[Editor's Note: You may recall Craig Fitzgerald as the former editor of Hemmings Muscle Machines and Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car. He thought we'd appreciate his take on the Seventies, and we think you will too.]
If you pay even a second?s worth of attention to Facebook, Twitter and the internet forums, you?d think that the years between 1973 and 1983 comprised a decade of darkness for automotive junkies. Most of the people who hate what is commonly regarded as ?the Malaise Era? were barely in booster seats during the 1980s, and have absolutely no idea what they?re talking about. There were ? and still are ? ample reasons to truly enjoy a lot of cars and car culture from that period:
10: Car and Driver
Karl Ludvigsen is credited with renaming Sports Car Illustrated to Car and Driver in 1961, but the publication came into its own during the Malaise Era under the editorial direction of Bob Brown, Stephan Wilkinson, and especially David E. Davis, Jr. It took swipes at the government, the industry and good taste in general. Today, its art direction makes those issues from the 1970s and early 1980s look like it was published in someone?s garage, but the writing in those days was incomparable. Dig back into those issues and enjoy often hilarious writing from comic genius car fans like PJ O?Rourke, Jean Shepherd and Dick Smothers.
9. Colonnade Cars
In 1973, General Motors introduced an all-new line of its intermediate-sized A-body cars across four of its five brands (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile.) Counter to popular opinion, these Colonnade cars were wildly popular. In 1973, Buick alone sold almost 300,000 units of the coupe, sedan and wagon bodystyles. Oldsmobile sold 220,000 Cutlass coupes alone, not factoring in the sedans and wagons. The earliest Colonnade cars ? the 1973 and 1974 model year ? were still unfettered by large bumpers, and you could still order them with massive 454- and 455-cu.in. V-8 engines and close-ratio four-speed transmissions. Even with lower compression, these engines turned out 375-lbs.ft. of torque.
8. Whatever Burt Reynolds drove
During the Malaise Era, Burt Reynolds was in a string of movies that would define his career and put a heavy stamp on car culture. Beginning with White Lightning in 1973, Reynolds would go on to star in Gator, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, the Smokey and the Bandit franchise, Hooper, and Cannonball Run, driving everything from a 1955 Olds to a 1971 LTD with a 429 and a four-speed. Can you name a car built today that is so associated with a film as the original Smokey and the Bandit? I didn?t think so.
7. Visibility
Aside from smartphone connectivity, the biggest thing people gripe about in modern automobiles is the lack of visibility. The blame lies with the government and automotive design in general. If you have to provide a headrest for every occupant, there are going to be three crusty French loaf-sized head restraints blocking your rear view. If you ever find yourself in one of the boxy sedans of the Malaise era, the first thing you?ll notice is that you have a nearly unobstructed view out every window. Pulling out of a side street is no longer a crapshoot. You can actually see that Yukon bearing down on you, and not lose it in the A-pillar.
6. Expense
The average price for an automobile today is hovering near $30,000. Collector cars from the 1960s climbed to unprecedented heights right through the economic downturn. Meanwhile, you can purchase a whole lot of car from 1973 to 1983, even from exotic manufacturers like Ferrari and Aston Martin. For example, a 1966 Aston Martin DB6 Vantage in Hemmings Motor News lists at $223,100. A 1974 Aston Martin V8 Series III Saloon with just 70,000 miles lists at $63,000. You?ll get no less attention at the car show or the gas pumps with the 1974 model.
5. Slow cars
Somebody once said it was more fun to drive a slow car fast than it was to drive a fast car slow. That aphorism surely came out of the Malaise Era, when horsepower took a nose dive, thanks to lower compression and increased emissions equipment. What it meant was that if you drove a 1976 Datsun Honey Bee with a 1.4-liter four-cylinder, you could wring it out in every gear with your foot pressed to the rubber mat, testing the limits of its 9.7-inch brake discs, single-leaf cart springs and 13-inch tires on public streets without ever raising the ire of the constabulary. Try that with even a current Malibu and you?ll end up with a suspended license.
4. Distractions
Even the cheapest modern cockpit is a cacophony of inputs distracting the driver from the most important task of operating the automobile. The only thing that might distract you from driving in the 1970s might have been some chick wearing Daisy Dukes and a halter top. In the 1970s and 1980s, the height of electronics was a digital clock, and those were the mechanical digital variety that either rotated numbers or flopped them down on a series of little cards. If I asked you to tune the radio to 104.1 and adjust the temperature to a comfortable level in a 1970s Lincoln, you could do it blindfolded. If I asked you to do it in Lincoln MKZ, you?d spend the day figuring it out and still drive off the road.
3. Tires
I?m not going to suggest that the tires of the 1970s and 1980s were better than what we have now. They were worse. Much worse. But thanks to the Crisis of Confidence inspired by bias-ply and early radial tires from the 1970s and 1980s, we generally kept our speeds a lot lower and our following distance a lot greater. We drove within our own limits, rather than the limits of the O-ring sidewalls and tremendous grip offered by a set of Pirelli Scorpions. Then factor in the cost: Replacing a set of Michelin Pilots on a Chrysler 300C with the optional 19-inch wheels will run you more than $1,100. A set of four 195/75R14s for a 1980s Pontiac Bonneville costs less than $250.
2. Tape Stripes
What the 1970s didn?t offer in terms of performance or styling it made up for in the most obnoxious tape kits in history. The easy example is ? of course ? the second generation Pontiac Trans Am, with its massive Screaming Chicken hood bird. The 1978 Mustang King Cobra has a hood sticker with all of the swagger and menacing undercurrent engendered in the malt liquor of the same name. The Monza Mirage upped the ante of its blistered IMSA fenders with fat bands of tri-colored electrical tape. The Gremlin GT?s matte stripes accented fat fender flares that dwarfed the 14-inch rally wheels. Sticker shock, indeed.
1. Interior colors
After 25 years, we?ve finally gotten to the point where we?re offering a handful of different interior colors, but those are typically on $100,000 Range Rovers. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the only two colors offered inside most cars sold in America were Artificial Limb Beige and Prison Infirmary Gray. In the 1970s and 1980s, you could get cars with blue, maroon, brown, white, yellow or green interiors to match the appliances in your laundry room. And those colors dyed materials including Naugahyde, leather, and velour that was most commonly seen on track suits worn by Bill Murray.
Craig Fitzgerald is the former editor of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car. He?s based in the Boston area and writes for Boston.com, the Boston Globe and his blog at yankeedriver.wordpress.com. You can follow him on twitter at @vespafitz
Source: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2013/03/13/ten-reasons-to-love-the-malaise-era/
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