Ever since I was smol, as today’s hep young people say, I’ve had something of a loathe-on for GM’s ’71-’76 big cars. When there were still a lot of them on the roads—and there were—I hotly despised everything about them. Don’t guess I need to elaborate much—offensively bloated; grotesque; ill-built; inefficient, etc—aggravated by their having gone out of production the year I was born, so most of the ones I saw were decrepit to one or another degree. The sole exception was grandma Zelda’s Cadillac Calais, which I never mentally connected to the ChevrOldsmoBuAcs I was so tickled to stop seeing in traffic and parkades.
But now I think some of my hatred might’ve been down to massive overexposure, for I saw this ’71 Oldsmobile the other day and—for the first time in the history of ever—saw some styling rectitude. Some sculptural merit, even! Lookit:
Whatever I might think about the whole mastodon, this part of its design is some fine work: two sides of a building, viewed from the corner. In 1971 there was nothing such as pedestrian-friendlier car design; that kind of traffic violence was regarded as the fault of the stupid pedestrian. Not like now, when pedestrian-protection regulations on car design and construction exist (except here on the North American regulatory island, where pedestrians are still just stupidly askin’ for it by not being in cars).
Might this look better with a composite headlamp rather than these mandatorily standardised sealed beams (this inboard high beam appears to be original to the car)? Me, I’d stick with this twin-round treatment. The turn signal is kind of unusual, with that two-segment lens in front of one bulb—shielded from direct view by the vertical strip of bumper—in one reflector bowl.
There’s bulk quantities of more to see; come take a look at this door handle right over here:
It’s the same kind as on grandma’s same-year Cadillac; I remember standing just about eye-on to it and grooving on its de luxity, with that intricately concave pushbutton. I don’t know what these doors sound like now, but when they were younger I bet they said the same thing on opening—jaBROCKet!—as the doors on grandma’s Calais. I have always preferred pushbutton doorhandles of this general configuration; they’ve always seemed easier to use and more appealing than the lift-bar type or the pull-the-whole-handle kind. And don’t let’s even start about the current fad of ones that automatically pop out to make themselves available for use on the fobholder’s approach (unless and until they don’t, but who cares? They’re internet-enabled, and that’s the main thing).
Below the doorhandle here is one of the approximately seventy-three kazillion of these upside-down door locks GM bought from Briggs & Stratton, wasn’t it? They’re upside-down in that the key is inserted with the notches down. Like the debate over which way the toilet paper should come off the roll, this question has one right answer—not this one. This answer’s wrong because if the key notches face down, it means the lock’s tumblers point up out their holes. Like everything else on this planet, dirt and freezable water fall down; a lock mechanism is less likely to get fouled if it’s above rather than below. But…
…this is a convertible, so locks are irrelevant. Car’s a bit boatlike in profile, iznit? I don’t think those wheels are doing it any favours after Labour Day, but they’re wearing good ol’ BFGoodrich Radial T/As.
These louvre ornaments remind me of the ones atop the tailfins on a ’61 Valiant V200. The Valiant came with three and this Olds came with nine, making it three times posher than the Valiant. It’s got only eight now, but surely it is better to have louvred and lost than never to have louvred at all.
These other louvres, near the northern border of the deck lid’s northernmost county, are harder for me to understand. Even when the owner opened the trunk I didn’t see that they connect to anything. What is the point of these?
Rear bumpers ensconcing the lower part of the taillights were an Oldsmobile tic; see also 1973 Cutlass. The tops of the rear fenders quietly hint that tailfins used to be a thing. Consumer Reports pipes up here: You must rotate a medallion to insert the trunk key, a nuisance.
The owner, who was sort of skittering about a half-block area centred round the car, was vocally jumpy about anyone who looked like they might be reading his licence plate. In deference to his preference, I’ve shooped the front plate; he had covered the rear one.
No more boring ol’ ’60s ol’ block letters; the ’70s were going to be all about curlicues; calligraphic cursive, and filligreed font frippery. I used to hate these taillights, seeing them as a random melted-bar-of-soap shape. They work a little better for me now I can see they’re actually shaped like a covered casserole turned up on edge. They’re big; hence good and bright without being glaring—we used to know that’s the right way to do it; now we’ve forgot. The ‘chrome’ on the lenses is in remarkably good condition; mostly it quickly wore off GM cars so adorned.
Speaking of bolt-ons GM bought 73 kazillion of: this kind of sideview mirror, shaped like a palm with no thumb or fingers (…madejya look!). If it wasn’t exactly the same mirror head on my folks’ ’84 Caprice, it was damn near. And I guess these head pretend-restraints are on the kazillion-list, as well.
Oh, dear. I do not think ye olde calligraphique cursive Royale emblem countervails the Rubbermaid Brute Commercial Products armrest and doorhandle area; best dig the grain of that seat upholstery instead.
Hoyup, welcome to 1971! Been a long time since I saw an ashtray lined with tinfoil like that. That’s the kind of shift lever I swapped onto my ’91 Crapiece. Hey, look, it’s one of those chromed bent-metal plates GM used to put on the outboard rear upright corners of their seats because reasons! Nothing whispers “»tsk« too cheap to buy the air conditioning” like blockoff plates where the outboard air registers would be. Certainly quite the collection of…items…bungeed to the rearview mirror. Powuh windizz, powuh lox.
Powuh windizz here, too, with those square-chrome-bezel switches (also on the kazillion list; GM used these well into the ’80s and I think maybe as late as the ’90 Caprice). This is not a Cadillac; nevertheless, it has diamonds in the back. Seatbelts tucked inaccessibly behind the seat, just like every ’71-’76 B-body taxicab I ever rode in.
From this angle, we see what looks like a very long rear seat cushion and very short rear leg- and footroom. We also have a good perspective on the hood, big enough for its own weather systems.
I do not know why the hood was up; the owner’s skittering didn’t seem to include any engine room ministrations, and there was no evidence of an overheat or other breakdown. I’m not so keen on these grilles, which look like the grate on an air conditioner or something. Perhaps it would look better with lines only vertical or horizontal, andor brought forward flush with the front of the header metal rather than recessed like this, or maybe I just need another four decades’ time to come around. I do like the red Rocket emblem, and the way the front bumper meets the header sheetmetal in the middle there.
Taking a pic of this great big engine bay was a little like facing down a great big Dagwood sandwich: just where does one take a first bite? So the angle’s a little awkward; sorry bout that. That headlamp sculpture works from this angle, too; I like the pointy prows.
This is a 455, and the owner announced multiple times to passersby that “it’ll pass anything but a gas station!”. I can’t tell from here if this one has the two- or the four-barrel carburetor; aftermarket cattledogs say it could be either. Way over yonder on the other side of the radiator, hidden from our sight by atmospheric haze—okeh, by the radiator shroud—is a side-terminal battery; 1971 was the first year some GM cars had these as original equipment. I’ve never liked ’em; they’re a terminal pain in the –nuts– bolts when getting or giving a jump start. GM claimed they were vastly superior to top-terminal batteries; I think they were really just vastly superior to those dumb spring-ring battery cable ends GM used before on regular top-terminal batteries. I haven’t checked lately; are GM still pretending they’re right and the entire rest of the world is wrong about this?
1971 was also the last year for external voltage regulators on GM cars, like this what we see perched on the firewall just below the –starboard– right angle-brace. And under the left one we see a fine example of how GM mounted brake master cylinders at an angle, an innovation that made fluid check-and-fills and brake bleeding operations forty per cent extra messy.
Now look down and notice how much road we can see; the engine’s big—it’ll pass anything but a gas station—but the engine bay’s huge. One can drop a half-inch wrench—or a nine-sixteenths, or a twenty-three sixty-fourths; none of that pinko commie metric stuff here, and hear it go »Ping-ClengaDenk« on the actual, real ground. In accord with Scripture (and Don Martin).
American automakers squawked and bleated that mandatory side marker lights would spoil their styling and be ruinously expensive and not cost-effective and they’d cause ring-around-the-collar; waxy buildup on floors and unsightly spots on glassware, and quite possibly psoriasis. They look fine to me, and they don’t appear to have bankrupted GM. Areal shirts and business floors and glassware seemed okeh, as did my scalp. So I donno.
I took these last two pics and ran along on my errands. As I was coming back up the street a little later, the Olds—audibly running on all eight—pulled away in front of a plume of invisible but filthy exhaust. I was born the year of peak leaded-gasoline consumption in America, so that kind of toxic ground-level “air” was on the decline by the time I noticed it. Even so, and even though everyone was used to it because it was inescapable, I sure as hell remember it unfavourably.
The Olds headed off south; the nearest gasoline station was about a kilometre down the road.
The 1971 versions of this generation of GM B/C body cares are def the best, as they show off the original styling vision that went into creating them, when the 5 mile bumper was still an unrealized dream of the bumper-brigade. As to them being large and bloated, it’s a trick of the stylists; these ’71s were no longer or wider than the ’70s that they replaced; the Chevy was actually a hair shorter. But that fuselage styling sure manages to make them look like a 747 instead of a 707.
Yes, that molded Vega-grade plastic door panel on all of them was a real retrograde move; they didn’t feel nice when new, and aged badly. GM and the others were struggling with inflation at the time, and unlike today when they feel no compulsion about jacking up prices, they focused on reducing costs, like this.
A two-barrel 455; I’d forgotten about that. I’m guessing that was a legacy of their 1967 Turnpike Cruiser, which used a two-barrel 400 geared really high to achieve 20 mpg:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/almost-forgotten-the-20-mpg-400-cubic-inch-1967-olds-cutlass-turnpike-cruiser/
»zonk« Wow! I surely wouldn’t’ve guessed.
Another long forgotten GM Land Barge .
I like it too although I don’t ever want one .
-Nate
Weren’t the trunk louvers intended for the new for 71 flow through ventilation system? They basically leaked into the trunk if I recall?
Yes and found only on ’71 models.
Yes, these are functional and 1971-only, even found on the clamshell tailgates of wagons. I’ve read everywhere that these didn’t work properly and led to HVAC issues and were hastily redesigned, but haven’t found any description as to what exactly didn’t work with the setup. Can anyone fill me in?
Yes. They didn’t work to exhaust stale air*. When a “feature” does not fulfill its only raison d’etre…that’s GM.
I know. We had one.
Wait, wait; don’t tell me: they also let water in.
If John DeLorean’s On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors is credible on this point—I find it so—the ’71 big cars were riddled with thoughtless engineering and halfassed executions. Such defects in the HVAC system were described in some detail. Doesn’t surprise me the eh-who-cares-we’re-GM-and-they’ll-take-it-and-like-it rot went beyond the parts of the system under the hood and dashboard.
I’d say it is equipped with the 4-barrel QJ carb.
I enlarged the photo and see what I believe is the long metal gas filter peeking out from under the front of the air cleaner.
Like it matters?
Yeah, what’re we talking about, maybe 9 versus 9.5 miles per gallon, maybe?
Weren’t GM headlights called “T3″s?
Yes, from ’60-’71, sealed beam headlamps made by GM’s Guide division had one of a few different “T-3” logos on the lens. There’ve been campfire stories about just what T-3 means; I can’t speak authoritatively, but my best guess is it’s a meaningless marketing name. If you look closely at the inboard lamp I mentioned, you can see the triangular logo in the middle of the lens.
I’ve also read that despite their popularity with collectors, the non-halogen incandescent T-3 lamps were dim and didn’t have a good light pattern. Are T-3s any worse than other sealed beams of the era?
There’s something distinctive about older sealed beams that changed later on that I can’t quite put my finger on. The glass looks thicker or the fluting (or whatever the ridges in the glass are called) is less distinct.
There were only non-halogen T-3 lamps; by the time halogen sealed beams came round, the T-3 name had been discontinued.
There were some very good plain tungsten (non-halogen) sealed beam headlamps; many of them in this 5-3/4″ round size gave considerably longer seeing distance on low beam than the halogen units. On my long-term project list is a comprehensive series of articles about sealed beams.
The difference is that the flutes and prisms in the lens glass grew finer/narrower in the early 1970s. Attached are pre/post GE lenses, for example.
Your knowledge of auto lighting continues to astound me.
I must ask, because if anyone knows; you do. What is the purpose of the seemingly random pattern of “flutes and prisms”? More light out of specific areas of the lens?
Eek! Please excuse me; I didn’t mean to overlook your comment for two months.
Sealed beam headlamps, and a lot of composite units for many years, use a parabolic reflector. A filament at (or near) the focal point of a parabolic reflector produces a light beam of a certain shape. If the filament is axial/fore-and-aft, you get a circular light beam. If it’s transverse/horizontal, you get a horizontal sort of bow-tie shaped beam. Most sealed beams used transverse filaments. That basic beam gets the light out in the right general direction, but it needs to be refined at a more granular level: more light here, less light there, sometimes with “more” (high-intensity light for seeing distance) located very close to “less” (low-intensity light for glare control). So the lens has flutes to spread the light, and prisms to shift the light. It’s common to see a collection of square or rectangular prisms clustered in one or more areas of the lens; those are arranged to superimpose their “pieces” of the beam, creating a high-intensity ‘hot spot’ for distance reach. Other prisms are used to shift light downward at certain points in the beam, to keep oncoming-driver glare under control. Fluted sections of the lens are used to provide adequate beam width so you can see the road edges and corners, etc.
No need for apologies; you certainly have better things to do than to answer comment questions! Thanks very much; and happy holidays to you and yours!
T 3 means tilt down 3 degrees so as no to blind oncoming traffic
Sorry, no; that’s one of those campfire stories. 3° down has never been an appropriate headlamp aim specification, even for a low beam. A low-beam headlamp mounted at a more or less typical 27 inches above the road surface, aimed 3° down, would provide 43 whole, entire feet of seeing distance—a small fraction of the needed distance (and a small fraction of the distance provided by a properly-aimed headlamp). Also, the word “tilt” is not used in headlamp engineering, specification, or maintenance procedures. Also, aim specifications for American headlamps were not given in degrees until several decades after the T-3 lamps went out of production. Also, if that were the explanation, why would the high beams also say “T-3”? High beams are aimed straight-ahead. Always have been.
The T-3 headlamp first appeared in 1956, and bowed out after 1972. 1972 was a one year only design, which removed the large triangle from the center, and just featured a small “T-3” logo down at the bottom near the “GUIDE” script (photo attached). The 7 inch T-3’s started being supplanted by the “POWER BEAM”, which again featured a large logo in the center, this time round; I believe they first appeared on the 1970 Monte Carlo, then spread to the rest of the single headlight GM vehicles somewhere between 1971 and ’73. The 5 3/4 inch Power Beams debuted across the board on 1973 cars. The former was a switch from a 6012 to a 6014, and the latter replaced 4002 and 4001 lamps with 4000 and 5001.
I’m not positive, but I kinda-sorta think I remember that the “T-3” was referring to the inclusion of aiming lugs for use with mechanical aimers. I know the owner’s manual for my 1960 Chevy crows about how these special T-3 headlamps are “Safety Aimed”.
Thanks, TAC. Those aiming pads appeared on all brands of sealed beam for 1956, along with several improvements to the rest of the headlamp to give better beam performance overall, and much less backscatter in bad weather. Different makers marketed the aim pads differently (one maker called them “gizmoes”, for example) but officially they were “aiming pads”. The idea that T-3 refers to them seems quite plausible.
Numerochronology will be part of the big sealed beam article series I’m planning and working on; yours here is quite accurate.
Excellent! I’ve been looking forward to said article series.
…and here’s that picture of a 1972 T-3 that I spaced out posting on the last go:
Drop dead gorgeous!
I’ve never had a strong desire to own a big American V8 anything, but a B Body convertible of this generation for some reason always pushes my “want” button.
I fell in love with a triple white ’75 Grand Ville as a 7 year old, and ever since then I’ve been hooked. The Pontiac would be the one I’d want, but a pre-5MPH bumper Buick Centurian would do nicely too. This is a completely illogical lust, but I suppose most lust is.
The 1972 models of these GM full sizers were also good looking at the front and rear ends because the ’73 model year bumper standards had not gone into affect yet.
Although I would argue that the Olds fared the worst of all 5 Divisions with 1972 detail changes, which I always found clunky.
Agree on the Olds as well as the Chevy, but always thought the 72 Buick grill improved nicely, as did the Pontiac with its rhinoplasty. (my Dad had a 71 Pontiac and that schnozz was just too much.)
That said, I do enjoy the very clean clean 71 rear of the Olds, as well as the Buick, with the Pontiac bringing up the rear.
My brother bought a used ’71 Pontiac Grand Ville with the 455 CI V8. The car was a beast and got absolutely horrible gas mileage. It was a dark metallic green with a green vinyl roof and green interior with the worst ergonomics I have ever seen. You had to lean way forward and reach down to use the power window switches. It was quick (at least for the it’s day, 200 HP!) but much too big for me. My brother drove it for a few years until it was totaled when he was rear-ended by a large truck coming off a freeway exit in the winter.
I prefer the 2.5 mph ’72 front bumpers, mostly because I can’t help thinking about how flimsy they were in the years before. Olds used two single-leaf springs behind theirs. Likewise, for all of them (and the Colonnades and F bodies), I can’t help hearing the rattle it made when a door was closed with the window down. Worse on the coupes for obvious reasons.
There were no 2.5-mph ’72 front bumpers. When the bumper standard came in for model year 1973, it was a 5-mph impact requirement. Pretty good article on Wikipedia, with the usual and customary talk page full of hyperdramatic squabbling.
I remember that cacophony of rattles the GM cars of that time made when a door was (necessarily) slammed—especially the long-door models. Tough to pick out any particular rattle; there were so many.
GM strengthened front bumpers voluntarily for their B & C bodies in ’72, some advertised to 2.5 mph, IIRC. Rub strips proliferated. I didn’t say it was a Federal requirement, Nitpicker.
That’s my recollection also; the GM’s big cars had strengthened front bumpers compared to the ’71s and they projected outward more from the bodywork. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tested them in 5 mph barrier impacts, and they didn’t fare very well.
Ford did it too, on their big cars. Put bars across the lower grille. .
That’s interesting, 210delray. I found coverage in late-’71/early-’72 Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines, both of which call them 5-mph bumpers. I don’t imagine either (much less both) of them pulled that figure out the air, so I’m guessing it was in a press packet put out by GM. Their public-facing advertisement, on the other hand, just says “minor impacts” with no specificity—which sounds more in line with what IIHS found. Here’s a collage of what I turned up:
Well, thank you for the educational information there, Nitpickerpicker. 🙂
There were 2.5 mph 72 front bumpers for 100% sure. They were mounted on a leaf spring. They worked pretty well as I tested it out in my parents 72 Delta 88 a few times. They worked well enough my dad never noticed which is why I am here today to talk about it.
I grew up with a lot of these B-C GM cars, shiny and new, even owned one.
I’m aware of their faults, but found plenty of charm, and have a big heart for these big convertibles. Probably one of my top picks if I were to own an old car again.
And, this Olds is so near perfect. But, damn, no air-conditioning. I know, I know.
My tools always went “CLANG.” Even on these cars. On a cross member, a shield, whatever it could get caught on that would make it extra hard to retrieve.
Ha! I see what you did with the front license plate. Nicely done!
What, what’d I do? »blink blink« (this is me looking all innocent-like)
For reasons I will keep to myself, the Delta Eighty 8 is one car I cannot stomach. Especially the 1976 bloated version. It’s not that it’s a bad car, it’s the guy who drove the one that I knew about. Long ago memories.
LL5 3XX? I can’t make it work with roman numerals. Please enlighten me.
Neither can I. I just munged the plate legend so it reads other than actual. I’m not actually sure what moparlee has in mind.
I just noticed the rear-plate treatment. Very nice!
Some years ago I was marking up some photos I’d taken at an outdoor job site. An unmarked white panel van was captured on the road in the background. It behooved me to add something like “Bob’s Organ Meats – Liver, Sweetbread, and Kidney” on the side. I don’t think anyone ever questioned it.
The rear-plate coverup was the owner’s own; I just scrambled the front plate.
As to adorning the white van, sounds like it might’ve been associated onehow or another with this what I’ve attached.
Canadian postcode, perhaps?
Naw, those are in the form A1B 2C3 (Canada Post have long had a special postal code for kids to write to Santa Claus: H0H 0H0).
I hated these just as much as you did Mr. Stern, but I hated them in the showrooms. Their biggest fault for me (aside from the Playskool interior panels) was the awful sound of the doors slamming – these lost the one thing that GM consistently did better than anyone else for 30 or 40 years before these. I will admit that I loved that headlight treatment, though.
My Grandmother Cavanaugh had a big light metallic blue Delta 88 2 door. She was a little lady who fearlessly guided that huge missile all through the narrow, curvy streets and roads surrounding Mail Line Philly. So these give me just a little bit of nostalgia.
Finally, that turquoise color was as rare in 1971 as any color on the chart. That era of earth tones made me forget that these even came in this color. It was gone by 1972.
Close the door. Oops, try again…there we go. D’y’hear that? That sound of a pile of miscellaneous metal being dropped from a height? That’s the GM Body By Fisher Mark…of Exxxxxxxxcellence.
I might’ve hated these cars less if more of them had come in colours like this rather nice aqua-turquoise rather than eleventy-five variants of fecal brown and billious green and leaf-mould gold.
The hard top GM doors weren’t great, but the worst I experienced were the Chrysler E body Barracuda/Challenger doors for flimsy rattling.
These 71-76 cars seemed huge and somewhat flimsy but they actually handled fairly well as the front suspension was patterned after the 2nd gen Camaro/Firebird.
The worst part I thought was the severe curve of the lower body, combined with a wide track these didn’t fair well and got quite rusty in the midwest US.
For me, keyholes facing either down or up are both doing it wrong; keys should be cut on both sides so the key will work in either direction as long as it’s held vertically. That’s how my current VW does it. I also never cared for the separate key for the ignition thing – supposedly that’s so parking valets can’t get in your trunk or glovebox if you lock it, or maybe so you can let someone into your car without letting them drive off with it. But a separate valet key is a better solution to this and lets me have one less key on my keychain.
I also despised the useless headrests GM used for over a decade. These were too low and too short to prevent whiplash for even shorter adults when lowered, and could only be raised about 2″ if that. Tall people were SOL. Also, they were strangely not centered on the seatback, with the headrests offset to the outer extremities of the car. They were even worse on cars with loose-pillow seats like the 98 Regency because GM didn’t add matching pillows to the headrests (as Chrysler did in the ’80s and early ’90s on cars with loose-cushion seats). This made the headrests even more useless as they were now a few inches behind the rest of the seatback.
One reason I liked American cars better than “foreign” ones when I was a kid in the ’70s was that the side marker lamps were much better integrated on American cars. On imports, the side markers always looked like the afterthoughts they were, and were usually generic parts used by several manufacturers. Same thing with the 5mph bumpers, although some U.S. cars struggled with these too.
What an awkward place for the aftermarket radio. I know in-dash CD players were pretty much impossible to fit to older cars that used the two-shaft radio cutouts, though some retrofits for this style did allow for a remotely placed CD changer that could fit in the console, glovebox, trunk, or under the dash. I haven’t investigated the aftermarket stereo market in years – is it even still a thing now that the audio system is buried in your infotainment touchscreen and steering wheel controls and not easily replaced? I recall good retrofits for two-shaft radios that added then-modern features like CD players and aux inputs were becoming thin by the ’90s; I don’t know if there are modern ones with Bluetooth, phone connectivity, and such.
Single- or double-bitted key is a different question than whether the lock should be orientated upside-up or downside-up. A double-bitted key is more convenient, for sure.
The useless head restraints were one of numerous examples of American automakers complying with regulations in as cheap, nasty, and disingenuous a way as possible—after putting huge resources into watering down those regs they couldn’t outright sabotage. I think it was a cynical attempt to scuttle entire the regulation of automobiles.
American automakers did seem very quickly to figure out how to use side markers as ornaments and design elements (thus nullifying their ridiculous arguments). There surely were some ugly ones carelessly thrown onto foreign cars for the American market, weren’t there! The big, boxy ones on the ’68-’72 Volvos come to mind; their ’73 replacements, while flatter, were still ugly. Numerous Japanese cars had ugly toss-ons up into the late ’80s at least.
Modern sounds in unhacked dashboards of old-timer cars: read all about it.
I have a 2017 Cruze & the headrests certainly aren’t useless. They’re useful for those with small heads, positively annoying for me. I’d much rather have these. A friend had a 1st gen Cruze & had the same issue; went with Toyota due to needing the top MPG of the hybrid but also was glad to leave the annoying headrests behind.
They’re not headrests. They’re head restraints, and they have an important safety job to do. These low-profile ones on the ’71 Olds cannot do it, except perhaps for someone under 5 feet all.
The head restraints on those 70s GM cars could be raised into an appropriate position, if the occupant wanted. They were mounted on a single metal bar iirc, that had detents & there was a click-stop thing in the seatback that would hold it at the desired height.
They could be raised about 3 inches, maybe 4: from ridiculously-too-low to just way-too-low. Available positions were up or down, with no locking into any raised position; there were no latched detents like today’s head restraints have—which means it didn’t matter if you raised it; given the mechanics of what happens in a relevant crash (head moves upward and then rearward), a raised head restraint would be shoved back down into its lower position where all it could do was serve as a fulcrum to aggravate whiplash.
(I did not do a comprehensive survey of GM’s ’69-up models for this; it’s based on close observation of a ’77 Cutlass and ’78 and ’84 Caprices, all of which were as I describe, and more casual observation of other GM cars of the ’70s and ’80s which appeared the same.)
Here’s some documentary support for my scorn of these useless head restraints, which are the “adjustable” type described in the attached doc. The “integral” type is what we saw in tombstone-style seatbacks.
My employer (a very skilled auto repair garage operator) had several of these in the late ’80’s and into the’90’s. He demonstrated that these were exceptional “road” cars, essentially unbreakeable and ultra reliable if maintained well. He had the real Olds 350 engines with Turbo-hydramatic transmissions. His contention (proven by experience) was that the primary barrels of a four barrel carb were capable of remarkable fuel economy if one drove with enough self control to avoid using the secondary barrels, which he managed to do. As I recall, he got over 20 mpg on road trips with regularity, perhaps aided by his engine tuning expertise which allowed him to adjust the timing somewhat to enhance the fuel economy, as well. The inability to find additional minimally rusty versions of his preferred body style (4 door sedan) forced him into a Chrysler minivan later on. So not only were these attractive in their own way, but they were remarkably well designed mechanically, as well, considering some of the junk GM sold: Vega, Monza, early 700R4 transmissions, Olds Diesel engines, early Citations, etc. To each his own……
Daniel, you are in a league with Tom Wolfe in describing the sounds made when opening the door of a 1971-76 B-Body GM car. In ‘The Bonfire of Vanities” he described the torquing sound made when opening the front door of a two-door Pontiac Bonneville as “thwop” and then a creak and a bone-jarring, echoing rattle when closed.
In any event, in my days as a juvenile automobile critic, I too didn’t really care for these when new, but I did have a certain amount of respect for their capabilities. Now, fifty years later, my views have mellowed and see them as the last gasp of a Detroit unbounded by regulations. Succeeding generations of GM vehicles were safer, cleaner, and more fuel-efficient, but I am glad I know where they started from.
William, nice catch! Daniel’s description does indeed evoke Tom Wolfe.
Huh…was not aware of this Mr. Wolfe. I’ll have to investigate.
Daniel, I highly recommend “The Right Stuff”, Wolfe’s historical account of the early days of the space program, from Yeager breaking the sound barrier in 1947 up through the end of the Mercury program in 1963. It is a great read, though does contain a glaring error which I had hoped Wolfe would correct in a subsequent release. (Given that you put me onto “For All Mankind”, which I’m really enjoying, I figure you’re a bit of a space nerd.)
The 1983 movie of the same title is based on the book, and is also very good.
I’ve also enjoyed his fiction; “A Man In Full” and “Back To Blood” were both really enjoyable.
Thanks for the recos! I’m not such a space nerd—there’s not enough room for it in my skull, what with the resources monopolised by my vehicle-lighting thing—but For All Mankind surely is some good watching.
What’s the glaring error?
I never minded the 71 and up full size GMs mainly because my first job a couple months out of high school was at Budget Rent a Car. Lots of 73 Impalas and 74 Impalas and Bel Airs. This was close to where you caught this Oldsmobile…over at Richards St. and West Georgia in Vancouver.
A friend worked in the Interior/Okanagan for the summer of 1977. He said that ’71 to ’76 full-size GMs, particularly Chevys, and ’67 to ’76 Valiants and Darts seemed to make up the lion’s share of cars on the highways at that time.
These were really popular. I believe it was in 1974 when a newspaper ad said that the Impala had been Canada’s top-selling car for 12 years in a row.
Oh Daniel, you were on a roll with this one – nicely done. I too hated these barges and am shocked that they weren’t larger than their predecessors. And I too remember the distinctive window rattle when a door was closed with the window down.
With that said, this is the one example that could make me change my mind about these. It’s obviously been garage kept, as the flake-o-matic hard plastic interior panels appear to be in great shape. I dreaded these when they were new, but I wouldn’t kick this one out of my driveway today.
Thanks kindly, Ed!
Hilarious prose and terrific photography, as per usual.
Thanks, JD. Anyone gives me flak about this article, I’m telling ’em you approved it.
As an Australian we weren’t over exposed to this series of cars. I lived in Canada from 1997 to 1999 and the one of the first things I did was buy a 1975 Olds Delta 88 Royale, in Grey with a burgundy roof and interior. It ran the 455 mill with power everything. Interior space was adequate but for the size of the car the back was surprisingly snug. Great cars for the freeway and interstates, the power seemed analogous to a small hydro electric scheme, endless.
Yeah, that’s the thing, eh? Cars like this are sort of the opposite of those bigger-inside-than-outside London taxicabs.
Since you mention the chrome-bezel power window switches, I’m pretty sure that their final vehicular appearance was on the 1996 G30-series vans.
I bet you’re exactly right. Perhaps GM set their watch (i.e., decided when to resurface those vans) by their supply of these switches.
I wonder how long GM persisted in locating the ash tray right below an air vent. Back in the 60s it seemed everyone’s parents smoked.
We backseat denizens got treated to a cloud of flying ash when the AC was cranked & someone’s parents lit up.
“I’ve never liked ’em; they’re a terminal pain in the –nuts– bolts when getting or giving a jump start.”
I agree, but there’s a simple solution. Purchase a pair of post style bolts, It bolts the GM ring terminal cables, and provides a nice stout post for the jumper cables.
If you have two GM cars, place one terminal on each positive post, and then clamp the negative cable to an engine bracket or other handy ground point.
Granted, yeah, and you can also get special adapter bolts that will allow you to attach accessory wires with ring terminals. But either way, now we’ve got a chunk of electrically-live exposed metal where there wasn’t one before, with the hazards that brings. And we’ve had to spend money and make effort to correct a problem caused by GM ‘solving’ a problem that didn’t actually exist. I’m not playing.
What a lovely colour. I feel better for having seen this car.
I could certainly wish for more cars painted like this and fewer or none painted in black; white; grey; silver, or beige.
Beige? They still make beige cars?
Well, they don’t call it that any more. It’s Ecru, Taupe, Sahara Sand, Frosty Shroom, Macchiato Mist, and otherwise like that. But it’s beige.
Big and brash, but lacking in refinement; that’s what these cars were known for. Great article and great photograpry, Daniel.
I really like the color of this one; I don’t even remember these B-bodies coming in this shade.
Of the first-year ’71s, my preference for styling in descending order is Buick, Chevy, Olds, and Pontiac. What a come-down for Pontiac compared to its glory years in the 60s!
Thank you! Yeah, the colour is load-bearing on this car. I don’t know that I’d’ve stopped for it if it had been one of those nauseous ‘earth tones’.
I may have recounted this tale on these pages before, but the first time I was ever in an automobile at 100+mph was at the age of 16 in a ’72 Buick Centurion convertible 455-4. I was in the back seat, and it was simultaneously the most exhilarating and miserable ride of my life.
Some folks say that the death of the large American convertible was exacerbated by increasing freeway speeds, and I’m here to concur.
Wasn’t this “full size GM” body notorious for trunk leaks? I know mt neighbors “72 Sdn” version had a good size one.
Yeah, a lot of water would get in at the bottom of the back window. I finally drilled holes in the floor of my ’74 Fleetwood’s trunk to let it out. I suspect they tried to make vinyl roof installation easier and screwed up the seal.
As I am “from the land of ice and snow” (Led Zeppelin) and for most of my life not having access to a garage, I have lots of experience digging cars out of snow, and even worse, ice. Your comments about the design of the door handles brought back some memories of trying to open car doors that were frozen shut.
Those of you from more temperate climates will not have experienced the problem of the weather stripping getting frozen to the door frame. If you can get one door open you can push the others open from the inside, but getting that first one open requires a lot of pulling from the outside. Until I bought my 1985 Honda Civic wagon, all my cars had door handles that were basically like those on this Olds, a fixed metal handle with a button to work the latch. These allowed you to pull quite hard on handle and eventually get the door open.
On the Honda there was only a plastic handle that pulled out to unlatch the door and also allowed you to pull open the door. This was fine in the summer, but if the door was frozen it felt like the handle was going to break (although it never did). It was about the only thing I did not like about the Honda.
I don’t think any of my cars since have had a solid handle. Several have had handles that look solid, but are actually hinged at the front. That is OK except on my Fiat 500 the hinge is a known weak point. It has broken on both doors, but at least is fairly easy and inexpensive to replace. What is actually wrong with the old simple and strong design?
The fix for frozen door seals was to apply silicone spray or at least rub them with paraffin wax, but that has to be done in advance, and it’s easy to put it off or forget—then, as you say, you’re in a pickle. If you’re lucky, you get the door open. If you’re really lucky, the weatherstrip isn’t torn to shreds in the process.
What’s wrong with the old doorhandle design? It costs more andor it’s considered out of fashion.
Also too heavy, requires more structural support, not aerodynamically efficient, and hard on pedestrians and deer.
Well, I don’t necessarily mean door handle design should’ve been frozen in 1971. Here’s an ’01-’10 Chrysler PT Cruiser door handle; this is fine—and it crosses all your objections off the list.
Yeah re; those ‘sleek door habdles”. Our “70 Rebel” could pose probs in freezing conditions.
For some odd reason, the rear passenger door rarely froze!
We were in wstrn PA, between Pgh and Erie.
I’ve always assumed that the trend toward pull-out handles on vehicles was largely driven by a goal of accessibility. Pressing a button and then pulling out on a door can be difficult if a passenger has weakened/arthritic hands or motor skills issues, and the action of pulling out the handle follows that of opening the door. My late mother once commented that it was easier for her to use the pull-out type of handle on my vehicles, versus the flip-up ones on her ‘97 Taurus.
Speaking of the flip-up type that was popular from the ‘70s and into the ‘90s, I’ve heard more than one woman state that they’re notorious for breaking fingernails. With women being more frequently in design positions at auto companies over the past few decades – and more research on the automotive preferences of women – one wonders if that played a part in their demise.
I had “jaBROCKet” in my head at work today, even said it out loud a few times. I bet the door opening sounds exactly like that
I don’t like it when people open a lift up flap type door handle and just let the spring thwack! it back.
Gorgeous car by the way.
Thank you! Signed copies will be available after the show. 🙂
Well, despite its flaws, I’d love to have this car. It reminds me so much of my 71 LeSabre. Except it’s a convertible, which at least at age 19 I wished mine was.
I ultimately got that same front seat (from a 71 Cadillac) and used it to replace the bench seat in mine. Having a fold down front seat in a 4 door car was useful for moving stuff that didn’t fit neatly in the back seat.
The trunk vents never leaked in my car, although at the time I thought that they would be convenient for ventilation should I ever have needed to have a passenger in the trunk. Which sometimes happened, although not usually with the trunk actually closed.
Very informative and well written article Daniel.
I hate to disagree with you but 1972 was the last year for the external voltage regulator on domestic models. The internal voltage regulator first appeared in the 1969 model year on the Corvette and some Pontiacs. In 1972 GM redesigned the back half of the (10DN) alternator (which the car in your photo has) housing by removing the 6 individual diodes and placing them in what was called the more compact rectifier bridge. (10SI). I owned a 1972 Heavy Chevy and it still had an external voltage regulator but the new style back half on the alternator. The only way to tell the difference is by looking at the field quick connect plug on the side. Internal regulator models had the plug end to end and external regulators had the plug side to side. The 1973 domestic models all had internal regulators. This is also a very unusual car in that it has no AC and is a heater only which makes the the under hood area seem that much bigger.
GM keys of the 1970’s are also unusual. Do you remember the letter code that was on each key? It repeated every 4 years. 1971 keys were A ignition/door, B trunk; 1972 keys were C ignition/door, D trunk; 1973 keys were E ignition/door, H trunk and 1974 keys were J ignition, K trunk/door. The sequence was repeated for 1975 to 1978 models. As we all know, in 1974 the trunk key lock was changed to fit the door lock.
Another new safety feature of GM’s 1971 models was the front side marker lights would flash in unison with the turn signals and 4 way hazard flashers.
Thanks for the detail on the internal regulator phase-in. I was going off Petersen’s Automotive Troubleshooting & Repair Manual (1975; see attached), which made it sound like it was an all-at-once ’72 introduction. Rectifier bridges were fashionable around that time; Chrysler adopted them for ’72, too.
I have a faint recall of small letters stamped on keys, but didn’t know they meant anything. And I’m not sure I follow GM’s logic (If so equipped) in changing from a door/ignition key to a door/trunk key. Wasn’t the whole point of separate keys to keep the trunk locked if you had to let someone —a parking valet, for example—drive the car?
Those front side markers flashed in sync with the turn signals only if the parking lights were switched off. If they were on, the side markers flashed in opposite-phase. Really cool little sleight-of-wire magic trick to get steady-lit side marker + flashing turn signal repeater function out of the single-filament marker bulb; I’ve got a page about it.
Thank you Daniel for the reply.
Do you remember how you could check to see if the internal regulator was bad on a 10SI alternator? On the back of the alternator was a small hole. Just inside the case underneath the hole was a small tab on the body of the regulator. Shorting this tab to ground with a small screwdriver would bypass the regulator and “full field” the alternator. If the output came up to 13.8 to 14.2 volts when one did this, you knew the regulator was bad. If it did not rise, you knew the alternator was bad.
In regard to the keys, a 1971 ignition A key would fit into a 1967 “late style”, 1975, 1979 or 1983 ignition lock. There was a small chance it would operate the lock if the tumbler arrangement was the same. After 1983 this keying system was slowly changed.
I know on the pre 1969 GM keys Briggs & Stratton was stamped on the key head. Did GM drop Briggs & Stratton as a key manufacturer in 1969 when the locking steering column was first used? Also, when did American Motors use GM locks and keys on their cars?
Glenn ;
In the early 1980’s I had to buy ignition locks cylinders for the fleet of L.A.P.D. Chevy’s. they wanted them all to work off one key and I had to go through an incredible rig-a-ma-role to get them ordered, they came from my contract Chevy dealer but all in Briggs & Stratton boxes .
-Nate
I’m pretty sure Briggs & Stratton—early as Basco, late as Strattec—are still a key (zing!) GM supplier of locks. Don’t know the exact year range during which AMC used Saginaw columns with Briggs & Stratton locks and same-as-GM-but-stamped-differently keys. Began around 1972ish, ended when (or perhaps before?) Jeeps began using the Chrysler Acustar steering column around ’91ish.
Didn’t know about the full-field test hole, but I did step in once years ago to solve a friend’s daylong frustration by pointing out the pinholes used for holding the brushes off the slip ring so the alternator can be assembled.
I owned a 1973. Aztec Gold with white and white. There was bare metal on the underside area between the top well and deck lid. It was important to keep the top’s side cable attached to the floating rib so as not to break the rear curtain glass.
The Olds wore the new 71 body the best.
My dad had a 71 Chevy and it was the single most unreliable automobile he ever owned.
Finally: nice MAD Magazine reference in there. You, sir, are right up there with Mr. Martin for putting words (or coined words) to sounds.
Thank you. I studied and crammed to be able to do that.
Looks better than a used bar of soap on wheels. Love convertibles built before 1976. Chris