When I was a kid, one of my biggest automotive fascinations was imagining what changes were in store for the upcoming new car model year. I eagerly awaited the new model preview guides, and loved to pore over the sketches and conjecture about upcoming cars—and then of course I enjoyed seeing what was on target and what was not when the actual cars were released. So let’s look at some predictions for the 1977 model year as laid out in the August 1976 issue of Road Test Magazine, and see how accurate the forecasts actually were.
Without a doubt, the 1977 model year was expected to be monumental. Detroit, led by General Motors, was on track to unveil dramatically smaller and more efficient cars. Would they walk the fine line between big car tradition and the demand for a more pragmatic future?
At Chevrolet, the big news was the big cars: both the Impala and Caprice were thoroughly sketched-out. Since the Impala had been the sales leader for the full-size Chevrolets, it was very prominently featured. In actuality, 1977 would turn out to be the year when Caprice sales overtook the B-Body Impala for good.
The predictions were also correct that Pontiac and Chevrolet would share more exterior body panel stampings, like the door skins. Buick and Olds would also interchange panels these same panels with each other (but not Chevy and Pontiac)—oddly, while they looked very similar to the Chevrolet and Pontiac door skins, the Buick and Olds panels were subtly different.
Overall, these renderings were quite close to the finished product, and clearly showed the crisp new look that would come to define Chevrolet’s “standard” cars.
The perennial Pontiac full-size sales leader had been the Catalina from the the 1960s through 1976, so expectations centered around the series continuing as a major player at Pontiac (in reality, the Bonneville/Brougham would pass Catalina in sales from 1977 onward). The sketch provided a remarkably accurate sneak peek at the good looking coupe. Sadly, the clean-lined Catalina did not get much traction in the marketplace: at 14,752 units, it was the slowest selling B-Body 2-door, trailing Bonneville/Brougham coupes (53,518), Impala coupes (58,092), Caprice Coupes (71,973), LeSabre coupes (67,044) and Delta 88 coupes (69,926).
The renderings of the ’77 Ventura facelift were quite close to the final product. However, the freshened face couldn’t salvage the soft Ventura sales, and the “luxury” Phoenix with a more prominent nose would arrive mid-year in 1977, and then completely replace the Ventura for 1978.
There would in fact be a Sunbird Formula for 1977, with the rear spoiler and bold graphics (though not the fender flares and prominent front air dam), in keeping with Pontiac’s performance imagery. Don’t open the hood though—the Formula package was served-up on Sunbirds with either the 2.5 Liter “Iron Duke” 4-cylinder or the 3.8 Liter V6. Not quite Firebird territory…
Speaking of the Firebird, this sketch offered a preview of one of best nose jobs ever—I loved the new 1977 “face” for Pontiac’s Pony Car!
Over at Olds, the renderings quite effectively captured the new look for the full-sized cars. On the Ninety-Eight, the rear wheel openings were off (the larger openings were used on the Delta 88 series while the Ninety-Eights were lower and and more “formal”) and the roofline looked more B-Body than C-Body. Spot-on, however, was the Delta 88 coupe roofline with the short landau vinyl top.
The roofline depicted for the ’77 LeSabre Coupe is more formal than the one that would actually grace production cars. Tail lights on the finished product were not as wide as those shown on the rendering either, but the classic Buick “portholes” were present and accounted for!
Pretty close to reality, though the actual Electra grille would boast ever more “drama,” with chromed rectangles to surround the egg-crate grille openings.
The look of the B-Body wagon would prove to be accurate, along with the assessment that the wagon body would essentially be shared between all divisions from the cowl back.
Cadillac must have been evaluating whether or not to include fender skirts on the downsized DeVille/Fleetwood cars. At least in these drawings, the skirts enhanced the long, low “traditional” Cadillac look.
The Cadillac Limousine was still an important offering in 1977, so the illustrator took a stab at how the downsized 9-passenger flagship would look. Frankly, I prefer the roofline depicted in the drawing to the actual finished product that featured the rear quarter “opera” window from the Coupe DeVille.
GM finally coughed up the money to properly finish the metal on the Seville roofline (originally a Frankenstein concoction from the X-Body Nova that initially required a vinyl covering to mask the seams), so that the car could be offered with or without a padded vinyl top. Good move, as I think the metal roof was cleaner looking.
While the GM preview renderings were pretty accurate for the most part, when it came to Ford Motor Company, the artist’s vision got a bit murkier.
Some products, like the ’77 Pinto, with its new nose and tail, were correctly captured in the sketches.
The ’77 Torino, however, was way off (starting with the name). Sadly, the drawings for the “cleaned-up” mid-size Ford were much crisper and airier-looking than the actual “still-bloated” LTD II that would ultimately emerge.
The prediction that the Thunderbird would use the mid-size chassis were correct, but the roofline, grille and taillights weren’t right. This was a case where I think the production TBird, with its basket-handle roofline and dramatic taillights bar, was much better looking than the design renderings.
Also kinda, sorta close, but not quite there, was the illustrator’s interpretation of the restyled Lincoln Mark V. The crisp bodylines, wheel openings and fender “gills” were correct, but the rear roofline was shorter and rounder than the one that appeared on the production car.
A big departure from reality (unfortunately) was the rendering for the new Lincoln “Small Sedan.” The illustration shows a car that combines styling cues such as the greenhouse and rectangular wheel openings from the big Lincoln Continental sedan with an almost European crispness to the body sides plus the front and rear treatments. This car certainly did not look like a Granada, and the design might have been a far more effective Seville competitor had it been produced. In reality, FoMoCo took the cheap way out on the Lincoln “Small Sedan” with not much more than a revised front clip and decklid on a Granada/Monarch, resulting in the sales-dud Versailles.
Chrysler Corporation apparently released product planner dreams to inform the future model depictions. Perhaps money troubles prevented the company from actually producing a new generation of Barracuda/Challenger models based on the Volaré/Aspen platform. While a quasi-muscle car from Mopar probably wouldn’t have challenged GM’s F-Body Camaro/Firebird dominance in the segment, it might have made a dent in sales of Ford’s Pinto-based Mustang II, which was rapidly losing its luster by 1977.
There were also apparently Imperial dreams still swirling around Chrysler headquarters. The car that would ultimately become the 1977 Chrysler LeBaron is shown looking like a shrunken Cadillac DeVille with an Imperial scipt on the rear fender. Thankfully, the production LeBaron Coupe with its unique roofline and rear quarters was far better looking than this rather stuffy concept drawing.
Nothing much could have helped the ungainly styling of the AMC Matador—square headlamps included…
The Pacer Wagon, however, did offer a decent-looking variation on the rolling fishbowl style of the original car.
The prediction that was farthest from reality was for the AMC front-wheel-drive car. Speculation was that AMC would use an engine and FWD components from Audi (!!!) married to a revised Gremlin body shell (!!!). I am not sure how far along this rather preposterous plan progressed, but even if it had made it to reality I can’t imagine that the result could have saved AMC in the long run.
So there you have it, a fun collection of sketches to set the imagination into motion. Makes me miss the days when anticipation around future products was based on speculation and illustrations rather than auto show unveilings 2-years before the finished products arrived…
didnt they at least drop a four banger in? (to the Gremlin that is)
Yes they did put that Audi 4 in the Spirit, which was just a restyled Gremlin.
You are right, when introduced in 1979 the Spirit did offer the VW/Audi 121 CID I4 as a base engine, but just for one year. It was replaced for 1980 with GM’s “Iron Duke” 151 CID I4.
FWD, however, was nowhere to be found.
The Gremlin itself also received the Audi 4-banger as an option in its last two model years (1977 & 1978).
Front drive would not appear in an AMC-built car until the ill-fated Renault Alliance of the 1980s.
The Matador would probably have looked OK if they paired up a new front design as in the sketches with the original late 1960s Rebel/Ambassador body.
AMC was also not allowed to make any reference to the origins of the “AMC 4” under the agreement with Audi.
Reports at the time also referred to AMC buying the entire assembly line and tooling for the Audi [also used in Porsches] engine. Not sure if that actually occurred. But another money losing proposition for AMC, I would think.
Early Gremlins with the 4 were only offered with a higher trim package, as referenced in a Motor Trend test on introduction. Reason was the added expense of the Audi [there I said it], engine.
It helped the handling because it was lighter and of course the gas mileage was better.
I had 1 of those Spirits with the Audi engine. It ran good and was durable. It would just about get 30 mpg on the freeway.
I just wished they would’ve aspirated that motor the same way Audi did.
Funny, I was just reading an article on the then-new 4-cylinder Gremlin in the February, 1977 issue of “Popular Mechanics.” The article states that AMC spent $60 million on setting up a factory for this engine. That’s a huge investment for a small car company to make in something that didn’t pan out.
I don’t know what happened to that factory. Presumably AMC must have sold it off, probably at a big loss. This must rank right up there with the Matador Coupe and Pacer fiascos in squandering scarce development capital and sealing the company’s fate.
I never knew about the AMC plant—here’s an Aug. 1975 announcement:
And here’s the story as of late 1979 (I have no idea of current doings at the ex-AMC site), apparently:
If the eagle had Audi Quattro as an option, that might have been cool. Could it have handled v8 torque?
Prefer real 4wd my self….
Great Friday morning read, GN. Looking at these sketches again (was it really 40+ yrs ago that I had this issue?!), the small Lincoln bears some resemblance to the upcoming ’79 downsized LTD & Marquis. The sloping front end and grille of the Barracuda/Challenger reminds me of the Dodge Omni 024, also upcoming in 1979. I wonder if the Matador sketch deliberately downplays the car’s gigantic nose-piece because the artist couldn’t believe they’d go ahead with it on the actual production cars?
It’s the quad headlights, LightCopper. The front end of the Ambassador used the quads and it was a vast improvement.
The long-snout Matador had been around since 1974. IMO quad square headlights and a more Broughamy grille would’ve at least made a feature of it.
You’re right nlpnt! I had forgot about the Matador sedan re-do dating to 1974. Agree that quad square headlamps would have been a good update.
Ah, the old days of the mid-year “sneak preview” issues, showing spy shots and sketches (and a leaked press photo or two) of the upcoming new cars.
It’s so different today, with the internet releasing information almost immediately, and the fact that just about everyone carries a camera (and online access) with them at all times.
Still have a lot of speculative renderings on the internet, the legitimacy is just far more questionable.
I’m digging the Barracuda concept!
The nose design of that Barracuda concept reminds me of a slimmer version of the ’76-’77 Buick Century/Special coupe nose.
I used to soak these things up in the 70s. It’s amazing how close to reality most of the GM drawings were, and how far off they were on Mopars.
I used to love these issues as well. Now I don’t even look when an internet site says “20** XXX Spied” or something.
It’s always a useless picture of some blob in camo. Not worth the time to click any of them.
Renderings are far better in these days of photoshop.
And these renderings are so well done. Kudos to the artist.
Did anyone else notice the Ventura caption said ’77 was the last planned year for the RWD X-bodies? The next generation appeared in mid ’79 and would’ve benefited from another year of development and/or a slow, phased rollout.
Motor Trend had wilder drawings of coming 77’s. Had the ’77 DeVille lower and wider.
But usually were way off with specs. Such as predicting that GM’s mid size Aerobacks would be true hatches. And that 400 ci V8 would be available in the ’78 LeMans.
To be fair the aerobacks *not* being true hatches made far less sense. They looked like a hatchback, but weren’t? Why? I think had they actually been hatches they would have sold far better. (Though the rear seat wouldn’t have folded down as there was a quite large structural brace behind it.)
The Versaille drawing looks more as though it were based on the upcoming 78 Fairmont Fox body. The doors and the linear look were much more Fairmont than Granada. Perhaps Ford should have debuted that body with the Versaille first..
Holding out on Versailles until it could have been Fox based would have made more sense than the Falcon based version. Surely they knew that the Falcon was not for the long term going forward. If the Fox Continental had been a 1979 Versailles, You would have had a different story. It would have given Seville actual competition.
Actually it looks more like the 1981 Granada and Cougar sedans(formerly Monarch)derived off the Fairmont
The Barracuda take two, looked like a straight up refresh of the original 64, but with a slopenose. Probably better that didn’t happen.
The GM renderings all seem pretty much dead on, and the Fords, Chryslers and AMCs are either just barely in the ballpark or miles from reality. The Matador sedan nose looks better in every way than the production one, and the coupe’s stacked lights are abysmal. The LTD II looks a lot more like the 1976-77 Buick Century sedan.
The FWD Audi Gremin is news to me, I see Audi engines were utilized but was that full conversion ever truly considered? I could actually picture something that ambitious given the versatility AMC displayed with that platform.
“The LTD II looks a lot more like the 1976-77 Buick Century sedan”
+1 My thought exactly.
I guess Chevy realized that rectangular headlights weren’t going to work on this generation Camaro.
I suspect they had good spy pics of the GMs and were going off of verbal descriptions of the rest.
Uneffingreal. I had a copy of this mag for maybe 20 years before it got tossed. I remember being so optimistic about our automotive future. I think they tested a Riviera and an Accord in that issue. And the Elco and Ranchero (YES!)
Notice the frond end of the proposed F-body Barracuda/Challenger looked similar to the frond end of the reskinned personnal-luxury Dodge coupe where the Charger morphed into the Magnum for 1978.
As for the Torino, it give us a cool “what might have been” if Ford had stayed with the Torino monicker longer for their “mid-size” car? If that scenario had materialized, would Ford continued to use the Torino nameplate for a Fox-body variant? 😉
I guess Starsky & Hutch might had enjoyed more the Road Test 1977 Torino renderings than the real LTD II. 😉
The entire Torino/LTD II/Fairmont phase is a perfect time capsule of the era. Ford obviously wanted to retain a full sized car and a mid sized car while the coming full sized cars were about to be the size of existing mid sized cars (surely everyone in the industry generally had an idea of what GM was working on.) Would it work? Better to hang an existing full sized name on the current mid sized platform just in case. This certainly cost Ford less than what Chrysler spent redoing the B bodies to make the R bodies. The Fairmont was intended to be a modern compact, but by 1979 it was clearly in the mid sized game. had the crystal ball been clear it might very well been called Torino. But Fairmont is close to Fairlane so…Fair enough ?
That Lincoln Mark V !!!!
They should have made it like that,not the square ugly car it was..Up until 1973 they actually looked good..
I remember buying these magazines with so called new cars for the next year..Sometimes they were right on,other times way off..