Crawling From The Wreckage
Monday, April 29, 2024
1977 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ - Creme Brulee
Thursday, April 11, 2024
1977 Dodge Monaco - Bad Then, Worse Now
Bet you never saw one of these before and, no, it's not what you might think it is. It's a 1977 Dodge Monaco that, yeah, looks a heck of a lot like a Chrysler Cordoba but more so like a Plymouth Fury of the same vintage. Not coincidentally, it does ride on the same chassis the 1975-1979 Cordoba did. A whole bunch of Chrysler cars did too in the 1970's.
Prior to 1976, a Dodge Monaco was a full-size car. And I mean big. Nearly 19-feet long, 8-feet wide and 4,600-pounds big. This Monaco is still pretty big but it is about ten inches shorter, four inches less wide and about five or six hundred pounds lighter. These were simply called, "Monaco"; Dodge kept the old full-size Monaco around for 1977 that they called, Royal Monaco.
As opposed to the Chrysler Cordoba that were only coupes, these cars were also available as four-door sedans and station wagons. They replaced the Coronet series in the Dodge lineup.
Craziest thing about this one is the interior. Yes, kids. This was a thing back in the day.
I was a wee little nipper, car interiors like this were all the rage. I hated them. I still do. Bad then, worse now as we say.
Dodge discontinued these cars and their insane interiors after 1978.
Monday, March 11, 2024
1955 Cadillac - Profit Margins
Thursday, March 7, 2024
1988 Pontiac Grand Am - Hollywood Had it All Wrong
Saturday, March 2, 2024
1979 Mercury Marqus (Coupe!) - Hypocrites!
Despite the smaller external dimensions, like the downsized GM big cars, these cars were roomier inside than what they replaced, Ford advertising up to 11-cubic feet more of interior volume, along with greater glass area improving visibility. Credit that to engineers calling the shots first, stylists called in after to do what they did. I think they did a nice job with these coupes, then again, I'm sort of partial to them. The four-door versions? Meh, not so much. The improved interior efficiency highlighting how space inefficient the models these cars replaced were. The days of form over function were over.
Ford made these handsome coupes through 1987 but, again, they sold poorly. Ford monkeyed around with the moniker starting in 1983 moving it to a Fox-body, four-door sedan for 1983 through 1986, it was replaced ultimately by the Mercury version of the Ford Taurus that was known as the Sable. Since the 1979 to 1982 Marquis actually sold fairly well, well, the four-door models did, Mercury kept the car around calling it the "Grand Marquis" from 1983 all the way through 2011; big difference being they were four-door sedans only. The Grand Marquis had been an interior trim package on the Marquis brougham going back to 1974.
1979 was the best-selling year for the Marquis coupes with more than 20,000 sold. Sales cratered in 1980 and never recovered making our '79 here fairly rare if not unique.