(click image for full size)
Once upon a time, Car and Driver used to poll its readers for the best cars, rather than have the advertisers editors make those calls. Since 1967 seems to be a bit of theme here lately, and certainly was a good year for cars, let’s take a look at what they chose. Update: But before we do that, here’s the original ballot, which limits the options to those that C/D selected. Shall I send mine in?
And here are the winners.
Probably the biggest difference in this kind of poll is that it tends to be more backward-looking, based on owner’s experience or feelings about cars in the past, than what is the best new car in each class. That’s most painfully obvious in the choice of the Jaguar 3.8 Mk.II as the best intermediate sedan. It wasn’t even sold in the US anymore in 1967 (except as a special order), and its best days were definitely behind it. But the love for it was obviously still strong.
The win by the Rover 2000 as best compact sedan (followed by the Corvair), as well as by the 2000TC as best sports sedan under 3000cc is also interesting. I suspect few readers had personal experience with one, but it’s advanced engineering and highly-praised qualities (by the press) undoubtedly played a big role. The BMW had not yet quite reached its ascendency, at least not with the readers. I suspect the Rover and BMW would soon swap positions.
The Corvette Sting Ray won the big honors, as best Sports/GT car over 3000cc, and as best all-round car. I guess the definition of “all-round” was a somewhat vague one, as the Corvette hardly made an ideal all-round car. But the C2 certainly still had a very attractive set of qualities, despite it being in its last year of production.
Hindsight really puts some of these choices in perspective. No Cadillac on the Luxury/Personal car list, despite it doing so well on the C/D’s 1965 Luxury Car Comparison? Your turn to re-write history, with the benefit of hindsight.
I love the wide-ranging choices that the Car and Driver readership indulged in 45 years ago: Renault, Alfa Romeo, Rover, MG, Triumph, Yenko. And it really drives home just how disgustingly homogenized the American car market has become: GM, Ford, Hyundai/Kia, Toyota, Honda.
Most people too young to have been there have no idea just how important the Rover 2000 was in its day. A combination of sports car handling, British saloon refinement with comfort for four (taken for granted today, unheard of back then) – unfortunately coupled to the reliability of the usual “I’m all right, Jack” British union worker, and (in America) the most pathetic dealer support imaginable. That car should have been a market buster over here. Instead it became the first public example of what was about to happen to the British car industry.
If I recall correctly, Car and Driver apologized years later for its initial glowing review of the Rover.
Even Spen King, Rover’s chief engineer, lamented that the P6 wasn’t better built. His interview with Keith Adams of AROnline suggests that the quality was a point of considerable angst for the designers.
Many of British classic movies of the ’60s and ’70s had Rovers for their police squad cars. Even then, I wondered how they ever kept them operating? I believe the Rover 2000 was Consumer Reports first model to ever have a solid column of black dots.
In 1967 I voted with my wallet by buying a 1967 Volvo 122S SW, with delivery at the factory in Goteburg. This was practicality trumping other considerations.
My heart favored the Rover 2000 TC (little did I know then the problems that would befall this otherwise “perfect” sedan). and the Lancia Fulvia Zagato (which I almost bought).
In retrospect? Probably a Porsche 911. Although I often wished I had opted for the Volvo PV544 Wagon.
Of course I’m biased ,but the new redesigned Imperial for 67?
It’s interesting to note the complete absence of Imperial, Cadillac and Lincoln from the list. Perhaps if they hadn’t lumped Luxury Sedan in with Personal Luxury?
Probably because even back then Car and Driver readers weren’t into what they saw as overly large, ill-handling, over-stuffed land barges. I have a funny feeling that if C&D hadn’t done a category entitiled “Best Full-Size Sedan” the Chevrolet, Chrysler, etc. wouldn’t have made any of the other lists, either. And when they did consider American luxury (Riviera and Toronado), it was either with relatively sporting character or mechanically different from all the other American cars.
Well, as Paul notes, C&D had driven a Cadillac in their luxury sedan comparo two years earlier and been surprisingly impressed by it, although they (inevitably) wished it had better shocks. C/D weren’t terribly thrilled with the FWD Eldorado, which they compared to the ’67 Thunderbird Landau sedan around this time. Their Eldo was a good deal slower than most other contemporary tests and didn’t stop well at all.
Or that the C&D reading proles were sticking it to The Man by not voting for his preferred cars? MB 250/300 rated above the magnificient 600? Are they even in the same category? And what is a Luxury/Personal category? Real 1% do not drive their luxury cars, and probably didn’t read C&D either. It only serves to show the mindshare MB had gained among the aspirational middle class, which later turned into huge sales of overpriced low-end models. But the fools at Cadillac were busy chasing volumes. Feh.
> I have a funny feeling that if C&D hadn’t done a category entitiled “Best Full-Size Sedan” the Chevrolet, Chrysler, etc. wouldn’t have made any of the other lists, either.
You do realize the ridiculousness of that statement, right? Of course they wouldn’t have appeared on any of the other lists because those were for different categories of cars.
Syke, I think your endless slagging of American fullsize cars is really wearing thin. We’re talking about the mid-60s here, not the 1970s when manufacturers added extra rubber isolators between the body and chassis, over-stuffed the seat cushions, and added vinyl tops to everything.
The Toronado, which you seem to approve of because it was “different”, was nose-heavy, not any better on fuel than conventional RWD cars, and had exceptionally poor braking unless the optional disc brakes were ordered.
After admitting your fondness for a particular 1990 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, one of the best examples of a living dinosaur even when it was new, your sentiments seem rather hypocritical.
> added extra rubber isolators between the body and chassis, over-stuffed the seat cushions, and added vinyl tops to everything.
Can I get all this in my next car? Pleeeeeease? And big space too, while we’re at it. 🙂
Lighten up on Syke. His (and Paul’s) are cases of Love turned sour by decades of stupidity by a well known Corporation of the past.
I would’ve picked the ’67 Imperial . . . . Crown Coupe with the Mobile Executive option. Although Imperial went back to Jefferson Avenue’s shared line with New Yorkers and Newports, they still were somewhat “special” as evident by the little details (the faux wood-grain insert on the tops of the outside door handles) and the care of which the leather upholstery was fitted and an interior fare more sumptuous than a lesser Chrysler – much better than rival Cadillac would offerl.
The 440 “take no prisoners” engine certainly helped . . . . more so if you checked off the “police special” box . . . .
I am surprised that the Yenko Stinger (a Yenko-modified Corvair) even made the list, given that it was probably produced in very small numbers. I’ve only ever seen one, and it was in a museum. Probably many respondents were doing some wishful thinking (or MMing, as Paul would say). Same goes for the Corvette and Porsche as the top two “all-around” cars.
This was another car (in America) that had an influence way beyond the number of cars sold. Even living in Johnstown, PA, 80 miles from Canonsburg (and dad knew Mr. Yenko personally), I’ve never seen a Stinger in the metal. But man, they were a dream car. A prime example of how an American could take something that was under-appreciated and turn it into something wonderful.
I’d take a ’67 Fleetwood Brougham, triple black, brocade interior, and loaded to the gills.
1) Not enough Oldsmobile in the intermediate and full size categories. I think the LeSabre/Electras were trading on snob appeal in this survey, and the 1965+ Oldsmobile standard cars would be rated higher as the 1960s closed. The relative reliability of the last Dynaflow/Turbine Drive to the Roto Hydramatic jaundicing some people?
2) Weren’t the Coronet/Satelitte twins starting to be obsolete? Being the 1962 plucked chickens in new suits and all, I would have probably rated the Ambassador/Classic higher.
3) No Lancia Fulvias in the under 300 Cube Sport Sedan class?
Nice to see the Corvair fondly thought of though. It probably would have been between a 140/4speed Monza Hardtop Sedan or a Turnpike Cruiser equipped Cutlass Supreme for me on the American side, a Lancia Fulvia if I stepped out of the US. Benzes wouldn’t be on my menu until the 280SEL 4.5s debuted.
1) Which is interesting, because C/D was very complimentary of the ’67 Olds 4-4-2. About two years later they tested an Eighty-Eight Royale with the special-order police package suspension and were very impressed with that, too.
I agree with Laurence about Oldsmobile. The division was turning out some impressive cars by 1966. That reflects the influence of the late John Beltz, who was Oldsmobile’s chief engineer at that time. He was later made division manager, and tragically died of cancer in 1972. If that hadn’t happened, he might have been head of GM. One wonders how subsequent GM history would have turned out if that had happened.
Pontiac, helped by the legendary Jim Wangers, knew how to deliver showmanship and hype. Oldsmobile advertising and marketing was pretty clunky during this time (Youngmobiles?!), but the division WAS delivering the goods. From about 1965 on, I’ll take any Oldsmobile over its Pontiac counterpart.
As for the Mopar intermediate twins – the 1962 platform was a good one, and it’s my understanding that Chrysler did make improvements to it through the late 1960s. If you read contemporary road tests, publications as diverse as Consumer Reports and Car and Driver rated the Dodge and Plymouth intermediates quite highly through the late 1960s. Their main handicaps were sloppy workmanship and some rather plain interior trim. The Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars, in particular, were quite fearsome.
John Beltz was probably GM’s only other great divisional manager of the late 60s-early 70s. (John DeLorean being the other). It should come as no surprise that after Beltz took over Oldsmobile in 1969 and after Delorean moved that same year from Pontiac to Chevrolet, Pontiac started a long slide down and Oldsmobile really took off. Beltz was much like DeLorean – engineering background, plainspoken, and interested in results instead of playing corporate games. If GM had been populated more by men like DeLorean and Beltz, it would almost certainly not have been in the shape it found itself in by the 2000s.
Although one of the things DeLorean himself noted in his book, which he said was the unfortunate fate of his former boss and friend Pete Estes, was that going from a division like Olds or Pontiac to positions of greater responsibility presented really steep challenges in terms of management skills.
According to DeLorean, Estes thrived at Pontiac because he had a good memory for names and faces and Pontiac was small enough that he could have a good grasp of who everybody was (not the line workers, but the engineers, designers, etc.) and what they were doing. Once he got to Chevrolet, the white collar population jumped by two orders of magnitude: it was like going from being president of a medium-size company to the mayor of a medium-size city. DeLorean said Estes, talented as he was, was not really prepared for that leap, and from DeLorean’s own account you could argue that the same was true of DeLorean himself.
The problem with a company as large as GM was its sheer size and general inertia. The skills that made someone successful at the divisional level didn’t necessarily translate into being able to effectively manage multiple brands and a dozen different divisions. Beltz was highly regarded at the divisional level, but ultimately it was anybody’s guess how well he would have done at the group VP or higher level.
jp – no better true statement. DeLorean’s book’s premise is his wraught-with-frustration-constant 14th floor pissing matches. GM by committee – it got worse as the sixties and seventies wore on – could be cited as one of the “causes of death” in the autopsy of the “old” GM . . . .
Notice how the Saab is listed under economy cars– mentioned in the same breath as a VW and a Renault? I wonder what made them move upscale into BMW territory?
This is definitely an enthusiasts list, no Consumer Reports readers here. What’s glaring is the total lack of Japanese makes–which were just beginning to make modest inroads in ’67. I’d be curious what a ’70 or ’71 list would look like.
In 1967 there were still a lot of areas in the U.S. that had yet to see its first Japanese car. Sure, they were on the coasts and in the big cities. But they were completely unknown yet in the parts of Western Pennsylvania that didn’t include Pittsburgh or Erie, for example. And, conversely, the MG sedan is just about ready to disappear from American consciousness (’68 stopped a lot of marginal British models).
That article is about one to two years too early to reflect the “other than Volkswagen” foreign car penetration.
And then people discovered that the first wave of Japanese cars to hit our shores weren’t ready for any locales that included winter road salt, and that most European cars couldn’t withstand the level of abuse and general neglect of maintenance that is common in America.
I grew up in southcentral Pennsylvania (Shippensburg) during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the early 1970s, our neighbor bought a used Datsun sedan for his daughter. Can’t recall the model, but it looked like a first-generation Corvair (down to the quad headlights) with a grille. There weren’t too many Japanese cars around that at time. What I remember most about that car was that, if the temperature dropped below freezing, it simply would not start.
Shippensburg is a college town, so some of the faculty at the college drove interesting cars. In our neighborhood one professor drove a Saab 96 station wagon (with taillights that looked as though they were lifted from a late 1950s Dodge!), while another drove a Citroen DS station wagon!
Even the BMW 1600 competed on price with cars like the Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Malibu in 1967. Devaluation of the dollar forced many European brands up market in the ’70s.
I’d think that by 1970 Opel would have been on the list before any Japanese car. At that time I believe they were the #2 import car brand behind Volkswagen. Then again, this is Car and Driver, who did such a masterful job of writing in their review of the Opel Kadett Station Wagon that GM banned all of their divisions from spending advertising money with any magazines in the C/D publishing family.
In 67 General Motors was on top of it’s game. Any division could have taken top honors, but for me, the 1967 Corvette Stingray is top dog. Even today, should one of these Stingrays come rumbling by, I will stop everything I am doing just to watch it go by, something I suspect every other American of any age would do, too. The greatest work of Bill MItchell and Zora Arkus-Duntov!
Although C/D did like the Opel 1900/Manta a few years later.
1967 models? A bright red 1967 Impala 2 or 4 door hardtop, black vinyl top and black interior. Powertrain didn’t matter, but I loved dad’s 1966 Impala with a 250 cu. in. six and powerglide! I am just a very stylish cruiser, after all!
Second choice? A Camaro RS, same colors, no vinyl top. Powertrain? 327, most likely with a 4 speed.
Excuse my Impala love, but I learned to drive in one and they’re in my blood.
The 1967 Beetle was the first year for the 1500cc engine (54hp) with a larger clutch disc, 12v electrics (with an uprated 360 watt generator), door locks, dual circuit brakes (still drum in the US), two-speed wipers, backup lights (one year only item), sealed-beam headlights and a passenger-side mirror.
It was also the last year for the ‘blade’ bumpers with overrider bars, so even with all the substantial upgrades, it still had the look of previous model cars.
The 1600 Volkswagen in the list refers to the Type 3 (Fastback, Squareback, Notchback).
Best Economy Sedan: Rambler American
Best Compact Sedan: Plymouth Valiant with 273-4
Best Intermediate: Dodge Coronet with 383-4
Best Full Size Sedan: Chrysler New Yorker
Sports Sedan Under 300 ci: Barracuda Formula S 273-4
Sports Sedan Over 300 ci: GTX 426 Hemi
Sports/GT under 1.6 liters: Alfa Romeo Duetto
Sports/GT between 1.6 and 3 liters: Toyota 2000GT
GTO: Lamborghini Miura P400
Best Luxury and Personal Car: Maserati Mexico
Best All Around Car: Dodge Coronet
Paul this list is clearly the result of plenty of MM. These readers were obviously not faced with the reality of needing a real car with real money to spend.
Goes to show how well-regarded the big Pontiacs were back in the day (best full-size sedan category). I liked them too, although I preferred the 1963-66 models.
In my shady used car days, I had a late 1960’s Rover TC 2000 as my driver for a couple of months. The first odd thing was it still had a hand choke, pretty archaic, even then. The interior was old school British, great leather, wood and carpets. The Smith’s instruments were perfectly laid in real wood, and not veneer, a real plank. To this day, I have not seen a better interior in any car, it was that good.
My example was an automatic and it was geared for the highway. In town, it was embarrassingly gutless but once 40 mph had been attained, the car had reasonable response. The handling was, for the day, untouched but anything else.
Too bad the Rover had such bad reliability, they really were something out of the ordinary.
I am surprised that nobody has mentioned the best sports sedan over 300 ci – the Mustang 390? This is a car that gets virtually zero respect today. The others (like the 4th place GTO) are much more highly regarded. Also interesting is in big sedans, the Pontiac came out on top (no surprise here, given Pontiac’s sporty rep at the time and the magazine’s demographic) but second place was the quiet riding Ford LTD. Despite it’s relatively poor performance in a lot of instrumented tests, the 60s LTD was an impressive car back then.
It is funny to see all of the English cars that have disappeared from American shores. English cars were once huge here, if only by reputation.
I noticed the high ranking for the Mustang, too. I wouldn’t have chosen either the Mustang with the 390 or the Barracuda with the 383. I like both cars, but they are simply much better balanced machines with the smaller V-8s.
The Oldsmobile 442 would have been my choice for the performance car that could be also used as a daily driver (it’s a more well-rounded machine), with the Plymouth GTX for a pure performance, street racer.
Is it that the Mustang 390 gets no respect, or is it that they were all street raced into retirement so long ago that people haven’t seen one in 25 years?
They weren’t considered that fast even at the time, and that big V-8 up front did no favors for the handling and braking.
Mustangs equipped with the 289 V-8s (302s starting in 1968) were much better all-around vehicles.
They and the rest of the hot-rodded pony cars were wrapped around trees and telephone poles, street-raced to death, literally…or locked away.
What’s really surprising about not only the 390 Mustang (a car that was voted ‘most disappointing new performance car’ by Motor Trend) taking honors in this class, is the complete omission of any Chevrolets: 396 Chevelle and Camaro, 427 Impala, and, most surprising of all, the 327 Chevy II Nova. All of these cars could easily have eaten a 390 Ford’s (Mustang or otherwise) lunch.
In 1967, Chevrolets were near the top of the street machine list (stock or modified) and to not have one of them placing in the top five suggests something is amiss with the voting.
Will agree – the 327 Novas were the sleeper pocket rocket of it’s day . . . . considering the under-the-skin Camaro with the 327 was relegated to a 2-bbl Powerglide/three speed/wide ratio 4 speed only.
Electra 225 convertible.
Jean Shepherd, of Christmas Story fame, did advertisments for the Rover 2000 on his radio show at WOR NY in the mid-sixties. He later went on to a do a column for C/D in the eatly 70s, where I first encounted him as a lad.
http://www.flicklives.com/index.php?pg=327
Excelsior!
Random thoughts:
1) Like others, I was struck by the number of foreign cars on the list, at a time when the U.S. market share of foreign manufacturers was fairly low. At the same time, as someone noted above, Opel is conspicuously missing, despite being probably the second-most popular import brand in the U.S. at the time.
This is obviously an enthusiast’s list, but I’m curious how it was arrived at. Did C&D give readers a list of cars to pick from in each category? Since the figures above don’t add to 100%, there were presumably more than five choices available, but how many were there? Were write-in votes allowed? (Can we safely assume that no Opels were on the list of choices?)
2) As discussed above, the absence of any Japanese brands is undoubtedly due to the fact that they were just starting to become well-known/major players on a nationwide scale.
I once saw some sales figures for Toyota in the U.S. IIRC, although Toyota began selling cars in the U.S. around 1958, they never sold more than 3,000 cars in a year before 1965. In ’65 they sold about 6,000, followed by about 20,000 in ’66, and 100,000 in ’67. (By 1970 I think they were up to about 300,000.) So while Toyota began selling cars in the U.S. in the late ’50s, their presence was tiny, and likely contained almost entirely to the West Coast, until the mid-to-late ’60s. Toyota in 1967 was in a position similar to Hyundai in 1987 or Kia in 2000.
Back in the late 1990s, I recall Toyota and Nissan making a big deal over their 40th anniversary in America. In particular, I remember a Toyota magazine ad which proudly proclaimed the Land Cruiser as the “1958 Rookie Of The Year” or something to that effect. I remember thinking that was all a bit overblown, as both manufacturers had only a tiny presence here in the late ’50s, and wouldn’t expand much beyond that until several years later. Most Americans in 1958 had never even heard of a Toyota, much less seen or bought a Land Cruiser.
3) re: the Coronet’s appearance on the list, that may also have something to do with which/how many choices were available. The 1965-70 B-bodies were also fairly popular vehicles. They never matched the raw numbers of their Ford and GM competition — aside from Mercury — but given Chrysler’s overall market size they were pretty strong sellers. Without doing the math, I’d guess that in most years in the 1965-70 span the B-body was the most popular of the three basic Plymouth/Dodge platforms, if you combined sales across both brands. (If you added Chrysler and Imperial to the equation the C-body would probably surge ahead.)
I still have the blank entry form; shall I send it in?
Very interesting. Really drives home the point that the readers preferred imports. In every category that includes both imports and domestics, almost all of the imports appear to have finished ahead of almost all of the domestics. The Jaguar that won the Intermediate Sedan category was the only import entered in the category. Cars like the Fairlane and Coronet were able to make the Top Five because imports could only take up one space. A notable exception to the above was the GT/Sports over 3000 cc category. There were only two domestic choices, and they finished 1st and 2nd.
In the Economy Sedan category (which is 100% imports), the available choices included Opel, Toyota and Datsun, but none made the Top Five. Datsun also made the GT/Sports under 1600 cc list but didn’t make the Top Five there either.
The Full-Size Sedan category (which is 100% domestic) is “pick any Big Three non-luxury brand”.
In the Sports Sedan under 300 CID category, the Tempest Sprint is the only domestic choice I see available, but the Mustang and Barracuda somehow made the Top Five. Write-in campaign by Mustang and Mopar enthusiasts?
A. VW 1500 (Beetle)
B. Dodge Dart
C. Dodge Coronet
D. Chrysler (obviously)
E. Pontiac Tempest Sprint (4-speed, please), though I also like CJinSD’s answer: Barracuda Formula S 273-4
F. Dodge Charger Hemi 426
G. no opinion (I probably wouldn’t fit in any of them!)
H. Yenko Stinger (because it has the coolest name)
I. Corvette (would have gone with DeTomaso Mangusta, Lamborghini Miura or Jensen Interceptor instead if any were listed)
J. Cadillac (surprise!)
K. Chrysler 300
If Personal Luxury had been separated from Luxury Sedan, I would have also voted for the Olds Toronado. Strangely, I don’t see the Buick Riviera anywhere on the list of selections.
Interesting to me as a Brit that your readers voted for two cars my family owned when i was growing up,maybe its a case of the other mans grass is always greener but I would have expected the Pontiac GTO,Buick Riviera(not the boat tailed horror) and Chevy Impala to have done better.Unlike some corespondents I have no memory of these British cars being unreliable though we dont cover your distances.Our Rover 2000 took us 200 miles on our small island on holiday in supreme comfort and style and it was considered a very safe car in its day-for those who wanted more performance it was available as the Rover 3500 with a V8 purchased from Buick.British cars of the 60s were pretty good even the cheaper cars like the good old Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford gave totally reliable and faithful service to so many families as did Hillmans and Fords and Vauxhall Victors and Crestas- we lost our way in the 70s when our designs just didnt cut it and people started buying junk like Datsun Sunny’s and Toyota Corollas.Rover ended up as a rebadged Honda and failed-and its corpse was devoured between the Germans and Chinese so now we have a BMW Mini and Rover’s half century of four wheel drive knowledge also belongs to BMW.I see how critical and sneering a lot of guys are on here about American cars and GM in particular (why?) but Please dont let your own car industry go the same way as ours cos once its gone its gone forever you dont know what you got till its gone… cue joni mitchell song…