Do you consider the Cordoba too frou-frou? Need a little more presence in your B-body? Then check out this ’78 Magnum I spotted at the Geneseo show last year! It was just the thing for folks who couldn’t stand the ’78 Cordoba’s stacked quad headlamps, though the trade-off was what appeared to be silicone injections in the front and rear fenders.
This one was pretty noticeable in red with a black top, white leather buckets and a T-top, but I would have swapped the aftermarket rims for some Magnum 500s and redline tires. Wonder how many of these are left?
If I am not mistaken, the Magnum was partly created to field a more aerodynamic car in NASCAR. Petty ended up no liking it and moved on to Pontiac or something. Others drove it but never had the success of the Charger. I think that was the purpose of the headlight covers to stretch a wee bit more slipstream. St Regis had them in 1979 but obviously not for racing probably because they used up supply. The t tops do make it interesting. Most likely has a 318 but I think you could get a 400.
Right idea, wrong car. The one you’re thinking of is the Mirada, which is to my eyes really good looking and ’70s aerodynamic, though on the track it proved to be anything but and pushed Petty to GM and away from Chrysler.
According to Wiki, Petty tried both cars but liked neither so he ended up at GM permanently.
Eh, eh. Petty now fields Fords.
No it was the Magnum. Nascar had a “current +3” rule at the time, so the 1974 Charger Petty had been using was no longer eligible after the 1977 season. As I recall, the Magnum was not competitive on the high speed tracks and Petty swithced to the Monte Carlo part way throught the season.
Ah, the days when there was still enough connection between NASCAR cars and real cars for these kind of issues to happen.
amen
I was in high school when these were new, and I very much wanted one, though I liked the ’79’s taillights better. Not crazy about the color on this one, and certainly not the rear wing, but it’s nice to see one that survived and is cared for.
I want to like it, but I just can’t make myself take that final step.
Same. There’s something too generic about it.
‘Butch Cordoba’ sums it up perfectly.
Butch Cordoba sounds like a 70s pr0n star….if you squint carefully that grille assembly looks kind of like a porno moustache too.
That’s what I was thinking too, it like a Cordoba with a porn stache, it almost should have a theme music, a whacka-shacka type shaft soundtrack.
Maybe a detective series, called MAGNUM, with a mustached lead……
I could see Tom Selleck or Sam Elliott driving a Magnum,smoking the tyres for 3 blocks chasing bad guys
There have to be gratuitous “peeling out” on dirt sounds too…..
Tonight on MAGNUM…….
Since open collars and unbuttoned shirts were all the rage in the 70s a lot of fake chest hair was sold in those days…
With the baddies driving a Lincoln Continental of course….
Fall 1977, is that when it came out? Maybe Ck TV CAR.Com and find if it was attached to a show that got cancelled. SURELY SOMEONE used the Magnum 4 their macho style.
How did I not know about this one?I like it apart from the boot spoiler
That spoiler is hideous.
Never thought about it as a Cordoba with silicone injections. However, a little cosmetic surgery ain’t all bad (in moderation) as Marlo Thomas certainly looked better after a rhinoplasty. I like the Cordoba but I like the Magnum a lot more. So the injections were successful in my eyes.
Spoilers and neoclassical deck lids should never mix…
Is that spoiler supposed to fit a Chevy Aveo? It’s about two feet too narrow.
The spoiler is hideous? And the vinereal top is commendable?
It’s rather like seeing the bearded woman at the freak show; you are so fixated on the beard you don’t notice the tatoo of Elmer Fudd on her bicep.
HAHA
thanks for making me lol.
“I like the Cordoba but I like the Magnum a lot more. So the injections were successful in my eyes.”
Ditto.
Why do people keep putting these dinky spoilers on the back of these things? The 300 posted last month had an awful rear spoiler too https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/cc-capsule-1979-chrysler-300-red-white-and-brougham/
Otherwise, subtract that, the aftermarket wheels and give me a color other than resale red, then yes I much prefer this to the Cordoba
No spoiler will ever be as ridiculous as the one on the back of the oval-generation Taurus SHO. Ever.
Agreed; the spoiler on the ’96-’99 looked like a bad toupee. I never figured out how that got approved.
My understanding is that tiny spoilers (of the sort you would find on a previous-generation Civic Hybrid) are more likely to be aerodynamically effective than the bigger wings, which are often designed for marketing purposes than aerodynamic ones. However, a tiny decklid spoiler’s purpose, if it has one, is to cut drag, rather than provide downforce.
I don’t recall if the Taurus SHO’s spoiler was effective or not, but it might have been. Drooping tails are generally not good for a car’s drag coefficient — you get a lower Cd with a high tail. (Consider the profile of the NSU Ro80 and C3 Audi 100, both of which had a higher decklid for precisely that reason.) A small spoiler at the trailing edge of the decklid can improve airflow to compensate at least partly for a less-than-ideal profile.
A tear drop shape is better than a high rear, that is the reason that station wagons always get worse MPG than their sedan counterpart, more so than the increase in weight alone.
Kamm figured out that you don’t really need the entire tail of the tear drop for the majority of the benefit, which is why the Prius is a Kammback.
A notchback sedan or coupe with a drooping tail isn’t a teardrop, though.
The reason station wagons tend to have higher drag is that the flow separates from the body abruptly at the rear of roof, so you get a massive wake and a lot of drag. A teardrop is ideal for minimizing wake area, but isn’t usually practical for production cars. A Kamm tail can approximate a teardrop form in terms of drag, but for that to work, the body still has to be shaped like a teardrop before the cutoff, which may be practical for fastbacks and hatchbacks like the Prius, but not for three-box sedans.
For a notchback roof, you want to have a sloping backlight to avoid separation at the trailing edge of the roof and a relatively high decklid to minimize separation where the backlight meets the deck. I’m not talking about a station wagon-style square back, but the height of the decklid surface.
Many years ago, an early 80’s Sedan DeVille wearing a Fiero spoiler used to run around Jasper, AL. What a waste of a valuable Fiero part and Cadillac decklid.
A pathetic little spoiler like that is more likely to tear off than provide any downforce at speed, purely for show.
Think creative, Bryce. If it shears off at 120mph, call it a ‘vMax Indicator’ and make it a $250 option!
It might make sense if it were intended for NASCAR homologation. A lot of times racing regulations allow the teams a lot of latitude to change the height and angle of the spoilers; the main homologation proviso is that the stock cars have them, not that they be identical to the racers.
T-top and vinyl top? How very 70s, how very American.
This looks more like a Buick than the 73-77 Regals. The front clip is nearly identical to the 77-79 LeSabre! Colonnade car look alike for sure. Dodge Monte Carlo maybe?
I guess that’s why I’ve heard people say Chrysler’s styling was GM three years later! Does look like a Colonnade.
Dodge Grand Prix?
I don’t even remember this car. And now that I see it, it looks for all the world like a personal-luxury version of the following year’s new St. Regis.
Very 70’s, but in an itchy uncomfortable sort of way…..
Ford grille. Buick headlights. Chevy Monte Carlo flanks and opera windows. Pontiac LeMans tail lamps. Yep, it as pretty much everything.
An odd mix of formal and performance.
“PerFORMALance” – hey we just created a new category of vehicle!
+1
Dodge was going after the quarter million buyers who were now facing a Much Smaller Grand Prix. Not to mention the other half million or so who now faced much smaller 1978 Monte Carlos, Regals, and CS. They thought at least 50k-100k would rather drive this.
I rem being sad the inside was not as exciting to sit in as it was to watch go by. Looked much like any other ChryCo product inside, Much like Dad’s Monaco wagon.
The car itself doesn’t bother me as much as the Keystone Classic, or whatever they are rims and tires.
I seem to remember Dodge was going for a “Cord” (coffin nose) look with this design. Malaise era.
I attended a local car show Saturday and someone put a dual plane “ricer” style spoiler on a mid 70s LTD coupe with similar red as this.
There must be 10 times as many cars with a red repaint as there were cars with original red paint. I have heard that red is the most expensive paint color to make.
Red once was, I don’t know about now.
It still is.
I picked up an un-loved white ’79 Magnum GT from a SoCal side street, got past its lean burn issues, polished years of smog out of the paint and had one heckuva road handling car. Had blue real leather interior, fender flares, factory optional wheels and a working 8 track. For a $600 initial investment, it was one great car. I’d recommend these to future collectors highly.
Nice !
Do you still have it?
Nice find, some 70’s Mopar stuff gets a bad rap, probably because of a negative halo from the Volare/Aspen, and general undesirability of 70’s cars, I picked up a pretty decent New Yorker for $400 back in the late 90’s.
Interesting set of wheels there. Never saw them before. Like the taillight design & color combo on this one much more than the feature car.
Great to hear Wayne. After college, I owned (and enjoyed) a ’79 Magnum (dove grey everywhere, leather interior, bought used in 1980).
Remember, this was circa the 2nd OPEC gas crisis so mileage was something I checked often: the Lean Burn 318 achieved a hwy mpg of 18 (with careful speed regulation and the A/C off).
By 1982, the Lean Burn became the problem and conversion kits weren’t been widely known of and I traded for a truck.
The interior suffered some quality issues -failed door panel fasteners and seat back recliner/latches -typical of many US Auto makers in the 70s.
Not withstanding, I liked the car; thanks for the picture Wayne –
i was 17 and remember thinking if i were to buy a chrysler product i’d want one of these, in green… 2 tone…loved the t-top look.
A two tone ‘doba with t tops is sick. Provided you can keep from running into anything…
http://www.motorbase.com/pictures/contributions/990913/std_1979_chrysler_cordoba_2dr_t-top_cpe_tancashmr_tflsv.jpg
You mean a Mustang running into anything right?
The Chrysler Cordoba wasn’t designed to be a Chrysler. It became one when Chrysler sales tanked in 1974 and it had nothing to lose. It was supposed to be a Dodge and a Plymouth version of the Monte Carlo or Elite.
So when Chrysler took the coupe for it’s own, there was nothing but leftover for Dodge. Dodge called their version a Charger, but that didn’t work. The Magnum was the Charger with a different twist. It didn’t work much better.
The Cordoba was where the action was. It saved Chrysler. The Dodge version was always an also-ran. The Magnum only looks good in hindsight after the Brougham Age is gone. But this car is only cool when there isn’t a Chrysler Cordoba around to show us how it was to be done.
Also, the Charger/Magnum/Mirada had Dodge aiming for a demographic that had all but disappeared by the mid 70s – the large sport/luxury coupe. This market started to die in the late 60s and never recovered. The Cordoba hit the sweet spot in the market in the 70s – popularly priced luxury.
Wow. Cool ride. I’ve been playing with these machines since the mid-80’s. Good comments abound. Someone said they’d figure Dodge would sell between 50-100,000 of them, close. 88 thou and change.
Great rides. There are websites and forums out there for them, Moparstyle has a subforum for them and I have a facebook page as well (cheesy plug)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/146952895354657/
Thanks for posting about this car! ( I love red BTW but not those style spoilers, they made an Aspen/Volare’ style for them. Very hard to find.
Keep ’em rolling 🙂
I don’t know how many are left, but I own 4 of them!