it was the Model “T” Ford. Things change. I imagine that in another 50 years, transportation will look very different again, and people will rave nostalgically about the “personality” of the Rav-4.
I’m not so sure that Chevy had much of a personality or enjoyable driving experience, in the context of the cars of its day.
It’s supposed to be 8.2 mpg. It’s being corrected right now…
That green Chevy looks clean and pristine at first glance, but a close look at the interior shots reveals cigarettes and lighters, so it smells like very period piece, too. I’m not sorry that’s left behind. WWII kind of normalized smoking, and it took another 50 years to reverse that.
Funny that. My Dad apparently only ever smoked while he was in the armed services (he was an RAF wireless operator on Malta during the seige) and gave up again when he returned to his ‘proper’ job. I guess it was a combination of stress and peer pressure.
One of the things that always strikes me when I get in an old car are the ashtrays everywhere. Even cheapo cars usually have ashtrays in the back seat as well as front, sometimes two of them. I was looking at an ’80s Buick B body wagon a few days ago and it even had an ashtray for the rear-facing third row. In case your kids feel like lighting up, I guess.
And no cupholders until well into the ’80s,
Longerrrrr, lowerrrr, Widerrrrr…. the ’74 Chevy is the car for youooo- ooooo- oo-oo-oo.
That’s gotta be a 454 driven by a lead foot, or seriously out of tune. 350 in one of these should get about 12, which isn’t great, but it’s 50% more than 8!
Not a big fan of GM barges from the 70s, but don’t see the appeal of a jacked-up hatchback with bizarre origami detailing either.
Nothing says “cheap” like those molded plastic door panels that GM used on all their cars from the lowliest Biscayne all the way up to Cadillac.
Wow. That Impala is identical to my Dad’s car back then. Makes me think about all our family trips from Anchorage to Seward or any where on the peninsula. Good durable car. I heard it finished out its days as a taxi in Bethel.
Great comparison. That ’74 Impala looks really cherry, and the color combo…what a classic disco-era ’70s meme. Amazing.
We purchased a ’19 RAV4 base model for our daughter a year ago, after her ’17 Civic got totaled. A local Toyota dealer had several come in that were “program” cars (presumably rental or corporate fleets), the price to was too good to pass up and it met with my daughter’s approval.
I’ve hardly driven it, but so far she’s happy with it and it hasn’t suffered too badly thus far spending most of its time in a college parking lot (we’ll see how that turns out in a few years after she graduates).
I remember the uproar that arose around 1973 when 1) people really started paying attention to gas mileage and 2) when emissions regulations were really starting to bite and the targets were much harder to come by without engines being tuned very unfavorably for either performance or fuel mileage.
1974 was the nadir for this because it was the last year before catalytic converters that gave engineers some breathing room to work on driveability. I recall my mother’s 74 Luxury LeMans sedan with the Pontiac 350 getting around 10-11 mpg around town and maybe 15-16 on the highway. The Impala was bigger, but it would not be surprising if that 8 mpg number came from a 400 or 454.
I’d prefer to have the 74 Impala, updated with port fuel injection and automatic overdrive transmission, which are the only updates to vehicles since 1970 I really care about.
Back in the day when we had our family ’67 Chevy Bel Air with the 250 six and 3-on-the-tree, we never calculated its gas mileage. Our next car was a ’73 Chevy Monte Carlo with the 350/350 combo. After the first oil shock, I made an effort from time to time to calculate gas mileage.
It was 8/19 mpg city/highway in the winter and 9/18 in the summer with a/c on. “City” for us was extremely short trips to the store and such in our Pittsburgh suburb. “Highway” represented the PA Turnpike at a strict 55 mph.
Today, my 2015 Toyota Camry Hybrid has a lifetime average of 42 mpg, and my 1998 Nissan Frontier 4-cylinder with 5-speed manual averages just over 20 mpg when used for 1-2 mile trips to transport my bicycle for riding. We’ve come a long way.
I never drove a ’71-later generation big GM car, but I can only imagine what a boat it probably was. These things grew to Cadillac proportions, further collapsing the Sloan ladder. Compared to our ’65 Impala wagon, this sedan weighs more. The wagon, with more even weight distribution, slightly stiffer springing and wider tires, was fairly roadworthy for a big American car. I dont remember mileage, but dad never complained about it, maybe 12 average. It did need the most expensive grade of gas, Chevron Custom Supreme or Richfield Boron, with the high compression Corvette 327.
Over the years, I have heard many guys tell me their 454 V-8 got “about twenty” on the highway but this never happened to me.
My experience of big V-8 sleds is they all suck gas when I am driving them. Part of the reason is I can’t resist booting it to experience all that velvety torque but my steady speed highway consumption wasn’t much better.
The Grand Lady is a 425 V-8 and when I drive her, I see about 20L/100km which translates to just under 12 MPG. The EPA rating was 13 MPG
I had a 1978 Buick LeSabre as a daily driver for about a year, when like an idiot, I turned it into a taxi. In city driving I managed about 17 L/100km or about 14 MPG. This is pretty much bang on the EPA estimate of 15 MPG, too.
When I hyper-mile my Golf, I get good results but when I tried to hyper-mile a V-8 sled, it made little difference for me. I just don’t know how to get “about twenty” on a big V-8 from the 1970s.
My 71 455 Buick Riv would get about 13 to 14 when cruising @75. Once I cruised @55 and did get 16. My 1976 had a lockup torque converter I think and would get 15 to 16, but speed limits were lower then too. The down sized 77’s could get 20 or so.
To get lower fuel consumption, the torque converters need to lockup and an overdrive gear would have helped.
I could maybe see 20 MPG in a Corvette if you were very easy on the throttle. The Corvette being a relatively light and aerodynamic car means that it can get pretty decent mileage even with a big V8 if you drive it like a little old lady. A sled like the featured Impala? No way.
Hey, Assman!
Also wrong year, but right color! The ergonomic/seating aspects of crossovers are fairly lost on my 5’9″ frame, I dont find them any more comfortable to get in and out of, nor actually sitting in. Personally I’d rather have the powertrain and safety technology in the Impala’s packaging. I don’t mind technological progress but the changing shape of the automobile is far more subjective. People demonstrably put up less than ideal comfort in the name of fashion in every other aspect of life, no reason the Automobile should be any more practical, especially when there’s ostensibly a choice in what to buy.
Of the precise steering noted earlier, I always thought these cars, GMs in general, had a nice feel of the road with their power steering setups. 2 weeks ago I fired up my friends 72 Cutlas and immediately recalled the “feel of the wheel” these cars had. Only now I thought, how archaic compared with today’s rack and pinion / electric assist. Seems we change at least as much as the cars.
In the 1970’s GM seemed to be (at least) one generation ahead of Ford with their power steering set up and perhaps 2 generations ahead of Mopar.
Sorry, but I have zero desire to crawl back down in one of these low and wide caves.
Nor do most of us. The US median age in 1970 was 28-years-old; it’s >38 today. Much taller H-point is necessary, and why Chevrolet is down to building a single sedan model.
Longer, lower, wider is no longer desirable for the majority of new car buyers.
I would suspect the average new-car buyer’s age is older still.
And a lot fatter than in the 70’s. The one bad side effect of less smoking.
I’m not convinced it ever was—not really. It was what was offered; it was what was available, it was what was promoted and hyped and ballyhooed, and so to a large degree the buying public were some mix of conditioned to want it and forced to buy it.
Why? Because Harley Earl said “To me, a car that is long, low, and wide looks better than one that is short, high, and narrow”, and GM had a big enough market share and marketing budget that everyone else had to go along.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.
Grandpa Simpson
I recall even when growing up in the ’70s how ridiculous these low and long cars were. My family had a Dodge Polara wagon that I took frequent long trips in, and I was envious of my friend whose parents had a Ford Club Wagon Chateau for this purpose. In the same length or maybe less, you could actually walk around inside this thing. I think a well-designed short but tall wagon-like vehicle would have sold well even back then, but the ones actually available were a bit too trucky.
As our family grew and moved from motels to campgrounds, the ’65 Impala was replaced by a ’69 Dodge A-108 Sportsman, a crude and uncomfortable switch for some, but dad liked the space and ruggedness for our adventures.
Both are kind of ugly.
One just costs a lot more than the other.
I’m not sure which Is be more “me” to drive.
In the Big Chevy I could grow some big “cheek-fro” sideburns, chomp on a cigar, wear a rumpled trench coat, and jam to some AM soft-rock hits.
In the Toyota, I could mousse my hair up into a centered-pointy-thing, and sport a tight spandex-y shirt (that WICKS!) while listening to Spotify. I would talk on the connected phone with the volume up LOUD so everyone knows I am having a conversation even through closed windows.
Kind of leaning towards the Big Chevy I spoze.
I cling to the dying art of stick shifting, but the true artists were those 2 generations of Americans who could parallel park these beasts. Not only was rear visibility terrible (and no back up cameras) but right-side mirrors weren’t standard until the late 60s. Yet every vintage image of a big east coast or midwest city shows the streets packed with these.
right-side mirrors weren’t standard until the late 60s.
It was a lot later than that. Many cars didn’t have them even as an option until the 70’s, and they weren’t generally standard until the 80’s. My ’76 Eldo conv. didn’t have one.
Most of them turned sharper than smaller FWD cars do, and they did have heavily assisted power steering. But it’s surprising that curb feelers weren’t more common.
I wonder how the exterior dimensions of the ’49 Chevrolet compare to the RAV4.
The sloppy inefficiencies of these sort of cars was always readily apparent, and the engorged size long a source of comedy outside North America. I’m also well-convinced by CC that this era of Chevvy was also badly made, and the size and lowness as much of an annoyance to Americans as it was an amusement to the rest of the world.
However, there’s one thing that cannot be gainsaid in its favor – the primacy and success of the aesthetic.
As shapes to be compared, the RAV proffers very little from any other of its 2021 type (and I am aware of the freedom a Bill Mitchell had from concerns of safety). I’ll put aside that certain angriness which permeates modern design in many areas, as it seems to have been the trend for a good while now, but I cannot overlook the incompetence of the proportion and details. It is as if an entire field of endeavour in car design, beauty, has died. Being devoid of any artistic skill, I will use an analogy to the written word: if this RAV design was writing, it would be called unlettered and inarticulate and entirely free of originality. Drivel, in short.
Considered only as form, the Chev is, by comparison, art. Front doors that actually sweep UNDER the windscreen, the sensuous tuck-under of the side body, the clever dome of the rear window, the simple correctness of proportions of front to rear, the subtle swelling and shrinking of the doorsill line, all this and much else besides, it is an object intended to evoke a smooth and luxurious beauty, and it is a shape that would be mounted as sculpture on a plinth outside a high-art temple in some big city, were not for its (once) everydayness.
That will never be said of the Toyota or its ilk, partly because regulation for safety provides a severe limits – and I do not in any way disparage their efficacy or the need for them – but also because we live in a time of repetitive drear in aesthetics generally, and lastly because Toyota and the rest do not care to try.
To Bill Mitchell, then.
We will never see his like again – well, certainly not in a job such as he had, anyway.
Fuel economy should have been better with a 350. My ’66 Riv with the 425 would do 9-10 mpg. in mixed use, but I’m real light on the gas pedal. It was a daily driver for several years, until gas hit 2.50 gallon for premium. If I recall correctly my ’77 Cadillac would return 16 mpg. on the freeway. As much as I like these old 60’s and 70’s cars I don’t think that I’ll ever revisit the ownership experience. I’ pretty sure that my long bed F150 is just as big, but is a much more modern driving experience.
For all of the shortcomings these cars may had, height was about the only things they shared with every other car in the world, still I’ve never heard anybody complaining about how awkwardly low were 3 series BMWs, Fiat 124s or Corollas from the same era. Why this costant bashing of 40 to 60 years old cars idiosyncratically judged against brand new types of veichles that simply didn’t existed back then ? Plus you see, no one is the same, to me is more uncomfortable to climb in an SUV than sliding down in an older style, lower, regular car. I’m no tall guy (5,6) and I actually hate driving raised up, I don’t need to sit up like a parrot in a stand to feel in command of the road (and I drive A LOT, both for job and for meeting friends, gigging with my band, etc), I like to stay low and slightly reclined, with my radio playin, going to sane speed, I want to feel relaxed when I drive, sitting tall and upright makes me feel anxious and in danger.
My Grandfather had a ’72 Biscayne in sky blue…it replaced a ’63 Ford Fairlane also that same color. It was the first car I ever saw the “international” symbols on the controls, like a trumpet on the radio knob…it had a black dash (probably because it was base Biscayne model). He and my Grandmother drove it once to visit us in Virginia (we drove up to Pennsylvania to see them much more often, pretty much most holidays), think he bought it from Lispi Chevrolet in Pittston PA…it was pretty much a stripper, AM radio, not sure if it had the 350, but it was automatic and I think 3 speed rather than powerglide.
I drove it once, many years later, probably right after he passed away in ’86…my parents and I probably flew in for a visit (from Texas) and might not have had a rental car, and my Grandmother never learned to drive. Probably in mid-June, we took it for a drive to visit her brother (kind of surprise visit, turned out he wasn’t at home) but the weather was great, and it was a nice outing, with my Dad in the front passenger seat, and my Mother and Grandmother in the back. The back seat was low, and my 4’8″ mother disappeared back there (my Grandmother was about the same size so she too got lost there). No AC so all the windows down, couldn’t hear anyone talking, we ended up at the now gone Effort Diner where we had a nice lunch. My Grandmother passed away in June, 1989, the week after we were up to see her, my Parents flew back the next week for her funeral…I remember it as the end of my “young adulthood”…..unfortunately many more passings would follow in time.
Space efficiency is subjective. Space under the hood is only wasted space if you don’t work on your car. Similarly a cavernous trunk is no use if you fly anywhere you need weeks worth of luggage for five or six people.