1976 was a big year for America. Not only was she celebrating her 200th birthday but it was the last year for General Motor's oh-so-big, 1971 vintage, much lamented B and E body, "full size" cars. These big cars were despised for their sheer bulk, cheap construction, poor dynamics; honestly, they weren't very good cars. None of these big cars from GM, Ford and Chrysler were actually any good and enlightened luxury car buyers were already beginning to literally jump ship to Merc. What's more, on the heels of the gas crunch just two years prior, Americans were leery of these brutes that had trouble getting 10 miles per gallon. Some people did love these beasts, though, one of them being cherubic, 12 year old (at the time) me. I was especially fond of the top of the line two door sedans from Cadillac, Lincoln and Chrysler. Do I have a favorite? Of course I do and you might be surprised at which one it is.
Let's drop two bits into the Way Back Machine and head back to the Bicentennial year and kick the tires on some of the largest automobiles ever made.
Cadillac Coupe deVille
Hard to imagine today just strong the allure of Cadillac was in 1976. It was, perhaps, at its peak. For certain by 1976, the last year for those 1971 vintage GM wide bodies, Cadillac wasn't cashing checks anymore based on engineering and design excellence. What's more, on the '76 deVille, most if not all of the gadgets that were once exclusive to Cadillac could be found on lesser GM makes and models. The "exclusive" Cadillac 500 cubic inch V-8 engine was as much a liability as a point of exclusivity with gas prices having doubled less than 24 months prior. It also added no performance advantage over smaller engines from even Chevrolet. Aside from showing off that you could afford one, what was point of owning a Cadillac in 1976 that differed little from a Caprice? That it was a Cadillac? That's a lot of money spent just to show off. Pretty car, though. Clean lines and what a footprint.
Interiors on these Cadillac's always left me cold. This is a luxury car? Buick and even Oldsmobile did a nicer job. Nothing special here and the leather was nothing to write home about. The cloth interiors on these cars always felt more sumptuous, luxurious. Like Granny's sofa. Red interior on a red car seems garish now but that was the way they did things back then. No harm in that; just the trimmings of this car are no more special than in any other GM full size offering at the time. I'd buy a Caprice and a Camaro, have money left over and have twice the fun.
Not that people bought these cars for the way they performed but of these three, the Cadillac was the best performer. That's not saying much. More like it was the most responsive of the lot available. Spend some time with any of these cars and then a German make of the same vintage and it all becomes crystal clear why things fell apart for the Big Three like they did. Let's not even start to discuss build quality or reliability.
Lincoln Continental
This is what Thurston Howell would have driven for no other reason than he thought the name of the car rich sounding. Too bad this car couldn't live up to a name as regal sounding as, "The Lincoln Continental". All three here share much with lesser cars but the Ford here does the poorest job of hiding its modest DNA. Or is that LTD? Have to wonder if the designers of this car were inspired by a stick of butter or a brick. Did they do anything with the hunk of clay they started with aside from stick those awful bumpers on it?
I didn't like the Cadillac's interior that much and the Lincoln's is even worse. It's not the passage of nearly 40 years that makes this car look as cheap as it was either. Ironically, as cheap as this interior was it was generally regarded as being the best of these three. Most comfortable seats, best dash layout and even a stereo system that got accolades. Back then, factory sound systems were an afterthought. The Lincoln's interior is not without faults, though. The dash was really high and the seats were really low. Joe average size Americans had difficulty seeing the end of the hood not to mention seeing out of this car at all.
Performance wise, there was no performance. Strangled by crude emission controls, low compression, stratospherically tall gearing and weight (all three push if not pass two and a half tons), none of these cars were fun to drive but the Lincoln and its phlegmy 460 did manage to yank the big Ford tank to 60 in the quickest time. All that said, despite the coolest name, the Lincoln Continental was the blandest of the bunch. Bland styling, cheap interior and crummy driving dynamics? A perfect storm of mid 1970's ambivalence. At least we had a Ford in the White House.
Chrysler New Yorker Brougham
Which brings us to the light of my life, my North, my South, my East, my West...The Brougham. No, it's not a Cadillac although you wouldn't be the first to mistake it for one. No, this is Chrysler's luxury offering that was a greater Cadillac than Cadillac was at the time. This car started life as an Imperial (a separate Chrysler division through 1974) and was just drop dead awesome. Rare that cars actually got better looking as they went through their design cycle and that their pillared version surpassed their hard top brethren in aesthetic appeal but Chrysler nailed it with the New Yorker. Delightful stem to stern. Look how the character line on the door and lower fuselage blends with the fender skirt. Almost makes the fender skirt make sense. These sold poorly, though getting trounced by Cadillac. Such is life. This car got the downsizing sawzall for 1979 and Chrysler botched it so bad that they got out of the full size market after 1981. Just as well as Chrysler was focusing their attention on K cars.
If there was a more sumptuous looking interior available in the world at the time I'd like to see it. This, Ford and GM, is what a luxury car in the mid 1970's looked like. This crème de la crème color doesn't do it justice. Where it red or even black, it would be even more decadent looking. Looking, mind you. These super soft, slippery seats were as hard to get comfortable in as anything back then. However, for impressing those Cadillac driving Jones, well, nothing was better.
On the road just like the Lincoln and Cadillac, the NYB left a lot to be desired. Almost as boggy as the Lincoln with "sluggishier" brakes than the Cadillac, it was par for the overweight driving course in behind the wheel experiences.
But as for mid 1970's luxury car mojo, nothing beat the Chrysler New Yorker Brougham. Just make mine silver with the red interior.
I picked these three similar sedans to compare because they resemble each other in terms of price point, aesthetics and specifics. Neither Ford nor Chrysler made a vehicle to compete with Cadillac's Fleetwood series and Chrysler didn't make a specialty coupe to compete with the Cadillac Eldorado or Lincoln Mark IV.
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