As the dawn of a new decade began, Chevrolet fielded its final update of the landmark 1965 design. Unlike earlier iterations, this Impala had dropped its sporty pretensions and was heading for brougham country, including a unique-to-Chevrolet hardtop coupe roof line with formal styling and concave-curved rear glass. Road Test Magazine took one for a spin in the May 1970 issue, and found the evolved Impala to be right on target. Somewhat ironically, its handling, braking and all-round performance were much better than the 1965 Super Sport, thanks to significant improvements such as the three-speed THM 350 automatic, larger 15″ wheels, wide belted tires, disc brakes and the F40 suspension option, which turned the Impala into a big (4200 lbs) car that “handled remarkably well”.
This Impala Custom Coupe had an as-tested price of $4,714 ($28,796 adjusted) and was loaded with luxuries for the suburban set. The test car featured the 300hp 350 V8 and the 3-speed Turbo Hydramatic. Sadly, the Super Sport package was no longer available as an option on full size Chevrolets, but at least the Rally Wheels offered a bit of a sporty look.
More bloat was on its way for the big Chevrolet, and as such this 1970 would be the end of an era. But the car did its job well, and did a good job of evolving a design to meet changing tastes in the big car market.
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1970 Chevrolet Impala – The Best Big Car Of Its Time
Sigh ;
Mostly all gone now , these looked s pretty in drop top .
-Nate
With the possible exception of 1961, every generation of the big Chevy since the tri-fives had the longer, wider, bigger, heavier thing going on. At 4200 lbs. and 216 in. long this is a BIG car. But it didn’t stop here. By 1976 these grew into obese blimps, practically useless after the gas crises and CAFE implementation.
Of course the same thing was happening over at Ford and Chrysler. Imagine the coup GM would have had if it introduced the great 1977 downsizers in say,1972. Size and fuel efficient (at least compared to the competition) just in time for the energy crisis. They may have cracked 60% market penetration, burying Chrysler and putting Ford on life support.
If the ’77s had been released at any time before the 1973 embargo, They might have met the same fate as the 1962 Plymouth. Plus the 1973 midsizers were basically the same size as the 77 fullsizers, Of course all that happened after 71 “B”s and 73 “A” were designed.
Conversely, if the oil embargo had happened in 1961 rather than 1973, William Newberg and his downsized 1962 Mopars would have been hailed as a genius, rather than a lunatic. It just reinforces the old auto industry adage, “Timing is everything”.
Yep, And then remember that from 36-57, standard Chevrolets were all “A” bodies. When the “A” returned for 64, it was now marketed as an “intermediate”, when in fact it was closer to a “return” to the 36-57 size. But the idea that “bigger is better” was ingrained by then. Chrysler learned that in 65. Also while the downsized 61 Lincoln is regarded as a landmark design, The market still overwhelmingly bought Cadillacs.
Not nearly as pretty as the ’65/’66, but still not bad looking. You now got standard power front disc brakes although you still had to pay extra for power steering. Those seat belts were a spaghetti nightmare, but for the few that used them along with the shoulder belts the car was a lot safer. Of course you had to disconnect them just to be able to reach some of the spread out controls in this time period, and properly manually adjust them as well.
I would have gone for the beautiful new 1970 Monte Carlo. In ’65 a 396 THM equipped Impala would have been my choice.
Strange that the seat sew style is so similar to my 74 Impala, which is also in vinyl. At least that much didn’t change. And what happened to brakes in the 70’s. Early in the decade cars generally equalled today’s brakes in stopping distances. For example, a 1971 Mercury Comet with 4 wheel drums stopped in 113 feet. In 72 a Gremlin stopped in 108 ft and 5 inch. A 72 Pinto in the same test did it in 109.5 ft. Those are modern stopping distances. Later in the decade though stopping distances began to lengthen a lot. Like the 75 Lincoln that took 190 ft from 60. Or my 76 Maverick that took 168 ft when new. I know that the govt dictated after January 1st 1976 that cars had to have maximum braking capability at full GVW , which meant before sophisticated proportioning valves and anti-lock, led to a rash of premature rear wheel lockup which lengthened stopping distances, but is that all there is to it?
A big fan of these, particularly the convex rear window. To whatever extent this car still used the ’65 body shell, it came across as a fresh design. A boss on my earliest teenage job had one and that trunk was ginormous. He used it to ferry around merchandise between the stores we worked at.
The deck lid was particularly ginormous due to that convex rear window. They enlarged the deck lid cutout almost up to the window.
When i was a kid it seemed like the majority of late 60’s early 70’s small block Chevy’s in my neighborhood had a lifter tick.
There was a 350 Concours Estate wagon, a 350 70′ Impala, and a 73′ 307 Nova on my street and they ALL ticked.
My dad however had a 69′ 350 Chevy CST pickup that was SUPER SILENT.
A good summary. My father rented one just like this over thanksgiving weekend of 1969 when we flew to Philly for the holiday. A triple gold coupe. I was not a Chevy guy, but the maddening thing to me was that while I tried to hate it, I couldn’t really point to anything that it did badly. It was attractive, well built, worked right and did what it was supposed to do with comfort and style. Damn you, Chevrolet. 🙂
The following year, Chevy-hating kid that I was would have plenty of nits to pick. But the 70 was a nicely done car. Other than bringing back the vent windows, I’m not sure what I might have done to improve it.
Finally they got the handling and braking up to par and local assembly had already stopped, if you wanted one of these new here it took some getting but it could be done.
I had the hardtop convertible version of this many years ago. It was a nice car. Powerful and comfortable with a very nice ride. It was completely theftproof because it had the most overboosted power brakes of any car that anyone who came into contact with it had ever seen. Noone could figure out why they were so grabby but that was one old tub that would stop as good as it went. I just got used to them. The windshield washers were peculiar in that once you pushed the button the wipers came on and you got a timed squirting, usually using way more fluid than you needed. The heater levers all broke off so a screwdriver had to be used to set the heat. It had the usual GM ignition switch that would not roll back to the accessory position after a few years use. It was the only car that I ever owned that had a rear window defroster that blew hot air. There was a vent on the package shelf that blew on the window. It worked good as I remember. It really was a nice car but a little more attention to detail would have gone a long way. I always thought that it looked like a 66 Buick from the front.
Aunt Pauline’s last car was one of these, lime green metallic, traded-in her ’59 Catalina two door sedan on it. The combination of its immense size and her advancing age and poor eyesight left it with many dents and dings. At the end, her method of backing out of a diagonal parking space was to creep slowly backward until the Impala was stopped by an immovable object, usually another car. If anyone raised a fuss, she’d reach in her purse, start handing out money to keep quiet so she could keep her license.
For years there was an older couple in my area that had a loaded Impala Coupe with the cool concave back window. I remember that it had the rare finned wheel covers, Comfortron A/C, power windows, locks, and tilt wheel. I remember looking in it several times when I worked at a local supermarket as a kid. It was triple black, and they kept that car like new and had it for what it seemed like an eternity. One day that car was simply gone from the roads. They must have stopped driving and the car went to their kids.
While not a “dyed-in-the-wool” Chevy fan, I think the 65 is THE best looking full-sized Chevy and these 70s are a solid runner-up. Only thing is, if I ever decide to go looking for one with the intention of buying it, it MUST have a vinyl roof and preferably in a contrasting color.
Nice car, always thought the taillights on the 1970 full sized Chevy’s looked so much better than the 1969’s and that 1970 was the last year of the sporty looking full sized Chevy’s up until the 1977-79 downsizing.
this was interesting reading. I looked at the specs and compared it to the vintage 70 sport fury test the other day. like everyone else I remember these being massive cars in their day but surprise,suprise the fury was actually the bigger of the two!
I wonder if that was because even though I am a lifelong mopar fan, in those days even I looked at a fury as an also ran compared to the impala and even the ford galaxie?
These were good looking cars. It is always fun to read these articles and imagine it is brand new once again. There is one such 1970 Impala Custom coupe slumbering about two miles south of here – it is black, and has been sitting in the owners driveway for at least eight years. Hasn’t gotten any worse looking over that time period. Other then the headliner hanging down inside, it looks decent in the cosmetic department, if not gently weathered. My guess is, it must have had mechanical repairs too expensive to undertake, but sentimentality must allow for it to stay as a permanent driveway ornament. I’ll try to get a good pic this weekend.
This article brings back a lot of happy memories. I’m personally biased towards the ’69 models, because that’s the one my dad had. His was an Impala Custom Coupe in Burnished Brown metallic, without vinyl roof and with a gold cloth interior. It was the only “new” car he ever owned, being a dealer demonstrator purchased in the summer of 1970. At least, it still had the window sticker, which together with the owner’s manual fascinated my 9 year old self.
IIRC, the only options were 350 (can’t recall 2 or 4 bbl.) Powerglide, power steering and cloth seats and AM radio. I was more than a little jealous of the lucky souls who optioned out A/C, power seats, cruise control or a stereo. 😉
Living in a small Ohio town meant taking my brothers, me and the Impala to any one of several favorite swimmin’ holes on the weekends. On more than one occasion, a couple of us got to ride home in that cavernous trunk instead of getting the seats wet from our swim trunks. (Holding the lid partway closed instead of fully latched.)
When I was 12 or so, dad let me drive it once for a couple of miles on one of the country roads just outside of town. (With him riding shotgun, of course!) What a thrill that was, but talk about one nervous kid!
Dad taught my brothers and me how to change oil and tires on that car and how to do an occasional wax job using Simoniz paste wax. None of that fancy Turtle Wax liquid for us, no siree.
The car stayed in our family until about 1976 or 77, but unfortunately it passed through both of my older brothers hands, earning more than it’s fair share of abuse in the process. Even so, it soldiered along happily and without any breakdowns. Just the normal brakes, tires batteries and such.
In the end, it donated its 350 to a pickup truck somewhere around Waco Texas after my oldest brother sold it.
Around the same time period, some friends of our family had a pair of similar Impalas. The elderly father had a ’69 Custom coupe and his adult son had a ’70 that was very similar to the featured car. I think both were the same color of gold and both had vinyl tops, though. Those were both beautiful cars and lived a much easier life than ours, because they were always adult-driven. I think they kept both of them into the ’80s.
I meant to include that I remember the sticker price as $3,800, but I have no idea what dad actually paid.
I bet that trunk can sleep three people.
One had to “work the options list” on American cars, in this time period, to get a good car. EVERYTHING you would want was “optional equipment” in this time period.
If you didn’t……
I’m sure this article’s test car drove smoothly and effortlessly. Here is a more “basic” alternative description:
In the late 1970’s a good friend of mine, in her last year of college, was quite pleased to be given her Aunt’s car, a 1968 Chevrolet. She had become “too old to drive” and wanted to give her prized Chevy to someone she liked.
Always garaged kept since new, her Chevy had barely accumulated 32K on it. Barely broken in, she and I thought!
I noted it’s shinny paint and immaculate vinyl interior as we opened her garage door and walked up to it.
I also noted “Hmmm, not a Caprice. Not even an Impala. It’s a BEL-AIR!” The cheapest, “entry level” full sized Chevy for that model year.
A six cylinder engine, manual steering, manual drum brakes a “3 on the tree”, column mounted manual shifting transmission, a hang down, Sears & Roebuck air conditioner below the dash, NO radio.
My friend had never driven a non-automatic transmission car in her life! I had to back the car out of the garage and drive it to her home; as she followed me in my car.
The slow geared (4, 5, 6, 12? turns lock to lock), heavy effort manual steering made my weight lifting biceps twinge as I herded it thru the residential neighborhood. The 3 on the tree, manual shifting transmission took slow, deliberate shifting to not scream and squawk in protest. Pausing in neutral for a second, between the first to second shift, was quickly learned. The clutch pedal had to be depressed into the vinyl floor mat or nothing happened. The bench vinyl seat seemed to almost bottom out under my 240 pound weight.
At least the add on air conditioner worked well, if somewhat nosily.
Acceleration was too strong of a term for this powerplant. “Gathering momentum while being nudged down the street” would had been a more accurate term.
No wonder the frail, 98 pound, elderly Aunt had put so few miles on her car! WHAT a penalty box/torture chamber that lump of iron was to drive! I honestly could not imagine how she could drive and park this car all those years?
After we FINALLY got it back to her Parent’s house, I gingerly parked it at the curb and politely suggested that she ask her Father to teach her how to drive it….and quickly made my escape.
Whiner! That’s the kind of car I want. Make mine a 71 Custom 500 with 240 six. My kinda ride.
“It’s a BEL-AIR!” The cheapest, “entry level” full sized Chevy for that model year.”
In 1968, as in previous years reaching back into the ’50s, the Belair was not the lowest level full size Chevy. The ’68 Belair was actually the highest level standard full size coupe or sedan in the Chevy lineup. It was the mainstream, high-volume model in the full-size lineup, meant to appeal to the typical buyer. In 1968, if you wanted something a little more “sporty” than a Belair, you got an Impala. If you wanted something more luxurious or showy, you got a Caprice. If you wanted something cheaper or more “base” than the Belair without leaving the full size lineup, you got the real entry level full size model, a Biscayne.
There were few if any bundled option packages in those days, so you could option any of those models out more or less to suit your tastes, however the Belair, Impala, or Caprice would typically come with more standard equipment than the Biscayne, and you would not be as limited in your options selections on those models.
I remember my dad’s new ’65 Belair (I went with him to order it) and his new ’68 Belair. Even though he was loaded (railroad and utility stocks) and could have driven new Caddys, he always drove fairly plain-Jane Chevys with crank windows, dog dish hubcaps, basic AM radio, and no AC. Being a kid, I wanted him to get something more sporty like an Impala, but no, he came from a generation and upbringing where you didn’t spend more than you needed to just for showy luxuries. On the other hand, I should be glad that at least he bought Belairs with auto and V-8s instead of straight-six, three-on-the-tree, stripper Biscaynes.
It’s true that the Bel Air wasn’t the “cheapest entry-level” Chevy that year; the Biscayne was. But the Bel Air certainly was not the highest level standard full size coupe or sedan in the Chevy lineup. It was the mainstream, high-volume model in the full-size lineup, meant to appeal to the typical buyer. as you say.
That was the Impala, without a doubt. There were 152k Bel Airs sold in 1968 compared to 711k Impalas; in other words, the Impala outsold the Bel Air almost 5 to 1.
The Bel Air was what it was: number two on the rung of four levels of Chevys, with the Impala clearly being the volume seller, appealing to “the typical buyer”. And within just a couple of years, the Biscayne was dropped, making the Bel Air clearly the entry level model.
My next door neighbor had the Caprice coupe version of this car, blue with black vinyl top. It got stolen around 1972, and at that time, if it remained gone for 30 days, the insurance company settled and it was considered gone for good. He had started thinking it was never coming back, and had gone car shopping…well, it was recovered before day 30, and he grudgingly took it back, after repairs were completed. He was disappointed! I don’t think he minded the car, he was just excited at choosing a new one.
The main thing I remember about the car, and other Chevys of that era was that plain steering wheel with the simple bar across it…at least my mom’s Olds Delta 88’s wheel had a little shape to the crossbar, and my dad’s VW Beetle had a horn ring to keep things interesting. I was a car fanatic, and I had an old frisbee…used to take a magic marker and draw the shape of the steering wheel that I imagined I was driving, then wipe it off when I decided I was going to drive a different car. Keep in mind, I would have been around 4-5 years old at that time, and the shape of the steering wheel hub really stuck in my head. You should have seen me when our Italian neighbor’s brother visited with his DeTomaso Mangusta…I about lost my mind.
The F41 option has to be GM’s all time best bargain, if I was ordering the cars at the dealer I worked for every car would have had it. The thing I notice about the under hood photo is 1970 is the last year for top post battery terminals for a long time.
The 1970 isn’t a bad looking car by any means, but I personally prefer the ’69. But I have a thing for loop bumpers and hidden lamps, so a ’69 SS with the 427 and hidden lamps would perhaps be my ultimate sixties full-size Chevy. That, or a ’65 SS convertible with the 396.
I love the line from the article about the cavernous trunk: “Trunk should prove handy for carrying 14 suitcases or one dead horse.”
I’m happy to have owned one of those ’70 Impala Custom classic land yachts back in 1980 when I was 19. My friends called it The Cloud because it had multiple light gray primer spots on its deep blue paint. It seemed as big as the sky. I loved that car, it had a black vinyl top which made it look even classier. Its trunk was cavernous, 3 or 4 guys climbed into the trunk to sneak into the drive in theater once. It had a 3 speed turbo 350 automatic, and a 350 eng in it that hauled that tank around pretty well. Before it, I owned a teenager’s dream when I was 16, a ’69 Chevelle, which I totaled, (foolish kid). After I crashed the ’69, I bought a ’68 Chevelle. Like the ’70 Impala, both if my Chevelles had those “keep your honey close” front bench seats. Remember back when your gal sat right next to you when you were out cruising? No console in the way, and no need to hop in the back seat to snuggle? Sure I like my vehicles that have consoles with floor shifters too, I’m just sayin. They used to call it driving vs scoring?, times were different then. Both of my Chevelles had the 307 V8 engine, which was actually quite adequate. Both odometers hovered around 100K miles, which was considered nearly done back in the day. Both were 2 door Malibu coupes equipped with that era’s air conditioner alternative, Astro Ventilation, which at the time I thought did the job. I beat those Chevelles fairly mercilessly but never fried either one’s 2 speed Power Glide auto transmission. Those things seemed bullet proof, even after doing what we called neutral drops, (rev eng in neutral, drop shifter into drive, melt tires/pave roads), smoked plenty of BF Goodrich TA’s bald. I was in high school then and worked at a BFG tire store so I had first dibbs on plenty of used trade in tires for dirt cheap to keep re-skinning my factory rally wheels. One day, me and a friend were skipping school and cruisin country roads in rural WI in my ’68 Chevelle and I spotted what I called “my obsession”, (after seeing Harrison Ford’s black beauty in American Graffiti), a ’55 Chevy. This one was a 2 door Bel Air 210 Hardtop. Determined to buy it, I negotiated a price not to include the Pontiac 400 it had sitting in its eng bay, because I was also in the midst of buying a dirt cheap ’69 Impala Custom with a nice running 327 V8 in it. I regret never getting it put together after having bought them both, other things became priorities over that project. I eventually sold my no longer obsession, and the ’69 Impala Custom. However, I’ll never forget sitting in the ’55 project car dreaming of what it was going to be, and loving the cool bow ties they have across the whole dash. I ended up selling the Firebirds too, and enlisting in the service. Would sure like to have any one of these still today!
Just got her lots of work to do