Fifty years on from their planning stages, it’s obvious that the 1964-67 A-Body intermediates were one of the greatest hits of General Motors. In all four flavors, from the lowliest Chevelle to the mini-limousine Cutlass Supremes and Skylark four door hardtop, GM set the seeds for a marketplace domination that lasted for nearly twenty years.
Even in their most conservative state, the predecessors of the Easy A’s, as I’ll call them, were pretty odd ducks. The Pontiac had “rope drive” and half of a 389 V8 throbbing along with 50/50 weight distribution. The Oldsmobile brought turbo power to the masses, often strangled by a junior version of the Roto-Hydramatic. Even the Buick had the pioneering (and troublesome engineering experiment) Aluminum V8 and the V6 that never dies.
In all that innovation, a lot of research and development, and money was spent to give each of these cars unique qualities (which some would state were dead ends). Meanwhile, Ford stepped into the valley between the seventeen and a half-foot Galaxie and fifteen-foot Falcon and built the Fairlane. Dull as mashed potatoes, with very lean gravy (the Windsor V8 in its infancy; the most basic of creature comforts) the Fairlane still cleaned up. But one place where Ford faltered was casting this image upscale: the Meteor twin of the blockbuster Fairlane was a dud.
If there’s anything that General Motors got right for a majority of the 20th Century, it was brand loyalty. Where Mercury never got an image as anything beyond a fancy Ford with extra chrome, for reasons tangible and not stepping from a Chevrolet to a Pontiac to an Olds to a Buick translated in a swapping of values.
If only this could be applied to the burgeoning market interested in a more sensible package. Junior LeSabres, Half Pint Bonnevilles and a more discreet Dynamic Eighty Eight perhaps? Although that might have been (s0mewhat) the intention of the original B-O-P Luxury Compacts, it definitely wasn’t the focus of the radical Corvair or the Falcon fighting Chevy II/Nova.
Much ado was made about the fact that the Chevelle was nearly the same size as the 1955 Chevrolet standard line, but an F-85/Cutlass wasn’t all that far off from a 1954-55 Eighty Eight, except in wheelbase length and weight. And for whatever reason, from the generic Chevrolet to the more aggressive Tempest/LeMans, the design language of all four screamed Mid-1960s chic in a way that the 1964 Fairlane, just rid of tailfins for 1964, could not. If General Motors was going to be late (again) to a market segment, it was going to have the best tailored clothes to the party. And in the case of the Easy A’s there were quite a few options to choose from.
But remember all of that innovation that came right before? Other than Pontiac deciding that a racy OHC Inline 6 was just what was needed to spice up your average family sedan and Oldsmobile engineers discreetly creating a Autobahn killer in the form of the Cutlass Supreme Turnpike Cruiser, nothing quite revolutionary was baked into them.
They forsaked unit bodies for body on frame designs, and quite infuriatingly (at least to my young mind) still offered in bulk 2 Speed Automatic transmissions when 3 speed automatics were de rigueur in the Plymouth Valiant since introduction, and by 1965 were among the options on Falcons.
I guess I’ll have to put my number-of-transmission-gear-snobbery aside and admit that they were pretty much good to great cars for the time that accomplished what they were supposed to do. Their body on frame construction gave them the isolation that was the calling card of the larger B and C body cars.
By 1965 more than a million of the various variants came down the production line in factories across the country. And not only did they kick off the Muscle Car era with Pontiac dropping the 389 into them to create the GTO, by the next year you had 4 different flavors of Protein Shake, from the Boy Racer 396 SS to the drive softly but carry a big engine Skylark GS.
They could be optioned to be more sprightly and economical that their B body big brothers too. And, especially in the Oldsmobile’s case, they could be taught to dance well enough to outshine ever softening Mopars and just about any FordMoCo product of the United States on sale in the mid 60s.
And beyond the technical levels, by aping styling trends from their big brothers, they were always a leap ahead of the-now rationalizing Mopars and the befuddled Fairlane in styling. Add in the cornucopia of body styles full size buyers expected, from Convertibles (which Ford didn’t match til 1966) and Four Door Hardtops (which Ford didn’t offer for Mid sizers until 1970, Chrysler never bothered). We won’t even really discuss how AMC, being a pioneer in more rational size, had nothing really but ever fancier upholstery to keep up with this juggernaut.
Giving buyers a plethora of options, with the option to believe they were being more sensible by not purchasing the behemoth across the showroom floor, was a winning option as many new younger car buyers balanced family ingrained brand loyalties with changing expectations of what a car should be.
Some would argue the next generation (starting in 1968) A bodies were a greater hit. Awkward proportions on the sedans are glaring faults to me, as is the still continued use of 2 speed automatics. And then they split into rivalries between each other, most pronounced when the “G” (or A special) Grand Prix and Monte Carlo came at the turn of the decade. Or that the Colonnade era A’s were bigger hits (dominated by the Cutlass juggernaut, and just as big and thirsty as B-bodies had been 10 years earlier).
Between the general high quality, all around competence and typical longevity and general goodwill these mid-sizers created, and in a lot of cases they are quite stunning for ordinary family cars, I consider them one of General Motors Greatest hits.
It’s interesting to see the scope of condition of these from tired beaters to full restored ones still being prefered daily drivers in the Bay Area of the GM faithful. I’ve had my eyes on a particular 1965 Skylark Hardtop coupe that is on Craigslist, remembering that it would be less troublesome than my dream 1962 Skylark. It created the last bastion of buyers that could not fault GM cars. Experiencing these Princes to the throne, you can understand why GM was once the finest Kingdom capitalism gave birth to.
And we could add Chrysler who put its toes in the doorstep with its maligned “standard” “plucked chicken” Dodge/Plymouth of 1962 morphed into “mid-size” intermediate Coronet/Belvedere when they introduced the C-body Polara/Monaco/Custom 888/Fury for 1965. Dodge’s move to revive the Coronet nameplate for 1965 was wise. It became the most popular model of that year.
I rest my case with this article. GM was at the top of its game and everyone else fought for the leftovers. Ford kinda woke up with the 1965 Galaxie and made a splash with the 1968 Torino (of course, they did have an insignificant offering known as a “Mustang”…), Chrysler had those beautiful, tapered C pillar coupes and Barracudas and such, and AMC had a couple of nice models, but it was GM’s market. Chevy alone had a 30% share for a time!
Style, style, style. Oh, and good engines, too, from the 250 cu. in. six, which I loved and powered dad’s ’66 Impala very well, to the 427, which I experienced once, as a passenger in an associate’s ’67 Camaro, GM, especially Chevy could do no wrong…until the 1969 full-size models…then I saw signs of real trouble. You know the rest of the story…
Condemn me if you must, but I really liked the powerglide tranny, too. Solid as a rock and lasted forever, as long as I didn’t rev up the engine and suddenly drop it into drive, that is…
There was just one thing wrong with the Powerglide. If you were cheap enough to specify any Six or the SBC with a 2 barrel carb when you ordered the car, you had absolutely no passing power above 50 mph..
Not sure if I agree with that, as dad had a 1960 Impala 283 p/g and his 1966. I had no trouble at all, it just took a bit more time.
Thing is, in a car as beautiful as those cars were, and how I felt behind the wheel of them, I didn’t care! Style over substance, I suppose. Kind of like in that commercial a few years ago where the guy was driving very slowly through town looking at his reflection in storefront windows, admiring himself. I confess I did that a few times in my avatar back in the day, ie: no girlfriend at the time!
Your avatar still makes me smile.
great article and beautiful pix. completely agree with laurence’s thesis: gm was on top of it’s game with these cars. not an “a” body but, we had a ’67 lesabre hardtop from new. my father’s non-mechanical friend talked him into skipping oil changes and topping it off for the first five years until it developed a valve tap. he never bothered to fix it and it drove fine for another six or eight years until somebody rear-ended it when it was parked. i loved going to atlantic city as a kid with the windows down as my brothers and i giggled because the car had such effortless power that my mother would creep up to 90 mph as she was chain smoking virginia slims on the garden state parkway before she realized she was speeding.
The one that will always stick with me is the 327 chevelle with any transmission you choose. I lived at the drag strip when these were new, especially connecticutt dragway from 66-69, and the 327 chevelle had my attention (not my dollars) from the start. I don’t think there were any losers to malign. Don’t care to rebuild another old car as my plate is full. However, I wish I could go back and buy a new one for today. Like Zackman I would probably have bought a six (230) but I would have lusted for the 327.
Simple cars with simple running gear are a deployed sailors friend. Hot rods were really not.
I don’t get the snobbery about how many speeds an automatic contains. We’re talking an automatic transmission, fer chrissakes! You know, those transmissions for, a. People who hate to drive and just want to be transported around, or, b. People who are too incompetent to actually DRIVE a car, or, c. Some combination of a. and b.
Whether it’s got two speeds, six speeds, or nineteen speeds who cares? As long as it gets into gear, performs reliably, gives acceptable gas mileage, and gets someone to their destination on time and comfortably it’s done it’s job.
I tend to regard “number of speeds in an automatic” alongside “hard plastic in the interior” as those complaints brought out by auto writers who are either attempting to show real hard credentials as an educated auto writer, or, just another set of nit-picks used because no car review is any good if you can’t pillory something about the car being reviewed. No car is allowed to get near being perfect, of course.
If you’re steering a car around with an automatic rather than actually driving a car with a manual, you’ve got no grounds for complaining about the number of speeds at your disposal.
I agree with you about the plastics. If they could say that the plastic in a Lexus was functionally better or lasted longer that the plastic in a Hyundai I might buy into the plastics argument. Until someone does that it is just aesthetics and opinion as far as I am concerned. I’ve had a few Tupperware interiors that have never cracked or faded, and I can scrub clean when needed.
I am with you to a point on the “number of speeds in an autotrans” question. When the OEMs were struggling to find a way for a low-cost automatic for an inexpensive car in the early 1950s, 2 speeds was just fine. But by 1964-67, a 2 speed was almost impossible to find anywhere but at GM. And at GM they were EVERYWHERE.
The whole purpose of an automatic is to keep the engine somewhere in its torque band. A 2 speed will do, but 3 will do it better. And it is a noticeable better. If a 4 speed stick is your idea of heaven, why settle for the hell of a 2 speed auto when you can at least go to purgatory with a 3 speed. And a good 3 speed (like a Torqueflite) was just as good as the stick in accelleration. So, if you like shifting, wonderful. But if not, how badly should you be penalized?
Two lane highways were more common then, and passing on them in the typical 50 -70 mph range could be pretty hair-raising in a two-speed automatic. I speak from experience. That additional gear between Low and Drive was akin to a blessing.
Syke, there was more than a marketing reason why the three-speed auto became the norm. The four-speed added an overdrive, which was icing on the cake. But second gear was no luxury; it made a big difference.
I’m going to add, did any of you grow up where there’s hills? Nothing is more telling about how beneficial an extra gear or two helps with engine flexibility like watching any early 1960s Powerglide equipped Chevrolet deal with an uphill freeway entrance that’s pretty common in the Bay Area.
I’ve talked to many Impala/Chevelle owners at local car shows and they talk about how much a 283/327 Powerglide equipped car can scream at Freeway speeds when the road isn’t flat, dropping down to low if they’re going slow enough that the engine is at redline, or if they’re too high for the kickdown… oh well.
Like I stated in the 65-66 DeVille piece, along with being King of the Hill, the complacency was also setting in. GM could have taken a $20-50 profit hit per car to have competitive 3 speed Automatics, but was too greedy to.
My father’s first car was ’65 Impala Sport Coupe with the 2-barrel 327 and Powerglide. His observations about the same. It was better than six/Powerglide in his mom’s Biscayne wagon, and he was thoroughly convinced of GM’s superiority until the early ’80s, so it really didn’t matter that the car needed another gear.
One of these days, I’ll buy a ’60s-vintage classic. I love the old Impalas, A-bodies and Corvairs. But I won’t buy one without the Hydramatic.
Hey FromaBuick6, isn’t your CC username a reference to the Stephen King book, From A Buick 8?
It’s a song from Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited. King’s a known rock fanatic and the title’s a reference to the song.
Snobbery… seriously? Man, what century are you living in? The mid-20th, still, apparently. 😉
How ’bout manuals? Is it “snobbery” to think that it’s better to have a 6-speed manual than a 4-speed? Seems a lot of old car car guys don’t think so, given how many replace their old Toploaders and Muncies with modern Tremecs in their ’60s Mustangs, Chevelles and Camaros. As for auto trannies…
Now, I’m a diehard manual guy… I’ve always had at least one car (whether new or not new) with a crash box, and always will as long as they’re available (which will be probably only on the used market at some point in the future). Long live shifting for yo’ own self! But you’d have to be an automotive neanderthal not to acknowledge that modern auto trannies have been nigh-perfected to the point where modern cars with autos get better fuel mileage than with a manual, and even accelerate quicker (e.g., Porsche PDK).
This has all gone hand in hand with cramming in more gears, whilst perfecting the software that controls the tranny’s lockup and shifting, both up and down the gear range. The more speeds you have, the more flexibility the software has to choose just the right gear for a given combined state of speed, load, acceleration, etc. There’s a reason a new Camry V6 can accelerate 0-60 quicker than a old big-block Mopar with a Torqueflite.
While it may give nostalgic warm & fuzzes to wistfully pine for the simpler days of 2-speed Powerglides and 3-speed Torqueflites as “good enough”, the fact is modern auto trannies (don’t call ’em slush boxes any more, ’cause they ain’t) are light years better for very good and sound engineering reasons, all driven by the quest for ever-greater fuel efficiency. What’s wrong with that?
Modern automatics are a whole different animal. I am the first to tell you that a 5 speed auto in my Honda Fit makes it the first 4 cyl/auto that did not make me want to set the car on fire. The 6 speed in my new Sedona is so smooth that I have trouble distinguishing the gear changes.
That said, there is a gigantic tradeoff. I have had a tranny or two rebuilt in old cars (early 70s Torqueflite, for example). This was about 1982 and cost me roughly 1/3 the value of my 11 yr old Plymouth Scamp. Fast forward to last year when a tranny let go in my fwd 99 Chrysler T&C. Cost to rebuild was 80-100% of the value of the car. And it is a fairly simple 4 speed fwd transaxle. So, instead of fixing it (which I would have done if it were less expensive), I gave the car to a friend who got a nice van for the cost of a tranny rebuild.
I shudder to think how much one of those 8 or 9 speed units will cost when (not if) it fails. It would be one thing if they built them to be as durable as the old Powerglides or Jetaway HydraMatics (even if they specified regular service intervals). But they will not. The units will fail, and will send a lot of otherwise useful cars to the scrapyard.
I couldn’t agree more. Even the overdrive 4-speed slush boxes of the ’90s were pretty wretched when teamed to a small-displacement four. Honda’s four-speeds were particularly awful; I owned three of them. I’ve also driven more than my share of three-speed J-cars and Neons; they were even worse.
The 5-speed automatics I’ve sampled from Honda and Toyota, however, have been great. The conventional six-speeds now offered by GM and Ford are better still. VW’s DSG is arguably a better choice than the manual in my GLI. But I have absolutely zero confidence in any of these transmissions’ long term durability. Nearly every manufacturer has demonstrated a complete inability to develop a transaxle that can go 100k miles in a FWD minivan/CUV without failing. The track record of CVTs and dual-clutch boxes is pretty dismal so far. More gears, more computers and more complex engineering “solutions” don’t bode well.
For my money, the 727 Torqueflite is still the all-around best automatic every produced, followed very closely by the Turbo-Hydramatic 400.
I also have a soft spot for the 4 speed Jetaway HydraMatic as used in early 60s Cadillacs and Pontiacs. My 63 Fleetwood had a tranny fluid leak when I got it. I took it to a shop. The guy recommended “seals and service” for $100 (it was the late 70s). I asked what would happen if they got into it and found something seriously wrong. He looked at me like I had asked if these transmissions ever jumped out of the car and started dancing. He said “these almost never have a serious problem.” He turned out to be right.
I have 110000 miles on a 2006 Civic with a 5-speed auto. It has been switched to the new DW transmission fluid from the old Z-1 (and I use ONLY Honda fluid) and has had very little to almost no debris on the magnet plug each time I’ve changed the fluid. And the shifts are very smooth or very firm, depending on conditions.
Also, you got your transmissions backwards. The Turbo 400 was/is the most durable transmission EVER. Even Rolls-Royce thought so.
You’re right about repair costs. I’d argue, though, that most (but not all) modern automatics, given proper maintenance, are more durable – i.e., can last longer without the need for a rebuild or replacement – than the old automatics of yore. Yes, there have been high profile horror stories of modern-era transmissions and transaxles that suffered catastrophic failure because of fundamental design deficiencies (in many cases probably exacerbated by lack of maintenance by owners), but for the most part modern automatics are pretty trouble free.
Of course, many of us on this blog are into stretching as much mileage and use as we can out of our old(er) cars, and are thus more likely to experience, say, a transmission failure necessitating expensive repair. Most car buyers (we’re talking new cars here), on the other hand, will typically lease or trade the car before the warranty runs out. Even in these tough economic times, for people who are keeping their cars longer such that it may be out of warranty (the average age of the US car fleet is now, what, 10 years or something like that?), it still may make more financial sense to rebuild or buy a rebuilt tranny, than buy a new or decent used car to replace it. To me this is a better metric.
“Yes, there have been high profile horror stories of modern-era transmissions and transaxles that suffered catastrophic failure because of fundamental design deficiencies (in many cases probably exacerbated by lack of maintenance by owners), but for the most part modern automatics are pretty trouble free. ”
I’d say it depends. It seems like the cars with the most trouble-free automatics are small front-drive cars like four cylinder Toyota products or big rear drivers (with the notable exception of modern German luxury cars).
The 4-cyl FWD cars probably don’t stress their transmissions out much and in a big RWD/4WD application, the components can probably be made more durably due to the fact that the transmission doesn’t have to be crammed in under the hood with the engine and front differential like in a FWD crossover or minivan. Not as much space constraint = room for beefier parts.
To be honest, I don’t know why the cutlass outsold the (in my mind) far superior 1st generation Pontiac Grand Am (see pictures @ autopolis.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/1973-1977-pontiac-grand-am-2) among the colonnades. The Pontiac looked better in both sedan and coupe forms, drove better, sounded better (had a better engine note) and was faster!
I had firsthand experience with both. My mom had a 74 Luxury LeMans sedan and my stepmother had a 74 Cutlass Supreme coupe, both with their respective 350s. I thought that the Olds had the stronger powerplant. It just seemed to have more grunt. The 350 in the Pontiac seemed a bit weak, but drank just as much fuel. On a more subjective note, I preferred the look of the LeMans (particularly with the 1974 tail end) but I think that the Cutlass did “brougham” better, which was the style at the time. By 1976, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Cutlass. while the LeMans not that common of a sighting.
I’m talking about one with either a 400 V8 (standard engine) or with the optional 455 V8.
Although I was never GM’s biggest friend, I have to take my hat off to this car. My family’s 64 Cutlass hardtop was one of the best cars we ever had. That car had almost Honda-like levels of build quality and reliability. Both the factory battery and factory exhaust system lasted 7 years, unheard of on that era.
I agree that the 2 speed automatics is one of the few areas where these fell down, but at least GM would sell you enough engine to where the lack of a gear in the automatic was not such a big deal. The 4 bbl 330 (premium fuel) in our Cutlass was plenty strong. I recall a time or two when my mom was feeling playful and would smoke some teenager who wanted to challenge her to a stoplight duel.
The bodies were first rate, and were quite rust-resistant for the era. Also, the quality of the trim inside made a lot of other cars look cheap. This was the car that made GM look like an invincible empire to me in those years (and later). In hindsight, GM was really, really good at building one kind of car, in various sizes. This was the 7/8 scale version of that car.
> That car had almost Honda-like levels of build quality and reliability.
You mean ’64 Hondas? Is `Honda’ a god to be revered and genuflected to? Really an inane comparison. Almost, of course. None can equal the mighty Honda, even in 1964.
I’m thinking 1980s Hondas. The 88 Accord that my wife bought new set the standard in our family. Until it got caught in a flood around 1995 or so, it required not one, single, solitary repair (outside of wear items like brake pads, battery and a muffler). No other new or late model vehicle we have owned has equalled it.
Go back to the 1960s. Even the best cars had ill-fitting trim, runs in the paint, and had things break down. I recall an elderly neighbor complaining that “you used to be able to buy a new car and go on vacation. Now, you have to wait a few months to have the problems fixed before you can go.” Our Cutlass was unusual. But even it, by age 7 or 8 had little things, like the need to slam the passenger door a little harder to shut it, and a raspy-sounding horn contact when you turned the steering wheel. So, in my world, it was almost Honda-like.
Geeze, you complain even when people speak highly of a GM product?
Carcounter must be channeling Carmine, the ultimate GM fan.
The Buick and Oldsmobile versions of the two-speed auto (Super Turbine 300 and Jetaway) also had the advantage of a variable-pitch stator in the torque converter, which gave you two different torque converter multiplication ratios depending on load and throttle position — a trick Buick developed in the fifties for Dynaflow. Still not a three-speed, but helpful nonetheless.
Is that similar to the variable pitch in DG autos fitted to Austins and Wolseleys where you can adjust the shift points by about 30mph useful for towing in hilly country or dragging at ;ights
My family had a 64 Cutlass convertible, white with a blue top and interior. It has always been one of my all time favorite cars. I remember my dad racing a Cadillac on the interstate. We were going (on the speedo anyway) 120. The Cadillac could not pass us. This was probably in 1966, so traffic was much lighter in those days.
Cool sounding car. Our 64 Cutlass hardtop was a super dark metallic green (almost black in poor light) with matching dark green buckets. Ours also had the console with the tach up front under the dash. Do you remember the ash tray in the dash that flipped around like the secret panel behind the bookcase in all the old haunted house movies?
The 1957-59 Dodges had that type of ashtray too. My mom’s first car was a ’59 Custom Royal Lancer 2-door hardtop.
We had the console and tach on ours too, but I don’t remember the ash tray.
I grew up around Powerglides and I never one heard anybody complain about it. Nor did I ever hear of anyone ever replacing one. Powerglide was famous in taxi circles for lasting the life of the car, which was very often over 500,000 miles. Sure the THM350 was a better unit but 100,000 miles was the absolute limit for one.
As for speeds, Skye is 100% bang on, more speeds has gotten to the nonsense point. Who the hell needs a eight speed automatic? Is the torque band of your motor so bad that you need to shift EIGHT TIMES to get get to 40 mph? It is absurd and what would the replacement cost of such a transmission be anyway? Astronomic, that is what. I recently had a Toyota Corolla rental with a HORRIBLE four speed automatic and it was just fine by me.
Auto “journalists” so so full of crap I don’t even bother reading “reviews” anymore. They have no sense of reality whatsoever since they spend their days driving other people’s cars with free gas and if they are lucky, five star accommodation. Are you going to call a BMW an overpriced reliability nightmare is the sent you to South Africa to drive one? Of course you are not. Then there is the “soft touch” nonsense. Yes, my Acura has a very nice, “soft touch” interior and my Fit doesn’t but the Acura was something like triple the money when it was new. Really, go and find a five year old car and test it and tell me its repair history. That means something to me.
IMHO these multi-speed boxes are designed for one thing-Eking out every last bit of efficiency to squeak by the CAFE standards-Whatever happens after the warranty is not their concern.
Beautifully written, Laurence, and well-said. My very first car at age 18, a 1964 Pontiac LeMans, 2-door with a post, but I always thought it looked better than the hardtop. A very well-built car, always reliable, kept it for seven years, never had anything major go wrong (other than the red paint, which had to be redone about four years into my ownership). Matching red interior, bucket seats, console, redline tires with the wheel covers that mimicked big brother GP’s multi-lug wheels, it was a very hot car for a USC freshman in 1965. The very competent 326 and the two-speed automatic got me everywhere around L.A., hills included, with no issues that I can recall. In hindsight, probably the best car I have ever had.
These “Greatest Hits” pieces are a breath of fresh air!
Wow. Transmissions.
From John Donne’s “Meditations 727”:
“Ask not, for whom the bell housing tolls, it tolls for three [forward gears]…”
What was I planning to comment on again? Right – Laurence’s pictures! Compelling and evocative as always. Can you tell us what’s happening in the one with a lady on a white tailgate? Is she a mannequin?
She is indeed a Mannequin. That particular Vista Cruiser is owned by a couple that’s a member of the Freewheelers Classic Car Club, and in the upmost camp they had a full on “picnic scene” on the tailgate.
They also have a 1962 Skylark which they do up with a similar Mannequin as a “Sex and the Single Girl” motif. I haven’t had the balls to ask if that means she has birth control pills in her clutch….
Ha! Hard to spot her as you approach the car, as she’s always horizontal in the back seat…
The ’64 Impala I grew up with and learned to drive in was a 283 with a Powerglide. It always seemed to have plenty of torque, with no need to downshift into passing gear. One time when it did downshift was when I was on an uphill cloverleaf freeway ramp with a short merge lane. Coming out of the turn, I floored the gas, and had I not been wearing my seat belt, I swear I would have been flung into the back seat. For a little 283 in a big car, that thing could move.
I replaced the Powerglide with a THM700R4 in my own ’64 Impala a couple of years ago when it was shifting sloppy and it appeared high gear was on its way out. The 1-2 shift in the new tranny is at about the same point was in the Powerglide, and the 2-3 and 3-4 shifts are so smooth that you can barely feel them, so the driving experience is pretty much the same. But RPMs have dropped by nearly 1,000 at highway speeds. A lot quieter, but gas mileage hasn’t improved as much as I would have hoped.
Given that your Impala took 13 seconds for the run from 0-60
http://books.google.com/books?id=WCYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA48&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
perhaps your youthful memory has been enhanced by time somewhat? 🙂 That’s common.
And that’s odd about the 1-2 shift being at the same speed; the Powerglide would upshift at 53 mph on a 283 Impala; does your THM go into second at 53mph?
I was talking about in normal driving, not WOT. Even when I step on it turning onto Oregon 99W, it still likes to shift before 3,000 RPM. My ’01 Seville, however, will race for redline.
It has been 30 years, but I do remember the kick when that Powerglide went into passing gear. Of course, in 1982, we were barely emerging from the malaise era, so even a little 283 would feel fast compared to a lot of the other cars on the road back then.
The GM A-bodies were quite successful vehicles, as opposed to earlier GM compacts like the Pontiac Tempest with the “rope” drive shaft and the rear transaxle and the Buick and Olds versions with their aluminum v-8 engines. There was a considerable amount of standardization, they shared the frame, suspension components, inner body panels-and probably other components and they set the stage for greater standarization between the automotive divisions in the 70’s and beyond.
As far as Powerglide is concerned, in 1957 Chevrolet introduced Turboglide, which while a much more advanced transmission had numerous reliability problems and was finally discontinued in 1961. Powerglide may have been a P.O.S., but it was a reliable P.O.S., which probably explains while Chevrolet kept it as long as they did.
I suspect how you feel about Powerglide transmissions has much to do with the topography where you live. While I agree the 6 or 8 speed automatics are overkill, if youv’e ever driven in mountainous country like BC with a powerglide you would appreciate what a difference having at least 3 speeds makes. They were indeed tough though. Every one I hauled to the dump 30 years ago was working just fine when I replaced it with a TH350 or 400. Yeah, I know they’re worth money today, but back then even the auto wreckers didn’t want them.
I’m a Chevy guy at heart, but I have often wondered just how they maintained thier sales lead in the 60s with only 2 speeds.
Disparaging comments about inadequate automatic transmission gears aside, the mid to late sixties GM intermediates were otherwise impressive, indeed. Ford and Chrysler had their bright spots, too, but they just couldn’t hold a candle to the General. It was the last great, effective adherence to Sloan’s creed of ‘a car for every purse and purpose’.
Then it was over. It’s just amazing that GM was able to make it last as long as they did.
I liked the looks of the 64 and 65 Malibus, but not as much as the looks of the 1967 Olds Cutlass 2-door hardtops. But I never owned any of these cars, and the one that I actually drove didn’t do much to endear itself to me. My uncle’s 1964 Chevelle 4-door sedan, 6, 3-speed. They were visiting us and we four took a trip up into the mountains with it. Going up the hills, third was too high-geared, and second was too low. When we got almost to the top of Naches pass my uncle allowed that well, maybe he could have left his 400-pound toolbox at home. Then driving it on a back road I found that the throttle would accelerate or decelerate without my input when the car hit a bump. It wasn’t until they’d left for home that I thought this through and decided that the car probably had a broken motor mount.
Skylark Look way Bettter than lesser Buicks, 65 and 67 Especially.
Le Man & GTO Were The Best/Most desireable to me…Best 64! Bestt 66, 67!
Chevellw 66, 67 better than the olds
Growing up in California in the early 1980s, all of my Okie relatives (who had migrated from Oklahoma during the depression) had fleets of non-running cars rotting away in their yards and driveways. My great grandpa Fred, who by this time was mostly blind, had a 1967ish Olds Cutlais convertible in primer black in the front yard. As a young child, he used to yell at me any time I got near that car. I have no idea what ever happened to the Cutlais. My grandma probably had it towed to the crusher when Grandpa Fred died.
How do you get those incredible light effects in some of your photos? Polarizing filter? Photoshop?
I’ve owned and driven tons of these cars. 65, 67 Chevelles, 64, 67 Cutlass. Great cars. I liked the ’64 Cutlass the best, solid as a rock. It had the 330 2barrel and it would eek out 20 mpg on the highway. The ’67 Cutlass had the 330 4 barrel, 320 HP. Definitely unusual engine at the time with its rising powerband as RPM built, it would come on the cam about 3500 and pull real hard up to redline. “Ultra High Compression” (10.25). Wonderful engine sound. At the time the two speed autos seemed adequate (and durable), but I was one of the first to swap out a Chevrolet Powerglide for a Turbo 350. With no other changes I’m sure it shaved a second or two from zero to sixty. Plus the downshift capability at highway speeds was appreciated.
I’m a full believer in the current crop of six speed automatics. In my ’12 4cyl Camry the transmission keeps the engine speed very low under light throttle, and the fuel economy is excellent. Its entirely possible to drive it conservatively and never exceed about 2000, 2500 RPM at any time. Steady 65 mph fuel economy is at least 40 MPG. The fuel economy is several MPG better than my 04 Camry with the four speed auto. It is cool when the drive by wire throttle will open fairly wide when the car is climbing a little hill, engine is turning about 1600 RPM and the gas pedal is barely cracked. They’re getting efficiency by filling the cylinders hard and keeping pumping loss low.