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Comments
Note that this page doesn't show the SS model, as it was an option.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chevrolet/1975_Chevrolet/1975_Chevrolet- - _Nova_Brochure/1975%20Chevrolet%20Nova-13.html
Andre, I'd HAVE to get the wheel opening moldings on an LN. I don't go for the pinstripe around the wheels, but no moldings!
Also, all through the years in the '60's and '70's when Chevy would advertise a 'standard' six and a 'standard' V8, it was kind of a crock as the base price on the sticker would say something like 'Nova 6 Coupe $2,324' or 'Nova 8 Coupe $2,429'--the base prices were different! Through '70 they pulled it on Nova with 'standard four, six, or eight'...but a couple hundred difference in price at least between a four and an eight, even though both were 'standard'!
I owned a 69 bare bones Nova that didn't even have carpet. It came with full-floorboard rubber mats, a 6 cylinder that got fantastic mileage, a 2-speed automatic transmission and it ate a water pump every 10k miles, which was simple enough to change out.
I also had a red 71 Nova with a 350 engine and 3-speed auto.
Both had AM radios.
Overall, I really liked both cars.
http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chevrolet/1975_Chevrolet/1975_Chevrolet- _Nova_Brochure/1975%20Chevrolet%20Nova-04.html
Novas were great to pop out the engines and add a trick 283/327 for some real fun without the weight of a Pontiac or Olds. By the mid-seventies, all stock car engines bled horespower like cows give milk!
Regards,
OW
Compared to what? You're hung up on the word "Nova".
I'd take one with a 350 and the suspension pieces. It was the darling of police car fleets in the mid and late '70's.
I miss long options lists, instead of having to pay for things I don't want in "Option Group 1", etc. That's something else we can thank the imports for. That, and five colors. Even the Nova could be had in sixteen colors as late as 1975.
Americans really didn't grasp the concept of a "luxury" compact, except in times of recession and high fuel prices. GM actually had some success with their upscale Tempest/F-85/Special compacts of 1961-63, which were sort of a recovery period from an over-sold market from '55-57, a recession in '58, and cars that were getting bigger, heavier, and thirstier throughout the whole period.
But, as the market improved and interest in smaller cars faded a bit, GM enlarged those cars, and they sold much better as intermediates.
Then, when the Mustang came out and ushered in the "pony car" phase, it dealt another blow to mainstream compacts. For 1966, Ford dropped the convertible and hardtop versions of the Falcon, leaving mainly just cheap 2- and 4-door sedans in bare-bones, stripper trim levels. Plymouth did the same thing in 1967 with their Valiant, to take competition off the Barracuda. However, there was an upper trim level of the Valiant called Signet that was pretty nice inside, for a compact of that era.
Chevy would follow suit in 1968, when the Nova was redesigned, so that hardtop and convertible buyers would get a Camaro instead. Interestingly, the Dodge Dart took a slightly different route, dropping the cheap 2-door sedan for 1969, leaving only hardtops and convertibles if you wanted a 2-door. Dodge didn't have a "pony car" yet, so the Dart had to play several roles at once...mainstream compact, pony car, and muscle car. When the Challenger came out for '70 though, the convertible Dart was dropped, although they held onto the hardtop through the end in 1976, and the Valiant even got the hardtop back for 1970 or 71.
As the 70's wore on, it was obvious that muscle and performance could no longer be relied on to sell cars, and with the oil embargo and economic turmoil of the time, people started demanding more luxurious small cars. And cars like Mercedes Benz were suddenly in vogue.
I always thought the Nova seemed to get dressed up a bit for its 1973-74 facelift, but it still remained a fairly basic, budget-minded compact. Ford tried an upscale version of the Maverick called the "LDO" (Luxury Decor Option) in late 1972, but, let's face it, it's kind hard to dress up a Maverick! Chrysler launched a Valiant Brougham and Dart S/E in 1974, which were really nice inside, but it was still blatantly obvious that they were Darts and Valiants. But with the Granada in 1975, Ford was finally able to put the concept of "luxury compact" on the map. When judged by contemporary standards, they're often looked back on as tacky and laughable, but at the time, a lot of people bought them, and were proud to flaunt them.
Similarly, with the Chevy Nova LN, judged by today's standards, when we think of something like a Benz S-class or BMW 7-series as a luxury car, it's hard to use the adjective "luxury". But, in the 1970's, the domestic concept of luxury was thick padding, shag carpeting, voluptuous velour, etc. European cars of the era were quite stark in comparison.
You could also get power locks and windows on a '75 Nova, and Granada, and it was a big deal to be able to get that power stuff in a compact back then. I don't think the Dart/Valiant ever offered power locks/windows...at least I've never seen one, not even an S/E or Brougham. And I doubt you could get power windows on a Maverick. I think '75 was the first year you could get that power stuff on a Nova, as well. At least, the '74 brochure doesn't mention it, and is still making a big deal out of things like radial tires, a clock, and a rear seat speaker!
A '75 Nova LN would probably feel like a luxury car compared to a '69 or '71 Nova. But, a '71 with a 350 would be a ton of fun, I'm sure! By '75, I think the 350 was choked down to 145 hp net with the 2-bbl, or 155 with the 4-. IIRC, the 1971 350 started at 255 hp gross, and went up from there!
GM always gets beat up for 'badge engineering', but here's a classic example from Ford. At least a Seville did not share a single piece of sheetmetal or interior pieces from anything else.
GM should properly get "beat up". Once a leading American manufacturer and then goes bankrupt.
Didn't the Cadillac Cimmaron share a body and parts with a Chevy equivalent?
While I think the Seville is a perfect example of how good GM was at differentiating their products, 1975 was sort of a turning point when it came to badge-engineering.
Up to that point, the only GM products I'd consider to be badge-engineered were the '71 Ventura and '73 Omega and Apollo offshoots of the Nova. GM didn't do a whole lot to differentiate them, just change the easy stuff like grilles, taillights, trim, etc...maybe a hood here and there, since Pontiacs had a beak that carried into the hood. Dashboards were all pretty much the same.
But in 1975, wasn't that when the Astre came out, as a clone of the Vega? And that year the Chevy Monza, Buick Skyhawk, and Olds Starfire were release, all pretty much clones. And Pontiac would get their Sunbird for '76.
GM still did a great job at differentiating their intermediate and full-sized cars, though, although as the cars got downsized, they would become more similar.
I think the main reason GM got slammed was because they had to offer the same car across 3 or 4 divisions (or five, in the case of the J-body), and there was only so much they *could* differentiate. Meanwhile, Ford and Chrysler only had to sell the same basic car across 2 or 3 divisions. And here, there was much less differentiation going on, as they all used corporate drivetrains, and usually it was just the easy-swap stuff that was different. A Dodge Aspen had the same dash as a Plymouth Volare. A Chrysler LeBaron had the same dash as a Dodge Diplomat, and it was heavily based on the Volare/Aspen dash. The dashboard that's in my $12000+ New Yorker 5th Ave is the same that's in a $7000 St. Regis or Newport taxi...or the even cheaper Gran Fury that came back for 1980-81. That's something you wouldn't have seen at GM. No Cadillac, or even LeSabre/Electra, would have the same dash as a Chevy.
Then there is the dealers. Most of the GMC dealers are lumped in with Buick so having both the Enclave and the Acadia on the same lot...
And regarding looks, the new Acadia is supposedly using almost all of the exterior parts from the now defunct Saturn outlook so I don't know if you can get closer to rebadging than that!
Equinox and Terrain to me, same thing. Same engines, same capacity, seating, overlapping price. it's all just a matter of whether you want a decent looking ute or IMO, a butt ugly box.
Speaking of Granada, Ford of Europe started using that name first, with better results. Here's a ~1975 Ford Europe Granada:
Also available in fastback form:
By 1978, it became very modern, by then Europe was the trend setter in design:
The coupe became more of a two door sedan:
But there is an SUV. The Escalade is just a fancy Chevy SUV with a Cadillac name to make more profit for GM.
Ford and Mopar were usually the worst at it. I remember back in college, one of my friends had an '86 Escort, and the grille got broken out of it. I found an '87 Lynx in the junkyard, and its grille, while styled differently, was a direct fit. In fact, they didn't even bolt or screw in, they simply snapped in!
I would say that the Lincoln Mark Z or whatever they call it now is just a badge-engineered Fusion/Milan. Well, just Fusion now. It has a much nicer interior, and the exterior is revised, quite nicely actually (although I don't like the rear). But, like a late 1970's Versailles, there's no denying the fact that the Z is based on a much lesser car.
Ford does a better job with MKS versus the Taurus, IMO. It's not blatantly obvious, to me at least, that they're the same basic car.
I always thought Cadillac did a pretty good job traditionally, in that it usually only shared a platform with Buick and Olds but, with the exception of the Cimarron, never Chevy or Pontiac. And it was usually the upscale Buicks and Oldsmobiles at that, like the Electra/Ninety-Eight, or Toronado/Riviera.
About the worst that it got was when the LeSabre/88 went FWD for '86 and then the Bonneville for '87. But Cadillac quickly reacted, making the DeVille larger for 1989. I think the Coupe DeVille was 6" longer, on an unchanged 110.8" wb, but I think the sedan also got a 3" bump in wheelbase, so it grew 9" overall.
I really wish Lincoln would go back to real names. I had to look up every single one of those to make sure I had them right. I kinda remembered the Z because it makes me think of Zephyr.
Personally, I'm not too fond of the Cadillac SRX. While it doesn't look like it's just a quickie rebadge of an Equinox, I think it's still too downscale for what a Cadillac should be.
The Lincoln MKS (who can keep those names straight?!) is a handsome car that looks nothing like a Taurus IMHO. The MKZ is as much a Fusion as a Cimarron was a Cavalier I think.
Well, er, this, for example.
Urban legend has it that Nova didn't sell in Mexico as No Va means "No Go".
Of course, even a Nova LN was not priced like a comparably-equipped Grand Am. But, the LN interior was similar in concept to the Cutlass Salon--wide, individual reclining seats--something new in domestic four-doors at that time.
I like the Grand Am, and so did the magazines, but I never liked the louvered quarter windows.
The Grand Am, besides its touring suspension and bigger engine, was a LeMans with a Grand Prix interior. The seats and instrument panel were EXACTLY Grand Prix. Not a bad thing, because I think that era Grand Prix/Grand Am instrument panels were the best domestic panels since the '65 Grand Prix.
This reminds me of Caddy now stating they are the New Standard of the World.
The reason for 5 divisions at GM was for each division to add features the others did not have. So Chevy didn't even come close to "Luxury" back then, IMO, since PBO and C provided escalation to GM "Luxury". The LN package on the Nova made it higher comfort but hardly "True Luxury" or even "Entry Luxury" by GM's own standards.
Regards,
OW
Now that was Luxury for the times.
Regards,
OW
Traditionally, I look at the hierarchy this way...
Chevrolet: a car for the masses, and younger people
Pontiac: slightly upscale, and the performance division
Oldsmobile: middle-range, more mature, but not old fogey (at least not intentionally)
Buick: mid-to-upper range, understated and upscale. Luxury for people who don't want to flaunt it.
Cadillac: luxury for people who DO want to flaunt it!
But, when compacts came out, Buick, Olds, and Pontiac just had to have one, although it didn't take long for their first wave to grow into midsized cars. When it came to musclecars, all of a sudden everybody wanted one, both in the midsized range (Chevelle SS, GTO, 442, Gran Sport) and full-sized (Impala SS, 2+2, Starfire, Wildcat). Personal luxury coupes? Well, Pontiac got the Grand Prix, Buick the Riviera, Olds the Toronado, and Caddy the Eldorado. Chevy finally came on board with the cheaper Monte Carlo, and it wasn't long before a whole new breed of cheaper personal luxury coupe proliferated. And when it came to more luxurious cars, Pontiac got the Bonneville Brougham and Chevy got the Caprice.
I think the peak was finally hit in 1971, when Pontiac came out with the Grand Ville, which was a half-hearted shot at the Electra and 98.
GM actually did a pretty good job, for awhile, of keeping the divisions from fighting with each other too much. Chrysler hadn't done nearly as good of a job juggling five divisions. They tried to make Imperial stand alone in 1955, and then started moving Chrysler down into DeSoto territory, while DeSoto started to move down into Dodge territory. Meanwhile, nicer and bigger Dodges started coming out, creeping upward in price and market. It all fell apart in 1958, and by 1962 DeSoto was gone, Dodge was reduced to competing more with Plymouth/Chevy/Ford class cars than the Mercurys and Pontiacs they traditionally competed with. And the only truly popular Chrysler was the Newport, a relatively cheap car that was priced about where a nice Dodge should be...a far cry from the prestigious Chryslers of days gone by.
Similarly, Ford ran into problems when they tried to juggle Ford, Edsel, Mercury, and had the audacity to make Continental a brand separate from and more prestigious than Lincoln. Needless to say, that fell apart really quick, and by '61, Mercurys were just re-badged Fords and barely a step up, Edsel was gone, and Lincoln went in a whole new direction with crisp, modern new styling that made the '58-60 Lincolns and Continentals look positively ancient.
It really wasn't until downsizing, a forced trimming of the bigger engines, and aerodynamics, that GM started to fall apart with managing their 5 divisions. First to falter was Pontiac in the 70's, to the point they considered axing it around 1982-83. Then things were good for awhile, but in the late 80's Buick seemed to stumble a bit, before being turned around by all the good press from those JD Powers ratings, and improved styling that first turned the corner with the 1991 Park Avenue. A few years later, it was Oldsmobile that lost their way, as that "not your Father's Oldsmobile" continued to alienate the traditional crowds, while failing to draw in younger crowds. Oldsmobile would stumble, then nosedive, and sadly, just as some of the products looked promising again, the plug was pulled. I guess the fact that GM was able to keep all those divisions going for so long is some kind of testament to their marketing success.
I'm going from memory here, but I think they started out at $12,479, which seemed astronomical at a time when price was equated with size of car. It was more than a Sedan deVille at the time.
When fuel prices skyrocketed, many wanted economy AND features, and the move towards a smaller luxury vehicle was introduced.
My brother was freshly back from Vietnam Nam in 72, and the first thing he bought when he got discharged was a Luxury Lemans, which was a really nice car of the period. Problem was, it sucked gas down gas as fast as you could pump it in. I used to joke with him that he couldn't fill the tank if he left the car idling at the pump, because the pump couldn't keep up with the carb drinking the gas.
For the times, it was a very nicely appointed car, even if it seemed a bit "over the top" gaudy in a few areas...
GM has sold more cars in China than the US over the last few years."
GM Is Planning A Massive Chinese Expansion (businessinsider.com)
Lost the link but read somewhere a few days ago that Buick is one of the few models whose average age of ownership has lowered.
That appears to be changing as the 2013 MKZ looks far different than the 2013 Fusion inside and out.
Totally agree with you
Flash forward to today. Ditto.
Unfortunately, GM is still behind the rest delivering BUT improving as fast as a giant battleship with a huge hole in it can change course!
Regards,
OW
Ford's doing great, so you have to wonder why even bother if Lincolns even look the same?
I don't even like the new look, though at least it's more distinctive than before. Plus the prototype shorted out and had smoke pouring from the door at the auto show - not a good start.
210K on a Neon... that's gotta be a world record, he should call Guiness! Maybe the brakes were bad and that caused the accident? :P
We've discussed this before, ad nauseum, but that's a slogan they've used for decades. Why wouldn't they continue to use it? If you ever had a marketing course in college, it's called 'puffing'.
If Chevrolet said "Building a Better Way to See the USA" (as they did in the seventies), if you disagreed, would you say they should stop using that slogan? Of course not. That'd be ridiculous.
"Standard of the World" is a slogan and nothing more.
I did recently see a pop-up for the SRX with a quote from Jalopnik stating "Trust us when we say this is a Lexus-beater".
I still wouldn't buy one since it's assembled in Mexico, but call me old-fashioned.
I never understood why the emblems on them spelled out "LML" instead of "LLM"!
I did like on the '73, how it was a luxury model but it still had the big triangular quarter windows which I liked, instead of Pontiac finding the need to put an opera window there like they did on later years.
I can't think if your email mentioned this or not, and I'm too lazy to check, but when I think of a '72 Luxury LeMans, I immediately think of that light green metallic they used that year.
They probably do it for symmetry, as they can make the "M" sort of a heavy anchor point in the middle, and then over-stylize the other two letters to make the whole thing look like a work of art basking in its full 70's glory.
FWIW, they did the same thing with the Grand LeMans, with a "GML" badge. My '76 has it in the opera windows, and also in the door panels. None of the online pics of my car are hi-res enough to show it off, but here's a pic from the 1978 brochure, which should give you an idea.
We were just talking about this....
Cadillac says your dead wrong!
This is from Cadillac.com:
AWARDS AND ACCOLADES
Cadillac is the “New Standard of the World.” This is more than a statement. It’s a fact recognized by discerning industry experts who continually award Cadillac the highest honors and bold acclaim. Explore our awards and accolades below.
Hardly just "puff", more like arrogance!
Regards,
OW
3 series - means 30% of Cadillac's level
5 series - means 50%
7 series - means 70% (pretty good, close to Cadillac)
and so no.
When you watch the world news on TV, you’re probably looking to see what kind of car that obscure president/prime minister is riding in. We all know about Obama’s Cadillac and China’s Hongqi, but what about the other 195 world leaders (193 U.N. member states, plus Palestine, Taiwan, the Vatican, and Kosovo)? Well, in 2007 and 2008 (and briefly in 2011 thanks to the addition of South Sudan as a new country), I summoned the collective power of about a half-dozen search engines (and an email exchange with the editor of the largest newspaper in the Federated States of Micronesia) and came up with this list. Compiling this was fun, frustrating, and eye-numbing.
Without further ado, here is the final tally:
Mercedes S-Class (61 countries), Toyota Land Cruiser (23), BMW 7-Series (16), Audi A8 (11), Cadillac (7), Maybach (6), GM Suburban/Yukon/Escalade (6), Mitsubishi Montero/Pajero (4), VW Phaeton (4), Mercedes G-wagen (4), Holden/Chevy/Opel (4), Hummer H2 (3), Toyota Crown (3), Lincoln (3), Jaguar (2), ZIL (2), Volvo (2), VW Touareg (2), Mercedes E-Class (2), Lancia (2).
You can see what their standard is...Caddy?....NOT!
Regards,
OW
We've discussed this before, ad nauseum, but that's a slogan they've used for decades.
They've been calling themselves the new standard of the world for decades?
Boy, they have a different definition of new than I do. :P
If Chevrolet said, "More than ever, building a better way to see the U.S.A.", it's still 'puffing' and it's merely an extension of their long-standing ad slogan. Same with Cadillac. "Standard of the World" has been used for at least as long as I've been alive.
Like I'd buy a car by what other world leaders drive, BTW.