My grandma bought 1979 caprice new. I inherited it in 1996 with 60k on it as my first car when I was 16. It started my love affair with classic cars. I daily drove it for the next 8 years. I still have it. Only routine maintenance. water pump,alternator brakes etc. it has 160k on it now and still drives like a dream. I have had 63,67,72,78 coupe devilles and 74,79 Lincoln town coupes. The 79 caprice is way peppier (it has the 350) and drives like a car half it’s size . It’s the only big car that doesn’t feel like a floating barge. My 80 mark VI is comparable.
I was a police officer in 1977 and made the switch from a starsky & hutch style Torino to 77 Impalas- talk about a shock! The impalas were as great as the Torinos were horrible, and they handled incredibly well.
My Dad worked in IAD (you know, investigating corrupt cops) and he drove a Pontiac Parisienne (same vehicle as the Caprice basically). He said shady cops used to be scared shit when his Parisienne would drive into the lot. Did you ever have to deal with Internal Affairs?
Still liked the torinos better. They were cooler. I know the guys in starsky and hutch weren't big fans of them either because of how they handled. Still much cooler.
@@Bigchet1223 Fords fishtailed 3 or 4 times when sliding around a corner, the Chevys did a clean 2. I never caught anybody when I was driving a Ford and never lost anyone in Chevy.
These were everywhere ... and they looked good. Still look good. Loved the Chevy, Buick, Olds, Pontiac, Cadillac versions. And I am more of a Ford guy.
As a UK resident i traveled to Connecticut in the fall of 1978 and bought a new Chevrolet Caprice for a customer in the UK 🇬🇧 Paid just over $7.000 for the fully loaded car in metallic red with a 350 4bbr and a F41 handling package. A truly great American car that turned a lot of heads and with over 2 dollars to a UK £ at the time it was so cheap. Great video Adam 👍👍🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
As a teenager I was in the UK in 1982, and saw more than one of these over there. All with a section of the rear lights in amber, as required. I can’t remember if any were RHD or not.
@@shiftfocus1They were never built with right-hand-drive system, but lot of specialists in the UK did the right-hand-drive conversion if the customers could afford the cost. Fortunately, the dashboard is pretty much symmetrical which made swapping the components and sections easier.
@@InTeCredo unfortunately no we had to do the conversion in the uk . At the time though red turn signals were still legal in the uk as old classics from the 50s still had them . The issue would not surface till the first MOT (that’s the uk term for Inspection at 3 years of age ). Much better car though than the 78 2 door Malibu we bought at the same time, which had rear diff break when a retaining pin came loose on the star gears allowing a C lock to come off,Resulting in a very wide rear track as the axle shaft started to come out at speed!!! Also the early 200 gearbox also failed . The 305 was ok but probably more than a match for the gearbox
They didn't have styling, they looked so much alike the average car buyer couldn't tell them apart, complete fail in lack of differentiation especially among the lowest and highest models.
My family had one of these. We bought a brand new '77 Impala wagon and drove it all over the Western US on a road trip before we even got the license plates. It was a nice car, but a bit gutless due to the smog equipment (350 CID V8). It struggled at higher elevations, especially. I surreptitiously installed an "AOOGAH" horn on the car and forgot about it until one day when we were all waiting in the car to go somewhere and my mom was lingering in the house. Dad blasted the horn and we all had a good laugh! He ended up leaving the horn in the car the rest of the time we owned it, which was about 10 years.
My mom had one so I started driving it at age 16. It had the best acoustics of any vehicle with a standard radio with four speakers that I have run into. Loved that car.
My dad bought a 1977 Impala wagon in gold. He used it as a business car. I learned to drive in it. If you can drive that, you can drive anything. It was about twenty feet long and three people wide. With the rear facing third seat, we often had up to nine people in it. Try that with today's cars.
I, as a 13 year old kid loved these things...my old man had a '73 Caprice Classic, and I thought we were rich! *We were not... my fave of this Era would be the 2 door Impala with the awesome rear window glass.
That's what I had. A green 2 door Impala with the 3 dimensional rear glass. Wish I still had it, but I sold it because it leaked oil from the rear seal.
My Dad bought a 1979 Caprice new, it was blue over blue and had what I thought were the coolest hubcaps I’d ever seen! My Mom drove it every day til 1989. I wish I could have that car back!
Another great report Adam. I bought a used 1978 Caprice in 1981 as my daily driver from College Park to Rockville, MD for about 2 years. It was a solid dependable fairly comfort ride, but the seats, interior design and ride/drive experience could not beat my 1967 Ford Galaxie, 1972 Mercury Marquis or 1975 Ford Elite...oh for the days when you got a new car ever few years!!!
Man these were just everywhere for decades! As I get older I understand better the intent and execution of the downsized GM's. My personal favourite? The plain Jane police editions. Nothing spectacular. Just good old durability. Another informative video Adam.
The design of these cars is pretty timeless. They still look good today and it's hard to believe they came out 37 years ago. I'd love to have a nice one in my garage. So simple to work on and reliable. With the F41 suspension they handled extremely well.
@@runoflife87 Wrong. My Caprice with a 305 V8 got 25 mpg on the highway. You could drive over 400 miles on the interstate without worrying about getting a fillup. For a very solid car that could seat four adults and two children comfortably, that was very impressive.
I went with my mother to order a 77 Caprice Classic. I saw one at a dealer and I drug her to the local Chevrolet dealer and she fell in love with the car. She ordered a 4 door in the light blue metallic paint with almost every option that was available. It took about 10 weeks to arrive, but that was just a beautiful vehicle. As I remember it was around $7200. It was a great riding and handling car and it gave many years of faithful service. The only real problem was that the fast idle tended to hang in really cold weather and wouldn't kick down until you had driven it for about 5 miles. They could never correct the problem. That was a challenge when it snowed. You had to throw it into neutral at a stop sign because it would fight so hard that the back end would break loose and send you towards the curb. One of the few vehicles in my lifetime that I really miss.
It was a car that I fell in love with and wished I could find in excellent shape. I was 15 years old at the time and hoped that my dad would buy one with a 350 cu in V8 and the F41 suspension package. Thank you for doing a story about this car. Sadly as the years moved on, the updates they made to the Caprice took a lot of the styling details away.... namely the front end and tail lights. The sort of kept the shape but you could tell they were trying to take cost out of the car.
I was just about to comment this too. They had great bones and were also easily improved (if one so desired). I had a '77 Olds Delta 88 and it was an incredible vehicle.
Hell no. Flimsy channel iron frames, thin body metal, not to mention boxy styling and crappy various 5.0 V8s. Best generation of GM was the 1965-1970 cars. Similarly sized, but better built. Powerglides and THM400s, good quality sixties steel, and boxed frames on the non-Chevrolet cars and wagons. The downsizs cars were only two gens later, and while they were a good step in the right direction from the seventies stuff, they're mediocre at best.
I’d have to disagree with you, but perhaps that’s because I’m likely older. 😉 My vote goes to 1965 - 1970 for exterior & interior design and materials along with the wide range of available color combinations and power plants. Pontiac especially was hitting its stride. Cheers! 👍
I don’t think I’d ever seen those full-size clays before. Some really nice lines there. But even the finished product was a master stroke of design. We were a Mopar family, but I had to give respect to this new car. I’d love to see one of your excellent interviews with any designer (still-living, obvs) involved in this project.
My favorite cars. Absolutely love the GM B-Body platform. My first car was a 1977 Impala. Baby blue, 305, vinyl bench seat. It was the perfect car. I've had a few other GM B-Body cars through the years and I want another
2 or 4 door? Mom had a 4 door Imp same colors and engine as you describe. It replaced a 71 LTD wagon that didn't compare to the new Chevy. I said it before, GM hit it outta da ballpark with these cars. Mom's car had posi. Car was unstoppable in the Michigan snow.
3:00 Wow! This design is incredibly clean and light looking. The first car that popped into my head that this design reminds me of is the Ferrari 400i.
Thank you Adam. I liked the design proposals you shared and the connection to Opel. I liked the images you put together and the information you shared about the development and how it proceeded. People really do like the 1977-1990 versions of the B and C body cars. I especially like when they were all updated for 1980 model year and made more aero. They all have their own flavor. The Caprice interiors got better with time with trim and features. I liked the 1987-1990 Caprice Classic Brougham LS. would take the Pontiac and Oldsmobile versions. I remember those ads too. Thank you Adam.
I'm glad you confirm that the intention to downsize these vehicles started before the '73 oil embargo. Like you said, Americans were different back then and didn't necessarily favor huge vehicles the way they have for the past twenty-plus years. I, too, remember people saying in the early seventies that companies were making cars too large and awkward. These kinds of widespread public sentiments are also what led to the replacement of the Ford Mustang by the Mustang II, among other downsizings. Americans even liked their pickup trucks small during the 1980s peak of downsizing, something unimaginable today. Today, people blame the seventies-eighties downsizing on overzealous "big government," but there was a lot of favorable public sentiment behind it.
The government did screw things up. They put into place conflicting safety, fuel economy and emissions regs, and expected the companies to redesign everything to comply in no time at all. Any one at a time would be manageable. All three at a time were insane. The engineering resources just didn’t exist to make it possible in the incredibly short timeframe required. Plus, they had to force these vehicles on a public that didn’t want them. More realistic would have been a ten year,phased price increase on gas. Every year gas would have gone up a certain, known amount, and people could shop for the cars they wanted, when they wanted them. But, that would have taken guts by congress, so it was easier to destroy the big three instead.
I put some blame on Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at any Speed", which was critical of the compact first generation Corvair. By the time GM had corrected the flaws, it was too late as the book may have soured the appetite of consumers.
That said, by the mid 80s, some cars got so small, the buying public actually started to reject some of them. They didn't want them as small as they were getting. In fact, many people wanted bigger cars again because they had become so much more economical to run and some even turned to light trucks, like minivans because they were roomier than most cars. That helped sow the seeds for truck craze that came in the 90s.
@@aaronwilliams6989 Today, "light trucks" keep getting bigger, possibly due to perverse regulations to classify them by size and weight to escape inclusion on the CAFE standards for fuel economy.
Love seeing how the original concepts work into production versions. The greenhouse styling on the first two clays is very similar to the production ‘78 Malibus.
Yet another great video. Well done sir. I had a 1984 police special ( was a detective car never a patrol car ) one of my favourite cars ever. Very fond memories. My parents had 1989. Once they switched to fuel injection they were way down on power. Or that’s how it felt anyway
These were great cars overall 200 Metric transmissions and 231 Buick V6's aside from the Olds, Buick and Pontiac camp. We used to see a random mix of 350 and 200 Metric transmissions even on the 350 4BBL equipped cars so that was a crap shoot. As for the 305's we used to swap the weak factory cams out for L69 spec ones along with a 4BBL intake and carb and these would go from no power at all to burning rubber. Customers were quite happy after this mod. We also did many 200 Metric to 350 tranny swaps and never heard back from the customer thereafter on thus equipped cars.
My sister had a ‘77 Impala coupe, I had a ‘79Impala (Aerocoupe), my parents bought a new ‘77 Impala wagon and my brother had an ‘88 Caprice sedan. Beautiful cars, excellent styling for the time, and reliable. Wish I still had mine.
In the Netherlands they used these as Taxi’s until end of 1990s and it was very common to teach 1000000km on the odometer but they all where drivin with lpg instead of regular gas! Excellent quality technically speaking!👍
We had a ‘78 Caprice Classic. It rode and drove great. Completely reliable and the build quality was better than the prior generation. Acceleration with the 305 was ok for the era.
Had an 86 Pontiac Parisianne with the 4.3 V6 I bought used from a fellow that had belonged to his dad. Was an excellent car and survived 2 teenage sons.
I had a 1979. Hand me down after one year to me from my brother. It took me to college in Indiana. Survived multiple crashes. Took me and a uhaul carrier I towed to Atlanta where I still live. Had it for ten years and 160,000 miles. Still ran when I traded it in for a Beretta which was a piece of junk. The Caprice Classic was a great vehicle and never once stranded me.
I walked away from a T- Bone accident in my 1880 V8 Caprice after being hit by a speeding police car. He impacted the front quarter panel by the bumper frame and spun me around. Drove to the auto body shop for repairs and frame alignment, the cops paid for all the damage. If I was in a smaller lighter front wheel drive car I would have been in the hospital and the car would have been totaled. I think I had over 400,000 miles on it before the odometer cable broke. Very reliable.
The wagons were great cars for the family. I remember riding back home from Daytona in the back of Dad's. The "Rear facing back seat" gave you a good view.
I begged my grandfather to buy a 77 Bonneville Brougham sedan, black with garish red velour. It was gorgeous. He got a Phoenix (rebadged Nova) that was a colossal POS.
My Dad had purchase a 77 Impala used and gave it to one of his salesman as his official company vehicle. That vehicle was bulletproof with no problems during the five years they had it.
The cover pic for this vid caught my eye....My step dad had a new '78 base Impala as bis company car (remember when people commonly had company cars as a perk?)... anyways..when the company was done with it, he liked it so much that he bought it from them! Je would change the oil once a year noatter wjat, and the car made it to 263,000 miles.... it would have gone further for sure, but its final few miles we withe at the wheel running ½ dozen rounds at one summer's demolition derby! Enjoyed the video, thanks Adam 👍
Awww Thanks Adam for showing the commercial with Jerry Orbach! I've always loved him especially in the SVU police drama's! I had no idea he'd done a Chevy commercial and I'm sure I've seen that commercial back in the day, but Jerry wasn't as well known then? That was awesome seeing Jerry again I really miss him! I know this video wasn't about Jerry, but seeing him really made me happy and sad at the same time! Thanks again Adam! 😊❤
Our high school driver ed car was a 1981 Impala sedan. I really liked it, and my teacher could see I was a car nerd, so he'd let me have extra time behind the wheel after class.
I was 13 in 1977, and my parents bought a 1977 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham, which was very similar to the Caprice in most ways. It was a nice car, but the back seat had very little legroom (we replaced a 1973 Mercury Marquis Colony Park station wagon). Ironically, just a few years later my parents bought a 1981 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale and, although it was essentially the same car as the Pontiac, the back seat in that Oldsmobile had significantly more room than the Bonneville just a few years before. They were great cars, overall!
My family owned a maroon Chevrolet Caprice with a red interior when I was born. The thing I remember the most was how EVERYTHING (steering wheel, door panels, carpet, headliner, pillars, EVERYTHING) was that magenta-red color on the inside. And yes, I distinctly remember the cracked plastic on the front dash. We had it 'till about 1983 when my dad traded it in for a new Honda Accord (he heard all the hype) and immediately regretted it. He missed the roominess and smoothness of the big American car, and after a few months traded it at a huge loss for a Chevy Impala (a car I hated as a kid because the A/C wouldn't reach the backseat through the high bench front).
I bought my first big Chevy in 1988 and it was a 1978 Caprice two tone maroon with power seats, windows and cruise control. I felt like a million bucks driving that car around Pittsburgh. It had a 350 c.i with a 4 bbl Carb and just was so smooth and powerful I never wanted to just go home but keep driving around. GM designers got it right at that point in time and I can see why everyone loved them. They were living rooms on wheels but could handle well and had great power and highway cruising was quite enjoyable. Would own another one at the drop of a hat. Thank you GM for producing such an amazing vehicle.
My uncle bought a 77 caprice brand new, silver very nice car with the 350. I will say not only was th200 a problem, cam shafts in 77 to 79 305 and 350 wiped off the lobes quite frequently. Never fond of the blue sm block chevys. The blk one piece rear main engines were much improved.
This was my first car, '77 Chev Impala! I absolutely loved it. Silver exterior with red interior was the bomb. Id give anything to get a '77 reconditioned in good shape. ❤
The B-body vehicles (1977-1991) were perfect cars at perfect time for the European market in the late 1970s: more manageable size, weaker dollar (against European currencies), and long list of standard equipments. Swiss people bought them in droves, and they were common sight in the Switzerland.
I think the success of the 77 B and C cars was that because downsizing was such a big risk in the marketplace that GM went very conservative everywhere else in the design. Mechanically they just used the midsized chassis from the 73-77 A body. This eliminated a lot of teething issues that would come with new engineering. They also went very conservative with styling inside and out. The new size was change enough so nothing else was done to alienate buyers. One area there was significant loss of space (naturally not mentioned in marketing) was hip and shoulder room. The new car was really just a midsized car and while thinner doors helped a bit they were much narrower inside. Luckily for GM this was only really a negative when you tried to sit a third passenger in either seat. Not many people thought to test this out when car shopping.
@@johneckert1365 Yeah, I don't know why people like to say the chassis was taken from the old A-Body. If you actually look at the two they share basically no resemblance. I've been hearing about this old A-Body frame thing for years.
These cars weren't based on the A-Body frame design, it was an entirely new design for the downsized B-Body. Suspension components were shared but that was it. On the subject of interior space, these were definitely a bit narrower inside than the old car, though I don't know if I'd say it was a big difference. A '76 Caprice was rated at 64" of shoulder room front and rear, and a '77 Caprice was rated at 61" front and rear, so a difference of 3". Hiproom figures were more alarming, 59" in the front on the '76, and 60" in the rear, and 55" in the front on the '77, and 56" in the rear. So a 4" difference. Still though, it is technically only a 7% difference. I do agree though they could have been a bit wider, and Chevrolet did too, since with the '91 redesign the car was widened 2" (on the same frame mind you, which shows this alleged midsize frame had nothing to do with the narrower body on the '77 and was purely a design choice), and they were brought up to 63.4" of shoulder room front and rear, only .6" short of a '76 Caprice. Hiproom figures were a bit less impressive, at 57" in the front and rear, so still 2" less than a '76 Caprice, but better than the 4" less of the old car. I will add I've personally measured the shoulder room in a B-Body Buick Roadmaster at over 65", but I'll go by the rated figures for fairness since that's what I'm using for the '76 and '77. While I'm not a fan of the appearance of the original downsized 1979 Ford, I will give Ford credit that they were reluctant to make it as narrow as Chevrolet did, as the downsized Ford was still 77.5" wide. Shoulder room was the same as a Caprice, but hiproom was over 2" better. Still though, these are all frankly minor differences in the grand scheme of things. All these cars are properly wide on the inside.
@@johneckert1365 GM took pretty drastic measures to get the curb weight down on the downsized 1977 fullsize cars. They used thinner sheetmetal all around, with less bracing, and a thinner gauge frame that was C-Channel under the rear doors and for the rear sections. This resulted in a car that was admittedly, somewhat flimsy.
I have one of those unusual rear windows from a 1977 Impala coupe in the garage attic, saved from a car being scrapped. Also a factory *black* instrument panel top pad that didn't have any cracks in it (the last time I saw it), which is rare. Even the front center speaker punch out area hadn't gone to crumbs.
That Opel certainly looks like the inspiration for the model at 4:00... and the BMW 633. My first thoughts on the model were: Euro headlights before we even had rectangular sealed beams, and no whitewalls... Ahhhh!
That is a smart good looking car. I remember 1977, I was 9 and just moved to the chicago suburbs (Deerfield) with my family. I was able to recognize the new model year because the headlights became square. My Dad had a 1977 buick LeSabre. Brown, white gages background on the dashboard. A nice car.
My dad worked at the GM proving grounds In Milford, MI. He tagged a pep 1982 Caprice Classic sedan with the 350 olds Diesel. Driven by an engineer for a company car, so, it was loaded with options. I think it had 3500 miles, and my dad paid $7500. As it was a snail in acceleration, but we averaged 25 mpg city, and 29 hwy. Not bad for a full size car.! And then my dad bought a 1985 Suburban the same way, with the 6.2 Diesel. With 2wd, and a 3.73 rear axle. It too gave great mpg for a brick wall. 23 city and 25.5 hwy. We barely can achieve these numbers today with some 4 cylinder and V6 with port fuel injection and advanced computer systems.
THIS is the car that even a GM loather can love ps It took me 20 years to learn that the 'all new'/downsized' 77+ GM 'B' bodies were just 73-77 'A' bodies (right down to their 116 inch wheelbase) with a new...body. Saved GM billions in chassis design. Im very surprised Adam did not mention this.
That's something I never understood. Chrysler did the same thing when they got rid of their full sized C Body platform, replaced it with the B Body for a model year until the R Body was ready. The R Body was a reworked B Body, but Chrysler got raked over the coals for using an "old platform" meanwhile GM did the same thing but got praised. Mind you, I like both the GM and Mopar full-size offerings of the era, but I never understood why Mopar got shunned for doing the same thing GM did.
I learned to drive, as a 16 year old in ‘83, wrestling my Dad’s ‘79 Impala wagon around town and country roads. That thing was a tank. In a good way. My Dad was always frugal so the car was pretty basic; vinyl seats, no A/C, manual wind up windows… but he did splurge and ticked the FM radio option! What a rebel! The 305 V8 was fine, especially when it was time to practice control in the snow 😉
I bought a 1977 4 door Impala for $5,500. It was a great car with one exception. The air conditioner compressor was horrible. It had to be replaced every year. The replacement cost $1,000. Over the 7 years I owned the car i spent more money keeping the A/C working than I spent when I bought the car. When the engineers designed the compressor they used cheap bearings which leaked out the refrigerant causing the compressor to seize up. I traded the car after the wiring harness caught fire in 1984 with only about 70,000 miles. I went to a Pontiac Parisienne station wagon which was an even better car until the freeze out plugs rusted out. The freeze out plugs only cost $1.75 at the time, but you had to pull the entire drive train to access them making that an extremely expensive repair. That was my last American car. In my experience, GM had a problem with using cheap parts in critical places. After that I gave up on American cars and have had many Honda cars and never suffered the demise of a car over cheap parts in a critical places.
Love these vehicles. I got lucky on my 89 Caprice Classic brougham that’s my baby it has the 305 it’s fully loaded apart from the leather seats and it has the performance package on it so the different diff ratio, handling suspension and bigger front rotors
These were awesome cars and in Canada we had a third choice with the Bel Air as an entry level model ,,,,the transmission problem was solved rather easily by installing a th350 witch is what we did to my brothers 1977 impala....I had a 1989 caprice with a 307 olds engine and 700r4 trans that drove awesome....thanks for sharing the history of cars that could be recognised from a distance ..unlike today's cookie cutter models....Karl from eastern Canada
One of GM’s home runs! Love my 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 2 Door Coupe! I never had an issue with any of my 77-87 Caprice’s I had, all 305’s and ran well over 200k miles. My current 78 has only 27K. 👍
I've always loved this body style of Impala/Caprice. That first 2 door concept was absolutely gorgeous. I'd love a mid eighties police package similar to your green late seventies model. I'm a sucker for anything with steelies and dog dish hubcaps.
My mom had the exact car Jerry Orbach was showing in 77. I remember it fondly and she had it as soon as they were on sale. I was 12 and thought this Chevy was the finest car ever. My mom loved it so much and kept it spotless all the time. Thanks for the awesome memory Stay well sir
Actually 1991 to 1996 Buick Roadmaster, Chevy Caprice, Impala SS and Fleetwood Cadillacs had the exact same chassis and frame aside from the bumper supports. What a run for the B-Body chassis...1977 - 1996. The wagons were just a little wider in the rear. Great cars, one of my favorites was my 1985 9C1 Impala Police Car. Had a 1996 Impala SS that I regret selling.
I had an 89 Caprice Sedan followed by an 89 Caprice Wagon. The sedan was fuel injected and really a much nicer car to drive. Thank as always Adam, for the great videos!
I wanted one of these cars very badly and finally got a 1978 Caprice Classic (almost identical to the 1977 model) in 1984. Even used it was a remarkable car. No rattles and noise, vibration and harshness was negligent. It had the F-41 Police /Sport (so-called) suspension and handled very and surprisingly well. For a large sedan it was almost "tossable. I still have all the articles I collected from the trade magazines from when these were new. But I agree the instrument panel was uninspired. I much preferred the instrument panel of the Pontiac version of this car.
Have a 1979 2 door Caprice Classic, been in the family since it drove off the transport truck in late March 1979, at City Chevrolet San Diego. Still drives very well.
Had a 1977 fire engine red Chevy Impala coupe with the bent rear glass for a while.. Very sharp attractive car; it handled very well and performance was adequate with the 350 V8 with 4 bbl carburetor. Loaded with options which included steel belted radial tires and F41 performance suspension..
I will never forget the ride along I had with a friend of mine that was a police officer in a older Caprice, and when he turned the red and blue lights on it just died. I still laugh about it to this day.
My aunt and uncle traded in their massive 1975 Mercury Marquis for a 1977 Caprice. Their Caprice was a very common color from that erabrown body/top with a tan cloth interior. It was a very comfortable car as I remember and I was intrigued by the single piece headliner. As for the dashboard design, I preferred the design used for the 1977 full-size Pontiacs.
Showing those clay-models and design-proposals makes Your channel that unique and preccious! Have had a '83 Caprice Classic. Living in Germany, it was a incredible big vehicle. Loved it. And it's blue velours-interior was the most beautiful of all my (now 8) cars. Seeing the ad, I want it back...
It's funny how it was considered 'downsized' in 77, but in the mid 2010's when I had an 89 Caprice, it was considered a barge. I had that, and a 79 Pontiac B body in the late 80's. Both of them are my favorites of all the cars I've owned.
In 1999, when i had my 78 malibu wagon, that was tge perfect size car. Decent mileage, and could be worked on at home. Now its huge. "Ewwwwwwww a station wagon".. Same with my 86 caprice brougham in 2003.. It was a "thug"car by then
Surprisingly some cars we think of today as smaller such as accords and camrys really aren't a whole lot smaller. Just look how big cars have gotten again. Even the humble elantra and civic are much larger with every successive generation
@@howebrad4601 That's true. My daily is a 9th generation Corolla. Certainly not a big car, but a lot bigger and heavier than early generations. In spite of downsizing for fuel economy, things always seem to grow... Or bloat.
I bought a 77 Caprice in 1989 for $300. It was a real durable, comfort ride, but pretty much shot as you would expect - a gross polluter but even then it rolled.
I had a 77 Impala for a few years beginning around 1990. It's really the only full-size American car I've owned, and I did enjoy it. Mine was a four-door sedan with the 350 V-8. The bench seats could easily accommodate six adults, though the transmission tunnel made riding in the center position less than ideal. Incidentally, since you mentioned that the Caprice sold nearly as well as the Impala, I wonder if fleet sales contributed to that number, as all of the police interceptor models I saw at the time were Caprices.
Great piece! I remember these cars fondly from late childhood and still like them today. Bought an Impala cousin last year-‘79 Pontiac Bonneville with 29,000 original miles. Interestingly, it came with a 350 built by Buick as GM had moved to corporate engine builds shared among their various brands. It’s bright red crushed velour interior and two tone paint bring me back to the year I got my license.
I was 15 when these downsized full size GM cars came out. They were good at everything, fit & finish was better, they handled better and got much better gas mileage than the ‘71-‘76 versions. In the northeast, they had much better corrosion protection. More plastic, more adhesive attached moldings & emblems to eliminate metal to metal contact. They were so well engineered overall. And they helped GM for many years. Same with the next round of Downsizing with the mid size cars in 1978.
I owned a 79 Caprice and after the transmission gave out in 1996, bought a used 1987 Caprice in 1997 with the 305 V8 and still have it. I drive it weekly, love the ride, handling and comfort, and the highway gas mileage is about 25 MPG during warm weather. These were great cars and it seems like every time there is something tried and true, GM kills it off. The 1990 redesign was actually a bit bigger and looked horrible. The should have just downsized it a bit more and left it alone.
I really like that first concept car! Reminds me of a couple of the Italian coupes with American engines. I think Monteverdi was one of them that this really looks like. Sadly, the body seems to have grown about 3 inches vertically.
My grandma bought 1979 caprice new. I inherited it in 1996 with 60k on it as my first car when I was 16. It started my love affair with classic cars. I daily drove it for the next 8 years. I still have it. Only routine maintenance. water pump,alternator brakes etc. it has 160k on it now and still drives like a dream. I have had 63,67,72,78 coupe devilles and 74,79 Lincoln town coupes. The 79 caprice is way peppier (it has the 350) and drives like a car half it’s size . It’s the only big car that doesn’t feel like a floating barge. My 80 mark VI is comparable.
I have owned 23 caprice and Impalas. I have a 66 impala now. I'm addicted!
I’ll take a 65 2 door fastback!
A man after my own heart. I've owned 4 Caprices. The best two of all time? The '77 and the '96.
I was a police officer in 1977 and made the switch from a starsky & hutch style Torino to 77 Impalas- talk about a shock! The impalas were as great as the Torinos were horrible, and they handled incredibly well.
My Dad worked in IAD (you know, investigating corrupt cops) and he drove a Pontiac Parisienne (same vehicle as the Caprice basically). He said shady cops used to be scared shit when his Parisienne would drive into the lot. Did you ever have to deal with Internal Affairs?
Still liked the torinos better. They were cooler. I know the guys in starsky and hutch weren't big fans of them either because of how they handled. Still much cooler.
@@Bigchet1223 Fords fishtailed 3 or 4 times when sliding around a corner, the Chevys did a clean 2. I never caught anybody when I was driving a Ford and never lost anyone in Chevy.
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
@@markw4263 You haven't answered my question. Did Internal Affairs ever bust you?
We had a 1977 Impala and that was one damn fine car. Comfortable, drove like a dream, and cranked every time you turned the key.
I had one too, in triple Burgundy , power everything, it also drive like a dream. Best full size GM car EVER.
These were everywhere ... and they looked good. Still look good. Loved the Chevy, Buick, Olds, Pontiac, Cadillac versions. And I am more of a Ford guy.
As a UK resident i traveled to Connecticut in the fall of 1978 and bought a new Chevrolet Caprice for a customer in the UK 🇬🇧
Paid just over $7.000 for the fully loaded car in metallic red with a 350 4bbr and a F41 handling package. A truly great American car that turned a lot of heads and with over 2 dollars to a UK £ at the time it was so cheap. Great video Adam 👍👍🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇦
As a teenager I was in the UK in 1982, and saw more than one of these over there. All with a section of the rear lights in amber, as required. I can’t remember if any were RHD or not.
Were you able to procure the export taillamps for the Caprice?
@@shiftfocus1They were never built with right-hand-drive system, but lot of specialists in the UK did the right-hand-drive conversion if the customers could afford the cost. Fortunately, the dashboard is pretty much symmetrical which made swapping the components and sections easier.
@@InTeCredo unfortunately no we had to do the conversion in the uk . At the time though red turn signals were still legal in the uk as old classics from the 50s still had them . The issue would not surface till the first MOT (that’s the uk term for Inspection at 3 years of age ).
Much better car though than the 78 2 door Malibu we bought at the same time, which had rear diff break when a retaining pin came loose on the star gears allowing a C lock to come off,Resulting in a very wide rear track as the axle shaft started to come out at speed!!! Also the early 200 gearbox also failed . The 305 was ok but probably more than a match for the gearbox
@@davidwatt7663i love my 74 because its got the th400 and 10 bolt muscle car rear end 😂
It’s amazing how nicely that car rode. Made an instant impression.
These cars had excellent design and styling for their time. Reliable too.
They didn't have styling, they looked so much alike the average car buyer couldn't tell them apart, complete fail in lack of differentiation especially among the lowest and highest models.
@@Jack_Staffordyes they did. They were beautiful cars.
My family had one of these. We bought a brand new '77 Impala wagon and drove it all over the Western US on a road trip before we even got the license plates. It was a nice car, but a bit gutless due to the smog equipment (350 CID V8). It struggled at higher elevations, especially.
I surreptitiously installed an "AOOGAH" horn on the car and forgot about it until one day when we were all waiting in the car to go somewhere and my mom was lingering in the house. Dad blasted the horn and we all had a good laugh! He ended up leaving the horn in the car the rest of the time we owned it, which was about 10 years.
These cars sold like crazy and looked great back then.
I like that first clay model. The production models still look good today.
My mom had one so I started driving it at age 16. It had the best acoustics of any vehicle with a standard radio with four speakers that I have run into. Loved that car.
My dad bought a 1977 Impala wagon in gold. He used it as a business car. I learned to drive in it. If you can drive that, you can drive anything. It was about twenty feet long and three people wide. With the rear facing third seat, we often had up to nine people in it. Try that with today's cars.
I, as a 13 year old kid loved these things...my old man had a '73 Caprice Classic, and I thought we were rich! *We were not... my fave of this Era would be the 2 door Impala with the awesome rear window glass.
That's what I had. A green 2 door Impala with the 3 dimensional rear glass. Wish I still had it, but I sold it because it leaked oil from the rear seal.
My Dad bought a 1979 Caprice new, it was blue over blue and had what I thought were the coolest hubcaps I’d ever seen! My Mom drove it every day til 1989. I wish I could have that car back!
I grew up driving around in a 80s Caprice classic. Good memories
I bet the Commodore B would have really hurt Camaro sales but wow what a great looking car. Reminds me of a beefy 635csi.
Had the same thought. Stunning.
Same thought here
Another great report Adam. I bought a used 1978 Caprice in 1981 as my daily driver from College Park to Rockville, MD for about 2 years. It was a solid dependable fairly comfort ride, but the seats, interior design and ride/drive experience could not beat my 1967 Ford Galaxie, 1972 Mercury Marquis or 1975 Ford Elite...oh for the days when you got a new car ever few years!!!
Man these were just everywhere for decades! As I get older I understand better the intent and execution of the downsized GM's. My personal favourite? The plain Jane police editions. Nothing spectacular. Just good old durability. Another informative video Adam.
The design of these cars is pretty timeless. They still look good today and it's hard to believe they came out 37 years ago. I'd love to have a nice one in my garage. So simple to work on and reliable. With the F41 suspension they handled extremely well.
What's "timeless" about box on a box? They had poor fuel economy too and not enough space as taxi vehicle.
@@runoflife87 Wrong. My Caprice with a 305 V8 got 25 mpg on the highway. You could drive over 400 miles on the interstate without worrying about getting a fillup. For a very solid car that could seat four adults and two children comfortably, that was very impressive.
Actually it was 47 years ago.
Just wanted to say that I love this channel. Your mastery of automotive history and astute observations are really next level. Keep it up!
I went with my mother to order a 77 Caprice Classic. I saw one at a dealer and I drug her to the local Chevrolet dealer and she fell in love with the car. She ordered a 4 door in the light blue metallic paint with almost every option that was available. It took about 10 weeks to arrive, but that was just a beautiful vehicle. As I remember it was around $7200. It was a great riding and handling car and it gave many years of faithful service. The only real problem was that the fast idle tended to hang in really cold weather and wouldn't kick down until you had driven it for about 5 miles. They could never correct the problem. That was a challenge when it snowed. You had to throw it into neutral at a stop sign because it would fight so hard that the back end would break loose and send you towards the curb. One of the few vehicles in my lifetime that I really miss.
As a new owner of an '83 parsienne..I'm in love! Coming from driving a '73 ltd..the handling is light years better!
It was a car that I fell in love with and wished I could find in excellent shape. I was 15 years old at the time and hoped that my dad would buy one with a 350 cu in V8 and the F41 suspension package. Thank you for doing a story about this car. Sadly as the years moved on, the updates they made to the Caprice took a lot of the styling details away.... namely the front end and tail lights. The sort of kept the shape but you could tell they were trying to take cost out of the car.
This generation of GM full-sized cars was perhaps the best ever generation that GM has ever built.
I was just about to comment this too. They had great bones and were also easily improved (if one so desired). I had a '77 Olds Delta 88 and it was an incredible vehicle.
Reliability . . . incredible
Durability . . . incredible
Serviceability . . . incredible
Value for the money . . . incredible
Hell no. Flimsy channel iron frames, thin body metal, not to mention boxy styling and crappy various 5.0 V8s. Best generation of GM was the 1965-1970 cars. Similarly sized, but better built. Powerglides and THM400s, good quality sixties steel, and boxed frames on the non-Chevrolet cars and wagons. The downsizs cars were only two gens later, and while they were a good step in the right direction from the seventies stuff, they're mediocre at best.
I’d have to disagree with you, but perhaps that’s because I’m likely older. 😉 My vote goes to 1965 - 1970 for exterior & interior design and materials along with the wide range of available color combinations and power plants. Pontiac especially was hitting its stride. Cheers! 👍
100% !
I don’t think I’d ever seen those full-size clays before. Some really nice lines there. But even the finished product was a master stroke of design. We were a Mopar family, but I had to give respect to this new car. I’d love to see one of your excellent interviews with any designer (still-living, obvs) involved in this project.
My favorite cars. Absolutely love the GM B-Body platform. My first car was a 1977 Impala. Baby blue, 305, vinyl bench seat. It was the perfect car. I've had a few other GM B-Body cars through the years and I want another
2 or 4 door? Mom had a 4 door Imp same colors and engine as you describe. It replaced a 71 LTD wagon that didn't compare to the new Chevy. I said it before, GM hit it outta da ballpark with these cars. Mom's car had posi. Car was unstoppable in the Michigan snow.
Awesome closing commercial. And Jerry - so young!
Just wanted to say that I love this channel
3:00 Wow! This design is incredibly clean and light looking. The first car that popped into my head that this design reminds me of is the Ferrari 400i.
I added my comment before I saw you beat me to it.
Thank you Adam. I liked the design proposals you shared and the connection to Opel. I liked the images you put together and the information you shared about the development and how it proceeded. People really do like the 1977-1990 versions of the B and C body cars. I especially like when they were all updated for 1980 model year and made more aero. They all have their own flavor. The Caprice interiors got better with time with trim and features. I liked the 1987-1990 Caprice Classic Brougham LS. would take the Pontiac and Oldsmobile versions. I remember those ads too. Thank you Adam.
I'm glad you confirm that the intention to downsize these vehicles started before the '73 oil embargo. Like you said, Americans were different back then and didn't necessarily favor huge vehicles the way they have for the past twenty-plus years. I, too, remember people saying in the early seventies that companies were making cars too large and awkward. These kinds of widespread public sentiments are also what led to the replacement of the Ford Mustang by the Mustang II, among other downsizings. Americans even liked their pickup trucks small during the 1980s peak of downsizing, something unimaginable today. Today, people blame the seventies-eighties downsizing on overzealous "big government," but there was a lot of favorable public sentiment behind it.
The government did screw things up. They put into place conflicting safety, fuel economy and emissions regs, and expected the companies to redesign everything to comply in no time at all. Any one at a time would be manageable. All three at a time were insane. The engineering resources just didn’t exist to make it possible in the incredibly short timeframe required. Plus, they had to force these vehicles on a public that didn’t want them. More realistic would have been a ten year,phased price increase on gas. Every year gas would have gone up a certain, known amount, and people could shop for the cars they wanted, when they wanted them. But, that would have taken guts by congress, so it was easier to destroy the big three instead.
I put some blame on Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at any Speed", which was critical of the compact first generation Corvair. By the time GM had corrected the flaws, it was too late as the book may have soured the appetite of consumers.
That said, by the mid 80s, some cars got so small, the buying public
actually started to reject some of them. They didn't want them as small as they were getting. In fact, many people wanted bigger cars again because they had become so much more economical to run
and some even turned to light trucks, like minivans because they were roomier than most cars. That
helped sow the seeds for truck craze that came in the 90s.
@@aaronwilliams6989 Today, "light trucks" keep getting bigger, possibly due to perverse regulations to classify them by size and weight to escape inclusion on the CAFE standards for fuel economy.
Love seeing how the original concepts work into production versions. The greenhouse styling on the first two clays is very similar to the production ‘78 Malibus.
That back glass on the 6 window sedan remind me of the big vent windows on the 78 malibu 2door
Had 77 Caprice landau , white with red roof and red valor custom interior option factory power sunroof 350 4 barrel, what a beautiful car
Nice car , I have a 77 Caprice Landau , white / black in &out , Fred Flintstone floors a project .
Yet another great video. Well done sir. I had a 1984 police special ( was a detective car never a patrol car ) one of my favourite cars ever. Very fond memories. My parents had 1989. Once they switched to fuel injection they were way down on power. Or that’s how it felt anyway
These were great cars overall 200 Metric transmissions and 231 Buick V6's aside from the Olds, Buick and Pontiac camp. We used to see a random mix of 350 and 200 Metric transmissions even on the 350 4BBL equipped cars so that was a crap shoot. As for the 305's we used to swap the weak factory cams out for L69 spec ones along with a 4BBL intake and carb and these would go from no power at all to burning rubber. Customers were quite happy after this mod. We also did many 200 Metric to 350 tranny swaps and never heard back from the customer thereafter on thus equipped cars.
The Buick and Pontiac dash designs were the best of this generation's dash designs.
My sister had a ‘77 Impala coupe, I had a ‘79Impala (Aerocoupe), my parents bought a new ‘77 Impala wagon and my brother had an ‘88 Caprice sedan.
Beautiful cars, excellent styling for the time, and reliable.
Wish I still had mine.
In the Netherlands they used these as Taxi’s until end of 1990s and it was very common to teach 1000000km on the odometer but they all where drivin with lpg instead of regular gas!
Excellent quality technically speaking!👍
An incredibly good chassis. Quiet, tight, smooth, and roomy and comfortable. Great handling as well.
My father went from a 68 Bel Air to a 77 Caprice. His first new car ever. He was in his 50's at the time and he deserved it. He had loved it.
We had a ‘78 Caprice Classic. It rode and drove great. Completely reliable and the build quality was better than the prior generation. Acceleration with the 305 was ok for the era.
Had an 86 Pontiac Parisianne with the 4.3 V6 I bought used from a fellow that had belonged to his dad. Was an excellent car and survived 2 teenage sons.
I had a 1979. Hand me down after one year to me from my brother. It took me to college in Indiana. Survived multiple crashes. Took me and a uhaul carrier I towed to Atlanta where I still live. Had it for ten years and 160,000 miles. Still ran when I traded it in for a Beretta which was a piece of junk. The Caprice Classic was a great vehicle and never once stranded me.
I walked away from a T- Bone accident in my 1880 V8 Caprice after being hit by a speeding police car. He impacted the front quarter panel by the bumper frame and spun me around. Drove to the auto body shop for repairs and frame alignment, the cops paid for all the damage. If I was in a smaller lighter front wheel drive car I would have been in the hospital and the car would have been totaled. I think I had over 400,000 miles on it before the odometer cable broke. Very reliable.
GM hit a home run in ‘77 with the full-sized models. I had a Caddy SdV and it was very much an improvement over the ‘76 model.
The wagons were great cars for the family. I remember riding back home from Daytona in the back of Dad's. The "Rear facing back seat" gave you a good view.
I had a very similar 1978 Bonneville 4 door. Great car with a really nice ride and very cushy velour interior with the power options.
I begged my grandfather to buy a 77 Bonneville Brougham sedan, black with garish red velour. It was gorgeous. He got a Phoenix (rebadged Nova) that was a colossal POS.
My Dad had purchase a 77 Impala used and gave it to one of his salesman as his official company vehicle. That vehicle was bulletproof with no problems during the five years they had it.
I had a green/green '78 Caprice Classic in high school that was legendary!
The cover pic for this vid caught my eye....My step dad had a new '78 base Impala as bis company car (remember when people commonly had company cars as a perk?)... anyways..when the company was done with it, he liked it so much that he bought it from them! Je would change the oil once a year noatter wjat, and the car made it to 263,000 miles....
it would have gone further for sure, but its final few miles we withe at the wheel running ½ dozen rounds at one summer's demolition derby!
Enjoyed the video, thanks Adam 👍
Awww Thanks Adam for showing the commercial with Jerry Orbach! I've always loved him especially in the SVU police drama's! I had no idea he'd done a Chevy commercial and I'm sure I've seen that commercial back in the day, but Jerry wasn't as well known then? That was awesome seeing Jerry again I really miss him! I know this video wasn't about Jerry, but seeing him really made me happy and sad at the same time! Thanks again Adam! 😊❤
Our high school driver ed car was a 1981 Impala sedan. I really liked it, and my teacher could see I was a car nerd, so he'd let me have extra time behind the wheel after class.
I had a 1977 chevy caprice 2 door , very nice dependable, look at all the beautiful molding it had , very well made....Now adays
I was 13 in 1977, and my parents bought a 1977 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham, which was very similar to the Caprice in most ways. It was a nice car, but the back seat had very little legroom (we replaced a 1973 Mercury Marquis Colony Park station wagon).
Ironically, just a few years later my parents bought a 1981 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale and, although it was essentially the same car as the Pontiac, the back seat in that Oldsmobile had significantly more room than the Bonneville just a few years before.
They were great cars, overall!
77 Pontiacs best looking of downsized.
My family owned a maroon Chevrolet Caprice with a red interior when I was born. The thing I remember the most was how EVERYTHING (steering wheel, door panels, carpet, headliner, pillars, EVERYTHING) was that magenta-red color on the inside. And yes, I distinctly remember the cracked plastic on the front dash. We had it 'till about 1983 when my dad traded it in for a new Honda Accord (he heard all the hype) and immediately regretted it. He missed the roominess and smoothness of the big American car, and after a few months traded it at a huge loss for a Chevy Impala (a car I hated as a kid because the A/C wouldn't reach the backseat through the high bench front).
I bought my first big Chevy in 1988 and it was a 1978 Caprice two tone maroon with power seats, windows and cruise control. I felt like a million bucks driving that car around Pittsburgh. It had a 350 c.i with a 4 bbl Carb and just was so smooth and powerful I never wanted to just go home but keep driving around. GM designers got it right at that point in time and I can see why everyone loved them. They were living rooms on wheels but could handle well and had great power and highway cruising was quite enjoyable. Would own another one at the drop of a hat. Thank you GM for producing such an amazing vehicle.
I have a 85 Caprice Classic 4 door that I restored,it's like brand new,and I love it, its beautiful
My uncle bought a 77 caprice brand new, silver very nice car with the 350. I will say not only was th200 a problem, cam shafts in 77 to 79 305 and 350 wiped off the lobes quite frequently. Never fond of the blue sm block chevys. The blk one piece rear main engines were much improved.
Agreed about the cam shafts.
This was my first car, '77 Chev Impala! I absolutely loved it. Silver exterior with red interior was the bomb. Id give anything to get a '77 reconditioned in good shape. ❤
Love my 77 caprice coupe. Great video, learned alot.
The B-body vehicles (1977-1991) were perfect cars at perfect time for the European market in the late 1970s: more manageable size, weaker dollar (against European currencies), and long list of standard equipments. Swiss people bought them in droves, and they were common sight in the Switzerland.
Wild that you and Steve Mags have the same video topic today. I think it also happened once before not terribly long ago.
Excellent presentation. The concept pictures are really mind blowing.
I think the success of the 77 B and C cars was that because downsizing was such a big risk in the marketplace that GM went very conservative everywhere else in the design. Mechanically they just used the midsized chassis from the 73-77 A body. This eliminated a lot of teething issues that would come with new engineering. They also went very conservative with styling inside and out. The new size was change enough so nothing else was done to alienate buyers.
One area there was significant loss of space (naturally not mentioned in marketing) was hip and shoulder room. The new car was really just a midsized car and while thinner doors helped a bit they were much narrower inside. Luckily for GM this was only really a negative when you tried to sit a third passenger in either seat. Not many people thought to test this out when car shopping.
Damit, this is not accurate. Yes, the suspension geometry is the same as 73-77 mid-size, but the frames are completely different.
@@johneckert1365 Yeah, I don't know why people like to say the chassis was taken from the old A-Body. If you actually look at the two they share basically no resemblance. I've been hearing about this old A-Body frame thing for years.
These cars weren't based on the A-Body frame design, it was an entirely new design for the downsized B-Body. Suspension components were shared but that was it. On the subject of interior space, these were definitely a bit narrower inside than the old car, though I don't know if I'd say it was a big difference. A '76 Caprice was rated at 64" of shoulder room front and rear, and a '77 Caprice was rated at 61" front and rear, so a difference of 3". Hiproom figures were more alarming, 59" in the front on the '76, and 60" in the rear, and 55" in the front on the '77, and 56" in the rear. So a 4" difference. Still though, it is technically only a 7% difference. I do agree though they could have been a bit wider, and Chevrolet did too, since with the '91 redesign the car was widened 2" (on the same frame mind you, which shows this alleged midsize frame had nothing to do with the narrower body on the '77 and was purely a design choice), and they were brought up to 63.4" of shoulder room front and rear, only .6" short of a '76 Caprice. Hiproom figures were a bit less impressive, at 57" in the front and rear, so still 2" less than a '76 Caprice, but better than the 4" less of the old car. I will add I've personally measured the shoulder room in a B-Body Buick Roadmaster at over 65", but I'll go by the rated figures for fairness since that's what I'm using for the '76 and '77. While I'm not a fan of the appearance of the original downsized 1979 Ford, I will give Ford credit that they were reluctant to make it as narrow as Chevrolet did, as the downsized Ford was still 77.5" wide. Shoulder room was the same as a Caprice, but hiproom was over 2" better. Still though, these are all frankly minor differences in the grand scheme of things. All these cars are properly wide on the inside.
@@melvinharris7859 Tell ya what, the GM 73-77 A body cars absolutely beat the SHIT out of 77-up GM metric full-size cars in demo derbies lol
@@johneckert1365 GM took pretty drastic measures to get the curb weight down on the downsized 1977 fullsize cars. They used thinner sheetmetal all around, with less bracing, and a thinner gauge frame that was C-Channel under the rear doors and for the rear sections. This resulted in a car that was admittedly, somewhat flimsy.
The Down-Sizing was a Master Stroke by Chevrolet and gee, didn't they look fantastic, Adam😍👏
I have one of those unusual rear windows from a 1977 Impala coupe in the garage attic, saved from a car being scrapped. Also a factory *black* instrument panel top pad that didn't have any cracks in it (the last time I saw it), which is rare. Even the front center speaker punch out area hadn't gone to crumbs.
That Opel certainly looks like the inspiration for the model at 4:00... and the BMW 633.
My first thoughts on the model were: Euro headlights before we even had rectangular sealed beams, and no whitewalls... Ahhhh!
That is a smart good looking car. I remember 1977, I was 9 and just moved to the chicago suburbs (Deerfield) with my family. I was able to recognize the new model year because the headlights became square. My Dad had a 1977 buick LeSabre. Brown, white gages background on the dashboard. A nice car.
My dad worked at the GM proving grounds In Milford, MI. He tagged a pep 1982 Caprice Classic sedan with the 350 olds Diesel. Driven by an engineer for a company car, so, it was loaded with options. I think it had 3500 miles, and my dad paid $7500. As it was a snail in acceleration, but we averaged 25 mpg city, and 29 hwy. Not bad for a full size car.! And then my dad bought a 1985 Suburban the same way, with the 6.2 Diesel. With 2wd, and a 3.73 rear axle. It too gave great mpg for a brick wall. 23 city and 25.5 hwy. We barely can achieve these numbers today with some 4 cylinder and V6 with port fuel injection and advanced computer systems.
THIS is the car that even a GM loather can love
ps It took me 20 years to learn that the 'all new'/downsized' 77+ GM 'B' bodies were just 73-77 'A' bodies (right down to their 116 inch wheelbase) with a new...body. Saved GM billions in chassis design. Im very surprised Adam did not mention this.
What was a GM A body car? Cutlass/Regal/Grand Prix?
@@viciouspoodle5543 Yep. The RWD GM A Bodies were the Chevelle/Malibu/Monte Carlo/Cutlass/Century/Regal/LeMans/Grand Prix.
I love GM, hate these cars
That's something I never understood. Chrysler did the same thing when they got rid of their full sized C Body platform, replaced it with the B Body for a model year until the R Body was ready. The R Body was a reworked B Body, but Chrysler got raked over the coals for using an "old platform" meanwhile GM did the same thing but got praised. Mind you, I like both the GM and Mopar full-size offerings of the era, but I never understood why Mopar got shunned for doing the same thing GM did.
It was a slightly modified version of the "A" body frame but not by much.
I learned to drive, as a 16 year old in ‘83, wrestling my Dad’s ‘79 Impala wagon around town and country roads. That thing was a tank. In a good way. My Dad was always frugal so the car was pretty basic; vinyl seats, no A/C, manual wind up windows… but he did splurge and ticked the FM radio option! What a rebel! The 305 V8 was fine, especially when it was time to practice control in the snow 😉
I bought a 1977 4 door Impala for $5,500. It was a great car with one exception. The air conditioner compressor was horrible. It had to be replaced every year. The replacement cost $1,000. Over the 7 years I owned the car i spent more money keeping the A/C working than I spent when I bought the car. When the engineers designed the compressor they used cheap bearings which leaked out the refrigerant causing the compressor to seize up. I traded the car after the wiring harness caught fire in 1984 with only about 70,000 miles. I went to a Pontiac Parisienne station wagon which was an even better car until the freeze out plugs rusted out. The freeze out plugs only cost $1.75 at the time, but you had to pull the entire drive train to access them making that an extremely expensive repair. That was my last American car. In my experience, GM had a problem with using cheap parts in critical places. After that I gave up on American cars and have had many Honda cars and never suffered the demise of a car over cheap parts in a critical places.
Love these vehicles. I got lucky on my 89 Caprice Classic brougham that’s my baby it has the 305 it’s fully loaded apart from the leather seats and it has the performance package on it so the different diff ratio, handling suspension and bigger front rotors
These were awesome cars and in Canada we had a third choice with the Bel Air as an entry level model ,,,,the transmission problem was solved rather easily by installing a th350 witch is what we did to my brothers 1977 impala....I had a 1989 caprice with a 307 olds engine and 700r4 trans that drove awesome....thanks for sharing the history of cars that could be recognised from a distance ..unlike today's cookie cutter models....Karl from eastern Canada
Great revue, Adam, and nice memories of the old commercial with the young Jerry Orbach. Thanks.
One of GM’s home runs! Love my 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 2 Door Coupe! I never had an issue with any of my 77-87 Caprice’s I had, all 305’s and ran well over 200k miles. My current 78 has only 27K. 👍
10:27 Unless I missed it, I was waiting to hear about the rear window area design being so similar to an Olds Cutlass. Just a passing thought.
I had a very good friend who had a 1979 Caprice ! Was a very nice car ,quiet and awesome ride ! Many nice miles in that car .
The first design proposal shown looks very much like a FIat 130 coupe !
@JanGoethals That was my first thought too. The Fiat 130 Coupe came out in 1971, a year before GM started work on the downsizing
Truth
It's an amazing design concept from GM. I wonder if it was a designer from Opel?
First concept was much bigger than any Fiat
For a split second I actually thought it was the Fiat 😅
I had a silver 1978 Caprice Classic with this exact red interior 5:00 it had a 350 4 barrel. It was an outstanding vehicle.
I've always loved this body style of Impala/Caprice. That first 2 door concept was absolutely gorgeous. I'd love a mid eighties police package similar to your green late seventies model. I'm a sucker for anything with steelies and dog dish hubcaps.
My mom had the exact car Jerry Orbach was showing in 77.
I remember it fondly and she had it as soon as they were on sale. I was 12 and thought this Chevy was the finest car ever. My mom loved it so much and kept it spotless all the time.
Thanks for the awesome memory
Stay well sir
Actually 1991 to 1996 Buick Roadmaster, Chevy Caprice, Impala SS and Fleetwood Cadillacs had the exact same chassis and frame aside from the bumper supports. What a run for the B-Body chassis...1977 - 1996. The wagons were just a little wider in the rear. Great cars, one of my favorites was my 1985 9C1 Impala Police Car. Had a 1996 Impala SS that I regret selling.
Perfect cars for the time. Yes, count me in as a person who loved the interior of the 77 Carpice.
I had an 89 Caprice Sedan followed by an 89 Caprice Wagon. The sedan was fuel injected and really a much nicer car to drive. Thank as always Adam, for the great videos!
I wanted one of these cars very badly and finally got a 1978 Caprice Classic (almost identical to the 1977 model) in 1984. Even used it was a remarkable car. No rattles and noise, vibration and harshness was negligent. It had the F-41 Police /Sport (so-called) suspension and handled very and surprisingly well. For a large sedan it was almost "tossable. I still have all the articles I collected from the trade magazines from when these were new. But I agree the instrument panel was uninspired. I much preferred the instrument panel of the Pontiac version of this car.
Have a 1979 2 door Caprice Classic, been in the family since it drove off the transport truck in late March 1979, at City Chevrolet San Diego. Still drives very well.
Had a 1977 fire engine red Chevy Impala coupe with the bent rear glass for a while.. Very sharp attractive car; it handled very well and performance was adequate with the 350 V8 with 4 bbl carburetor. Loaded with options which included steel belted radial tires and F41 performance suspension..
I will never forget the ride along I had with a friend of mine that was a police officer in a older Caprice, and when he turned the red and blue lights on it just died. I still laugh about it to this day.
My aunt and uncle traded in their massive 1975 Mercury Marquis for a 1977 Caprice. Their Caprice was a very common color from that erabrown body/top with a tan cloth interior. It was a very comfortable car as I remember and I was intrigued by the single piece headliner. As for the dashboard design, I preferred the design used for the 1977 full-size Pontiacs.
We bought new 1978 , a new Chevrolet Monte Carlo.. It fit in the garage like a dream.
Showing those clay-models and design-proposals makes Your channel that unique and preccious!
Have had a '83 Caprice Classic. Living in Germany, it was a incredible big vehicle. Loved it.
And it's blue velours-interior was the most beautiful of all my (now 8) cars.
Seeing the ad, I want it back...
It's funny how it was considered 'downsized' in 77, but in the mid 2010's when I had an 89 Caprice, it was considered a barge. I had that, and a 79 Pontiac B body in the late 80's. Both of them are my favorites of all the cars I've owned.
I bought a new Pontiac and it was noisy and rough compared to my buddy's new Ford. Sigh. Been a Ford guy ever since.
Isn’t that the truth? I have a 90s Roadmaster and it’s regularly derided as a “tank” or “barge”.
In 1999, when i had my 78 malibu wagon, that was tge perfect size car. Decent mileage, and could be worked on at home. Now its huge. "Ewwwwwwww a station wagon".. Same with my 86 caprice brougham in 2003.. It was a "thug"car by then
Surprisingly some cars we think of today as smaller such as accords and camrys really aren't a whole lot smaller. Just look how big cars have gotten again. Even the humble elantra and civic are much larger with every successive generation
@@howebrad4601 That's true. My daily is a 9th generation Corolla. Certainly not a big car, but a lot bigger and heavier than early generations. In spite of downsizing for fuel economy, things always seem to grow... Or bloat.
I bought a 77 Caprice in 1989 for $300. It was a real durable, comfort ride, but pretty much shot as you would expect - a gross polluter but even then it rolled.
Absolutely. 77s n 79s $300-$500 everyday in 1989.. I totally remember those newspaper ads bck then..always 350 motors too
@@RonnN-gf8tmmost were Chevy 305 and Olds 307
Adam, when I first saw these cars, I knew America's best automotive days were over. The 1961 Dodge all over again. Egad!
I had a 77 Impala for a few years beginning around 1990. It's really the only full-size American car I've owned, and I did enjoy it. Mine was a four-door sedan with the 350 V-8. The bench seats could easily accommodate six adults, though the transmission tunnel made riding in the center position less than ideal. Incidentally, since you mentioned that the Caprice sold nearly as well as the Impala, I wonder if fleet sales contributed to that number, as all of the police interceptor models I saw at the time were Caprices.
Great piece! I remember these cars fondly from late childhood and still like them today. Bought an Impala cousin last year-‘79 Pontiac Bonneville with 29,000 original miles. Interestingly, it came with a 350 built by Buick as GM had moved to corporate engine builds shared among their various brands. It’s bright red crushed velour interior and two tone paint bring me back to the year I got my license.
I was 15 when these downsized full size GM cars came out. They were good at everything, fit & finish was better, they handled better and got much better gas mileage than the ‘71-‘76 versions. In the northeast, they had much better corrosion protection. More plastic, more adhesive attached moldings & emblems to eliminate metal to metal contact. They were so well engineered overall. And they helped GM for many years. Same with the next round of Downsizing with the mid size cars in 1978.
I owned a 79 Caprice and after the transmission gave out in 1996, bought a used 1987 Caprice in 1997 with the 305 V8 and still have it. I drive it weekly, love the ride, handling and comfort, and the highway gas mileage is about 25 MPG during warm weather. These were great cars and it seems like every time there is something tried and true, GM kills it off. The 1990 redesign was actually a bit bigger and looked horrible. The should have just downsized it a bit more and left it alone.
I really like that first concept car! Reminds me of a couple of the Italian coupes with American engines. I think Monteverdi was one of them that this really looks like. Sadly, the body seems to have grown about 3 inches vertically.