Yes, the SS emblems on this Dark Red 1973 Chevrolet Malibu station wagon are authentic, and yes, if you look closely, that is an equally authentic “454” call-out on the front fender. An SS 454 wagon? Strange but true: In 1973 — and only 1973 — Chevrolet offered both the Z15 SS package and the LS4 454 engine on the Malibu station wagon, although only a handful were built. Which raises a question: Is rarity alone enough to make a car desirable?
In my recent post about the 1969 Buick Sportwagon 400, a “Skyroof” wagon sharing the engine of Buick’s hot Buick GS 400, I called it the “Soccer Mom Supercar.” This extremely rare 1973 Chevrolet Malibu SS 454 wagon is what I would call a “Dad ‘Stache” car — perhaps the ultimate Dad ‘Stache car.
When I say “Dad ‘Stache,” I mean a particular range of shaggy mustaches popular in the early ’70s, like the one sported by actor Rob Reiner in the All in the Family screen cap below. If you were alive and of the right age and hormone balance back then, you might well have had one, and if you didn’t, you almost certainly knew people who did. (A few never gave them up.) For a while, it seemed like they were almost standard-issue for married men aged 24 to 35 who still liked to think of themselves as young and cool in their awful brown velour shirts and JCPenney jeans — the nameless rabble of victims of an era of unusually bad collective taste in fashion and design. Images like this still provoke a shudder.
Rob Reiner as Mike “Meathead” Stivic in All in the Family, circa 1972
Can you picture early ’70s Rob Reiner or one of his contemporary lookalikes climbing into this overdecorated red wagon, perhaps taking a moment to proudly dab the grime off its gleaming SS badges or incongruous raised-white-letter tires? I can, and I honestly wish I couldn’t. The kindest thing I can say about the looks of this wagon is that the Dark Red color is far more palatable than the emetic Chamois wagon Tom Klockau wrote about for Hagerty a while back. I’m no fan of the 1973–1977 GM “Colonnade” A-body intermediates to begin with — I know the Colonnades have their defenders, and they did have a few good points (VinceC has previously described their worthwhile improvements in chassis design), but for the most part, I think they compounded many of their predecessors’ faults without the benefit of the earlier A-bodies’ generally handsome styling.
I have a particularly negative reaction to the station wagon version because the moment I first saw the photos of this particular wagon, it struck me how much it looks like an oversize Ford Pinto — not even the Pinto Squire wagon, but a three-door Pinto Runabout that someone inexplicably decided to stretch into a four-door wagon. It even has a hatchback-style top-hinged tailgate with fixed rear window, just like the three-door Pinto. The Chevelle is 4 feet longer than a ’73 Pinto and weighs more than twice as much, but neither its greater size nor its higher price make it any dumpy to my eyes, which makes the SS dress-up pieces like lipstick on a pig. Your mileage may vary, but I’m not a fan.
Regarding the SS package: By 1973, the crushing pressure of insurance surcharges had reduced the hallowed Chevelle SS to an appearance group, RPO Z15, priced at $249.50. The most noticeable element of this package was the 14×7 Turbine Polycast wheels, which were attractive enough as these things went; the most significant item might have been the “special rear stabilizer bar” added to the suspension. (Curiously, the official specifications don’t provide any information on this, and the AMA specs gives no indication of a rear stabilizer even being optional — crossed wires at Chevrolet, I suppose.) SS coupes also got a “special” (presumably stiffer) front stabilizer bar and raised-white-letter G70-14 tires, but wagons stuck with the standard front anti-roll bar and H78-14 rubber, which had a higher load rating.
Besides those functional items, you got SS emblems, bright drip moldings, dual sport mirrors, the contrasting-color stripes along the body sides (silver on this Dark Red wagon), a black-finished grille and subtle black accents around the taillights. In short, the package included nothing to make your insurance agent too nervous — not even bucket seats, which were offered separately on coupes.
To order RPO Z15, you needed to specify one of the optional V-8s: the Turbo-Fire 350-2, Turbo-Fire 350-4, or Turbo-Jet 454. On coupes, you could combine these with a four-speed manual or Turbo Hydra-matic, but it appears from the specifications and the 1973 Chevrolet wagons brochure that the four-speed wasn’t available on station wagons, making THM your only choice. The TH350 was specified with the Turbo-Fire engines, but the 454 got the stouter TH400.
None of these powertrain choices were actually part of the Z15 package. If you wanted the 454, you had to order it separately, paying $397 for the engine and $235 for the mandatory TH400 transmission. Positraction, which the red wagon doesn’t have, was an additional $45, and for $12 more, you could replace the standard 2.73 axle with a 3.42 trailering ratio. All 1973 wagons, SS or not, had standard power disc/drum brakes and oversize 11-inch drums.
The LS4 Turbo-Jet 454 was the most powerful engine Chevrolet offered in 1973, although lower compression, emissions controls, and drive-by noise regulations had taken some of the wind out of its sails. In the Chevelle line, it had dual exhausts and was rated at 245 net horsepower, which was down 40 hp from 1971, although it still had 375 lb-ft of torque and could now run on regular gasoline.
Wagons with the SS equipment had a different instrument cluster, borrowed from the Monte Carlo, which looked like it should have additional gauges and didn’t. (It’s not clear if the U14 special instrumentation package was available on the wagon, but that would have provided a tachometer, an ammeter, and a coolant temperature gauge for an extra $82.) There were also SS emblems on the steering wheel and doors.
This three-seat wagon is much easier to look at on the inside than the outside, with its unpretentious trim, “Neutral” (pale beige) vinyl upholstery, and relatively tasteful woodgrain trim. The blocky dashboard, with its big rectangular section of blank plastic in front of the passenger, seems awfully truck-like, but I suppose Chevrolet was hedging its bets on the possibility that the NHTSA would stop bluffing and actually require airbags.
However, there were some practical shortcomings: Motor Trend complained that the front seatback was too raked for long-haul comfort, a common GM problem, and a perusal of the AMA specifications reveals that Chevrolet had moved the rear seat forward to expand the cargo area, costing 1.7 inches of rear legroom compared to the four-door sedan.
This was one of the intrinsic problems with the Colonnade wagons: Unlike the earlier Buick and Oldsmobile Skyroof wagons, which rode a stretched 120-inch wheelbase, the Chevelle wagon shared the same 116-inch wheelbase as 1973 sedans, and it was only 6.3 inches longer overall, making for some compromises in cargo and passenger capacity.
Wagons accounted for only 18 percent of 1973 Chevelle production, including 5,961 three-seat Malibu wagons like this one. According to Tom Klockau, data gathered by G3GM.com indicates that only 1,432 Malibu wagons had the RPO Z15 SS option, and a mere 71 of those had the 454 engine. Consequently, I’m pretty sure there were no period road tests of an Malibu SS 454 wagon, and the SS package wasn’t offered on wagons after 1973.
However, the 454 engine was a standalone option on all Chevelle wagons, and in March 1973, Motor Trend tested a Chevelle Laguna Estate 454 wagon, comparing it with the Ford Gran Torino Squire, Dodge Coronet Crestwood, and AMC Hornet Sportabout. They found the big engine’s performance “impressive, but not overwhelming,” recording 0 to 30 mph in 3.8 seconds, 0 to 60 mph in 9.5 seconds, and the standing quarter mile in 16.7 seconds at 83.6 mph.
The specifications panel of that test didn’t indicate the test wagon’s axle ratio, but it was most likely the standard 2.73, so the optional 3.42 axle would probably have given it a little more pep at the cost of more noise and greater thirst. However, the bigger issue was that their Laguna Estate was also the heaviest of the four test wagons, with a listed curb weight of 4,760 lb. The official factory specifications have some puzzling inconsistencies, but based on the AMA specs, I would estimate the curb weight of the well-equipped SS 454 wagon pictured here at about 4,860 lb. You could save 125 lb by skipping the air conditioning and power windows, but would you want to?
Motor Trend‘s impressions of the Laguna Estate’s road manners were limited to a brief comment about it having a “big car feel.” Chevrolet’s design priorities for these wagons were to keep the ride comfortable while still allowing for varying load. Whether the SS package’s wider wheels and rear anti-roll bar would have made much difference in its handling is hard to say without a back-to-back comparison. I’m a little surprised that Chevrolet would offer a rear anti-roll bar on these wagons, which were tail-heavy with the smaller engines — even with the 454 and air conditioning, static weight distribution was around 51/49 — as well as having a higher center of gravity than coupes or sedans.
MT decorously didn’t mention price, but the window sticker for the well-equipped red SS wagon pictured here was a hefty $5,497.15 including destination ($41,267 in March 2025 dollars). As for fuel economy, with a low-compression emissions-controlled 454 in a 4,800-pound wagon, I suspect that squeezing 200 miles out of the 22-gallon tank would be a challenge with the 2.73 axle and a near-impossibility with the 3.42 rear end, but hey, kids crammed into the third-row seat would probably be overdue for a break by then anyway, right?
Other than novelty value, I can’t really see the point of ordering a Chevelle or Malibu wagon with the 454 (which remained available through 1975, two years after the SS wagon was dropped). If you wanted extra grunt for towing and hauling and were prepared to eat the fuel costs, you might just as well buy a full-size wagon, which would be a bit less maneuverable, but would offer more space and load capacity. (It would probably be cheaper to insure as well — I don’t know if the station wagon body was enough to mitigate the insurance surcharge caning buyers under 30 could otherwise expect when ordering a big-engine intermediate.) As for the SS package, the wagon isn’t handsome enough for the sporty car dress-up stuff to seem like anything other than a cringe-worthy attempt to seem young and hip, in typical embarrassing Dad ‘Stache fashion. Even with the LS4, the emblems were writing checks the engine couldn’t cash in a vehicle this heavy, and given the ensuring oil crisis, it’s probably just well that only 71 buyers took the bait in 1973: If the SS 454 wagon had been more popular, how many Dad ‘Stache marriages would it have ended following the OPEC embargo? (“I told you we should have bought a Datsun!”)
Some of you like stations wagons a lot more than I do, and some of you even like GM Colonnades, so you may find this rare Malibu wagon more enticing. Me, I’d stick with the ’69 Sportwagon 400 or a 1970 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser with a 455 — they wouldn’t be any cheaper to feed, but I wouldn’t always be watching over my shoulder for the flashing lights of the taste police.
Related Reading
1969 Buick Sportwagon 400 – The Soccer Mom Supercar
Curbside Classic: 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle Deluxe Sedan – In Search of a Better Face (by Paul N)
CC Tech: 1973-77 GM Colonnade Chassis Design – Corner Carving through the Brougham Era (by VinceC)
Vintage R&T Road Test: 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo – “Underneath Baroque Architecture, Some Nice Chassis Engineering” (by Paul N)
In-Motion Outtake: 1973 Chevrolet Laguna – The Consolation Prize (by Jason Shafer)
Vintage Review: 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Estate – In A Giant Clam! (by GN)
Wow…just wow. Leaving the powertrain aside I could not disagree more about the looks of this unicorn and Colonnades in general.
That’s okay! You can like the Colonnades, or even this wagon — I won’t stop you. I struggle to find any Colonnade variants that even rise to the level of “not completely appalling” aesthetically, and this one looks to me like a dorky overgrown Pinto from the decade where fashion went to die.
I’m a simple man, I see a red Colonnade wagon I think of Marge Simpson’s car.
Mike Stivic is a real stretch, mostly because he *would’ve* bought a Datsun.
WOW !!! Is right! Did these wagons really look this good? Or is this one customized? The headlights look frenched in. The overall look is more like a larger Vega/Astre which were better looking than Pintos/Bobcats and their looks often compared to Camaros/Firebirds. I don’t remember seeing anything that looked this good or I prolly would have bought one. As I’ve mentioned in other comments, I was considering a wagon at this time, but went with the wife on the Monte Carlo. I think this wagon looks better than the Monte Carlo we got and in about the same color, probably a tad lighter/better. We already had a couple other vehicles. I do still have my later ultra rare ’77 Pontiac Astre FORMULA Safari (kammback) Station Wagon.
I do like this wagon’s simple tasteful grille a million times better than the godawful looking enormous gaudy grilles dropping almost down to the pavement on some of the new SUVs.
If I got the 454, I would have to rebuild it for efficiency toward 15 – 17 MPG which would also restore its power… that would have entailed some elbow grease, a $100 in better pistons, and retuning the cam and ignition timing. (we’ve never had smog testing here, too close to Detroit). More likely I would have gone with the 350 and fixed it.
I don’t recall about an Olds 442 wagon, I thought there were some, but I do know that Olds offered the turbocharged Jetfire as a wagon and there are pictures of them online.
I never really had a mustache much, but I do still wear my hair in a mullet like all the kids who grew up in the 1980s… OK, maybe I grew up in 1950s… I can thank my grandfather on my Mom’s side for even having hair left, he always had a good head of hair. It’s certainly not from Dad’s side, even the girls on Dad’s side didn’t have hair, they all wore wigs and looked like ‘That Girl’/Marlo Thomas. My older brother looks like my dad and his receded hairline in the front is even obvious in his First Grade pictures!
I am in overall agreement with you on the taste transgressions of the 1970’s. But after years of hating on colonnades, I am finally coming around a bit. I actually find this wagon attractive. The colors, the striping, the wheels and whatever else all come together to make me start nodding my approval. And the powertrain – Torque City is where I want to live. I had never even thought of a Malibu wagon like this before, but now I kind of like it.
Maybe I like wagons that are less boxy. Those with some rake to the rear window/tailgate area are my favorites – the GM clamshell wagons and even the 1962-65 Mopar B body wagons are other examples of this trait that prizes looks over cargo capacity.
I always kind of wondered about GM’s thought process in going with the hatch design over the doorgate that ruled everywhere else in the segment. GM had used a hatch on the back of the 1961-63 Y body wagons, too. A hatch was probably much less expensive to build.
I feel like the Colonnades were more of Bill Mitchell’s nostalgia for the ’30s, with the pseudo-pontoon fenders and the Panhard Panoramique pillar treatment he aped with the 1938 60 Special. It just doesn’t work for me at all: the vacant-eyed headlights; the bland cop-car grille; the jutting underbite created by the 5-mph bumper; the uprightness of the B- and C-pillars clashing with the sloping tailgate; the awful awful painted pillar effect that almost makes me long for the opera window the coupes got instead of a hardtop roof. The only consolation is that this one is polished up enough to mitigate the usual “every car a 30-footer” Colonnade quality control. I’d rather have a Monte Carlo, which in this league is like saying I’d rather the loan shark break my left hand first.
I do like the color, though. It would look nice on something like an Electra 225 four-door hardtop.
I looked it up and was surprised to find that this was a 1973-only color for all GM Divisions save Cadillac. And the inaugural blast of that metallic color that straddled red and Maroon, a color that has never really gone away since.
FWIW, I always found the Malibu the least attractive and most generic of the entire bunch of colonnades, and not by a little.
You might be right in that the Chev colonnades were more blandly styled to appeal to the masses if you like. I always liked the Chev colonnades, I found them attractive. At the time, I found all the rest of the colonnades awful looking, but I came around on the Cutlass when my buddy got one.
As for this wagon, the taillight treatment looks like an afterthought, the rear hatch looks like it was styled using a bar of soap the night before it went into production, and the steering wheel looks surprisingly plain.
Imagine what if Oldsmobile offered the 442 as an wagon version. 😉
Still, for more rarities, let’s see if there any 1971-72 Pontiac LeMans wagon with the GTO Endura nose still on the road.
https://www.stationwagon.com/gallery/1971_Pontiac_LeMans.html
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/ccrp-0304-lemans-wagon
I’ve never understood why, in a country like the USA, where potentially very long distances can and must be driven, passengers were forced to sit on bench seats for such long periods.
Individual seats that could be adjusted to suit individual needs would have been the solution of choice for a long journey.
Otherwise: Feel free to deliver this car to my doorstep.
It was kind of a ritual penance, especially even American bucket seats typically weren’t adjustable for rake.
Thanks for the explanation, Aaron. Was there so much sin back then? Too bad I wasn’t there, hehe.
The fact that even individual seats weren’t individually adjusted is news to me, by the way. You could say that CC is an inexhaustible source of daily enlightenment…
LOL! Early USA “bucket seats” were just small to tiny bench seats with no side bolstering to speak of. Many older people don’t like side bolstering as it gets in the way and makes the seats difficult to get into and out of… Of course, the appeal of bench seats is that they can be just as comfortable/relaxing as the living room sofa/couch. Early 1900s electric cars looked like little parlors inside, even with flower pots, as they were aimed toward the fairer sex. But car magazines didn’t like that, they wrote luxury cars should all corner like a Corvette and ride like an empty dump truck. Whatever the automakers did, magazines felt like they had to endorse the opposite. Some car magazines seemed to love Europe, hate the USA, and I remember many guys swearing they were owned by Saddam Hussein.
Factory better handling, and performing packages, always would have made more sense on the smaller wagons. The Vega, Pinto, Sportabout, Aspen/Volare, Fairmont, and Malibu. It was mostly left up to owners to improve the tires/wheels, sway bars, shocks, cams, exhaust, flares, etc.
As for looks, no doubt the Colonnades are polarizing. I did like their airy greenhouses, and clean, aero-looking tailgates. Leaps ahead of the competition.
Of ’70’s domestic wagons, I always found the Sportabout the most distinctive, and original-looking. That steeply-raked D-pillar, did it for me. Adding a wider track, really helped fill out the flared fenders. With a clean, and creative nose. Always give credit to AMC, for some progressive styling efforts.
This sportier Malibu wagon would have benefited, with a wider track. The wider track giving better road-holding, but also visually filling out those flared wheel arches. Lending a more masculine look.
Not a fan of the two-tone paint. Solo colour would have given a more sleeper, and sophisticated appearance.
Not a fan either, of the turbine wheels. Slotty mags would have lent a more youthful, lighter, and athletic look. As on this Sportabout.
(Meathead strikes me, as a Ford Maverick owner.) lol
Wow nice & rare but with those options why not the lagona T3 nose would have really made the car ! But I like the Marge Simpson reference ! lol
This is a rare bird, but at the time all of the Colonnade wagons seemed like afterthoughts. Even Oldsmobile watered down the Vista Cruiser for this generation.
I can’t see Michael Stivic – or even Rob Reiner in real life – driving this. Reiner and his television alter ego would have driven a Volvo or Saab. This wagon would have been driven by Lee Majors, aka The Six Million Dollar Man.