1975 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe - Chevrolet's (and GM's) Last Full-Size Hardtop Coupe

After my soliloquy on a "pillared hardtop", 1976 Buick LeSabre coupe, thought I'd do a quickie on a 1975 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe, General Motor's last "true" full-size, hardtop coupe. I knew it would be a challenge to find one and it was. There aren't that many "pillared" 1974 and 1975 Impala "Custom Coupes" out there either these days let alone these "hardtop" coupes. I hope you like green. 

Technically, all automobiles that have a fixed roof are "hardtops", but in automotive terms, a "hardtop" is a car with a fixed roof that has no center pillar or post emulating the look of a convertible with its top up or closed. The Big Three, well, Three and Half if you count AMC, built hardtop four-door sedans and station wagons as well. 

On paper you'd think the differences nuanced but they're really not. Here we have two 1975 Chevrolet Impala coupes, the one on the left is a 1975 Impala "Custom Coupe", note the upright post behind the passenger door. The one on the right is our vomit green "Sport Coupe"; there's no post behind the door. Buyers paid a $51 tariff for the post. It's a matter of taste as to which you prefer. 

I thought the pillared coupes made the hardtops look dated when they first came out. Not unlike how the rubber nosed third generation Corvettes made the chrome bumper models look quaint. Funny how things age. 

If there was any upside to the pillared coupes, it gave the cars much needed rigidity. They still weren't bank vaults, though. If you've spent any time behind the wheel of any 1971 to 1976 GM B- or C-body, you know how they shimmy-shimmy, cocoa-pop. The hardtops in particular. The convertibles were a shuddering joke. 1976 Impala Custom Coupe pictured above from a Chevrolet brochure with its suspension lowered to give it a more sporting look. 

For an Impala, this green machine is as well optioned as a Cadillac. Power windows, door locks, air conditioning, tilting steering column, a six-way adjustable power driver's seat and a 180-horsepower, 400-cubic inch, 4-barrel V-8. 

Naturally, the interior is color-keyed or matching and shows off General Motors injection molded plastics prowess at the time. 

You haven't driven a mid-1970's car until you've driven one with a vacuum actuated fuel-economy gauge. The thinking behind it was simple and subtly brilliant; the more vacuum the engine has the better the fuel-economy. Go heavy on the gas pedal or floor it, reducing engine vacuum, and the gauge will let you know how bad you're being. 

I know I'm not alone in feeling this car's styling suffers mightily from the five-mile-per-hour safety bumpers fore and aft. Like the so-called pillared hardtops, though, it seemed progressive, evolutionary and modern when first introduced. Most of us car wonks who are fans of GM's heavy-iron 1971 to 1976 full-size models think less of them now. Upside, though, the big bumpers, which have shock absorbers behind them, did help protect cars from damage in low-speed collisions; something you can't say about today's vehicles that suffer $2,500 of damage of front or rear end damage by just breathing on them. 

Chevrolet introduced their first two-door a hardtop in 1950 which they dubbed, "Bel Air". They built two-door hardtops through 1975, a four-door hardtop was added in 1956 that they built though 1976. When GM downsized their full-size cars in 1977, there were no hardtops. 

At the height of their popularity, or at the height of production where buyers had few options, hardtops accounted for nearly a third of car sales in the United States. Hardtops fell out of favor in the mid-1970's due to manufacturers concerns over government mandated roll-over safety regulations, that never materialized, and shifting consumer tastes. 

 

1976 Buick LeSabre - GM Moves Away from Hardtops

This 1976 Buick LeSabre is another one of those oldies that the current owner wanted to get rid of rather than store for the winter. It's for sale out in Toledo, Ohio which is a good 90-minutes west of us here on the west side of Cleveland. Asking price is $8,500 which I guess is reasonable for a clean, fifty-year-old, full-size, two-door Buick. Even if it was half that price and, in this condition, if I was in the market, I'd walk right past it. Why? That rear roof. 

There's just too much going on here. The roll down rear window behind the door, the offset center post or pillar, a second and massive rear side window that's stationary, the "carriage" vinyl top and last but not least, the painted roof panel. Throw in the rear windshield, please don't call it a "backlight", and that's six disparate design elements or themes clamoring for our attention. 

Ah, this is much better. This is what the Buick LeSabre coupe of this vintage started out as back in 1971. It's in all its center post free, hardtop glory. There's an airy elan to it the 1976 LeSabre doesn't have. Mind you, this is no 1970 Electra hardtop coupe, but I wouldn't kick it out my garage. 

Apparently, in anticipation of rollover safety regulations that never materialized, in the mid-1970's, The Big Three began moving away from hardtop coupes towards so-called "pillared hardtops"; curiously, hardtop sedans stuck around at GM through 1976. Seeing how popular hardtops had been, can't blame GM for attempting a "hybrid" of sorts. This car is from a 1974 Buick brochure, and without the "carriage" top, I think it better looking compared to the 1976 LeSabre. Still too damn fussy, though. 

In the mid-'70's, Oldsmobile had the same roof on their version of the Buick LeSabre coupe, the Delta 88. The lack of a vinyl top on this 1976 Delta 88 makes the look, subjectively, the best it could, I still  think it fussy. The battering ram rear bumper adding to the literal and figurative malaise. 

No hybrids over at Chevrolet, though as they went all in with their pillared coupes. When I was a kid, I thought these big Chevies looked fresh, new, modern and exciting. The switch away from hardtops to pillars a natural evolution of design of sorts. Funny what ages well and what doesn't. 

Chevrolet built their hardtop Impala Sport Coupe through 1975. Try to find one of those for sale in decent shape.  

                      

Pontiac hemmed and hawed transitioning away from hardtop coupes. Their 1974 "Grand Ville" was a "traditional" hardtop...

For 1975, the Grand Ville got a rear roofline similar to Chevrolet's; Pontiac dropped the Grand Ville nameplate for 1976. They kept the roof though, they just glued "Bonneville" where Grand Ville had been. The Catalina, as the Bonneville had been in 1974 and 1975, had a "hybrid" roof like the Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre had.  

On GM's longer wheelbase "C-body" that underpinned Cadillac's, the Oldsmobile 98 and Buick Electra, designers went with the chunky pillared like Chevrolet (and Pontiac) had but with smaller side windows. To me, at least, these cars look as cohesive as two train cars coupled together. This is a 1976 Cadillac Coupe deVille. 

The Chevrolet Impala\Caprice, Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre were built on GM's "B-body" chassis. 

Meanwhile over in Dearborn, Ford wasn't having any luck with the look either. In fact, in the case of this 1977 LTD, they had a worse time with it. 

Subjectively, of the big The Big Three, Chrysler did the best job transitioning away from hardtops with their 1974 to 1978 Chrysler New Yorker, this is a 1977 New Yorker Brougham. The trick was that gigantic, stylized C-pillar, more like a flying buttress, and a smaller side or "opera" window cloaked behind a thickly padded "carriage" type vinyl roof. Like the 1976 LeSabre, there's a lot going on and on paper, nothing works. However, unlike the Buick, though, here, my blog, my opinion, it does work, the old, "sum of its parts" two-step doing its thing. 

I pity the fool attempting to change lanes in traffic in this thing, though. 

Chrysler's Newport coupe remained a hardtop through the end of its production run in 1978. Begs the question why this was given these cars were built on the same 124-inch wheelbase as the New Yorker.  When Chrysler introduced their downsized full-size cars in 1979, not only where there no hardtops, there weren't even any coupes. 

The center post, off set or not, did give these cars much needed structural support. While not literally convertibles with steel roofs welded down, like GM's earliest hardtops were back in the late 1940's and into the '50's, GM's class-of-1971 full-size cars weren't exactly the sturdiest cars ever made. While there was a fair degree of flex dialed in to give them a cloud like ride, that flex became more like a furious shudder as the cars got older and got some miles on them. 

When GM downsized their full-size models for 1977, while there were coupes, plenty of them, there were no hardtops. 

This one appears to still be for sale although winter has clamped down on us big time already so it may be mothballed. Comment below or shoot me an email if you're interested and I'll send you the link. 

1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus - There's a Fine Line Between Cool and Weird

 

The Chrysler Corporation's Plymouth and Dodge divisions swung mightily for the fences with their intermediates for 1971 and based on sales, early on at least, seemed they cleared them. While the four-door sedans and wagons were more or less rounded off updates of what was offered from 1965 to 1970, the coupes were, as is the case of this 1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring I found on Facebook Marketplace, ahem, from another planet. 

Strong as sales were, though, and I can't find break outs by vehicle type, they were roughly a third of Chevrolet Chevelle sales, so they weren't exactly everywhere when I was growing up. I recall seeing sedans and wagons, but the coupes were unicorns. And the ones I saw, I thought were cool, odd as well. Not as odd as I found AMC's Javelin's of the same vintage but kooky enough that had I been of the age and means to buy a new car when new, I'd have head straight to my local Chevrolet or Pontiac dealer for a Chevelle, Monte Carlo or Grand Prix. 

As they were going back to 1965, from 1971 to 1974, all Plymouth intermediates, or mid-size cars, were "Satellites", Plymouth taking a page from Ford's "Galaxie" play book playing off the "space age" craze. Starting in 1971, the coupes went off in their own styling direction and to differentiate them, if they weren't called "Road Runner", they got the "Sebring" suffix. 

Complicating things further, this car is a "Satellite Sebring Plus", meaning it has nicer seats than non-Plus models and this funky paint scheme the current owner altered, if you know better, rather dramatically. While the white "carriage top" vinyl roof is period correct, the paint on the "rocker" part of the exterior is white where it was silver from the factory. 

He claims he had it painted, "his way". That's all well and good, pal, but when you're asking $40,000 for a non-Road Runner fuselage era Plymouth intermediate, you can't do things like that and think you're going to sell it for a king's ransom. If I'd ever spend that much money on a "classic" car, I'd want it as it would have come from the factory as. Say the asking price slowly so it sinks in even deeper. Forty. Thousand. Dollars. 

My favorite part of this car is the "loop" front bumper. The '71 and '72 Satellite Sebring's have this, owing to the five-mile-per-hour safety bumper regulations, the '73 and '74's have a front end that looks not much different than what's on the sedans and wagons. It's fine but it ain't this. 

Seller claims the car was originally from Portland, Oregon and he bought it out of Seatle ten-years ago. Apparently, he's has sunk a ton into it. From the looks of it, he did. This thing looks tight as a drum. Problem is, seems he's trying to recoup his expenses. Perhaps then some. 

Now as then, I'm on the fence about these cars. As they say, there's a fine line between cool and weird, perhaps these cars push the weirdness thing just a little too close to the cool side of the ledger for me. 

1968 Ford XL Convertible - It's Not My Problem

 

Lou Holtz, the famous football coach, is famous for saying, "90-percent of people don't care about your problems, 10-percent are glad you have them". With this 1968 Ford XL convertible that's full of problems, I'm just glad it's not my problem. 

My heart goes out to the seller because I know how hard it is to sell a basket case and how much it sucks to have sunk a ton of money into something and take a loss. That's the risk we take with "barn finds"; they're rarely the simply dusty relics you see on TV shows or on YouTube. They're more like this thing that gives a decent first impression but then you get to know it better. Asking price? $4,500. 

What you get for your money is a top-of-the-line 1968 Ford rag top whose rear quarters are rusting out, the floor pan the rear seat sits on is "soft", the front seat upholstery is torn up, the dash is cracked, and its 390-cu. in., 2-bbl V-8 only turns over if you squirt starter fluid into the carburetor the seller claims needs a rebuild. Could be a bad fuel pump. Could be both. Who knows. 

At least the convertible top works, where rust isn't poking through the paint is fair, and you'd get these genuine imitation knock-off fake wire wheel covers that, even if they were "real", shouldn't be on the car in the first place. That's a minor quibble compared to everything else that's wrong here. 

There's no mention of the condition of the frame, but the soggy rear seat pan tells me there's more to the rust story than they're disclosing. Get this thing up on a lift. 

I feel a kinship for full-size '68 Ford's since my dad had a '68 Ranch Wagon that was in this color. Being a Ranch Wagon meant it was a bone-stripper, rental car special which it actually was. He bought it from Hertz, "out at the airport". 

Dad's wagon had none of the niceties this has, so this is like peering into the life of some rich person and seeing how they once lived. Power brakes, carpeting, wood trim and it's a is a convertible? Holy indulgence, Batman. I see these cars as tarted up rentals first and have to make the long putt mentally to justify them as even semi-luxury cars.

What happens to lumps like this, y'know? I see the crusher in the near future for it. I hope I'm wrong. This wreck is like seeing a bad accident on the freeway. You're concerned in the moment then you pass by and it's out of your mind. It's not your problem. Nore is it mine. 

1968 Galaxie XL Convertible, 390 2 bbl. Would be a great driver with a little love. Has decent paint except for the swapped hood. Seats are split and dash cracked. Convertible top works great. Has the common quarter rust and soft rear seat floor but pretty solid car overall. Will need carb rebuilt and tank. Does run on starting fluid. Title in hand.

Lakewood, OH

Location is approximate

Seller information

Chris Orlando

(64)

Highly rated on Marketplace

Joined Facebook in 2008