Vintage Car Life Review: 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS454 – “A Gentleman’s Bomb”

 

Chevrolet advertised the 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo as a “gentleman’s car,” a budget-priced personal luxury coupe laden with styling cues reminiscent of more upscale rivals. Yet, it was also offered in SS form, with the brawny LS5 Turbo-Jet 454 engine. Car Life tested the Monte Carlo SS454 in February 1970 and declared it “a gentleman’s bomb.”

Like the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix, which Car Life had loved so much they gave it a special award, the Chevrolet Monte Carlo represented a new concept in personal luxury coupes. Previously, American personal luxury cars had either been specially trimmed versions of standard hardtops and convertibles, like the Oldsmobile Starfire, or else specialty cars like the Ford Thunderbird, which had their own body shells. The GP and Monte Carlo took a hybrid approach, giving the familiar GM A-body intermediate hardtop a new roof, a stretched nose, and a longer hood to create the impression of a unique body without the tooling expense of an all-new shell.

 

This was cheaper to build and cheaper to buy, and it proved to be very popular, expanding the personal luxury market to buyers who had coveted but been unable to afford specialty cars like the Thunderbird or Buick Riviera. Car Life remarked:

A long hood, as Detroit has been beating into your head, means luxury. The Monte Carlo is the Buick for the man who can’t afford a Buick. And the Oldsmobile for the man who never owned anything more expensive than a Chevrolet.

In size, the Monte Carlo is an interesting optical illusion. The Bigness That Isn’t There (except when you try to parallel park). In spite of its battleship-long hood, the Monte Carlo is actually based on the A-body Chevelle two-door coupe chassis which has a 112-in. wheelbase. Chevrolet just spliced four more inches into the frame ahead of the firewall to make a 116-in. wheelbase, moved the front suspension forward to balance out the weight a little better and used the G-body roof and provided new front body panels. Inside, the dimensions are no more than the Chevelle’s and outside, the Monte is 9 in. shorter than an Impala and 4 in. narrower. If luxury means more room to you, you’re out of luck with the Monte Carlo.

As a point of interest, this is one of the earliest published sources I can recall that described the 1969 Grand Prix and 1970 Monte Carlo as “G-body” coupes. Pontiac engineer Benjamin W. Harrison, who had proposed the long-nose intermediate concept, had described it as the “A-special,” and the “G-body” designation is most commonly associated with the downsized versions of these cars launched in 1978.

 

Car Life continued:

The Monte Carlo’s styling reflects the long hood, short deck trend of the Ponycars, with an overlay of features from older model GM luxury cars—the absence of chrome like the Grand Prix, the Riviera’s beveled-edge fenderline and a die-cast Buick-style egg crate grille. The single headlights offer a cleaner look but make the design look dated. The car strikes bystanders as an expensive car. They tend to think it cost a lot more than its base price (it probably did, when you add on all the options).

The styling could have been worse. One rumor was that fender skirts à la 1970 Riviera were going to be standard. If they do that, they ought to throw in a Continental kit, too, so you can really go back.

Dave Holls, who was the head of the Chevrolet studio when the first Monte Carlo was designed, was greatly annoyed by the contemporary magazine reviewer complaints that the Monte Carlo was some kind of dated throwback, telling Special Interest Autos, “That was not retro. It was Eldorado.”

To my eyes, the 1970 Monte Carlo looks a lot less like an Eldorado than it does a 1969–1970 Grand Prix — no surprise given that those cars share the same roofline (whose tooling costs Chevrolet and Pontiac had agreed to share) and basic proportions — but in retrospect, the buff book antagonism towards this car seems nonsensical. The car magazines had mostly loved the Grand Prix, which was similar in concept and even more explicit about its retro callbacks, with its Duesenberg-inspired model names.

 

I could understand dismissing the Monte Carlo as more of the same, but treating it as a new and unwelcome deviation from orthodoxy was absurd, even if the magazine editors didn’t happen to care for the Monte’s looks.

 

Rear fender skirts, incidentally, were a $31.60 Monte Carlo option in 1970; the skirts aren’t common today because they don’t fit over the 15-inch Rally wheels that nearly every surviving Monte now seems to sport.

The caption of the photo at the bottom of the page reads, “THE MONTE CARLO SS won’t scare any Supercars at stoplights. But with rear gears favoring highway cruising, it’ll be a freeway terror.”

Car Life did approve of the Monte’s de-chromed sides, which made it look both cleaner and more massive. “One has only to look at cars from the ’50s to see how chrome can date a design,” the editors remarked. “Compare, say, the whistle-clean Loewy-designed Studebaker with the incredibly jukeboxy ’58 Oldsmobile.”

Reaching back to the 1953 Loewy Studebaker coupe seems odd when the Monte Carlo had a more obvious and recent GM antecedent: the 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix, which offered a crisp variation on the larger B-body, distinguished by an absence of chrome trim and a new formal roof. Stylist Terry Henline’s design 1970 Monte Carlo was a bit smaller, with different proportions and more muscular flanks, but you can see some similarities in the approach:

 

One of the things that seemed to vex the buff book reviewers about the Monte Carlo was that it was it was largely a styling concept rather than a mechanical one. A base Monte Carlo cost $314 more than a V-8 Malibu hardtop, but most of that money paid for the unique elements of the styling and interior trim rather than any meaningful mechanical changes. Nonetheless, you did get a few worthwhile extras compared to the Chevelle/Malibu, which was still a very basic car in standard form, with a 307 V-8 and non-power drum brakes. Power disc/drums were still a $64.25 option on the 1970 Chevelle, ordered by fewer than one in three buyers.

 

As for the Monte Carlo, Car Life explained:

The base engine in the Monte Carlo is the 350-cid small block, rated at 250 bhp. On the belief that somebody will buy this car and worry about economy, the new-for-’70 small-block-based 400, with two-barrel carb and a tolerance for regular gas, is also offered. So is another 400, actually the big block 396 bored out a fraction [to 402 cu. in.]. Two 400s, from two blocks, offered in the same car. Take that, you GM brass with your wish for standardizing GM engines.

The Monte Carlo SS454 has, as you probably guessed, the 454-cid V-8, biggest of the big blocks and the most powerful engine offered in Chevrolet’s passenger cars this year. So far. … Anyway, the SS part means you’re getting real bullets this time, so keep that thing pointed down range. With the engine come heavier springs and shocks, 7-in. rims and G70xl5 bias/belted tires, a rear anti-roll bar, air-pressure load levellers in the rear and trim to psyche the opposition. Front disc brakes, 11 in. in diameter, are standard on all Monte Carlos.

The RPO Z20 SS package was quite rare on the Monte Carlo, installed on only 2.6 percent of 1970 production. It was expensive to buy — $420.25 for the package, plus $15.80 for the 80-amp heavy-duty battery (required but for some reason not included) and $221.80 for the mandatory TH400 transmission — and punishingly expensive to insure for most of the buyers who would have wanted it. Unsurprisingly, four out of five Monte Carlo buyers ordered one of the 350s (the first optional choice, four-barrel L48 version, was a modest $47.40), usually paired with TH350 automatic.

 

Curiously, a four-speed manual transmission was available with any Monte Carlo engine EXCEPT the 454, although Car Life thought Turbo Hydra-Matic better-suited the Monte’s character.

The captions of the photos at the top of the above page read, “OPEN wide and say ‘Varoom.’ Huge Monte Carlo SS hood covers 360-bhp 454, largest V-8 in Chevy history,” and “WITH burl elm and clock-like gauges, Chevrolet thrusts its debutante into the luxury car world.”

 

Car Life had both praise for and complaints about the Monte Carlo’s interior appointments.

With all these goodies, you expect to find the enthusiast theme carried into the interior, too. Don’t get your hopes up. That imitation Carpathian walnut or burled grain elm or whatever it is houses a paucity of real information. In addition to the standard fuel gauge and speedometer, you do get a tachometer and a tiny ammeter and water temp gauge in the SS version but the oil pressure gauge that is essential in any real performance car is missing.

As with the Chevelle SS396 and SS454, the special instrument cluster was not actually included in the Z20 SS package — the instrument package was a separate $68.50 option, RPO U14. You could theoretically get this with any engine, although I don’t think it was terribly common. The woodgrain trim, meanwhile, was, as the brochure explained, an applique: “a vinyl reproduction of burled elm with French veneer finish.”

 

The Monte Carlo SS came with Superlift rear air shocks and automatic level control, a package that was also available as a standalone option, RPO G67, priced at $89.55:

The load leveling shocks are a luxury feature almost as noteworthy as the old “dial-a-ride” feature in a Rolls that allowed one to change the ride quality from the dash. The Monte’s system works like this: You throw 300 lb. of baggage in the back and the car sinks downward. The engine vacuum then begins to compensate, pumping air into the rear shocks, bringing the back of the car up to a level cruising attitude so you won’t have to worry about bottoming out over low spots. The only trouble is, if you have no load in the back, the rump rides a bit high, tipping the Monte into a street racer’s rake. Not at all like a gentleman.

I tend to suspect the rake was half the point of including the Superlift system in the SS package, which seems like it would have been more useful on a Chevelle sedan or station wagon. However, Superlift air shocks were also part of the Grand Prix Model SJ package, so I supposed Chevrolet didn’t want Monte Carlo buyers to feel like they were missing out.

 

The editors added:

The interior is a nice place to drive in. Most of the controls are right where you expect them to be and the optional Strato-bucket seats, which can be ordered in a supple knit nylon and vinyl combination, all vinyl, are wide as couches.

Although you might think bucket seats would be standard on a car like this, they were a $121.15 option even with the SS package, with the center console adding an extra $53.75.

 

The CL editors complained:

You pay your penalty for the Monte Carlo’s “formal” roofline with a lack of rearward visibility. “Formal,” after all, sounds so much better than “blind rear quarter panels,” which is what they are. We hope that GM either brings back the old parking wands or puts Endura bumpers on everything, front and back.

Car Life had had similar complaints about the formal roof in the 1969 Thunderbird Landau they’d tested a year earlier, and it was a common problem with this style. Today, the solution would be backup cameras, but that would have been prohibitively expensive (and probably comically unreliable) back in the early ’70s.

The captions of the photos at the top of the page read, “FROM door to shining door, pleated vinyl. Big-looking exterior had small Chevelle-sized interior,” and “THE only trouble with the yawning trunk of the Monte Carlo is the spare tire eating up space.”

 

Car Life continued:

Luxury is a funny thing. It’s achieved by lots of little things put together. Our test car had a lot of the little things that we would never think of ordering with a new car but that we ended up appreciating. Like: An electric door lock that made opening doors for other people so much easier than having to sprawl across the seat to pull up the door knob. Or the map light on the rear view mirror. If you’ve ever tried to read a map with only a footwell light, you realize how handy it is to have one located on the mirror. The hidden radio antenna, sandwiched between the layers of windshield glass, offers good reception and leaves street corner vandals (God knows what they did with all those aerials) with time on their hands.

This description might give you the mistaken impression that these items came with the Monte Carlo, but it would be years before Chevrolet embraced Japanese automakers’ strategy of ensuring that their U.S.-market products were laden with thoughtful minor convenience items. Power locks were $44.80 on a new Monte Carlo in 1970, while the map light was part of a $20.05 auxiliary lighting group. Power windows, which the CL test car had, but the black car pictured here does not, were $105.35 extra.

 

The various radio options DID now include the concealed windshield antenna, although some contemporary testers complained that with this feature, running the windshield wipers could cause signal interference. (Car Life said they drove their test car in rainy weather, so perhaps their Monte Carlo had been spared this particular annoyance.)

The uncanny quiet of the Monte Carlo was carefully calculated. There are more than the usual amounts of jute under the carpets, and above the headliner is a coat of insulating asphalt compound. Nooks and crannies that only the designers know about were filled with pounds of fiber sound deadeners. All of which makes the Monte Carlo a good place to hide out in if decibels make you dizzy.

Here are some key points of the performance figures in the data panel:

• 0 to 30 mph: 3.1 sec.
• 0 to 60 mph: 7.7 sec.
• 0 to 100 mph: 20.7 sec.
• Standing ¼-mile: 16.2 sec. at 90.1 mph

Now, I know that some of you immediately presume malign conspiratorial intent if a road test fails to produce outstanding results for your favorite car, so I want to point out the text and the data panel do offer some explanation for the test SS454’s acceleration times, which were only fair for a 454-powered car:

• Item One: Due to some factory screw-up, the CL Monte Carlo had a 2.73 axle rather than the 3.31 that was supposed to be standard with this powertrain, a point discussed further on the following page.
• Item Two: Not only was the Monte Carlo around 100 lb heavier than a comparably equipped 1970 Chevelle, the CL test car was fully loaded with optional equipment, and thus quite heavy: 4,140 lb at the curb, giving a test weight of 4,420 lb.

The data panel rated the brakes good, although the maximum deceleration rate (25 ft./sec./sec.) wasn’t outstanding for 1970. Car Life also clocked an overall average of 12.8 mpg, which wasn’t bad for a car of this size and engine displacement. I assume mileage would have been lower with the correct 3.31 axle.

The caption of the photo at the bottom of the page reads, “A CORNERING we will go! Suspension mods like rear antiroll bar and adjustable air shocks aid cornering.”

Car Life had mixed feelings about the handling of their Monte Carlo SS test car:

The test Monte Carlo had GM’s variable-ratio power steering, which is coming closer and closer to standard equipment on GM cars, and which we usually like. This unit scored one point down on the scale because it had a curiously dead feeling with the wheels pointed straight ahead. Something in the valves, we suspect. It took more force to nudge the steering off dead center than it took to keep the wheel moving when it had moved. The car was stable at speed, and it steered well during maneuvers, but it gave a tightrope feeling and the testers felt they were being kept more alert than was strictly necessary. …

On the handling course, the Monte Carlo understeered, plowing badly at low speeds around sharp corners. It can be hurled around, but it’s like putting a jet fighter through aerobatics: The Blue Angels can do it, and do it well, but they need a lot of space. In city driving the length of the hood will deter the prudent before the handling does. The car can be whipped around right smart, but all that metal moving around up there puts one off.

Yet, once you’re out on the open road and going at a good clip, say 70 mph and above, and set the car up for steady-state cornering (you’ve got it aimed where you want to go and started your cornering maneuver), the anti-roll bar begins to do its work, cranking in enough neutral steer to eliminate the understeer and make the taking of sweeping bends a real pleasure. The Monte Carlo weighed 200 lb. more than our ’70 SS396 Chevelle (CAR LIFE Jan ‘70), but had a slightly better weight distribution at 57.5/42.5.

The improvement in weight distribution, which still wasn’t very good, was due to the longer nose and wheelbase, whose extra length was achieved by stretching the frame between the firewall and the front suspension.

 

Regarding straight-line performance:

On the dragstrip, the SS454‘s best E.T.—16.2 at 90.1 mph—didn’t look like it was going to panic any Supercars, but then again, the low gearing on our car—a 2.73 instead of the 3.31 specifications said it was supposed to have—wasn’t really intended for off-the-line dig.

With such a low gear ratio, low speed response was sacrificed for what is only marginal gain at top end. The only time you would really be able to notice the amount of power you are in command of with the Monte Carlo SS454 is at near illegal speeds. Should be a terror at Talladega if they ever run showroom stocks, though. . . With this set-up, you could cruise across Nevada in uncanny silence at 80 mph, the big 454 loafing under the hood at only 2800 rpm, and still get 12 miles per gallon.

While the Car Life editors apparently weren’t too keen on the styling of the Monte Carlo, they acknowledged that it had gone over well with the public:

Chevy made the Monte Carlo because they thought it would sell. Looks like they were right. Almost every Chevrolet dealer in the country was able to sell Monte Carlos new off the showroom floor for full list price even months after introduction. The only other Chevy that goes for top dollar is the ’Vette. … If this “personal car” concept, applied to cars like the Monte Carlo SS454 and the Grand Prix SJ, continues to progress, the upturned noses at Mercedes and Jaguar are going to have to start worrying. It could eventually be in, for gosh sakes, to pull up in front of the big premiere in a Monte Carlo.

Even if the buff books were mostly lukewarm about the Monte Carlo, Chevrolet had reason to be pleased: The public liked the Monte, and it sold well: 145,975 units for 1970, 126,681 for 1971, and 180,819 for 1972, better than the contemporary Grand Prix.

As much as modern collectors have tried to paint the first-generation Monte Carlo as a muscle car icon, the Monte Carlo SS454 accounted for only a very small chunk of those sales: 3,823 cars in 1970, 1,919 in 1971. The SS option was dropped after that, although the 454 engine remained optional in 1972, ordered by a mere 1,268 buyers. The cheaper 402 engine, a standalone option not available with the SS package, wasn’t a great deal more common, accounting for 7,456 units in 1970, 8,633 in 1971, and 9,960 in 1972.

 

The reality was that the era of the big-engine intermediate Supercar was fading by this time, and that wasn’t what most ’70s Monte Carlo buyers were after anyway: They wanted a stylish coupe that didn’t look like an ordinary Malibu hardtop, but didn’t cost too much more. The Monte Carlo fulfilled that brief well enough with the milder engines, which were vastly cheaper to insure. I think the average Monte Carlo was more like the green car pictured above and below: 350/TH350, vinyl top, bench seat, and whitewalls with wheel covers rather than the now-ubiquitous Rally wheels and fat RWL tires. Unlike the SS454, the green Monte Carlo is no muscle car, but while I think it’s too ornate to live up to Chevrolet’s claim that it was “a car without pretence” [sic], it’s at least straightforward in its appeal.

 

I’ve never been crazy about the Monte Carlo, although my feelings about it have mellowed over time, at least as regards its exterior styling. (I still can’t take the cabin’s cheap vinyl woodgrain trim.) However, when I first saw the lead photo of the black-over-red SS pictured below, my immediate reaction was, “Okay, I get it.”

 

It’s better-proportioned than a contemporary Chevelle, far less overwrought than its 1973–1977 successor, and arguably more tasteful than the beak-nosed Pontiac Grand Prix (which it otherwise resembles). In its heyday, less festooned with pseudo-Supercar wheel/tire packages, it offered a kind of mildly upscale luxury that could fit into a variety of social situations without embarrassment. That, more than anything else, was what Monte Carlo buyers were paying for, and that is pretty much what they got.

Related Reading

Vintage Car Life Review: 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix Model SJ – “Tiger In Tuxedo” (by me)
Vintage Car Life Review: 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 – Bruiser With A Glass Jaw (by me)
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day: 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo — The Classics, Now And Then (by Rich Baron)
Vintage Reviews & Comparison Test: 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo – Personal Luxury Gate Crasher (by GN)
CC Capsule: 1972 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Custom – Green With Envy (by Tatra87)
Vintage Car and Driver Review: 1973 Monte Carlo – First Test Of The Radical “New Generation Chevy” (by Rich Baron)
Vintage R&T Road Test: 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo – “Underneath Baroque Architecture, Some Nice Chassis Engineering” (by Paul N)