(first posted 1/6/2012) Growing up is an endless series of awakenings, as the veil of innocence tears bit by bit. In the fall of 1964, when the all-new ’65 Chevrolets came out, I went down to the dealer’s unveiling party, and partook of the cookies and GM Kool-Aid. Beautiful bulging hips and sweeping roof lines; Yes! And big wheel wells to go along with those new wider fenders; Yes! And the usual orgy of Chevy power, all the way up to 400 hp; Yes! Eleven years old, I was oblivious as to what was actually hiding inside those shaded wheel wells on the overhead-lit showroom floor.
Fast-forward just nine months, and I’ve been dropped off at the Mennonite farm for my annual tractor driving vacation. The Yoders have a new car, a 1965 Bel Air four door six sedan, just like this one. But now that I’m really looking at it in the bright Iowa summer sun, something suddenly seems out of kilter: the tires look oddly puny, lost deep in their big wheel wells. I walk up to one, bend down, and read the tire size: 7.35 x 14. That’s smaller than the tires on our new mid-sized ’65 Dodge Coronet! GM’s record $1.7 billion ($12 billion adjusted) profit in 1965 was riding on the back of dangerously undersized tires.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the ’65 Bel Air in the picture was riding on something a bit bigger than the standard 7.35 x 14 mini-donuts. Just to put that size into modern context, that equates to a P185/80R14 tire, on vehicles that weighed some 4,000 lbs empty, and readily topped 5,500 lbs with six adults and luggage. Modern radial tires that size might be rated at 1300 – 1400 lbs capacity each. A two-ply bias-ply el-cheapo UniRoyal in 1965? Not that anyone really knew what their tires’ or car’s total rated capacity was anyway.
OK, I realize that the pendulum has swung the other way, and today’s new cars run on ride on ridiculously huge tires and wheels. But that’s not the point. As the above specs point out, at least the wagons and convertibles were bestowed something a bit less skimpy.
I’m currently re-reading “On A Clear Day You Can See GM”, the book that John Z. DeLorean dictated to Patrick White. He repeatedly comes back to issues like undersized tires that saved GM maybe $3 per car, and other such nickel and dime exercises. Some of which, like the missing $3 front anti-sway bar or $15 rear camber-compensating spring on the Corvair, undoubtedly killed unsuspecting folks; one of GM’s genuinely deadly sins.
But how many folks were killed because their overloaded ’65 Bel Air heading off to vacation lost control because of those puny tires? Hello Firestone-Explorer debacle! But this was thirty years earlier, when (almost) no one thought twice about why that Bel Air was lying on its roof in the ditch.
GM took a momentous shift when Frederic Donner became Chairman in 1958. For the first time since GM’s management structure was laid down by Alfred Sloan, true executive control fell in the hands of a bean counter. Up to that point, GM’s President was the functional top executive officer, but by the time Ed Cole took that job, its powers had been clipped by Donner. And going forward, power increasingly vested in the Chairman and the newly-minted position of Vice-Chairman, both financial officers.
Of course it took some time for the effects of GM’s top management switching from operational executives to financial executives to be felt. In the short term, the benefits that were accrued from expanding GM’s operations in the late fifties by President Harlow Curtice was reaped by Donner and his hand-picked President, Jack Gordon. But the lack of true automobile builders and marketers at the top eventually caused the mortal drift that GM soon found itself in.
The undersized tires were not an issue exclusive to GM, although big Fords were riding on 15″ tires, but still too small in width. And Plymouth was only marginally more generous with the rubber. But GM was the industry leader, and the others had little choice. If Chevrolet had suddenly announced that fat 15″ tires were now standard, and extolled their enormous benefits in terms of ride, handling and safety, the rest of the industry would have had to follow.
That’s exactly what happened anyway, in just a few short years. The not so subtle pressures from the government as a result of Ralph Nader’s efforts and the growing awareness of the legal profession regarding product liability, in the form of raised expectations of safety and performance, all conspired to force long-overdue changes on GM’s products
By 1970, the fundamentally similar Bel Air was riding on substantially bigger rubber: F78x15 or G78x15, which correspond to 205/75R15 and 225/75R15 in today’s sizes. Now that’s more like it. Looks so much better too. Too bad it took another year for disc brakes to become standard across the board.
GM’s profits for 1970 were down some from 1965. The bigger tires? Undoubtedly! (not really, of course) But GM bean counters soon found other ways to cut costs.
Our family mechanic and neighbor used to go on and on back then about tire size. I had no clue until I bought my first pair of tires – Firestone Wide Ovals for my car(s) in the late ’60’s. My dad used to get his tires at Central Hardware – $48 bucks for a set of four! No kidding. Later, my avatar had 14″ wheels all the time I owned it. Don’t recall the tire sizes I bought, but they were cheap!
GM’s bean-counting also resulted in another prominent feature that crept into their larger cars, too, but that’s been dealt with!
I didn’t know Central Hardware ever sold tires. I remember we bought a TV there once, about 30 years ago. I guess they sold just about everything at one time or another. “We’ve got it all, from scoop to nuts…at Central…Hardware.”
I would visit my Grandfolks and other relatives growing up practically every summer. They lived in a small town in Northeast Missouri. The Firestone store sold not just tires, but general hardware, appliances, bicycles, lawn mowers and furniture!
. . . and televisions, console stereos and A/C units too!!
And at one time Firestone outboard motors.
And stereos and albums! They has a series of Firestone Christmas albums in the 60s. My dad bought the 1964 and 1965 editions. The 1965 edition had Julie Andrews as the high-profile singer. Memories of Firestone. And in my early driving years (1977) a Firestone Service Center repaired a problem in my first car when everyone else struck at it. They FIXED it. I was loyal to them until I got my first Toyota, then I never needed repairs anymore. But I did let Firestone do normal maintenance on it. And rear brakes once. Speaking of the mighty POS GM, my 1982 Trans Am (my last GM POS) pretty much kept them in business. We were all on first name basis.
It’s funny, but Central Hardware even had an upholstery shop of sorts at their “Central City” shopping center location in Ferguson, Mo in the 1960’s whereas they’d install seatcovers and stuff for you. Central Hardware even had an extensive firearms area – M1 Garands for $69.95! Not to mention M1 Carbines, British Enfields and other assorted WWll surplus! The guys at the counter in the early 1960’s even let this 12-year-old handle an M1 Garand at the time with no second thoughts – I knew how to handle it, too – “Combat!” was my favorite TV show! “Scoop to Nuts”, indeed!
Yes, along with Western Auto and Firestone – guns, bikes, auto light bulb coloring dye for amber turn signals which were coming into vogue! In the early 1970s, even Walgreen’s sold firearms for a time!
Zackman: Seeing that you’re from the Show-Me state, the town I describe is Vandalia, in Audrain County. My elderly Aunt and a cousin my age are the only family members left in that county. Coincidentally, one of my late uncles had an identical green ’70 Chevy, but his was an Impala, trimmed with a little more exterior chrome. I was driving age at the time he had the pictured ’70. His had the 2-bbl small block 400, and, oddly enough, 2-speed Powerglide; not a Turbo 350 like you might expect behind a SBC 400 of the day. Factory air for Mo. summers – of course!
Back then $48 was real money. Further, those tires had the life spans of mayflies. In the 60s if you got a year out of a set of tires, you light candles for them. When Micheline came over and taught us the truth about belted tires, everything changed.
There’s lots of things you can (rightfully) complain about GM cheapening on their cars; but the tire size issue is not one of them, IMO. The tailpipe ending behind the rear wheel and the other issues you mentioned, certainly.
I think it really started with the ‘Forward Look’ Chrysler products of 1957, they were the first cars I can recall reading contemporary commentary about how small the tires were on the car. For better or worse, they set the style for a number of years, tire size included. I think one of the ‘benefits’ from the 14″ wheel was supposed to be more interior space, too.
Flash forward 50+ years, and now cars come with 17, 18, 19 & 20 inch tires standard. My wife’s car is a Pontiac G6. The original car came with 16 inch tires, which should have been plenty. By the time GM issue the 2009 version of the G6 it came standard with 17 inch tires. Why? While the car is a loaded 4 cylinder model, frankly I will never drive it at autobahn speeds to take advantage of the benefits of the larger tire. 16’s should have been enough tire. When I went to replace them, it was almost $500! (luckily, I had a coupon)
I can’t help but think that the current generation of cars would benefit from smaller hoops on each corner. The space utilization inside some of these vehicles (especially SUVs) would be so much better, if they weren’t forced to make wheelhouses that accept 20″ wheels. Plus, those wheels are heavy, even if you do render them in aluminum. For OEMs, there’s no way to make a wheel light enough to pass regulations and still be durable enough.
Regardless, I think it was a combination of the styling and economic issues that got us too small wheels on cars for a number of years. Let’s hope we can get past our inner ghetto-ness and lose these ridiculously large wheels, too.
The issue her is not so much rim diameter, as it is tire size. There were plenty of larger 14″ tire sizes available.
Yes, in retrospect, going to 14s was kinda dumb, but it was the tiny skinny little tires they chose to put on that was the real problem.
’65 Fords had 15″ wheels, but the base tire size was 7.35×15; essentially the same size tire in terms of tread width and load capacity as the Chevy’s.
Width and diameter do play into a factor of how well the tires perform. The smaller diameter means the tire rotates more (obviously) wearing out the tread faster. More contact with the road from the higher number of rotations means more heat generated, decaying the tire faster. Smaller tires can’t carry as heavy a load, so they heat up and decay faster.
I get what you’re saying about width and to a degree, wider is better. There are drawbacks in certain situations, like winter driving. If you’ve seen rally cars set up for snow driving, they have fairly skinny tires on their cars. The narrower tire acts like a wedge, biting into the snow and ice.
Until the introduction of the Goodyear Gatorbacks back in the mid-80s, few tires could handle high-speed hyrdoplaning well (ask me how I know). But those tires SUCKED in even the smallest amounts of snow. Even if I used the old trick of reducing air pressure, I would just get a few hundred yards further down the road before getting stuck. In the intervening 25+ years, we’ve learned a lot about how siping helps these monster meats handle wet conditions.
IMO the bigger sin were the brakes of the time. Even a 15″ wheel with a fat 8.5″ tire on it is only going to stop so well with antiquated drum brakes on the car. Up until the early 80’s, only sporty cars ever got something wider than about 7.5-7.75″ from the factory.
Not disagreeing that 15″ is better than 14″, in principle. But the biggest specific issue here is undersized tires; mounting 7.35s instead of 8.25s. And of course the bigger tire size would also have a larger diameter. There was a reason the 8.25s were being mounted on wagons, right? Yet plenty of folks loaded up sedans just as much as a wagon too. That’s the issue I’m driving home, that they put tiny tires on six cylinder sedans, even though those cars were just as much or more likely to be overloaded as a V8 coupe.
Folks like the Mennonite family with lots of kids bought 6 cylinder Bel Airs, not V8 Caprices.
I’d always thought it was a styling issue, kind of like the huge rims that are fashion statement these days.
I did misread your usage of larger, I thought you meant larger diameter, not larger width. I guess I’m in a Friday state of mind and the reading comprehension has left the building…
And are not the Mennonites and Amish noted for large families? I frankly love those people.
Yes but wheel size does determine the max diameter brakes you can install. That is one of the large driving factors in the increasing tire wheel diameters of today. Look at the Panthers. The original 79-91 came with 14″ at the beginning, later 15″ was standard but you could still back-date to the 14″ and they would clear the brakes. The 92-97 cars all had 15″ and you cannot put 14″ wheels on as they won’t clear the calipers due to the larger rotor. The 98-up cars require a minimum of a 16″ wheel to clear their brakes.
Interesting to mention then it was a bit around that time when James Dooner became chairman, then DuPont was forced to sold its stake they owned of GM.
Never had any saftey issues because of it but I always thought the 13 in rims on my 1982 Chevy Celebrity were too small and the 14 in rims on my 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme were too small (and it was a loaded Brougham model with every option.) For contrast my 1997 Escort wagon had 15 in rims on it which is just right for an economy car, now the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
FWIW I am happy that you can still buy a base Impala or Sonata with 16in rims.
Yes, my Impala’s wheels are 16s. The car is happy and so is its owner.
But my point Amigo was that today you could buy a 2012 Impala LS with 0 options and the standard 302HP 3.6 V6 VVT engine, 6 speed automatic trans, and you would still get standard 16in wheels. Which is a good thing considering the price of tires. I’m sick of vehicles on which replacement tires run $1500 bucks if you want quality because the size of the tires is so silly huge.
Understood and agreed on all points, of course.
It seems like the prices of low profile tires are coming down. Four 17 inch Z rated Continental Extreme Contact DWS tires for my E46 Bimmer are $542 on Tire Rack. 50k mile warranty, too. I recently bought a set.
In 2006, I paid around the same from Tire Rack for four 15 inch Goodyears for my then Subaru that were the modest size of 205/70-15. Treadlife warranty was about the same as well.
My friend has a 2014 Taurus AWD with massive 19″ tires. It was all over the road after the first snow fall and that was with new rubber recently mounted. He literally had to purchase 17″ wheels and tires with the same ride height to the tune of 1600 bucks to make his car drive-able in the Winter despite being AWD. This is utterly ridiculous as many states still have Winter and adverse weather conditions. This silly trend to over sized rubber band tires is sure making the tire manufacturers rich and owners very unhappy. Those 19’s also are noisier and ride more busy over minor bumps and pot holes and weight a ton.
Joe Yoman:
Which brings to light a theory of mine: Striaight-line stability actually decreases as wheel/tire width increases. All things equal, a narrower wheel-tire straightens out from a turn, and stays straight, with a lesser degree of caster or steering axis inclination. Wider tires, regardless of diameter, are more prone to being tugged on by or following road imperfections – something called ‘tram-lining’ I think? They also respond quicker to driver steering inputs.
Plus, a narrow width tire, even on a 20″ wagon-wheel(!) plows through snow and rain more readily than a wider one of the same size. An 18-24″dia wheel of 8″ width or less(as opposed to 10″ wide or more) might be worth looking into for those who prefer the minimalist sidewall look, while providing added straightline stability at speed.
“On A Clear Day” is a very enlightening read, and shows that the seeds of GM’s long decline were planted long, long ago. Wasn’t it Frederic Donner?
I had always understood that the switch from 15 to 14 inch wheels in the late 1950s (almost universal in the US industry) was mainly for styling reasons, as it allowed a lower car. Big US cars did not move back to 15 inchers until the mid to late 1960s (IIRC, my 1968 Newport was still using 14s).
I also remember that the US compacts all started with 13 inchers, which were really teeny.
But no matter what the wheel size was, the other tire dimensions are certainly important. Delorean recounted many arguments with beancounters over tire size, arguing that fatter, more substantial rubber gave the car a much more athletic and expensive look for very little added cost, even aside from the safety issues.
I still remember the words of Howard, one of my car mentors, and why he liked Chryslers. He believed that GM was big enough to thouroughly engineer any given part to its least-cost level. Smaller Chrysler could not afford that kind of detail-engineering, so would have to build in more of a fudge factor which would result in more robust parts being used in the car.
He may or may not have been accurate, but from what I have read of the two companies, GM had a much more thorough set of cost controls, and finance guys had more power. Even though Lynn Townsend at Chrysler was, himself, a finance guy, I don’t think that Chrysler’s financial controls were strong enough to override the engineering bias that was still part of the company’s culture in the 1960s.
Regarding Chrysler, I read an article that quoted a former Chrysler executive. He said the corporation’s real problems started in 1968, when it made record profits, but Lynn Townsend chose to plow those profits back into the corporation’s money-losing foreign acquisitions. This left the company short on money for new vehicle development.
He notes that, even as Chrysler was adding new models to its line-up in response to the competition, and faced with new government emissions and safety standards, it never expanded its engineering staff to match those increased demands. As a result, certain problems were never effectively addressed (leaking trunks on the C-bodies and E-bodies, for example), and corners were cut when possible.
The corporation also didn’t put enough money into its factories, and they were in deplorable shape by the mid-1970s.
I remember reading that original-equipment tires in those days were wearing out by 10,000 miles.
The 1965 Chevrolets were also the beginning of the notorious motor-mount fiasco, which affected all V-8 equipped Chevrolets built from 1965 through 1969. Chevrolet kept upsizing the engines and increasing power, but never bothered redesigning the motor mounts. The result was motor-mount failure, which, in its most extreme mode, would allow the engine to tip forward and jam both the accelerator in full-throttle position and the steering. The result was the largest recall in history at that time, and a major blow to GM’s image.
A pristine 1966 Impala convertible at the Carlisle All-GM show this past year had a chain holding the engine to the side of the car, which was the short-term fix authorized by GM.
To some extent, Chrysler got the cost-cutting ball rolling. The 1957 Forward Look cars initially sold well, but they cut A LOT of corners, even apart from the appalling build quality. And they took body-sharing among the divisions to new levels. GM, in response, cut more than a few corners with its 1959 models, and used a common, basic body from Chevrolet to Cadillac, which started blurring the distinctions between the various divisions.
An excellent book on this era is Make ‘Em Shout, “Hooray!” by the late Richard Stout, who worked at Ford in the 1950s. He notes that, soon after they were introduced, Ford staff bought several 1959 GM cars to examine them, and was shocked at some of the shortcuts GM took in body construction and interior features.
FWIW, it wasn’t all that long ago that 40K mile tires were considered special. Now 40K is a base line. When I was younger and poorer, I can remember looking at Sears recaps and their guarantee of 20K miles for them…
Back then, as today, the factories generally put on the lowest cost tires. The exception sometimes are the sportier models. I was happy to get 40K miles off of the original Firestone’s that were on my wife’s car when we got it.
But if we’re going back in time, how many miles did people put on the average car back in the day? I can remember my dad putting new tires on the Mercurys (there were several growing up) at about 20K miles. Of course this is back in the bias ply days, too. I think modern radials last longer with proper care.
I believe that people did drive less in those days, but tires wearing out at 10,000 miles still raised some eyebrows.
As for factories installing cheap tires – my wife’s uncle bought a brand-new Camry in 2008, and about two years later, I remember him saying that he had to replace the tires, as Toyota put cheap tires on the car. And he is retired, so he isn’t racking up a huge amount of miles every year.
See my comment much further down.
Will agree about late model Camrys with “not so great” rubber. Mine was an ’06 – Japan assembled, not Kentucky, but came with American Goodyear Integrity tires. Always properly inflated and rotated every 5K. Didn’t beat the car. Tires were shot at 32K.
On the other hand, I personally got the best wear and servicing with Firestones over the years; bias-ply and radial.
Note as I said in my comment further down it’s not the brand and model of the tire it’s the spec the vehicle MFG had them made to that is the issue.
The chain wasn’t a factory authorized fix it was a government mandated recall fix. Plus it wasn’t a chain it was a cable that wrapped around the upper control arm and attached to the engine.
Ford shocked at GM’s body construction? They should’ve pulled apart one if their ’57-’58 Fairlane hardtops. Actually, they wouldn’t have needed to – those cars had a reputation of having their rear doors popping open all on their own!
In developing the unit-body ’58 T-bird and ’58 Lincolns, FoMoCo bought a ’56 Nash Ambassador to use as a unit-body template.
Billy,
The point was that Ford EXPECTED GM cars to have better body construction. In those days, “Body by Fisher” still meant something. That is why the shortcuts GM took for 1959 surprised Ford management.
Ford personnel were fully aware of the deficiencies of the 1957 Ford, and spent a fair amount of time and money correcting them for 1958 and 1959 (the grooves in the roof of the 1958 Ford, for example, make the panel stronger, as does the hood scoop).
Good point. Forgot that’s why the ’58’s had “grooves” and that even Ford, held GM as the industry standard.
Aren’t we seeing a trend here? Ford *expected* GM to have better body construction. Journalists *expected* GM to have better `handling’, the Government *expected* GM to make cheaper cars… etc…etc. The problem seems to be that some folks wanted every GM car to be the `Standard of The World’, even base stripper Chevrolets, without having to pay for it. Just because GM *could* make the best car in the world, that does not mean that it would be cheap, practical or successful in the marketplace. Even Cadillac had to bow to *customer* expectations, rather than Ford/journo expectations.
In hindsight, GM should’ve created/bought a halo brand or made Cadillac into one—a brand whose sole purpose was to showcase engineering prowess, while selling in low enough volumes to nullify cost-engineering. A new Cadillac V16, even.
On the other hand, we all know how GM management bungled. Instead of raising Chevrolet’s level, they brought down Cadillac to a level where Lexus and Acura are more popular luxury (=high price for same car) marques. Oh well.
Agree that GM bungled Cadillac in the ’70s – ’90s, but their resurgence is real and has been strong. They outsold Acura in 2011, have had several successful recent product launches (CTS, SRX), and the ATS is getting a ton of good buzz. Ironically Acura now finds itself in much the same place as Cadillac decades ago, with sagging sales, a lackluster line-up, and nothing in the pipeline offering any real glimmers of hope.
You left out that Acuras line up of “cars” are dog-ass ugly, behind the competition in it’s segment in many ways. Caveat: current Acura lineup. Not too long ago, they were one of their segment’s leaders.
Cadillac has leapfrogged recently. I hope something happens to Lincoln . . . soon. Production car based on the ’02 Continental concept would look fresh and original . . . even now in 2012. Aussie Falcon underpinnings w/302 HO??
Ford Aus is struggling at present turning the Falcon platform into a Lincoln could save both divisions
Those early Ford unit bodies were very good, but horriffically heavy. I owned a 61 TBird, and it weighed in at about 4500 pounds. It had to be the heaviest 113 inch wheelbase car in the history of the world. IIRC, the much smaller 61 Lincoln weighed in at nearly 1000 lbs above a contemporary Cadillac. Chrysler’s Unibody was much lighter, although it did not feel as substantial and lacked a lot of the FoMoCo sound deadening.
One of the things Ford noted that when the put the T-bird back on a real perimeter frame the car got lighter and stronger too.
Ford had plenty of experience building unitary cars by 58 in the UK anyway why would the use a Nash as a template and not a Zodiac?
Different factories, different manufacturing people, and most of all different sizes. The first Falcon was not an overbuilt design at all (as the XK’s poor reputation in Australia will attest), but building unit-bodied cars significantly bigger than a Falcon or Zephyr/Zodiac was a different sort of engineering challenge. To put this in perspective, a 1958 Lincoln was about 4 feet longer than an XK Falcon or Mk3 Zodiac.
My dads 69 Chevy Townsman wagon ( 327 2bbl) suffered the engine mount problem in 72 or73. He left home in a pi$$ed off rage, full throttle in reverse, then slammed it into Drive, then KABANG! Ruined parts: hood, air cleaner, carb, exhaust, trans tail shaft housing (cracked at mount), and thats just what I remember! GM, however, fixed it all on their dime, but acted like it was no big deal (GM arrogance, imagine that). Was a big deal in the long run to GM, as he sold that turkey the day he got it back, switched to Ford, and never bought another GM product again, as did many, many others
And you wonder why tire failure were so much more common then! Now it happened so rarely, it’s usually many years before you have to deal with one.
My dad had the exact same Belair as in the picture, except in red, with 283 and Powerglide. I remember riding in it as little boy.
The tires on 60’s cars were downright scary. Not only were they too small, they were just plain bad. Imagine going 80 mph down the 401 with bias play 14″ tires, in a loaded car, in the summer time. It was a recipe for boww-outs, which happened all the time. I can recall as a child seeing people changing tires on the side of the road all the time. It even happened to us one time. I was about 10 years old and my mom and I was in the shotgun seat and the right front tire blew in our 1970 Strato-Chief. The car went in to the ditch and we were very lucky to have not been injured. The sidewall had burst for no reason and the tire was almost new.
I also agree that things have gone too far the other way. Huge tires do not make a car drive better. I have driven cars with 18 and 19 inch tires and I find they ride roughly and tramline like crazy. Sure, at 10/10ths they have better grip but how often are you going to do this? In addition, I wonder how these tires are in a big rain storm like we so commonly get here.
My Acura has 205/60-VR-16 tires and they represent a good compromise in my opinion. The ride is not bad, the grip is good, there is not tramlining and the performance in rain also good. Finally, replacement cost are reasonable, even for VR rated rubber.
Here you go, just to re-kindle some nostalgia. Taken at Dom’s auto wreckers (Bowmanville ON) a few years back, wheels still attached!
I still want a Canadian Poncho. Bucket List: Aubrey Bruneau built ’61 – 283 and stick.
In my last year of High School, 1965, there was a field trip to some GM factory in Ohio. I didn’t go on it, I would have liked to.
It was a factory where full-size Chevrolets were built.
I talked to several of the people who went & the universal remark was: “I’m never going to buy one of those”.
VW ads of the time often included the fact that the (bias-ply) tires on a VW would go 40,000 miles.
I heard the same thing, only it was from a friend’s dad who had worked for years for International Harvester in Fort Wayne. When I was in high school, I asked him why he didn’t buy a Scout or a Travelall, since he probably got a discount. His reply was that he would never buy one because he knew how they were made.
He was a diehard Ford guy, but I would guess that some who worked in Ford plants in the 70s could have said the same things. I don’t think that the 1970s was a great time for US auto assembly quality anywhere (with Chrysler worse than most). That said, the 74 LeMans that my mom bought new was a pretty well assembled car, at least as good as anything I saw during the decade.
I’ve heard the same thing about all of the Big Three products, as I didn’t live too far away from their facilities.
I guess the real issue is, if you know how crappily built your product is, what makes you think that anyone else’s is any better?
I read a book by a man who served as a foreman at the Ford Motor Company Sharonville transmission plant in the 1970s. He told of equipment that was on its last legs, workers who didn’t care and management that looked the other way when defective parts were sent out the door. The key was meeting production quotas. Lip service was paid to quality.
He said that friends who worked at GM and Chrysler had similar horror stories, so it was hard to say which company was “worse” in that regard.
I was shocked and appalled when I found out that father of THE man keeping the Scout legend alive, who worked his way up the IH truck division to quite a high level never had a Travelall to carry his large brood and instead they use car based station wagons. He didn’t get his first Scout until his sons bought and restored one for him.
Also many people who work at Boeing or know lots of people who work there don’t like to fly, because they know how they are built and who is building them, so it’s not just an automotive thing.
Well I once had a friend who worked at a Taco Bell who after his short stint there would never eat at a Taco Bell again. Even for free. That place is often dubbed as Toxic “you know what.” Arguments against buying product of a company you make a living working for because you know how shoddy they’re made is not unique to the auto industry.
Everytime I think I like this site….it goes all TTAC on me…..
GM also created AIDS and was responsible for the Union Carbide leak in 1982….and the Challenger explosion and Watergate….all GM…..
You’re right, this is not a GM fan-boy forum. We call them as we see them, both good and bad. And we’ve done plenty of both. Remember this one: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/01/curbside-classic-the-best-big-car-of-its-time-1970-chevrolet-impala/ ?
As I stated very clearly, Ford and Chrysler were guilty of the same thing. But GM’s huge market share made it essentially impossible for them to not cut similar corners too.
Statements like this though:
“But how many folks were killed because their overloaded ’65 Bel Air heading off to vacation lost control because of those puny tires? Hello Firestone-Explore debacle! But this was thirty years earlier, when (almost) no one thought twice about why that Bel Air was lying on its roof in the ditch.”
I dunno? Is there research point out that a disproportionate amount of people were killed in 1965 Bel-Airs compared to 1965 Ford Custom 500 or Plymouth Fury I’s? More deaths in Bel-Airs vs other per thousand miles traveled?
If you were going to load the car to its max capacity, then perhaps you should do research on what would be the best tire for that kind of usage, remember this was before the “protect everyone from themselves” nanny state stuff started, things were dangerous and you could get hurt.
Well, Carmine – my dad bought a 69 Camaro- with the 307: not a muscle car. It came with Firestone tires that lasted 8,000 miles. My dad became an early adopter of Michelin radials ( people were always telling him his tires looked like they were going flat) and they lasted 30,000 miles. We also had the motor mount failure -I got blamed for that until the recall finally vindicated me) and a rear leaf spring broke. GM used single leaf rear springs because that was cheaper.
GM cars were already turning into junk in the late 60’s.
Note that this was -before- the truly horrible cars that came later, starting with the Vega…..
We also owned a Plymouth in those days. It seemed less sophisticated than the Camaro, but it was a much more rugged and durable car.
> But GM’s huge market share made it essentially impossible for them to not cut similar corners too.
That’s a bogus argument. GM still had huge market share when Toyota and Honda started penetrating the U.S. They sold cars because they were better. If a company the size of Ford really *wanted* to make its cars safer than GM’s, and if it was possible with minimal effect to the bottom-line as you claim, they would surely have done it. GM was big yes, but Ford was not small by any means. To think customers would not recognise a better car when they saw one is to insult their intelligence. Maybe they weren’t shopping with the same priorities as the `better handling’ crowd.
Actually, GM *still* has huge market share, though not as huge as those days.
“They sold cars because they were better. ” This is debatable. I believe that in the 1960s and 1970s, and even into the early 1980s, GM was the beneficiary of that same perceived quality bias that Toyota and Honda have had working for them for the last 25 years. GM was the master of the quality “appearance” and “feel”, and was the car you bought that would not be criticized by your friends and neighbors. If youbought a Ford back then (or God forbid, a Chrysler) people would look at you like you had grown a 3rd eye. You constantly had to defend you purchase to others who would walk away whispering to themselves what an idiot you were. GM was popular because GM was popular. GM was what most people bought, ergo GM must be the best.
With cars like the 77-84 B body, it was, in fact, a very good car. But in 1964 you got a Chevy with a juddering X frame, a 2 speed automatic, an awful seating position (low seat, high steering column) and no guages other than a speedo and a gas guage. It was, however, beautiful,, smooth, fairly quiet, and equipped with a good performing and reasonably durable engine. The 64 Plymouth was, by objective measures, a better machine in almost every way, but it was not nearly as attractive and carried the stigma of being one of those strange Chrysler products.
My point is that there were a lot of people buying GM cars in the 1980s and 1990s out of habit and tradition and old reputation. Just like there are a lot of older people who still think a Maytag washing machine is still better than all the others.
Whoa! Allow me to make myself clear(-er?) I meant that Toyota and Honda sold cars because they were clearly better than GM (and Ford, and Chrysler) products, despite GM’s huge market share. What was stopping Ford and Chrysler from doing the same 10, 20 years ago and beating GM?
I merely stated that nothing `forced’ Ford and Chrysler to cut any corners, least of all GM’s market share. The only thing forcing such measures can have been customer demand for such features, or the lack thereof. Of course, said demand did come about 20 years later, and the Big Three were blind not to see it coming, but that is another story.
I hope I’ve been able to explain what I meant.
“My point is that there were a lot of people buying GM cars in the 1980s and 1990s out of habit and tradition and old reputation.”
Interesting that the same now holds true for people buying Toyota and Honda. They no longer lead in quality, and the reliability gap has closed. They don’t lead on style. Or on powertrain innovation. Or on driving dynamics. Or on youth appeal. They have become default choices for Boomers in the habit of buying Hondas and Toyotas because once upon a time they were indeed much better cars.
As a newer reader to this blog who is also “younger” (28), I’ve been fascinated reading about GM’s decline in the ’70s and ’80s and just how bad things got before they got better. It helps provide some context to the anti-GM vibe that permeates TTAC and often seeps into this site. With all due respect to Paul, I have to admit I rolled my eyes when I saw the title of this article and thought, “Here we go again…”
So the context this site provides is great. As are the personal anecdotes and the amazing level of knowledge many here have about the mechanical side of things in general. But it seems some are perpetually stuck in about 1993. There seems to be a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge the tangible progress GM has made over the past decade, or the very fact that we have entered a new era in automotive history, a huge shift from the era that roughly spanned 1990 – 2010ish.
Good comment, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Humans are by nature social, and have a tribal instinct: “Me GM man; you Toyota man – Me good; You bad”
My goal is to keep learning, which is why I do this. As well as to keep an open mind. And to accept that we all have right and left hemispheres.
I can wax nostalgically about the cars of the past. But I can also know that behind the scenes, things were hardly as glorious as they are often made out to be.
Few things in life are are black and white, except for dice. Goes for people, as well as the cars they build.
Differently to you, I never wax nostalgic about old cars. If a car was a POS I call it, regardless of its reputation. I’m interested in classic cars because they provide a fascinating study of the triumphs and mistakes of design, construction and marketing of automobiles.
Apart from some classic designs which I like, there are few things in old cars that compare favourably with new ones. Space is one of them. We seem to be afflicted by a `Small Car Syndrome’, originated in Europe and Japan, but even now being implemented in non-small territories like USA and India. The new cars compact exterior dimensions lead to smaller internal dimensions despite great advances in packaging. In a car like the Chevy Cruze, for example, a 5’7″ person can have his head touch the ceiling if he’s the middle passenger in the rear. Also consider that is it one of the biggest sedans in India (apart from the horribly expensive imports), a market with large one-car families and you get the picture.
When have large cars been big sellers in India?
Right till the 50s before the communist take-over, half the auto market in India was full- to mid- size GM and Chrysler cars, Chevrolet/Bedford/Fargo/Dodge trucks and buses. Very practical indeed, if you consider that Indians had (still have) large families and few cars. However, the number of people able to afford anything on 4 wheels is minuscule compared to India’s population.
Today India is a huge car market. You can have fully loaded cars with automatic transmission, leather interiors, power- everything (except engine), sun-roof (in a tropical country), price to match a U.S. midsizer, all in a 94in wheelbase hatchback with almost zero boot space and inability to seat 5 adults at all, with cramped leg space. Hence, `Small (expensive) Car Syndrome’, when Indians need large, economical cars. This is the reason why the Tata Nano is a damp squib. People don’t just want economical cars, they want economical, practical cars.
Indians have been buying cast off 58 Morris Oxfords for decades now by modern standards that is not a small car nor is the Hindustan Contessa/ Vauxhall Victor/Holden Torana. the tata nano has been a market failure its too small.
Hindustan Contessa has been out of production for some years now, and was never a big seller due to very poor construction. Hindustan Ambassador sells around 100 units a month, that too mainly as taxicabs, and suffers from a poor (50-75hp) drivetrain. Those two cars are not representative of the Small Car Syndrome unfolding in India from manufacturers like Suzuki and Hyundai, and even the Indian Tata. The Ambassador is still considered the benchmark in space and comfort in reasonably priced Indian cars, and that is shameful for other manufacturers. Too bad it is an unsaleable model.
Sounds like you belong over here then:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com
Im boomer and just bought another Toyota.
“They no longer lead in quality, and the reliability gap has closed. They don’t lead on style. Or on powertrain innovation. Or on driving dynamics. Or on youth appeal.”
Actually I agree on much of what you say. Style, powertrain innovation, driving dynamics and certainly youth appeal.
But long term reliability is what I buy for. And every time I research it as thoroughly as possible, using Consumer report reliability by make (April 2011 page 79) and True Delta, I can not escape the impression that Toyota long term reliability (7 to 10 years out) is superior to almost everyone else but Honda. In fact the problem rate of 10 year old Toyota is roughly half of the problem rate of 10 year old GM.
People may criticize this data, but I have never seen other data presented which is based on surveys or other reasonable statistical means which shows otherwise.
I read this stuff every year, and as soon as the results change, my buying habits will change. I would love to drive a more “youthful” choice.
Yeah but you pay for that “reliability” with much higher ownership costs due to their extreme cost cutting. Tires Toyota you’ll be lucky to get 30K out of the OE tires, GM and some Ford vehicles on the other hand the factory tires will last you 60-80K or more. Brakes the Toyota will typically last 40K while those on the GM and Ford vehicles will last near twice that. Battery if you get 3 years out of the factory Toyota battery you did good, the battery in a GM will do 5-6-7 years while I’ve seen very many Ford batteries still going strong at 7,8 or even 9+ years like the OE battery that still load tests out as good in my 2003 Marauder.
But that hasn’t been my experience. I just sold an ’04 Camry w/ 134K miles with original brake linings. Brakes are polled on reliability surveys. Original Bridgestone tires lasted 40K miles, well within what I consider normal for new car tires. I had ’92 Chev pickup which went under 30K on original tires. I had a Ford pickup which got close to 80K on original tires. The 40K has been a very average new car tire life for me.
Batteries are Johnson Controls and I’ve replaced at normal intervals. I replace most of my batteries due to acid seepage, and the mess they make rather than outright failure.
Nothing about any of the Toyotas I’ve owned had anywhere near a high cost of ownership. They have been great reliable vehicles for me with low cost of ownership and easy resale.
But I do have a question.. why are OE tires deficient in wear on some makes? They’re invariably nice and round, and ride well at high speeds. They’re major brands. Why the short life?
Yes Toyota uses Johnson controls as the supplier for the US built cars as does Ford and Chrysler but they all specify different construction and quality. Just like the cheapest JC made battery at Wal-Mart is not going to last as long as the DieHard made by JC.
To save those few pennies. More durable rubber is more expensive, more tread is more expensive and plain and simple the buyer usually doesn’t pay attention to the tires. Sometimes it is done to improve the grip in some conditions. Softer rubber is stickier so it can provide more G’s on the skid pad, stop shorter, ect, but it doesn’t last as long.
If you go to tire rack you’ll find they also sell “OE” tires IE the same tires you’ll find on a new car and they often have different tread depth, wear and.or traction ratings and are usually cheaper than the aftermarket version of the same make, model and size. Save $2 per tire and on something that sells say 300,000 units that’s $2.4 Million. Save $5 on a battery and it’s $1.5 millon
I’ve owned numerous cars of many makes new and old and have never noticed OEM Toyota batteries to be inferior. What I have noticed is many develop acid leaks at the posts which either corrode the terminals, or splash onto other underhood components. In fact I’m so tired of this that on any newer car which requires a battery I’m going to install an AGM battery, just because they don’t tend to leak. On my travel trailer which has a couple of AGMs I am thrilled how clean the battery compartment stays.
My experience is based on over 25 years of working as a mechanic. I currently maintain a mixed fleet that ranges from Mack, Freightliner, and International class 7 trucks down to 5 Xboxes. All of the XB’s that have more than 40K on them have had their tires, front and rear brakes and battery replaced. The most recent battery replacement was on an 2009 put into service in late 2008 and it was totally dead as of Nov 2011.
“But it seems some are perpetually stuck in about 1993.”
I plead guilty! 🙂 This is one of the reasons I spend so much more time here than on TTAC – I just like the older stuff better. But I also really enjoy the younger folks who spend time here. It is great to see some of these familiar cars seen through fresh eyes, without some of the “history” that we older commenters sometimes have trouble shedding.
Also, you raise a very good point about a lot of boomers who buy Toyotas and Hondas out of habit. I have seen these behaviors out of my parents’ generations and I am seeing it in my own. It will be interesting to see what GenX and GenY buyers are defaulting to in another 20 years. I can see it now: “Hyundai and Kia have gone all to hell, but those dummies keep buying them like they were still fresh and exciting cars!”
God Damn ‘yundai!
“a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
–Max Planck
There was a big Maytag factory in Galesburg, about 45 miles from me that closed in 2004. I believe it has been sitting empty ever since.
GM was the master of the quality “appearance” and “feel”, and was the car you bought that would not be criticized by your friends and neighbors. If youbought a Ford back then (or God forbid, a Chrysler) people would look at you like you had grown a 3rd eye.
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jp, that’s exactly the way I remember it. When my Mom bought The 63 Grand Prix, in our NJ suburb, at least 8 people lined up at the curb to go around the block in the shotgun seat. (on what was essentially a Catalina with Bonnieville trim!
My cousin’s mother had a 63 Plymouth Wagon in beige metallic, that seemed old the day they bought it. I Do remember though as a car guy looking at my Aunt and Uncle with one eyebrow raised trying to figure out what quality they saw in the Chyco products. I was 4 maybe 5, but they seemed like the obvious 3rd in Quality to me.
Cadillacs were always my favorite styling, but I could see what my parents were saying about Continental being the most tasteful car. THe side of the 63 Grand Prix reminds me of the Continental.
Did The Bel Air and Biscayne each have Tires, Trans, seating, engines weaker than the car above it in the Chevy line up? I didn’t realize they had smaller tires etc. Or I had forgotten.
Still I Love the “Looked at You Like you had a 3rd eye” when you bought a Chrysler reference. That was still true 5 years later when Dear Old(48) Aunt Mim bought a 68 Yellow Fury 3 Convertible that she LOVED. I Thought that was what Zackman’s 64 Impala was for awhile.
Sadly she loaned it to my Cousin Joanne Who Promptly totaled the Convertible. Poor Aunt Mim was Stuck driving a 68 Newport 4 door sedan That I was Thrilled to drive in 76 when my cousin got his license. It Was NO Convertible but It could seat 6, built like a battleship.
Im off to look up the line up differences.
That awful Chevy seating position and outward curved bench seat was repeated by Holden When I told my Chiropractor I had back pains when driving and told him I drove a EH Holden he said he drove a 64 Chev, quik cure was to install Commodore bucket seats but the guy explained why I got back pains, Thanx GM.
Never mind the quality,feel the width
JPC raises many good points. GM cars were the most stylish,generally smoother and quieter too. Also, GM was much better at cutting corners than the competition.
And due to it’s volume, GM had the lowest manufacturing costs of the big three. Not only that, but GM made the highest percentage of it’s components. During the 50s, 60s, and even 70s, that added to GM’s cost and quality advantage. GM sold things like A/C compressors and steering gears to the other domestics. The bigger profits enabled GM to continue to to improve it’s position vis-a-vis the domestics.
When the imports started making serious inroads into US market, from the late 60s thru 1980, they market share they took came out of Ford, Chrysler, and AMC. GM was close to 50% thru the late 70s.
Today, Toyota and Honda benefit from the same perceived quality advantages GM had in the 1960s. Perhaps the next generation of car buyers will stay as loyal to them as their parents/grandparents stayed to GM.
It’s hilarious reading this thread three years on. All those cars that were thought to have caught up to Honda and Toyota in quality have turned back into pumpkins while 2012 Hondas and Toyotas are still the best used cars. The more things stay the same, the more determined some people are to be wrong.
To sckid: GM did it to themselves. They went bankrupt because of cars like my 1982 Trans Am. I was on a first-name basis with my mechanics 6 months into ownership. GM was really atrocious in the year you were born (1987). The approaching storm of the W-body debacle, the weird-looking mid-80s full size cars, etc. GM bankrupted itself and the customers they screwed have never forgiven them, switched to a given Japanese brand, and never looked back. Now GM is going for a completely new generation of lemmings like you.
…You just took the time to insult a 3-year-old comment.
Our 1971 LTD Broughm came equipped with 5.0″ wide rims (15″ dia) shod with HR78-15 rubber (IIRC). I know that my dad upsized to JR78-15 sometime in the mid-70s (we were lucky to get 20-25K out of a set of tires, and every corner gas station sold them as well), but he never changed out the rims and none of the tire places apparently suggested the need to do so.
Many years later, I bought a 1971 Galaxie station wagon with a 429 and did a drivetrain swap with the LTD (which came with the 400M motor). The wagon came with 6.5″ wide rims and much wider brakes in the back (items which found their way over to the LTD).
Finally, I had 7″ wide Mopar cop car rims on the LTD with 225/60-15 tires, which significantly changed the handling for the better (but serious tire scrub at full lock due to the smaller OD).
What is this an article? A GM-bashing opinion piece? First you point out that the whole U.S. auto industry was using narrow tyres. Then you put up an inflammatory anti-GM headline. Narrow tyres have one significant advantage: high fuel efficiency. For a time (60s) when safety statistics were non-existent, styling was paramount, penny-pinching customers were rampant, and automotive economies of scale were still being optimised, I would say the 65 Bel Air offered quite a good compromise.
`But how many folks were killed because their overloaded ’65 Bel Air heading off to vacation lost control because of those puny tires?’ — Come on! Do *you* know how many folks were killed? If a family is killed *now* in a 2012 Camry where the cause of tyre failure is established as overloading, do you think the tyre company will assume liability easily rather than claiming that the deceased family in question were ignorant fools who did not observe loading and speed limits?
That the 1970 Bel Airs were riding on bigger rubber can be attributed to GM learning from large scale use of its cars, and making better cars as a result. It is a widely-held maxim that newer cars are safer than similar older cars, barring a few exceptions. This is not one of the exceptions.
Oh yes, tiny tires were put on ’65 Chevys for fuel efficiency! My bad! Like all the other things Chevy did to improve fuel efficiency then, like the two-speed Powerglide, and all the time spent in the wind tunnel,and the 409 V8.
My friend, fuel efficiency was almost the last thing on GM’s mind when they designed the bigger, longer, wider 1965s.
Your argument that GM only learned of the benefits of larger tires in 1970 is sad. Everyone knew about the benefits of better tires, brakes and handling, going way back, and plenty of folks/journalists at the time were yelling at GM to improve the handling and safety of their cars through better brakes, bigger tires, and firmer suspension settings. GM eventually realized that they had no choice but to man up to that.
The GM apologists are out in full force today, I see.
I think one problem is that, even then, GM customers and journalists/critics were often two entirely separate groups of people.
If you read the comments from owners in the old Popular Mechanics “Owners Reports,” many GM owners PRAISED the handling of their cars. The disconnect was, that, for them, “better handling” meant “the car is easy to drive and park, and the steering wheel can be turned without much effort.”
There wasn’t much incentive for GM to improve its cars, if customers didn’t really know or care about true handling capabilities. Like it or not, people buying Chevrolet Impalas or even Cadillac Eldorados in the 1960s were not worried about following BMWs or MGs through tight corners. They wanted to cruise effortless along the newly built interstate highway system at 70-75 mph.
They wanted a quiet, torquey V-8, pillow-soft ride, a smooth-shifting automatic transmission, effortless power steering, a great radio and air conditioning that could freeze meat. And they wanted it all for the least amount of money possible, and without much maintenance involved.
Till this day many people consider handling not how the car goes around corners but how easy it is to park.
Handling actually refers to how controllable the car is when traction is lost. Cornering ability is how well the car behaves under control with traction.
I thought in America that “handling” meant the lowest 0-60 time. 😉
Spot on, Geeber! Mr and Mrs America in that era was concerned with the boulevard ride, the “bigger + longer = better value, better car” mentality – and, at the lowest possible cost with little maintenance! On the money!! Understeer meant to the average motoring Joe then was to “slow down in that corner.”
Average American customer equated good handling with how easy the car is to motor arond town and park.
geeber: I understand. Ignorance is bliss. Which is something car manufacturers capitalized on forever (still are).
But if you put those folks that were so happy with their 1965 Chevy into a 1977 Impala, they probably wouldn’t want to go back. Yet for what it’s worth, Chevy could have built a ’77 Impala in 1965. Michelin radials had been around since 1948, disc brakes since the early fifties, chassis tuning was understood,etc…
So why did GM decide to get serious about handling only in the mid-seventies? (which never has to be at the expense of ride quality)
Maybe by the mid 70’s consumer attitude had changed sufficiently?
In 1965, I can’t find much evidence of a ‘consumer’ movement, but by the mid 70’s, a number of things had changed.
The whole Nader episode was well known and dissected by then, the Federal government had several agencies devoted to product safety (in general, not just cars). I don’t remember what the litigation environment was in the mid 70’s, but hell, suing people is still a great sport in the US, as it had to be back then.
I’m guessing, but maybe the risk management people managed to get one over the bean counters and let the engineers have their way?
I agree that customers in 70’s were a different generation than the ‘frugal’ Great Depression era folks. Fuel economy and safety was in more demand.
Average big car buyers in 1955-65 wanted cars to look new, and cornering to them meant “slow down to a near stop before turning” and “drive really slow in curves”. one other reason power disc brakes were so late was these older people hated the feeling of “stopping so quick.”
When Ford tried to sell safety in 1950’s it bombed. To this older generation of folks, it was ‘bad luck’ to talk about possible deaths or accidents, so it was “not talked about”, until social taboos finally were broken.
To this older generation of folks, it was ‘bad luck’ to talk about possible deaths or accidents, so it was “not talked about”, until social taboos finally were broken.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess Denial was in, big time in the 50s…early 60s
Paul,
I think your article hits on another, also very large issue within companies that make consumer products – the tension between engineers and finance personnel.
Engineers want to make the best product possible, and love improvements and technology for their own sake. They would want to make a car handle better because, for them, that is enough.
Finance men (and, in those days, at the Big Three, they were all men) look carefully at the bottom line, and have no desire to get ahead of customer desires. Improvements for their own sake are not enough – the question is, “Will the customer pay enough extra for it to make the cost of offering it worthwhile?”.
In the 1960s, there was a small group of people pushing for better handling and braking – there were even people within the Big Three who were doing this. And it’s worth noting that a fair number of journalists and critics in those days had engineering backgrounds, or at leasted wanted to be “in” with those who did.
Your average car buyer in the 1960s didn’t really care about this. Even more importantly, if the better wheels and suspension bits and tighter steering added, say, $100 to the cost of each car, but the customer wasn’t willing to pay for them, then it made no sense to offer them as standard equipment.
Meanwhile, if the Grande Royale Brougham Mark III package added $100 to the cost of each car, but could be sold for an extra $700 on the showroom floor – it was a no-brainer! It doesn’t take a degree in Finance to know which one is better for the bottom line.
Especially when those companies were facing higher labor costs (the UAW was already pushing for “30 and out” by the mid-1960s), return on investment was stagnant at best, stockholders wanted continued dividends, the federal government was taking steps to make safety and pollution-control equipment mandatory, and customers didn’t really want to pay extra for any of this.
Meanwhile, the federal government was regularly criticizing increased prices for cars as “inflationary.”
If both the handling package and the Grande Royale Brougham Mark III package package were optional, then the automakers could still advertise a lower base price, and satisfy some critics, while making more money. The auto makers were more worried about the federal government and stockholders than they were about the critics at Car and Driver in the mid-1960s.
And if the Grande Royale Brougham Mark III package was the one the public overwhelmingly wanted, the Finance personnel and the dealers and the stockholders weren’t going to argue with them.
In those days, the majority of people entering the showroom were not impressed with talk of a tighter suspension or firmer steering. Especially if it cost extra money. They were, however, impressed with vinyl roofs, standard whitewall tires, fancy wheelcovers, plush carpeting and brocade upholstery.
GM eventually improved handling in the 1970s after increasing sales of foreign cars indicated customer demand for better handling. But Finance types are never ahead of the curve, and, at any rate, that is a risky place to be. The 1994 Honda Accord was designed to be smaller than its predecessor, and was not initially offered with a V-6 engine, because Honda expected the 1990s to be a decade of austerity and tight fuel supplies. Which means that Honda was only about 15 years ahead of the curve.
Meanwhile, Toyota’s bigger Camry, which was available with a V-6, promptly stole the best-seller crown from the Accord, and has never looked back.
The argument that GM, and others, were controlled by finance people is valid. But then, what they produced in their time reflected the market.
MOST cars, then and now and forevermore, are produced by businesses overseen by financial types. And that is how it must be – making a mass-market commodity. The marketers determine what objectives must be met; the engineers meet them, or propose to; and the finance people approve or disapprove it.
Handling qualities in those days was low on the scale of priorities. Modern (then) shocks and spring rates gave far better handling than a decade earlier; power steering made for ease of driving (and disconnected road feel, which would have made tuned suspensions moot) and that was good enough.
If a buyer wanted a ten-tenths car, with engineering a top priority…there was BMW or Mercedes; or today, the top-end Japanese brands or VW. But for MOST users, of limited budgets and practical needs, such focus on engineering-over-economy would be a waste.
It’s a delicate balancing act. When Finance gets too powerful, the company becomes stagnant and can collapse in a business slowdown…as Ford almost did around 1981. When engineering is given its head, money is spent that can never be recovered.
Obviously, someone decided, in 1965, that bigger tires were wasted money. What’s a hundred bucks (today’s cost) on the sticker price? Well, when you go through the car, a hundred here, another hundred there…pretty soon you’re talking “real money.”
Elsewhere we’re discussing the failure of the Henry J…where GM, with its Chevrolet 150, was able to beat the purchase price of the Henry J. And Chevrolet won and its upstart competitor lost.
THAT is where all that cost-consciousness leads. When the consumer demands something, like better brakes or power steering with road feel…some company somewhere will provide it. And the mass marketers will follow.
We’re talking bare bottom cheap cars here, where ride quality is always at the expense of handling, and the former is greatly appreciated by the whole family while the latter is illusory if you aren’t on a mountain twisty. `Safe’ handling is not the same thing as `firm’ handling. If you’re softly sprung but predictable and intuitive, it is good and safe enough.
Sorry Paul. The high fuel efficiency line was from another line of thought. In India, for example, *every* manufacturer does it — for fuel efficiency, across all models, even luxury cars. Certainly not applicable to 60s USA, but narrow tyres are one of my pet peeves. However, skinny tyres are suitable for slow, underpowered economy cars. Probably those ordering a 409 V8 would also have better rubber. A Mennonite family with an overloaded inline 6 surely would not go barrelling down the highway at 80mph in the summer time for long distances (if that engine ever reached 80mph that is). Said family would also appreciate higher fuel efficiency. Even today it is difficult to convince customers to pay more for safety. Using narrow tyres was/is a cop-out way to increase fuel efficiency at *lower* cost to the manufacturer, rather than wind-tunnel design. Customers could care less, and that sealed the argument.
As for the plenty of folks/journalists o’ the time, yes, there were loud noises about handling, but no prominent outcry about safety, least of all due to narrow tyres. Safety as a purchase criterion didn’t exist then, or we wouldn’t have had the ridiculous Beetle on sale for so long.
I wholeheartedly agree to the demand for better brakes, but better tyres were to be had even then for spirited drivers with powerful engines, and the firmer suspension, well, let’s just say that not everyone enjoys full connect with every damned irregularity on the road, even if it means losing in a road race on mountainous roads against European coffee-grinders.
And, yes, GM did eventually realize that they had no choice but to man up to that, but that does not merit the lurid headline this article has.
CarCounter: The top speed of a ’65 full-sized Chevy six was 95 – 100 mph, depending on axle ratio (as per Automobile Revue Catalog). In a global perspective for the times, 145 hp was not insignificant. More than a Mercedes 220S sedan.
And you don’t know how these Mennonites drove: as a matter of fact, the speed limit on rural two-lane highways then was 70, and 75 on the interstate. I rode in the Bel Air, along with the seven of them, at 80 mph. And lived to tell the tale. Lucky me!
One of the reasons I wrote this piece is precisely because of that experience: it seemed an awful lot of us were riding on some mighty little tires down the highway. And the Chevy wallowed quite a bit while doing it.
Wow! Must’ve been a hair-raising experience indeed. The driver must have had some cojones. But then, the 60s was the decade of endless possibilities… Safety sure wasn’t on *that* family’s shopping list then. But they were responsible for their choices. If they knowingly push an automobile beyond its limits, it is they and they alone who bear the responsibility for the results, be it death or glory. It is as well they don’t live in our times. I’m sure your experiences with the tractors would not have been taken kindly to by Big Brother in DC. Some people could be had for child abuse, no less.
However, there is *some* over-engineering built into everything, as your life attests: 🙂
And it still does not explain why many *Americans* need to die for this article, even when GM itself is dead.
At age six, I remember riding in my Great Uncle’s ’66 Dodge D100 – flying down gravel roads and two lane Missouri and Western Illinois highways – no seat belts and of course said Uncle swilling Falstaff. Safety really wasn’t all that much of a top priority in those days and really wasn’t until Government stepped in and public conciousness changed. We are looking at this with 21st century eyes and attitudes. I think all opinions here are valid, but truth be told, the majority of the car buying public and the manufacturers could’ve cared less. Those looking for safe, competent handling and braking then were in a small minority.
My Mom and most of my parents’ depression era generation wanted the easiest driving car at the lowest possible cost. Chevrolet delivered.
Please don’t let more Americans die. The newly modified title is even more ambiguous. Your suggestion “How GM Nickled And Dimed Itself To Death” really is more appropriate.
“I think one problem is that, even then, GM customers and journalists/critics were often two entirely separate groups of people.”
Still as true today as it was then – witness the recent sales success of the newly decontented North American Jetta, or the fact that the much maligned Civic is Canada’s number one selling car for 2011.
In the case of the Honda, the sales success if likely the result of satisfied customers who remember how good their 1992 Honda was – just like GMs sales success in the early days of bean counting.
Plus ca la change…
The GM apologists are often needed to combat the GM Bashists that flow non-stop.
How about another “Deadly Sin” article?
ROFL at `Bashists’, rhymes with `Fascists’ in certain accents… 😀
Dont forget GM tuned their cars to understeer as a safety feature so they knew what they were doing alright.
And they built such good cars they went bankrupt.
It wasn’t so much the cars that got GM bankrupt. They sold nearly as much cars as before. The main reason was the UAW and weak leadership at GM (Wagoneer) that ended with the bankrupcy. Jobs bank for instance, was very expensive, and with some fewer cars sold during the finance resession, the cost of running GM was simply to high. Other companies without those extremely high social spending could easily have lived with 7-8 million cars sold and just adjusted the number of workers to match the income.
Yep GM was the pioneer of bean counting their cars, and sometimes their customers to death.
In regards to the tire issue.
I think that when GM started putting undersized tires on their cars it was to A. save them that $2~$3 per car B. encourage you to select the optional larger size tires that they charged more than the difference in cost to them. $2 per car doesn’t sound like much but when you are cranking out a million copies that’s $2million.
Chrysler in the 80’s started taking the same approach. Many of the K-car derivatives came from the factory with tires that one or both axles would be at their rated capacity if the vehicle was fully loaded. The key tip off is that the recommended tire pressure is the tires max rated pressure. I remember my Dad’s first Chrysler product he bought since the early 70’s. I was shocked an appalled when I looked at the tire placard and found the recommended air pressure.
Today it’s Toyota that is the king of supplying cars with substandard tires. Sure they are of the “proper” size to hold up the car but they come out of the factory way short on tread. One of the best examples is the BFG Long Trail TA “truck” tire. The version put on Toyota trucks started with 8/32″ of tread or 6/32″ of useable tread. The version that Ford spec’ed out for their vehicles came with the off-road/M&S standard of 13/32″ of tread or 11/32″ of useable tread or near twice that of the Toyotas. Consequently if you look at customer reviews of that model tire at Tire rack you’ll find that the Toyota drivers say they are a crappy tire and they wore out at 20-30K while the Ford owners report that they are some of the longest wearing tires they’ve ever hand and report up to 100K of tread life. In addition to that low tread depth they also spec’ed a softer, shorter wearing tread than on the Ford or replacement versions. Of course the Toyota apologists blame BFG for making crappy tires not Toyota for specifying sub-standard tires. It is an across the board thing at Toyota 8/32″ is the norm for their tires even though the industry standard for passenger tires and non-off road/M&S tires is 10/32″. Just another case where Toyota has stole a play from GM’s Hey were No 1, we can do no wrong, our stuff don’t stink, and our customers don’t know any better. play book. They and Honda also like to do it with their brakes as the linings they install from the factory usually only last about half as many miles as the units installed at the factory on Ford and GM vehicles.
You are right about the Honda brakes. IIRC, the rears on my 07 Fit were shot by 20,000 miles.
The funny thing is that the original Hondas with their rear drum brakes the rear linings would often last at least 100K and when they started doing discs in the rear the expected life was down to 20K or under on many models.
My 4Runner came from the factory with Bridgestone Dueller H/Ts that had useable tread left when I replaced them at 45k miles. The General (Continental) Grabber HTS all seasons that replaced them, based on rave reviews from Tire Rack, displayed excessive wear when I sold the vehicle 15k miles later.
The Pirellis on my Mustang GT were 70% worn after 14,000 miles and minimal shenanigans. I swear!
Tread life isn’t the only factor in rating tires, though. If the tire has good wet traction and a good, quiet ride, I don’t mind as much when the tire wear out early. The Pirellis on the Mustang were great, as were the Generals I put on the 4Runner.
If you want to harp on a carmaker for crap tires, start with Honda. The Dunlops that came with my Civic rode like crap and had no grip, and they were still shot at 30k miles. Also, any manufacturer that specs Kuhmos (*cough* Volkswagen *cough*) needs to be publicly shamed.
One thing I remember is average full size car buyers, back then, didn’t care about tire size and would want the cheapest ones when they went to gas stations or Sears for replacements.
These folks were very frugal and had bitter memories of the Great Depression. It may have affected decisions of some GM’s bean counters of the time, too.
How about Ford with Hankook who put on at the factory, so called “off road” tires on F150 4x4s. Up in Alaska, people I knew who had’em, had to replace them immediately; AK gravel roads tore those Hankooks to shreds when hardly new. Most guys I knew replaced them with BFGs or Bridgestones.
Not to ressurect dead threads, but this was absolutely my experience. Those factory tires….I changed three of them on a company truck, the last one in the rain by the light of a flip phone on a strip mine remediation site. I won’t buy Hankook tires just for the sin of selling those for that application.
It also should be noted that the Corvair didn’t “kill” anyone, the Corvair, Chevrolet and GM were absolved after an extensive goverment investigation.
“Absolve” is hardly the right word. They compared its handling to four other cars, two of which were the also-rear engined and swing-axled VW Beetle and Renault Dauphine. Here’s what they said: “the 1960-63 Corvair compares favorably with contemporary vehicles used in the tests.”
And this: “it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic.” Comparing it with the Beetle and Dauphine; damming with faint praise indeed!
The Corvair handling issue is a very complicated one, which I can’t/won’t go into full in a comment. But there was profound internal disagreement at Chevrolet about the Corvair’s configuration and handling. Some top engineers protested it vigorously. DeLorean refused to accept a Pontiac version, and thus cobbled up the (imperfect) but somewhat better Tempest.
There is a good reason Chevy offered a “handling” option, that included camber-limiting straps to avoid the dreaded jacking up of the rear wheels. And the problems were fixed in ’64 and ’65.
No doubt other cars had similar problems at the time, and this was actually quite well known. Even the legendary Mercedes 300SL had been criticized by some journalists for its tricky oversteer thanks to its swing axles.
Many feel that the Corvair was unfairly picked on by Nader, since so many other cars also had similar issues. The key difference was that the Corvair was a clean-sheet design for 1960, and one by the world’s biggest car maker.
The Corvair may not have been much worse than some others, but by 1960, the issues of this configuration were increasingly well known. And many pointed this out to GM (and within), including a Mercedes engineer who warned them about a heavy six cylinder in the rear with swing axles.
The Corvair could be a ball to drive, but in the hands of the uninitiated, like the vast majority of Americans, the early versions without the suspension fixes were truly tricky at the limit, and therefor unsafe.
Kill is hardly the right word either, you could argue.
Kill is certainly more black and white than “absolve”, since God isn’t the one who “absolved” the Corvair. I doubt the folks that lost their lives when their Corvair flipped abruptly felt inclined to absolve it, even if they had been given the opportunity.
I’m pretty sure those who died in Corvairs did not wear seat belts. Those alone has saved many lives and I’d say GM can’t be liable if older generations hated seat belts and thought “being thrown from a car is safer in accident”.
I don’t believe that seatbelts were even available in early Corvairs. They weren’t mandatory equipment for all cars until the mid-1960s.
Right, people back then thought it was ‘bad luck’ to talk about possible deaths. Ford had seat belts but people didnt want them, “too confining”, they said.
I would imagine that they were at least optional in the front. I seem to recall that our 61 F-85 wagon had them in the front, and I know that my 59 Fury did. Rear seatbelts were another matter, and I don’t remember any of them at all until the mid 1960s.
Seat belts through the early ’60’s were usually dealer installed ACCESSORIES (like kleenex dispensers) and were marketed as such.
Regarding the Corvair, I believe that the late Jerry Flint summed it up best in his book: “The Corvair was different, but not necessarily dangerous. But a responsible company should go the extra mile to make sure that its customers understand the difference.”
Telling customers to keep the tire pressure at a lower level than was normal for other cars at that time was not sufficient, in my opinion.
The real issue here, on a wider plane, is that GM knew that the Corvair should have the $7.00 sway bar and cut it to save money. They tried to compensate with the front tire pressure thing but anyone who works in auto service knows that 99% of owners never check tire pressure and the gas jockeys that did would hardly know what the pressure was off the tops of their heads.
It is the same with the tires thing; GM cut tire sizes to 14″ purely to save money. I had nothing to do with styling or anything else. Tire failures were common in those days and people were used to it. This had change a lot by 1977, only twelve years away. People wanted safer cars and got them. All GM stuff had radials by that point, and disk brakes, as well as much better suspension set-ups.
As for GM apologists, if anyone were to do a case study of how not to run a big company, GM would be the first chapter. Without going into huge detail, this company went from 50% or more market share to something like 20%, went bust and walked away from billions of dollars of commitments and unpaid bills. Hardly a success story.
Not only insufficient, but it caused the Corvair front tires to be loaded beyond their rated capacity at those extremely low pressures. Hardly a proper fix.
The real issue here is the lurid headline of this article. There is no indication in the article that many Americans went to their deaths due particularly to undersized tyres, and generally to GM’s cost-cutting.
I do think that the Corvair was just emblematic of the wider problem n the auto business where safety took a distant back seat. The upshot is we had much safer cars by 1975 than we had in 1965, as well as much cleaner. There is a place for government regulation. I am much happier driving in a safe car with airbags, seat belts and anti-lock brakes.
That said, perhaps we have gone a little too far on the ride and handling then. My Acura is a pleasure to flog in the mountains but the ride in the city is barely tolerable. And how often do I flog in the mountains?
This is again side-tracking the discussion. You’re right about modern cars being safer but having poor ride quality, but that has nothing to do with this article or its strange headline.
Shall I change it to “How GM Nickled And Dimed Itself To Death”? Actually, more appropriate.
Actually if GM had nickled and dimed more aggressively in the earlier years when it was a National Institution (including hiring the Mafia to take care of Union troubles), it would have been in a better state now. The Japanese take this stuff way more seriously. Toyota strippers available in India (google up “Toyota Liva”) are marvels of cost cutting. They are so flimsily built a Beetle is a tank by comparison. But they are overpriced, and since Toyota sells, they sell. I’m all for organised labour, but the UAW has seriously shaken my faith in workmen’s organisations… but I digress.
Yes the alternative title is better. The old GM is indeed dead, even if we have a new/old company by the same name. It’s your decision.
That Mercedes engineer could probably remember V8 rear engined Tatras.
A great many of my cars through the 1950’s to 1970’s had bigger than standard tires and/or wheels, at least if I owned them for a while.
I remember catching a wrecking yard guy on an off day, maybe he was a little drunk too, I don’t know, and scoring for only $10 a pair of 15-inch Merc wheels with 7.60 tires on them to put on the back of my 1948 Ford. Noting the difference in handling, even without much tread on the tires, made a bigger-tire believer out of me.
I remember when the first rounded-body Ranger pickups came out that the standard tires looked amazingly puny on them. But that may have been because the wheel cutouts were designed so they’d accept much bigger rubber on the 4×4 versions.
I think this is on-topic. Even if it’s not, it’s pretty amusing (note the front tire ~4:50)-
That’s one of my favorites! He’s practically on the rim bead at that point.
Around 1:15 there’s another extreme roll shot from the other side, it looked like it was going to pull the front tire off the ground.
I’ve always liked the 1969 Chevy. Watching the video test of this car, one would wonder why more performance oriented suspension was never used, or more performance oriented brakes.
They must have bolted that hubcap to the wheel!
I used to love the old Car & Track series, especially when they rebroadcast it on Speedvision.
However, watch a few more of those videos from the same time period; everything handled pretty poorly, even some of the ‘hot’ cars of the day. The braking tests are even scarier than the handling loop, it seemed to me every car spun at high speed braking maneuvers. With modern proportioning valves, this kind of thing doesn’t happen with a showroom fresh car, back then, it seemed folks just accepted it.
Kind of like skinny tires.
Another small point to raise is that people did a lot more driving on gravel roads back in the 50s and 60s.
Small diameter tires would wear out a lot faster, and as anyone who’s had a blowout on gravel can attest, it ain’t pretty.
I drive on a lot of gravel and I can see the difference in wear from when I lived in town.
I found it funny that my 73 Chevelle “Deluxe” came from the factory on E78-14s.
(By time I got it that was upgraded to 235/60/15s and eventually it evolved to need 275/60s rear and 205/75 fronts..)
Stone stock that car was 3700lbs. I couldn’t have imagined driving that thing new with those skinnies all the way around.
The tire size/construction does explain all the stories I heard when I was a kid about how “that thing would leave rubber through 3 gears” when discussing a 283 63 Impala! 😀
This is very interesting reading. We wax notolgic for old cars, but they were way behind in safety and other engineering features. It’s mostly how when we were kids how fascinating they looked, but under the surface. And the high HP in poor handling and braking cars led to many wrecks and thus the high insurance rates that killed [temporarily] muscle cars.
Whenever someone goes on and on about the ‘good old days and don’t build cars like used to’, I say “Thank God!”
Why not retro the old style bodies onto updated mechanicals? I’d buy a Ford Mustang in a heartbeat if they copied the 1st gen styling and interiors exactly but had 2012 quality emissions, safety features, handling and drivetrains. A couple of million other Americans would be there, too. Just announce the “Mustang Is Back” and show what looks like a ’65 ’til the hood is opened, then say “available at your Ford dealer now”.
To that I say ‘welcome to 2005’. The ‘retro’ Mustang has already been done, and I’d say ‘retro’ has been done to death.
With aerodynamics needed to good fuel economy, the old boxy bodies would not work. Have to compromise.
I do not wax for old cars at all since I get to drive them regularly. When I am in Saskatoon for business I get to drive a 1977 Cadillac Sedan De Ville, restored and stock and this car would be infinitely better than a 1960s Chevy.
I recently go to drive a 1966 Ford Galaxy and it was something I would not like to do regularly. Handling and braking are scary by modern standards.
Yes, I am looking for the B Body of my dreams but it will sit in the garage most of the time!
YES, SCARY is the right word for Braking these by our standards now.
Some rather new, modern cars are often not much better IMO.
I keep asking about my brakes, but They tell me NO Its Good. Fine, So I guess Chrysler brakes just seem like they need service. Not really a good attribute.
exactly.
Manufacturers are STILL putting cheap bad tires on cars. The stock Kumhos on my ’10 Hyundai Accent will spin when it’s rained last night but it’s sunny this morning and the roads are drained of standing water but still dew-wet. I have to be very cautious about traffic when pulling out otherwise I’ll spin the front’s like Don Garlits, They puncture really easily, too. I’m probably going to be buying some Falken 912s before the Arkansas monsoons this spring. It’s a plus size, too so it should stick even better in the wet.
The stock tires in my 2008 Fit were junk and were replaced on the ride home from the dealership. Transformed the car.
This is the case with almost all new cars available here (India), regardless of make.
My typical response with new-car tires is to tolerate them and then replace at about 10,000 miles figuring I got my money’s worth out of them.
For the most part the sub-standard tires is a “import” car thing. Ford and GM often put quality long lasting tires on their cars and trucks today, though Ford has slipped in recent years and put Kumhos on some of their cars and trucks.
“Kumhos” – a name Beevis and Butt Head could love
Talking about car safety in the ‘good old days’, I’m willing to bet as many people died in old VW Bugs as Corvairs, due to its design deficiencies too. But it was not targeted, since not from ‘Evil GM’. [If GM didn’t hire Pvt Dicks to follow Nadar…]
Seat belt usage was not pushed until the 1980’s and has been the biggest factor in decreasing car accident deaths. But, folks’ attitudes back in 1965 were dated. Many swore that “being thrown from a car was safe” and “a mother’s first reaction is to hold her kid in a wreck, so no need for child seats”. Thus, tiny tires, poor cornering and drum brakes were too common well into the 70’s.
In the early 1970s, Ralph Nader did write a book devoted to criticizing the VW Beetle. It was titled Small on Safety, if I recall correctly.
Well, thats good to know, but that book wasn’t publicized by the media, since foreign cars “were so much better”.
I’d like to see a crash with a ‘cute’ old Bug vs. a modern Chevy Cruze. Who’d win?
One other thing, why were hippies so against authority, yet loved the Nazi designed Beetles?
You can go on youtube as see some Beetle crash tests, they’re pretty bad, but again, so would any 1934 car be if you crash tested it to modern standards, the other scary crash test car is a Citroen 2CV, again though, 1400lb 1930’s design.
Volkswaffe!
Chicagoland: Not an easy question to answer fully here, but Porsche was not a Nazi. He refused to call Hitler “Fuhrer”, and shook his hand instead of saluting him. He only got away with it because Hitler liked him so much. No one else would have gotten away with that.
Bernd Rosenmeyer was another one who refused. He died testing one of the streamliner Audis on the nascent Autobahn.
They were reliable for the time, cheap on gas and easy to fix yourself. Add the ability to camp in the Bus and carry all a typical hippie is likely to own…
GM especially and the rest of the Big 3 in general still got the benefit of doubt by the media back then, at least in my corner of the world (Pittsburgh area). If someone crashed and died in a Detroit barge, make/model were never named, and it was always called an “accident,” with all the connotations of fate and bad luck that word implies. But if it happened in a “small foreign car,” there would be no hesitation in using this phrase (as in “what did you expect?”)
Re hippies: I doubt many knew of the Hitler connection to the Beetle, and the VW was used as finger in the eye of the “establishment” that preferred big, powerful Detroit dreamboats.
I’m sure more died in swing-axle VWs than swing-axle Corvairs since there were so many of them. But I believe GM deserves more blame than VW. It comes down to customer expectations.
In 1960 a VW was a weird funny looking car you bought from a weird funny looking dealer at the edge of the next town. The VW buyer did not expect it to handle like a Chevy. In fact, that was the point.
In 1960 a Corvair was a cute little Chevy you bought from your familiar Chevy dealer. A nice first car for new drivers, or a second car for mainstream drivers. Naturally they expected it to drive like a Chevy. GM benefited from that, and bears responsibility for putting strange-handling cars into ordinary hands. A big part of GM’s success depended on trust, so caveat emptor doesn’t apply.
PS: As geeber and others pointed out above. Wow, 100+ comments already!
Not to change the subject, but does anybody notice the over-sized wheel wells in the current Chevy/GMC pickups? What’s with that?
It’s because so many people put 35″ tires on the 4×4’s and they don’t want to make different bed sides and front fenders for the 2wd ones.
The GM lovers, and Chevy clowns especially, cannot, or will not, believe that they own and like bottom of the barrel products. GM from 60ish to present, is the Wal Mart of automakers
Jap lovers, Suzuki clowns especially, are much better? Perhaps Suzuki is the Harrods of automakers. 🙂 Couldn’t resist the obvious flame bait.
Can we stop the troll, Paul?
Yes. Stop, please!! This isn’t AutoBlog!
I just want to make a couple of quick comments. First, MikePDX nailed it on the Corvair, in that GM went out its way to advertise the Corvair as a smaller, sportier knockoff of its big Impala. “No need to learn about its handling ‘quirks,’ just drive it like your ’58 Impala trade-in!” And no, seat belts were NOT a factory option in ANY GM car of the early 60s, Cadillac included. Ford and Chrysler were ahead of GM on this, but IIRC, seat belts were largely dealer accessories (the notable exception was the ’56 Ford). Beginning in January 1964, the Big 3 made driver and right front passenger lap-only belts standard, after several states began to take steps to mandate their installation.
Second, most people that I knew (including my own family) didn’t care about fuel economy in the 60s. Gas was dirt cheap, even in adjusted terms. Sure, my mother kept track of household expenses, including gas costs, in a handwritten budget book, but mpgs were never calculated the entire time we owned our ’67 Bel Air six with 3-on-the-tree (and those puny bias ply tires Paul mentioned, the equivalent of the later F78-14s). Only when the specter of gas lines in late1973 arrived did we think about fuel economy, too late because my mother by then had a ’73 Monte Carlo with a 350 V8 and THM350.
In this part of the planet seat belts were mandated in 65 cars had to comply for belts ealier my 63 Holden Special had the mountings but the belts were not fitted and our cars ran on skinny crossply tyres I have a set that were on my Hillman when I bought it 560×15 but Peugeot 406 wheels bolt on so it now wears 205/60×15 tyres and corners well but thats a 1000kg car with 50hp so its unlikely to ever wear them out see the difference
I thought of one more thing: my understanding from reading magazines of the time was that 14-inch wheels were introduced across the board by many makes in 1957 as a quick and dirty way to lower the car, as “longer, lower, and wider” was the catchphrase of the time. Back then, low-profile tires didn’t yet exist; at least on US cars; all tires were essentially “100 series,” where section width equaled section height.
Am I correct in remembering though that Cadillac and Buick kept 15-inch wheels on all of their cars throughout the late 50s to early 70s (not counting the compact and intermediate Buick Specials and Skylarks)?
I had to replace the tires on my V50 at about 38,700 miles. That was about two and a half years ago. The replacement Eagle RS-As have been pretty good so far.
I’m kind of confused about how seat belts in cars were not really wanted by consumers until the mid-to-late ’60s. I mean, airplanes had parachutes since at least the 1920s and ships had life jackets going back even further.
Perspective as a kid, the safety mentality was so different in the ’50s/’60s when i was growing up. I came from a very conservative family, careful about everything. My parents were very restrictive about what I could do. But in car, we were free tor move around, stand up on the back seat and look out the back window, ride in the cargo area of station wagon.
My sister required stitches on her ear from sliding forward on the wagon’s cargo area during a panic stop. She hit her ear on a sharp edge. That stopped that practice in our family.
Like others mentioned the safety thing didn’t start for a lot of people until the late ’60s or ’70s.
At least for me when I started driving, the tiny drum brakes were the weakest link. I’d smoke them regularly on mountain roads, wear them out very frequently, and hated the way they frequently pulled to one side.
First set of replacement tires on my ’65 Nova (first car) lasted 10K miles. Replaced with Michelin X radials and they lasted 40K miles for 19 year old. The ’65 had hard metal dash no padding. But it did have lap belts. By the late ’60s they were padded and other safety steps were beginning.
The death rate per million miles traveled was very high in the ’50s, ’60s. and into the ’70s. Roughly 4x what it is today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
Lots of people believed that seat belts were dangerous because they would trap you in a burning car or a submerged car or that you were better being thrown from the car. There is a teeny bit of truth in that (at the time anyways). I read a study in the 80s that figured in about 3% of accidents a person would be better off not wearing a seatbelt. Those 3% cases though are all the spectacular sort of accidents that people remember.
Kind of like how hundreds of people died in the months after 9/11 because they elected to drive to their vacations instead of flying. Because despite hundreds dying in planes in one day, driving was still much, much more dangerous.
Remember your beloved 1979 Ford “panther ” came with 14″ tires while GM B-bodies were sold with 15″
Wow, what a discussion! My ’69 Cutlass had F78-14 tires. My ’99 Saturn (1000 lbs lighter) had 205-75R15. However, the ’83 Civic Sedan we bought new had 13″ wheels (same size car as the Saturn), whereas the Civic Coupe the same year had 12 inchers! I don’t recall the width. I suspect that the ’83 Accord had 13 wheels, too. Even in the 80s with the Japanese, I think cost had a lot to do with wheels size, and I’m sure that even 14″ wheels just seemed unnecessary on a compact.
“General Motors is not in the business of making cars. It is in the business of making money.” – Thomas Murphy, GM CEO, 1974-1980
In conjunction with the above statement, it should be patently obvious to anyone, that when a company bases the decision to correct known, dangerous, design flaws with the ideology of “What will our legal liability/exposure/loss be if we don’t correct the problem?”, the potential exists for serious problem later (particularly in a free society where consumer advocates like Ralph Nader are free to write books).
In that regard, although GM has absolutely been guilty of this corporate mentality, you guys are really talking about the wrong company/car: Ford Pinto.
Ford knew about the Pinto’s propensity to catch fire from a punctured gas tank if it was rear-ended in a collision. They also knew the meager cost per vehicle of installing shielding that would prevent it from happening. But they also did a cost/benefit analysis where it was determined that the cost for the expected liability claims from expected Pinto fires would be less than the overall cost of installing the shielding on new Pintos. So, the shielding was left off.
The result of this ‘business decision’, when it later became known in court cases where people had actually burned to death in flaming PIntos, was an exxpsnive public relations nightmare that ended up costing Ford exponentially more than if they had just put the shielding on in the first place.
It exemplifies the problem of putting finance guys in charge who carry their zeal to maximize profits for the shareholders to the extreme, whether it be Pinto gas tank shielding, Corvair anti-sway bars, or small, dangerous, standard tires on the 1965 Impala.
As a kid this was the SOLD like hot cakes in 1965. Slightly poorer middle class, perhaps they had 2 many kids then they bought Biscaynes?
But these were the Car..Police Wagons in Blue and White. My sister had a 64 at times, then a 67 Impala… but our last chevy was a 57 as a teen car, Though Mom drove a 54 BelAir before her Grand Prix.
It seems to me that a lot of tire problems developed as a question of frugality. The depression era drivers like my Dad had a penchant for buying tires when absolutely bald. I can remember going with my Dad to Sears and buying one tire for his 64 Biscayne for $ 13. Mounting was free, he did not have it balanced at $ 2 more. He never bought more than 2 tires at a time in his life, and very cheap tires too. He did not speed or go on long trips, and really never had problems with his buying practices. But his attitudes could be deadly for others. I’m sure many people followed equally frugal practices with disasterous consequences when driving cross country or at 60-70 MPH speeds.
My uncle, who perpetually bought 2 year old Chryslers, always bought a new set of 4 Firestones the next day, never had problems. He constantly took long trips and drove at high speeds. Give my uncle my Dad’s car and death could result.
I don’t know how common the practice was, but during the 1960s some people didn’t even buy new tires, they would buy retreads for a fraction of the cost of a new tire.
Very common. Dad used to buy retreads, until we had tread separation on the highway while on holidays. IIRC the loose rubber damaged a brake line and jammed the rear brakes on. After that Dad always got new tyres, but cheap ones.
That reminds me of some extreme frugality with tires with my dad and later me. Dad had a collection of partially worn tires that received some new inventory now and then. I had to assist him occasionally in manually demounting and mounting the next candidates. I suppose they were all tube type tires at the time. This was for a ’46 Plymouth and later a ’56 Plymouth. When tubeless tires became common (early 60’s?) he found that that method didn’t work so well.
Later on, as was needed, I used a variety of sources for tire needs. Used, from the junk yard @ $8. Also new Kmart entry level bias ply, similar tires from Western Auto, or something from Sear’s basics. I think I had 3 or 4 pro-rated warranty replacements from Sears on one set as they had zero chance at meeting their mileage warranty. They then told me to not come back.
I did purchase recapped snow tires a couple of times from a local very old school recapper shop. I generally went up a size, like H78-15. The old style, serious as you get, deep lug snow grippers. With a limited slip or locker rear differential they were unstoppable in anything short of a foot of snow. I never had a problem with any of these recaps, but that shop had a good reputation.
Friends of my parents bought a new, 1964 Impala 4 door hardtop, 6 cyl. It had 7:00/14 tires! In the late 60s a common sight was GM cars pulling out of gas stations with gasoline trailing from the filler pipes. None of the other car companies compared with GM’s outrageous disregard for safety. What stopped these practices was federal regulation and product liability lawsuits. It was all more than 20 years over due.
All manufacurers seem to cheap out on oe tires. I purchased a new gm vechicle in 2001, it was equiped with p205/65HR15’s. They were Firestone Affinity HP’s. Plenty of grip, some squeal at launch but Noisy. My god they were loud. I replaced them with Continentals and the improvement in noise levels with no lack in performance was a revalation. When the Continentals became a little tired, I replaced them with a set of Toyo Hp rated tires and they were a further revelation. Very quiet, lots of grip, little squeal. I know that tire technology has moved on but realy. When Gm released my car they gave it a quite stiff suspension. You would think that they would spend the money to equip it with a tire that would somewhat mitigate that. You can have a responsive drive and quiet at the same time. GM knew this and they cheaped out.
OEMs put a tyre spec out to tender then go with the cheapest price always have done always will
Friends of my parents bought a new 64 Impala four-door hardtop 6. It had 7;00 14 tires. Ironically, this was also the first year of manditory seat belts and padded dashes. It was Consumer Reports which probably had the most impact in bringing this incredibly irresponsible cost saving to public attention. It was also common to see late 60s model Chevrolets leaking gas after they left filling stations. Obviously, there were no recalls then because the government didn’t require them. GM would not do anything for safety unless they had a government mandate
Obviously, GM cared more for saving money than for the safety of those who bought and drove their cars. Even the least expensive of products that would’ve made the car or truck safer to drive, General Motors refused to install on their vehicles. Why the hell that was, I’ve never understood.
For perspective, my Peugeot 504, which I think weighed ~2700 lb, had 175R14’s.
I thought I commented when this first came out…
Anyway Paul, glad you reposted. This is why – as much as I LOVE old cars, and ESPECIALLY old Chevies – I could never leave one in original condition if I ever intended on driving it beyond the local cruise night.
Also…and this is the bigger picture. Taken from a Geeber comment above:
“…Ford EXPECTED GM cars to have better body construction. In those days, “Body by Fisher” still meant something…”
As many of us remember, there was a time when “GM” meant “Mark Of Excellence”. Although by the time they adopted that slogan, the General was already running on past laurels as they were cheapening their present vehicles. 15 years prior, even Chevies were built like a Swiss watch with imepccable (for their day) fit & finish.
Who brought us automatic transmissions, the self-starter, power steering, an affordable yet durable OHV V8? Who brought us styling?
Wasn’t Studebaker. Nor Hudson nor ChryCo nor Ford.
And as I’ve posted here before, that’s why so many Deadly Sins belonged to GM, and why I’d like to see more of this “How GM Nickeled and Dimed Itself…” series:
GM KNEW BETTER.
GM LED BY EXAMPLE.
Because they once built the best cars on earth for each price range. And then they stopped. Mr. Sloan gave way to Mr. Donner, and a company with a 50% market share eventually went bankrupt.
Today, I think you could say the vast majority of GM’s offerings are competent, well built and durable. Many of their offerings are even best-in-class and have been for a few years. But there’s a LONG way to go for public perception to catch up to the reality, just like it took decades for the rot that began with the 1958’s to erode confidence to the point where it hurt the bottom line.
And if the perception never catches up and GM winds up the niche player they could yet become, hopefully the story why can be found here on CC.
BTW I rode in a new Tahoe yesterday. Base model fleet special, not even an LS, yet very well appointed for the trim level and the seats were surprisingly comfortable. I’d expect all that on a higher trim level but it’s a good sign to see it on the stripper specials too.
That “stripper special” Tahoe was well appointed because Tahoes start at $47K.
Even as a truck guy I still see plenty of folly in GM’s current strategy.
It was actually a Pierce-Arrow engineer that developed the first hydraulic power steering system and he later refined it while employed by GM. However GM didn’t feel it would be cost effective and didn’t fit it to any cars. Chrysler later installed power steering on 51 Imperials using the expired patents for inspiration beating GM to the market by a year (52 Cadillac).
Not even an LS? Base model fleet special? I went to GM Fleet and their most basic Tahoe was an LS.
At any rate, yes, the Tahoe is a very nice vehicle. Not to get too cynical (because I try not to jump on the hate train of any brand), but the full-size pickups and SUVs will always be well-made, from Ford, Ram, and GM.
I know, I know; I’m appending a comment to a nearly four-year-old article that already has a lot of comments.
Two-ply tires were somewhat controversial when they were introduced in the 1960s. Tire manufacturers swore that two-ply tires were superior to four-ply; they ran a bit cooler, gave very slightly better fuel mileage, and gave a softer ride. But they were more prone to failure than four-ply tires.
Here’s an article from the time that gives some information. (I remember this one from when I was twelve years old!)
https://books.google.com/books?id=jCkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=two-ply+tires&source=bl&ots=MDPXT83hdd&sig=k-c-H0r1tqc0CWhSer4puzletr4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip-P2K08rJAhVS92MKHW2xAA8Q6AEIfzAJ
Back in the early seventies my step-mother’s brother in law was the Firestone distributor for our area. He operated this distributorship out of the back of his Ashland Oil service station, back when there were full service gas stations. Many of his customers would buy a new Buick or a new Chrysler, or whatever with the factory supplied two ply tires. After a couple of months these people would decide they wanted “real” tires and would come in for a new set of Firestones. Mr. Galloway consequently had big stacks of barely used tires behind his shop. Several times he let me pick through the stacks to find “new” tires for my car, and then just charged me for mounting them. I certainly hope that I thanked him enough for this kindness.
Wow. My parents picked up a used ’65 Byscaine as an impromptu short term replacement 2nd car in about 1970. I remember my mother complaining bitterly about the awful handling on that car. It always felt like it was ready to go into the weeds at every bend.
But talk about cheap! That was when GM decided to punish anyone who didn’t pay for options. The A/C vent openings were there but had a plastic blank installed. There was a clock face but no movement or hands. And the topper– when having a tune up, my folks asked the shop guys if they could look into why the dome light didn’t work. They couldn’t fix it. Why? Because there wasn’t one.
There was a light dome in the headliner (they must have all had a hole in that position) but there was no wire, switch, or lamp fixture.
Admittedly my folks bought this car from a relative who was notorious for being the cheapest man on the planet. Loaded, but cheap by choice. We’re talking about read-by-the-street-light-to-save-a-dime-on-electricity cheap. That car added a lot to the lore from there on in!
Looks like that guy is kidnapping that poor woman!
Well I’m not sure if it’s been mentioned, but now the opposite problem is true. Wheels have gotten to be gigantic and the tires wide and low profile. This not only makes for $1200+ tire replacements, they also ride harshly and are terrible in the winter.
Yes, but at least good tires and decent-sized rims are always out there for the buying.
I recently saw an older BMW X5 V8 with a set of front wheels mounted on the rear and looking lost under the wheel arch flares, no doubt because the owner was horrified at the tire cost.
The puny rollers on most of GM’s offerings throughout the 60’s and 70’s is something that’s always irked me. But I’ve already found the solution.
For my ’71 GMC Sprint, I have a set of 15X7 inch 5-slotted rallys that I bought off of a friend. That bad boy is gonna be riding on 225/70 15s all the way around.
For the past couple of years I’ve been scouring Pick-A-Part looking for 15X6 and 15X7 inch plain steel wheels for my old GM vehicles, and I’ve gotten quite lucky. I even scored some custom-made 15X8 steelies off of a junked G-Body El Camino. I have now acquired three whole sets of these wheels with no rust and minimal curb damage.
My ’65 Skylark convertible will be wearing 15X6s with 205/70R15 whitewalls all the way around. My ’72 Ventura is getting 15X6s and 205/65s in front, and 15X7s with 235/60s in the rear. The Biscayne is getting 15X7s with 235/60s in front, and those 15X8s with a whopping 275/60 out back 🙂 .
Even the Monza will have upgraded shoes. At that same junkyard, I snagged a set of 14X6 inch 5-slotted rallys from a junked G-Body Malibu. That car will be shod with 205/60R14s, a far cry from the pitiful 13-inchers it came with.
This was an enjoyable article and I’ve read thru it several times since 2012. Says it’s Part 1, is there a Part 2?
I’m afraid I got distracted with that particular series. But the 1960-1963 Corvair post from the other day would certainly work: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-1960-1963chevrolet-corvair-gms-deadliest-sin/
I recall my Dad commenting on the need to upgrade the tires on our ’62 Buick Special station wagon. He said that the ride in particular improved with a set of bigger and better tires.
When we traded our ’68 Impala (still on 14 inch wheels – I believe 15 had become an option), for a ’76 LTD, he was rather astounded by the beefy 15 inch tires on it. It seems the industry did eventually rethink their penny pinching on tires.
I agree, but back in the “good old 1960’s”, average buyers cared about styling first, and horsepower 2nd.
The average “Dad” would not want to spend $ for bigger tires, or “Mom” would make him sleep on the sofa.
But also, GM was listening to their older “loyal” buyers and assuming that they wanted the cheaper equipment, but new looks every year.
Took too long to bring out disc brakes, since elders back then were “scared” of cars stopping so quickly. They never went over 45, “so why need better brakes?” they said
I suspect that then as now, a lot of people bought what was on the showroom floor — even where dealers will let you custom-order something, they don’t generally encourage it. When you’re haggling over the monthly payments on a car you hope to drive home that day, the size of the tires (and the other interesting and sometimes odd stuff on the typical mid-60s automotive special order form) is not usually the first thing on your mind.
Other than car nuts, I imagine the main class of buyers who gave the subject any thought were those looking to tow a trailer. (With the benefit of hindsight, the towing packages were often well worth having even if you didn’t plan to ever tow anything because they included a bunch of heavy-duty stuff.)
Speaking of under-spec tires, Consumer Reports recently concluded that all-season tires have very poor stopping performance in snow, & that 4WD makes little difference except in initial acceleration. Generally, snow tires matter more than number of driven wheels.
What do you folks think?
Not in the least bit shocking to anyone who has ever driven all season and true winter tires back to back in winter conditions (Studs FTW). And ya 4WD only helps you go. It doesn’t help you stop or help you steer in all but the most extreme, 0.000001%, edge cases where it can help prevent an axle locking up.
AWD is totally useless under braking, steering it’s better than a RWD car in the snow, since the back end isn’t trying to outpace the front, but then FWD offers the same advantage. Coming from a stop, in conditions any 2WD car would need careful and mild feathering of the throttle to get moving from, it’s like driving on a regular warm and sunny day, which naturally gives a driver overconfidence in their car’s abilities.
All-seasons = they suck every season. It may not be an option for some but for a RWD car especially it’s a good investment to find a cheap set of wheels that fit your car and mount dedicated snow tires to them for the winter months, then swap back to the good wheels/summer tires in the spring time. The time it takes to change them and the space it takes to store them is well worth the safety on those bad days.
Did the Coronet wagon with a 383 weigh more than a Bel Air sedan 6?
Most definitely.
I well remember the skinny tires that came with Dad’s new stripper ’74 Duster 6.95 X 14 2 ply polyester on 4.5 in rims. After about 14k miles they were worn out. Weight shown for his 225 3 on tree is 3060 lbs. And I thought that car was under tired! The manual steering was 5.3 turns lock to lock. Explains why it was easy to steer even when parallel parking. Another GM cheap out of course was keeping the old 2 speed slip and slide Powerglide about 10 years too long.
Yeah, those small tires might not really have been the safest thing to be riding on (particularly at highway speeds), but when combined with non-power steering, undersized tires made stuff like parallel parking not so much of a arm-wrenching chore.