(first posted 9/27/2016) 1977 was a momentous year for General Motors. The corporation’s huge gamble–downsizing its biggest cars–arrived on the market. All eyes were on how the good the cars would be and curiosity abounded as to how the market would accept the new offerings. Motor Trend offered their run down on all the news for October 1976 issue, covering the downsized full-sized cars along with details on all the changes to the rest of GM’s ample fleet of models.
Smaller on the outside but just as big inside. That was the main goal of GM’s downsizing program for its biggest cars, from Cadillac to Chevrolet. Efficiency was “in,” wasted space was “out.” For GM’s flagship Cadillac Division, which had built its reputation and sales success on extravagant size and flamboyant styling, the reduction program was particularly daunting.
Undoubtedly, GM executives were heartened by the strong marketplace performance of the X-Car-based Seville, which demonstrated that American luxury buyers were indeed ready for a smaller, more rational Cadillac. The Seville also kicked off a new styling direction–the “sheer look” with smooth, clean lines, careful detailing and a more upright greenhouse with a “formal” (i.e. vertical) rear window.
That design ethos translated quite well to the larger Cadillacs. The DeVille series was still imposing, but not as bloated as its predecessor, while looking much more contemporary. The “entry level” Calais was dropped, while the “premium” Fleetwood Brougham now shared its wheelbase with the DeVille, but offered fancier trim. Buyers snapped up the smaller big Cadillacs: DeVille sales rose 24% compared to the combined Calais/DeVille sales in 1976, while Fleetwood Brougham sales rose 14%. Limo drivers were fans of the downsized models as well, with sales of the Fleetwood Limousine models enjoying a 44% uptick.
The elephantine Eldorado held its own in the showroom against the downsized cars–sales dipped a slight 4%, which could be attributed in part to the lack of the convertible body style for ’77. Other than the discontinued drop-tops, the biggest change to the personal luxury behemoth was the elimination of the mammoth 500 CID V8. The 1977 Eldorado shared the 425 CID V8 with the rest of the big Cadillacs–a slight nod to efficiency.
Cadillac’s efficiency pioneer, the Seville, suffered the sharpest dip in sales (-23%) as some Cadillac buyers likely migrated to the downsized cars. The Seville had minimal changes, and being X-Car based, couldn’t hold a candle to the roominess of the newly designed DeVille and Fleetwood, even though it weighed almost as much.
Here are Cadillac’s sales totals for 1977:
| DeVille | 234,171 |
| Eldorado | 47,344 |
| Seville | 46,212 |
| Fleetwood Brougham | 28,000 |
| Fleetwood Limousine | 2,614 |
Those volumes were incredible, really, for a premium-priced luxury brand. The DeVille series alone outsold all Lincoln products combined. Downsizing had paid off big time for Cadillac, and the profits generated must have yielded excellent bonuses for GM’s top brass.
Naturally, Buick also jumped on the downsizing bandwagon for 1977. In fact, Buick was the only division to also downsize its high-end personal luxury car as well. Granted, Riviera sales had been quite slow relative to its sister E-Bodies, so there wasn’t much to lose. The new Riviera shared the LeSabre Coupe’s B-Body, dressed up with fancier trim. The result was handsome, if not terribly unique, and enough to drive a 30% increase in sales. The rest of the smaller “big” Buicks were quite successful too: B-body LeSabre sales climbed 39% and the Estate Wagon was up 23%, while the slightly larger C-Body Electra posted a 30% increase. No longer could Buick buyers select the massive 455 engines–the largest available for ’77 was the Olds-built 403 V8, while the Buick-built 350 V8 was the core engine offering. Buick’s 231 V6 was standard in LeSabre, and better suited to the lighter ’77 cars. The most surprising big Buick twist was the arrival of the LeSabre Sports Coupe, which offered remarkably agile handing for a full-sized 2-door.
One major fear at GM was the potential impact of the size overlap between the new B-Bodies and the carryover Colonnade A-Bodies–exterior dimensions were very similar, while the Bs were much roomier inside. No need for Buick to worry, however, as the personal luxury A-Body Regal coupes saw a 40% sales increase. The rest of the Century line (and Regal sedan) sales saw a 15% decline, which really wasn’t that bad given how tempting the new B-Bodies were.
As for Buick’s smaller offerings, there wasn’t much news. Skylark sales stayed flat, the Opel by Isuzu (not covered by Motor Trend but on showroom floors nonetheless) gained 16%, and for some unknown reason, Skyhawk sales surged 52%. Must have been the new egg-crate grille…
Here are the Buick sales results by model:
| LeSabre | 190,726 |
| Regal Coupe | 174,560 |
| Electra | 161,627 |
| Century | 153,636 |
| Skylark | 113,472 |
| Opel | 29,065 |
| Riviera | 26,138 |
| Estate Wagon | 25,075 |
| Skyhawk | 24,004 |
Clearly a lot of customers would really rather have had a Buick: total division sales reached 898,303, representing an 18% increase over 1976.
Oldsmobile was riding high as 1977 got underway. The wildly popular Cutlass line had been the best selling car nameplate in the U.S. for 1976, and the Olds division was second to Chevrolet in sales volume within GM. Like all other GM executives, Oldsmobile’s leadership undoubtedly had their fingers crossed that the full-size downsizing program would pay off. For Oldsmobile, they didn’t want anything to derail the Cutlass phenomenon, and of course, since the big cars were still a huge part of Oldsmobile’s business–they needed to do well too. Turns out there was no need to worry.
First off, the Delta 88 was second in sales among the B-Bodies, trailing only the Caprice/Impala from Chevrolet. Compared with 1976, Delta 88 sales increased 4o%, Custom Cruiser climbed 47%, and C-Body Ninety-Eight sales rose 33%. While the Buick-built 231 V6 was standard for the Delta 88, most big Oldsmobiles came with either the 350 V8 or 403 V8 under hood, both engines ostensibly built by Olds, though Chevrolet 350 V8s were substituted on some cars, leading to class action lawsuits and the dawn of GM’s “corporate engine” era.
Despite sharing the showrooms with the well designed, practical and efficient full-size Oldsmobiles, the Cutlass craze continued. Buyers just couldn’t get enough of the Cutlass style, whether in one of the Supreme Coupes (+40% year-over-year) or any of the other Cutlass sedans, coupes and wagons (+20% year-over-year). Even the virtually unchanged Omega benefitted from all the Oldsmobile showroom traffic, as sales rose 10%.
The only losers in the Olds line were at the top and bottom of the range. The top-line personal luxury Toronado, still based on the old FWD E-Body, suddenly seemed very fat and old fashioned next to the downsized cars. Sales declined 29%. The subcompact “sporty” Starfire took the worst hit: sales tanked 35%. Maybe those shoppers were more enticed by the new egg-crate grille on the Skyhawk…
When Oldsmobile advertising asked “Can we build one for you?” buyers answered with a resounding yes! Divisional sales rose 27% to 1,126,222 units. Here are the sales by model:
| Cutlass Supreme Coupe | 424,343 |
| Delta 88 | 213,851 |
| Cutlass | 208,399 |
| Ninety-Eight | 139,423 |
| Omega | 63,984 |
| Toronado | 24,304 |
| Custom Cruiser | 32,827 |
| Starfire | 19,091 |
GM’s B-Body superstars came from Chevrolet. Combined Caprice/Impala sales totaled 661,661 units, up 56% from 1976, making the full-size Chevy the best selling car in America for 1977. With good reason too: the new downsized design were great looking, functional and drove well, redefining what the full-size car was all about. Surprisingly, in spite of the excellent full-sized choices for ’77, the older, less practical A-Body Chevelle only dipped 2%. I’ll bet Chevy dealers were discounting the Colonnades like crazy, while selling the new B-Bodies much closer to sticker. As for the Corvette? Though really dated, it remained the only American sports car choice for Seventies hipsters, and sales rose 6%.
Chevrolet’s “Pony Car Lite”–the Monza, continued to battle it out with Ford’s Mustang II as well as sporty imports. It wasn’t that easy however, as competition was tough and sales dipped 9%. Monte Carlo, on the other hand, dominated the personal luxury market with its over-styled swagger–sales climbed 16% even though nothing changed besides the grille pattern. Even with a new power train, Vega sales declined 51% for 1977, though the fact that anyone bought a Vega at all was mind-boggling. The car’s reputation was that bad.
Chevrolet’s original Pony Car fared very well for 1977, with sales climbing 20%, as buyers renewed their interest in good looking 2-door sporty cars with pretty decent performance options. Not much was new with the Nova/Concours, but it didn’t matter: buyers liked the affordable compact Chevy and sales rose 9%. The subcompact Chevette, on the other hand, failed to meet expectations and dropped 29%.
Still, there was far more up than down in Chevrolet’s sales numbers, and the division remained America’s number one brand, ending the 1977 model year up 10% with 2,270,251 units sold. Here’s the breakdown by model nameplate:
| Monte Carlo | 411,038 |
| Nova/Concours | 365,264 |
| Chevelle | 328,216 |
| Caprice Classic | 284,813 |
| Impala | 254,916 |
| Camaro | 218,853 |
| Chevette | 133,469 |
| Impala/Caprice Wagon | 121,932 |
| Vega | 78,402 |
| Monza | 73,348 |
| Corvette | 49,213 |
Pontiac also enjoyed a great year for 1977. Like its sister GM divisions, Pontiac’s downsized big cars were a big hit. Under hood, Pontiac trotted out a new, smaller 301 V8 as part of the efficiency push–a far cry from the performance years of the 1960s. Still, buyers loved the new approach, and Bonneville/Catalina sales were up 67% to 207,920 units, while the model mix shifted markedly in favor of the Bonneville, which no doubt helped profit margins. The B-body success took a bite out of LeMans sales, however, as the A-body sales dropped 15%.
Though in the last year of its model cycle, the personal luxury Grand Prix enjoyed a 26% uptick, while the even older Firebird got a very attractive facelift and saw a 41% increase in sales (no doubt helped by the hugely popular Smokey and the Bandit movie starring a black Trans Am).
On the small car front, Pontiac’s compact line got an upmarket addition in mid-1977 with the arrival of the Phoenix (not covered in this fall 1976 Motor Trend report). Basically a Ventura with fancier trim and a more prominent schnoz, the Phoenix helped lift Pontiac’s X-Body sales 22%. Sales for the one-year-old Sunbird rose 6%, and the cars could be had with the new 151 CID 4-cylinder (aka the Iron Duke), which would go on to provide millions of GM cars with unremarkable power in the coming decade. Some Astre models got the new 151 4-cylinder as well, but it didn’t help the Vega variant–sales dropped 35%.
Now for the Pontiac sales totals by model:
| Grand Prix | 288,430 |
| Firebird | 155,736 |
| Bonneville | 114,880 |
| Ventura/Phoenix | 90,764 |
| LeMans | 81,391 |
| Catalina | 61,678 |
| Sunbird | 55,398 |
| Astre | 32,788 |
| Safari/Grand Safari | 31,362 |
Pontiac’s total volume of 912,427 earned the 3rd place ranking among GM divisions: behind Chevrolet and Oldsmobile, while ahead of Buick and Cadillac. Not bad for a company that had been struggling with the transition from performance to efficiency and broughams, as needed for success in the 1970s.
All told, 1977 was a fantastic year for The General. The company’s bold gamble on smaller big cars looked incredibly smart and timely. The products themselves were high quality and well designed, leading to many satisfied owners and great word-of-mouth. GM’s dominance in personal luxury cars continued unabated, and other smaller lines fared pretty well too. The corporation achieved car sales of 5,565,544 units, up 16% over 1976 and a whopping 2,953,340 cars ahead of second place Ford Motor Company. In 1977, General Motors seemed absolutely invincible. No one would have ever dreamed that just 15 years later, this poster child of American business success would be flirting with bankruptcy…
I really lusted after an Impala bent-window coupe, but the price was too high for me at the time, especially when I had my 1976 ¾ ton C-20 Custom DeLuxe truck less than a year, and would lose my shirt on a trade-in.
A friend bought a Colonnade-style Cutlass supreme coupe – light ice-blue w/white top & interior. THAT was a beautiful ride, and nobody – I hate to say it – did rear fixed glass better than the GM mid-sizers.
Another friend later bought a 1977 Fleetwood Brougham with that odd upside-down tapered B pillar. That feature always puzzled me, as it looked like a design screw-up more than a properly designed car. I never could figure out the reasoning behind it.
The absolute only reason I believe for that quirk was for visual difference from DeVille. I like Fleetwoods, but that thing bugged me. Fortunately it was gone in the 1980 reskin.
I think that wedge shaped B pillar was supposed to mimic the custom bodied luxury cars of the thirties. If you Google “1933 Duesenberg Twenty Grand”, I think you’ll see the inspiration for it. I don’t know how to post pictures or I’d post it. I always thought that that B pillar made the 77 Fleetwood look like the frame was bent.
Probably true, The “Twenty Grand” sedan definitely has it. Since the Fleetwood lost its exclusive wheelbase (and in 71-76 Fleetwood alone even had a “B” pillar) They felt they need some visual cue on the exterior besides “wreath” vs “V”. I often wondered what it cost to do a detail that 90% of people probably didn’t notice.
Until someone told me different, I always assumed that the 77 Fleetwood was longer than a de Ville.
LINK 1933 Duesenberg Twenty Grand
I would point out that the first Fleetwood Sixty Special had a similar B pillar to the 77 or the 1971.
This is a 1941 LINK
That tapered B pillar was a head scratcher. Just when I got used to it, it was gone in the 1980 refresh. I never did figure out how they did it, it seems unlikely they actually modified the C body B pillar for 20,000 some odd cars.
That Fleetwood picture is interesting for another reason. The door window frames have a solid chrome covering. I don’t recall Cadillac doing that on any production Fleetwoods in the ’77-79 period.
The B bodies and C bodies were such terrific cars.
Yes, a big year for GM. I have driven every version of the 1977-78 B/C body except for Pontiac, and they were indeed far and away better driving cars than the previous generation. With one exception: Buick was really in love with its V6, and a LeSabre V6 was a Class A slug.
I think 1977 may have been a tipping-point year for small American cars. The economy was good, fuel prices had moderated, and the imports were really getting a foothold. Those inclined to American cars were buying bigger ones again, and those after small cars were shopping Toyota and Datsun, as well as the VW Rabbit.
GN, thanks for your work. Sorting through the huge GM portfolio obviously took a lot of time on your part.
Question for the more technically inclined here. There has been considerable commentary here during CC ’77, that the American manufacturers bobbed, weaved, and did whatever they could to avoid fuel injection as the correct, but more costly way to resolve emission and fuel economy issues.
But, here GM is offering optional electronic fuel injection on the Eldorado. I don’t recall the ’77 Eldorado EFI 425 (of all things!) becoming known for its fantastic reliability, drivability, and its Green cred as one might say today.
So, what was good, or bad, about GM’s EFI for big cars in 1977?
My best guess concerning fuel injection in that era was the infancy of good and reliable electronic computing ability and the headaches of mechanical injection.
Neither was good for a mass-produced vehicle, hence continued carburetor usage.
Our 1981 Reliant had a carburetor. Our 1984 Chrysler E-Class had throttle body electronic fuel injection. That worked very well, except for a MAP sensor continually going bad and the car would go into limp-mode. Fortunately, the Dodge dealer where we bought the car was literally around the corner, and ironically, the last repair was made almost exactly on the day the 5 year emission warranty ran out, never to give us a problem again!
Dodge Headquarters, the early 80s:
“Say, boss; tell me again how this ‘warranty’ thing is supposed to work. It’s lots of problems while the warranty is good, then clear sailing after, right?”
“You idiot! You and your Members’ Only jacket and deck shoes are fired!”
the Cadillac Seville had a port fuel injection controlled by an analog computer. The system was a Bendix design. Bosch had D Jetronic in the late 60’s which was similar. What GM realized by the mid 70’s was that the microprocessors (digital) would make electronic fuel injection much more reliable, as the digital processors could monitor the sensors and flag an error code when things were out of range. In fact Cadillac put a digital fuel injection system on the 1980 Cadillacs (except diesels).
I just want to say that I love these features. It’s fantastic to see the introductions of these vehicles combined with hard sales numbers. It’s also a reminder of how big GM really was once. Sure, they sell plenty of trucks today, but there was a time when it seemed like everyone I knew had at least one full sized GM car in their driveway. Now, I’m surprised when I find out someone I know has a car made by a Detroit company.
In hindsight, GM’s calculated gamble on smaller big cars might have been more of a slam dunk than risk. GM’s similar size ’73 – ’77 mid-size Colonnade cars were huge sellers, and the ’76 Cutlass version overtook the full-size Chevy as GM’s best selling car.
At the same time, it wasn’t exactly a secret that full-size sales had been sliding since the late ’60s, and were down dramatically after 1973’s oil price spike. Chrysler was practically driven out of the big car business beginning in 1974. Everyone was aware that CAFE was now on the horizon, and some kind of downsizing was inevitable. Selling the 1976 Caprice / Impala with a 454 engine in volume numbers was literally going to become against the law.
But, I suppose it made for some automotive press drama to talk about possible acceptance issues. And, I did see a few grown men actually complain about the smaller cars – but perhaps it is notable that the complaint I best remember was from a dedicated Ford guy that traded his 1965 Galaxie on a 1979 Ford LTD. The early Ford Panthers were not exactly the best example of a modern traditional American car.
In some ways the boxy styling may have been the biggest risk. 13 year old me was initially not a fan of these look alike boxy cars. The cars they replaced seemed so, well, longer, lower, wider and sleeker.
But, I was quickly immersed in riding and driving these cars beginning with my Dad’s 1977 Olds Delta 88 Royale company car. It was a darn pleasant car to ride in, and a few years later, learning to drive in both a ’78 Caprice, and an old school ’76 Ford LTD, the Caprice was simply a lot easier and more pleasant to drive. As a car guy, I still liked the old big cars for what they were, but for non-car people, the new GM cars were simply light years ahead of all the old school American barges.
I will confess that at 18, I was among the holdouts who liked the big cars. The big Lincolns and Marks and the big Chryslers were very attractive cars, and they sold very well in 1976-77. But you are right, the less attractive big cars didn’t do well (Plymouth and Dodge). There must have been enough who agreed with me, because even though GM did very well, Lincoln and Chrysler’s Newport/New Yorker both sold very, very well in 1977.
No doubt, those big cars had a last hurrah before the final end. ’77 was an interesting year. The economy was still weird due to some nasty inflation, but things had recovered reasonably from the 1974 recession. Having Nixon and Vietnam in the rearview mirror probably lightened the Nation’s mood. All that, some pent up demand, and the ’77 auto market was indeed a big tent.
I think there was a lot of shuffling going on, GM made the big car cool(er, anyway) again, drawing enough new people into the big car market to offset any backlash against downsizing. Interestingly, the backlash was mostly the big luxury buyer. Mercury, Lincoln, and Chrysler New Yorker did well, while the big Ford was flat, and, as you note, Plymouth and Dodge were basically done for.
’78 probably caused another shuffle. The GM cars were now a familiar sight, and I think caused a new problem for Ford and Chrysler; it had become very difficult to make a case for the LTD II or the Fury over an Impala or Caprice. I think the more traditional style and frameless door glass on the LTD II kept some life in it in ’77, but it was suddenly very old school by 1978. GM’s non-personal luxury new mid-size cars did okay, but except for upper end American luxury cars, GM’s big cars had consolidated just about all of the business for cars with greater than a 114″ wheelbase.
I was a bit surprised by the extent that GM updated it’s big cars in 1980, with all new sheet metal and an attempt to engineer even better fuel economy. I suppose that owning such a huge part of the large car market caused them to think ahead about how to keep it alive with more stringent CAFE rules coming. GM’s large car assembly lines were essentially money printing presses during ’77-’79. If not for the ’79 oil shock and GM fumbling the diesel, America probably would have been buying a lot of CAFE friendly big GM diesel cars in the early ’80s.
I’m not that familiar with the optional GM FI system but wasn’t that a multi-point type? And wasn’t that Bendix system based on the Bosch? If yes that would make it a pretty big cost up which would explain the low fitment rates as it was expensive for GM to make standard and high cost options were always a tough sell in America.
The single-point injection systems that came later were much simpler and had lower hardware cost. GM may have even been paying a royalty to Bosch on the Cadillac system which, if true, I’m sure they hated. SPI systems are more reliable than a carb and offer better drivability and lower emissions but the performance and fuel economy benefits are negligible.
GN are you pulling your ’77 sales data from a time period say Sept. 1, 1976 to Aug. 31, 1977 or are the figures for the ’77 model year car, no matter when it was sold? If the latter that would explain the sales decrease on the Seville. The ’76 was an early ’76 model introduced in May 1975 and had more sales months than the ’77 which had a normal fall ’76 intro.
Other observations include how much the Sunbird looked like J car. how beautiful the Monza Spyder fastback was and the phenomenal sales of the four-year-old Monte Carlo. I’ve always hated the looks of that car and was thrilled to see the Cutlass outsell it after its sheer-look facelift. That both of those could sell so well showed there were plenty of people who still liked the baroque look in ’77.
GM’s EFI was just about a pure copycat crib of Bosch D-Jetronic, which, yes, was multipoint. Some of the components even interchange. I am about as sure as can be without documentation that GM did not pay any royalties or other fees to Bosch; that was not their modus operandi. When they spotted something they wanted and it hadn’t come from within GM, they simply stole it by whatever means necessary. Read up on what they did to Holley after that company developed a carburetor for them that addressed one of the Vega’s urgent emergencies (in a nutshell: “Thanks for showing that to us. Don’t call us; we’ll call you”, then they had their own Rochester division build carburetors with Holley’s innovations and techniques. Why Holley didn’t sue is a very easy exercise for the reader.
That’s what I thought. It’s important not to confuse multi-point systems, which were for sure more costly than a carb, with single-point systems.
It wasn’t that GM was lazy in not replacing CCC with FI, it was trying to avoid the additional cost which would have been significant to go across the board with MPI. Back when SPI and MPI co-existed in the same year within an OE, it was always the more expensive models that had MPI.
I would argue the CCC (feedback carb) like on my 307 Brougham was not less sophisticated at metering fuel than the TBI that came next on the SBCs. Therefore no better performance or mileage. It was more reliable, in retrospect, in that it had fewer vacuum lines to keep after but that wasn’t an issue when cars were new.
Start up was easier and probably much cleaner and that’s likely why TBI replaced CCC. It may have even been cheaper. The low HP on the 307 has nothing to do with the carb, it was a trade-off to get more low-end torque like on a BMW “eta” engine.
CCC (GM’s cutesy name for feedback carburetion) might’ve been cheaper to put on new cars, but I’d bet the American automakers’ decision to stay with carbs cost them a whole hell of a lot more than could ever have been spent installing MPFI across the board. In the short term, they cost makers money in warranty and customer-satisfaction service costs. In order to run passably well, emissions-controlled carbureted cars needed to be tuned exactly, precisely right, often with procedures so involved that even dealers didn’t want to do them. Anything less than perfect tune meant driveability/reliability problems.
And then in the long run, those cars went out of warranty and away from dealer service to independents who were faced with trying to maintain and repair the underhood maze of vacuum hoses, valves, widgets and gadgets that were a nightmare to diagnose conclusively, leading to persistent, fix-resistant driveability/reliability faults. Eventually owners gave up and went shopping for a new car, often from someone other than GM, Ford, or Chrysler. Usually they did not return.
CCC—and its counterparts from the other makers—was cynically-specified junk. TBI was marginally less dumb. GM could have done very much better, and easily kept the cars cost-competitive. They simply chose not to.
Interesting, I had always assumed Cadillac’s 70s fuel injection was TBI due to the traditional central throttle location. This takes the wind out of my sails from a post I made from yesterday’s topic – GM did in fact have multiport, they just botched it.
Searching for images one thing that instantly stands out is their manifolds effectively have no runners, just a big giant plenum area below the throttle, kneecapping the benefits of a multiport design over the cheaper/simpler TBI approach.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/78-Cadillac-Seville-OLDS-350-ENGINE-EFI-ELECTRONIC-FUEL-INJECTED-INTAKE-MANIFOLD-/142104679597?fits=Year%3A1977%7CModel%3ASeville&hash=item21161954ad:g:HcoAAOSwFqJWhfkq&vxp=mtr
I’ve casually tinkered with old Mercedes since a car bud has had a few, definitely not an expert(either of us really, we were backyard mechanicing them) but I was able to observe their intake manifolds are like any proper multiport setup with long U shaped runners which are fed by a central mounted throttle which feeds a plenum tucked in the valley due to the SOHC design(in the case of the fuelly Chevy it’s runners pointed upward due to the pushrod configuration). Looks almost like a traditional carbed V8 all put together funnily enough, it’s like Cadillac’s setup was engineered by looking at a picture of a Mercedes V8!
Most people think MPI only when they see a long, intricate runner with an injector at the end and that’s usually the case. That gets the most out of the system. But those kinds of runners need a long lead time not just for tooling but layout as well. Big cost up on the variable side, and fixed too.
The benefit for adding wasn’t worth the cost / effort except on high-end models, until it became inexpensive to sequentially fire the injectors. Now all of a sudden there was a huge increase in power making it easier to go with smaller, lighter engines. This is why the ancient 302 had decent performance in a Town Car. Decent but not as good as a well-kept, carbed 307.
What chaps my hide is reading this over and over and over again…
* I / my friend / someone on the internet had a Brougham 307 that was slow as hell. It couldn’t have been my / friend’s / internet’s poor maintenance that caused the problem because I / friend / internet had a Brougham with the 305 SBC which had 30 more HP and ran fine.
* Both engines were old, OHV and had the same size, the “only” difference was fuel injection.
* Therefore my 307 was slow because it did not have throttle-body fuel injection.
* It did not have Fi because GM was too stupid / cheap, take your pick.
It used to be this would come up now and then but more recently it’s on…
* 100% of the Brougham articles, even if it’s just a picture of the car like Brendan posted one day.
* 95% of all Cadillac articles even if it’s about a 1950s model.
* 85% of all malaise articles even though the 307 “eta” came out well after this era, by anyone’s def.
Lest you think I am over reacting please note we are talking about this in an article about 77 GM cars. The final straw was yesterday when it came up in an article about a 1964 Comet, of all things.
The 307 had it’s own issues. The 1985 and newer 307s, the ones used in Cadillac’s had the awful swirl port heads which had tiny and restrictive ports. The power band of these engines was extremely limited and they made their peak power at a meager 3200 RPM. That said, I don’t think the lack of power with the 307 had anything to do with the lack of EFI. Drive the same car with 307-4bbl Olds vs a 305-4bbl Chevrolet and the Chevrolet is a far more lively engine. Up here in Canada we had many G-bodies that came equipped with Chevrolet LG4’s in place of LV2 Oldsmobile’s, so direct comparisons are easy. IMO when GM went the corporate engine route in the late 1970’s, they should have phased out all other division engines then, including the Olds V8’s and stuck with the SBC.
In the end, GM finally did put TBI on the SBC, but it really made little change in the power and performance. What it did do was drastically improve drivability and level out the torque curve while improving emissions and fuel economy. These TBI SBC’s proved to be some of GM’s most reliable and longest lasting engines of that era. There is no reason why all SBC shouldn’t have been setup this way in the early 1980’s other than pure corporate greed focusing on profitability per unit.
I think we are saying the same thing about the SBC TBI. The main benefit, in retrospect, was that it made owning an old Brougham less of a headache for someone buying it as a used car 25 years later.
The LT1 on the 94-96 Broughams with MPI was a real powerhouse but to package that under the hood of a Camaro (that’s where it came from) required that Opti-Spark be developed. OS had a whole host of issues including the need for about $1,000 in repairs at the 100,000 mile mark. I’d rather replace a few vacuum lines or reseal the intake on a 307.
The HP may have peaked at 3,200 RPM on the 307 but that’s not the point. The point is that torque peaked at about 1,600 RPM, much lower than in the SBC. That’s what made it so nice around town and in OD 4th on the highway. The 86-on high-swirl heads get the credit for making he 307 feel like a big-block. Those same head limited the peak HP to 140 but who cares.
The high compression LT1 also required that fancy reverse flow cooling system be developed. No company was going to spend that much on an engine for a low volume car like the Brougham and Roadmaster that’s why it had to be borrowed from the Camaro. MPI couldn’t be simply “added” to the pre-94 SBC like some people think.
Relaxed, quiet and cool running, 307s will last forever with proper care. Remember the same basic block was used to make the 350 Olds diesel it was that stout.
The 0-60 may not have been anything to brag about but the SBC TBI was pretty slow too.
Optispark reeked of not invented here syndrome. So a distributor wouldn’t fit, then how about… individial coils/coil packs packs ala Ford and literally everyone else who ditched distributors by the 90s? (GM to their credit did do this for the later LS series) Besides, the LT1 was not the first SBC with long runner MPI, the TPI setup introduced on the 85 Vette was a long runner layout as well, but only spread to the F-body line, leaving the final Gs, Bs and trucks with TBI until the LT1 and even Gen III ultimately replaced them. Across town Ford went from TBI to MPI with long runner intake manifolds across the board for the 5.0/5.8 in 1986, from Mustang to Crown Victoria to F150
The benefit of having long runners is the power/torque band can be broadened with both a healthy peak power in the upper RPMs as well as stump pulling low end grunt. Even in the non sequential variety it’s superior since fuel puddling inside the long intricate runners doesn’t happen, fuel from the paired injector may sit on a closed valve briefly but it’s still a more optimized mixture at that point than Carb/TBI provides at the same point.
The LT1 was just an example again of GM going half-hearted. GM had been using DIS on the 3800 since the late 80’s but it had to come up with the convoluted Optispark for the 350? Like I said, I could live with an LT! because they were great engines, but there was no excuse for this in 1992 when the engine was released (especially since it was in the Corvette).
I agree that Ford really did make an effort to improve their old OHV V8’s in the 80’s while GM was fine riding out old technology as long as they possibly could. Sure they had the TPI engines in the F-bodies, but they still offered carbs and then TBI along side in the F-bodies far longer than they should have. It’s pretty bad that GM didn’t put a MPFI system in the B-bodies until 1994, when Ford had it in the Panther’s in 1986. And having owned a 302 Panther with MPFI, I can say it was torqiuer than a 307, and faster than a 305 TBI.
The Cadillac EFI system used from 1975-79 (1980 in California emissions cars) was used on the 350 Olds in the Seville, as well as the Caddy 500 and 425. This was a Bendix system, not Bosch, but it was modelled very closely after the Bosch D-Jetronic. The system was a batch fired multipoint injection system that used an intake manifold similar to a dual plane carbureted intake. The computer was analog and the system was open loop. These systems had a reputation of being unreliable when new, although partially because the technicians were unable to fix it properly. Further, people who have managed to make their FI last until today, suffer from virtually no replacement parts being available.
GM went to digital technology with the in-house 1980 TBI design. This era of GM was really making huge efforts to cost cut, and maximize profit on cars. That’s probably why they stopped using an outside source for fuel injection, and why they likely stuck with a basic TBI design.
The E4ME electronic carburetor was a perfect example of this cost cutting. GM had a basic TBI system in place, but instead invested money into redesigning a carburetor from the 1960’s to clean up emissions. An E4ME only has its primary side metered by the computer, but still is stuck with a crude choke, and a secondary side that operates just as the old non-computer controlled Q-jets. Even though these carbs were among the better computer controlled carbs, they were still overly complicated, techs had a hard time tuning them, and they far more complicated than a the simple TBI system that GM already had in place.
The choke on the CCC was an issue, I will admit. Choke sticking was often the culprit in a rich running engine which would plug the cat. Still, a cheap and easy fix compared to say Opti-Spark on an LT1.
My 307 doesn’t seem very clean at cold start and you do have to go through a pumping ritual. The TBI was better for vacuum lines and emissions and that’s about it.
As for the secondaries not being computer controlled big deal. You rarely tapped into those during daily driving but when you did you got that nice deep growl sadly missing from the TBI systems. Think with your heart not just your head Bill Mitchell 🙂
The 1985-90 LV2 307 was rated at 140 hp @3200 RPM and 255 ft-lbs @2000 RPM, not 1600 RPM. The 1980-84 307 was 140 hp @ 3600 RPM and 240 ft-lbs 1600 RPM. I have owned several 307 Oldsmobiles, as well as 305 Chevrolet’s. I don’t in any way want to disrespect your Cadillac, but these 307’s are not even close to having big block torque. They may have an advantage over a 305 Chevy, but they are so sluggish everywhere else in the power band that that slight torque advantage isn’t worth it in my opinion. And even with the 307’s “low end torque,” my old 307’s sure seem to struggle even with small hills or light trailers.
I still would take a GM TBI over a E4ME Q-jet any day of the week. I disagree that the only advantage is the improved reliability when they are 20 years old, the TBI engines were much more so when new too. On top of that, they had flatter torque curves, much improve drivability, better fuel economy and better emissions. There is a reason that TBI units are taking off in the Hot Rod world now vs the old traditional carb. While the L03 305’s were no powerhouse, they were stronger than a LG4 305 and both were stronger than a LV2 307. I remember when I worked at a GM dealer driving an ’89 Brougham and a ’91 Brougham almost back to back. The ’89 was a slug while the ’91 with the L03 felt like it was a whole different car.
The 307’s had a similar block to the 350 Olds, but that was the 1977 and newer 350 Olds with the window main webs. So it’s far from Oldsmobile’s most sturdy block. I had a few of these engines to higher mileage where oil consumption became an issue, much more so than my SBC’s.
Yes, the LT1’s had their issues with Opti-Spark, and it was not one of GM’s finest engineering jobs, but I was comparing carbs to the TBI units. For whatever reason, GM seemed to do so many of their FI V8’s poorly in this era (the 4.3, 5.0, 5.7 Vortec’s were another example). Even with their servicing issues, I’d take an LT1 any day of the week over a 307.
In retrospect, GM should never have put a carburetor back on a Cadillac in 1986. They should have either put a SBC with TBI or retrofitted TBI to the Olds 307.
Not sure where you’re getting your 307 A5 specs from. Mine are from “automotive-catalog” and that says the 307 in my ’86 Brougham makes 255 lb-ft peak torque at 1,600 RPM. Please see link. Same source says the ’91 305 SBC makes 255 lb-ft peak torque but at 2,400 RPM. That’s a big difference.
The 86-on 307 was designed as a total system, including the transmission, to take advantage of the engine’s long stroke. A long stroke is inherently good for emissions, fuel economy and low-end torque. High-swirl heads and intake were added for even more grunt down low. Add the 4-speed auto with a lower 1st gear and you can understand how part-throttle response was almost as nice as a big-block around town.
Brougham owners use their cars mainly around town and on the highway. Considering that, GM made the right choice with the 307. Other considerations probably included Cadillac not wanting a truck engine with the associated noise and harshness in the Brougham.
In a 0-60 the 305 might take the 307 due to it’s shorter stroke and better flowing heads but that’s not what people did with their Broughams.
The 307 A5 was conceptually similar to the mid-80s BMW “eta” engine which was designed for max low-end torque at the expense of peak HP. The eta was hated by enthusiasts because of the low HP rating, never mind how well it worked with an A/T and fit with the way Americans drive. The fuel economy was fantastic.
It quietly went away when gas prices slipped, just like the 307 did. I think one of the main reasons for the SBC starting in ’90 was to get a bigger HP number in the brochure. Americans are like that. The EPA mileage figures went down, even with the addition of TBI (18/25 on the 307, 16/25 on the 305). The 307 A5 was more fuel efficient, like it or not, but that was no longer important.
An “eta” 307 with TBI could have probably made everyone happy.
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_details1.php
Automotive-Catalog isn’t a very reliable source in my experience. I have several reputable sources that quote those numbers, including the Standard Catalog of American cars, Service Manuals and some original GM factory literature. Regardless, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Like I said, I have driven and owned both engines, and I have no love for the 307 Oldsmobile. It has somewhat more torque than a 305, but no big advantage in the real world. I have put thousands of miles on 307 Oldsmobiles, so I am very familiar with them. I had the opportunity to drive two Caddy’s basically back to back, and the 305 was far peppier. And I am not just talking full throttle, I mean just around town cruising, highway crusing, etc. And I strongly disagree that the 307 had any thing close to big block like torque. Drive a 350 Olds, it’s got gobs of torque over a 307 and even a 350 Olds is no where near what a big block produces.
I am glad you like your 307’s and your Cadillac. I am sure it’s a great car and it obviously satisfies your driving needs. But after all the miles I put on my old Oldsmobiles, the one thing I disliked the most about the cars was the underpowered 307.
The first generation fuel injection option on the 500 CID engine was about $650, cheaper than the vinyl roof options. While it was probably designed much like the D-Jetronic Bosch, I think that it probably was different enough to avoid patent conflicts.
Early fuel injection was not problem free. One problem with port injectors was that they would clog up eventually. My 86 Buick Electra with sequential fuel injection needed the injectors cleaned up at about 60,000 miles. Later on some of them needed replaced. Injector design was improved by the 1990’s, along with better gasolines, which reduced the clogging.
The 4.5 Cadillac engine was first offered as throttle body with 155 HP. The Allante version was tuned port with 200 HP, 270 ft-lbs. Then a port injection, but not tuned, was rated at 180 HP, 245 ft-lbs. The 4.9 without a tuned manifold was rated at 200 HP, 275 lb-ft.
Throttle body fuel injection should give the same performance as a carburetor with the same tuning. But if the EFI is better at controlling emissions, then some performance gains are possible.
GN, I enjoy your great writing and recaps as much as the articles themselves. Thank you for these.
+100
These are great, and wonderful additions to our coverage and archives. Thank you GN.
The ’77 GM B/C program spawned about 30% of my favorite cars (and likely an equal number of cars I’ve owned.) It would be beyond my ability to add much new! ?
It feels good to be back and commenting again after a brief hiatus, so look at this lineup, here are my thoughts.
Cadillac: I think the downsized Deville is probably what pops into my head when I think of the most iconic Cadillac, crazy I know. These Devilles still hold up, there’s something very classic about the design that remains timeless, an embodiment of the decade without being stuck in a timewarp.
I will admit, I like the 75-78 Eldoardos from a styling perspective, but the low sales indicate that it was clearly long in the tooth. I don’t think the lack of a convertible option or the 500 was what led to lower sales, it was just that it had been around and looked tired and stale, and when the Mark V came out with it’s new sleek new design, the Eldorado never stood a chance. Had the 79 refresh come out in the 77 model year, I think it might’ve done better, but clearly people still wanted their big personal luxury coupes and in that category, Ford did a better job than GM.
Buick: I always wondered what a downsized Electra looked like, and now I know. Horribly generic. Real shame too, because the Electra always tended to be my favorite of the GM big luxury cars (The 98 tended to leave me cold and the Deville was hit or miss) This seemed like the decade where Buick lost the plot, as most of their lineup was horribly generic and samey looking and didn’t seem prestigious or understated.
Oldsmobile: I think there was a very good reason why the Cutlass did so well, in my opinion, it was one of the best looking cars of the 70s. You could easily see why it appealed to many people of the time, it just had a presence to it that was hard to match. Olds really had a winner this decade.
I always was fond of the 98s, but I always preferred the later refreshes, especially the early 80s ones. It was a car that I thought got better looking as it went on.
The Toronado had the same problem as the Eldorado, it was just long in the tooth by 1977. I would’ve just waited and bought the XS model with the wraparound glass, that really seemed to improve the car’s aesthetics.
Chevrolet: Man that Monte Carlo is an ugly car. Once they added the square double stacked headlights, the Monte Carlo just became really unattractive. It was a total mishmash and it seemed like a rushed botch job to get a new look out. The Thunderbird may have been more gaudy and OTT, but it seemed much more focused and coherent compared to the Monte Carlos. Of course, when the Monte Carlo got redesigned in 79, it was an improvement (in my opinion anyway), especially compared to the 80 T-bird.
Pontiac: I’m not going to say much about the Firebird, since frankly any commentary I could say would be the same thing most everyone says. This is still my favorite generation of the Firebird, and I would kill to have one later down the line.
While I prefer the 76 version slightly more, I still think the Grand Prix is an attractive car. I think this was the last Grand Prix that even was remotely good looking, as the later A and G body cars were sort of forgettable and dull and the later models just looked like wheelie bins.
The Pontiac Le Mans they show in the photo almost seems like the Can Am version, which would make some sense considering the Can Am was only available in 77. The Can Am is an obscure car, but again, I always had a soft spot for it.
For all the vitriol aimed at GM here at CC, this is a pretty great lineup if we’re giving credit where it’s due. In ’77 all eyes were on The General, and they really did deliver. GM’s big cars of this generation simply made every other domestic car on the road look and feel archaic by comparison. Before they mucked it all up with the nightmare diesels and V8-6-4, etc., these were seemingly the benchmark for Detroit for a few years. It’s easy to criticize the lousy interior plastics, the downgraded material quality, the short-sightedness of the compact lineup devoid of useable rear seats, and of course the onset of badge engineering to the nth degree, but….
Should there have been greater investment in Fuel Injection? Maybe, yeah. Should they have offered something to viably compete with the Corolla and the Accord?” Yeah. But at this point they certainly were a decade away from completely jumping the shark.
30 months later, GM released its modern small front-wheel-drive family cars. Like Chrysler in 1957, they couldn’t build them fast enough and every one made an enemy for the company instead of a friend.
Really suprised that the Monte Carlo was the biggest selling Chevy…
It wasn’t. Chevy sold 662k of its Impala/Caprice series, 61% more than Monte Carlos.
It’s interesting to recall that during that period, Chevy made a big deal of talking about the Impala and Caprice as collectively, “The New Chevrolet.” They made a point of wanting to consolidate the volume in order to hold title to the best selling car in America.
Contrast that to GM being mostly silent today when the full-size GMC and Chevy pick-ups combined outsell Ford’s F-150.
Well, that is how it was always done for full sized cars, not “that period”. And, wasn’t “to hold onto #1”. Look at sales figures for Chevrolets dating back to the 40’s. The trim lines of same body were not considered a ‘different car, such as 1957 150, 210 and Bel Air. Or even in 75, Caprice, Impala, Bel Air.
And also, the whole Cutlass line, including wagons, S and base were added to Supreme #’s to get #1 for ’76.
While it is true that many brands did talk about their various big car models collectively as “Ford” or “Chevrolet” to consolidate volume, probably as well as set them off a little snobbishly as “Standard” cars, that situation had changed a lot by 1977.
Plymouth had consolidated their big cars to the Fury name by 1965, and Ford had all but done that after 1974, everything was an LTD except for the fleet special Custom 500.
I’d have to due some digging, but I believe I still have a ’78 magazine ad that Chevrolet very much used to make sure America understood that the big Chevy was again America’s number one car. The big Chevy lost the title in ’57 to Ford, and once again to Cutlass in ’76. I’m guessing they lost the title again in 1980, to Cutlass, and the Impala was gone a few years later.
AFAIK, the most popular 1980 car was the Chevy Citation, although it had a spring 1979 intro instead of the usual fall.
My first car was a 77 Sunbird handed down from my grandmother. She got it new to replace her Catalina. My Sunbird was the notchback coupe, orange metallic with a black interior, 231 V6 with 3-speed auto. No AC, but it had the cowl vent system which was OK but not that great if you weren’t moving. It also had the Radial Tuned Suspension and steel sport wheels with trim rings. It was a good car, served me well through high school and starting college. It was terrible in the snow, however. The engine fan did not have a clutch, so as engine RPM climbed, so did the noise. How much could a clutch fan have cost GM, based on how many they bought in 77? It also have a pathetically shallow trunk, made worse by the notchback design over the hatchback. There was no place to put the gas tank except under the trunk.
As expected, it started to rust once exposed to Michigan salt, the wheel openings seemingly designed to collect and hold salty slush. Oh, and the tumblehome on that body, it seemed like one side of the car actually met the other somewhere underneath.
All in all, good memories though. Never left me stranded. I did want to convert it into a Formula though. I spent endless days shopping for General XP2000 WHL tires, front and rear spoilers in the JC Whitney catalog. Good times.
While they didn’t take the market by storm in the same way Pontiac did in the sixties, the seventies certainly seemed to be Oldsmobile’s decade, specifically with the Cutlass. It had just the right blend of brougham styling and appeal at an affordable price.
Of course, in typical GM style, they would foul it up by diluting the nameplate, spreading the Cutlass name around to a whole bunch of different cars.
In retrospect, GM might have been better served renaming the whole division to Cutlass. It couldn’t have gone worse if they had.
Might as well have. The downfall of Oldsmobile has been discussed here before, but it seems like 1977 was the peak for the brand. In fact, this was also the year that there was such demand for a V8 in the large cars, it was the cause of outrage when GM started substituting Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobiles. It was an inevitability that GM would be interchanging engines between divisions, anyway, but the way it was done caused some major PR damage to both GM and Oldsmobile. Then the Olds diesel fiasco followed.
They then got by well enough in the eighties, but things really seemed to go downhill in the nineties, with the end finally coming in 2004. A very sad end to the brand that’s often credited with starting the modern musclecar era with the 1949 ‘Rocket’ 88 and its pioneering OHV V8 engine.
Hmm.. my metallic green 4 door 77 Malibu Classic was one of 328,000 cars sold that year. I can attest the Bs feel wider than the As mostly due to the wider greenhouse and thinner doors. Quieter too due to the framed windows, where the As have rattly frameless glass. (my sedan at triple digit speeds tends to have all 4 windows rattling against their blow-out clips if the HVAC is not on recirculation)
GM was at the top of its game in 1977. That was the year I turned 13, and discovered car magazines for the first time. For the next 5-6 years I was hooked.
This past weekend on a road trip, I spotted a mint-looking ’77-’79 Caddy Coupe de Ville parked by the roadside. It was butter yellow with a white vinyl top and still looked great at nearly 40 years of age.
It’s interesting to compare sales of the 1977 full-size cars with their 1967 ancestors.
For all of the ballyhoo surrounding the 1977 Chevrolet Caprice and Impala, note that they only sold about one-half the number of their 1967 predecessors – and 1967 was an off-year for the auto industry in general, while 1977 was a strong year for auto sales. In 1967, there were about 1.2 million full-size Chevrolets sold, while there were about 660,000 1977 full-size Chevrolets sold (Impala, Caprice and wagons). Yet the 1977 Chevrolets are remembered as a huge success.
It was the same story at Pontiac – it sold about 433,000 full-size cars in 1967, compared to about 208,000 in 1977.
The real stars were Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac. Oldsmobile sold about 265,000 full-size cars in 1967, but sold about 386,000 Delta 88s, Ninety-Eights and Custom Cruisers in 1977. And it was also selling a lot more Cutlasses in 1977 than it did in 1967.
Buick sold about 313,000 full-size cars in 1967, and was able to move about 387,000 ten years later. And, like Oldsmobile, it had increased sales of its intermediate offerings over the same time frame.
Cadillac moved almost 262,000 DeVilles and Fleetwood Broughams in 1977, compared to about 179,000 in 1967. (Although one could argue that this should have set off some alarm bells at GM headquarters. Sales at that level show that the “standard” Cadillac was becoming too affordable to be considered a true luxury car, as has been noted on this site.)
The full-size segment was in long-term decline, and an increasing number of those buyers who remained obviously preferred to spend some extra money to get the greater prestige of car made by a GM “senior” division.
It was the same story at Chrysler Corporation. The full-size Chrysler Newport and New Yorker Brougham recovered nicely after 1975, but the Plymouth Gran Fury and Dodge Monaco were barely present during those same years. Mopar loyalists who wanted a full-size car simply ignored the Dodge and Plymouth offerings and went straight to a Chrysler, which still enjoyed some prestige during these years.
Having both the ’77- ‘ 79 period Delta 88 and Caprice in our driveway, there wasn’t much doubt that GM put slightly better materials into the Oldsmobile. That, and with the bigger available engines, the Olds was progressively more in the image of what big car buyers wanted.
Also, IMHO, the Olds was the only one of the five that looked good from every angle. All of the others had a weak spot somewhere in their styling. Plus, Oldsmobile was just the gold standard of the 70s.
Aha!
So that’s the year when the dreaded “formal roof” line started to spread to American cars. It was still under control in 1977, though, still a mild case. Not your nasty mid-80s perpendicular, full-blown, broomstick-up-the-muffler square roof infection. But that’s when it began. Patient zero.
1977, you’re on my list — my List of Bad Car Years. And the rest of this line-up (same with the Fords from a couple days ago) only confirms it.
But thank you for this series, GN — it’s positively discolicious.
Those formal roofs were very important to downsizing. They assured decent head room in the back seat, and made it simple to design a big trunk lid that made trunk access very easy. I wasn’t always a fan of the look, but there was little denying the practicality, and it sold very well.
America is still quite addicted to the bolt upright formal roofline, they just call them pick-ups nowadays.
I hadn’t looked at it like that. Makes a lot of sense.
Still hate it though.
Besides, they sold very well because that’s all there was to buy. Or you could get a European or a Japanese car, which increasingly Americans did in the 80s. Not saying that was just due to roof aesthetics, but it might have played a part. Easy trunk access? Can’t beat a hatchback.
Not sure people buy pick-ups for their roof line. And it’s impossible for a pick-up not to have an upright backlight.
Besides, they sold very well because that’s all there was to buy
Well, that’s only partly true due in GM’s case, since there was nary a new car besides the likes of F bodies and Corvettes introduced without a formal roof between 80 and 86, but for Ford the 1983 Thunderbird and Cougar provided both options for buyers, and the sales over the Cougar weren’t as vast as that statement would imply.
Thunderbird
1983 121,999
1984 170,551
1985 151,852
1986 165,965
1987 128,135
1988 147,243
Cougar
1983: 75,743
1984: 131,19
1985: 117,274
1986: 135,904
1987: 105,847
1988: 113,801
I also dispute the formal roofline origins, arguably the 58 Tbird was the earliest American adopter, with GM the 68 Caprice coupe, and like so many bodystyles proportions are important for attractiveness(just as a poorly proportioned fastback can end up like a Marlin). Most hatchbacks do nothing for me personally, aesthetically or functionally, unless I’m stacking something huge vertically, obstructing vision, I prefer real trunks without a big looking glass for onlookers or thieves to peer into.
Of course my statement was an over-generalization to match Dave’s contention that formal roofs were “popular”. Your T-Bird / Cougar comparo proves my implicit point — formal roofs were not necessarily a key selling point.
Your other point about the 58 Bird is also interesting. Those did pioneer the “formal” roof in a way (outside of the realm of limos), but the illness didn’t spread much. Fastbacks came back in style in the 60s and roof lines did not go to the full 90 degrees, which is what I hate purely on aesthetic grounds, until the early 80s.
Put a tonneau cover on the truck bed, and they’re more similar than you might be giving them credit for! 🙂
Yes they look similar, but my point is that pick-ups have to have these roofs. Caddys and others don’t.
Great point about how boxy, formal styling and downsizing worked together. The Seville started the trend in May 1975 with its Rolls-Royce inspried roof line. If the grille worked for Lincoln in 1969 why not the roof for Cadillac in ’75.
By the end of the decade the style was so well accepted that GM made it part of the Cadillac freshening in 1980. It was the last thing Bill Mitchell did during his time at GM, well that and the slope-backed Seville.
I find the 80-89 Fleetwood Brougham significantly more attractive than the 77-79 though the B-pillar treatment on those is visually interesting today. Back then it bothered the heck out of me as it did James and Zackman. I agree with Hardboiled Eggs that the intention was to give a coach-built look which was handled starting in ’80 by the formal roof and small, padded rear window.
It’s not about the vinyl, it’s not about the opera windows. It’s just that roof angle. The padding and the opera windows were already there by 1977 (see the Grand-Prix, Montecarlo and the Riviera above), but the greenhouse still looked ok.
Fast-forward about decade and you get this — opera window and padding gone, but “formal” roof remains…
I hate this so much I may have to write a piece about it.
That whole car is an odd mix of straight lines and curved. That said the 1985 Pontiac Grand Am 2-door, which had a similar roof line, was a sweet looking car.
The really great formal roofs from GM came before 1984. They looked nice because the lines were all straight. This is what some of us have been referring to as the “sheer-look.”
You can’t possibly tell me this upright rear window from 1975 is unattractive.
On the Seville it does look ok, because it’s still slightly slanted and the lines all make sense as a whole design. The original Seville is a well-balanced design.
Unlike that Skylark which (as you said) is a mish-mash or straight and curvy lines. It’s an 8-bit roof on a 64-bit body. Kind of like if you put a 1959 Eldorado windshield on a 1967 Eldorado. It doesn’t work.
Chrysler was also a repeat offender in this regard – not singling out GM on this one…
If you write a piece on it I’m prepared for retort! Lol
My main point as stated above, proportions and details matter. Probably the worst part about many of GM’s 80s examples is the C pillar is quite thin and the cars are stubby. The formal roof works much better aesthetically on bigger longer cars where the headroom benefits are mostly zilch (definitely the case in the Cougar vs Tbird from personal experience). Sort of the opposite issue of Fastbacks in that regard, where that tends to work best on smaller leaner cars.
Cougar did them the best in the 80s-90s IMO
.
Honorable mention, though not fully upright but definitely formal in that vein, and depending on angle can look quite upright, the LH New Yorker
Yep, the near-fastback roofline of my 77 Malibu Classic sedan makes the trunk opening rather small and the trunk itself is large enough, the opening makes it tough to load objects that would normally fit in there. The B-cars openings were much larger, and much easier to load things like a folded up lawnmower and close the lid, unlike the A-body which had to have the mower hanging half out of the opening (been there and done that back in the day)
I was also reminded of it when I took my 77 on the 13 HR Powertour to NC from Tx. with tools and luggage for two people, it filled up the trunk pretty quickly and had to always unpack/repack the trunk to fit everything, that even 15 cubic feet of space isn’t enough sometimes.
In the light of 2016 hindsight, my impression of the downsized GM full-sizers remains the same as when new. Chevrolet and especially Cadillac went unapologetically to styling that affirmed their smaller, leaner reality. Buick, and to a lesser extent Oldsmobile and Pontiac, styled theirs to look reminiscently “big.”
I would be all over a square little Seville in the right color scheme…I see a dark bronze-colored one occasionally and it’s clean as a pin.
My favorite of the new B Bodies was the 2 door Chevrolet, fixed rear glass and all. It just looked right.
The Pontiac Sunbird notchback also rates for me. It’s an underappreciated design, and like the full size Chevy of 77 just looks right. Of course 6 cubic feet of trunk space does it no favors in the practicality department. Perhaps the overall goodness [sarc] of the new Iron Duke would compensate for that.
Two opposites: Function over form with the Bs and form over function with the Hs.
In 1978, my friend’s mother bought a brand-new Pontiac Sunbird notchback. It was dark metallic brown with a light tan landau vinyl roof and wire wheel covers. It looked quite sharp, but the interior space was dire even by 1970s domestic small car standards.
If I were going small and GM I’d look at a Chevette with the right options – with manual and F41 suspension it was basically an Opel, and I’d spring for the deluxe interior with its’ extra sound insulation.
Man I would love a LeSabre Sport Coupe, either the 350 or the 403 would suit me just fine.
I still think the Buick and Pontiac B-bodies were the best looking. Too bad they were the shortest lived.
a new black over red Grand Prix SJ with T-tops for me please
I remember the ’77 model year introduction well. I was a car crazy high school student and my Dad was the fleet and lease manager at the local Chev-Olds emporium. He had a metallic blue ’77 Monte for a demo ( he thought) that got sold out from under him before he ever got to take it home.
It’s hard to imagine just how dominant GM was back then, and even as a teenager I could pick up the wave of confidence from the sales staff on “opening night”. The dealership staff and most of their families were there, and it seemed everyone in town wanted to see the new Chevy’s and Oldsmobiles. It was pretty exciting at the time. Somehow I doubt it’ll be the same for the ’17s…
…not that they’re bad cars. Cruze hatchback (finally!), facelifted Sonic and Trax, Camaro ZL1 – that would be the big draw, maybe it would get people in and help sell the other three plus carryover models.
It’s some of the stuff in between ’77 and ’07 or so that was the problem.
They’re not bad at all,and I recently bought a 2016 Canyon so I’m not knockin’ the General. But new car time just ain’t what it used to be no matter whose brand it is. There were other new car introductions after, until Dad changed careers, but ’77 was by far the best.
Things were so different back in the 70’s and early 80’s. No internet or social media or Youtube to spoil any new introductions. The only window one had into spy shots or new car introductions was one of the auto magazines or when they were being shipped to the dealer. There was an excitement during this time that is hard to put into perspective today. Star Wars was coming put along with Smokey and the Bandit. The former was so new and different and amazing that it caused a sensation that will never be replicated today. The latter put the Trans Am/Firebird on the map to a big up tick in sales for several years.
Then there was disco and a general swing of uplifting music and a sweeping change in culture shifting to new technologies such as video games and the home VCR. Add the new 1977/78 GM downsized lineup to the mix and it made for pretty exciting times considering what came just a few years before. It is an era I will never forget!
The Le Sabre brings me back to a memory…My best friend, (Walker, at 16 years young), had his moms new 77 butter yellow Le Sabre one afternoon….picked myself and another bud up for some cruising…..he was heavy on the gas pedal as usual,…no seatbelt laws then either,…I think Walker pushed the pedal-to-the-metal (or should I say shag carpet), once too many times, and this time the pedal stuck to the floor…..(it was always a rush when the big v8 roared and the trans down shifted, it didn’t do huge burn outs, but man did that thing haul out fast)…anyways, all us 16 year old boys were wowed with its power….but this time our shouts of glee instantly went to fear as Walker called out the go pedal wasn’t coming up! We all freaked out. With windows down, air blasting through, the car just kept going faster by the second. Walkers skinny legs and feet tried desperate to pull up from under the pedal with no luck…and we quickly realized we were coming into a turn soon with a set of lights onto a major intersection, that definitely would have traffic and stopped cars!
I was in the passenger seat, Morris (our other bud) was in the back, but as I turned to shout out for any ideas,…he wasn’t there,….he was on the floor grasping the shag carpet with both hands freaking out! Walkers skinny white hands were gripping the wheel like they were molded with it from the factory!
We were all too young to be experiencing something like this, heck, we were just kids looking for some easy thrills, courtesy of Walkers mom.
Well lastly, Walker pins both feet on the breaks and we’re all hanging on as the mighty Buick still keeps giving. It happened so fast, and to this day I’ve never forgot the incident. What the hell were we thinking? In the end as stupid as we all were, I crawled down onto the floor and instinctively yanked the gas pedal up. The Buick instantly went into a skid, cause the breaks were on full! The intersection came up, and yes there were some cars, but miraculously this butternut Buick with 3 kids hanging on, slides on through the red light, on down the street, over the median with the curve in it, out past the oncoming traffic, and comes to rest on the sidewalk!
What a ride! Walker instantly realizes our stroke of luck and we slowly motor away off the sidewalk and curb,…and through the now green light, disappearing into the late afternoon. No one killed thankfully. What a rip of a ride that big bad Buick gave us 16 year olds…..crazy!
Some lessons in life….you never forget. For one short sunny afternoon, we laughed, we were wowed, we panicked, we cried, ( I’m sure Morris was praying holding that carpet), we thanked God, and we learned,….and yes we thanked that beast of a Buick for not killing any one! If only Walkers mom had any idea…
Turn off the ignition???
You’re dealing with 16-year-olds.
GM cars are the only cars that appeal to me from 1977. There are actually quite a few I have owned from this era and quite a few I would still own today. Ford and Mopar offerings are just unappealing, then and now. I’d still to this day be more than happy with a 1977 Caprice LM1 350, TH350, 3:08 gears and F41 suspension. I’d prefer a coupe with the bent glass but would take a 4 door too. If it wasn’t for winter, I’d love to have one of these as daily driver. I’d also take an Olds 88 too, and I wouldn’t even care if it had the Chevy 350 in place of the 350 Olds (the Chevy 350 was a stronger performer anyway). I don’t mind the F-bodies either, since now they have become old enough that they seemed to have lost the mullet-mobile stigma. Make mine a ’77 Trans Am 400 4 speed but I wouldn’t mind a ’77 (1977 1/2) Camaro Z/28 either.
Had a 1977 88 with SBC 350 and limited slip. Nice car.
“An extremely smooth and torquey 151 cid 4 cylinder” from Pontiac. I guess I missed that one.
That one jumped out to me as well. The writer must have accidentally confused it with another engine….or else he was just the typical MT hack.
One million Oldsmobiles. Five and a half million GMs. Even though I lived through that era, it’s just so hard to fathom now.
I also noticed how they lamented about the Corvette and it’s urgently needed replacement (showing up 6 years later….). It’s interesting how that dash joystick would have worked operating the various tasks…never heard of that before.
Of course this is right around the time people were paying well over $100 (in 1977 money) for a Pong console, so there you go…
And VCR’s were 1000 bucks, blank tapes $20, too.
I was in elementary school at this point and remember hanging out with a close friend at the time near the fence checking out all the cars in the parking lot. We could identify virtually every single one and knew one model year from the next. We literally jumped out of our skin when a brand spanking new Olds Delta 88 coupe in white with red interior and matching vinyl landau roof pulled in with our music teacher . We talked about that car the rest of the day until the next morning when we had music class and interrogated her on every aspect of it.
Of course these were the days before internet and I was too young to go to the book store by myself so I wasn’t aware that there was a new swath of B-bodies coming out until after the fact. These downsided cars caused quite the stir back in the day followed by the A- body cars in 1978.
Chicago was Oldsmobile country and I definately remember seeing my first 1977 Olds Ninety Eight downtown. What a remarkable difference from previous designs. That front end was completely chopped square and covered in chrome. Instead of rounded mildly bulbous Oldsmobile shapes, it was a shiny squared box. A very severe look compared to what came before it. Within a few years, Oldsmobiles were as common as a Star Wars t-shirt.
What was offered by the competition looked instantly old. Finally, a large car that was large without being filled with waste and bloat. My family worked at Ford, so there were more than a few moments when it wouldn’t have been considered unrealistic to be a bit worried about continued employment with the immense popularity of these GM cars.
By the time Ford presented the Panther cars, the market for full size cars went on the downswing for several years and it looked like GM caught the wave and rode it until it finally petered out. Ford started labeling the Fox sedans LTD/Marquis and hedging their bets on Panther production. No updates on Panthers until a decade later.
These were peak GM car years. Sad to watch a company climb so high in the market, and then fall so fast.
Typical GM: on the occasion they hit a grand slam, they work hard at ruining it and frittering it away.
Panthers made a huge comeback in the 1983 MY, avoided extinction just in time.
I wonder if the 4% drop in Eldorado sales had something to do with Elvis passing away, he bought so many of them.
Given Motor Trend’s integral collaborative role as an industry sales tool, I’m a bit surprised these 1977 MT new car introductions, weren’t in full colour. As part of the centre spread. Or wherever the colour printing forms were located. The centre spread, being the magazine location, that commonly allows colour imagery. I never had copies of the ’77 new car intros, so I don’t know how the colour spreads were used.
Vastly, better lineups than their domestic competitors. What a great time to be a GM dealer, whatever the division. The weak link, being the Chevette, Vega, and Monza derivatives, as their only small car choices. Remarkable, how prolific all the cars photographed here, were across the US and Canada.
You are right about the weak links. At the dealership Dad worked at they were relegated to the back row along with the Novas. They sold enough to keep GM off thier backs. If you didn’t you might suddenly experience delays in getting the hot selling models.
Cutlass’s, Montes and big car were out front, trucks around the side and “specials” like Corvettes, 98s and the newly re-introduced Z-28 were in the showroom. If you wanted a Vette or a Z-28 at the time you had to agree to let them display it in the showroom for a bit, and almost every one was sold before it arrived on the carrier.
The dealership still exists in the same location today, and until the Covid production shutdown it was a sea of trucks, with a few cars around the side…..
’77-’78 was indeed a great time to be a GM dealer. My Dad bailed just as the ’81s were coming out. Many years later he told me that by that time there was nothing in the line up he would sell to a friend.
I’ll go page-by-page with my comments.
p. 32:
What in the actual, literal screaming yellow zonkers were they thinking with that awkwardly tapered B-pillar on the Fleetwood Brougham? Gross! I cannot imagine Bill Mitchell approving that; maybe he was overruled. Or maybe it just looks exaggeratedly awful in this photo, but I don’t see how that could be; this is a perfectly ordinary side-on shot.
p.34:
Interesting: they pluralise “[Buick] Century” as Centuries, not ‘Centurys’. I think we’ve had that debate in the comments here on CC, probably more than once, and I seem to remember the Camrys/Mercurys/Centurys side won. I see merit in both arguments, but I’m on the Camries/Mercuries/Centuries side.
p. 37:
Driver-operated load levelling was standard equipment on the Delta 88…? I’m not closely familiar, but that doesn’t sound right.
p. 38:
The Toronado looks extra-old, extra-bloated, extra-ugly in context of the new B- and C-bodies. Same goes for all the Colonade cars.
p. 41:
Midpage, we see GM’s shameless crib of the ’71 Dodge Dart front end design.
From The Editor’s Manual”:
Form the plural of a name ending in y by adding s without an apostrophe. Don’t replace the y with ies. Simply add s after the y: “the Murphys,” not “Murphies.”
We have two Henrys and four Marys in the family.
The Murphys no longer live here.
Other legitimate sources all agree.
Oh, I know. And I do it that way. But I don’t like it.
What in the actual, literal screaming yellow zonkers were they thinking with that awkwardly tapered B-pillar on the Fleetwood Brougham?
This, or others like it:
No objection to the one in your pic, but on that Cadillac? Nnnno.
> There are two new engines at Pontiac: an extremely smooth and torquey 151cid 4-cylinder (push-rod) and a 301 V-8
In what alternate universe was the Iron Duke “extremely smooth and torquey”?
Maybe by comparison to the Vega? It’s got to be that…
It seems like the comments strayed quite a bit from the GM 77’s. I bought a three year old Coupe de Ville in 1980. I thought that it looked much better than the bloated previous models, lighter, a bit athletic even, but instantly recognizable as a Cadillac. It was very roomy, and it ran great with the 425, never a problem with driveabilty, cold or hot.
My previous CdV was a ’70 (bought five years old) which I thought was a beautiful car. Very long and sleek, great seats and comfort inside, it was a real runner with the 472 and it handled and drove very well. It was the last of the great 60’s Cadillacs with gas mileage to match. The years between the ’70 and the ’77 were a gradual decline of the Cadillac concept. The cars became bigger and more bloated over this period, and lost the road burner ethos that had made them so desirable.