"Malaise" Era Cars

Appleseed wrote: I maintain the the 77 Cutlass was pinnacle of smog era styling.

It's baffling to me how you could say that seeing as how the pinnacle of smog era styling was posted twice just a couple posts above yours

I owned a 76' Cutlass with the Old's 350. I lucked into a set of Mondello ported heads and threw a .510" lift Lunati cam in it with an Edelbrock performer RPM intake and a worked quadrajet. Hooker super comp headers fed into a set of 3" pipes and dual Hooker aero chamber mufflers with turn downs before the axle. I was only a gear swap away from a pretty quick car.

I also had the most epic weekend road trip in that car with over 24 hours straight behind the wheel which included being chased through Hocking county Ohio by a truck full of drunk rednecks at three o'clock in the morning.

Styling wise in those years,

1. Pontiac Le mans

2. Pontiac Grand Prix

3. Chevrolet Monte Carlo

4. Oldsmobile Cutlass

5. Buick Regal

I'm a GM guy so everything else is not even worth considering.

I kind of like the AMC Hornet hatchback's from the mid-70's. I think my Capri looks pretty good but it came out in 1969 so it really doesn't count.

mndsm wrote: you can't totally hate an era that spawned a car so big, it was banned from demo derbies for being too badass.

what year, model is that?

In reply to plance1:

The image's name would lead me to believe its a 71 Chrysler Newport.

In reply to Appleseed:

I liked the other nose better

Appleseed wrote: I maintain the the 77 Cutlass was pinnacle of smog era styling.

I prefer the '73 myself

The '73 Grand Am looked nice, but it's a bit early for a "malaise" car.

stroker wrote: The '73 Grand Am looked nice, but it's a bit early for a "malaise" car.

no, that is a proper Malaise car.. it fits the definition almost perfectly- other than the color on that particular specimen..

i used to tool around in this, not only my favorite "malaise" era car, but my favorite body style of all time:

the 74 Monte Carlo. just an awesome car to drive, and not horribly slow once i put headers and dual exhaust on it in place of the single 2" pipe...

Junkyard_Dog wrote:

Road & Track called this "The most backward car produced by a forward country."

This whole thread is proof that we quickly forget bad memories. Seriously, cars of that era beginning in '73-74 were all garbage and they haven't improved with age. Very few exceptions. I lived through the era and owned many of them. Don't care to own them again however.

In reply to Argo1:

And they are my favorite era by far. I also had a 77' Monte Carlo that I loved. And a 1980 Bonneville 2 door. I don't have any pictures of them because that was before I had a camera and before I had the internets.

Argo1 wrote: This whole thread is proof that we quickly forget bad memories. Seriously, cars of that era beginning in '73-74 were all garbage and they haven't improved with age. Very few exceptions. I lived through the era and owned many of them. Don't care to own them again however.

I owned a lot of cars from that era and very few of them were bad cars.

novaderrik wrote:

stroker wrote: The '73 Grand Am looked nice, but it's a bit early for a "malaise" car.

no, that is a proper Malaise car.. it fits the definition almost perfectly- other than the color on that particular specimen..

If that's malaise, I'll have a nice helping of it plz.

I regret passing one up back in the day.

In reply to fasted58:

I wonder if any of the big block 4-speeds still exist...

Argo1 wrote:

Junkyard_Dog wrote:

Road & Track called this "The most backward car produced by a forward country." This whole thread is proof that we quickly forget bad memories. Seriously, cars of that era beginning in '73-74 were all garbage and they haven't improved with age. Very few exceptions. I lived through the era and owned many of them. Don't care to own them again however.

We currently have two '73's. A Challenger and a Road Runner. We thoroughly enjoy both. Neither is the height of domestic build quality, but they are 40 years old, and short of the salted roads here I could jump in either today and drive 'em anywhere. Neither has been restored yet, but they will get their turns.

Now the Chevette, that's a different animal. I had an '80 Scooter as my first car. It was free, 8 years old, and a death trap. It wasn't a malaise car, it was part of the transition out. Crappy in its own hollow tin can way, but not malaise.

Zomby Woof wrote:

Argo1 wrote: This whole thread is proof that we quickly forget bad memories. Seriously, cars of that era beginning in '73-74 were all garbage and they haven't improved with age. Very few exceptions. I lived through the era and owned many of them. Don't care to own them again however.

I owned a lot of cars from that era and very few of them were bad cars.

they were actually mostly good cars with bad drivetrains in them... the oems were using computers to design suspensions to take advantage of the new radial tires, and they were still generally overbuilding the bodies so what you wound up with was a solid car on a chassis that rode pretty good and handled as good as anyone really wanted at the time. GM did something right with the 73 A bodies- that chassis finally stopped production at the end of the 96 model year when the last of the B body Caprices, Impalas, Roadsmashers, and Fleetwoods rolled off the assembly line...

stroker wrote: In reply to fasted58: I wonder if any of the big block 4-speeds still exist...

I resto'd a 73 Monte Carlo BB 4Spd a few years back. Schweet car after it was illegally molested and all that smog junk went to scrap.

I like this:

vwcorvette wrote: I like this:

My Grandfather had the same car in a dark green. I loved that rear window. He traded it in on a Cadillac Seville with a RR front grill, continental trunk, and wire wheels

My buddy in high school had a 1976 Chevy Nova 2 door. It had the 250 I-6 and TH350 3 speed auto. It had a turbo muffler dumped out right before the rear axle and no radio or any other options at all. It was owned by his older brother who was t-boned in it. It had doors from a Skylark which were green, a yellow driver's side fender, a green passenger side headlight bezel and a faded red primer hood. It had 15" chrome American Racing Torque Thrusts and decently wide tires. It looked very similar to this one:

I remember taking the car out on a lonely 2 lane rural road and pegging the speedo. It was scary to say the least. The wind rushing through the poor fitting Skylark doors was deafening and the car got very floaty north of 110 or so. We did manage to wrap the speedo needle past the odometer window. It seemed faster than it was (oh to be 17 again )

Apparently Mad_Machine's Grandfather was a pimp.

mad_machine wrote:

Ransom wrote:

SEADave wrote: "Malaise" Torino (technically a Torino Elite):

Judging by the Torino Elite's bumper, though it may have been the nadir of many things, it may also have been the pinnacle of heavy gauge sheetmetal drawing/stamping...

Just imagine the press needed to form that heavy gage steel into that shape

Something like this, I imagine.

volvoclearinghouse wrote:

Rob_Mopar wrote: However the fluorescent colors and geometric graphics belong in the '80's Miami Vice era. You cant have fluorescent malaise.

No, Malaise was more of a brownish, yellowish, orangish hue...

I want this with a Cummins. Just sayin.

Appleseed wrote: Apparently Mad_Machine's Grandfather was a pimp.

no, worse... he was russian