Exactly three weeks before I had spotted our featured car, I had made my first-ever appearance at the annual tailgate party held in the main parking lot of my former, long-closed high school. This was the weekend before the annual Back To The Bricks car festival in downtown Flint, which I also attended in celebration of its twentieth anniversary this year. The buildings on the campus of Flint Central High School are in a sad state, with broken windows, graffiti, unkempt grounds, and most tellingly from an ensuing damage perspective, broken and missing roof tiles. Ask any seasoned insurance underwriter, and we’ll tell you that a leaky roof and the resulting water damage is pretty much the death knell for many structures.
None of that seemed to matter that Saturday, as many former graduating classes convened in the parking lot and around the rear entrances to the school, both out in the open and under tents, while both lively music and the smell of delicious grilled foods wafted through the air. The senior-most class that I witnessed in attendance were those under the tent marked “Graduating Class Of 1978”. It was a multigenerational, multiethnic affair, which speaks to the love so many of us still have for Flint Central, and of so many positive, collective memories of having attended what was once a premier public school. Red and Black, forever.
There was a range of noteworthy cars in the parking lot that probably deserve their own post, but it was this sighting in Chicago’s downtown Loop district, just three weeks later, of this beautiful ’71 Chevelle Malibu convertible back that pulled me right back to Flint. Finished in a gorgeous, cherry red finish with black stripes and a matching interior and soft top, it could almost have served as a mascot for the Flint Central experience of the late 1980s and early ’90s, down to those nice, custom rims.
It has been my observation that pretty much any vehicle, if given proper care, treatment, and preservation over a long period of time, will become interesting later by way of its relative rarity. I was born in mid-’70s, before this car was new. By the time I was in elementary school in the ’80s, many of these cars were either beaters or jacked way up in the back, often had mismatched body panels, and were driven by the many of the gearheads who worked on the line in our GM factory town. I don’t recall having seen any convertibles of this generation (there were just under 5,100 Chevelle convertibles, all Malibus, produced for 1971), but the coupes were plentiful. Total Chevelle sales for ’71 were almost 293,300, of which 180,100 (over 60%) were V8-equipped Malibu hardtops.
As a kid, these Chevelles didn’t seem all that crazy cool to me, outside of being loud, brash, blunt instruments of speed and V8 power that contrasted strongly with the much tamer compact cars in my parents’ driveway. However, the tide had turned by the time I was in high school by the late ’80s, and it’s really not that hard to see the broad appeal of these cars at that time among my teenage cohort, especially after a decade of rollouts of lackluster GM products. Most GM-built midsized cars by that time that were in decent running order and also affordable by the average high school student were either the Colonnades or the downsized A-bodies of 1978+. I’ve written a little bit about that before.
What I wonder, though, is how these cars were perceived when new. Whether you love or hate the wheels on this one, its styling is unquestionably cool in 2024. The contoured, slightly flared front and rear fenders, the round taillamps, and the highly sculptured front end all add up to a car that, well, looks like a muscle car with actual muscles. With maybe only one or two exceptions, I can’t think of a mainstream, midsized Chevrolet two-door that was manufactured within my lifetime that had me thinking, “One day, I want to drive one of those.” In fact, the only two examples I can think of at this writing are the Monte Carlo and Beretta of the ’80s, both of which stayed in production long past their sell-by date.
I’ve written before about how I was not the popular kid in high school. One would probably never know this by the meaningful friendships and new acquaintances I’ve made among my former Flint Central alumni over the past fifteen years or so. This is not to say that I’ve now made some sort of atonement with my younger self by now becoming “popular”, but rather that my life’s experiences and lessons, in addition to inherent benefits of my own choices, have now manifested themselves in a warm sense of connection with my hometown peers that I never had before. This all adds up to me feeling inside the way this ’71 Malibu convertible looks on the outside: strong, confident, full of character, and probably much “cooler” now than I ever was.
Downtown, The Loop, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, August 31, 2024.
Brochure pages were as sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
Click here and here for some additional CC reading on the ’71 Chevelle.
I had a 71 SS in same color and striping and top color back in 1986. Beautiful car and I really regret selling it.
A friend once asked me what the color was and another friend replied for me, claiming it was ‘arrest me red’ and I couldn’t agree more – I was constantly getting pulled over in the car. Lmao.
“Arrest Me Red” fits in many contexts! I’ve also heard “Speeding Ticket Red”. One of these would have been such a cool car to have back in ’86.
Once upon a time, I viewed these as some of the ugliest cars to ever wear a Chevrolet nameplate. Time has truly softened my perception, as I agree with much of what you say about it. Owning one now doesn’t sound so bad, although I think I might prefer a Buick version of this generation A-body.
This Chevelle also reminds me of a four-door version once owned by Ernest and Carolyn, a couple in the small town where I grew up. Carolyn babysat my sister and me for a while. She and Ernest also had five rambunctious daughters, the youngest of whom was my sister’s age, and Carolyn, a very vocal, no-nonsense woman for the ages, had her hands full corralling them. Ernest was in a perpetual stupor both from his daughters and due to having attempted so many times to have a son, to no success.
You’ve dredged up some wild stories this morning.
You’ve also reminded me how several years ago I passed a four-door version of one. It was raining and the windows were down.
Jason, I love the stories in your comments almost as much as the ones you feature in your posts. And I was already aware of your preference for Chrysler products, so I could see how one of these Chevelles might not have done that much for you in the past.
Well, if it helps any, I have contemplated writing a dramatic serial after I retire. If it bears any resemblance to things I have experienced, it could be intentional.
Yes!! Sign me up…
Those wheels…ugh… They destroy the entire car.
They’re clearly a “personal statement”. I agree tough, they “detract”.
Yeah a red 52 year convertible with racing stripes in 2024’s sea of white or black SUVs really needs oversized wheels to make a “personal statement”.
Not to the driver / owner they don’t, nor to legion others who like this look.
Humph.
I’m going to defend the wheels. I’m generally not a fan of that style of wheel, but in this case I think they make a statement for a highly personalized, distinctive, car that I bet the owner very much enjoys piloting around the the smooth streets of downtown Chicago. Totally appropriate in that its their car, they put the effort into making it look they way they like it, and so there you have it. I think it’s actually a nice look for a car that isn’t pretending to look the way it did coming out of the factory 53 years ago.
Great article and photos, Joe.
Thanks, Jeff! And I agree with your statement and assessment of the wheels. I’d lean factory stock, myself (just like my completely tattoo-free body), but I like what’s going on here on this ’71.
Growing up our next door neighbors had a metallic green 71 Chevelle 2 door. I was only 6 or 7 years old, but I remember liking the round taillights and felt that it was cooler than our AMC products. Of course the same neighbor had a couple of Vauxhalls, which were certainly uncool.
And those wheels. I went to high school in the 1980s so for me that car should have either 15 inch kidney bean GM steelies or Cragar SS. But if the owner likes those, why not? They are round and hold the car up.
Doug, the round taillamps are also one of my favorite styling elements of these Chevelles, and one I was glad was carried over for the first year of the next generation. I think round taillights are just inherently cool, including on the ’74 AMC Matador coupe.
Cragars, Centerlines, American Racing rims… all of those would make for an ’80s period-correct look of a certain demographic. That said, I don’t find these wheels objectionable. (Look at me, doubling down…)
The problem with these ‘donk’ wheels is they don’t have much sidewall so they damage very easily .
Nice car, I can’t recall the last time I saw a rag top like this .
-Nate
“Donk”?
these aren’t really “donk” wheels because the actual tire diameter is approx stock. These are more like more modern high performance wheels on new cars: short sidewalls, large diameter wheels.
Donks are a sort of reverse lowrider. Imagine a lowrider with exaggerated high ride height like an off road racer, and low rider style wheels that are as tall as an off road racer.
http://imgur.com/a/ohaMk
To answer the question “how these cars were perceived when new”. I was halfway through high school in 1971. As an avid import fan and obsessive reader of Road & Track, I’ll say that when released, these A Bodies had big impact. Especially the Chevy, which was the subject of a very favorable test and styling analysis in that magazine in 1968, though I preferred the Cutlass with its curvaceous wheel arches. After a few refreshes, they were old hat though I always placed them way ahead of their overweight and overstyled Ford counterparts. Again from my perspective, the Camaro and TransAm wore the GM performance crown so while the big block Malibu had its disciples, I think it was another decade or so, when the price of used examples of ‘68-72 A Bodies came way down, that they gained any kind of budget performance image. They were just affordable – and ubiquitous.
Paul posted that R&T review here https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/vintage-rt-road-test-1968-chevelle-malibu-327-an-unusually-satisfactory-car/
The other thing I remember coming of age in the late ’70s was that most new cars began the shift to FWD with a transverse four-banger, and these didn’t go over well with car enthusiasts who liked things the old way – V8s powering the rear wheels. In the ’80s, this group took refuge in the downsized GM A/G bodies and the Fox body Mustang – or pickup trucks and SUVs.
Thank you for this assessment. This rings true to me, and I could see these as budget performance cars. And then prices had taken off again by the time *I* started high school in the late ’80s.
The oversized wheels make the car look small, almost like a Camero. And I don’t care how smooth your roads are, they are extremely impractical. Can’t say that I’m a fan. But the rest of the car is a real beauty. .
Well said.
Good point about the scale of the wheels to the car in that, yes, they do make the car look a bit smaller – but I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. As far as practicality, I’m not sure that quality has always been at the forefront of the automotive hobby, so that much doesn’t necessarily hold water with me. For one example, there’s no reason on earth why anybody needs a two-seater. I’m just saying.
I have warmed to the styling of these over the years, but it is probably my personal history that has me preferring the Cutlass Supreme. The styling on these made for a very nice looking convertible – I am surprised at the low number built, but then I remember how air conditioning was pushing the convertible to the outer edges of the showroom by then.
I also like the Cutlass styling of the early ’70s, both the Supreme and non-Supreme. It’s also a great to bring up that a/c was somewhat novel for many consumers. I can’t imagine what that discovery must have felt like for buyers who could by then afford air conditioning, both at home and in their cars.
Those wheels are hideous. So unfortunate but not unexpected.
Comments like this are unfortunate but not unexpected. I was ready for them even before I had finished writing the final draft.
Clearly a generational thing. My generation was into white letter tires, preferably Goodyear Polyglas, and then mag wheels like Cragar SS and Ansen or American Slot/Sprint. Sorry but those wheels are atrocious on a late 60’s/early 70’s muscle car. They definitely don’t give off a muscle vibe to match the car. Doing it on a mid-80 Cutlass then fine as it, in no way, is a muscle car.
I’ve grown to accept the donk wheels on cars typically not considered timeless classics like, say, the downsized 1977-90 GM B-body full-size sedans. IOW, they lend some character and style to those types of otherwise mediocre cars.
But classic, pre-5mph bumper hardtops (especially musclecars) in otherwise great, original shape? Stick with OEM wheels.
I don’t know. If someone can afford (or afford to restore) a ’71 Malibu convertible, do the wheels you want, man. He made that money – we didn’t.
But w e have to look at it …
Looks more like cheap wine with those BOEING-size wheels on her!
These pictures make me think American cars of this era were designed for larger wheels than what they were originally sold with.Were the designers hoping the accountants would let them upsize the wheels at the last moment? I love the red and black color combination here.
No. There were company specs about spacing, including when chains were installed, that resulted in a lot of air in the wheel wells.
I agree that the red and black is a fetching color combo. It’s a tricky thing with wheel size. Some ’70s cars came with wheels so small in diameter we criticize them, but then we also carp about how huge modern wheels on new vehicles are. I say that those paradigms are out the window and just do what one wants.
Agree the other GM vehicles looked better as a convertible.
This is probably my least favorite design of the Chevelle. I did not like the grill treatment with the single headlamps. (Ironically, I preferred the single headlights on 50 cars).
I think I was so used to double headlights on the Chevelle, that it seemed like this was not a Chevelle look. Plus, to me, it just looked heavy.
I get this, Sean. I have alternated between looking at pictures of a ’70 Chevelle and a ’71 / ’72. Sometimes I think the single headlight look appears slightly retrograde, but other times I think the ’70 looks too busy with its quads. I’ve decided I like the aesthetics of both for different reasons.
To me, the perfect Chevelle of this sub-generation would be a ‘70, but with a ‘71/‘72 back bumper and its round taillights.
The twin headlights and taillights (ok, quad… you know what I mean) would make for a more cohesive design than the taillights we got on the ‘70.
Just my opinion. YMMV.
That sums up my feeling on the styling as well — quad headlights in front, quad taillights in the rear.
Still, GM was miles ahead of Ford in the styling of their cars of this era.
Indeed. I was more of a Chevy guy back then due to this fact. GM’s styling on the A-Bodies (and the biggies from ‘65-‘70) had it all over the Fords of the time, although I’ve warmed to them too (‘69 Galaxie XL anyone?😉).
A Buick Skylark or Olds Cutlass 442 from, say, 1972, would be the pick for me.
“The senior-most class that I witnessed in attendance were those under the tent marked “Graduating Class Of 1978”.”
Thanks Joseph. Now I really feel old and “senior-most”. 1978 was MY graduating class. 🤣
For us, this would have been a possible cool car on the parking lot at my high school, but the aftermarket wheel choice would’ve been a set of Cragar S/S wheels. Even if I were to donk this one up a bit, I believe you can get a Cragar as big as 17″, which would have been bigger than that which was used back in the day.
Speaking of school colors on cars: There was a quarterback from a rival school who dated one of the cheerleaders from our school. His school colors were blue and white. Our school colors were orange and black, and our mascot was a Maverick. He drove a Grabber Orange Maverick with Black “Shelby” stripes. He had to have received a good ribbing for that on his own school parking lot.
There were lots of gearheads where I went to school. Demographics of the area, but one of our ‘primes’ was Auto-Mechanics. It was extremely popular. I went the Engineering route, myself.
School colors may be overrated, or maybe it depends o the school. My son spent 4 years ant Oregon State (orange and black) while riding a bicycle in the green and yellow of arch rivals University of Oregon and nobody said anything.
I recall a few Camaros in high school in the early 80s but the cars that stuck out most were the football player who drove a Citroen Mehari (not sure how that got into the US), another jock who occasionally drove his father’s Rolls-Royce and the casual acquaintance who drove a 911 Carrera RS.
We live close to the high school and lots of kids park on our street. Mostly surprisingly nice cars, including a trio that always park together: an E36 3-series, an E34 5-series, and a newer 230i MSport. The kid with the PT Cruiser covered in stickers parks at the other end of the block. No Chevelles to be seen.
Oh, man, RS Rick – I hope I didn’t come across as referencing c/o ’78 offensively! I’ll bet those folks at the tent were super cool, and if I hadn’t:t been busy catching up with a whole bunch of people that day, I would have loved to have talked with members of c/o ’78 to compare their experiences with mine!
The Maverick story is great – I wonder if the QB’s GF had anything to do with that choice. 🙂
No offense taken at all, Joseph. It seemed like a fun lede in to my comment.
The guy would frequently pick up his girlfriend after school, and we would always question his loyalties.
But I didn’t hang with that crowd. I was there to learn, not do sports. Such was the seriousness of an engineering student. I just happened to work at McDonalds with his girlfriend, so I sort of knew the guy.
That car looks more like cheap vinegar with those cartoonish Donk wheels. I like that era of GM mid size cars but only on appropriately sized and styled wheels. That convertible would look so much better on 15 or 16″ Torq Thrusts or Cragars
Not a fan of the wheels and lack of sidewall, but its not my car so the appalling ride quality wont bother me 55 aspect tyres are stock on my daily at 48psi to cope with our potholed streetscape coupled with a clever self adjusting hydraulic/gas suspension it rides fine my steel sprung classic rides on 70 series with a worse ride result at lower pressures but its older than that Chev and less sophisticated suspension
Great point about the ride quality. I don’t consider myself that old, but I’m sure I’d care about how I felt after riding any significant amount of time in a car that soaked up every nuance of the pavement. I can say this as one who has ridden roller coasters that, while I used to love them as a kid, they now see uncomfortable with the bumps, etc.
As far as the *look* of the wheels, they wouldn’t be my top choice, but I do like them in this car’s overall presentation.
Class of ’75 here. Your story once again makes me realize the difference between our cultures. Maybe they have school colours down here now, but there was no such thing back in my day. Of course sport didn’t have the place down here that it seems to have in American education. Mind you, I ignored sport as much as possible (now I pay the price!), and opted out of it as soon as I could in favour of more book stuff. Didn’t win any prizes there, but that was never the point; I just followed my interests. Geek? Don’t think we had the word then, but yeah, that’s me.
As a teen I was aware of these mid-size Chevys from magazines, though I’ve still never seen one. To my eyes there’s a certain indefinable ‘rightness’ about the styling that no mid-size Chevy has had since, at least none that I can think of.
While I can totally understand personalizing your ride by changing the wheels, these are too extreme, show over function. For one of these cars I’d stop at 18s, with maybe 40 profiles max. You need some sidewall cushioning to aid the suspension. These tyres are such a low profile they look to be almost solid rubber. Assuming they’re not, I dread to imagine the inflation pressure they run at. My oldish bones are already protesting at imagining the ride! The geek in me wonders what it’s like at speed, and whether they had to change the rear end gearing for the increased overall diameter?
Car: 10. Rims: 0.
Those low profile tyres suit a smooth surface, theres very little of that here, I hated the Holden Calais on our milk fleet runabout list stock 17s and stock low profile tyres it was awful the ride was terrible I hated getting asigned to that thing we had some Executive models on stock 15s that drove much better, I returned from shift one morning Calais was missing somebody else liked it better and left an executive for my commute to our motel vast improvement Keys were left on the drivers visor via company rules so it was open slather, but I got the win that day
Peter, I agree with you on many of your points. I too made it a habit to ignore sports, and likely paid the price for that in later years. But such is youth (or used to be youth, maybe it’s changed). Polarity R Us.
I’d like to think that kids nowadays have more choices. Maybe. Maybe not. Class of ’79 here. And yes, Joe’s post did make me feel old. Ok, I am old…
My guess is that the driver of the Malibu in this post seldom gets past 40mph.
Peter, I always look forward to reading what you have to say whenever you feel like writing something. I also was not a sporty guy, but I also wasn’t a reader – I suppose I would lose myself in music, which is still mostly true today.
I’d be curious to know if there’s some magic ratio of wheel diameter to body length or height that somehow looks the best to most people.
I always reckon I learnt more from my out-of-school reading than I ever learnt in high school. Much as I love music, I never had the opportunity to learn an instrument, and we didn’t have a functioning record player. Hmm, that leaves – radio. Anyway…
Magic ratio huh? Okay, here goes. I’ll approach it from a different angle (because me).
Most styling studio sketches seem to show cars with larger than normal diameter wheels. These days the factory makes them like that, but back in ’71 I seem to recall 15s were the largest non-truck wheel diameter you had on new cars, with maybe a 60 profile as the hot setup, though more usually you’d run 70s, and Dad’s car would have run 78s. So the studio sketches’ wheels would have scaled out to say 17s, maybe on 50s. Apply a little fudge factor to account for modern tastes, and I’d say 18s would still look good for the Malibu.
As the saying goes, YMMV.
I’m probably the most pragmatic stick in the mud on here regarding wheels n tires, and besides keeping the wheels nice and clean, I do nothing else regarding “looks” where it comes to the rubber meeting the pavement.
I figure, in most cases, the engineers who designed the vehicle know which size and width of wheel or rim, and what size and aspect ratio work best for how the car was intended to drive and handle, and looks were a distant secondary matter.