> Last year 44 out of 50 airline pilots rated a 1973 Marquis Brougham more comfortable to drive than a $31,000 European town car.
> We've demonstrated the excellent ride of a 1973 Monterey Custom in a dramatic test: a vial of nitric acid was safely suspended over a $50,000 natural Russian sable coat on loan from Maximilian of New York, while traveling over rough and irregular road surfaces.
> Sexy European cars with great style and superb performance have had, all too often, prices that run into five figures. Until Capri that is.
... not to mention Detroit's bizarre '70s fascination with what to the modern eye are unbelievably tacky materials:
> The [Lincoln Continental] Mark IV instrument panel is simulated cashmere walnut woodgrain matina and burl walnut woodgrain applique.
> For 1974, the Mark IV has new, sophisticated insulation against outside sound, thick 25-ounce shag cut-pile carpeting enhancing the luxurious interior, further hushing the ride.
> Overhead rich vinyl sheathes sun visors and headlining. Super-soft, expanded vinyl covers the European-influenced bucket seats and even door panels. There are rich tones of woodgrain vinyl along the dash. Touches of European luxury everywhere.
A word I was unable to find anywhere in the brochure: "mileage."
A word I only came across on the last page of the brochure, down with the fine print: "safety."
Early to mid-70s could be considered "peak American car", for a variety of reasons --- not long afterwards, emissions and fuel economy regulations tightened greatly and cut both size and power of cars.
But if you've never been in one and have the opportunity to, or even drive one, I'd definitely recommend it. There's nothing quite like the experience of being in a classic American full-size sedan, especially at highway speed. It's very different from the more common modern Japanese car, or even the big European ones.
> emissions and fuel economy regulations tightened greatly and cut both size and power of cars.
Which greatly improved efficiency. For example the new CLA AMG's engine makes 355hp, and that's a 2.0L [0]. In comparison the to 375hp for 7.5L for the Lincoln-mercury. 177hp/L vs 50hp/L. [1]
American cars of that era were literal boats on wheels. They're good if you want to drive straight lines while towing half your house and feel like you're in a sofa.
The 375hp number for the Lincoln engine is almost certainly gross, and not net hp. They'd run the test on the engines without the accessories like AC, power steering, power brakes hooked up. That stopped in the early '70s with the switch to net numbers. I would not be surprised if by '74, the Lincoln 460 was making ~190hp as we would measure it now.
Of course, comparing it to a modern Mercedes 4-cyl is a silly apples-to-shortbread comparison. Nobody was optimizing for specific output in the 1960s when the Lima V8s were designed. Whatever engine you put in a Lincoln back then had to first be able to move a 5500lb+(!!) sedan off the line, working through a not-terribly-responsive C3 automatic.
Bottom-end torque was the key, and in europe, cars of that mass were often diesel for that reason. In the US gas was $.22 for 4L or so, so a giant V8 with 8mpg was an acceptable solution. The Ford big-blocks were also popular motorhome engines for that reason; many are still running today.
...which is another thing. Those engines were huge in both displacement and packaging by modern standards, massively heavy (cast-iron or forged-steel...everything), and of fairly conservative valvetrain and fuel-system design. While this meant there was a limit as to how efficient you can make one, it also means that they can be maintained almost indefinitely with only modest expenditure of time and money, a statement that I don't think has ever been made about AMG engines of any recent vintage....
Yes, the power ratings of modern car engines are achieved mainly through turbocharging and higher RPMs --- both of which negatively impact longevity. The margin is much smaller, because of computer design that lets parts be run at closer to their maximum stresses, and the designers do not plan for a car engine running at maximum power for much of its life.
You can see a similar when comparing automotive and aviation engines --- the latter are effectively designed for 100% power 100% of the time, and as a result the power density is much lower, because of the need to maintain reliability. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UL260i is around 40hp/L at most, even less than the 70s V8.
At the other end, here's a 434 that's been pushed to almost 1700HP(!) with turbocharging, or over 240hp/L:
But for the usual passenger car applications of the time, the designers wanted longevity and didn't have the advanced technologies we do now, so they just overbuilt by a very large margin instead.
I once drove one of these old US cars on the German Autobahn. It was sort of OK going straight but as soon as the slightest turn came up it was just scary. The car was very heavy together with soft suspension so it rolled a lot.
But the sound was a lot of fun. You could almost hear the gas (and lots of money) gurgling through the carburetors.
Around the holidays this past year I was home flipping through channels and a movie from the 1970s was on with a car chase scene. It was comical to watch by today's standards... these cars were merely skidding/drifting when making turns and yeah you could see the entire chassis rolling. When you looked past the quick cuts, low angles and other hollywood magic, you could discern that they were not even going that fast. I am fairly certain that a base model civic would have left them all in the dust, at least through the corners.
These were high end for the time cars, Cadillacs, Lincolns and the like. I do remember as a kid being able to hear my father's car engine as he pulled around the corner, those old 70s cars were loud beasts.
You're comparing a car that is almost 50 years newer.
The emissions era really only served to strangle power output and destroy any classical romance in the American car market. Efficiency gains didn't really show up in American markets until some 30 years later in the late 90s at the earliest, until then everything was underpowered and anemic to satisfy EPA constraints.
Look no further than the 5.7L V8 C3 Corvette from the 70s way into the mid nineties when the LT1/LT4 were finally introduced. Until then you had 5.7 liter small blocks barely making 200hp because of emissions regulations.
(can't believe something this self-evidently true is getting downvoted...)
I call it the "Era of Suck", and date it to the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, was thrown into full effect by the oil shocks around '74, and ended around '93, the last year you could buy a new car in the US with a carburetor.
Not to diminish the gains made by safety and environmental regulations, but more to point out that these regulations have side effects that may not be visible or significant to those buyers only interested in a transportation appliance, except for the mysteriously increasing purchase price.
> (can't believe something this self-evidently true is getting downvoted...)
What's equally self-evidently true is that we wouldn't have developed our current tech if it wasn't for regulations, and even with them we're too little too late.
Everyone still get the experience of driving behind one of these, every so often. You can smell the partially burnt hydrocarbons trailing 1/2 mile behind these things.
>A word I was unable to find anywhere in the brochure: "mileage."
>A word I only came across on the last page of the brochure, down with the fine print: "safety."
They're optimizing to sell cars, not to have the most upvoted comment on an article posted on /r/cars. The average buyer's caring about safety and the environment is mostly limited to "can I afford to buy gas for this" and "will the other decision maker in my household consider this safe enough".
This is just not the case, at least not in the modern world. There are quite successful auto companies who have made safety central to their marketing message. Go car shopping on Volvo.com today, for instance, and the very first thing you see is a big notice for their "Summer of Safety Sales Event."
They don't do this because they're trawling for Internet virtue points, they do it because safety sells cars -- especially in the family-hauler SUV and crossover segments, which these days outsell more traditional sedans and coupes by large margins. (See https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-2017-auto-sa...)
This notion that safety is only of concern to people who aren't directly relevant to the car-buying decision (such as, ugh, women) has flown in the face of the evidence for decades now. It's the kind of mindset that led that 1974 brochure to ignore the subject completely, which is one of the blind spots that ended up getting Detroit's clock cleaned by imports.
>This is just not the case, at least not in the modern world. There are quite successful auto companies who have made safety central to their marketing message. Go car shopping on Volvo.com today, for instance, and the very first thing you see is a big notice for their "Summer of Safety Sales Event."
There's a difference between the HN crowd and new car buyers in general. Most people here can afford any car they want (within reason) and buy whatever lines up with their priorities best. Your average car buyer does not prioritize safety or fuel economy (especially fuel economy) beyond requiring that it meet some threshold that basically everything in the class they're looking at meets. Getting in a serious crash happens zero times in most people's lives. Of course people who are cost constrained don't spend much time thinking about it. Nobody ever chose not to buy a Chevy Aveo because they didn't like the crash test rating. Seriously, 5%ers making software dev salaries don't shop for cars the way the masses do (and it shows, compare your office parking lot to the average traffic jam).
>This notion that safety is only of concern to people who aren't directly relevant to the car-buying decision (such as, ugh, women)
Where did I imply anyone was irrelevant to the car buying process? Most couple shop for cars as couples. Heck, many couples bring their kids and ask them if they like the rear seats (comfortable kids are quiet kids). Both members typically have non-negotiable "the vehicle must X" criteria that constrains the search space even when only one person is going to be paying. This is part of why the Jeep Wrangler sells so well (think about all the feature boxes it checks). People being people they have different priorities. Generally speaking whoever is going to be paying wants something fun and whoever isn't wants something practical.
>which is one of the blind spots that ended up getting Detroit's clock cleaned by imports.
You either have little memory of 70s and 80s imports and/or is looking at them through rose colored glasses because it's what you remember being dragged around in as a child. There's a reason people compared them to tin cans. Nobody liked them. Everyone bought them. Honda Civics were the Dodge Journey of their day.
Detroit lost to imports because Detroit built what the US buyers wanted and they sat on the lots while the Japanese built the cars the US buyers needed. Honda built a better Chevette than Chevy did (and the organizational reasons that happened are well beyond the scope of this comment). Like most incumbents Detroit avoided change until it was basically too late.
I think the deal with a lot of those materials is that at the time they were seen as “new” and “modern” and “synthetic”.
Kind of like when aluminum became a du jour metal and things traditionally made from other metals suddenly had to be made with aluminum —nowadays we think of aluminum as cheap and disposable (depending on application), but for s time it was the “Titanium” of its day, and the same for those other materials.
Every generation has its periodic romances with novel materials. I suspect our great-grandchildren will look back on the 2010s' fondness for Alcantara with the same puzzled confusion as we look back on '70s fake wood and vinyl.
I was a kid in the 70s, but even at that tender age I thought the synthetic substitutes looked like shit. They didn’t look “new and modern”, they looked cheap and like someone was trying to make do with the economical alternative.
They didn’t have to appeal to everyone. I don’t think it’s much different from the novelty of “clear acrylic” telephones.
What I really don’t get is how anyone would want this station wagons with the fake wood paneling and obtrusive fake trim on things like the Chevy fleetmaster. But I think it’s just one of those incomprehensible fads.
I cant help but thinking from these brochures that people had more picnics in the 50s/60s than we do now. Perhaps it was a trend for awhile. Or maybe related to the fact people couldn't easily live together before marriage :P
Maybe it is like how you might think there are a lot of Americans who are frequently hauling things and going off road in their pick up trucks ... but they probably aren't ;)
Not unreal, but perhaps the volume of depiction and such was more aspirational than reality.
Air travel was more expensive back then so having long car trips and the picnics that go along with them weren't uncommon. Additionally, cheap fast food joints weren't as prevalent so it made more sense for families to just pack food for the trip than rely on a cheap eat being along the way.
I don’t watch much tv, but when I do I see a lot of car advertisements that feature a car on some winding country road. Which, while nice, most of us spend the time in our car in traffic/commuting. So I’d view it more of a change of our desires or ideals.
I have the opposite problem. Modern cars are buily for cities, and the ubiquitus mcphearson strut design is terrible on back roads. I could care less how I look driving past reflective buildings.
In 1991 I drove down the Natchez Trace Parkway and as the morning passed, saw car after car pull over onto the grass to the side of the road for a picnic. As a northeasterner, this was not something I had ever seen before. I'm curious if this tradition continues.
This reminds me of the most surprising scene in Mad Men.
The family has just driven the family car into a beautiful spot for a picnic. Wife remarks to husband how beautiful the spot is. Husband says "it's perfect."
Shortly after that they get ready to leave. The blanket is strewn with beer cans and other trash. With a flick of the wrist, husband ejects the trash into the surrounding landscape and wads up the blanket.
Yes, all civilian car production in the U.S. was suspended for the duration of the war so the auto plants could be used to produce military trucks, tanks and aircraft.
May just be an advertising angle. But I do remember my grandfather telling me that a bad car will have holes in its floor after just one winter worth of slush and road salt.
The one in the brochure (a 1924 Model T) didn't have a fully enclosed cabin -- there was a windshield and a fabric top, but the doors were only half-high and didn't have any windows or bodywork above them, just big open holes.
So yeah, if you take one of those out in a snowstorm, you're gonna have a bad time :-D
1924 cars took a lot of labor on an on-going basis to keep running. (Hell, 1960s cars took a lot of labor to keep running as compared to today's cars that visit a mechanic perhaps annually.)
Man the 87 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z[0] is still such a beautiful vehicle. So much fun having a 5.7 liter 8 cylinder as an underachieving 16 year old newly minted driver!
These are always really interesting! I wish they had a better UI though since often the collectors appear not to be web devs (and we all are - here on hn :p).
I totally agree with you. For this site I would just wish it had the images to either full with or height mode and a next/previous button at exactly the same position to flip through the brochures. But I hear you on the js insanity front -- been there, suffered that. :p
This is amazing. I found the brochure for both my parents' first cars. My dad had his first car until I was 13, so I most definitely remember riding around in it.
> Last year 44 out of 50 airline pilots rated a 1973 Marquis Brougham more comfortable to drive than a $31,000 European town car.
> We've demonstrated the excellent ride of a 1973 Monterey Custom in a dramatic test: a vial of nitric acid was safely suspended over a $50,000 natural Russian sable coat on loan from Maximilian of New York, while traveling over rough and irregular road surfaces.
> Sexy European cars with great style and superb performance have had, all too often, prices that run into five figures. Until Capri that is.
... not to mention Detroit's bizarre '70s fascination with what to the modern eye are unbelievably tacky materials:
> The [Lincoln Continental] Mark IV instrument panel is simulated cashmere walnut woodgrain matina and burl walnut woodgrain applique.
> For 1974, the Mark IV has new, sophisticated insulation against outside sound, thick 25-ounce shag cut-pile carpeting enhancing the luxurious interior, further hushing the ride.
> Overhead rich vinyl sheathes sun visors and headlining. Super-soft, expanded vinyl covers the European-influenced bucket seats and even door panels. There are rich tones of woodgrain vinyl along the dash. Touches of European luxury everywhere.
A word I was unable to find anywhere in the brochure: "mileage."
A word I only came across on the last page of the brochure, down with the fine print: "safety."