Chevelle Deluxe images posted at the Cohort by William Rubano
(first posted 10/10/2017) We’ve covered a lot of Colonnades over the years here, but never a low trim sedan like this Chevelle Deluxe. Deluxe? Isn’t that an oxymoron, for the lowest trim version of a car? And wasn’t it a rather severely out-of-date expression by 1973? Name debasement never ended, until it did. Even the Malibu’s name got a severe debasement in 1973, as Chevrolet tried to install a new higher-trim line Laguna above it, creating three distinct Chevelles. That was a flop. As was the Deluxe; in 1974, it was just Malibu Classic.
Not only was the Chevelle going through an identity crisis, but also a facial crisis. It started out with a mediocre one, and it kept trying on new ones each year, all to no success.
The 1973 Laguna was an ill-fated attempt to push the Chevelle upwards. The basic Chevelle face certainly wasn’t going to work for that, given how “poor” it was. Chevrolet General Manager John DeLorean used a familiar trick: creating a new Endura front end, as he had done for the ’68 Pontiac GTO. Just two problems with that.
Unlike the GTO, the Laguna was a full line, with sedan and station wagon along with the coupe. And unlike the GTO, the Laguna’s face was just plain ugly. Dorky, with a hint of anteater.
Bonus points to anyone who can find a Laguna sedan or wagon; they were mighty rare back in the day. Some 13k sedans and a hair more wagons (of all types) managed to find forgiving owners. Needless to say, the Laguna was discontinued as a full line for 1974.
The Laguna coupe, which sold a bit better in ’73, was carried over into 1974, now re-positioned as an overtly sporty coupe. The popularity of the Monte Carlo and the other GM formal-roof coupes made it essentially impossible to sell a luxurious version of the semi-fastback coupe body. But its faux-sporty make-over was a bomb, as the ’74 Laguna S3 sold half the rate of the ’73 Laguna coupe.
The Laguna S3 got a new shovelnose front end for 1975, and Jim Cavanaugh’s Laguna CC takes up the story from there. But it’s not a happy one either: its sales continued to swoon, never to break out of the four digit realm the rest of its (numbered) days. But it found its calling on the banks of NASCAR speedways.
I’ve always been more than a bit perplexed by the front end of the ’73 Chevelle; it’s so dull, generic and unappealing. Admittedly, that was something of a Chevelle trait from day one. It’s in its DNA, as was the popular saying some years back.
Here’s a look backwards at the last of the previous generation, which also was not exactly known for its interesting face.
Well, the new Chevelle, scheduled to arrive for MY 1972, was intended to improve on that. Here’s a sketch by Allan Flowers from 1969; needless to say, it’s a variation of the face that the ’71 Camaro introduced and the Vega perpetuated. Frankly, as much as I like those, another member of the family wearing almost the same face might have been a bit too much.
Which explains these clays or prototypes that sport the face that presumably the new ’72 Chevelle was supposed to wear. Aha! A chrome version of the Laguna nose. So when the 5 mile bumpers interfered with this plan, it was recreated in Endura and bestowed upon the Laguna, presumably because it would have been too expensive for the Malibu/Deluxe. Which in turn explains the generic face those two arrived with in 1973.
The solution is easy: just walk back some. It gets more interesting, especially the sedan. This came as a big surprise to me and undoubtedly a whole lot of other folks in the fall of 1972. Its airy greenhouse clearly evoked the classic six-window big GM sedans from ten years earlier, now updated with more flowing lines. And a center pillar, due to expected federal roll-over standards. That is of course where the Colonnade name came from, as in a row of pillars.
The Colonnade sedan design turned out to be rather polarizing, as it flew directly into the massive wave of ever-larger C-pillar sail panels, and a quest for privacy. The country’s mood had switched drastically since the Vietnam war and the other happenings in the late 60s, and many Americans wanted to be as sealed off from what now seemed an uglier world, rather than look at it or engage with its populace when driving down the street. Yet GM persisted in the airy sedan roof, bringing back glassy C-Pillars on the full sized cars in 1975. It may well have contributed to the dramatic loss of the sedan’s market share to the much more enclosed coupes of the era, a mega trend that continued well into the 80s.
And then of course the sloping, airy six-window sedan body came roaring back, on the success of the Audi 100/5000 and of course the Taurus. GM was either ahead or behind the times.
The Chevelle’s rear end is certainly more interesting than its front end. All the Colonnades had rather bold, sloping tails in ’73, especially the Pontiac’s. That didn’t last either, as all of them got decidedly more squared-up in 1974. And the Chevelle lost its one-year flirtation with twin round tail lights. Shades of FWD Impalas to come.
This Chevelle Deluxe may not scream “stripper” on the outside, but its interior can’t hide its place on the roster. As on the police or taxi cab company roster. By this time, stripper sedans were becoming increasingly rare in the retail segment of the market. If you were so cheap, just buy a damn Vega! Or a Datsun 1200. Dealers weren’t stocking them like this in 1973, except maybe in a few select small Midwest towns that still had a high Calvinist streak in their adults.
This immaculately-preserved Deluxe screams “granny-mobile”, and undoubtedly granny didn’t put many miles on it before she stopped driving it.
I’m going to place a pretty safe bet that this Deluxe has the 100 (net) hp Non-Turbo-Thrift 250 six. At least the venerable Powerglide was not around anymore to make the six even more sluggish.
The 307 V8 was in its last year, making all of 115 hp. For some reason, the 307 didn’t take well to the de-smogged era. In 1974, the smallest V8 would be the 145 hp 350. Of course the energy crisis changed that quickly, and in 1975, the forgettable 262 pigmy-mouse V8 made its premiere. Fortunately, by 1976 the 305, a much better compromise in the new era, finally arrived, and the 262 was sent packing after just two years. Good riddance, although it undoubtedly did the job for some with modest expectations. The 454 would be gone after 1976 too; it’s surprising that it stayed around that long.
The 1974 Chevelle got the first of its yearly face implants, or more like face-plants. It was new, but hardly original. And it was the first blatant Mercedes grille rip-off,; I’ve commemorated that Design Milepost here, but not without a bit of controversy. Given that GM Design VP Bill Mitchell used to make snide remarks about Mercedes styling back then, this is more than a bit disingenuous.
Maybe Bill was a bit too tied up under a drafting table with one of his secretaries, and the ’74 grille somehow slipped by him. But he had that fixed for 1975, with a decidedly more generic version of a very dull grille. Must have taken all of ten minutes.
But Bill was indisposed again when the ’76 grille was being “created”. Does this look pathetic, or what? My theory is that its design was outsourced to a high school shop class to save a few bucks.
The high school kids found a piece of steel extrusion laying out in the junk pile and cut to fit the grille surround. Bingo! I gave the ’76 Malibu Classic a Deadly Sin, in part inspired by its atrocious front end. So much for GM’s design leadership.
Bill decided to bring the work for the ’77 front end back in-house, and the results are…a wee bit better. But as far as I’m concerned, the Colonnade Chevelle was a car that kept looking for a good front end, but never found it.
So let’s end this CC with this end, the better end, that is. And let’s just say that the Colonnade Chevelle played its part in making the Olds Cutlass America’s best-selling car.
At the end of day,some of us like the way the front looks and some don’t. The laguna to me looks the best. I like all 3 iterations of the laguna front end. I was there when these cars came out and can honestly say that at the time it was an exciting time for me to go to car dealers to see the new models(i got into cars in the summer of 73) my mothers then boyfriend had a 1973 Malibu coupe that was well optioned in blue. The 70’s gave the people what they wanted big,chromed out, luxurious land yachts. And weather you liked it or not,the yearly changes be it grill,taillights,dashboard etc, it let people know your car was the latest(not like today where your 2017 whatever looks like the whatever of 2010. The laguna will definitely be a collector car and so will the Malibu. Because people will remember them from their youth. A time where ther were little if any computers on your car or an engine compartment that you have a hard time actually seeing the engine. So there you have it the Malibu was right for the times and to be honest,,,,,i like the Mercedes looking grill!!!!
I like the Laguna S-3 coupes, preferably the ’73 or ’74.
This is definitely a 250 CI six cylinder engine as the single tailpipe exits the driver’s side. Single exhaust V8 models exited the passenger side. The 350 – 4 barrel carb. option and all 454 equipped cars came with dual exhaust. Speaking of the 454 CI motor, it was dropped in late March of ’75 for this, the El Camino and the Monte Carlo. It shouldered on in the B- body (big car) until the end of the 1976 model year.
I have driven many of these with all matters of different engines when I worked at a Chevrolet dealership between 1972 & 1974. One of these with a six cylinder is a real boat anchor, actually less than minimally acceptable in my estimate. The 307 V8 models aren’t much better either, as the 307 CI motor, never a typical small block workhorse, strangled itself with its EGR valve, under profiled cam grind and A.I.R. pump.
Of all of the colonnades (1973-1977), I thought the ’73 had the best looking rear end but the ugliest front.
Very rare 1973 Chevelle Deluxe 4 door. Especially when it has a 250 cu. in. Or a 307 cu. in. engine. Very impressed with the shape of the car. My dad had a 1974 Chevelle Malibu 4 door, with an 350 cu. in. engine, which I really miss. So I had my buddy build me a scale model of my dad’s 74 Chevelle. I wish I still had my dad’s Chevelle. After my parents divorce, my mom didn’t take care of the Chevelle and it ended up in the wrecking yard. Man this 1973 Chevelle Deluxe is an Awsome looking car, I ever seen.
“Hardtop sedan”? Who did they think they were fooling?
I look at these cars and think that these are the cars that GM had to build, not the ones they wanted to build. If not for the perfect storm of draconian government regulations and rising gas prices, these cars would have been a lot different.
Did the Colonnade ever come with a V6? My dad bought a yellow sedan and pulled the engine out of it and sold the body for scrap. I could have sworn the engine was a V6 but I might be wrong. The car had the ’75 style round headlights but I read that the cheapest Chevelle still had round headlights for at least ’76. If so, was it a 229 or a 231?
Wasn’t it that “Buick V6” that showed up around “1975”? Remember it in “Skylarks, Skyhawks’s, Century’s, Regal’s.
“Olds” used the motor as well, I think. Possibly “Chevy” did too?
Typical Niedermeyer cyncism, sarcasm and scorn toward GM, but regardless, it begins the discussion! I was quite surprised how damning this profile of the Chevelle was. I actually quite liked the original, and the Laguna as a kid, much moreso than the second generation. I thought the’73 looked best, especially in Laguna form and with the four round rear taillights on the sculpted rear, although the model got progressively more bland starting with the rectangle taillights and flatted rear of the ’74. Although I do see the grille pattern of a Mercedes-Benz around front on that model year freshening, it has never suggested Mercedes to me whatsoever. These were minimal facelifts compared to the 1960s when significantly revised sheetmetal changes were implemented to create a fresher “new” design and try to entice owners to trade for the newest model. But with engineers at the car companies scrambling to address all the upcoming safety and emissions regulations, coupled with the need to increase fuel economy to keep buyers within the GM fold, along with the GM focus on cost cutting particularly since the late 1960s, General Motors simply had the engineering shift from a focus on appearance to substance. That being said, and interesting observation that the Colonade design was ahead of or behind the times. Just like the 1970s when people wanted to be enclosed and shut off from the world with convertibles severly declining in popularity, a similar trend seems to be repeating this in the present.
What was the point of the Chevelle? Basic transportation that wasn’t Baroque Monte Carlo? In 1973, buyers wanted the overstyled fenders and prestige of the MC. It shouldn’t have been a surprise since the MC grew exponentially in the intermendiate market and at the expense of the Chevelle. So, with the MC getting all the attention, what’s the point of the Chevelle/Malibu? It was for the four door and the wagon. You want style? Well, that is what the MC was for. Enough style for four cars.
With the Chevelle, you got a car that gets you from Point A to B. Cheap wheels. It only had to be visually as palletable as oatmeal. That’s what you have here. In 1973, you see a “sporty” Laguna, a milquetoast Chevelle, and a chintzy Monte Carlo. Who knows that the market would go with? Chevy covered all the bases. Sporty was losing favor after a decade of muscle cars, and you always needed the fleet Chevelle. Laguna dies off after a couple of years, and the public embraces Brougham personal luxury cars. OH – and there’s that Chevelle for grandma and for government service.
Does the Chevelle have a nice face in 1973 – NO. But with the booming popularity of the MC, Chevy saw the light and started adding Brougham trim to the Chevelle, hence the stand-up 1974 grille. Looking good really isn’t the point of a Chevelle. Getting to the grocery store, rolling to the punch-clock job, and just getting around is the point of that car.
Honestly, if you wanted a good looking GM Colonade, you best look at the other divisions. A Chevelle is just a Chevelle – an honest cheap ride.
I had a 74 Chevelle 4-door with a 350. We called them Flexible Flyers because of the lack of rigidity in the body & frame. Handling was adequate for the time, but the engine was gutless (as was about everything in that era). A cousin had a 76 Malibu Classic 2-door and was proud of it. But he admitted his dad’s 77 Caprice handled vastly better.
These Chevy Colonnades just never got a decent front end style. That smooth body style just cries out for a nice simple full-width grille. Or even a reprise of the ’71 front. Forget the formal stuff, the body’s style just isn’t right for two separate lights and a separate grille with forward-facing body-colour sheetmetal in between. Two round lights just don’t look right on these, not to mention those awkward ‘wings’ at the bottom of the grille that tuck under the headlamps of the ’73. They just don’t make sense. I was going to say it’s the ugliest front ever put on an American automobile, but Ford, Mopar and AMC all committed some monumental blunders to tool steel in that decade.
And as for the ‘corrugated hood’ with all the separate levels for the headlights and the grille with the troughs in between, I wonder how many got polished through to the primer?
I appreciate your comment, provides a lead in for me. I owned the twin to this Deluxe, even the same blue. My car lacked the exterior decor, so was especially stripped. My car was the 250 six with automatic. Unfortunately, my car was in terrible condition, so ended up a parts car. I’m happy to see a nice 73 Deluxe survivor, I wonder if it’s the only one left?
I guess it all in how you put the car together. I like mine as is, albeit a far cry from how she was born.