The Current State of the US Auto Market

uplanderguy

I can't think of anything I deal on in person...except a car. Not a couch, not a TV...why is it like that?

Also, I think airline pricing sucks. What other single thing do you buy, where you can be sitting next to someone, at the same time (unlike the dinner example earlier), and have paid pricing different by 100% or more for the same identical service? Only our old friends, the airlines.

Of course, even though I utilize it, the Priceline concept of hotel bidding is a crock too. I've heard people check in ahead of me, paying three times what I paid, for the same room at the same time.

I'm all for a business's ability to make a profit. I can't think of anything else, like a loaf of bread or a piece of furniture, that I'm able to figure out approximate dealer cost, so that does seem a bit unfair to dealers I think.

But on the other hand...what happened to not having 'price discrimination'?

circlew

I shopped the GTO and the G8 when they first came out. They added Market Appreciation Prices to both at the local P-B-GMC dealer. :mad:

uplanderguy

The Impala I saw didn't have a sticker showing additional markup--I was told it was not for sale! I guess they want to be able to demonstrate the car to sell retail orders, but...sheesh! What a concept.

uplanderguy

...for Acura. They use the word 'luxury' about twenty-five times in a minute.

So 'priss-pot' (as we former-Pennsylvanians would say).

andre1969

GM's initial expectation was to sell something like 18,000 GTOs per year, which I think was a constraint of the Holden plant where they were built. With such low volume, and the resurrection of such a revered nameplate, I could understand dealers thinking there would be more buyers than cars, and try to take advantage of it.

However, when it came out, it ended up being a dud. By the end of the model year, they were selling at a deep discount.

I think the biggest problem was the styling. It had all the visual excitement of a Cavalier coupe, just bigger. It just didn't stand out like the original did. It also wasn't all that cheap, something like $35K IIRC? And one issue I had with it was the tiny trunk. The Australian version had the gas tank strapped underneath, behind the rear axle, just like RWD cars had done here in the US for ages. But, with increasing safety standards, it would no longer comply, so they actually put the gas tank in the trunk, over top of the rear axle.

Now that I think about it, I wonder how Ford managed to comply with the Fox-body Mustang? It was small, RWD, and had the gas tank out back. When the 2005 came out, I'm sure they had moved it under the back seat, which is made possible with an independent rear suspension. I think you can do it with a live axle as well, but it's a lot more complicated.

Anyway, putting the gas tank inside the trunk of the GTO reduced cargo volume to about 8 cubic feet.

On the plus side, I think the GTO was pretty nice inside...probably about the highest-quality interior of anything GM offered in the US at the time. And I found it to be roomy and comfortable, in the front seat at least. But, despite all that, I don't think I'd want one today, unless I could get a killer deal on one.

Now a G8 on the other hand, I wouldn't mind having. I do think the styling is a touch generic, sort of BMW-ish with a Pontiac grille. But it's roomy, decent-sized, RWD, pretty nice interior (not perfect, but remember, these things were still built to a budget), and had decent power even with the V-6. They were offered in some really nice shades of blue, but unfortunately, those seem pretty rare.

I just searched on Cars.com, and in 30 miles of my zipcode, there are 5 G8's. One is a red GT. The other 4 are V-6 models, in silver, gray, black, and white.

uplanderguy

When the 2002 Thunderbird came out, my little former-hometown dealer tacked a $5K surcharge onto the $42K sticker price. The Catholic Church in town, which has an annual car raffle, bought the car. They've been giving away Mustang Cobras lately...but they don't buy from the dealer half-a-block down the street anymore. I think that's sad, but maybe has to do with the upcharge on the T-Bird, who knows? Most likely they feel they can buy better in the city.

Those Thunderbirds are a car that had high hopes but had low real-life sales performance. I still wouldn't mind one as a used car.

ateixeira

Those raffles bug me, they should not be promoting gambling.

uplanderguy

My hometown only has 5,900 residents...I've always felt the church must get some help from the diocese to buy the car. The raffle benefits their school. To me, it's amazing they still have a Catholic school there. They take the car to shows all over the place...I was in Columbus, OH, almost four hours away from there once, and they had the raffle car there where you could buy tickets for it. Of course, doing so means winners aren't always local, which makes some locals unhappy, but of course the money they take in is greater when they take it around to car shows elsewhere.

busiris

At the local Ford dealership's paint/body shop, inside the lobby, is a never-been-sold New Thunderbird, bright red, with the window sticker still on it. Only has a few miles. I can get you the phone number, if you want to attempt to make an offer (not that they would have any interest in selling in, LOL).

Maybe I'm wrong, but it just doesn't seem that collectable of a car.

In other news, I read a USA TODAY article this morning in which GM and Ford are working together to develop 10-speed automatic transmissions.

You have to wonder at what number of gears will finally be enough...

busiris

While I don't hate the commercial, the one I often laughed at when it was being shown had the Dirty Jobs guy (off of one of the cable channels) that Ford hired as their spokesman saying something like "We took three college-age cheerleaders out of their imports (ie., Corolla type vehicles) and put them in a Ford Mustang Convertible, and they liked the Mustang far better..."

Well, DUH!

isellhondas

I agree, most consumers aren't greedy.

Ther were some, however that were. They crossed the line in their attempt to pay nothing for a car. I had no respect for these types.

As far as value, for me, I don't care what the merchant paid for the television I just bought. It looked like a good value for us so I bought it. I'm happy!

uplanderguy

In other news, I read a USA TODAY article this morning in which GM and Ford are working together to develop 10-speed automatic transmissions.

You have to wonder at what number of gears will finally be enough...

Yeah, no kidding. At some point...it's just an automobile.

(Again, though, I'd rather spend 'extra bucks' on an old car, although with no financial aid and a kid at Miami U., and my second who went to look at Vanderbilt and talks about Princeton, 'extra bucks' is rather comical.)

isellhondas

Just wait. The forums will have people complaining that these transmissions shift too often!

andre1969

Just wait. The forums will have people complaining that these transmissions shift too often!

Oh, it's already happened, and I have to admit that I'm guilty of it myself! My first experience with more than 4 forward gears was my buddy's 2006 Xterra, which has a 5-speed automatic. It's hard to explain, but there's just something "mushy" about the way it shifts. And often, out on the highway it seems like it has no power in the higher gears, but if you give it a little gas to accelerate, you get nothing. Stomp on it harder, and it seems like there's a little lag before it kicks down, and then it seems like it takes off "too" fast. It's like there's too little power or too much, but it's hard to get just the "right" amount.

My 2012 Ram has a 6-speed automatic, and it just feels a bit weird when it shifts, as well. It also shifts a bit rough. Another thing that bugs me is that, when you come to a complete stop, after about a second, sometimes you can feel a lurch in the transmission, which I guess is it resetting back to first gear? I called the dealership about it, and they said that it's actually normal, and they've had a few concerns about this particular transmission.

Another thing that bugs me about the Ram, is that it's not a good highway coaster. Take your foot off the gas pedal, and that sucker starts slowing down immediately, and fast. That could be because of the axle ratio, I'm guessing? It's a 3.21:1 rear-end, and I'm used to more loafy things like a 2.56:1, 2.45:1, etc...although the Buick is a 2.84:1, and the old DeSoto is a 3.31:1.

Even though overdrive gears in the transmission will knock down your overall effective ratio, that shorter rear-end is still going to be spinning faster, and causing more friction than a taller axle.

But, like anything else, you get used to it after awhile. Way back when I bought my Intrepid, it took me awhile to get used to launching it. All the older, torquier cars I owned would usually lunge ahead the second I put them in gear, and just a tap of the gas would get them going. But the Intrepid would just sit there, unless you stomped it. But, you can't expect a 2.7 to launch in quite the same way you launch a 318, 307, 353, 400, etc.

I do think that, as used cars, these multi-speed transmissions will prove to be an achilles heel with regards to repair costs. Even today, I could probably get an old 3-speed Torqueflite (NOT the one in my DeSoto, but a newer 904 or 727) or THM350/400 transmission rebuilt for around $700-1000. But, move up to those 4-speed automatics and they can be more like $1800-2500 or more. And I'm sure it only gets worse from there. I remember even back in the late 1990's, someone I knew with a Subaru (Legacy or Outback, can't remember which) needed a new transmission, and it was something like $4000 or more. Now granted, that was more complex, with the AWD and such, but still.

But maybe with Ford and GM collaborating on this 10 speed, it will help keep development costs, and replacement costs, to a fairly reasonable level.

lemko

I dunno how many gears are enough, but this is what the transmission technician of the future will look like! :P

dieselone

nother thing that bugs me is that, when you come to a complete stop, after about a second, sometimes you can feel a lurch in the transmission, which I guess is it resetting back to first gear?

The 6 speed in my Expedition does things like that on occasion, but overall I like the transmission and definitely wouldn't want to go back to a 4 speed. If I'm going a few miles per hour in first gear, it will sometimes lurch/buck like a manual trans car will.

As far as shift quality, I'd expect a truck to shift firmer than a car, it's better for the transmission that way particularly when under a heavy load. The 6 speed in my wife's Taurus is a bit smoother than what's in the Expedition.

While 6 gears seem like they'd be more than enough, I've found that another gear or two would be nice, particularly when I'm towing. I wouldn't mind a ratio between 4th and 5th. 5th and 6th are o/d ratios and 4th is a under 1:1. So when I lock out o/d I'm limited to 4th gear which means I'm running nearly 3k rpm at 60mph which is totally unnecessary when cruising down the highway with a heavy trailer in tow.

Ironically (crossing my fingers), the 6 speed in my Expedition has gone nearly 3x the miles w/o failing vs the what I experienced in a Suburban with a 4 speed;)

busiris

Just wait. The forums will have people complaining that these transmissions shift too often!

Go to the Nissan Altima section and you will find all sorts of complaints about CVT's and their behavior. I think just being different often generates a lot of complaints..

I remember my first car, a 1969 Chevy 6-cyl 4-door Nova with 2-speed auto transmission. My complaint then was it didn't shift often enough.

andre1969

Yeah, if you do a lot of towing, I can see the value of an extra gear. While normally, it's smaller engines that benefit from extra gears, when you think about it, if you have, say, a 5,000 lb vehicle towing an 8,000 lb trailer, something like a 5.4L IS a small engine!

I used to think that my old Intrepid would have benefited from another gear, somewhere between where its 3rd (1.00:1) and 4th (0.67:1) were. At 75 mph, it was pulling around 2500 rpm, which isn't *too* bad, but it also didn't have a lot of guts. So if I had to punch it and it downshifted, it would jump to around 3750 rpm, which just seemed like overkill.

It's been awhile since I've taken the Park Ave on a highway trip where I was going that fast, so I can't remember how it would compare. I think it pulls around 2000 rpm at 75, in top gear, so I guess if it had to downshift, it would jump to 3000? I think most of those 4-speeds had a 0.67:1 4th gear, but not positive.

One some of the older 4-speeds, like my grandmother's '85 LeSabre, the thing was geared so tall that when it initially went into 4th, around 45 mph, it REALLY had no guts, and the slightest load would make it shift back down. That thing had a 2.73:1 axle, so overdrive would have knocked it down to around 1.82:1? Once you pegged its 85 mph speedometer, it seemed to get its second wind, which I'm guessing is because it was going too fast to downshift, but was just fast enough to get back into its peak power range in that tall gear.

I wonder what kind of axle ratio they would have put in those 80's GM B-bodies if you wanted to tow a trailer? They only had 140 hp (307) or 150-170 hp (305), and I can't imagine towing anything with that, coupled with a tall axle. There was a 3.42:1 axle they used, I think, in police cars, so maybe they used that? It was also used in the RWD Caddy DeVille/Fleetwood with the tiny 4.1 V-8. They had to give that tiny engine a quicker axle, just to move all that heft!

andre1969

My buddy with the Xterra has had an Altima rental a few times. I never even thought to ask him if I could drive it, to see how it felt. My Mom and stepdad have a 2008 Altima as well, but I've never driven it.

I think the last time I drove a 2-speed automatic, it was a 1958 DeSoto Firesweep with a 280 gross hp 350 Wedge and 2-speed Powerflite. I think they tended to use a 3.54:1 axle in those. It seemed pretty gutsy, but that engine was also powerful enough to overcome having just two speeds.

I drove a '68 Impala once with a 307 and a 2-speed, that was for sale at a used car lot. This was back in, oh, 1993? Anything BUT a powerhouse, but it was adequate. Consumer Reports tested one and got 0-60 in about 14.5 seconds.

uplanderguy

Go to the Nissan Altima section and you will find all sorts of complaints about CVT's and their behavior. I think just being different often generates a lot of complaints..

A Studebaker buddy of mine, early 60's, drives a Tacoma as his daily vehicle, rented recently both a '13 Malibu and a new Altima. He absolutely hated the way the trans behaved in the Altima and told me several times how much he liked driving the Malibu better. I don't know anything at all about either car, trim level, whatever though.

busiris

I agree, most consumers aren't greedy.


There were some, however that were. They crossed the line in their attempt to pay nothing for a car. I had no respect for these types.

I'd guess every business runs across peckerwoods like that, always wanting something for nothing. In every business venture I've been involved, at least, I've seen some.

As far as value, for me, I don't care what the merchant paid for the television I just bought. It looked like a good value for us so I bought it. I'm happy!

I think the main difference between cars and every other thing we will buy in our lifetimes boils down to this:

Behind a house, its the most expensive tangible item most folks buy in a lifetime, and they buy multiples of them (we probably pay more for insurance, but that's an intangible item). And, they're compare-able. You can buy the same exact vehicle from many locations.

It's mobile, unlike a house. You mentioned a house near you selling far above asking price. If houses were mobile, and you could move them easily and inexpensively, the entire market would change. Often, folks buy due to location as the #1 concern (school district, etc.). Remove the location factor, like you can easily do with a car, and everything changes.

Unlike commodity products (appliances, furniture, etc.) a car will need continued servicing over its lifetime. No one changes much on the average couch, TV or toaster, and when they do need any sort of post-warranty service they're often simply junked.

It's impossible to know the exact cost of a product being sold (not sales price, but seller cost) because we can't know the added expenses. Imagine, just for a moment, that the exact acquisition cost of a product , or a vehicle, was 100% the same for every dealer, and also made public. From that point onward, the customer would know he amount he was paying for the added "value" coming from the dealership. In some ways, at least, IMO, the great dealerships would actually benefit. That would give them a definite edge over the dealership down the street, especially if its known for poor service.

In a way, isn't that sort of the model that Tesla is attempting to move towards?

dieselone

Yeah, if you do a lot of towing, I can see the value of an extra gear. While normally, it's smaller engines that benefit from extra gears, when you think about it, if you have, say, a 5,000 lb vehicle towing an 8,000 lb trailer, something like a 5.4L IS a small engine!

I used to think that my old Intrepid would have benefited from another gear, somewhere between where its 3rd (1.00:1) and 4th (0.67:1) were. At 75 mph, it was pulling around 2500 rpm, which isn't *too* bad, but it also didn't have a lot of guts. So if I had to punch it and it downshifted, it would jump to around 3750 rpm, which just seemed like overkill.

It's been awhile since I've taken the Park Ave on a highway trip where I was going that fast, so I can't remember how it would compare. I think it pulls around 2000 rpm at 75, in top gear, so I guess if it had to downshift, it would jump to 3000? I think most of those 4-speeds had a 0.67:1 4th gear, but not positive.

Yeah, that was the problem with the 4 speed I had in the Suburban even with 3.73 gears. 3rd gear at 1:1 was too tall and there was to much of a gap between 2nd and 3rd. So I'd have to run second gear towing our boat or camper up any kind of grade at 50-60mph. Meaning it would have to spin 4k to 4,500 rpm. 3rd gear would be like 3k rpm (IIRC) and I don't care what anyone says about the 5.3, it didn't put out much power under 3k rpm. The 5.4 in my Expedition has a lot more power between 2k-4k rpm. Also I can tow my new boat (about 6,500lbs towed weight) on flat terrain at 70 mph in 6th at 2k rpm. The Suburban could barely tow my old boat (4,500lbs towed weight) at 70mph in o/d at about 2,100 rpm. Most of the time I'd just lock o/d out.

With gearing, even an engine with a lot of low rpm torque benefits with multiple ratios. Even when towing my boat, most of the time, I can stay under 3k rpm and have enough acceleration for most conditions. With fewer gears, that likely will mean having to rev far higher than you need to have enough torque available for the big gap between the next ratio.

Plus being able to keep the engine in a smaller rpm range just makes for more effortless and efficient towing.

My wife's Taurus will go almost 80 @ 2k rpm in 6th. It will downshift to 5th a lot, but it does a good job.

I really want to sample the new 8 speed in the Ram. Everything I've read so far has been more than positive.

hpmctorque

My feelings regarding the Holden-derived GTO echo yours completely. In addition to the negatives you mentioned, it has a small gas tank. I'm tempted to say I wouldn't mind buying a used one, but the styling is so out of phase with the car's mission (meaning bland) that I don't think I'd want one. It also might be difficult by now to find one that wasn't trashed.

The G8 doesn't do anything for me either, styling wise, but it just says bland in a lower tone than the GTO. I guess I'd consider one of those, if it were in really good condition.

lemko

My 1968 Buick Special Deluxe had a two-speed tranny mated to a 350/2bbl V-8. I don't remember it being a slouch.

ateixeira

IIRC I test drove a Karman Ghia with a semi-automated 2 speed. Is that right? :confuse:

andre1969

Here's how they did trailering back in the 1970's...

I have no idea how much that Airstream would weigh, but the Impala's only sporting a 400, which had 170 hp in 1972. My great-uncle had a '74 Impala with a 400, which would have been even weaker, and he pulled a ~30 foot long Terry trailer with it.

RV'ing in those days must have been a nightmare! I want one of those black vans, though. I found out they were made by a company called RecTrans or something like that, and the model was called "Discoverer", I think. Makes a Travco look like a Twinkie and a Winnebago like the box that Twinkie came in!

My wife's Taurus will go almost 80 2k rpm in 6th. It will downshift to 5th a lot, but it does a good job.

I found out today, when I left work early and ran some errands, that my Ram will also do about 2000 rpm at 80 mph. But if you punch it at those speeds, I can't tell if it goes into 5th or even further down into 4th. Can transmissions skip a gear like that when the opportunity arises?

I think my Ram's transmission characteristics would bug me less if I drove it exclusively. And, if I needed to consistently launch it from 0-60 in 7-8 seconds, I'd appreciate it more. But, I'll drive it on occasion, then drive my Park Ave, which has a 4-speed automatic, and then one of my older vehicles, which only have 3-speed automatics and are often in top gear by 18-25 mph, and have enough power for what usually comes up, so they just stay there without shifting around too much. And there's something oddly satisfying about how my '67 Catalina will chirp a tire on the 1-2 upshift, under hard acceleration.

It's hard to get the Ram to spin out, because it just digs in and goes, but I did manage to chirp the tires today a little bit. Wish I could remember what I did though, to get it to do that.

dieselone

I can't remember what year, but I knew a kid back in HS that had a 60's something Impala SS with a 327/4bbl and powerglide two speed. It was cool car, but I don't remember it being particularly quick. It was kind of slow off the line, then would pull hard once the engine revved into it's powerband.

I did a quick google search and a '65 Impala SS with 327 2 speed came up with a posted 10.4 0-60 and 17.8 qtr. Basically dog slow for something with SS badges. Heck, even with the legendary 409 and 2 speed, the 0-60 couldn't break 7 seconds and 15.9 in the qtr. Not slow, but not particularly fast either.

dieselone

Can transmissions skip a gear like that when the opportunity arises?

Oh definitely. My Expedition will downshift from 6th to second if you punch it at say 45, much faster than that and 2nd is too short and it will go down third. There will be a bit of a pause to do so though.

It will routinely downshift to 4th from 6th when passing etc, or even third if I bury my foot to the floor between 50-65.

I have no idea how much that Airstream would weigh, but the Impala's only sporting a 400, which had 170 hp in 1972. My great-uncle had a '74 Impala with a 400, which would have been even weaker, and he pulled a ~30 foot long Terry trailer with it.

But a 400 would have a good amount of low rpm torque, which is more important for towing. Plus those cars had long wheelbases back then, so as long as the suspension could handle the weight, they probably towed pretty well. A 74 Impala probably had a longer wheel base than my Expedition does. That's really where the stability comes. Towing with a short wheelbase vehicle definitely can be a white knuckle experience with a long trailer.

andre1969

IIRC, the '71-76 full-sized Chevies had a 121.5" wheelbase, with wagons on a 125". My grandparents did some trailering with their '72 Impala 4-door hardtop, which just had a 165 hp 350, but it was just a short, single-axle trailer. I want to say it started with an "S", but it wasn't a "Scotty" I don't think. I remember it being white with orange trim, and pretty boxy.

And, I have heard that the 400 was a good trailering engine. Not much faster than the 350 when it came to 0-60, but the torque came in handy. So I guess it could move a lot of weight without hurting itself, whereas the 350 might stress out. It just couldn't move it all that fast.

andre1969

IIRC I test drove a Karman Ghia with a semi-automated 2 speed. Is that right?

Yeah, that sounds about right. I think you had to manually shift from first to second, but didn't need to press a clutch to do so. And, if you wanted to, you might have been able to start off in second, and just leave it there? I think Honda's early 2-speed semi-automatics were like that, as well.

Chrysler used to have something called "Fluid Drive", which was a semi-automatic 4-speed. My grandparents' '53 DeSoto had it, but alas, Granddad sold the thing right around the time I got my learner's permit. It wouldn't have started anyway, but he sold it because I was becoming interested in it. :mad:

Anyway, I think the way Fluid Drive worked was that you had the "Low" and "High" range. You could start off in either. "Low" had two gears and "High" had two gears, and you only needed to depress the clutch if you wanted to shift between "Low" and "High". Or "Reverse", I guess. Supposedly, that's one reason DeSotos were so popular as taxis for awhile. Even though it wasn't fully automatic, the drivers could just leave it in either gear, and never have to worry about shifting. In most city driving, the speeds were low enough that they could just leave it in "Low", and in country driving, "High" was adequate enough to get them moving from a standstill.

dieselone

It could have been a Shasta. My grandpa towed a 22 foot Shasta with the 75 Buick Regal he eventually gave to me which had a 2bbl 350. The 350 is pretty stout too. My grandpa towed the Shasta to Florida from Indiana and back several times.

andre1969

cool...thanks for jogging my memory. I'll have to look through some old family photos and such, see if I can find a pic of it.

I think Buick's 350 was the torquiest of the bunch in those days, and good for towing. IIRC, the Olds 350 was better at revving...by 70's standards, at least. The Chevy 350 was good at being cheap to build. I don't know if the Pontiac 350 (actually a ~353 CID if you do the math on the bore and stroke) was good for much, other than being fairly durable. The one in my '76 LeMans is nothing to write home about when it comes to performance. It's a 4-bbl, and has either 165 or 175 hp, depending on the source, but the 150 hp 360-2bbl in my '79 New Yorkers feel like they'd walk it like a dog. And even the tame 165 hp 305-4bbl in my '85 Silverado feels roughly comparable, yet in a vehicle that's a few hundred pounds heavier.

uplanderguy

Chevy had a semi-automatic called "Torque Drive" which was used in Novas from about '68 to '71 IIRC, and also Vegas in '71 and '72. The big schpiel was about 'low cost clutchless driving'.

hpmctorque

The semi-automatic part is right, but I'm not sure about the number of speeds. I knew someone who had one, but the only detail I remember was that he complained that it was slower than molasses.

dieselone

I tend to forget the 350 wasn't the same across brands back then.

hpmctorque

I thought Honda's two-speed was fully automatic. Is it possible that they made two kinds, one semi and another fully automatic?

The low range in Fluid Drive might have been suitable for very heavy traffic, stop and go driving, but even the second of two gears was too low for general city driving. The main value of the low range was for quicker acceleration off the line, climbing steep hills and towing.

The clutch had to be depressed any time you moved the shift lever, including in or out of neutral.

tlong

Also, I think airline pricing sucks. What other single thing do you buy, where you can be sitting next to someone, at the same time (unlike the dinner example earlier), and have paid pricing different by 100% or more for the same identical service? Only our old friends, the airlines.

Phone companies. Cable companies.

tlong

...for Acura. They use the word 'luxury' about twenty-five times in a minute.

So 'priss-pot' (as we former-Pennsylvanians would say).

And how is that less honest than Caddy calling themselves the "Standard of the World"? :shades:

hpmctorque

"Can transmissions skip a gear like that when the opportunity arises?"

Yes.

andre1969

I tend to forget the 350 wasn't the same across brands back then.

Yeah, and that might have been one thing that contributed to GM's downfall...all that redundancy that had to cost a small fortune. Chrysler started consolidating their engines in 1958, when they came out with the big block Wedge. Oddly it was DeSoto, a brand that would be gone after a few months into the 1961 model year, that would depend on it the most, using 350 CID units for the cheaper models, 361 units for the nicer ones. Dodge used the 350 in the Custom Royal and wagons, while the 361 was used in the D-500 performance package. And Plymouth used the 350 as an option on the 1958 Fury. "Christine" was so-equipped. Or, at least the one that they showed the engine bay of, just before it repaired itself, had a 350.

And Ford started going to corporate engines, probably by 1961, when the "big" Mercury went away, and the brand reverted to being essentially a glammed up Ford.

But, GM kept those divisional engines going through the 1960's and 1970's, and to a degree, even into the 1980's. Pontiac had issues with its engines not meeting California/high-altitude standards. In 1977 for example, the 301 was banned in CA. Meanwhile, the Pontiac 350 and 400 were substituted with Olds 350's and 403's. The last Pontiac V-8s were in 1981, when they offered a 301 and 265.

Buick dropped its mammoth 455 after 1976, just as Pontiac, Olds, and Chevy dropped their big-blocks from cars. So the only Buick V-8 left was the 350. It survived through 1980 and then was dropped.

Olds fared a bit better, as its V-8's were clean running, and met CA standards. The 403 made it through 1979, the 350 through 1980 (longer, if you count the Diesel), I think the tiny 260 lasted through 1982, and the 307 held on through 1990.

The Chevy smallblock ultimately won out because it was the cheapest to build and, while not as reliable as the others, was "good enough". The Olds V-8 was more expensive to build, as it had a lot of nickel in the block, which made it lighter, yet stronger.

uplanderguy

It has nothing to do with honesty. It's grating. And along the lines of what I call 'princess-y'.

uplanderguy

I don't know tlong; if I'm using the same phone company or cable company as my neighbor, I doubt the rates vary by 100% or more as do two seats by each other on the same airline at the same time. Now, different phone companies or cable companies, or different services, perhaps.

uplanderguy

The Chevy smallblock ultimately won out because it was the cheapest to build and, while not as reliable as the others, was "good enough".

The last Chevy smallblock V8 in our family used to blow a little blue upon start-up, but I remember it being a snappy performer (305 4-barrel).

I've not heard that they were less reliable than the others; in fact, the small-block Chevy is usually on anybody's list of best engines ever, FWIW.

At the time of the Chevy 350 switcheroo in full-size Oldsmobiles in '77, I actually remember a magazine, maybe it was Motor Trend, that said Olds customers were better off with the Chevy engine!

BTW, the Hemmings Classic Car I just got in the mail has a good article that includes when the first Olds customer in IL in '77 was told by his dealer mechanic in conversation something along the lines of, 'gee, a typical Olds 350 filter won't fit on your car'. I remember this brouhaha clearly. GM's take was "You paid for a 350-cubic inch, 4-barrel, 170 hp V8 and that's what you got." (DISCLAIMER: I'm a good friend of the author of the article.)

A good friend's grandfather (born in the 1890's!) traded in a real nice '71 Delta 88 for a new '77 Delta 88, dark blue metallic. I can remember him saying disappointedly, "I thought I paid for a Rocket V8". He knew his car had an "L" in the fifth digit of the VIN. I think most people got a check for $200 because of this. Back then, I do think the Olds customer was a different person than the Chevy customer. Not a good plan on GM's part.

uplanderguy

I will say that a friend who went to GM Technical School in the late '60's in Cleveland is convinced that at that time, anyway, Olds was the best-engineered of GM's divisions and he preferred Olds V8's of that era to any other GM V8.

lemko

I wonder how well a 1953 Mercury would pull a long, long trailer? :P

lemko

Oldsmobile built over 1 million 1977 Oldsmobiles. The reason some came with Chevy 350s is because they simply ran out of Oldsmobile engines.

uplanderguy

I wonder how well a 1953 Mercury would pull a long, long trailer?

Beginning immediately, your Edmunds handle is now "Shecky"!

andre1969

I wonder how well a 1953 Mercury would pull a long, long trailer?

It does just fine if you substitute a Lincoln for the uphill scenes.

dieselone

It does just fine if you substitute a Lincoln for the uphill scenes.

LOL, yeah, you can't go by what Hollywood shows.

dieselone

Oldsmobile built over 1 million 1977 Oldsmobiles. The reason some came with Chevy 350s is because they simply ran out of Oldsmobile engines.

I'm barely old enough to remember that fiasco. Apparently some owners weren't impressed by having a Chevy v8 in their Oldsmobile.