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A '77 Seville was $13,359, which admittedly is a hefty bump over a Versailles. But people in this price bracket aren't necessarily looking for value. That's why high-end Kias and Hyundai Genesis models, while nice cars, don't seem to have much of an impact on Mercedes Benz and BMW. A '77 Nova was only $3532 for the cheapest 4-door sedan, while the nicer Concours was $4066.
So, the Seville was actually a bigger price jump than the Versailles. But, to be honest, the base Nova was really pretty cheap inside. Nowadays, I tend to think of a Nova, Granada, and Volare as more or less on par with each other, and a Maverick as a definite step down. But, at the time, the Maverick, Nova, and Volare were closer in price, with the Granada being a step up. For comparison, a '77 Volare started at $3619 for the cheapest 4-door sedan. The mid-range Custom was $3801, and the ritzy Premier was $4354. The Maverick was $3395 for the 4-door.
In 1977, the Nova Concours was a pretty nice car, but no matter how fully-loaded it was, nobody was going to mistake it for a Seville. The Granada, however, started off nicer than the base Nova, and fully-equipped, was almost like a little luxury car. I think you could even get leather in them. So I think most buyers saw how obvious it was that the Versailles was related to the Granada and Monarch, and just didn't think it was worth the price jump.
When it comes to the Cavalier versus the Cimarron, the price jump doesn't seem as bad to me, as a Granada versus Versailles. The Cavalier came in three trim levels that year: $6433 Cadet sedan, which almost nobody bought. Regular sedan at $7137, which was the most popular trim level. And CL sedan, at $8137, which was also a somewhat slow seller. The Cimarron was $12,131, so only a ~$4000, or 50% increase, over the Cavalier CL. In contrast, the Versailles was more like 150% more than a Granada Ghia.
Interestingly, in 1982, the Cimarron, with about 25,000 units, actually outsold the Cavalier CL, which was around 15,000. The regular Cav was around 50,000 for the 4-door sedan, while the stripper Cadet 4-door was around 9,000.
The Cimarron, while a slap in the face to Cadillac, doesn't bother me all that much. Partly because it wasn't passed off as their most prestigious car, and probably wasn't a huge jump over a Cavalier, once the two were equipped comparably. But the Versailles was positioned to be Lincoln's most prestigious car. In 1977, it was slightly higher than a Mark V!
I'm sure dealers also had to discount the Versailles heavily to get it to sell. Still, considering it was done on the cheap, compared to the Seville, I wonder if it was still a fairly profitable car for Ford?
I guess about the best example I can think of, although a bit extreme, is when people used to put those aftermarket Rolls Royce grills on VW Bugs. You can tell what it's trying to emulate, but it's still just a Bug. And that's kind of how the Cimarron and Versailles came off.
As the old saying goes, "You can put a tuxedo on a goat. But it's still just a goat!" (okay, that's from "2 and a Half Men", so not exactly an ancient proverb! )
Oh, also just realized, I missed an anniversary. On November 6, it was the 21st anniversary of me buying my 2000 Intrepid, which was my first new car. Thinking back, my first old car, a 1969 Dart GT, was 21 model years old when I bought it in September 1989. That car seemed like it was from a whole different era. Yet suddenly now, 21 years doesn't seem that long ago.
Heck, I'm watching an episode of "Hazel" right now, where Hazel is drooling over a used '59 Fury convertible on the sales lot. Mr. Kimball from "Green Acres" is the salesman. At this point, the car was only 7 model years old, but by '66 standards, those 7 years seem like eons.
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Nice to always see new Fords in color in the earlier episodes.
Funny that I also remember new car purchase "anniversaries". I remember our new '73 Nova on 10/6/72; our '74 Impala Sport Coupe on 8/28/74 (right around when Nixon resigned), and my own first new car, '81 Monte Carlo, on 1/17/81.
We can go back 30 years or so, where 35K might have bought you this W124 200D - cloth interior, hubcaps, manual windows, maybe even a manual transmission, etc - a lovely car, but could be spartan as everything was optional:
And based on the same platform/body, you could have this 500E which would have cost maybe 90K:
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That sent me to the Mike Brewer Motors website to look at what they had. It's quite odd, most of them seeming to be short-term lease returns, which they will re-lease to a new buyer, though you can buy them outright too. Most of them are BMWs and M-Bs, but largely not models we get here. Small Benzes with 1.3L turbo engines, BMW 1-series cars, all sorts of unusual things for North America. Lots of diesels too, though he said that he expects that they will only have any value at all for the next 3 to 5 years, at which time the new Euro enviro regs will make them virtually unsaleable.
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I remember seeing one of these when I was a teenager, black on red, it had a sunroof, and I think either mag wheels or body color mesh or turbine style wheels. Even in the 90s I knew it was something unusual.
No doubt the unsellable cars will be shipped off to points south and/or east.
I had a 82 Cimarron that I bought in early 85 for $5200. It had 48k on it, fully loaded, 4sp manual. If it wasn't so underpowered it would have been a very nice car. Fourth gear was overdrive. There was a huge gap between 3-4. On an incline it wouldn't carry 4th gear and required a downshift to 3 where it would scream up hill. Not very refined.
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I thought it had a very nice interior. Had I kept it longer I was going to have the awful added on hood ornament removed and was going to reverse the whitewalls to blackwalls. The were top of the line tires, however. Funny thing, I sold the car in May 85 for $6000. It is the last car I've made money on!
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As for the Granada, I think it was Consumer Guide that once said something like "Almost overnight, the Granada became a smash hit and achieved nationwide acceptance just like a model that had been around for 20 years. And in many ways it was, notably in handling and fuel economy".
I always thought it was a bit odd that when GM restyled the Nova and its siblings for '75, that sales dropped sharply. I thought it was a great looking car...trim looking (although heavy), nice proportions, modern looking, and even a bit sporty in the coupe version. But, by that time I think "sporty" was becoming a bit of a dirty word, and luxury, or at least the pretense of it, was becoming all the rage. And that was something the Granada did pretty well.
I dated a girl back in the early 90's, who drove a '77 Granada with a 302. With the V8, it okay, but you still weren't going to win too many drag races with it. Road & Track tested a '75 with the 302 and got 0-60 in 12.0 seconds, with an automatic and 3.00:1 axle. I have a feeling that by '77 though, they weren't that fast...probably slipping in taller axle ratios and such.
And, it wasn't a bad looking car, overall. I think part of the problem was that when the Cavalier went to quad headlights and the eggcrate grille for 1984, it and the Cimarron really started looking too much alike.
Those cars were built at Lordstown. When I heard they were coming out, but prior to introduction, my buddy and I drove the 40 or so miles from where we lived at the time, just to drive around the lot on a Sunday. I spied my first Cavalier. My first impression of the rear of the car was that they copied the TR-7 rear lighting display. I still feel that way.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
I also thought the Volare Premiere was a very handsome car and more modern in a lot of ways over the GM Novas. Too bad so many had rust or other issues. They were comfortable and decent driving cars. A friend's dad had a new 76 Volare Premeire 2dr. The split bench seat with reclining seat backs were very comfortable.
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Remember the ads, showing parking or traffic tickets where the LEO wrote, "Mercedes" as make?
$4390: base
$4776: Ghia
$4962: ESS
Coupes were about $90 less.
In 1980, the gap was less...
$5664: base
$6065: Ghia
$6154: ESS
But the coupe was now $123 less.
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When the LeBaron and Diplomat came out, they were more of a step-up "luxury" compact. You could still tell they were based on the Aspen and Volare, but the interiors tended to be nicer, the dash, while similar, was higher quality, and the sheetmetal and even some of the roof structure was even different. They were also longer overall, and just looked like more car than an Aspen or Volare. But, they were also noticeably pricier. A '77 Diplomat 4-door started at $5101, compared to the Granada's $4118 for a base 4-door. The Diplomat did have a standard 318 and automatic, though, that first year, which accounted for some of that price jump. In '78, that was reduced to a 2-bbl version of the slant six, and I think a manual shift was technically standard, but probably rarely ordered.
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Sorry for the shredded parts here and there...rodents.
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The '78 brochure refers to it as "New forged aluminum road wheel," but that sucker looks chrome to me! I always thought the Diplomat/LeBaron (and later Gran Fury) had a nice, stable, well-planted look. As far as I know, they always had 15" wheels standard. And often, it was the extra-wide 15x7 wheel.
My '89 Gran Fury was an ex-police car, so it had those slotted 15x7 copcar wheels with the little dog dish hubcaps, and they stuck out even more than the civilian 15x7's, giving the car a nice, wide stance.
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In '79 it was Diplomat, Diplomat Salon, Diplomat Medallion. Same for '80-81, although in '80 they also offered a Special Sport Coupe" that was about $50 less than a regular Diplomat coupe. I don't know much about it, and they don't list production figures for it. So either it was a 1-off, or its production was lumped with another trim level.
Coupes and wagons were dumped after '81, and for '82-83 they went with just a sedan in Salon or Medallion trim level. The Salon only came with a solid bench seat in either cloth or vinyl, although it at least had a center armrest up front. The Medallion had a standard cloth split bench seat, with a more ritzy fabric pattern and nicer door panels. For '84-89, the Medallion was replaced by the Diplomat S/E. This was the model that had the 5th-Ave front end, upside-down headlights and all, just with a crosshair grille instead of the 5th Avenue's vertical pattern. Looks like it had the same interior that the '82-83 Medallion had.
I really liked the '77-79 LeBaron/Diplomat coupes. They were on the same 112.7" wheelbase as the sedans, and around 206-207" long, overall. I didn't care for the '80-81 as much, though. They shortened the coupes to the same 108.7" wheelbase as the Aspen/Volare coupes, to make more room for the Cordoba/Mirada, which downsized in '80. They were more boxy and formal, but the way the B-pillar slanted seemed a bit more curvy, and out of place. And they were really cramped when it came to back seat legroom.
Oh, and when it comes to downsizing, I have the feeling the '80 Cordoba/Mirada were probably about the least-downsized of any car out there. They were on a 112.7" wb, and around 210" long. In contrast, the '79 Cordoba/Magnum was on a 115" wb, and I think around 215".
For comparison, I think the T-bird went from around 215" to 200" overall, and from a 114" wb to 108.4, when it downsized for '80.
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For used cars, aside from the Corvettes, the $400 "excellent" 60 Chevy wagon might be good, and I notice a 68 Cadillac convertible is already being touted as a "classic".
I have a Diplomat memory - when I was a little kid, we lived in a subdivision where a few houses didn't have grass lawns (which seems odd to me now, as the houses were not brand new, but it was eastern WA). Someone up the street had one of the newer larger Diplomats (my memory is from maybe 1983-84), and they'd park it in the yard close to the house, even though the street had curbs etc - something I now associate with those cars.
On Facebook a couple days ago, I saw a '65 Chrysler 300, which was always my favorite Chrysler. Even with the buckets and console, I thought the interior disappointed--door panels and instrument panel. I've been so smitten with the '65 Pontiac Grand Prix panel for so long, anything else that year disappoints I think--including Buick and Oldsmobile.
I always liked how the '65 New Yorker had red taillight bulbs and clear lenses. Funny, in vehicles this millenium that have those, I don't like them--think it looks like the red lenses were broken out.
Then again, the 70's was responsible for this type of advertising hyperbole...
"Small". All 213.8 inches of it. 217.9 if you bought the 4-door. And the wagon was 225.6".
For comparison, the full-sized Gran Fury was 221.9" for the 2/4 door models, and 225.9" for the wagon.
I quite liked the first-gen Diplomat coupe and the style of the rear-quarter window. I didn't mind the "upside-down" headlights on the LeBaron either (though I liked the Dip better), and liked how the top outer edge of the door had vinyl trim covering it on those. I remember reading in Consumer Reports when they first were introduced that Chrysler apparently said they were being built at a plant that had better quality control than the one where the Volare/Aspen was produced. Given the abysmal quality of those, I suppose that wouldn't have taken much.
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At $2,666 you're probably getting the frumpy 'notchback coupe', but I will say those had surprising rear seat headroom, legroom, and also trunk capacity, for a car on a 97-inch wheelbase. I'd choose one over the Chevette that year, any day of the week.
I belonged to a Vega Facebook page, but the moderator was a bigger fan than me and shamed me on a tiny bit of shade I threw about the cars once. That was enough for me.
I do like the overall body and proportions, though. And they look good from the rear. In fact, the rear almost looks to me like it belongs on a more expensive car.
I think I would have gone for a Coronet as well, though. Even though they're practically clones of each other, the Coronet has a split grille that makes it look a bit more attractive to me. I don't really care for either of these cars, once they went to stacked quad headlights for '77-78.
I do think it's amusing, too, how close in size they really were to the genuine full-sized cars. I think Ford had that same problem with the Torino coming within a few inches of the LTD in terms of overall length. GM did a better job, I think, of keeping the midsized cars in check. I just checked the '76 Chevelle brochure, and the coupe was only 205.3", and 209.3" for the sedan. That surprised me a bit, as I thought they were a *little* longer, like maybe 208"/212"? That might be the specs for the '76-77 LeMans I'm thinking of, though. And GM had a little more freedom than Ford and Mopar, when it came to differentiating their midsized cars, including making changes in details like the bumpers, that could alter the length a few inches here and there.
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I do think on this one the painted bottom area of the dash could have been handled better, though that sort of thing was pretty common on all cars back then.
The one thing that nowadays bugs me about them, though, is the chrome trim across the top of the instrument cluster. Why they put a seam near (but not exactly at!) the top center drives me crazy. Even worse, the two pieces usually don't line up right, so not only do you have an off-center break, but it is misaligned.
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