(first posted 9/10/2014) There’s been a long-simmering debate here about the respective designs of the all-new downsized Chevy/GM 1977 B-Bodies and Ford’s response-imitation in 1979. It’s time to settle the question once and for all. You say design is subjective; but is it? Saying that it is more than a bit of a cop-out, because it makes it too easy to hide behind. Yes, you’re allowed to prefer Thomas Kinkade’s paintings over Claude Monet’s, but that hardly makes Kinkade’s better.
Perhaps the 1977 Chevrolet isn’t quite a Monet, but it was a largely original and well executed design, some of the last under Bill Mitchell’s direction. It has all the hallmarks of his reign: excellent proportions, and clear lines that manage quite successfully to make it look longer than it is. Undoubtedly that was a key design priority, as Mitchell was not at all happy to have to design shrunken full-size cars, but he made sure they looked good. These were his swan song and his legacy, after all.
There is a cohesive vision behind these cars, and undoubtedly a lot of development of their theme and details went on in the design studios. Given that they were the first downsized big American cars, they had better be right, as GM had literally bet the farm on them. I once read that GM’s downsizing program from 1977-1980 was the greatest industrial investment program in the US since WW2.
One of the best things about them is that they were not designed with big padded vinyl roofs in mind; in fact, they look decidedly better without them. Mitchell was not a Broughamista. Let’s just say that in 1977, my feelings about vinyl roofs were the same as about white shoes, red pants and white belts. Hence my feelings about the Ford when it arrived: old man’s car.
The downsized 1979 Fords were clearly imitations of the GM formula, and as such, they lacked any real inspiration or vision. It’s as if they started with a Chevy and figured out ways to make it look more like a Ford somehow. The Panthers rode on a shorter wheelbase (114″ vs 116″), and it appears those precious two inches were lost by moving the front wheels a bit further back. It’s a bit subtle, but the Chevy has (or certainly conveys) a longer and more elegant nose in profile, with the front wheels further forward, in the classic RWD configuration. The Panther looks like it could have been FWD.
And Ford’s decision to use little 14″ wheels and tires only accentuate its lack of more refined and pleasing proportions. And the particularly tinny and cheap Pep Boys fake wire wheel covers only add insult to that injury. The Chevy’s big 15″ wheels nicely fill its openings; the Ford looks like it’s waiting for a flood (or donks).
The Ford’s B-Pillar is unfortunate too, in that it was clearly designed to work with the tacky opera/coach lamps and a half-vinyl “Landau” roof, even if that didn’t come along the first year. The result is that the steel-top version looks decidedly chunky and, broken up into more boxes. Which the Ford is anyway; decidedly more boxy all the way around.
Let’s jump to the coupe versions. The Panther is actually a Mercury Marquis, but except for a few minor details, it’s the same as the LTD. The difference here is even more stark. Ford was clearly still in deep Brougham consciousness, while Chevrolet was trying to bring a bit of the sportier flair that harked back to the sixties and the golden era of the Impala. The difference is huge.
Let’s take a closer look at the front fenders, wheel wells and wheels. The windshields are in the same respective place, but look how much more dynamic the Chevy front end appears, with its large round wheel opening and decent sized wheels. Even the fake wire wheel covers are much better, for what that’s worth. The Panther’s missing inches in wheelbase are clearly noticeable here; it carries much more of its boxy snout in front of its little wheels. Which conveys the exact opposite of “dynamic”. According to the thesaurus, that would be words like impotent, weak, unexciting, and dull.
The Chevy’s front end design was pretty classic GM of the era, one that of course started with the seminal “sheer-look” 1975 Seville. But it is relatively clean, and does a good job of evoking the Cadillac, Chevy’s perpetual styling big-brother.
The Ford still reflects Lee Iacocca’s endless obsession with the Mercedes grille. And this one is not a particularly good version at that. Whatever; if you like that sort of thing, you probably never got tired of it. I did, right from the get-go.
Lesser LTDs didn’t merit a genuine Mercedes knock-off grille, and had to settle for this rather modest single-headlights version. That was obviously not a good idea, as it went away pretty soon. It just reeks of “fleet car”; or cop car, as the case may be.
But then that’s what these Fords have always come across to me as: the ultimate fleet car. A rather poor knock-off of a handsome automobile, relegated to either fleet use, or dolled up with lots of tacky Brougham heavy make-up in an effort to disguise its intrinsically poorer “bones”. I could go on and on (as I did in my head last night in bed), there’s so many details that make the difference between them rather substantial. But now it’s your turn; which one is the better design?
GM got the upper hand with the ’77 cars, and many of the details of the ’79 Ford were disappointing. In addition to your points about the exterior styling, the inside had goofy door lock placements that required power locks to make sense of, the flipping horn was on the end of the turn signal stalk, and the base car details were just not very nice. Add that Ford’s power trains for ’79 were clearly behind the ’79 GM offerings, and you had a product launch that nearly died when OPEC II struck a short time later.
Ford eventually got the upper hand through inertia and incremental improvements. GM doubled down on brougham with the 1980 update, and final box Caprice Brougham LS models were pretty tacky. The rest of the GM B and C lines went astray in their own ways, and a great start finished with a whimper for the basic ’77 concept.
That broughamy MGM coupe could be as late as the ’87 final year for the coupe. It features the cleaned up style details that I think came in ’83, and I’m almost certain 15 inch wheels had become standard. I had an ’87 MGM LS sedan and 14 inch just doesn’t sound right.
By ’87 the Chevy was the car going through confusing evolutionary details.
Yup the 15″ wheels quickly became an option and then standard.
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I’m a GM loyalist, but at the risk of being a heretic, I must say that I like both body styles. Both Ford and GM did a good job designing those cars and I wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen driving either one of them.
On the other side, Ford was more lucky than Chrysler who also launched a downsized full-size Newport/New Yorker and Dodge St.Regis that year but Plymouth only got their R-body version for 1980.
As a Ford guy I have to say that the Chevy is a nicer looking car.
To compliment your art analogy, I think of the Chevy as a Queen Anne table with cabriole legs; just enough curve to give it lift and grace. The Ford as a shaker table with it’s stodgy, straight lines appealing to the don’tcarewhatitlookslikeaslongasitgtsthejobdone crowd.
I’m not enough of a furniture nerd to fully grok your analogy, but I agree that the incorporation of curves into the Chevy design is what makes it work better.
The LTD looks like three tissue boxes glued together. The Chevy has a slight arch to it that extends from the tip to the tail and ties the three boxes together. That slight arch also gives the impression of a crouching animal, ready to pounce. The poor Ford lacks any element to give it that sort of dynamism.
In something I read recently about the ’75 Seville, probably here, a designer made the point that the car isn’t as rectilinear as it first appears to be, which is part of what made the sheer look work when it did. GM went to the sheer look well too many times, but in my book, GM design knocked it out of the park with the ’77 Impala and Caprice, the ’75 Seville and the ’86 H-Body Buicks.
Ford eventually figured it out, though. A lot of people hated the the grill-less ’92 Crown Vic (if I recall correctly sales fell until the grill was restored), but with that redesign, Ford finally gave the car a curving shoulder line to tie the three boxes together. I thought that version worked quite well.
This is a Queen Anne. The curved legs give it “lift,” making it appear lighter or more elegant that a similarly sized, straight-legged, no frills, shaker table. The Alfa Romeo Spider uses the same simple design feature, although to a greater effect.
+1 It’s entasis- the Greeks used it on temples like the Parthenon. The subtle curves give tension to the design. There is hardly a straight line on the Chev.
I like the Ford products more than I did when they were new, but the details just aren’t finessed enough. Look at the way the padded roof/B pillar on the Marquis coupe appears too heavy and is pushing the little front doors forward. This was seen to even worse effect on the upcoming shrunken TBird/Cougar. The whole outlining of the doors and window frames makes the car look upright and choppy, but why do the rear quarter window frames in plain black rubber when you’ve ladled on the chrome everywhere else? And the LTD exterior mirrors are freakishly far back on the doors, what’s with that?
Finally, look at the front end profiles and check the cutline for the Caprice’s front clip and the way it follows the contour of the side marker light, then compare it to the Marquis’ awkward front end. Like I said it’s all in the details.
I think the door mirror placement has something to do with the front side quarter windows on some of the LTDs. The wine red Crown Victoria in the fifth picture from the top has a quarter window on the front doors. The mirror was probably placed far back on the door so it is not obstructed by the frame between the quarter window and the main window on cars with quarter windows.
Better styling? I’ll give the Chevy the edge, altho a mighty small edge. The Chevy comes across as somewhat effeminate, whereas the Panther is all mean and down to business. But really Paul, FWD proportions? Really? And those B pillars look almost EXACTLY the same between the two! I think you’re just hunting for reasons to hate on Box Panthers. I will concede that the early Panthers suffered from tiny wheel syndrome, I put 16″ wheels on my ’91 GMQ and that helped immensely in that regard. As for toughness, Turbo 200 vs. AOD? Soft cam 305’s vs. the rock dependable 302? Hell, I’ll take a VV carb over GM’s fuel-injection-of-the-month BS. And I won’t even mention OptiSpark… Please…
But the B pillars aren’t the same Roger, look at the 4 door profiles. The Caprice’s central pillar tapers ever so slightly as it nears the roof, the LTD’s doesn’t, it manages to actually look awkwardly wider near the roof. And to accentuate their faux pas Ford deisgners highlight it in chrome! As I said, it’s the small details.
A very observant comment.
It’s as if the Ford designers never studied classical/Greek architecture. True straight lines can be the kiss of death.
I agree with that. The side view of the early LTDs gave me the impression of a Greek Key pattern. The sunken-in windows made the roof pillars look more like columns, adding a Parthenon feel and 3-D effect to what should have been window panes. It’s like Ford planned these in response to the Colonnades not the ’77s. They copied the Greeks without learning from them, to your point.
I have a 1982 Grand Marquis sales brochure, with a photo of the trunk showing a lid that does not line up with the opening. So it’s not fair to accuse Ford of using only straight lines.
“Ever so slightly” is what I thought, too, until I enlarged the images on the computer monitor and measured with a ruler. I could not reliably come up with any taper on the Chevrolet. I don’t have an actual car here in the room with me; maybe somebody has access to one and can take a tape measure out to it?
The Ford B-pillar does appear to have been INTENTIONALLY made to look wide, perhaps to give it an appearance of “substance” which the entire car has, as opposed to the Chevrolet’s look of “lightness.”
Mom had a 1982 Oldsmobile Delta 88 and I recall that the B-pillar tapered towards the top. It’s even more apparent when the doors are open.
Yeah Paul’s hate for Ford cars really shines through in the piece and he didn’t let facts get in the way of making his points. One of the worst is that he lies about the wheel base, shorting the Panther by .3″ and to further his point he leaves out the fact that it is also 3.1″ shorter than the B. Despite the fact that the Panther is shorter its better packaging gives it more room in the trunk and back seat. Fact is that they have the same percentage of overhang, within .002% which is what Paul has previously stated was one of the big problems with the Panther. Ford was able to center the wheels in the body where GM was forced to move the front wheels forward to keep using the same oil pans and put the majority of the overhang in the rear in an attempt to gain back some trunk room. Overall it gives it the look that it was left to melt in the sun and it has slumped back.
You calling me a Ford hater? 🙂 I bought the first good-looking Ford built in several decades, the 1983 T-Bird Turbo Coupe. They just needed to get their sinking design ship turned around. And it worked, didn’t it? It’s not like the Panther saved Ford; it sold poorly for many years.
If Paul was really a Ford hater, his work truck would be a ’66 Dodge D-100 🙂
I’ll agree that the Chevy is a bit delicate in its’ detailing where the Ford’s more blunt. IMO the Ford looks better in police black-and-white, the Chevy makes a more elegant personal conveyance with less need to throw the entire options list at it.
Wagons aren’t gotten into here, but I’d say the Ford looks better with wood and the Chevy takes the edge without it.
I gotta get Pauls back here. He gets flack for GM hate, now its box panther hate. Whats wrong with liking what you like and hating what you hate, let the chips fall where they may? Opinions are like @$$holes…we all got em, they all stink. The second someone has an opposing opinion, all of a sudden theyre a ‘hater’. Show me one truly unbiased, 100% objective human being, and I have a whole Brinks truck full of $3 bills….
I’d argue the point on the B being the same. On the Frod it looks like they coppied the Colonnades, with out the radiused corners.
It’s like they wanted to tell the Feds “since we can’t make hardtops any more,
this ugly B pillar is all your fault”
But boy, the 1980 B-body update ruined it in all kinds of ways, proving that the line between brilliant and banal can be very fine, indeed. In my personal opinion the 1977-1979 LeSabre wore the B-B body best, with the raked-back headlight pods and protruding grille looking more interesting than the flat fronts of the other makes. As much as I like that Caprice coupe wrap-around rear window, the LeSabre coupe roof is really sharp and sporty.
I think the full-sized Cadillac got better looking with the changes for 1980 but agree with you on the rest of the B and C bodies. The original LeSabre roofline was sporty and unique and I hated the more formal one that replaced it.
As for Chevy versus Ford I thought the Ford cars looked like a child’s sketch of a boxy sedan. The sunken-in side windows always had me wondering… were they like that because that was as flush as Ford could get them or did the designers think that was a good look?
Yes as usual the Buick is the best of the bunch. The flat fronts are just way to generic. The bent window Chevy coupe roofline isn’t bad looking but I agree that overall the Buick pulls of sporty looking much better by far which of course is surprising since Buick wasn’t known for being sporty.
The front clip is definitely better thought out, with the recessed headlights…but ugh that damn bumper! You have enough runway to get a 747 off the ground! Personally, Im not nearly as smitten with the quarter window and C pillar. This is still a bit formal for my tastes….the Caprice looks like it SHOULD be a pilarless hardtop for all intent and purposes. I guess if I were in charge, Id ape this front end treatment on the Caprice coupe body, and bribe some unscrupulous fed into looking the other way when I did a thin blade bumper up front…
While the ‘77-‘79 full-size GM cars are very similar to the ‘80-up models, it always perplexed me how the latter was considered an “update”. In my mind an update is a new front clip, maybe even a bit of tail end redesign as seen on the later-‘80s Panthers. However, the ‘80-up B-bodies were, while “similar”, completely new designs including the roofs. I’ve never looked closely, but I’ll assume the doors were redefined, too. I assume they all sat on the same chassis when “updated”, but the lines weren’t the same. At all. As others have noted, the “update” was inferior to the ‘77-‘79 design, IMO.
I must confess, I do like the first B-bodie of ‘77 better than the Ford. After 1980? It’s a real toss-up. I’d go with the Ford until the Caprice was fitted with the composite headlights in 1987; I really liked those last few years before the “bubble Chevy” came out. And….I couldn’t stand the “bubble Chevy” mainly due to unfortunate rear quarters and the hubcaps. After a few years, the designers came to their senses and opened up that rear wheel-well and introduced a new hubcap; that changed my opinion of that design 180 degrees. Looked good.
At least for the Cadillac CDV, the doors were different after 1979. (In fact, I think all sheetmetal except hood, fenders, and cowl area changed.) I recall windshield and door glass was the same, quarter and rear was not. (Though probably shared with other GM cars.)
That made finding parts after someone knocked me off the road a serious chore.
The 1977 GM restyle was the last time GM looked brilliant, in it’s re-invention of the B/C cars.
The downsized Fords were not only 2 years late o the party, they always looked “generic car” to me. Those 14″ wheels made it look a bit like it’s feet barely touch the ground.
No question. I’ve always been more of a Ford fan, but the GM design is much more subtle and graceful. The slight lowering of the side windows relative to the hood & trunk lines, together with the slight bow in the belt line, give it a unified look that is both taut and dynamic.
The Ford has a heavy, static, pieced-together-box look by comparison. The square wheel cut-outs and pronounced B-pillar just make it worse. And small wheels on cars this size always look like a victory of the accountants over the designers. Then there are the details.
It’s interesting to see the cars together like this. I generally don’t think too highly of North American car styling after the 1960’s (with a few exceptions of course). But the Chevy shows some real elegance in its overall proportions and shaping.
It would be interesting to speculate on ‘how big is too big’ in car design. I’d say that for some reason really large cars are inherently unattractive – maybe it has something to do with human scale and what cars represent to the human psyche. Mid-70’s cars probably crossed that line. This one made it back just under the wire, although it took a lot of skill to make it work.
The Ford looks like some management shiny-bum sketched out something generically-Fordish on the back of an envelope and said “There’s your new car.” and unfortunately had the clout to totally override styling and get it into production. Absolutely no finesse.
I couldn’t believe it when these came out. Although I was raised as a Ford kid, I was shocked at how generically-rectilinear these were. And heavy-looking. And that B-pillar, what an amateurish mistake, with those sunken-in windows and all that excessive chrome exacerbating the flaw. Seeing the two side-by-side in this article just shows how subtly-professional the Chevy was.
If Ford came with 14 inch wheels in 1979, they were 15s by the time the car in the top comparison picture was made. Which just goes to highlight how grossly oversized the Ford’s wheel openings were.
I will be in the minority here, but I never much liked the 77 Chevy. It was pure, boring vanilla without an interesting line on it. The 2 door was attractive, though.
The Ford would win, but for some really bad goofs. First, the 114 inch wheelbase. Why so short? A little extra length would have helped. A lot. Second, those monster wheel openings needed to be smaller. Finally, that greenhouse was just too busy. I can see how folks would like the Chevy better, but its only because Ford flubbed so many small styling details.
Oh yes – that Ford wire wheelcover design borders on criminal. This was the worst looking fake wire wheelcover EVER.
Sniff…..but, I kinda liked mine. Admittedly, I’d have rather had the turbine wheels.
Sorry, Dave. 🙁 My problem was that the spoke design just looked nothing like any wire wheel I have ever seen. I think Ford brought this basic design out on big Lincolns around 78 or so (before the downsize) and I found them terrible. But they became perennials. My 85 CV had them too.
I think that the contemporary Chrysler 5th Avenues had the most convincing fake wires.
Those 5th Avenue wheel covers, at least on the M-body versions, had a nice, chunky look to them, not unlike the real (Kelsey-Hayes?) ones on the ’55-6 Mopars.
Those Ford “wire” wheel covers were actually a hybrid of wire and flat cap and not very attractive. GM put much nicer fake wire covers on its B- and C-body sedans from this era.
… +1, AND they put them on LINCOLNS too (?!!), just swapping out the center emblem. Heinous. The only appropriate wheels for the Lincolns during this era were the alloy dish and the turbines.
I’m with you on the Chevy. I think it ‘wins’ but based mostly on the math, not its design. I see it as the homeliest of the downsized B and C bodies; a better proportioning of vanilla than the Ford.
Yup the Chevy just looks like a generic car, a melted one at that, while at least Ford tried to put some detailing and interesting lines in it. Of course Paul picks on the 14″ wheels that didn’t last that long as 15″ wheels quickly became an option and then standard. I do agree that the wire wheel covers are some of the worst and do scream parts store cheapies. Now the Turbines on the other hand were classy and modern looking while GM kept the same basic designs from the 60’s.
I had a problem with the 1977 GM B-body in that its down-at-the-ends shape LOOKED like it had been shrunken. The first downsize of the A-body looked even more so…to my eyes at the time, it even looked a bit frumpy.
When the Panther appeared, I thought it hid its downsizing better. It looked like it was MEANT to be that size.
All that paled next to the later inverted-bathtub Caprice. I must admit, when Hertz (at the time featuring Fords) offered me an inverted-bathtub as an upgrade from a midsize, I refused it. “Too ugly.” The agent substituted a Buick Park Avenue instead.
I agree that the droopy ends are what makes the B look like it was left in the drier or out in the sun too long giving it that shrunken or melted look depending on how you look at it. The Ford on the other hand looks like it wasn’t ashamed to say I’m a full-size car.
See c5karl’s post above, it’s that “arch” that gives the Caprice the dynamic edge which is the LTD lacks. It just sits there like a brick on its little wheels. As he says, it wasn’t till the 90s that Ford really aped the B bodies proportions and got it right:
Like most Ford passenger cars in those days, (Wixom-built Lincolns being the exception), the early Panthers had a reputation for horrible quality, while the B-bodies were by late ’70s Detroit standards pretty well-made.
Some friends of our family had a ’79 LTD Landau (the one with the Mercedes grille) that was a constant source of transmission and HVAC trouble from day one.
No question here, the ’77 B-bodies win the design war hand downs. They just look so clean and graceful compared to the ungainly box Panthers with their fussy grilles and baroque chamfered hoods.
What amazed me was how quickly GM fumbled for the turnover with the redesigned B’s of ’91. Whereas an argument can be made that the post-1992 aero-Panthers are aesthetically pleasing cars, the redesigned B’s look bloated and ungainly, ironically suffering from the same ill proportions that plagued the initial Panthers, albeit in a modern idiom.
In ’79, Ford bragged that their wb was ‘smaller’ then Chevy at the time, to show how ‘fuel efficient’ they were. Also that ‘we didn’t have to spend as much’, since they just copied!
Anyway, when the Panthers got the FI 302, then they became better and then lasted longer on the market.
The car was also shorter overall too, so the shorter wheelbase would be expected. Despite the shorter wheelbase and overall length the Ford had similar or more interior room in every dimension except head room where the sitting on the floor seats of the Chevy gave it an advantage.
When the Ford LTD was downsized in 1979, the coupe and the sedan measuring in at 209″ long were only almost a foot longer than the 1975-80 Ford Granada at almost 198″ long. The Gran Torino based LTD II was even larger as the coupe was at 215″ long while the sedan (for an intermediate) at 219″ which in all its intents and purposes was already in the full size category and that’s 10″ longer than the Panther platform based 1979 LTD
The odd thing is for the previous two model years, Ford was bragging about ‘how big’ the LTD still was. “We still make whoppers!”. The sudden about face was fake, but then Gas Crisis II came about just in time.
Well, you know where I stand, with the B-body of course.
Whats interesting is that picture of the 2 tone silver Caprice at the top of the article must be some sort of prototype disco-era photoshop, this vintage B-body never had the seatbelts going into the roof like the 1971-76 big cars did with their shoulder belts, their belts were B-pillar mounted, was that a brochure shot Paul? I’m curious as to where you found it.
The car also has no exterior mirrors, odd.
I think the silver Caprice photo is reversed; look at the c pillar emblem with it’s reversed capitol “c”s. This might explain the missing mirror. I can’t speak to the seat belt issue, though.
I don’t think those wheelcovers made it to production either. The red version looks to have slightly different ones.
Anyone who knows me from posting here will think I am terribly biased and perhaps I am. I have spent an enormous amount of wheel time in both cars and the Chevrolet wins hands down. The Ford just didn’t drive as well. All B Bodies, especially the early ones, went down the road very well for the day. The Fords, on the other hand, felt disconnected from the road, too much body motion, not enough damping and no steering feel. The cars were not as reliable as the B Bodies, either, and the AOD was simply horrid.The proof is in the sales figures, the B Bodies massively outsold the Ford.
I am well known as a Ford over Chevy kind of guy, but I agree. The B body felt solid, better in fact than the one it replaced. The Ford, OTOH, felt thin, cheap and not all that tight. I experienced this firsthand when my father went from his 78 Lincoln to his 80, during a time when I drove quite a few GM B bodies as well. Even into recent years, I have had plenty of wheel time in both.
The only thing the Fords did better was that they felt more nimble, while the GM cars felt heavy. Problem was, that unless the Ford came with some really good tires, shocks and roll bars, that nimble feeling was not really supported by objective measurements. The early aero Panther was a gigantic leap forward in roadability, perhaps because the standard models got those wheel, tire and suspension upgrades. Plus a decent shifting transmission.
Funny but the professional reviews of the time usually give the nod to the Ford for better driving characteristics on an actual road even if they couldn’t beat them on the track, when comparing base suspension to base suspension. Here is just one http://books.google.com/books?id=kY7Uj6pCZ0oC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=1979+ford+ltd+vs+chevy+caprice&source=bl&ots=eA7X14pzSz&sig=kuTz2gdXMe8wtjKgzU4Ds-oadVo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iqIQVOqHJca0yATOzYDACA&ved=0CE0Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=1979%20ford%20ltd%20vs%20chevy%20caprice&f=false of course for what ever reason GM dealers were quick to check the F-41 box, if nothing else to pad their profits.
The F-41 suspension was an incredibly cheap optioo…less than $100 if I recall, hardly something a dealer would check to “pad their profits”….At the time the F-41 just made the B-body even better than the Panther.
Those cheap options are the kind of thing that the dealer adds to make a few extra bucks. Cheap enough that the buyer won’t balk at the price but stills adds to the bottom line. If you do it on all/most of your cars it adds up over the year.
Fords always seemed to have the worst ride/handling combo, not to mention the inferior transmissions and engines.
The ’77 Caprice design was so much better than the Ford, it’s just astounding that the Ford sold as well as it did.
Hmmm.
I think the Chevrolet and the Ford are the worst two to pick for this comparison, but I agree (I think) with JPC that the Chevrolet gets the edge because of its wheelbase, not because of its styling. As I noted in the ’85 CV post yesterday, GM had throughout the 70s more sculpted, curvy cars than Ford. Compare the ’73 98 and Electra to the ’73 Grand Marquis. Sweepspears, fins, and curves vs. billet of steel with windows and wheels. Generally, the downsized B and C bodies continued on that theme, but the Chevrolet seems to me to do so the least, though I suppose it was also the boxiest of the ’71-’76 GMs. The Ford in many ways was just moving the ’78 to a smaller package.
The real place the differences show up is in comparing any of the mid-range GM models with the Marquis. The Pontiac, Olds 88 and 98, Le Sabre, and Electra all have more distinction and character. Add that to the better proportions over the wheelbase and you have hands-down winners. (Not to mention brand-made engines in several sizes).
The downsized Cadillac also would be the clear winner vs. the ’80 Lincoln Continental, but the ’77-’79 versions of both don’t really beg a head to head comparison, essentially being the past and the future co-existing for a time.
Finally, I would say that while the basic GM design retains some advantage due to the longer wheelbase even after ’80, it is not as strong as those cars moved closer to the Ford in looks at that time, and lost some of the distinction between brands of the first run (not to mention everything but the Cadillac mostly moving to the 307 or 305 by ’81).
As a Ford fan, I have to agree with this assessment regarding the downsized GM cars versus their Ford counterparts. GM scored a home run with these cars. These cars were were a big risk, but GM did everything it could to make them a success. And it worked.
Ford’s efforts appeared two years later, and they looked as though Ford was being dragged reluctantly to the downsizing party. Which, given what we now know regarding the tastes of both Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca, combined with the extreme fiscal conservatism of head finance man Ed Lundy, probably isn’t far from the truth.
At the time, I remember thinking that this car was Ford’s interpretation of the 1977 Oldsmobile Delta 88, down to the sloping edges of the rear quarter panels, the shape of the C pillar and the entire front-end treatment.
GM’s second round of downsizing with its 1978 intermediates didn’t come off quite as well as it did with the full-size cars. Fortunately for GM, Ford REALLY dropped the ball in 1980 with the downsized Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar XR-7, which made the 1979 LTD and Mercury Marquis look like a stroke of genius.
I agree. Bill Mitchell was a master of design.
I was GM fan until mid 80’s, and Ford after.
But the 77 B/C bodies are one of GM’s greatest hits. I had a ’78 Impala as a beater in ’88 and was still solid.
It’s a shame they gave the new B coupe roofline assignment to Stevie Wonder though.
I have owned both, and hands down I prefer the Chevrolet styling. I also like the 1980 restyle although with minimal trim and no vinyl tops. The 1986-90 sedans are very cleanly styled without the excessive trim The 1977-79 Coupes were much nicer than the 1980 though. Of the 1979-91 Panther’s I always thought eh 1988-91 Grand Marquis were the cleanest styled of the bunch.
As for ownership, I always felt the GM B-bodies were a far nicer car to drive, better overall suspension and steering feel, and in the early years better drivetrains (other than the TH200). Ford did do a much better job at updating the Panther vs GM with the B-body.The 302 MPFI was a big improvement that I think edged out GM’s engines until they introduced the TBI engines in 1989. Ford seats seemed a bit better too for comfort over GM’s seats that seemed to have no upgrades from 1977-90.
I tried to keep ownership out of my analysis since it was a design question. Having owned a box Panther Ford (4 years), C-Body Cadillac (6 years), and C-Body Buick (2 years), I’ve always felt the GM’s downsized cars handled better and were more fun to drive…with the exception of anything under 307 power which may well have handled better but couldn’t get up a hill over 45 mph.
The Ford cars felt better to be a passenger in; they rode softer, quieter, and had more comfortable and well finished interiors with the exception of the big Cadillac which is still the best-riding and best appointed post ’77 American* car I’ve ever been in.
However, it’s my understanding that was true of the two companies’ products even before the downsizing. GMs handled better (relatively, of course), Fords rode more softly. The engines were pretty competitive once both brands were downsized, the 302, 305, and 307 were all equally mediocre.
In my mind, the real black mark against the downsized Ford was that AOD, I don’t know anyone who has had a good experience with one, whereas my GM transmissions have been much more solid. Not to be left behind, though, GM soon “caught up” with the THM200.
I agree with you on the 307 comment. Even though only a 10 hp deficit over a 305 4bbl or a 302 MPFI, it felt about 25 hp weaker. I also agree the Ford’s had a softer ride. The TH200 came out before the AOD though. I know the TH700-R4 and TH2004R had bad reputations too but they were far better than the TH200. I never had a transmission fail from either Ford or GM though, but I tend to be easy on them and I am very particular about maintenance.
I owned an impala wagon (77) and a later (85 and 86) box Ford. Actually two lincoln town cars. Either lincoln would win economy or comfort. But if you wanted something tough as a box of nails the 77 Impala with the 350/350 drive train is what that looks like. According to the compression readings it was a V5 and it just kept on chugging. I towed with it. Put air shocks on the back and nothing scared it.
Fashion. What do I know? For me either one is an easy sell.
I’ve only ever ridden in late model Panthers a couple of times. They always felt more cramped on the interior than the B-bodies. Handling didn’t make any impression on me one way or another. I would give Ford the nod for engines, at least from the injected 5.0 on (except of course for the LT1).
I prefer the Caprice sedan styling of ’80 on, especially with the ’86 facelift. I also like the 84-85 LeSabre sedan. For all the other B’s, I prefer the 77-79. Interiors are best in the 84 and later models (digital radio, multifunction stalk, etc).
If I were to pick a ’77-79, I’d probably go with a Lesabre T-Type or Limited coupe, turbo 3.8 or 350/350.
I prefer Fords generally, but I think the Chevrolet wins this bout on points. Not only was it a genuinely attractive design, it successfully shattered the “bigger is better” syndrome for good. Having said that, I’d put my money on the Ford. Why? My family had good experiences with box Panthers, and I just like their bluff styling. Not all cars can carry off that relentlessly square-shouldered look, but I think the Ford/Mercury does.
As a Ford guy I too have to say I like the Chevy much better. When these came out I thought they were the best looking new cars of the ’70’s. When the ’78 Malibu came out I decided that it was my favorite, especially in coupe form. My neighbor had one of those ’79 LTDs and i always thought it looked a little odd. Now , with the discussion of small wheels versus large wheel wells I finally get it. I always thought that they looked top heavy. Of course, when the bathtub Caprice came along things were reversed.
Chevy went from one of the best designs ever to one of the worse. How that thing got through all the committees has always been a mystery to me. Maybe it was the same bunch that OKed the Aztec.
I have always MUCH preferred the style of the Ford over the Chevy for no particular reason that I can recall to the point that I have considered buying the Ford but not even considered looking at the Chevy. I do not have much seat time in either design. Over the last few years reading CC, I am ever so slowly starting to slide over to the Chevy side. Not there yet, but starting to think about how to straddle the fence. Nowadays I’m starting to see the Chevy as a cleaner, less fussy design which may be logical given that it appeared first.
Jim – I agree with this one. Paul’s convinced me towards the Chevy after decades of feeling the Ford was a solid double.
Of the Panthers though, I like the original blocky style. Even the cheap two headlight version….
The Chevy looks better. Way better than the Ford.
I don’t know why we’re even discussing this, it’s self evident.
On the other hand, the two look quite similar from afar and especially to the eyes of people who are not particularly interested in cars or who don’t know much about American cars of that era. To most Europeans (such as myself), all 1970s and 1980s full-sizers (GM, Ford or Mopar) are quintessential examples of what a typical American car looks like.
Somebody wrote that the Chevy looks somewhat effeminate – I respectfully disagree. It’s true that in this article, many pictures are taken from brochures and show two-tone paintjobs and perhaps this has some effect in this direction.
But the Ford is not more manly, it is merely more clumsy looking.
Slap some dark single-tone paint on the Chevy and it sure doesn’t look girly. In flat black, it looks downright menacing (but then again, most cars do in flat black)
I agree. A lot of the styling cues Paul discusses are accentuated by the two-tone paint on the Chevy. Paint both cars in the same solid color and the differences soften or disappear.
For whatever reason, I equate full sizers with patrol cars. As such, I can only compare these cars in police livery.
To my eyes, the Caprice is just a tad more intimidating. Win for Caprice!
Though that 79 or so Caprice in police livery is a fake, until 1986, all police Chevrolet B’s were Impalas, which were a little plainer and more “cop-like”.
Clear win for Chevrolet – for the period and origin, that’s a great looking car, even now, especailly in side profile.
I will go against the trend and say that my favorite b bodies are the 80 up coupes.
The 77-79 GM cars were way better. No comparison. Even the cheapened versions of GM’s full-sized cars from 1980 on were better.
I think the first generation Panthers were nice looking cars, but I think it is clear they took a lot of inspiration from the new-for-’77 GM B’s. The styling of the GM B’s is cleaner and it was a very original look when they debuted, the Ford was busier and was something of a knock-off though a successful one. I remember in ’77 and ’78 a Caprice/Impala with the 350 Small Block/Turbo 350 drivetrain and the F44 suspension package was a highly regarded automobile. The Chevy B’s always handled better than the Ford Panthers and usually performed better as well, particularly when the Fords were equipped with the Motorcraft VV carburetor.
It just now occurs to me how much 1975 Granada there was in the 79 LTD.
Yup there is a ton in the 2dr with the 2 light front end, but then again why not the the Granada was a huge success when it came out which would have been around the time the Panther went to the drawing board.
A little Fairmont in the 2 headlight front end too, at least to me.
I see more of the Fairmont in the early (’79-’81) Panthers than the ’75-’80 Granada. The Granada looks more from the styling school from the ’73-’78 Full-Size cars than the influence it had on the early box Panthers.
This is easy and not easy at the same time.
The GMs were better cars, especially the 1977 Impala bent-window coupe – I really wanted one back then.
I felt the Fords were nicely-chiseled, and the fact that on the sedans, the back glass (here I go again) rolled down more than half-way, AND you could get the optional front vent windows! A win-win in my book.
Alas, we made do with K-Cars – they were just a 5/8 scale Ford – and other used Mopars and an AMC during those years.
I never complained.
Based on these two pictures, the Chev’s more rounded wheel arches are just more pleasing, the cleaner design of B & C post also helped.
Keep in mind that the various GM B-bodies used different wheel arch shapes (at least from 1980 onward). The Chevy’s here is rounded while the Buick’s was more flattened. There were lots of styling differences across the GM divisions in 1977-79 but for the most part, the four-door sedans and wagons all shared the same greenhouse.
I’m not crazy about either one, especially as 4-door sedans. They both have fairly plain boxy styling compared to what they replaced, though I’d give the edge to the Chevy. As for the 2-doors, the Chevy wins easily.
My vote’s for the B-bodies. You’ve pretty much summed-up how I feel about the Panters’ styling.
As I’ve probably made clear before, I do like the Chrysler R-bodies a lot though.
Bless you, Brendan! 🙂 Actually I think the R body was the most attractively proportioned of the 3. Really a nice “average” between the Chevy’s clean but dull lines and the Ford’s angularity.
Wow, I always thought the R bodies had really awkward proportions. Horse races!
I wondered how far down the comments section we’d have to go before someone mentioned an R body!
In terms of styling, I’d actually rate them with or slightly below the GM B bodies, far more attractive to me than the contemporary Panthers. The greenhouse on these cars is the best part of them, nice and light. Compared to the standard 4 door R-body, the standard 4 door Panther looks like a kid’s interpretation of a GM Colonnade sedan.
The R-bodies had a ‘universal’ look to them, you could dress one way down, it looked fine. Dressed way up, they looked every bit the Brougham-era pimptasticness you could ever imagine. These are the ones that look better than the contemporary B bodies.
Realistically, the cars seemed to exhibit a lot of issues, at least according to some folks I knew who owned them back then. A shame more didn’t survive, but I understand why…
Wow, I love the way the Chevy’s wheel openings sweep back behind the wheels instead of curving straight back down. I never really thought about it before, and I was 13 when they came out.
I prefer the Chevy and it could be a Kiwi thing coz I see several B body cars hereabouts but only one Panther and its a later Lincoln stretch not a box.
With the GM downsized cars of 1977, hints of the prior year larger models could be seen in most of the cars. The ’77 Impala had hints of the ’76 model though the only thing the cars had in common was the name Impala. There were no hints of the ’78 LTD with the downsized ’79 models. Ditto for the downsized Chryslers.
Going to disagree there to an extent. They had the same crosshatch grill, the same peaked fenders, and the same stacked three taillights and slanted tail. The roofline is somewhat similar. The mirrors are the same, as are some of the interior parts. The face on the ’78 LTD is a bit more Lincoln-esque, however. But I think Fords still looked like Fords.
Even more than the Fords, there were commonalities between the larger and smaller Grand Marquis; the ’79-’87 model still looked a lot like a shrunken ’73-’79. And of course the ’80 Continental resembled a screwed-up shrinking of the ’79. Ironically the downsized Ford that most resembled its bigger predecessor was the Mark VI coupe mini-me, but its substance was lost in the diet, like a person who takes a weight loss too far, losing the gut but also the shape that made their face attractive.
That is a great point about there being continuity in the GM designs, despite the radical downsizing, but not the Fords. Most people cite how awful the LTD looks in defending their choice of Caprice but that is selling the Chevy design short.
These B-bodies epitomized the brilliant Sheer Look more than any other line, except for the first Seville. Everything that got sheered went on to kick ass. You could even apply it to something as lumpy as a Colonnade coupe and come out with the best selling car in America, that’s how appealing the styling was.
GM could not come up with a worthy encore and when the last of the sheers died so did GM.
The ’77 Impala would definitely be my pick, but color and equipment can really affect these cars looks (the Fords too), It always struck me as such a leap forward from its predecessors. And while the ’80 models were sleeker, in some way, they looked tamer to me, less substantial. I suppose it was the leaner C-pillar.
I always thought the ’79 Fords were awkward, with that too-short wheelbase, and the oddly curving A-pillars. I was just never a fan of these, and still haven’t really come around to them. Perhaps it was too many years of seeing them as NYC taxis, which were unbelievably cramped considering the length.
I always found the sitting positions in these cars completely different. With the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice the dash was high and the seat was low. It felt as if you were sitting on the floor of the car. The Ford sat high, almost too high. Somewhere in between was the perfect car for that market.
You guys with the “sitting on the floor” comments about the Caprice must be talking about the manual seat version. My ’86 Cadillac is technically a C-body but otherwise identical to the B in layout and hip-point. With the 6-way power seats I am able to get plenty high off the floor, with good thigh support to boot. This Cadillac has one of the best seating positions of any car I’ve driven.
Power versus manual seats can make a big difference. On the Mercedes 190E the earlier cars were manual only and had a seat-too-close-to-the-floor feeling. The power seats like on my ’90 2.6 solved that problem.
A Panther with manual seats probably felt just like the Caprice, so make sure you guys are comparing apples with oranges.
I have driven more Caprice’s with power seats than with manual. You are correct the power option did give a little help with lifting you off the floor a little. I think the dash of those cars also contribute to the feeling of sitting so low. I did not experience that feeling in Buicks of that era but did the Oldsmobile, again I believe the dash contributed to the feeling. I am sure seat construction had a lot to do with it too. Domestic seats were/are junk. They may not break away from the floor today in an accident as bad as they did back then but domestic car makers put more thought into cup holders than they do seat constriction.
As for the 190 I never felt I was sitting low in a non power seat in a 190. I got that feeling more in the pre power seat option of the S Class (W116) but found it’s back seat more comfortable than the back seat in my 300SDL.
Having back issues since my teenage years I have always had power seats in my daily driver. Having back problems I have found the higher a seat was from the floor of the vehicle, causing me to bend my knees, the more stress it took off my lower back. I have always found pickups and SUVs comfortable for that reason.
The sitting on the floor feeling can come from both eye level and distance one’s behind is off the floor of the car. This era Impala/Caprice gave me that feeling from both ends:) I never got that feeling in a pickup or SUV.
The B bodies without power seats quite frankly sucked. The seats were much too close to the floor to give a large headroom figure. The split power seats in these cars were massively better than the stock benches, which isn’t saying much. Anybody remember adjusting a bench seat?
The seats in these cars were horrid, the Ford included. The police “buckets” were two slabs of the cheapest foam in the universe that collapsed in no time in taxi use. Without the power seat, your legs were splayed in front of you as you peered over the high cowl. My mom actually liked travelling in the back seat since she thought it was much more comfortable. She was right, too.
For taxi use, we spent a lot of money on interior since the stock materials were so bad in most of the cars, especially the Chevrolets. Interior was also the most expensive thing to do, especially since we did our own fixing.
Looking at brochure photos of the two different cars supports your observation, LeBaron. The drivers in the Fords always appear to be sitting taller and more forward while drivers of the GMs look like they are sitting lower. This has always been my observation from looking at still photos, action shots in movies, and drivers in real life. I doubt the drivers in the Fords all have their seats adjusted higher.
One of my most favorite and least favorite cars of the late 1970s. I thought the Caprice was a fantastic design, and really enjoyed the ones my Pop had as company cars. Chevrolet set the standard at that time for an excellent American sedan. They lost it in later years, and I think Ford was far more successful in evolving the Panther. But the first year Panther? Barf. My grandfather had an awful Baby Blue LTD with the cheap looking fleet special dual headlight front end. It felt chintzy and looked clunky. Simply no comparison.
Chev. But preferably not in two-tone.
I’m with Paul on this one except for the FWD proportions part. I’ve always felt there’s some chicken and the egg going on with that assessment, as if FWD ushered in the long front overhang/short dash to axle look, but really it’s more that the two coincided – Lopping off the area between the dash and wheel was done in the name of space efficiency and whether it was a Panther, a Foxbody, a B/C body or A(G) body all of them got significantly shortened in that area from their predecessors. I just so happened that FWD came about at the same time and, because of the transverse layout, fit right into that footprint.
Very few RWD cars built after 1980 and until very recently(since cars have gotten bigger again) have had “RWD proportions”, save for the BMW and Mercedes Benz anyway.
As for the Panther, it’s worst assets are those square wheel openings and more upright roof. Proportionally I think they’ve got a decent layout and the nearly identical in proportion aero Panthers, in my opinion anyway, look as well proportioned as the ’77 B body (and better than the bathtubs).
I’m old enough to remember when these were introduced in the summer of 1976 and as a fledgling architect was so impressed with the cohesive, elegant design. The one crease that runs as an arc all the way from the leading edge of the front fender to the tail lights is so elegant and accentuated with the two tone color scheme.
GM advertising was brilliant…seeing “THE NEW CHEVROLET” in silhouette in a country or park setting just highlighted the car.
As a future Scirocco owner, the Caprice looked like how Giugiaro would design an American full sized car with the crisp origami lines.
I grew up with a 72 Buick Estate Wagon with a 455 4bbl..My Dad replaced it with a 78 Estate Wagon with the 403 and I believe the THM 400 transmission. The difference between the 72 and the 78 were astounding…The 78 was much quicker, tighter, handled better, rode better and was assembled better.
In every way the GM B-body was a home run…The first Panther wasn’t even close.
As a Buick guy…I found the Caprice the cleanest and most elegant, but I did love the LeSabre sport coupe
A childhood of Buick Estate Wagons. You’ve led a charmed life, my man.
Looking at them in profile, I’m struck by how much more cohesive the Chevrolet looks as a sedan than as a coupe. The bubble-window roofline doesn’t look bad, really, but it bears no relationship to the rest of the body and looks like it was transplanted from some completely different car. We’ve talked before about how cars of the ’60s appear to have been designed as hardtops first with other body styles as afterthoughts, but here, it really looks like the four-door sedan was the clearest realization of the theme.
It takes some effort for me to look at these cars in their original context. Because they survived for so many years and became so ubiquitous as fleet cars, most of my perceptions of them were as boring old cars. The ’77 Impala/Caprice really was an effective piece of design, though. It’s not my thing, but I respect it as a confident and coherent expression of a a concept that knew exactly what it wanted to be.
Easy, Caprice FTW. The coupe does have some vestiges of its ’60s Impala roots. You have to squint real hard to see it, but the influence is there. Its a 2″ drop, nice paint job, some lakes pipes and mag wheels away from looking like a real nice sled. The re-do with the formalized roof completely craptifies the look of the car though. Sedans aren’t my bag, and this is no exception but it does make a smart looking cop car. My dad had at least one of these as a company car. With a trunk loaded down with 700 lbs of tools it was a solidly built highway pounder and a good work car.
The panther definitely has a stodgy, formal look that screams ‘old man’s car’ as some have pointed out. Again, it looks best…er…least bad…in uniform but as per usual, Ford is behind the GM curve when it comes to styling. I cant believe Im actually saying this, but it actually wears the sedan body the best. The coupe just looks contrived. Again, I remember at least 2 box CV’s serving company car duty for my dad. Same workload, same solid reliable results. Like the Chebby, it got the job done without a whimper or a smidgen of excitement or style.
Truth be told, Im pretty neutral on either though as I like my Kool Aid in Mopar flavor. Insert a Diplomat or Gran Fury on the M body and I’d lean towards those but barely…unless an M bodied coupe weaseled its way in!
My first car when I was 19 years old back in early 1985 was a used 1979 Caprice Classic 4 door. Two tone…..Black primary color with silver secondary color on the sides of the car. 305 V-8 with 3 speed auto. I waxed that car once a week and used to get compliments on how shiny it was….When I bought it in early 1985, it had 58,000 miles on it and when I traded it in early 1990, it had 89,000 miles. I traded it in for a 1987 S-10 Blazer with a 2.8 V-6 that could not get out of its own way….the 2.8 engine was gutless…and I traded the S-10 after 2 years up to a Full size K-Blazer with 350 V-8 I should have skipped buying that S-10 and held onto the Caprice a few years longer. I like the Chevy design better than the boxy Ford of that era….but I do not like the 1991-96 aero-Caprices…..The Crown Vics from 1998 and newer with the more formal roofline appeal more to me than the aero Caprices from 1991 and up….When I see one of the box era Ford wagons, the song ‘Holiday road’ pops into my head with Clark Griswold at the wheel of his Wagon Queen Family truckster.
Ive had the misfortune of test driving a shortie ’86 S-10 4×4 pickup with the 2.8 and 5spd. Yea, TOTALLY gutless, and in one of the lightest possible packages. Worst case scenario would be an extracab 4×4 with 2.8/auto. The K-5 sounds like a sweet ride, as Chevys go.
Yep, the K-5 was a 1991 model, the last year of the body style dating back to 1973….It was two tone also…..Black primary with gold secondary….My first three vehicles were all two tone colors
Nah-I think the 1979 Chrysler Newport featured the other day looks better than these 2….
I agree. As far as looks go the St.Regis in 79 in is my favorite looking 4 door of that period. Also thought the 80 Cordoba and Mirada where great looking. I owned a 79 Mercury Marquis Brougham 2 door. Got it new in 1980 for 1000 under invoice. Less than what was being asked for a used 1980 Skylark which I was cross shopping at the time. My Marquis was identical to the one shown in the brochure that year. I always thought as stated above the B’s looked droopy particularly in the rear, even more so with the downsized A’s in 78. That was fixed with the 1980 update. The Marquis and LTD upper models also had the door panels similar to what was found in the C models from GM. My Marquis drove great but did have its malaise era issues.
Chevy B-body all the way in ’77-’79, and I thought the Chevy was the best looking of the bunch, with Oldsmobile the worst with its too-boxy front end.
I agree though that the ’92 Aero Vic was quite nice. My employer had one as a company car, an LX with the handling package, dual exhausts and (woo-hoo!) 210 hp. I really liked the no-grille look; too bad that the old curmudgeons forced Ford to tack on a grille just one year later.
That Crown Vic and (hard to believe) an ’86 MR2 with a 5-speed felt to be the fastest accelerating cars I’ve ever driven. (I haven’t had the experience of driving today’s 300+ hp V6s, let alone cars like the Mustang V8, Corvette, or Hellcat Hemis.)
Cars without grilles just look…incomplete. Aero Panther, Infiniti Q, Honda Civic, Hyundai something, Taurus…just didn’t work for me. Car needs a face.
I think another indicator of the Chevy’s more attractive design is displayed with both car’s final year before going to their more “aero” next gen body styles. The Caprice had aged well, especially with the composite headlights and in a more modest trim level. The police investigator cars were especially sharp. The Crown Vic still looked 70’s-ish.
The last year of this body with the top of the line trim was a very handsome car. I wish I had taken the time to test drive one.
I am going to get flamed, but I love the Broughamed-out look of the late ’80s. I think that is where these large sedans really shone. The last year of the Caprice in high-level LS Brougham guise was the pinnacle of the Caprice run for me, a fitting swan song for the boxy Bs. The pleated seats in either Prima velour or leather would not have been out of place in a Cadillac. And the car finally had modern fuel-injection and transmission.
Well, then…here y’go!
(the box Caprice did not get modern/real fuel injection, though, just throttle-body “injection”. Real (port) injection didn’t come until a few years into the bathtub Caprice run.)
I’d argue that Chevy beat Ford in the TV commercial department as well:
Chevy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33HVRcWYwNs
Ford: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEWnxqv644Y
You are so right…Both the print advertising and TV were spot on. Just the fact that there was so little audio in the Chevy commercial sort of shows how the car speaks for itself.
Yeah, the B-body wins, hands-down. GM really owned design in the first wave of downsizing, at least until the A-bodies. I can only think of the aeroback Century and Cutlass and the Cimmarons as real misses, design wise, and they always came across as more solid and better-finished than their Ford and Chrysler counterparts. Even the derided A-bodies looked cohesive, if too similar. But they really started losing the plot with the next generation, and you have to wonder why.
How about a Panther / R-body match for the Silver Medal?
BTW, looking at the Panther up top, it looks like it’s not only the front wheels that are off center – the rears seem to be oddly pushed forward. It’s like they gave the chassis team and the body team different measurements. Also, wheel-shaped wheel wells almost always work best.
Another observation I notice is that Ford and Chevy flip flopped wheel well opening designs when comparing the downsized models to their predecessors.
The 73-78 Full sized fords had round wheel openings while the 71-76 full size Chevy wheel openings were more rectangular.
The 77 downsized Chevy featured the round wheel openings while the Ford went to rectangular wheel openings…….The round openings seem to work better on the downsized Chevy while the rectangular wheel openings on the downsized Ford seem to make its boxy shape look even more awkward.
Especially when it comes to the 87-90 Caprices they win hands down in the looks department, but I am biased since I have loved Caprices for 10 years. B-Bodies for sale are much easier to find than Panthers for sale that is for sure.
Sad to say, but the B pillar on the Ford looks like it was done in someone’s shed. Easy win for GM.
The 77-90 GM B Bodies were graceful looking, GM got them correct. They were better looking then Ford’s LTD Vic and GM of the time.
However one thing I have to say is that Ford gave the LTD Vic and the GM fuel injection starting in 1983. It took GM until 1985 for a fuel injected V6(4.3l) and 1989 for a fuel injected V8 on the Caprice. It took GM 6 years longer to offer a fuel injected V8 in the Caprice then it did ford and its panther based fullsize cars.
GM offered fuel injection in the 57 Bonneville, several years of Corvettes and the 1970’s Seville. Yet they saw fit to keep the Caprice carbed until the next to last year of that body style. By that time every other car in Chevy’s line up was F.I.
Instead buyers of Caprice got stuck with the Oldsmobile 307 which was a slow and miserable engine that was underpowered, a pain in the butt to work on due to 50 million vacuum hoses and was knee capped by the craptastic electronic Quadrajunk carb.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the GM B bodies from 77-90 but if I was buying one, I would be looking for a 8590 V6 or a 89-90 V8 so as to have the fuel injection goodness.
Only Caprice wagon buyers from ’86 on got stuck with the carbed 307. Retail sedans had the 305 in Quadrajet and TBI form. And the 305, despite being a bit rougher, was a much more potent engine.
Not the most expensive of the retail sedans, the 1986-90 Cadillac Brougham. It didn’t get the Chevrolet 350 as an option until 1990, the 305 did not become standard until 1991. It continued with the 307 and 4bbl eQJet standard through the 1990 model year. I hated that damned electronic carburetor. A bajillion sensors, solenoids, and doodads (not to mention 100 miles of vaccuum lines, ALWAYS disconnecting) which neither I or nor 90% of mechanics could figure out. I’m sure it was better than an HT4100 but it sure wasn’t better than anything else.
I am pretty sure the Olds Custom Cruiser, Pontiac Safari, and Buick Estate also got the 307 during those years. Only the Caprice sedan and the final year of the Parisienne sedan were unscathed.
I had an ’87 Caprice Classic wagon with the 307. Great car, gutless engine.
I’ve always thought the early Panthers, as a couple of others have mentioned, looked like fleet cars. To be honest, the late Panthers (especially the Crown Vic version) look like fleet cars, but cars I’d consider owning. The early versions of this Chevy remind me of my neighbor down the street who bought a new Chevy sedan every 3-4 years for a couple of decades–plain and simple but dignified.
Comments about buyers being “stuck” with the “miserable” 307 engine usually come from those who have owned or driven one with super tall gearing or an early version without the high swirl (= high torque) heads.
Not sure what the ’86-on Wagons had for a final drive but the Cadillacs had 2.73 or 2.93 gearing. Several of us here with those in proper tune think they perform about as well as a 425 Cadillac big block except for going up a hill. The rest invariably have had issues with the carb or vacuum lines (easily fixed by an experienced mechanic) then go on to bad mouth the engine.
Poorly maintained engines like that tend to run rich which clogs the catalytic converter then they become real pigs, even in the Cadillacs. When you ask these people where they live it’s usually in a non smog check state where they don’t have those bi-annual inspections to help them spot the clogged cat.
The 305 engine is a better choice for folks who cannot maintain their cars properly, though it is no faster than the 307 and sounds like a truck engine. In the used car market nice 80-92 Cadillacs fetch the same price whether equipped with the 425, 307, 305 or 350. HT4100 cars are almost always offered at a huge discount versus the rest, though there are few of those still around.
I’m not bashing the 307, but it was just meh. Mine never ran rich and had bi annual inspections, and I was OCD (too much so) about maintenance, by the manual (and reading the more detailed schedules in factory service manual). The reviews I have from the late 80s test the 307 accelerating 0-60 at 14 seconds or so:
Consumer Guide “Despite pushing nearly 4300 pounds, that engine delivers brisk acceleration. Cadillac estimated that a Brougham accelerated to 60 mph in 10.5 seconds with the 5.7-liter, versus a lethargic 14.3 seconds with the standard V8.”
Marshall Schuon, NYT, 1989 “Unfortunately, the five-liter V-8 musters only 140 horsepower, which would be barely adequate in any car but which is pure lack-of-beans in a vehicle of this size. Acceleration from zero to 60 takes a bit more than 14 seconds, and that makes getting onto the highway an iffy thing”
I’m going to go ahead and say that the eQjet is way more trouble to maintain than its non-e predecessors.
Also, where I lived with my 307 was New England, a place where highways are full of little hills, and many exit ramps are on little hills. Around town it was great, but driving around at speeds between 55-75 means constant kickdowns to 3rd and losing steam. The car wasn’t running badly, and got perfectly good mileage, but trying to launch it into oncoming 65-80 mph traffic up a sharp incline, or, on the Merritt Parkway, from a STOP SIGN, was no picnic, nor was going up that hill past the West Rock tunnel towards New York.
The engine itself was efficient, smooth, and fairly nonintrusive, but the carburetor was a pain and the thing couldn’t climb a hill to save its life. It was probably fine on a Cutlass Supreme which weighed 300-400 lbs less than a Brougham, but it needed some more grunt to pull that Fleetwood Brougham up highway hills.
For the record I’m no fan of the Chevy 305 and 350 either. The L05 in my ’93 Fleetwood (the muffler is fine) has an annoying growl and does, you are right, sound like a muted truck engine, off the line.
“The engine itself was efficient, smooth, and fairly nonintrusive, but the carburetor was a pain and the thing couldn’t climb a hill to save its life. It was probably fine on a Cutlass Supreme which weighed 300-400 lbs less than a Brougham, but it needed some more grunt to pull that Fleetwood Brougham up highway hills.”
Nope the engine was just as gutless in the Cutlass Supreme as it was in the larger B bodies.
“Nope the engine was just as gutless in the Cutlass Supreme as it was in the larger B bodies.”
Actually the Cutlass was more gutless because those had 2.28 final drives, 3-speed autos and the earlier non high swirl cylinder heads.
I agree that GM was slow getting the digital fuel injection on everything. I don’t think that the late 50’s fuel injection was very reliable, but I don’t know much about it either.
The 76 Seville got an analog fuel injection system, which was electronic, but not a “smart” electronic system. Digital processors are able to monitor the various sensors and can tell when one of them is not making sense, then directing the driver to take the car in for service.
The Olds 307 seemed to be really picky about being exactly in tune for it to run right, and I think there was lots that could be out of adjustment. In college, a friend of mine had an ’83 Monte Carlo with the 305 4 bbl (it was two years old at the time) and it would run circles around my mom’s 1982 Delta 88 with the 307. The Chevy would just go when you mashed it, whereas the Olds was stumble and say “Do I have to?” and then slowly wind up. It was like there was marshmallow in the throttle linkage. I think it was probably a vacuum issue that a good mechanic would have been able to figure out, but it never ran reliably well since new.
The driveability of the fuel-injected Ford 302 was light-years ahead of the 307. It explains why Lincoln Town Cars were outselling Cadillac Broughams in the mid -to late ’80s. All you had to do was comparison test-drive the two.
As someone who has owned a number of Panthers, I would like to stick up for that car, but your description and argument is pretty much perfect. Kudos. I would be very interested to do the same comparison, however, of an 80’s Cadillac with a Town Car. I always thought that car wore its hard edges better, and while I don’t do a double take when I see a Panther similar to the ones you show, I do when I see a Town Car/Four door Mark VI. I always thought Lincolns looked better “Broughamed” than Cadillacs anyhow, even though Cadillac actually offered a ‘Brougham’ trim. Fantastic comparison, and I’m sure Bill M is still proud of his last work.
I just came on to post the same request – Cadillac vs. Lincoln. I suppose 1980 would be best, and fairest. Perhaps Mark VI vs. Eldorado instead of Town Car vs. DeVille, but that may not be fair at all, considering how most people around here feel about the Mark VI!
I’d like to see that comparison too, though I would say GM pulled it off better there, too.
Biographical note: Bill M, I’m sure, was proud, but he’s no longer with us.
GM styling has never been the same since he retired.
I first saw one of these in the lobby of the GM building in New York. My father was smitten and bought a frost beige sedan with every option available including leather interior. I learned to drive on it in 1982 and used it during high school. “Lucille” was my favorite car in the family fleet as my father had upgraded to a 1983 Century Limited and the other choice was the family 82 Mercury Cougar wagon. The Caprice served us well for 145k miles with regular servicing. I believe GM nailed it with the late 70’s downsizing and it was one of their true moments of glory.
The silver ’77 Chevy in the first photo looks like a pre-production model. Notice how the front seat shoulder belts are anchored to the ceiling, as they were in 1976 models, rather than to the B-Pillar as they were starting in 1977. Just a nerdy observation on my part. . .
The Fords always looked a bit top heavy to me, at least when viewed from the front end, because of the height of the windshield in relation to the doghouse. The short distance between front door edge and wheelwell don’t help much in that matter. But the rest of the car seems ok. It would be cool for one of the digital artists here, (ahem, Brendan Saur), to create a photoshopped LTD with longer front fenders and a slightly chopped roofline. Maybe a set of fender skirts, Bonneville Brougham style? Then it would be pretty sleek.
Maybe GM had the styling edge, but the Panther interiors were nothing short of luscious. I remember those flimsy door panels on the Caprice/Impala. The Panthers’ felt more substantial. The standard interiors and the instrumentation were superior to GM’s as well.
At least previous Fords had their own look. You wouldn’t mistake a ’72 Galaxie for a ’72 Impala. With the ’79 LTD, Ford just copied the incredibly successful ’77 Caprice. And did a lousy job of it.
I’ll admit my bias as a lifelong Chevy guy, but I loved the ’77-’79 GM B Bodies, although I wasn’t a fan of the 1980 semi-redesign. I actually prefer the Impala on the outside, although the interior was rather plain, but give me a two-tone blue Impala coupe with a 350 and F41, and I’d be happy. Hell, toss in a a ’77-’79 DeVille d’Elegance while you’re at it.
My best friend growing up was as much for Fords as I was for Chevys, and although they had a ’73 LTD, his dad had a company car and got a brand new ’77 Caprice when we were in fifth grade. What a nice car. So comfortable, so quiet and smooth. And it looked classy in silver with a red velour interior. That poor car ended up beat up and abused, but it kept going.
Easy decision. Chevy.
I’m going to go a bit against the grain and vote for the panther. Of course I’m biased, being a two-time owner, though there’s a B-body in my history as well. The more upright stance of the panther seemed a bit more assertive to me than the Chevys. That said, the slanted back end of the Ford wasn’t as nice as the Impala, and the single headlight model seemed like a goofy way just to differentiate a lower end model. And the later Caprices (’86+) were definitely lookers. Anyway, to my eyes both are worlds better than the bloated cars they replaced, but I give an edge to the Ford.
One thing about the comparison photos – the steel-topped Impala with plain wheel covers is going to look cleaner than the Ford shown with the vinyl roof and fussy spokes. If I’m not mistaken, both cars were offered either way.
Lastly – it’s worth recording some old episodes of Carroll O’Conner’s show “In the Heat of the Night” for lots of old LTD/CV and Impala/Caprice police action.
I would definitely go for the 1977 Chevy Caprice, I always liked the early design of the GM’s B cars the best, I didn’t like the early Fox body full sized cars all that much, I thought the LTD/Crown Victoria looked at its best during the 1983-87 run and the Marquis/Grand Marquis’s looked at its best during the 1988-91 run, for the B-body cars I thought the Chevy Caprice/Impala, Oldsmobile Delta 88 and Buick LeSabre looked at its best during the 1977-79 run and the Pontiac Catalina/Bonneville looked at its best during the 1980-81 run, for the Cadillac’s I thought the Deville/Fleetwood/Brougham looked at its best during the 1977-79 run due to style and engineering.
I think the unadorned caprice sedan has worn well, and also agree with many posters how beautiful the LeSabre Coupe was. In fact I recently noticed just how much it looks like my favorite Ferrari, the 400/412.
And now the Ferrari, a bit more slung back, but far more similar than I ever imagined!
It appears to me that, as the Panther body matured and was restyled, it evolved into a better and better car.
The high point, in MY opinion, was a 1995 Grand Marquis, with it’s Infiniti styled grille, full length Pontiac styled tail lights, it’s dashboard full of large, readable gauges standard (Unlike Chevy), it torquey 4.6 V8 and non shift-hunting automatic transmission (Again, Unlike Chevy), precise power steering (kinda light and numb on the Chevy), it’s 15 inch wheels with Michelin X radial tires as standard equipment and tasteful wire wheel covers. The well sorted out A/C system worked frigidly even in August.
It’s 6 side window 4 door body still looks great today.
The Chevy seemed to get uglier, slower, limper & more flaccid handling as well as more more confused with each styling “update”.
The first picture of the Caprice has several “touchups” done. Clear added to the front signal lens, the front and rear moldings stretched to fill the bumper gap, seat belts and copy/pasted hubcaps which appear larger than they really are. Seat belts aren’t correct as others noted.
Having a Caprice Landau and C body myself I would definitely say they’re more beautiful than the Panther. My main issues with those when I would see one going down the road are that one, the windshield always appears too tall, the cowl area should be concealed and the trailing end of the hood raised. I think it would look better in profile as well. Secondly, the blunt, oversized taillights can’t compare to the simple elegant design the Caprice has. The GM’s just did it better.
I agree with everything Mr. Niedermeyer wrote, yet after having driven both, I prefer the Ford because of its interior quality. While the Caprice is indeed far more attractive than the Ford, its interior felt terribly cheap.
I have always admired Chevrolet styling. (Except for the 59-60 Batmobiles). Chevrolet always seemed to top Ford in this respect. While there have been beautiful Fords, Chevrolet has been consistently excellent.
Also – please note that the photos used in the comparisons aren’t equal. Brochure photos are expertly lit and photo-enhanced, that street shots of curbside classics can’t match.
FORD had better (safer) fuel tank location (above rear axle, not below trunk floor) and fuel filler location (side, not behind rear license plate)
The Ford fuel tank location also resulted in the Panther’s huge trunk – at least the section closest to you when you opened the trunk lid. The GM design led to a relatively shallow trunk, one with a flatter floor than the Ford’s, but that didn’t matter much since the spare tire (full size in 77-79 cars iirc) took up much of the space toward the back of the trunk. I seem to recall the pre-downsized Chevys and Fords had the same fuel tank locations as well with similar effects on the trunk size and shape.
In my opinion the interior was nicer on the Ford.
Somewhat screwed together better.
Drivetrain and styling goes to Chevy.
So definitely Chevy.
Well the interior is debatable as it depended on which trim level was in question and how the car was optioned. In my experience the late 70’s and earaly 80’s Fords were more creaky and loose feeling than any of my GM mid or full size cars.
Hmmmm……….my experiences were just the opposite of yours.
I agree about the options being a big factor.
I remembered driving in an early Crown Vic which was very basic. The single headlight model. Rattley and cheap inside. Nowadays the kids would call it “cringey”.
Contrast that to my recent beater ’02 Grand Marquis LS and its hard to believe the two cars were related.
I’m old enough to remember when these were introduced in the summer of 1976 and as a fledgling architect was so impressed with the cohesive, elegant design. The one crease that runs as an arc all the way from the leading edge of the front fender to the tail lights is so elegant and accentuated with the two tone color scheme.
GM advertising was brilliant…seeing “THE NEW CHEVROLET” in silhouette in a country or park setting just highlighted the car.
As a future Scirocco owner, the Caprice looked like how Giugiaro would design an American full sized car with the crisp origami lines.
I grew up with a 72 Buick Estate Wagon with a 455 4bbl..My Dad replaced it with a 78 Estate Wagon with the 403 and I believe the THM 400 transmission. The difference between the 72 and the 78 were astounding…The 78 was much quicker, tighter, handled better, rode better and was assembled better.
In every way the GM B-body was a home run…The first Panther wasn’t even close.
As a Buick guy…I found the Caprice the cleanest and most elegant, but I did love the LeSabre sport coupe
I guess you want someone note on the fact that you wrote exactly the same comment exactly six years ago but for some scant minutes, but w/o the picture
anyway, good comment to do twice
Even though I am a die hard Ford fan, give me the Chevy coupe, nice car. Friend of mine had one, Only problem it had was eating alternator belts. Chevy decided to use a skinny 3/8 belt on the alternator. Luckily the alternator was mounted up top so adjusting was quick and easy.
I’ve been a Ford fan for a long time but must admit the 77 full-size Chevy was well executed.
I recently watch a YouTube video showing how the car was developed. Interesting stuff but I wonder how much angst it created among die-hard, long time Chevrolet designers and engineers. The public loved it and the Chev was certainly much better executed than the full-size Ford.
My brother in law was a working as a salesman at a Ford dealer in the early 80’s. At a family get together, my aunt who was sort of thinking about a new car asked him “What’s the difference between a Caprice and a Crown Victoria?” His reply was ” One is made by Ford. One is made by Chevy.”
Bill Mitchell design, that’s all you need to know. Chevrolet win. The Caprice coupe of 1977 is still one of the most handsome cars of the 1970s.
My mom bought a ’77 Caprice, 350, blue inside and out. One of the Vegas Chevy dealers had like 50 of them, less than 18 months old, with mileage ranging from 20K to over 70K. Even the more used up ones looked good in all areas. She bought hers with 22K miles on it, and she had one problem that was fixed under the “6 month/10,000 mile” warranty, the alternator ate itself at like 1am, when mom was coming back from a night of slot machine play. I got it home on battery power and the next morning took it to the dealer who had it out by 10:30am. She had the car over 4 years and I drove it a lot as my truck was a total POS and just days before were were about to trade in the Caprice on an ’82 K5 Blazer, the trans went (77K) and the dealer only took off $400 from the trade for the trans rebuild.
A friend of hers had an ’80 LTD, and it wasn’t as good looking, didn’t handle as well, and was much slower than mom’s car was. I’ve never liked Fords much, but IMHO, this was a high point of their, uh, “styling” from about 1971 until the later 90’s. I like Ford’s present styling better than at anytime in my life, and I still think they are weird looking in general, even the Mustang. I like the F150 fine though, but the Ram is better looking.
I drove both of these back “in the day”, police versions. I one time had the choice between a new LTD and an Impala with 70k miles on it for my regular use. I picked the Impala.
I think Cadillac did the best job by far with the downsized ’77s; Chevrolet in second place. I don’t like the Buick or Olds much though; both were generic and boxy lacking any continuity from either brand’s usual design cues (i.e. Buick’s distinctive downswept side contours). The 1976 versions may have been porky, loose-feeling, and fitted with unconvincing imitations of chrome and wood, but they were lithe and graceful in appearance and you could easily tell a Buick from an Olds from a Pontiac, even the wagons.
The Ford was even clumsier though. I actually liked the early base grille better than the more common fake-GM looking one that was later made standard. The base front clip had bladed fenders that gave it a ’70s Ford look that fit the rest of the car. The rear was a copy of the Chrysler Cordoba circa 1979. I do like the straight beltline and low cowl better than Chevy’s weird kink in the beltline just aft of the A pillar.
I would rate the Chrysler R body above either of these though; it was the only one of the trio to use frameless door glass and the resultant thin A and B pillars give the interior an airy feel compared to GM and Ford’s efforts. It’s too bad they were dropped so quickly; it seems likely sales would have rebounded by the mid-80s when doubts about Chrysler’s survival had dissipated and gas unexpectedly became cheap and readily available.
I agree with you about the R-bodies, over time they have aged gracefully. It is a shame they were cancelled so quickly, but considering the conditions at the time, their actions seem rational to me. Who would have imagined in 1981 that gasoline would become cheap again by 1985? But, product planners have to assume certain conditions to justify producing certain products. I don’t blame them for thinking that fuel prices would either remain the same or get higher. In addition, they had CAFE to deal with and the R-bodies weren’t going to be of much assistance in that area, either.
Recalling when both were new, the ’77 Chevrolet styling was a breath of fresh air, the ’79 Ford just another iteration of the same tired boxes they had been peddling for a decade. Being a Ford designer in that period had to be easy for the apathetic, pure frustration for the progressive and dynamic. To their credit, they did finally incorporate that entasis into their late Crown Victoria, long after they were shown how.
The chunky Ford B-pillar was definitely designed to accommodate tiara trim, opera lights and of course ‘carriage roofs’. The roof surface extended to the belt-line, individually-framed side windows originated on the late 1920’s Hibbard and Darrin convertible phaetons on various luxury chassis and Duesenberg J Murphy Beverly sedan, added verve to Billy Mitchell’s seminal 1938-’41 Cadillac 60 Special. It reappeared on the 1971 60 Special/Fleetwood Brougham and spread through the GM Colonades and into the Lincoln Town Cars. By which time an elegant design feature was done to a trite death.
The good news for the designers was that after the Panthers experienced a lackluster debut, and the 1980 Thunderbird and Cougar XR-7 laid a big, fat egg, new leadership under Phil Caldwell unfettered the designers, and the result was the 1983 Thunderbird, LTD, Cougar XR-7 and Marquis.
While Iacocca had pushed for Ford to downsize more rapidly – to match GM’s pace – he also demanded that the new cars maintain formal, square-cut “Brougham” styling cues. Ford would finally leap-frog GM in styling when, in desperation, it started with a clean sheet of paper and adopted the “aero look.”
Iacocca took his cubist mantra to Chrysler where he reprised the ’70’s FoMoCo styling in FWD K-cars.
I wonder if there is a comparison road test of the later models Ford and Chevy, from around the late eighties, available?
I think I would have looked at the LTD and asked the salesman if it was too late to order a LTD II with the 400, optional axle ratio, heavy duty handling suspension, sport instrumentation group and sport appearance package.
Build yours here: http://storm.oldcarmanualproject.com/fordltd1978.htm
Really, which looks better, even with the stacked headlights?
In the New York Times business section today there is a short history of the “small block.”
No wonder Mercs sold so well.
I like both but do give the nod to GM B-body cars. Each had their own flaws with Fords too short wheelbase, smaller 14″ tires and low calorie 302 equipped VV engines. The first year AOD transmissions had a flaw where the engine stalled when driving at lower speeds but that was supposedly cleared up the following year. The other flaw was the turn signal mounted horn. Over at GM some cars were equipped with undersized 200 transmissions, the Buick 231 V6 was weak as was the Chevy 229, the diesel 5.7 was not reliable until it was updated in 1981 with a water separator and certain engines had certain issues for example the 1970’S 305’S had weak cams and the early 301 Pontiac engines had fragile bottom ends. As mentioned it took GM until 1988 to get fuel injection on the 305 engine, the 307 Olds never got it and certain 1985 cars like the Caprice and Parisienne got the 4.3 with TBI. For some reason certain 1980 cars had quality control lapses with paint and finish.
Knowing how to option either was critical in owner enjoyment.
The Chevrolet is my clear choice as the better looking car. The front and back were in proportion. I think the two tone paint also ooked particularly good on these cars. They were new and fresh in 77. The Fords just looked like big Granada’s to me. I loved the creased rear window on the Chevrolet coupe. I was sorry when they replaced it.
I had liked the window line on the 71 Chevrolet Impala coupes. But they destroyed the look of the car in 1974 when they added the chunky B pillar and opera window. To me, the 77 Chevrolet is reminiscent of the 71 Chevy while the 79 Ford looks like the 74. The Ford is just awkward.
I think where Ford shined was the replacement cars in the 90’s. The Chevrolet look fat and bloated. It really was a whale. The redesigned Ford was clearly the better style. Ford got it especially right in the 1998 restyle. Chevrolet had already given up on the market in 1996 and Ford owned it until 2011.
I did find the last Crown Vics and the Lincoln Town Cars to be horrible driving cars. They seemed to pitch and roll and wobble from side to side. The Chevrolet was clearly the better handling car.
For the other variants, the Mercury was always just a dressed up Ford. At least GM made an effort to style the cars differently. Some worked, and some didn’t.
Here we are, six years later and still nobody has thought to comment on the Thomas Kinkade vs Claude Monet analogy.
I can’t think of a more egregious, damning insult than comparing anything to Thomas Kinkade – which is why I often do exactly that.
https://www.pinterest.com/maimccaskey/thomas-kinkade-parodies/
Hahahahaha!!! Actually I scrolled through a lot of comments with an intention of making a comment about Paul’s Monet/Kinkade comparison.
I know there are a number of factors in judging one piece of art from another. It’s a highly subjective endeavor, as the comments here attest to regarding the redesigned Chevy versus the Ford.. There are hard points, but much of it comes down to personal taste. That said, any comparison to Monet and Kinkade, or Rembrandt and Peter Max, or Picasso to Norman Rockwell comes down solely in the eye of the beholder. That’s where the beauty of art lies, IMO.
By the way, I don’t like Monet or Kinkade….
My father was in the market the fall of 1978 for a wagon to replace our ’73 Country Sedan (wagon) with the 400/2bbl.
We looked at the (then) new ’79 Full sized Ford, but my Dad didn’t care for them. Partly maybe due to the local Ford dealer selling me a rustbucket in ’76, he understandably harbored a grudge. We lived in an area that didn’t have a lot of dealers, so his distaste for the dealer affected which car he was to buy.
He ended up with a (leftover) ’78 Caprice Classic Wagon…bought at Shearer Chevrolet in South Burlington. It was the only car I remember him buying out of the showroom; though I didn’t go shopping for it with him (probably busy with school) but I was there when he later picked it up. It had the 305, and was optioned up, over $9000…had power locks/windows, it was burgundy, with burgundy vinyl (but plush) seats. A sharp car…he had it up until 1984, when he was taking relatives who travelled from out of town (way out of town…they’d driven 1600 miles on vacation and we were on the way to their destination)..got t-boned when taking them to see the nearby sights.
The Caprice was nice, but it had cheap switchgear that was starting to deteriorate after 5 years…headlight switch stripped…don’t know how the car would have fared had he kept it longer.
The replacement car was a real disappointment (in a number of ways)…it was the worst car my Father ever bought, an ’84 Pontiac Sunbird. It was much smaller than the Caprice, half the cylinders, and got junked after only 4 years (going through 2 engines despite being regularly dealer serviced). It was passed onto my youngest
sister after the first engine replacement, and she had problems with leaking power steering and cheap switchgear….till the 2nd engine threw a rod after only 40k miles (probably 80k total miles between 2 engines). Undoubtedly it got better gas mileage than the Chevy, but at probably much higher ownership cost if you figure its short lifetime…plus gas was actually getting cheaper during the mid 80’s so was hardly worth downsizing when the replacement cars were much less durable.
Father abandoned GM for awhile after the Pontiac, buying a Dodge 600 (which was totalled by another sister) then 3 Mercury Sables in a row, before returning to GM with 2 Chevy Impalas in a row (last of which my Mother owns, as my Father passed away 4 years ago).