1979 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe - Hot Bent

                                                                                                                                                   

These downsized, "Class of 1977" General Motors "B-bodies" are getting harder to find, especially ones in decent shape like this 1979 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe. Although I'm generally ambivalent towards these cars, I felt an obligation, my duty as it were, to blog about it when it popped up on Marketplace recently. Although, again, when it comes to these downsized GM Bodies, I'm a take 'em or leave 'em kind of girl. Especially these 1977-1979 Chevrolet coupes.  

These cars might be fine, I might even like them except for that rear roof line and windshield or backlight, so named because they allow light into the car. A trick piece of engineering for sure that, my blog, my opinion, seems out of place with the nature of the rest of the car. A "bubble back", 1961 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe this is not. 

That window is not three pieces of glass glued together with some space-age polymer but a bent, single piece of glass. General Motors partnered with Pittsburgh Plate Glass who had a process called "Hot Bent Wire" where glass was heated and then bent over iron wires to spec. Oldsmobile contracted PPG to do something similar with their 1977 and 1978 Toronado XS. Problem was the failure or "scrap rate" was high and that cut into profit margins. 

Suffice to say, when the Impala and Caprice were updated for 1980 along with all the other "1977" GM full size cars, the "hot bent" backlight went into the cost savings dumpster. Rarely does a bookkeeping decision result in a better-looking automobile, but, my two cents, it did. Above is a 1980 Caprice coupe. 

The "hot bent" Toronado, above, went the way of the dodo after 1978. The new "E-body" Toronado that came out in 1979, mercifully, didn't get one.

Our beige-on-camel or camel-on-beige Impala Sport Coupe had just 62,000-miles on her 48-year-old analog ticker, had no rust, no real wear on its vinyl seats and even the air blew cold. It was listed for "just" $7,500, a lot of B-body for the money, I, pun intended, can't see past that hot bent backlight. 

Chevrolet got out of the Impala coupe business after 1982, the last Caprice coupe rolled off assembly lines in 1987.