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I can sort of vouch for that, as I had a '68 and '69 Dart, although they were hardtops. And I had a '69 Bonneville and have a '67 Catalina, both similar to a '68 Impala, although the Bonn was a 4-door hardtop and the Catalina is a convertible. Anyway, the Darts had a good deal more legroom up front than the Catalina does, or the Bonneville did. However, the Catalina's back seat is a bit roomier, and the Bonneville was better still.
But, those measurements don't tell the whole story. An Impala would have thicker, more comfortable seats than the Dart. And the longer wheelbase would give a much better ride. The Impala would also have a larger trunk and better shoulder room, and if properly equipped, better at trailering.
And sometimes, back in the old days, they'd make cars in different lengths, but use the same passenger compartment, so you wouldn't get any increase in interior room. For instance, a '57 Plymouth rides a 118" wb, a Dodge/Desoto Firesweep 122", and the big DeSotos and Chryslers are on a 126". However, they all use the same basic passenger compartment. The Dodge/Firesweep moved the rear axle 4" back compared to the Plymouth. The bigger DeSotos and Chryslers also moved the rear axle 4" back, but also moved the front axle ahead 4". No extra passenger room, but the longer wheelbase would give a smoother ride on the larger cars.
Personally, I prefer a longer, sleeker car, up to a point, at least. As long as the hood, passenger compartment, and rear deck all balance out. I think a '57 Plymouth 4-door sedan looks a bit awkward, with that big passenger compartment bolted to the small wheelbase. I think the hardtops and convertibles, which used a shorter passenger cabin, look pretty good though.
But by, say, 1969, I think some of those fuselage Chryslers and Imperials just looked too awkward, in coupe form at least, because the passenger cabin was fairly short, but the hood and trunk were just way too long. By that time I started preferring the 4-door models.
A '64 Chevy, essentially, is the same as a '59 Chevy, just minus the wraparound windshield and some of the styling excesses. However, it's the same wasp-waisted X-frame. One potential advantage though, may be the lack of a wraparound windshield. Those dog-leg A-pillars are essentially "pre-bent", so I'm fairly confident they're going to give more quickly than an A-pillar that slopes forward.
And a 2014 Impala is going to be heavier than the Malibu was. I'm sure it'll hold up even better than the Malibu did, while at the same time exerting more force on the '64.
I'll tell ya what would be an interesting mash-up...something like a '64 Newport/New Yorker or Dodge 880, against a modern Charger or 300. Again, cars of similar weight, but in this case, the Mopars were unitized, and it was a basic design philosophy that carried on up through the 1981 R-body. And, with the exception of the transverse torsion bars, even an '89 Gran Fury/Diplomat/5th Ave aren't that radically different. I'd be curious to see how those early unitized designs would hold up, compared to the body-on-frame of the time.
But, at the same time, I'd hate to see another nice old car sacrificed for something like this. We all know that new cars are a LOT safer, so there's really no need to sacrifice another old one, just to beat a dead horse.
The 65 Chryslers also seem pretty big and sturdy, and many seem to have survived - I bet they'd fare better against a new 300 than the 64/14 Chevy matchup.
If an old car is common and not reclaimable anyway, I don't have a problem with testing it, especially if any hard to find (trim) pieces are removed. A few years ago, MB crash tested a late 50s Ponton , just to see if it all still held up. It did. I didn't really mourn, the car was not really nice and never going to be restored. To crash a really pristine car would be more of a shame.
However the big Dodges for '70 and '71 were much improved design-wise, with a shorter trunk and a longer hood. Those changes plus improvments front and rear with the use of loop bumpers and they are really quite handsome. Plymouth also adopted similar style bumpers and were better but not as nice as the Dodges. The big Chryslers really didn't change much.
For '72 and '73 they did a body refresh that really did get the lead sled idea across better.
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I think my favorite of them all, for some reason, is the '69 Dodge Polara/Monaco. It just seems less fat than the others, sleeker, and more muscular, somehow. I also liked the later Monacos, with the hidden headlights.
One problem, I think with the fuselage cars is that the styling seemed a bit nondescript. Overstyling a car can be a bad thing, as the late 50's taught us, but I think under-styling can be, too. The styling just doesn't seem that radically different among them, they were a bit featureless, and they sort of just blended in to the automotive landscape. In contrast, I think the GM products of the '69-73 era, while not always the most tasteful of designs, at least tended to stand out more, have more variety, and were more memorable. IMO, at least.
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And Chrysler products back in the day usually tended to seem roomier inside than their Ford or GM counterparts...at least to me. That's something I'd appreciate more as an adult. So, while the little kid in my loved that '72 Impala, if I was a car buyer, or even a teen who got some time behind the wheel, I might have a different opinion.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the '69, or '74 Impala, either. Don't actually hate them, but there are just other years I like better. It seems like with GM cars of that era, there are some that I find myself really attracted to, some that are only so-so, and some that are downright vulgar. But, at least there was enough variety to give me that range of emotion. With the '69-73 Mopars, while I have my most and least favorites, I just don't find the same range.
I remember the first time I saw a 1968 Dodge Charger. I was waiting for the bus at at high school (sophmore year) when a girl named Collette got picked up by her dad in a red one. Awesome. My favorite Mopar. The original design was the best. Rent the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt where he is chased by a black Charger driven by Bill Hickman, the same driver who was James Dean's racing coach the day Dean crashed and died.
Here is somewhat related trivia. When James Dean lived in New York City with his roommate Martin Landau, James Dean's motorcycle mechanic was Steve McQueen. Martin Landau reports this in his on-line biography.
You could look it up.
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There's a particular misery to driving an old Brit roadster in the rain, the tops invariably leak, the wipers offer only marginal visibility and the ignition system can fail at any time. You'd think that it hardly ever rained in the British isles. :confuse:
I also saw what looked and sounded like an original 1964 Pontiac GTO but as it was going away from me I spotted small vertical taillights on the rear fenders that gave away it as a Tempest or LeMans that had been converted to a "Goat" replica.
Nothing wrong with that IMO, the GTO was just an up-spec LeMans but if you're gonna make a replica you might as well finish the job.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I always equated a Dodge as a step up, and more equivalent to a Pontiac or Mercury, but in retrospect, it looks like Dodges by that time were getting pretty low-priced Here's some MSRP pricing for 1971 4-door hardtops:
Polara: $3497
Galaxie 500: $3604
Fury iii : $3612
Impala: $3813
Catalina: $3939
Monterrey: $3968
Monaco: $4362
So, it looks like the Polara was actually the cheapest full-sized 4-door hardtop around at the time! I wonder why they weren't more popular? That actually sounds like a screaming deal to me. Unless, perhaps, it was simply the styling. Looking at it today, I appreciate the clean style, but at the time, maybe people wanted that upscale pretentiousness?
And in all fairness, I guess a Monaco would be more equivalent to a Bonneville or Marquis than a Catalina or Monterrey, so that would explain its relative priceyness?
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I just remembered, here's one of the few shots I can find of it:
Thick doors! I think it was a 71 - he bought this before I was born. I've been looking for more pics with it but can't find any yet.
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So was I until I owned a '66 TR-4A, pretty car and fun to drive (in good weather) but shoddily made.
Looking back I think the MGB-GT was the one to get- weather proof, good look">ing and actually practical with the big hatchback.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
The 1968-70 Mopar intermediates had a tough, businesslike appearance.
The 1968-69 Fairlanes and Montegos look kind of anonymous. The 1970-71s looked like they were trying to ape GM.
While I thought that by and large the fuselage look came off well (except for some of the coupes), I also think it was the precursor to Roger Smith a decade later. Often, the cars seemed to look too much alike and shared the same drive trains. Yeah, Chrysler's may have come with a 383, but you could option that same engine on just about any Plymouth. I think in the late 60's the Plymouth and Dodge intermediates kind of had the same issue. Mopar changed that on the coupes with the 71 restyle of the Satellite Sebring and Charger.
I don't remember if it was in the late 60's or early 70's, but I recall some school of thought in the media that Chrysler should essentially either make Dodge a strictly truck brand, or eliminate Plymouth.
For obscure cars, I stopped to visit the fintail, and parked at the garage was a blue on blue Ferrari 328 GTS - has to be a rare combo.
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I briefly owned a 1967 Newport hardtop with a 383-2bbl. For whatever reason, they screwed with the tuning that year, and it only had something like 270 hp. I think it had 290 the year before, and for '68 it jumped back up, but for whatever reason, the '67 was a bit weak.
While not very fast, it was adequate, at least.
"Possibly the biggest mistake Mr. Townsend made in his career at Chrysler was the “sales bank.” It was created by him, and carried on by his protégé and successor, John J. Ricardo. Both men were accountants and had come to the auto industry convinced that business methods were more important to success in the auto industry than product knowledge.
The general practice in the auto industry had been to produce cars based on dealer orders. That meant that production would follow demand. However, at Chrysler, “automobiles poured out of the Highland Park and Hamtramck plants like homeless waifs,” according to Brock Yates in his book The Decline and Fall of the Auto Industry.
During the spring and summer of each model year, vehicles would be overproduced, and then stored for later sales. All over Detroit, at giant parking lots that included the Michigan State Fairgrounds on Woodward Avenue, those cars were stored. By the time later summer arrived, the sales and accounting staffs would be trying to unload surplus automobiles in any way possible. That included fire sales to leasing agencies and rental car fleets, registration transfers to Corporate Zone offices, sales contests and giveaways. But the primary method was to lean on dealers.
Zone managers would call dealers and demand that they take more cars. They exercised their leverage, according to an interview that Yates had with an anonymous Chrysler-Plymouth dealer, based on fear, coercion, and pressure. Without the zone managers being in the car dealer’s corner, specially ordered cars might get “lost,” warranty claims wouldn’t get processed, parts inventories might slip and truckloads of unwanted and hard-to-sell color combinations and body styles might show up at the store.
The dealers didn’t want the sales bank cars since many were poor quality or made with poor options choices. But they took them and sold them, as they could."
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Lynn Townsend
Can't find much information about his successor John J. Riccardo.
Only this Spyder is a fake. Or more precisely, a facsimile. Porsche itself has nothing to do with the car. Its maker, Prospect, Connecticut-based Spyder Creations, says that it is officially a kit car, albeit one that costs between $320,000 and $470,000.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-01/repro-320-000-porsche-550-spyder-weaves- -through-curves.html
Today, I saw a black MX-3 and a sliver Mark 8.
The James Dean crash was with a 50 Ford.