I thought I had said everything I had to say about 1973-1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo's. Well, never say never. Besides, this one is an especially nice 1975 (round headlights!) in one of my favorite color schemes so how could I not say at least something about it.
No crazy "swivel buckets" or floor mounted transmission shifter though and those factory, Monte Carlo specific wheel covers are hideous. Crank windows, manual locks. This sucker is a rental grade, bone stripper. It's only got 42,000 miles on it and I believe it. Priced semi-reasonably too at $12,995. Not that I'd pay that for this but perhaps you would and it's nice to know it's priced about right given its solid (looking) condition. Add a good two-grand for a fresh set of Rally style rims and bigger ties with raised white letters, that, in my opinion, are a must.
Leave this "350 2BBL" engine making all of 145-horsepower as is. This was never meant to be a muscle car. So, for fifteen-grand you've got what appears to be a rust-free driver. In this (post?) Covid environment, this is a pretty good deal.
Since I grew up with these things, it's hard for me to tell how they've actually aged. My twenty-five-year-old son sees a "cool old car". I see one and I'm ten to twenty years old again. I do, however, remember my opinion of them evolving from all out disdain to white hot adulation.
My problem with them was the styling. Too much of it to be exact. Whereas for 1973, the Pontiac Grand Prix, the Monte Carlo's cousin, was more of an evolution of the previous model, same for the Oldsmobile Cutlass, the 1973 Monte Carlo took the "neo-classical" designs cues of the 1970-1972 models and morphed it into a concept car from either heaven or hell. I must admit, in retrospect, it is one of the cleverer designs of the era. Regardless of whether you understand or "get" what it is it's trying to be.
I much preferred the very mechanically similar and far more conservatively styled two-door Malibu to Monte Carlo's. Car and Driver described Monte Carlo's as a "Chevelle in a dinner jacket" and marveled at how and why folks would pony up the stipend for them above a Chevelle. Again, I agreed at first but much like how I now adore Brussel Sprouts and disco music these days, stuff I thought vile when I was young, tastes evolve and change. With regards to 1973-1977 Monte Carlo's, I arm wrestle with myself over whether or not that's a good thing.
In many ways, these cars were the last foray of form over substance. Despite the blasted five-mile-per-hour "safety bumpers", there's so much frivolity in the design here that it borders on silly. Isn't it wonderful? My man Bill Mitchell, who ran GM design from the late '50's through 1977, wasn't immune from the overtop styling atrocities of the day. Think of these cars as the bell bottoms, leisure suits and avocado green refrigerators of 1970's automobilia.
And then, poof. 1978 came and that was the end of that. Well, the beginning of the end. The shrink-rayed 1978 Monte Carlo sold well at first. The almost as ugly Pontiac Grand Prix sold well too. However, buyers soon realized those downsized personal luxury cars where a far cry from what they were, and sales imploded. Disco was dead and video killed the radio star.
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