The Seventies were bad times for automobiles in the United States. New emission and safety regulations combined with two oil crises created massive disruptions in what had, up to then, been "business as usual". American cars were particularly badly hit, partly because the traditional market was for big, powerful cars and partly because the quality of American cars apparently took a big nosedive, although that might really have been the Japanese and Europeans improving their quality faster than the Americans did.

As a result, American cars from the Seventies are often viewed with derision, and are the stuff of jokes. However, looking back at American cars from the Seventies, there are a few gems that stand out from the rest. Like disco, where there were several good songs covered up by a pile of garbage from The Village People and The Silver Convention, there were several good cars covered up by the Pintos, Pacers, Gremlins, Vegas, and Mustang IIs.

In an attempt to prove this, I have made a list of ten American cars from the 1970s that I would want. I have mostly left out the "end of an era" 1970 muscle cars, as these are more in tune with the crest of the '60s wave than with the doldrums of the '70s. I have also put the list in chronological order instead of 10th best to best.

Without further ado...


1967 - 1973 Plymouth Valiant - This is a bit of a cheat, as it's a '60s car carried over to the '70s. What can I say? I'm Jamaican. Jamaicans like Valiants, or at least we liked them when they were around. They were status symbols, somewhere either alongside or slightly behind Volvo in the pecking order. Amazingly enough, their reputation was somewhat like Volvo's: solid, reliable, and comfortable; mature, but not quite devoid of fun. However, I think we might have had Chrysler Valiants from Australia, especially since we drive on the left, like the Australians but unlike Canadians and Americans.


1970 - 1973 Plymouth Duster 340 - This is part of the reason why I said I had "mostly" left out the "end of an era" muscle cars. The Duster 340 was a pony car with a difference, a muscle car with a bit less muscle and quite a bit less car. It had a power/weight ratio comparable to many of the larger pony cars. The 340 engine was detuned in 1972 with a lower compression ratio and smaller intake valves, but even the low-powered 340 was more powerful than the more heavily emissions-regulated 360 that replaced it in 1974.


1971 - 1972 Buick Riviera - Fairly typical personal luxury coupe of the time: big, heavy car with a big, thirsty engine and a cramped interior. So why is it here? For one reason and one reason only - it is beautiful. I saw one parked across the street from my school at some time between Grades Seven and Ten. I had no idea what it was; I figured it was too big to be a Corvette and I wondered what the "R" emblems meant, but the only car I can think of that made as much of an impression on me upon seeing it in real life was the Citroen DS I saw in the parking lot of my school.


1973 - 1974 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am SD455 - This is not so much an "end of an era" musclecar as an attempt to create a new era of musclecars. The SD455 engine was a smog-legal engine highly tuned to make power close to the muscle motors of 1970. Its timing could not have been worse; 1973 was the year of the OPEC embargo and the First Oil Crisis.


1973 - 1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV - Just as big and inefficient as the '71 Riviera, and maybe even more beautiful. They are both beautiful luxury coupes, just as a swan and a peacock are both beautiful birds.


1974 - 1978 AMC Matador Coupe - Disclaimer: I found out about this car while looking for a tenth entry on the list. The Matador replaced the Rebel in 1971, but it's the reworked coupe of 1974 that's the stunner. It's amazingly good looking, even more amazingly because it was designed by the man who gave us the Gremlin and the Pacer, and at just around the same time. It's not on the level of a '71 Riv or a Continental Mk. IV, but on the other hand it's not as impractical as those cramped behemoths.


1976 Plymouth Feather Duster - Apart from the corny pun in the name (corny puns actually amuse me), this is on the list because it is a fairly ingenious application of hot rod principles to the development of an economy car. Aluminum* was used to make the inner hood, trunk bracing, bumper brackets, and intake manifold. It had a smaller single barrel carburetor, economy distributor calibration, large exhaust, and a 2.8:1 rear axle ratio, with a choice of three-speed automatic or four-speed overdrive manual transmission. It offered a large amount of room for its 22 mpg city, 31 highway milage (with automatic; the manual version got 24 city, 36 highway), and it looked rather better than a Pinto or a Mustang II.


1976 - 1987 Chevrolet Chevette - One problem with the Chevette was that it was a bargain-basement American car competing against the Japanese in their area of strength. It was guilt by association; there was always something wrong with American cars, especially small American cars. But what was wrong with the Chevette? It wasn't a misshapen lump (like the AMC Gremlin and Pacer were), its engine wasn't a modern marvel that self-destructed (like the Chevy Vega engine was), and it didn't burst into flame when rear-ended (like the Ford Pinto did). It was just a little economy car that worked. (Very cool Chevettes *were* built... in England, at Vauxhall factories.)


1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am SE (preferably with T/A 6.6 engine and WS6 suspension package) - I could tell you that the T/A 6.6 was to the '77 car what the SD455 was to the '73, I could tell you that the WS6 package made the Trans Am the second-best handling American car (the Corvette being the best), and I could tell you that the Special Edition appearance package was stunning. Instead, I'll tell you to watch Smokey and the Bandit. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, I won't waste my breath.


1977 - 1990 Chevrolet Caprice - The big American car redefined, or, more precisely, resized. Technically, it was General Motors knee-jerk reaction to the 1973 Oil Crisis, and it served them fairly well in the 1979 Oil Crisis. They fit the big car Americans wanted into a smaller package while keeping it familiar and accessible. The formal styling was somewhat handsome and hid the reduced size quite well.


*I have used the American spelling in deference to the subject matter. - SB

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