While on vacation in the mountains last week, I was following an interesting vehicle.
It was an early 70's Mercury, that looked to be an ex David Pearson NASCAR replica. What I don't know is whether it was a replica or the real thing. It was lowered, had the black steel wheels, all the stickers looked authentic -- even had "David Pearson" written in script under each window.
but on Friday, driving up to the Chrysler show in Carlisle PA, I think I saw a 70's Mazda RX-3. It looked kinda like this
At least that's what I think it was. I do remember it being small, having quad headlights, and a fairly smallish grille. At first I thought it was a Celica, but they had a more aggressive look to them and a wider grille.
And last nite I saw either a 1960 DeSoto or Chrysler 4-door hardtop. It was late at night though, and on an exit ramp where I was turning off in another direction, so I didn't get that close of a look at it. It wouldn't have been a big surprise to see it if I were still up in Carlisle, but this was about 5 minutes from my house!
If it was not being trailered, then its a safe bet it was a replica. I believe Pearson raced Cyclone's and Montego's for Mercury. While they were much more 'stock' than today's stock cars, they would still not be able to be driven on the road.
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee L Limited Velvet Red over Wicker Beige
2024 Audi Q5 Premium Plus Daytona Gray over Beige
2017 BMW X1 Jet Black over Mocha
...to Philadelphia from the Carlisle show I saw a red and white 1960 Chrysler 2-door hardtop. I remember how cool that car looked in the semi-darkness with the taillights illuminated within those huge fins.
on the Grand Central, just off the Triboro bridge (NYC, an early (probably 1960's at the latest) Checker cab, with period livery paint (light blue and white). Looked brand new. It was following some sort of 1960's land yacht, but I forget what it was now.
Someone in my town has a Checker cab in his driveway, but it is yellow, and I think it has the later bigger bumpers, but I haven't seen it up close.
Wow, I haven't heard that song in ages, although I do have the Christine soundtrack around somewhere. For my 15th birthday, back in 1985, my grandparents, who had cable tv, videotaped "Christine" for me. I still have the tape. It's probably a miracle that I didn't wear it out, considering how much I watched it back then. They also put another movie on it, "Q: the Winged Serpent", which they thought I'd enjoy. Ironically, it was a movie about a giant winged reptile that took up residence in, of all places, the Chrysler Building!
I bought Christine on DVD a couple years ago, but never got around to watching it. I remember picking it up at the same time that "Duel" came out on DVD. I picked up a third one as well, but can't remember what it was...DeathRace 2000 I think.
I cringe when I see those '58 Plymouths get destroyed, too. I think "Christine" was kind of a double-edged sword though, when it came to those cars. While people cried out about multiple examples of a fairly rare car being destroyed (I'd imagine most of them were Belevederes or Savoys though), on the other hand it put the '58 Plymouth on the map, and got people interested in restoring and owning them. So in an offbeat way the movie may have ultimately saved more of them than it destroyed!
If you felt perversely compelled to destroy a Plymouth, '58 would have been a good choice. It was kind of Chrysler's low point in quality...the "rust-a-rama" car.
...why the 1957-58 Mopars were "bad" was because the cars were rushed into production and that Chrysler bought Briggs and started building their own bodies. The problems seemed more pronounced on the lowere end Dodge and Plymouth models and not so bad on the DeSotos and Chryslers. The Imperials were darn near bulletproof.
I hear those old Briggs bodies last forever, even sitting in the woods. I recall a small junkyard owned by a friend's grandfather that was full of 1940s and early 1950s Dodges and Plymouths. Those bodies were still solid, even after sitting for decades.
Per styling, however, the 1957-58 Mopars was Chrysler's zenith. I heard at least 12 Plymouths were used in the filming of "Christine." I was rooting for the car throughout the movie and almost cried when they killed it.
I didn't think 1958 was any automaker's zenith. I still think of it as the low point for most of 'em. Everything in excess (too much of a good thing?) '57 was a hot year, though.
1958 was considered a low point for Detroit, but it was probably due to a recession moreso than anything else. 1955-56 were incredible sales years, and 1957 was a bit of a cooling off period, but if 1958 had been a better sales year than '57, I'm sure that many people would be waxing nostalgic about it today.
Sure, many cars were getting pretty grotesque that year, but I think that the '58 Plymouth, Dodge, and DeSoto Firesweep were actually better looking cars that year. The Plymouth looked better IMO with the genuine quad headlights and the stone shield that matched the grille. The only regressive step they took, IMO, was going from a large, vertical taillight to the little "lollipop" taillight, which left most of the rear of those tall fins empty.
The '58 Dodge also looked good with its genuine quad lights, and its grille wasn't so heavy-handed as the '57. And the DeSoto Firesweep, which really looked awkward to me in '57, with its single headlight filling a space meant for quads, ill-fitting grille, and heavy "eyebrows", looked much better for '58 with quad lights filling out the front end. I think the '58 Chryslers and the "real" DeSotos were good looking for '58, although a bit more cluttered than the '57 models were. And interestingly, I thought the '58 Chrysler grille looked a bit like a '57 DeSoto. Maybe this was an indication of things to come, as Chrysler would move downmarket, squeezing DeSoto out.
Also, it seems pretty unloved today, but I actually like the '58 Ford! I don't like the taillights, but like the front-end much better. I never liked the bug-eyed headlights on the '57.
With GM cars, I think I actually prefer the '58 Chevy to the '57.
I'd still consider '57-58 to be Chrysler's zenith, style-wise. It's just unfortunate that they had to have it as the country was going into a recession, and with a body style that was rushed to the market a year early.
I've always thought those 57-58s were good looking, especially the 2 door hardtops like Christine, and the larger cars.
Speaking of cringing when seeing cars destroyed - just watch "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". The drowned 48 Ford convertible, the 56 Ford convertible that slams into a parking barrier, the rolled 61 Impala bubbletop, the abused 62 Dart (I think) convertible...
'57-58 Mopars were the Plymouth 4-door sedans. Chrysler used the same body shell that year for Plymouth/Dodge/DeSoto/Chrysler, with only Imperial being truly unique. So by that time, a New Yorker actually had no more interior space than a cheap Plymouth Plaza sedan. However, they were built to be big cars, so instead of the bigger cars being small in contrast to their competitors, a '57 Plymouth ended up being noticeably bigger inside than a Chevy or especially a Ford.
Anyway, on a longer car, like a DeSoto or Chrysler, which was about 218+ inches long, the big 4-door passenger cabin was well-balanced. And even on a Dodge (214") or DeSoto Firesweep (216") it seemed okay. But on the stubby Plymouth (~207"?) the passenger cabin just seemed over-sized. The Dodge/Plymouth 2-door sedan used the same roofline as well, and here I thought it also looked pretty awkward on a Plymouth. 2- and 4-door hardtops used a lower, shorter roof which made for a correspondingly longer rear deck, and made the whole car seem better balanced.
It's been ages since I've seen "Mad Mad Mad Mad World", but didn't they also run a '57 Ford off a cliff towards the beginning? And I think they rolled that '61 Impala coming out of the "Duel" tunnel, right about where Dennis Weaver would try to push a school bus with his Valiant a dozen or so years later. And I remember some 1959/60 Plymouths getting smashed up at the end, but those were ugly enough that I didn't cry too much! :P
Grand Theft Auto (the 1977 Ron Howard movie) smashed up a ton of cars, but I think most of them were probably cheap wrecks anyway. Still, there was one part where the dude that played Grossman in "CHiPs" drove a Porsche 911 over a ramp and into the trunk of a 1966 or so Caddy convertible He also flipped a '68 Charger
That movie even had a ''57 Plymouth in it! I think this one might even be a Fury. Didn't the Fury have the three horizontal stripes in the contrast spear, while the lesser models didn't?
Black on black 58 Plymouth coupe wouldn't be too bad actually.
I think '58 was mostly a disaster for Buick, Olds and Ford. Very ugly cars, very ugly.
'58 Chevy wasn't a hit at the time but is being looked at more closely now---took a long time for the 58s to come out from behind the shadow of the '57s.
Yep, the movie opened with a lowline 57 Ford going off a cliff. Somehow, that doesn't make me cringe so much. Those 59 Plymouth taxis were ugly too, oh yeah. No loss there.
In watching the news this evening, I saw clips of people fleeing Lebanon. In the traffic was a pristine looking ca. 1978 Chrysler wagon, the Volare/Aspen style with the fancier front end. Amazing.
I liked the 58 Ford with the Interceptor motor-don't recall displacement. The 58 Chev has always been good. The hardtop models with the reverse slant to the C pillar were neat.
a 352? My grandparents had a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 4-door hardtop, but I forget what engine it had in it. I do remember it was a V-8. Maybe it was just a 312? Granddad actually still has the paperwork for it, and every other car he's ever owned, filed away. IIRC, that Ford ended up MSRP'ing for around $3500.
It's interesting though, just how long they held the prices down on cars back then. In 1961, they traded that Fairlane for a '61 Galaxie 500 4-door hardtop, and it was the same price, $3500. And then in '63, they bought a Monterrey 4-door hardtop with that "breezeway" rear window for $3500. The '61 was a good car, but Granddad wanted that roll-down rear window so he could haul lumber and other long items. I guess to him, that "breezeway" was kinda like a pre-historic Avalanche?
Oh, as for obscure cars, on Tuesday I saw a 1979-80 Chrysler Newport, in white. I've seen this car before; it actually lives on my street. The first time I'd seen it was from a distance and it looked good. I'd actually thought about asking them if they ever wanted to sell it to let me know. But when I saw it up close, I could see that it was a bit ragged. Rust coming out in odd places. R-bodies tended to do that. The rust wouldn't just come out in the obvious places, like the rockers, rear quarter panels, lower door edges, trim line where the vinyl roof meets the metal part on the quarter panel, etc. No, these suckers would sometimes have rust blossom out right in the middle of a piece of sheetmetal! And also along the upper edges of the door. I guess the piece that trims the door edge by the window traps moisture and dirt, and invites rust.
Oh, and it was pouring down rain, yet the driver didn't have his windshield wipers on, so I'm guessing they're shot. And it had a nice, deep rumble to it. The only way a Mopar R-body gets a rumble that nice and powerful-sounding is to either get a built up engine, a custom exhaust, or more likely, the exhaust just falls off of it! :P
Yesterday morning coming into work, I saw a Porsche 914. Red with a black top. Looked like it was in good shape. These things are kinda odd looking, but I still think they're interesting.
I guess my main complaint with cars built around 1958, especially the "low-line" models, was quality control. They were sooooo badly slammed together. You'd have to see an original one to get the picture. It's no wonder people looked at a VW bug and marveled at the quality of it (which they did). VWs were like little jewels in how neatly they were put together, how the doors fit, how carefully trimmed out they were.
Porsche 914 -- an odd duck but interesting. They have wimpy VW engines, but with a few thousand dollars in massaging you can make 'em run. They are great handling cars, and sport genuine Porsche 911 suspension and transmission, with VW trim pieces and engine to make the car cheap enough. The car has TWO trucks, mid-engine, targa top. It's really quite clever.
A International Scout II in decent shape and a new GTO. I always liked the GTO maybe that would be a good fun car in a year or two since they are so so cheap.
VWs were like little jewels in how neatly they were put together, how the doors fit, how carefully trimmed out they were.
VW Bugs also had some "features" in their bodies that would have been considered unnacceptable in more modern cars, too, such as those beads that showed up glaringly where the fenders bolted to the body, and that rolled seam where the sides tucked under the top. I'm sure that if VW tried offering 4-door and hardtop versions of the Bug, which would require more parts, more gaps, etc, that people wouldn't have been nearly as impressed. And if they tried hanging more chrome and such on it, you would have seen more of the flaws. Often you don't notice that a door is out of alignment unless there's a chrome piece on it or two-toning that doesn't line up with the fenders, rear door, rear quarter panel, etc.
I think the VW Bug worked well more because it was simple and didn't have a whole lot of parts to it, moreso than quality.
As for the low-line domestics back then, how really, did a '58 Chevy hold up to the competing cars? Opinions I've heard have varied greatly. Some say that those wasp-waisted X-frames actually made the car stiffer, because the body itself was beefed up as well, employing some unit-body techniques. But then I've heard others say that it was more shaky and rattly than a '57 Chevy, and that X-frame left you much more vulnerable to T-bone accidents. And of course, the car was heavier than a '57 Chevy, so it needed a stronger engine for better performance.
In contrast, I heard that the '57-58 Plymouth was actually a pretty solid car, and with a stiff body. The only problem was that it was rust-prone and they tended to have water leaks around the windshield and rear window. And the Plymouths had sturdy engines and transmissions.
The '57 Ford was actually the worst of them from what I've heard. Loose, shaky body AND rust-prone. Supposedly on the 4-door hardtops, if you got on a rough enough road and got it up to a high enough speed, you could shake the doors open. For 1958 they put creases in the roof to improve the structural strength of the thing. Supposedly engines and transmissions on the Fords weren't so hot around that timeframe.
One thing I've noticed, with the '57 cars at least, is that the Chevy Bel Air does seem to have a nicer interior than a Plymouth Belvedere or a Fairlane 500. The fabrics just seem nicer, and they used fabric on the door panel, versus just vinyl, or a vinyl insert that often attempted to mimic the seat fabric.
A lot of the 1958 Ford's odd styling touches were there to strengthen the inherently weak body. The fluted roof strengthened that portion of the body, but the hood scoop and odd quad taillights strengthened their respective portions as well. Funny, there are plenty of surviving 1957 Chevrolets, but '57 Fords are scarce. I remember seeing junkyard pictures from the early-mid 1960s and they were full of 1957 Fords. One picture shows a once-proud Skyliner about to be dropped into a crusher via a magnetic crane.
Well sure an old VW bug doesn't meet current standards, but they were visibly better fit and finish than the iron from Detroit--and nicer paint, too. Detroit quality control in the late 50s was pretty substandard IMO. There was little pride in the finished product. Car buyers saw this immediately. VW quality was highly praised in the press and Detroit was really under a hail of fire at that time. It's interesting to read the automotive press from the late 50s, you can see quite a bit of animosity regarding quality, size, clumsiness. For a lowly bug to steal hundreds of thousands of sales away from Ford Chevy and Chrysler was no accident. Geez, even Renault was in BoomTown.
It's also no accident that the hottest collectibles today tend to be 60s cars, with a few exceptions. The 60s were great I thought for American products.
Funny, there are plenty of surviving 1957 Chevrolets, but '57 Fords are scarce.
I wonder too if the '57 Ford, and the '57 Plymouth, were just a victim of their own success. They were everything a car needed to be in 1957...low, sleek, big, modern looking, and offering big optional engines. In contrast, a '57 Chevy just looked kind of hokey and outdated. Not surprisingly, Ford outsold Chevy that year, and Plymouth did well enough to have one of its best sales years ever.
However, there were still a lot of people that didn't want a car that big and heavy, and as used cars it was easier to hop up a '57 Chevy than it was a '57 Plymouth. I don't think there's really much you can do to a Plymouth 277 or 301 V-8, so while they're bulletproof and will run forever, they're just not well-suited to hopping up. Probably the best way to go with a Plymouth back then for more performance was to just yank the engine and put a big-block in. However, the Chevy smallblock was much better-suited to hotrodding. The engine itself was a heavy lump...truth be told it's heavier than a 318 and actually about as heavy as those old poly-head Plymouth 277/301/318 wideblocks. But with its low reciprocating mass, it internals are lighter, and it's just easier to make it rev and get more power out of it.
Also, a '57 Ford or Plymouth was considered much more high-style than a Chevy, at that time. However, things that are the most in-fashion have further to fall once the fashions change. So by the time the more conservative 60's were upon us, a '57 Chevy, which was more of a wallflower when it was new, didn't stick out like a sore thumb in the same manner that a '57 Ford or Plymouth would.
My Mom had a '57 Plymouth for her first car, and she really didn't like it. She bought it because it was cheap...$75. She doesn't remember much about it, except that it was "big and gray", and that one of the windows shattered when someone slammed a door. I think it's kinda funny though that she'd call a '57 Plymouth "big", but in later years moved on to a '66 Catalina and a '68 Impala, both larger cars. However, by the 60's they did improve the handling of cars considerably, so even though they were bigger they most likely handled much better. I know in my case, my '67 Catalina handles a lot better than my '57 DeSoto. Now granted, a '57 DeSoto is a lot bigger than a '57 Plymouth, but they really improved steering feel and quickness of the response on the newer cars. The turning circle feels tighter too.
I didn't know Edmund's still had a motorhome thread! On that subject, I've always been fascinated by old Travcos.
This one looks like it has ripples in the fiberglass body along the side. Would that be an indication of body work, or did they just build them that sloppy in the first place? I came kinda close to buying the 22-foot version of one of these back in 2000.
I guess something like this could really be a Pandora's box of trouble, combining all the problems of a 30+ year old car with all the problems of a 30+ year old house!
came to be because my grandparents took me camping alot when I was a kid, and so I got exposed to them. We just had a slide-in truck camper and a '76 GMC crew cab, so I really envied the people driving in those big, luxurious, self-contained rigs.
And I think the reason I like vintage motorhomes is that, like cars, they just seemed to have a lot more personality back then. These days most motorhomes are just these big generic toasters that found a way to graft Camry taillights onto them. But back in the 70's and early 80's, there just seemed to be so much more variety and, dare I say, style. Every once in awhile I'll see one of those old 70's GMC motorhomes, and I swear those things look more futuristic than any motorhome out there today! And those old aluminum Airstreams were pretty cool looking. I think they made a fiberglass version as well called Argosy or something like that?
I always liked the Travco though. Even before I knew that it used a Dodge chassis.
In reality though, if I bought one it would just be something that sat around, as I'd never have time to use it. And with the way fuel prices are these days, I'm sure driving something like that across the country could bankrupt a person!
Isn't it curious that at the tail end of the 50's FORD chose to amrket that heap of junk called the Edsel? from what i read, the edsel was a thrown-together melange of weird styling ideas-chief among them that the customer wanted the name 'Edsel' plastered all over the car! from what i read, the styling turned most buyers off-=and the huge v8 engines sucked gas like a vacuum cleaner.Anyboy know why Ford elected to end the line? By the last year, the edsel had evolved into a fairly innofensive style-why didn't they keep making them? it was just like another line for GM-probably the ford equivilent of oldsmobile.
The Edsel was initially conceived around 1954 or so, because the top brass at Ford perceived that there was an untapped market in the area between Ford and Mercury. On the surface, this actually did make sense, as both GM and Chrysler were stronger in the middle end of the market than Ford was. GM had Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick and Chrysler had Dodge, DeSoto, and Chrysler, while all Ford has was Mercury. Mercury was a pretty weak brand up through 1948. Pontiac, Buick, and Olds regularly outsold it by a wide margin, as did Dodge. Chrysler, even factoring out Imperials, also outsold it consistently, and even DeSoto often outsold Mercury.
However, with the 1949 restyle, new life was breathed into Mercury and sales took off, giving Ford hopes of finally making it big in the growing middle-price field. By the mid 50's, that market was simply exploding, and cars like Buick/Olds/Pontiac and Chrysler/DeSoto/Dodge started overlapping each other, yet still having strong sales. So Ford just wanted a piece of that.
Unfortunately, by the time the Edsel was launched in September 1957, the market was starting to cool. In 1958 we went into a tailspin of a recession that seemed to hammer the middle-priced brands the hardest. And people suddenly became very conscious of fuel economy, so these Edsels with their big 361 and 400+ CID engines, were very poorly timed.
To make matters worse, Ford didn't give the Edsel dedicated assembly line space. The two cheaper Edsel lines, the Ranger and Pacer, were built on an accelerated Ford assembly line. They were slapped together and rushed out the door more quickly than comparable Ford products. The more expensive Corsair and Citation series were built at a sped-up Mercury assembly line, and again, similar problems happened. The rush job led to quality problems.
Back in '57-58, Mercurys and Fords actually had very little in common, as the Mercury was a much bigger, heavier, roomier car. Better built, too. So the pricier Edsels probably weren't too crappy, but I'm sure the cheaper lines were horrible.
In 1959, the recession started to lift and auto sales improved, but mainly at the lower end, with brands like Chevy, Ford, and Plymouth. Cadillac saw an improvement too, but they were relatively safe from the slings and arrows of the economy back then. I think Pontiac and Buick did see a pretty strong comeback for '59, but Oldsmobile, who had a comparatively successful 1958 (surprisingly, because those things were UGLY!), didn't do that much better. Dodge and Chrysler saw very slight sales increases. DeSoto, Mercury, and Edsel actually saw FEWER sales than in 1958.
The Edsel line was pared back considerably for 1959. Instead of offering two Ford and two Mercury-based cars, they only offered two Ford-based cars. And engine choices reflected the changing times. I think a 292 V-8 was standard and a straight six was a delete option. A far cry from the 300+ hp 361 monster that the cheapest '58 Edsel had!
Ford probably could have just gone ahead and not issued a 1960 Edsel, because they only offered them for 3 months and only sold about 3,000 units. However, I think a lot of the unique trim and minor body parts had already been stamped ahead of time, so they ran off just enough of them to use up the pieces.
It was becoming obvious by this time that the once broad middle priced market had collapsed, and was not going to rebound anytime soon. Mercury was still a much more prestigious car at the time, so initially what became the Comet originally was to have been an Edsel model. With Edsel being phased out though, they still wanted to use the Comet, so it got assigned to Mercury.
For 1961, the Mercury line was revamped. The cars emerged a bit slimmer than before, and were way down in price. In a sense, it was really the bigger 1957-60 Mercury type car that had become obsolete, as the big 1961 Mercurys were priced, powered, and sized about the same as a 1960 Edsel than they were a 1960 Mercury.
This thinning out phenomenon wasn't unique to FoMoCo, though. For 1960, Dodge came out with the Dart, a lineup of smaller, Plymouth-sized cars that competed model-for-model with Plymouth. They were smaller, cheaper, and lighter a 1959 Coronet, which was the entry level Dodge that year. Sales took off. Dodge might have sold about 100,000 Coronets in 1959, but they sold over 300,000 Darts for 1960. Further up the Dodge ranks, the Matador and Polara took over for what had been the Royal and Custom Royal, but they only accounted for maybe 45K units between them.
DeSoto also got thinned out for 1960, going from four model lines to just two, and dropping convertibles and station wagons. Chrysler saw improved sales in 1960 over 1959, but mainly on the low-line Windsor series. The bigger Saratoga and New Yorker were still slow sellers.
For 1961, Dodge went down to just the Polara representing the field that once was its mainstay. DeSoto was dropped about 2 months into the model year, and that same year Chrysler came out with the Newport, which was probably at a cheaper price point relative to its competition than any Chrysler had been before. The big Saratoga was dropped, leaving just the New Yorker and 300G on the longer 126" wheelbase.
GM saw a bit of shrinkage in their cars, too. Not at Chevrolet, but the '61 Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and Cadillacs were a bit more trim and svelte than they had been in 1960. Cars like the Catalina, LeSabre, and cheaper 88 models became more of an alternative to an Impala, rather than a step up from it.
I'm not sure when the recession was officially considered over, but by around 1963 the automotive market was going pretty strongly again, with the exception of a few marketing blunders, like the shrunken '62-64 Dodges and Plymouths, which were about 15 years too early in their drastic downsizing.
By the time the mid-60's rolled around, there might have been room for an Edsel car again, if Mercury had been moved further upscale. But then as the 60's wore on, Mercury had some very good sales years, sometimes topping 700,000 units. In contrast, I don't think they ever broke 300K in the 50's, and the Edsel's best year was 1958, when only 63K were sold.
Similarly, over at Chrysler, once the DeSoto and the more expensive Dodges were pretty much out of the way, that allowed the Chrysler brand to sell at much higher volumes. By the mid 60's I'm sure that Chrysler was selling more cars than Chrysler+DeSoto combined had in the past.
The GM cars from the late 1950s don't look badly assembled, from what I've seen, although they did decline a notch from the mid-1950s offerings.
The main problem with GM cars in 1958 was the styling, although it's worth noting that one of the GM cars to suffer the least in the 1958 sales slump was Oldsmobile, which was also probably the corporation's most gruesome offering that year.
But even the 1958-59 Chevrolets look reasonably well assembled, especially compared to the 1957-59 Mopars and 1957-58 Ford products. And it's worth noting that the 1958 Chevrolet actually sold rather well in a recession year. Chevy's sales were down (as were the sales of every domestic marque except Rambler and Thunderbird), but Chevy's market share increased.
I saw a fairly young guy driving a '64-65 Buick Special 4-door. Kind of a pale tan color. Looked pretty solid, but had minor body damage on the rear fender.
I think GM put out a better product, quality wise, than Ford or Chrysler in the late 50s. I think 1958 was a low point for just about everyone, though, in styling and quality. It's no coincidence that there are fewer survivors around from that year. It's a transitional year and a break in the fossil record. A species that died out. And it's no coincidence that this was VW's and Renault's first real boom year. The foreign car floodgates were first cracked open in 1958 IMO.
Detroit went along for too long with no competition and a booming market. But in 1958 I think the public just revolted at what they saw, and who can blame them?
You can tell the time was ripe for criticism, too, because soon after we got books like "Insolent Chariots" and "Unsafe At Any Speed", two classic (and not always accurate) assaults on Detroit mentality. Cartoons showed tailfin cars starting to fly and Cadillacs with swimming pools in the trunk.
It was a time to find scapegoats I think. The public wanted blood and enjoyed the ridicule of the industry.
You can also see quite a radical turnabout in Detroit thinking starting in 1960. Tail fins are mostly gone, compact cars appear, alternators appear---soon after we got the smash hit Mustang, and the soon-to-be a smash hit GTO. Even Cadillac became more sober and got a shave and a haircut. American cars would go on a hitting streak until around 1973 or so.
didn't 5mph bumpers make their debut in '73? i remember having to try to retofit a '72 plymouth duster fender onto my '74. it was the cheapest fender at the wrecking yard.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
Yes, that was the first year. In fact there was a GM strike in 72 at the F-body plant in Norwood, OH. All of the partially assembled vehicles had to be scrapped since they couldnt meet the new regulations slated for the 73 model year.
were required on the fronts of cars in 1973 and the rears in 1974. Dart/Valiant bumpers were already pretty strong, but they wouldn't pass the 5 mph test because some components like headlights, turn signals, or something else could still potentially get broken. Really about all that Chrysler did though, was put these big rubber blocks on their bumpers, and that's what got them to pass. Now in 1973, Chrysler did a fairly major restyle of the Dart/Valiant/Duster, and that warranted a different-shaped bumper, and probably the way the bumper curved into the fender made the fender fit a bit differently. I doubt the bumper itself was any stronger, though.
When the new bumper requirement for the rear came out, I think the biggest change was that they no longer made cars where the taillights were actually built into the bumper. For instance, the '73 Impala, Dart, and Valiant, and others, had taillight designs actually built in. After that, most cars had the taillights above the bumper, and the bumpers tended to just out more.
When it comes to the 70's, is there any year in particular that's really supposed to be "the worst"? I've heard some people say it was 1975, which was the year the catalytic converter was employed almost across the board, but then I've heard others say that the catalytic converter allowed cars to run a bit better, so while hp ratings weren't necessarily any better, fuel economy and "real world" performance was.
I know along the way in the 70's, there were various "milestones", for lack of a better word. I think they started cutting compression in some engines in 1971, and more got cut in 1972, which they tried to hide in the net hp transition. They'd tell you it was just a "paper" loss, but some real hp was lost in there, too. I think in '73-74 they really got bad. Slow, thirsty, poorly running, etc. Then in '75 we got the catalytic converter.
Also in the 70's they started putting taller axle ratios in cars, which would hold back their power. For instance, in the 60's a common Mopar gear ratio was 2.76:1. I'm sure Ford and GM has something close (2.73:1 sticks in my head with GM), although sometimes they'd take a big engine like a Pontiac 400 and mate it to a 2.56:1, which would give you good performance with the big engine, yet good highway economy with the tall axle. In the 70's though, numbers like 2.45:1, 2.41:1, etc started becoming common.
Just out of curiosity, how much does changing an axle ratio really change performance? I read somewhere ages ago in one of those newspaper car columns, that if you swapped in an axle ratio that was, say, 10% quicker, then you could expect a 10% improvement in acceleration, a 10% drop in fuel economy, and your engine would wear out 10% quicker. I know it'll make a difference, but there's no way the correlation could be that linear!
To use an example, I think my '79 New Yorker has a 2.45:1 rear end. IIRC you could order a 2.94:1 or a 3.23:1. If I were to take a wild guess, I'd say the car, as is, could do 0-60 in about 11-12 seconds. I don't believe for a second that putting a 3.23:1 ratio in, which would be an increase of ~32%, would shave my 0-60 time down to ~7.5-8 seconds! The copcar versions of these things, running a 195 hp 360-4bbl and a 2.94 rear, couldn't even break 10 seconds!
I actually have toyed with the idea of putting a different rear in this beast, just for kicks. So if I were to put in a 2.94:1 rear, for example, but didn't change anything else, what kind of changes could I reasonably expect?
Consumer Reports had been doing it before 1958. I remember one cartoon they had that showed a made-up car that looked an awful lot like a '57 DeSoto, replete with 4 stacked taillights, leaving the ground as it zoomed over the crest of a hill. I forget what the caption underneath read, but the driver had a big poop-eating grin on his face!
I remember CR also showed a pic of two parked cars, a '57 Plymouth behind a '57 Buick. They had a young girl of about 4-5 standing in between the two. They were trying to make the point, literally, about the agressive forward thrusts of cars and the pointy, raked-back tailfins, and how dangerous they could be. Not just to other cars, but pedestrians as well!
Another thing I remember from that issue was one page where they showed what they thought the perfect 1957 car would be. It was kind of a schematic that had a 1957 Plymouth 4-door in the middle, but then had little circles highlighting features of other cars that they'd like to see incorporated into the Plymouth. Unfortunately, the only one I can remember was the DeSoto Firesweep's larger standard brakes. I'm sure they had other things pointing at it too, like a padded dash out of some car, lower fins off some other, etc.
1957 was also about the time that badge engineering started to spring up. I don't think anybody used that term yet, but CR did call the DeSoto Firesweep a Dodge with a DeSoto nameplate, and said you might as well just get the Dodge.
I remember they also whined about the "real" DeSotos being too powerful and too big. The "real" ones usually had 3-speed Torqueflites, which really opened up performance compared to the 2-speed Powerflite, and they had Hemis, which breathed better than the poly heads in the Dodges and Plymouths. I'm guessing the Torqueflite also reacted quicker than the GM HydraMatic of the time. While the Hydramatic had 4 gears to the Torqueflite's 3, the TF had a torque converter. And I'm sure it was a better performer than Buick's Dyanflow!
As for size, maybe they did have a valid complaint, because for a starting price of under $3,000, you could get a new DeSoto that was actually longer than some Cadillac models! And also longer than the most expensive Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Mercurys.
A couple years later, in 1959, I remember one of the letters to the editor asked sarcastically if GM could possibly roll their sheetmetal any thinner! I guess later decades would prove that yes, indeed, they could!
No it's not linear. Gearing is a torque multiplier, but you are multiplying available torque, not creating NEW torque.
So then is there a general formula you could use to estimate what changing an axle ratio would do to a car? Or would it vary from car to car, depending more on the actual torque curve of the engine than anything else?
what I figured; it's going to vary from car to car. FWIW, my '89 Gran Fury had a 2.94:1 rear end, and in most driving situations, it didn't feel any quicker than my '79 NYer. Yet it had a stronger engine (175 hp 318-4bbl versus a 150 hp 360-2bbl. The 360 might've still had more torque though). It had a 2.94:1 rear, versus a 2.45:1. And even the gear ratios in the transmission were a bit quicker. I know the NYer's ratios are 2.45:1, 1.45:1 and 1.00:1, but I forget the Fury's. I want to say 2.74:1, 1.58:1, and 1.00:1
Chrysler changed the transmission ratios because back in 1981, they made a 2.26:1 axle standard on all the 318 civilian cars, instead of the 2.45:1, but the existing tranny ratios would have caused the engine to lug, and I think it would made first gear fail prematurely and also put a strain on 2nd. So to compensate they put the quicker ratio with the slower axle. Cars with the quicker axle, like the 2.94 and 3.23 (mainly police cars or the rare trailering package) got the regular ratios. For 1984 though, they just made the tranny with the quicker ratios standard across the board, in police and civilian cars.
The Gran Fury's also lighter than the NYer, but I doubt if it's all that much. Maybe 350 pounds or so? Still, in most driving, the cars felt about equallly matched. However, the Gran Fury would hit 125 mph easily (according to the Michigan State Police...highest I ever took it to was maybe 110) and at higher speeds in general (like where the NYer's needle would just about be ready to peg) the Fury would really perform better.
I guess police cars were often set up more for better top end performance, moreso than 0-60. Although I'm sure the "real" ones, such as the pre-emissions big blocks could do both. And today they're getting back to the point that they can once again do both.
Oh, something else I thought of, for when the time comes...when the tranny on my NYer does finally go out and needs to be rebuilt, would it be very hard/expensive to just have the shop put in the quicker 1st and 2nd ratios from a newer transmission? Would it be that much more expensive, versus just rebuilding it to factory specs? Or I guess I could just have them put in a newer-spec tranny to begin with.
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It was an early 70's Mercury, that looked to be an ex David Pearson NASCAR replica. What I don't know is whether it was a replica or the real thing. It was lowered, had the black steel wheels, all the stickers looked authentic -- even had "David Pearson" written in script under each window.
Is it real or is it memorex?
Thoughts?
At least that's what I think it was. I do remember it being small, having quad headlights, and a fairly smallish grille. At first I thought it was a Celica, but they had a more aggressive look to them and a wider grille.
And last nite I saw either a 1960 DeSoto or Chrysler 4-door hardtop. It was late at night though, and on an exit ramp where I was turning off in another direction, so I didn't get that close of a look at it. It wouldn't have been a big surprise to see it if I were still up in Carlisle, but this was about 5 minutes from my house!
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Someone in my town has a Checker cab in his driveway, but it is yellow, and I think it has the later bigger bumpers, but I haven't seen it up close.
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I have that movie on DVD...it's still good for a laugh, or a cringe when the cars are destroyed.
I cringe when I see those '58 Plymouths get destroyed, too. I think "Christine" was kind of a double-edged sword though, when it came to those cars. While people cried out about multiple examples of a fairly rare car being destroyed (I'd imagine most of them were Belevederes or Savoys though), on the other hand it put the '58 Plymouth on the map, and got people interested in restoring and owning them. So in an offbeat way the movie may have ultimately saved more of them than it destroyed!
I hear those old Briggs bodies last forever, even sitting in the woods. I recall a small junkyard owned by a friend's grandfather that was full of 1940s and early 1950s Dodges and Plymouths. Those bodies were still solid, even after sitting for decades.
Per styling, however, the 1957-58 Mopars was Chrysler's zenith. I heard at least 12 Plymouths were used in the filming of "Christine." I was rooting for the car throughout the movie and almost cried when they killed it.
Sure, many cars were getting pretty grotesque that year, but I think that the '58 Plymouth, Dodge, and DeSoto Firesweep were actually better looking cars that year. The Plymouth looked better IMO with the genuine quad headlights and the stone shield that matched the grille. The only regressive step they took, IMO, was going from a large, vertical taillight to the little "lollipop" taillight, which left most of the rear of those tall fins empty.
The '58 Dodge also looked good with its genuine quad lights, and its grille wasn't so heavy-handed as the '57. And the DeSoto Firesweep, which really looked awkward to me in '57, with its single headlight filling a space meant for quads, ill-fitting grille, and heavy "eyebrows", looked much better for '58 with quad lights filling out the front end. I think the '58 Chryslers and the "real" DeSotos were good looking for '58, although a bit more cluttered than the '57 models were. And interestingly, I thought the '58 Chrysler grille looked a bit like a '57 DeSoto. Maybe this was an indication of things to come, as Chrysler would move downmarket, squeezing DeSoto out.
Also, it seems pretty unloved today, but I actually like the '58 Ford! I don't like the taillights, but like the front-end much better. I never liked the bug-eyed headlights on the '57.
With GM cars, I think I actually prefer the '58 Chevy to the '57.
I'd still consider '57-58 to be Chrysler's zenith, style-wise. It's just unfortunate that they had to have it as the country was going into a recession, and with a body style that was rushed to the market a year early.
Speaking of cringing when seeing cars destroyed - just watch "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". The drowned 48 Ford convertible, the 56 Ford convertible that slams into a parking barrier, the rolled 61 Impala bubbletop, the abused 62 Dart (I think) convertible...
Anyway, on a longer car, like a DeSoto or Chrysler, which was about 218+ inches long, the big 4-door passenger cabin was well-balanced. And even on a Dodge (214") or DeSoto Firesweep (216") it seemed okay. But on the stubby Plymouth (~207"?) the passenger cabin just seemed over-sized. The Dodge/Plymouth 2-door sedan used the same roofline as well, and here I thought it also looked pretty awkward on a Plymouth. 2- and 4-door hardtops used a lower, shorter roof which made for a correspondingly longer rear deck, and made the whole car seem better balanced.
It's been ages since I've seen "Mad Mad Mad Mad World", but didn't they also run a '57 Ford off a cliff towards the beginning? And I think they rolled that '61 Impala coming out of the "Duel" tunnel, right about where Dennis Weaver would try to push a school bus with his Valiant a dozen or so years later. And I remember some 1959/60 Plymouths getting smashed up at the end, but those were ugly enough that I didn't cry too much! :P
Grand Theft Auto (the 1977 Ron Howard movie) smashed up a ton of cars, but I think most of them were probably cheap wrecks anyway. Still, there was one part where the dude that played Grossman in "CHiPs" drove a Porsche 911 over a ramp and into the trunk of a 1966 or so Caddy convertible He also flipped a '68 Charger
That movie even had a ''57 Plymouth in it! I think this one might even be a Fury. Didn't the Fury have the three horizontal stripes in the contrast spear, while the lesser models didn't?
I think '58 was mostly a disaster for Buick, Olds and Ford. Very ugly cars, very ugly.
'58 Chevy wasn't a hit at the time but is being looked at more closely now---took a long time for the 58s to come out from behind the shadow of the '57s.
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Chainsaw job... Saturn SC2 coupe.... :surprise:
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It's interesting though, just how long they held the prices down on cars back then. In 1961, they traded that Fairlane for a '61 Galaxie 500 4-door hardtop, and it was the same price, $3500. And then in '63, they bought a Monterrey 4-door hardtop with that "breezeway" rear window for $3500. The '61 was a good car, but Granddad wanted that roll-down rear window so he could haul lumber and other long items. I guess to him, that "breezeway" was kinda like a pre-historic Avalanche?
Oh, as for obscure cars, on Tuesday I saw a 1979-80 Chrysler Newport, in white. I've seen this car before; it actually lives on my street. The first time I'd seen it was from a distance and it looked good. I'd actually thought about asking them if they ever wanted to sell it to let me know. But when I saw it up close, I could see that it was a bit ragged. Rust coming out in odd places. R-bodies tended to do that. The rust wouldn't just come out in the obvious places, like the rockers, rear quarter panels, lower door edges, trim line where the vinyl roof meets the metal part on the quarter panel, etc. No, these suckers would sometimes have rust blossom out right in the middle of a piece of sheetmetal! And also along the upper edges of the door. I guess the piece that trims the door edge by the window traps moisture and dirt, and invites rust.
Oh, and it was pouring down rain, yet the driver didn't have his windshield wipers on, so I'm guessing they're shot. And it had a nice, deep rumble to it. The only way a Mopar R-body gets a rumble that nice and powerful-sounding is to either get a built up engine, a custom exhaust, or more likely, the exhaust just falls off of it! :P
Yesterday morning coming into work, I saw a Porsche 914. Red with a black top. Looked like it was in good shape. These things are kinda odd looking, but I still think they're interesting.
Porsche 914 -- an odd duck but interesting. They have wimpy VW engines, but with a few thousand dollars in massaging you can make 'em run. They are great handling cars, and sport genuine Porsche 911 suspension and transmission, with VW trim pieces and engine to make the car cheap enough. The car has TWO trucks, mid-engine, targa top. It's really quite clever.
VW Bugs also had some "features" in their bodies that would have been considered unnacceptable in more modern cars, too, such as those beads that showed up glaringly where the fenders bolted to the body, and that rolled seam where the sides tucked under the top. I'm sure that if VW tried offering 4-door and hardtop versions of the Bug, which would require more parts, more gaps, etc, that people wouldn't have been nearly as impressed. And if they tried hanging more chrome and such on it, you would have seen more of the flaws. Often you don't notice that a door is out of alignment unless there's a chrome piece on it or two-toning that doesn't line up with the fenders, rear door, rear quarter panel, etc.
I think the VW Bug worked well more because it was simple and didn't have a whole lot of parts to it, moreso than quality.
As for the low-line domestics back then, how really, did a '58 Chevy hold up to the competing cars? Opinions I've heard have varied greatly. Some say that those wasp-waisted X-frames actually made the car stiffer, because the body itself was beefed up as well, employing some unit-body techniques. But then I've heard others say that it was more shaky and rattly than a '57 Chevy, and that X-frame left you much more vulnerable to T-bone accidents. And of course, the car was heavier than a '57 Chevy, so it needed a stronger engine for better performance.
In contrast, I heard that the '57-58 Plymouth was actually a pretty solid car, and with a stiff body. The only problem was that it was rust-prone and they tended to have water leaks around the windshield and rear window. And the Plymouths had sturdy engines and transmissions.
The '57 Ford was actually the worst of them from what I've heard. Loose, shaky body AND rust-prone. Supposedly on the 4-door hardtops, if you got on a rough enough road and got it up to a high enough speed, you could shake the doors open. For 1958 they put creases in the roof to improve the structural strength of the thing. Supposedly engines and transmissions on the Fords weren't so hot around that timeframe.
One thing I've noticed, with the '57 cars at least, is that the Chevy Bel Air does seem to have a nicer interior than a Plymouth Belvedere or a Fairlane 500. The fabrics just seem nicer, and they used fabric on the door panel, versus just vinyl, or a vinyl insert that often attempted to mimic the seat fabric.
It's also no accident that the hottest collectibles today tend to be 60s cars, with a few exceptions. The 60s were great I thought for American products.
I wonder too if the '57 Ford, and the '57 Plymouth, were just a victim of their own success. They were everything a car needed to be in 1957...low, sleek, big, modern looking, and offering big optional engines. In contrast, a '57 Chevy just looked kind of hokey and outdated. Not surprisingly, Ford outsold Chevy that year, and Plymouth did well enough to have one of its best sales years ever.
However, there were still a lot of people that didn't want a car that big and heavy, and as used cars it was easier to hop up a '57 Chevy than it was a '57 Plymouth. I don't think there's really much you can do to a Plymouth 277 or 301 V-8, so while they're bulletproof and will run forever, they're just not well-suited to hopping up. Probably the best way to go with a Plymouth back then for more performance was to just yank the engine and put a big-block in. However, the Chevy smallblock was much better-suited to hotrodding. The engine itself was a heavy lump...truth be told it's heavier than a 318 and actually about as heavy as those old poly-head Plymouth 277/301/318 wideblocks. But with its low reciprocating mass, it internals are lighter, and it's just easier to make it rev and get more power out of it.
Also, a '57 Ford or Plymouth was considered much more high-style than a Chevy, at that time. However, things that are the most in-fashion have further to fall once the fashions change. So by the time the more conservative 60's were upon us, a '57 Chevy, which was more of a wallflower when it was new, didn't stick out like a sore thumb in the same manner that a '57 Ford or Plymouth would.
My Mom had a '57 Plymouth for her first car, and she really didn't like it. She bought it because it was cheap...$75. She doesn't remember much about it, except that it was "big and gray", and that one of the windows shattered when someone slammed a door. I think it's kinda funny though that she'd call a '57 Plymouth "big", but in later years moved on to a '66 Catalina and a '68 Impala, both larger cars. However, by the 60's they did improve the handling of cars considerably, so even though they were bigger they most likely handled much better. I know in my case, my '67 Catalina handles a lot better than my '57 DeSoto. Now granted, a '57 DeSoto is a lot bigger than a '57 Plymouth, but they really improved steering feel and quickness of the response on the newer cars. The turning circle feels tighter too.
Going to repost this in the motorhomes thread.
This one looks like it has ripples in the fiberglass body along the side. Would that be an indication of body work, or did they just build them that sloppy in the first place? I came kinda close to buying the 22-foot version of one of these back in 2000.
I guess something like this could really be a Pandora's box of trouble, combining all the problems of a 30+ year old car with all the problems of a 30+ year old house!
I never really had any interest in motor homes. Maybe if I wanted a classic pickup for taking to shows I would get a classic air stream to match it.
And I think the reason I like vintage motorhomes is that, like cars, they just seemed to have a lot more personality back then. These days most motorhomes are just these big generic toasters that found a way to graft Camry taillights onto them. But back in the 70's and early 80's, there just seemed to be so much more variety and, dare I say, style. Every once in awhile I'll see one of those old 70's GMC motorhomes, and I swear those things look more futuristic than any motorhome out there today! And those old aluminum Airstreams were pretty cool looking. I think they made a fiberglass version as well called Argosy or something like that?
I always liked the Travco though. Even before I knew that it used a Dodge chassis.
In reality though, if I bought one it would just be something that sat around, as I'd never have time to use it. And with the way fuel prices are these days, I'm sure driving something like that across the country could bankrupt a person!
However, with the 1949 restyle, new life was breathed into Mercury and sales took off, giving Ford hopes of finally making it big in the growing middle-price field. By the mid 50's, that market was simply exploding, and cars like Buick/Olds/Pontiac and Chrysler/DeSoto/Dodge started overlapping each other, yet still having strong sales. So Ford just wanted a piece of that.
Unfortunately, by the time the Edsel was launched in September 1957, the market was starting to cool. In 1958 we went into a tailspin of a recession that seemed to hammer the middle-priced brands the hardest. And people suddenly became very conscious of fuel economy, so these Edsels with their big 361 and 400+ CID engines, were very poorly timed.
To make matters worse, Ford didn't give the Edsel dedicated assembly line space. The two cheaper Edsel lines, the Ranger and Pacer, were built on an accelerated Ford assembly line. They were slapped together and rushed out the door more quickly than comparable Ford products. The more expensive Corsair and Citation series were built at a sped-up Mercury assembly line, and again, similar problems happened. The rush job led to quality problems.
Back in '57-58, Mercurys and Fords actually had very little in common, as the Mercury was a much bigger, heavier, roomier car. Better built, too. So the pricier Edsels probably weren't too crappy, but I'm sure the cheaper lines were horrible.
In 1959, the recession started to lift and auto sales improved, but mainly at the lower end, with brands like Chevy, Ford, and Plymouth. Cadillac saw an improvement too, but they were relatively safe from the slings and arrows of the economy back then. I think Pontiac and Buick did see a pretty strong comeback for '59, but Oldsmobile, who had a comparatively successful 1958 (surprisingly, because those things were UGLY!), didn't do that much better. Dodge and Chrysler saw very slight sales increases. DeSoto, Mercury, and Edsel actually saw FEWER sales than in 1958.
The Edsel line was pared back considerably for 1959. Instead of offering two Ford and two Mercury-based cars, they only offered two Ford-based cars. And engine choices reflected the changing times. I think a 292 V-8 was standard and a straight six was a delete option. A far cry from the 300+ hp 361 monster that the cheapest '58 Edsel had!
Ford probably could have just gone ahead and not issued a 1960 Edsel, because they only offered them for 3 months and only sold about 3,000 units. However, I think a lot of the unique trim and minor body parts had already been stamped ahead of time, so they ran off just enough of them to use up the pieces.
It was becoming obvious by this time that the once broad middle priced market had collapsed, and was not going to rebound anytime soon. Mercury was still a much more prestigious car at the time, so initially what became the Comet originally was to have been an Edsel model. With Edsel being phased out though, they still wanted to use the Comet, so it got assigned to Mercury.
For 1961, the Mercury line was revamped. The cars emerged a bit slimmer than before, and were way down in price. In a sense, it was really the bigger 1957-60 Mercury type car that had become obsolete, as the big 1961 Mercurys were priced, powered, and sized about the same as a 1960 Edsel than they were a 1960 Mercury.
This thinning out phenomenon wasn't unique to FoMoCo, though. For 1960, Dodge came out with the Dart, a lineup of smaller, Plymouth-sized cars that competed model-for-model with Plymouth. They were smaller, cheaper, and lighter a 1959 Coronet, which was the entry level Dodge that year. Sales took off. Dodge might have sold about 100,000 Coronets in 1959, but they sold over 300,000 Darts for 1960. Further up the Dodge ranks, the Matador and Polara took over for what had been the Royal and Custom Royal, but they only accounted for maybe 45K units between them.
DeSoto also got thinned out for 1960, going from four model lines to just two, and dropping convertibles and station wagons. Chrysler saw improved sales in 1960 over 1959, but mainly on the low-line Windsor series. The bigger Saratoga and New Yorker were still slow sellers.
For 1961, Dodge went down to just the Polara representing the field that once was its mainstay. DeSoto was dropped about 2 months into the model year, and that same year Chrysler came out with the Newport, which was probably at a cheaper price point relative to its competition than any Chrysler had been before. The big Saratoga was dropped, leaving just the New Yorker and 300G on the longer 126" wheelbase.
GM saw a bit of shrinkage in their cars, too. Not at Chevrolet, but the '61 Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and Cadillacs were a bit more trim and svelte than they had been in 1960. Cars like the Catalina, LeSabre, and cheaper 88 models became more of an alternative to an Impala, rather than a step up from it.
I'm not sure when the recession was officially considered over, but by around 1963 the automotive market was going pretty strongly again, with the exception of a few marketing blunders, like the shrunken '62-64 Dodges and Plymouths, which were about 15 years too early in their drastic downsizing.
By the time the mid-60's rolled around, there might have been room for an Edsel car again, if Mercury had been moved further upscale. But then as the 60's wore on, Mercury had some very good sales years, sometimes topping 700,000 units. In contrast, I don't think they ever broke 300K in the 50's, and the Edsel's best year was 1958, when only 63K were sold.
Similarly, over at Chrysler, once the DeSoto and the more expensive Dodges were pretty much out of the way, that allowed the Chrysler brand to sell at much higher volumes. By the mid 60's I'm sure that Chrysler was selling more cars than Chrysler+DeSoto combined had in the past.
The main problem with GM cars in 1958 was the styling, although it's worth noting that one of the GM cars to suffer the least in the 1958 sales slump was Oldsmobile, which was also probably the corporation's most gruesome offering that year.
But even the 1958-59 Chevrolets look reasonably well assembled, especially compared to the 1957-59 Mopars and 1957-58 Ford products. And it's worth noting that the 1958 Chevrolet actually sold rather well in a recession year. Chevy's sales were down (as were the sales of every domestic marque except Rambler and Thunderbird), but Chevy's market share increased.
Detroit went along for too long with no competition and a booming market. But in 1958 I think the public just revolted at what they saw, and who can blame them?
You can tell the time was ripe for criticism, too, because soon after we got books like "Insolent Chariots" and "Unsafe At Any Speed", two classic (and not always accurate) assaults on Detroit mentality. Cartoons showed tailfin cars starting to fly and Cadillacs with swimming pools in the trunk.
It was a time to find scapegoats I think. The public wanted blood and enjoyed the ridicule of the industry.
You can also see quite a radical turnabout in Detroit thinking starting in 1960. Tail fins are mostly gone, compact cars appear, alternators appear---soon after we got the smash hit Mustang, and the soon-to-be a smash hit GTO. Even Cadillac became more sober and got a shave and a haircut. American cars would go on a hitting streak until around 1973 or so.
Yes, that was the first year. In fact there was a GM strike in 72 at the F-body plant in Norwood, OH. All of the partially assembled vehicles had to be scrapped since they couldnt meet the new regulations slated for the 73 model year.
When the new bumper requirement for the rear came out, I think the biggest change was that they no longer made cars where the taillights were actually built into the bumper. For instance, the '73 Impala, Dart, and Valiant, and others, had taillight designs actually built in. After that, most cars had the taillights above the bumper, and the bumpers tended to just out more.
When it comes to the 70's, is there any year in particular that's really supposed to be "the worst"? I've heard some people say it was 1975, which was the year the catalytic converter was employed almost across the board, but then I've heard others say that the catalytic converter allowed cars to run a bit better, so while hp ratings weren't necessarily any better, fuel economy and "real world" performance was.
I know along the way in the 70's, there were various "milestones", for lack of a better word. I think they started cutting compression in some engines in 1971, and more got cut in 1972, which they tried to hide in the net hp transition. They'd tell you it was just a "paper" loss, but some real hp was lost in there, too. I think in '73-74 they really got bad. Slow, thirsty, poorly running, etc. Then in '75 we got the catalytic converter.
Also in the 70's they started putting taller axle ratios in cars, which would hold back their power. For instance, in the 60's a common Mopar gear ratio was 2.76:1. I'm sure Ford and GM has something close (2.73:1 sticks in my head with GM), although sometimes they'd take a big engine like a Pontiac 400 and mate it to a 2.56:1, which would give you good performance with the big engine, yet good highway economy with the tall axle. In the 70's though, numbers like 2.45:1, 2.41:1, etc started becoming common.
Just out of curiosity, how much does changing an axle ratio really change performance? I read somewhere ages ago in one of those newspaper car columns, that if you swapped in an axle ratio that was, say, 10% quicker, then you could expect a 10% improvement in acceleration, a 10% drop in fuel economy, and your engine would wear out 10% quicker. I know it'll make a difference, but there's no way the correlation could be that linear!
To use an example, I think my '79 New Yorker has a 2.45:1 rear end. IIRC you could order a 2.94:1 or a 3.23:1. If I were to take a wild guess, I'd say the car, as is, could do 0-60 in about 11-12 seconds. I don't believe for a second that putting a 3.23:1 ratio in, which would be an increase of ~32%, would shave my 0-60 time down to ~7.5-8 seconds! The copcar versions of these things, running a 195 hp 360-4bbl and a 2.94 rear, couldn't even break 10 seconds!
I actually have toyed with the idea of putting a different rear in this beast, just for kicks. So if I were to put in a 2.94:1 rear, for example, but didn't change anything else, what kind of changes could I reasonably expect?
I remember CR also showed a pic of two parked cars, a '57 Plymouth behind a '57 Buick. They had a young girl of about 4-5 standing in between the two. They were trying to make the point, literally, about the agressive forward thrusts of cars and the pointy, raked-back tailfins, and how dangerous they could be. Not just to other cars, but pedestrians as well!
Another thing I remember from that issue was one page where they showed what they thought the perfect 1957 car would be. It was kind of a schematic that had a 1957 Plymouth 4-door in the middle, but then had little circles highlighting features of other cars that they'd like to see incorporated into the Plymouth. Unfortunately, the only one I can remember was the DeSoto Firesweep's larger standard brakes. I'm sure they had other things pointing at it too, like a padded dash out of some car, lower fins off some other, etc.
1957 was also about the time that badge engineering started to spring up. I don't think anybody used that term yet, but CR did call the DeSoto Firesweep a Dodge with a DeSoto nameplate, and said you might as well just get the Dodge.
I remember they also whined about the "real" DeSotos being too powerful and too big. The "real" ones usually had 3-speed Torqueflites, which really opened up performance compared to the 2-speed Powerflite, and they had Hemis, which breathed better than the poly heads in the Dodges and Plymouths. I'm guessing the Torqueflite also reacted quicker than the GM HydraMatic of the time. While the Hydramatic had 4 gears to the Torqueflite's 3, the TF had a torque converter. And I'm sure it was a better performer than Buick's Dyanflow!
As for size, maybe they did have a valid complaint, because for a starting price of under $3,000, you could get a new DeSoto that was actually longer than some Cadillac models! And also longer than the most expensive Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Mercurys.
A couple years later, in 1959, I remember one of the letters to the editor asked sarcastically if GM could possibly roll their sheetmetal any thinner! I guess later decades would prove that yes, indeed, they could!
So then is there a general formula you could use to estimate what changing an axle ratio would do to a car? Or would it vary from car to car, depending more on the actual torque curve of the engine than anything else?
Some engines are goign to be happy at a higher RPM and some are just going to die.
Chrysler changed the transmission ratios because back in 1981, they made a 2.26:1 axle standard on all the 318 civilian cars, instead of the 2.45:1, but the existing tranny ratios would have caused the engine to lug, and I think it would made first gear fail prematurely and also put a strain on 2nd. So to compensate they put the quicker ratio with the slower axle. Cars with the quicker axle, like the 2.94 and 3.23 (mainly police cars or the rare trailering package) got the regular ratios. For 1984 though, they just made the tranny with the quicker ratios standard across the board, in police and civilian cars.
The Gran Fury's also lighter than the NYer, but I doubt if it's all that much. Maybe 350 pounds or so? Still, in most driving, the cars felt about equallly matched. However, the Gran Fury would hit 125 mph easily (according to the Michigan State Police...highest I ever took it to was maybe 110) and at higher speeds in general (like where the NYer's needle would just about be ready to peg) the Fury would really perform better.
I guess police cars were often set up more for better top end performance, moreso than 0-60. Although I'm sure the "real" ones, such as the pre-emissions big blocks could do both. And today they're getting back to the point that they can once again do both.
Oh, something else I thought of, for when the time comes...when the tranny on my NYer does finally go out and needs to be rebuilt, would it be very hard/expensive to just have the shop put in the quicker 1st and 2nd ratios from a newer transmission? Would it be that much more expensive, versus just rebuilding it to factory specs? Or I guess I could just have them put in a newer-spec tranny to begin with.