The Malaise King: 1977 Ford Granada

The price of a barrel of oil in inflation-adjusted dollars went from $18 in 1970 to $100 in 1980. Japanese and European carmakers responded to the oil crisis by engineering new, space-efficient front-wheel drive cars with small but technologically-advanced and powerful engines. But Detroit wasn't having any of that. No, the American carmakers decided to sell us cars on the same old platforms that looked more or less like what we bought in 1970, only a bit smaller and with stone age engines that were reasonably fuel-efficient simply because they had no power.

From wikipedia: "Malaise era is a term used to describe the state of the U.S. automotive industry from roughly the early 1970s through the early to mid 1980s, characterized by malaise: poor products and a generalized industry unease."

Or as curbsideclassic.com said about the Ford Granada, "Can I interest you in a 1961 Falcon with 50% more weight, 25% less power, and 100% more fluff?" This was a car with an engine that produced only 0.28 hp per cubic inch of displacement. By comparison, both GM and Chrysler had been selling engines producing 1 hp per cubic inch back in the 1950s. This particular Granada was parked for some weeks (?) in the same spot at the Shoreline Costco. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to keep it nice. I wonder why?

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The Dinosaur lumbers on: 1977 Chevrolet Malibu Classic

 

 

There's a good article on curbside.com comparing this car to that year's Honda Accord: "GM’s mega-mid-sized cars of the seventies were the perfect embodiment of why cars like the Accord started (to) take the country by storm. The Colonnades were longer, wider and heavier than full-sized Chevys not that many years earlier. Their arrival in 1973 on the eve of the energy crisis didn’t help, but it’s not completely fair to say that GM didn’t have any idea which way the wind was blowing. Small cars were already booming, and GM launched its own Vega just two years earlier." "The real shocker was space utilization. These two-ton coupes had little if any advantage over the tiny Accord, save for width. The rear seat was a veritable cave, lacking visibility, light or adequate leg room."

As the author above notes, GM wasn't just building gas-guzzling behemoths. It was trying, in a half-hearted way, to join the smaller car revolution. Two problems. One, the company didn't really want to build compact cars and those they offered to public were just terrible (the Vega, the Chevette). This of course led the next generation of American buyers to be even more open to imported makes. Two, yeah, GM was also getting ready to join the movement to lighter, more space-efficient front-wheel drive cars. But that of course led to the infamous 1980 Chevy Citation, another terrible car that, like so many of GM's products from the 80s, eventually led buyers by the millions to abandon the brand.

Note the above car is for sale. I'll cover this particular used car lot in my next post.

 

 

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1977 Ford LTD II Station Wagon

When I was a little kid, most families had a wagon like this. Few survived to the 21st century. The "LTD II" was Ford's replacement for the Torino series after 1976. This vehicle is gigantic, but believe it or not, it was built on Ford's "intermediate" platform - smaller than the full-size LTD series. The LTD II wagon was made only for the 1977 model year. Parked just up the street from me in Queen Anne, another Seattle survivor that looks like it just rolled out of the showroom. I love the "shelf" bumpers wide enough to use as a picnic table.

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1977 Chevrolet Malibu Station Wagon

Kids today strapped into their booster seats will never know the the pleasure of carefree summers spent lounging in the back of a full-size station wagon. The Malibu of course is only "mid-size" and dwarfed by the King of the Road: the Caprice Estate wagon.

 

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1977 Isuzu 117

In the late 70s, Detroit was about to get crushed by Japanese cars but hadn't realized it yet. And not just because Americans were shifting to smaller cars. The technology in this Isuzu makes American cars built at the same time look positively Stone Age. As early as 1970, the 117 was available with a DOHC 4-cylinder engine; by 1977 it produced 135 hp. Compare that to a Ford 302 V-8 made that same year which eked out a meager 122 hp.

Observations:
* The 117 looks like an Italian car because it is, being designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro.
* That logo on the grill is a lion.
* Looking at the interior, I love the huge metal ashtray mounted on the door sill.
* Unlike most of the vintage right-hand Japanese cars I've seen, this 117 has an automatic transmission.

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1977 Chrysler LeBaron - Corinthian leather!

The evolution of the Chrysler LeBaron is a reflection of the changes that were going on in the American car market in the 1970s and 80s. In 1975, the Chrysler Imperial LeBaron was a behemoth that looked more like a yacht than a car. The next generation was slimmed-down substantially, and by the 80s the LeBaron was a front-wheel drive car little different from the rest of Chrysler's economy K-car line.

Note the sumptuous interior. Yes, that's "Corinthian leather," famously introduced in TV ads by Ricardo Mantolban. "Corinthian" doesn't mean anything.

Observations:
* These cars were mostly sold with "landau" half-vinyl roofs, which this LeBaron lacks.
* This same car was featured on seattlesparkedcars.blogspot.com in 2012.

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1977 AMC Hornet Sportabout wagon

The Hornet was a new car for American Motors in 1970. This same basic station wagon body staggered all the way to the 1988 model year atop the all-wheel drive Eagle chassis. Chrysler Corp. then purchased AMC and closed their Kenosha, WI factory.

The most famous Hornet is of course the 1974 model X used in the corkscrew-jump in the James Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun.

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