(EXPANDED FROM 4/30/2021)
A big reason Collectible Automobile has survived longer than the late, great Automobile Quarterly may be because it is less — how you say — highbrow.
For one thing, Collectible Automobile‘s presentation is pretty formulaic, so you always know what you’re going to get when you open up the latest issue. Perhaps even more importantly, content appears to be designed more to entertain rather than challenge readers.
Indeed, the magazine seems almost allergic to discussing anything more than mildly controversial. That’s not as easy as it sounds because the American auto industry went through one of the largest industrial collapses of the last century. Many evolutionary wrong turns were taken along the way.
Collectible Automobile’s reluctance to dig into a controversy is illustrated by the lead article in its April 2020 issue. Writer Terry V. Boyce followed the magazine’s usual format in discussing the 1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado.
A polished presentation with little analytical depth
A year-by-year overview of the car’s evolution was presented, as were model specifications and production figures. All of this was wrapped in a lovely assortment of color photos. This particular story had the added bonus of a sidebar, which traced the car’s development by quoting its lead designer, Wayne Kady, and displayed a handful of artist renderings and photographs of clay mockups.
It’s all nicely polished but rather one dimensional. You could conclude after reading this story that the second-generation Eldorado led a fairly happy life.
Au contraire. The 1971-78 Eldorado arguably represented a tipping point for General Motors. This was the first Cadillac regularly outsold by a Lincoln. The main reason this happened was because the magic touch of GM’s design chief William Mitchell arguably failed for the first time.
One could go as far as to suggest that the Eldorado’s design symbolized the beginning of GM’s long decline. However, you’d be hard-pressed to find a provocative opinion like that in Collectible Automobile. So let’s fill in some of this story’s gaps.
Lincoln saw an opening with personal luxury coupes
Boyce quite rightly pointed out that production of the second-generation Eldorado rose well above its predecessor. However, he only parenthetically noted that the Continental Mark series “handily” outsold the Eldorado (2020, p. 18). In addition, he didn’t offer a key bit of context — that the Lincoln’s success was remarkable when you consider how Cadillac had utterly dominated the luxury car field in the 1950s and 1960s.
The early years of the luxury personal coupe market poked a small hole in Cadillac’s dominance. The first-generation Eldorado tended to sell only modestly better than the Continental Mark III once the latter was introduced during the 1968 model year.
This was a moral victory for Lincoln. However, Cadillac was still in the lead and luxury personal coupes were a fledgling market niche. In 1970 neither the Eldorado nor the Mark III cracked 24,000 units. Personal coupes made up only 15 percent of the domestic luxury car market, which almost reached 303,000 units.
Cadillac Eldorado got stuck in second place
When the Eldorado was redesigned in 1971, it outproduced the Mark III (albeit less so than if GM hadn’t been hit by a United Auto Workers strike). However, for 1972 the Lincoln was given a substantial redesign and a new Roman numeral.
The Mark IV immediately jumped ahead of the Eldorado in sales and never looked back. Between 1972 and 1978 the Mark series outproduced the Eldorado by 15 percent.
As a case in point, in 1973 more than 69,000 Mark IVs left the factory, which represented 57 percent of luxury personal coupe production. In 1977 a reskinned Mark V did even better, hitting 80,000 units and 63 percent of all luxury personal coupes produced. This niche now made up 23 percent of the domestic luxury car field.
Also see ‘Knudsen’s favored 1972 Mark IV design borrowed from the Eldorado’
The Mark series was a key reason why Lincoln whittled down the Cadillac brand’s portion of the luxury car field from almost 79 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 1977. The Mark IV even outsold the regular Continentals during 1973-74.
Of course, the 1977 Mark V’s exceptionally high sales could be at least partly attributed to its new sheetmetal. The Eldorado made do with minor changes to a seven-year-old body. However, one could also argue that buyers seemed to like the Lincoln’s interpretation of the brougham look better than Cadillac’s.
Lincoln did brougham better with both exterior styling and interior appointments. As a case in point, the Mark series’ dashboards had a more luxurious appearance, with greater use of brushed-metal surfaces and higher-quality simulated wood grain.
Luxury personal coupes eclipsed less-costly siblings
Boyce noted that the Eldorado and Mark “seemed to hold their own better” than premium-priced personal coupes after the 1973 oil embargo and a resulting economic downturn (2020, pp. 19-20). What he didn’t mention was that this market shift put more pressure on the Eldorado to carry the baton for GM.
The good news was that Eldorado volume stayed relatively flat even while the Toronado and Riviera tanked. The bad news was that the Mark series saw sharp increases during that same time period.
The chart below shows how premium-priced personal coupes substantially outproduced their more-expensive siblings up through the 1973 model year. Over the next two years production dropped by 53 percent. In contrast, Eldorado and Mark series volume only fell by 23 percent. From then on, they bested their premium-priced siblings.
All three premium-priced personal coupes saw dramatic volume declines between 1973 and 1975: Toronado (-55 percent), Thunderbird (-51 percent) and Riviera (-41 percent). Things got so bad during 1975-76 that the Mark IV outsold the T-Bird. During that same time period Eldorado volume was higher than its two corporate siblings combined.
Prices soared in early-70s for luxury personal coupes
The rise of luxury personal coupes is noteworthy given that their list prices were substantially higher than for their premium-priced counterparts — and escalated much more sharply between 1970 and 1974.
During 1975-76, luxury personal coupes took the sales lead by only modest amounts. However, in 1977 the Thunderbird was reclassified as an intermediate, so its production figures are removed from these tallies. In addition, whereas volume for luxury personal coupes went up 13 percent between 1976 and 1978, the Riviera and Toronado only inched up 2 percent.
Boyce (2020) described as odd the eclipse of premium-priced coupes by their higher-priced brethren. My guess is that wealthier car buyers would were in a better position to absorb the increased gas and purchase prices of an Eldorado or Mark series. Meanwhile, less-affluent buyers might have been more inclined to downsize their ambitions from, say, a Riviera to a Century Regal.
Also see ‘Did Wayne Kady screw up the 1974-76 Buick Riviera?’
The key thing to keep in mind about rising luxury personal coupe sales after 1975 is that they were significantly driven by the Mark series. You’d be hard-pressed to pick that up from reading Boyce’s story.
You also wouldn’t pick up that the Eldorado’s mediocre sales were part of a larger pattern. After trying so hard between 1966 and 1971 to overtake Ford in the full-sized personal coupe market, GM lost its sales leadership in 1972. GM didn’t reclaim the lead until 1977 — and only due to the Thunderbird’s repositioning.
Also note that in 1977-78 the Mark V generated two-thirds of the combined volume of the Eldorado, Toronado and Riviera. That’s pretty impressive.
The bottom line is that the 1971 restyling of GM’s large personal coupes represented a setback for the automaker. Halo cars primarily sell on looks, which had traditionally been among GM’s greatest strengths. Something clearly went wrong.
Eldorado designers went shopping for a new body
Boyce noted that Kady had to go shopping for a new platform because GM discontinued the E-Body, which had been exclusively used by the automaker’s previous-generation large personal coupes.
What Boyce didn’t say is that killing the E-Body put GM at a competitive disadvantage. When the Mark series and Thunderbird were redesigned in 1972, they maintained a distinct body (Jim and Cheryl Farrell, 2019). This allowed Ford to give its big personal coupes better proportions.
Kady is quoted by Boyce as saying that the Eldorado’s design team looked into putting the car on the intermediate A-Body “but it was too narrow” (2020, p. 12). That left them with “no choice” but to use GM’s full-sized B-body (Boyce, 2020; p. 10).
The article did not explain why the A-Body was considered too narrow. Perhaps it was because it had five inches less shoulder room than the newly redesigned B-Body. That sounds like a lot, but the A-Body had roughly an inch more front and rear shoulder room than a first-generation 1970 Eldorado (see 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix in the table below).
So if GM wanted to stay the course, the A-Body would have worked fine if stretched in wheelbase and length. But given the automaker’s tendency to produce ever bigger, glitzier and more powerful vehicles, my guess is that management thought Americans wanted a super-sized luxury personal coupe.
Or perhaps timing was the key issue. The existing A-Body was four years into its life cycle and the next generation was not introduced until 1973. Was it possible for Cadillac to have gained access to the new body two years ahead of schedule? Or could the E-Body Eldorado have been offered one more year?
Kady acknowledged that the Eldorado grew too big
Boyce quoted Kady as saying that by the end of the 1971-78 Eldorado’s production run the car’s size “was really getting to be out of fashion” (2020, p. 13). One has to look to other media outlets to hear Kady’s critique of the 1971 redesign.
“The car grew bigger than we would have wanted,” Kady said in a filmed interview with Clasiq (2020). “We would rather have had (it) narrower and more tailored to the size that the 1967 through ’70 Eldorado was.”
Kady added that it “was a real challenge to keep the car sporty and have as much character to it as an Eldorado should have” (Clasiq, 2020).
It didn’t help matters that the Eldorado’s wheelbase was stretched to 126 inches. That was a whopping six inches longer than both the first-generation model and the 1972-78 Mark series. It’s not surprising that the Eldorado looked as big as a Buick Electra or Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight — its wheelbase was less than an inch shorter.
The Eldorado also increased in size relative to its sibling personal coupes. Whereas the first-generation models were only one inch longer in wheelbase than the Riviera and Toronado, the 1971 Eldorado was four inches longer. That gave the car less coupe-like proportions.
Richard M. Langworth and Jan. P. Norbye lamented that the new design “hardly resembled the smooth, good-handling Eldorados of 1967-70” (1985, p. 316).
Using B-Body spurred Eldorado’s gimmicky styling
Another problem with basing the Eldorado — along with the Riviera and Toronado — on the B-Body was that designers would have to work much harder to come up with unique styling that didn’t overreach. GM based eight distinct designs off of the B-Body. That’s in addition to the Buick Electra and Olds Ninety-Eight, which shared front sheetmetal with their lower-priced siblings but had unique rear designs.
Out of the entire fleet of B-Body cars, the Eldorado arguably had the second-weakest design — only behind the Riviera. And at least the latter had a certain purity of line. The Eldorado was a bloated and overwrought mess.
See also ‘1965-68 GM big cars: The end of different strokes’
For example, the Eldorado had a vertical chrome side scoop reminiscent of early-1950s Cadillacs. This visually broke up the massive expanse of sheetmetal and made the car more distinctive. The downside was that it added to the Eldorado’s already cluttered, gimmicky look. Here we have the antithesis of the first-generation design, which was clean and modern.
This brings up a final problem with the 1971 Eldorado. Part of why Cadillac developed such successful “brand DNA” in the post-war period was because design continuity was emphasized. The second-generation Eldorado broke with that tradition by offering little family resemblance to its predecessor. Indeed, the 1971 Toronado looked more like the old Eldorado than the new Eldorado did.
The break with stylistic continuity would have been more excusable if the second-generation Eldorado had been a meaningful improvement. Alas, the opposite was the case. And as the years went by, the Eldorado’s styling devolved even further.
Eldorado’s weaknesses resulted from cost cutting
One could reasonably argue that the Eldorado’s styling failed to please because of corporate cost cutting. If GM hadn’t ditched the E-Body, the Eldorado’s designers might have been under less pressure to resort to gingerbread styling.
To make matters worse, the second-generation body was kept in production for an exceptionally long eight years — and without even one full reskinning. The doors, which went a long ways toward defining the car’s basic look, were never changed.
The Mark series did not suffer from such compromises. Not only did it have a distinct body, but it also had a more normal life cycle. The Mark IV was given a substantial reskinning after five years. Its successor, the Mark V, was kept in production only three years.
GM may have had less motivation to boost Eldorado
I suppose it is possible that the extra money Ford invested in its big personal coupes did not pencil out with large-enough increases in higher sales. And as the 1970s progressed, perhaps GM saw more profit potential with its intermediate-sized personal coupes, which utterly dominated that market segment (go here for further discussion).
GM management may have also been less excited about growing Eldorado sales because they might cannibalize those of the Coupe DeVille. That model had historically played a key role in Cadillac’s dominance of the domestic luxury car field.
Also see ‘1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme: Monument to a fading dream’
In contrast, the Mark series quickly eclipsed the regular Continental coupe in sales and became Lincoln’s single most important model of the 1970s.
The starkly different competitive positions of Cadillac and Lincoln two-door coupes can be seen in the graph below. Note that other body styles, such as convertibles, are not included in the data.
It thus may have made sense for Ford to invest more heavily in the Mark series than GM did in the Eldorado. Nevertheless, Ford’s success represented a defeat for the world’s largest automaker. GM essentially conceded leadership of the luxury personal coupe field.
Questions linger about the Eldorado’s development
Michael Lamm and Dave Holls wrote that Mitchell “very much enjoyed overseeing the design of big cars like the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado, especially the convertible.” The authors added that this particular Cadillac “represented a short, golden moment in GM’s history when cost seemed no object and styling still ruled.” Mitchell had the “full backing” of top executives and “money flowed into GM Design Staff with virtually no constraints” (1996, p. 184).
That narrative doesn’t square with the discontinuance of the E-Body. In addition, if Mitchell had so much power, why was he not able to place the Eldorado as well as the Riviera on the A-Body when this was apparently the preference of each car’s designers?
In the absence of further information, perhaps it may be most accurate to say that Mitchell had a great deal of power within the context of increasing efforts by management to control costs in the late-60s and early-70s.
See also ‘1963-65 Buick Riviera shows GM’s struggle with personal coupes‘
Even though the Eldorado, Riviera and Toronado lost their unique body, Mitchell clearly still saw them as important style leaders for the corporation. He was able to obtain the funding needed to create design studios that focused on each personal coupe.
“Mitchell had quite an interest in the 1971 Eldorado,” Kady told Boyce (2020, p. 12). He was apparently also “the prime mover” behind the controversial boat-tailed Riviera (auto editors of Consumer Guide, 2020).
Mitchell diverged from successful design formulas
One could argue that the E-Body personal coupes were a tough act to follow because they were among the best designs produced under Mitchell’s leadership. So perhaps he felt the need to really stretch with next-generation models.
Also see ‘Bill Mitchell on how he wielded power like Harley Earl at GM’
The 1971 Eldorado and Riviera would have been interesting show cars, but they didn’t work very well as B-Body production models. Only the Toronado was a stylistic improvement over the previous design, but as previously discussed, it looked confusingly like an Eldorado. That was an unusual divergence from GM’s strong discipline in maintaining the integrity of each passenger-car brand.
Mitchell presumably heard these concerns from his staff. So why didn’t he go back to the drawing board? Did he succumb to groupthink and assume B-Body personal coupes would be successful? Mitchell was, after all, pretty old school in his tastes — he liked his cars big and “exotic” (Crippen, 1987).
A question that comes from Lamm and Holls’ above quote is whether the convertible body style was a consolation prize for the Eldorado switching to the B-Body. That’s the implication of a quote from Kady in Boyce’s (2020) article. Another potential scenario is that Mitchell wanted a convertible Eldorado more than he wanted the car to go on the A-Body. How much bargaining power did he actually possess — and use?
By the same token, I wonder if Mitchell was ordered to use a 126-inch wheelbase for the Eldorado or if that was his idea. The car would have looked at least somewhat better if its wheelbase had stayed around 120-122 inches.
In short, there are still a number of gaps in our knowledge about why the Eldorado — and its personal coupe siblings — turned out the way they did.
Eldorado was a symptom of bigger problems at GM
Regardless of how much power Mitchell had over the 1971 redesign of GM’s large personal coupes, they nevertheless represented the first big styling mistakes of his tenure. The Riviera displayed the most questionable judgment but the Eldorado was also a black mark. How could GM’s much-vaunted styling team follow up one of the most beautiful designs of the late-60s with one that had all of the lumpy ponderousness of an early-50s Cadillac?
Keep in mind that GM’s big personal coupes were supposed to be the style leaders for their brands. Only Chevrolet’s Corvette had more status within GM as a halo car. And despite the elimination of the E-Body, the automaker heavily invested in the personal coupe trio to distinguish them from each other. These were not parenthetical efforts.
Why did Collectible Automobile underplay this drama?
The 1971-78 Eldorado’s mediocre sales showed that GM was not invincible. Putting Cadillac’s halo car onto the B-Body and papering it over with weird styling tricks only served to cheapen the car. Meanwhile, Ford was unusually effective in developing the brougham look — and hitting GM in its weakest area.
Shouldn’t Collectible Automobile be interested in presenting the drama of the 1971-78 Eldorado? Alas, that would require making comparisons which the magazine seems to be hesitant to do. Perhaps even more importantly, it would need a level of analysis — replete with at least some number crunching — that its editors apparently don’t think readers are interested in.
Collectible Automobile may have perfected just the right editorial formula to survive where others have failed. I would be quick to agree that a successful auto history magazine is much more valuable than a defunct one — no matter how outstanding its historical analysis may have been.
Also see ‘Wheel spinning happens when car buffs and scholarly historians don’t collaborate’
One might also point to Boyce’s article receiving a silver medal from the Automotive Heritage Foundation (2021) for its “Best Marque Specific Story.” The leadership of this group (2023) appears to tilt toward car buffs rather than scholars, so it makes sense if analytical depth had not been a top consideration by contest judges.
So party on, Collectible Automobile. But let’s also acknowledge what is missing.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted March 1, 2020 and updated on April 30, 2021 and mildly expanded on Feb. 24, 2023. Market share and production figures for individual nameplates were calculated from base data by the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Gunnell (2002) and Flammang and Kowalke (1999). Dimensions and weights are from the above publications as well as Automobile Catalog (2020) and Classic Car Database (2020).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- ——; 2020. “1971-73 Buick Riviera.” How Stuff Works. Accessed Feb. 20.
- Automobile Catalog; 2020. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed Feb. 23.
- Automotive Heritage Foundation; 2021. “2021 Automotive Heritage Winners.” Accessed Feb. 24, 2023.
- ——; 2023. “About the Automotive Heritage Foundation.” Accessed Feb. 24.
- Boyce, Terry V.; 2020. “1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado: A Sizeable Difference.” Collectible Automobile. April issue: pp. 8-23.
- Clasiq; 2020. “Wayne Kady.” Season 3, Episode 8. Posted Jan. 30.
- Classic Car Database; 2020. “Search for specifications.” Accessed Feb. 22.
- Crippen, David R.; 1987. “The Reminiscences of William L. Mitchell.” Automobile in American Life and Society. Posted May 8.
- Farrell, Jim and Cheryl; 2019. “Contest of Wills: Lincoln’s Mark IV.” The Lincoln Mark. Published Spring-Summer: pp. 4-11.
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Lamm, Michael and Dave Holls; 1996. A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design. Lamm-Morada Publishing Co.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of General Motors 1908-1986. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Cadillac (1976); Cadillac Eldorado (1971): Oldsmobile Toronado (1971)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Buick Electra (1971); Cadillac (1961, 1971); Cadillac Eldorado (1953, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977); Lincoln (1961, 1973); Lincoln Continental Mark series (1956, 1970, 1973, 1977); Oldsmobile Toronado (1970, 1971); Pontiac Grand Prix (1975)
I have had correspondence with the editor and the publisher of “Collectible Automobile” about a number of things I perceive as weaknesses over the years. It is apparent they have a formula that works and do not wish to be as contentious as “Car & Driver”. I also think that G.M. had too many models and too many brands as it entered the 1970s. By 1977 and 1978, the boat-tail Riviera was gone and in its place was a gussied up LeSabre wih a Riviera name glued on to the deck.
Here’s a thought- The second generation Toronado looked a lot like the first gen Eldo. Give this car to Cadillac, with egg crate grill, etc and maybe the Eldo roof treatment. If the powers that be at GM want a land yacht, do an Eldo sedan on the larger chassis, with 56-57 Eldorado Seville styling cues= suicide doors, brushed aluminum, etc.
That the Toronado looked more like the prior generation Eldo was intentional. Back when, there was an interview with the Oldsmobile General Manager and he made that exact point. He hoped to pick up the Eldo buyers that did not like the change.
Jeff, I get that. My point was that this represented what, for GM, was a strikingly unusual blurring of brand identities for their larger and more expensive cars.
We might ask: Did the gambit work? In 1971-72 the Toronado wasn’t that far behind the Thunderbird in output. In 1972-73 the Toronado’s production was higher than the boat-tailed Riviera. From 1971-73 the Toronado modestly bested the Eldorado, although not by a whole lot more than in 1967-70.
The Toronado’s relative success could thus be attributed to it being the most normal looking of GM’s triumvirate — not as baroque as the Eldorado nor as radical as the Riviera. That said, the Toronado was hardly a breakout success. I would speculate that a 1971 redesign that displayed more Toronado and Oldsmobile brand DNA would have done better. And if it didn’t, at least the car wouldn’t have blurred brand identities — which were one of the most important factors in GM’s success in the postwar period.
The dashboard shot of the 1976 Eldorado is actually from a first-gen Seville (which looked better than the dash in the full-sized Cadillacs IMO)
Good catch. I’ve made the correction. Thank you.
I must admit that I didn’t like either Cadillac’s dash; the vents were too prominent and the wood grain was rather cheesy.
Cachet…..aura of prestige
Cache……collection of items
Hearse…..funeral vehicle
Hearst…..publisher
Yes, of course. Thank you.
The article questions Bill Mitchell’s power on the influence of the platform used. While true that Mitchell had immense political power inside GM, recognize his standing in the overall hierarchy. He was a VP and had been from the end of the 1950s when Harley Earl retired. But Design/Styling was underneath Product Development and all the divisional heads. He could champion a viewpoint on something like a platform selection but it ultimately the real decision was by others.
Mitchell had control inside his fiefdom but that did not extend everywhere. He also made enemies over how he worked to insulate Design from outside interference. There are regular stories of how he dressed down executive higher up the ladder than him with (1) Harley Earl “The Ghost of Harley Earl”: Design built GM and you are not going to tell us how to design. (2) I have been a VP since you were still in short pants, you don’t tell Design how to design. Mitchell was able to win much of what he wanted because of his continual run of successes.
Not mentioned in any of this discussion on the Eldo/Toro/Riv is that this design development would have occurred while Chuck Jordan was heading up Opel Design. That meant that Irv Ribycki was Mitchell’s #2 for the first time and he had a notably different belief on the sanctity of design than Jordan did.
The reason for Eldo going to B-body is probably the same as Riviera, because B-body was all-new for ’71 while the new A-body would not launch until the ’73 model year.
Toronado had a nice run in the Seventies but I wonder if it might have done better adapting its FWD to Camaro/Firebird’s body for ’71. And hid the headlights again. GM chickened out on them while Ford and Chrysler made good use of them throughout the Seventies.
The A-body was originally planned to be launched for the 1972 model year but it was delayed to the 1973 model year due probably to strike of 1970-71.
I suspect that increased focus on safety played a role in delaying replacing the B and C bodies two years to 1971 from the prior 4 year cycle and in putting the Eldo/Riv/Toro on a modified B body.
The 1971 full size body was specifically designed to crash well, a first for GM, and likely a reaction of the Roche regime to their Nader and Congressional issues.
To engineer a separate E body with similar objectives would not have been justified given the volumes.
But weren’t the 1979-85 Eldorado, Riviera and Toronado again placed on a unique body shell and platform? If I recall correctly, they were not simply modified B- or C-bodies. The windshields and cowls, for example, were completely different on the E-bodies.
That may well have been the case. Even at the E-body’s peak in 1969, output failed to surpass 105,000 units. That said, the Thunderbird and Mark III together hovered in the low-70,000s, but Ford still allowed the pair to keep their own body with the 1972 redesign. Perhaps this was partly because Ford had more of corporate tradition of investing in niche vehicles than did GM.
One other odd thing about GM’s decision-making: For 1970 both the Riviera and Toronado received a meaningful amount of sheetmetal changes — for only one year. Typically that level of facelift would run at least two years. Might this have been the original goal? If an E-body redesign had been delayed another year, it might have been more plausible to heavily borrow from the next-generation, A-body mid-sized platform. So if it is true that the A-body was pushed back from 1972 to 1973, might that have had a domino effect on the E-body?
I believe that the ’72 T Bird and Mk IV actually used a modified Torino/Montego body.
The Thunderbird may have shared some basic underpinnings with the Torino, but it appears to have a different windshield and doors. In contrast, GM’s triumvirate shared the same windshield with the rest of GM’s big cars.
In other words, GM took the cheap way out . . . and I think it made a meaningful difference in how they looked. Ford’s personal coupes had better proportions.
The basic underpinnings were shared but the T-Bird/Mk IV floorpan was definitely longer than Torino/Montego. Program investment for GM cars appears, to my eye, to have been greater than Ford/Lincoln despite the shared windshield with the rest of the full-sized GM line. The GM bodies look quite different from each other whereas Thunderbird and Mark IV look less differentiated. Mark IV for ’72 even offered a version without the opera window, and if not for its unique front end and decklid hump it could have been mistaken for a Ford. Side glass and roof appear to have been shared between the two cars, and if there was any difference in exterior sheet metal for the hood, frond fenders and doors it was minor.
http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/lincoln/72lcon/bilder/8.jpg
I don’t think any of the five cars had great proportions, being too wide for their height. But the Lincoln, Cadillac and Buick certainly were striking.
Take a closer look at pictures of the Thunderbird and Mark IV — they clearly have a different hood, front fenders and doors (go here). Of course, as I discussed, it is surprising that they look so similar despite Ford spending money on different sheetmetal. However, I don’t think you can just wave away the extra cost of Ford using a unique windshield and doors on the T-Bird/Mark IV body. That’s a meaningful expense that GM chose not to make.
Another advantage of the Ford twins is that they are lower than the GM triumvirate. For example, the 1972 T-Bird’s height is 52 inches versus 54.4 for the Oldsmobile Toronado. The beltline of the Fords also appear to be lower, which to my eyes works better for a personal coupe. I don’t think it is surprising that Bill Mitchell lowered the Buick Riviera two inches to create the Silver Arrow III. That show car starkly illustrates the ways the design of the production Riviera was compromised.
Well, shared with the K body, but effectively yes. But that was a different regime, which decided GM needed to make major investments in downsizing to stay competitive. So the ’79 E bodies were a fair bit smaller than the B bodies and got IRS to preserve in cabin space, a GM first.
With FWD there would have been no rear differential. Would there have been any gain in interior space versus a non-independent rear?
Trailing arms were more space efficient than the dead axle mounted where a live one would be on a RWD car, which is what GM had done with the first and second generation Toro/Eldo. But a low mounted torsion beam could have been as space efficient, I grant you.
Makes sense particularly for a unibody. The frame appears to have been the limiting factor on these cars.
http://oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Buick/1979_Buick/1979%20Buick%20Riviera%20Brochure/image7.html
Some items of perspective:
Product plans were set years in advance. Platform changes and when the mid cycle refresh would be performed. One could find those charts on the wall in the right offices at the companies. Even at the introduction of a new model the chart was highly likely to have its replacement date already identified.
I do remember that there was one time where a platform modification was fast tracked. When the Eldo/Toro/Riv body had been downsized too much and their sales were woeful there was a crash program to rework them to a market acceptable size.
Ford’s typical approach to design during these years was to copy GM’s aesthetics. Going all the way up to HFII, Ford did not want to be the design leader. It was also a regular philosophy at Ford that it was the nose and tail cap that mattered for visual distinction between the brands. Then they did trim piece difference. On occasion they might do a double strike on skin panels since that was far less money that making fully separate tooling.
This was in marked contrast to GM up until the reign of Irv Ribycki when there was unique tooling for different models. Plus, when across the different divisional same platforms, they would employ a mix and match of roof treatments so not everyone had the same solution.
Late to the party here. Design analysis first.
As an Aussie, I have trouble seeing a car as large as this Eldorado as being sporty. Perhaps sportier than regular Cadillacs in relative terms, but to my eyes it looks like just another large American coupe/convertible. Yes, I’ll admit I’m not accustomed to seeing cars this size around here, so I can’t immediately see that the Eldorado is shorter. At the time I hated it; I felt it had crossed the line from “interesting looking but a bit on the large side” to “just another big Caddy. Ignore it”.
The problem is the almost-flat, unrelieved sides. There is no horizontal ‘through line’ for the eye to follow as on the previous generation, which causes a visual massiveness, a ponderousness, and what you do see is interrupted by the visual gash of the vertical trim behind the doors. Yes, I guess the look could be symbolic of a prestige car, but it lacks the fleet trimness of the previous model. Rather than accenting the wheels to look looking ‘light on its feet’ this one just sits there, solid as an Egyptian pyramid – and just as fleet.
And as with the early Riviera, GM just didn’t seem to understand that part of the allure of these cars was not only that the style was so right, but that they were a different, handier size. The size difference added to their distinctiveness. For this Eldorado, in order to look different and “prestigious” they became laden down with creases and gewgaws like that vertical rear fender chrome – a nod to Cadillacs past, true, but serving no function on this body other than to look like an unnecessary encrustation. And a rear fender hopup – really? On a new Cadillac body? In 1971? Wasn’t that a bit dated?
And yet… that Oldsmobile Toronado! It looks far better. Much cleaner, lighter, everything the Cadillac should be but isn’t. I’m tempted to say Oldsmobile had more talented stylists than Cadillac. Or a studio boss with a better eye.
While I’m not a fan of the Mark’s “baroquishness” (if there’s such a word), and I especially dislike the cliched Rolls-inspired grille, the overall design is far superior. Not only is it visually distinct from other Lincolns, but the overall design is much cleaner than the Eldorado. A low profile and straight lines with full wheel arches gives a leaner, lighter look compared with the Eldorado’s “puffiness”, which just looks heavy and bloated. The Mark’s roofline however is too thick; there is too much crown for a seventies design. But judging on design alone I’d choose the Toronado over the Mark.
Regarding CA, I’ve been reading it since the eighties. I slightly disagree with you. I find their treatment of cars isn’t uniform, or formulaic as you say; some articles are more in-depth than others. Maybe it’s certain writers? I’ve never checked. Some articles are quite an interesting read, with plenty of background information, interviews, and useful photography, but sometimes I do feel like I’m reading a manufacturer’s fact sheet. Once or twice I’ve wondered why they bothered with a certain story – not on account of the subject, but the treatment. But then occasionally they really surprise me. While not as good as the old Automobile Quarterly (which I could rarely afford back in the day), what else is there?
According to Gary Dean Smith Dean’s Garage”). Wayne Kady has stated the origins of the
design concept for the 1971-1973 Eldorado and Toronado was a G.M. Advanced Styling Studio drawing and fiberglass model nicknamed “The Four-Fendered Farkle”, designed by Hank Cramer under the direction of Bill Mitchell, in that the design had four distinct fender forms. Mitchell evidently was so enamored with the concept he wanted to fabricate a production model, but Mitchell’s bosses refused the request. It may be that all Mitchell was doing was carrying the message from the 14th Floor that the Riviera-Toronado-Eldorado was not to be on an A-body, but the next larger platform. One did not challenge the 14th Floors decisions (or disappointing sales) and live to tell about it.
Mitchell and John Beltz of Oldsmobile were pushing to have the first Toronado built on the A-body platform. They were overruled by Ed Cole, who decreed that it should share a body with the Buick Riviera and upcoming Cadillac Eldorado to reduce costs.
For 1971, Mitchell pushed to have the boat-tail Riviera downsized to the A-body (following the path of the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix). The Buick Division general manager fought him on that one, and GM management ruled against him. As a result, Mitchell wasn’t happy with the 1971 Riviera, later saying, “It got so wide, a speed boat became a tug boat.”
The same Ed Cole who ended up costing GM untold chunks of money, customer dissatisfaction and bad publicity by pushing through the Corvair, followed by the subsequent scandal of GM trying to dig up dirt on Ralph Nader, PLUS the Vega fiasco. Lesser mortals would have been banished to some obscure overseas post where they couldn’t make big $ decisions.
Ed Cole – creator of the small block Chevrolet engine.
The Corvair was maligned by Ralph Nader with half truths and flawed illustrations in the book.
The scandal of trying to get dirt on Nader was actually reasonable when trying to investigate your accuser. A man that did not drive was making an assortment of claims, including about vehicle dynamics.
Having owned a Vega when new, I would say that although not perfect, it was not nearly as bad as some now make it out to be.
A true car guy that did believe in product.
It’s my understanding that GM wasn’t just doing background research on Nader (which, I agree, would have been entirely reasonable in that situation). They were also trying to set him up with women and catch him in a compromising position (or perhaps prove that he was gay, if he showed no interest in the ladies). In the mid-1960s, those sort of things still mattered. That goes beyond mere background research.
As for the Corvair and Vega – the problem was that Ed Cole, the engineer, was determined to have those cars incorporate his pet features, but they drove up costs, and thus required short cuts in other areas. He was so in love with those features for their own sake that he overlooked how Americans actually use and maintain their cars.
He agreed to the odd tire pressure requirements on the first-generation Corvair to cover up for its handling quirks. We all know that, in the real world, Americans barely maintain their cars, let read the owners manual to know the proper tire pressure (and then don’t bother to check the tires regularly even if they do know). Nor does the average driver have any clue as to how to properly respond to a sudden transition to oversteer in a sharp corner at higher speeds.
The Vega engine incorporated his features, but the engine drove up costs and required compromises in other areas. It also suggests that he didn’t understand that economy cars are not the best avenue to introduce new – and often expensive – technology in North America. The Big Three had a tough enough time competing with the imports due to their cost structure (in those days, labor costs were higher in the U.S. than in Europe and Japan). Then add that Americans expected small cars to have small price tags (a low sticker price was one of the attraction of European and Japanese economy cars in the late 1960s). The last thing the Vega needed was anything that added costs while not producing any benefits immediately apparent to the customer.
The “honey trap” bit has never been substantiated. And since Nader didn’t follow through at all it can’t be said what the women in question were hoping to get him to do or say.
Nader was a bit of a nut-job and didn’t always know what he was talking about. Which, frankly, is pretty typical of people.
Was the Corvair unfairly maligned? No. They knew the handling of the car as sold was potentially dangerous. They did it anyway, because at the time that was considered acceptable. It was understood to be the driver’s responsibility to always drive the car well within its limits, not the manufacturer’s responsibility to make the car controllable near its limits or protect people if and when the car rolled over or hit something.
The defense of the Corvair has generally taken the form of “it was no more dangerous than other small cars of the time.” Which was close enough to the truth that in statistical analyses fatality rates were no worse for the Corvair than other compact and smaller cars. Cars in the early 1960s were generally unsafe.
Which was kind of Nader’s point until he also got sucked into making the issue specifically about the Corvair. The entire book wasn’t about the Corvair. Nor was the resulting legislation.
Michael, your take seems more balanced to me than that of a lot of auto industry folks, but I’m going to push back on Nader being a “bit of a nut-job.” Not as knowledgeable about the nuances of the automobile as a lot of car buffs? Likely. Quirky? Yeah. But nut job? I wouldn’t go there.
It may help to know that my wife is a mental health counselor, so I try to avoid using colloquial language on that subject.
I did’t mean anything DSM-worthy by “nut-job,” only that his deviation from some ideal standard of objectivity and rationality was no greater (and quite possibly less) than that of many of the people I encounter on social media and even IRL.
I recently finished listening to a book (The Sack of Detroit) that essentially blamed Nader, his supporters in Congress, and GM’s failure to push back hard on their charges for all of the current ills of society, even income inequality. They ruined the auto industry, and that ruined the country.
Also recently read a 1970 piece by Karl Ludvigsen that began by stating that Nader unjustly killed a really neat car before describing in detail what was wrong with the original suspension.
The basic question is still with us. Many people will engage in mildly risky behavior and/or feel that a car accident isn’t going to happen to them, so no need to spend a dime on safety features or even buckle-up (the last was eventually fixed through legislation). Do manufacturers have a responsibility to save them from their own faulty decision-making?
Did you find The Sack of Detroit a useful read? The media on the book when it first came out sounded like the author was a libertarian ideologue. A New Yorker review was particularly negative.
Ludvigsen has a Substack website (go here). If he revisited his 1970 piece, I wonder whether his thinking has evolved — and if so, how?
Not terribly useful, but I was curious what was in it. Definitely written from a libertarian perspective. From time to time he’d grant that Nader was right about xyz, and that abc did need to happen, but then he’d lapse into another polemic, especially towards the end.
Ultimately he argued that cars were getting safer without government intervention, that this would have continued to happen, and that there’s no firm evidence that the legislation and regulations (with the exception of seatbelt laws) had much real benefit.
The stats he examined all involved fatalities, and that’s inherently messy data with so many variables involved that it is hard to draw substantial conclusions regarding any one variable unless that one variable, such as drunk driving or not wearing seatbelts, has a huge impact.
He did not examine any data on injuries. Interior surfaces that didn’t meet later standards were probably more likely to injure than to kill. Even some regulations that didn’t save many lives likely prevented or reduced the severity of many injuries. After all, the likelihood of a leg injury isn’t tested because a fractured leg will kill you.
I had a series of exchanges with the author. He pushed back against me describing his basic argument as libertarian, yet it struck me as entirely too overdetermined.
On Ludvigsen, even the 1970 article said between many of the lines that the Corvair was flawed. IIRC his review of the car back in 1959 for SCI noted some of these flaws. But he liked the basic idea of the car, for good reason, and regretted the unintended consequences of the debacle: less innovation plus a renewed emphasis on big live-axle BoF cars. Plus he worked for Chevrolet for a while and had many friends there.
I’d love to read a thorough biography of Ed Cole, if one is even still possible. Everybody loved the buy. He had some good ideas of his own plus was good at making those of others happen. But he also seems to have been a “big picture” guy who didn’t have the patience for working out any kinks before launching a product and who had enough political smarts to be happy with a job that was perhaps 90% as good and 90% as complete as it needed to be because, well, GM didn’t want to spend the time, money, or mental effort to do more and neither Ford nor Chrysler was doing better. He’d smile, project a bunch of optimism and enthusiasm, say, “Let’s make it happen!”, and then people would do what they could in the time they had.
* except Bunkie Knudsen. Read recently that Knudsen and Cole each thought the other was an ahole.
Thank you, Geeber! You articulated most of the points that I was going to further expand on. I think an interesting piece for Steve to write about would be comparing Ed Cole and John DeLorean, especially in light of their respective achievements at GM.
From what I learned from my father, whose boss at one-time had been Bunkie Knudsen, the three events that gave Knudsen the motivation to force the changes to the standard Corvair rear suspension was the 1962 death of comedian Ernie Kovacs in a 1961 Lakewood and the fatal accident involving the son of Cadillac General Manager Cal Werner, and the badly injured son of G.M. Executive V.P. Cyrus Osborn. V.P. of G.M. Engineering Charles A. Chayne had tried to stop the Corvair swing-axle rear suspension design in the late 1950s, but was overruled. It took the Knudsen threat to very publicly resign that forced the changes to the rear suspension for 1964 and again in 1965.
So many good points in both the article and in the comments.
To more clearly state what some others have said, Mitchell did not have final say over which body was used. That call was made by the divisional general managers and by GM’s top executives. He mostly had control over the shape of the car, not its size, and even here the general managers had a lot of power. They were the ones with the budget to make the car.
On the body, official the E-body continued to exist, but it did share with the B-body in a way it had not previously.
On this choice, and on that to go larger rather than smaller, it might help to think about various trends within GM at the time:
1. Partly due to a huge proliferation of bodies and models during the 1960s, costs were up and profits were down in the late 1960s. There was huge pressure to both cut costs and reduce the workload on engineering staffs.
2. The need to reduce the workload was also due to new safety and emissions regulations. Between product proliferation and these regulations, engineering staffs were finding that they could not do much of what needed to get done. The needed to both reorganize how work was done (a project which ultimate took decades) and especially in the interim simplify.
3. In the late 1960s it seemed like making a model larger tended to help sales much more often than it hurt them. So the cars kept getting larger and larger. This was the safe call. In the 2020s it’s STILL the safe call. When making an argument to buyers for why the new car is better, one simple tactic has been to proclaim increases in interior room. Is this relevant for a personal car that will usually only transport one or two people? Not really, but GM has long displayed an inability to apply different strategies with different cars. If something is good for one car, then it’s good for all of them (e.g. front-wheel drive and formal rooflines). It took guts and a contrarian perspective to go in the opposite direction, as DeLorean did with the Grand Prix.
4. Mitchell and many of the other GM executives simply liked big cars.
Thank you for stopping by, Michael. You offer a helpfully wide-ranging analysis. For example, from today’s perspective it can be difficult to visualize how much of a contrarian DeLorean was for downsizing the Grand Prix.
I suspect that timing could have also been an issue. If money was scarce, why were both the Riviera and Toronado given meaningful changes in 1970 for only one year? Was the original goal a two-year run but something changed? If so, why?
Meanwhile, GM’s mid-sized cars kept the same sheetmetal for an unusually long three years (1970-72). I vaguely recall reading back in the day that the redesign of the mid-sized cars was pushed back a year. If this is true, that gets me to thinking: If the new mid-sized cars had come out in 1972, might there have been more of a chance that the “E-body” personal coupes could have been based on that platform? Or did management move the E-body to the big-car platform partly to give the mid-sized personal coupes less internal competition?
If the latter, that wasn’t necessarily a bad idea — GM utterly dominated the mid-sized market in the 1970s — but it did end up ceding to Ford the leadership of the luxury coupe market.
GM often made decisions which at best seemed penny-wise but pound foolish. The more I think about it, this might not have been the worst of them.
First, making big changes for 1970 only to make them again for 1971. When the 1970 changes were approved it’s very likely the costs were supposed to be spread across 2-3 years. But once that money has been allocated it becomes a sunk cost and doesn’t factor into future calculations. (Business schools teach managers to ignore sunk costs when making a new decision.)
This is especially the case if the people in the seats change. A new executive often feels zero need to justify the expenses approved by a previous executive.
But more than any of the above, I suspect that someone in finance finally figured out how much money could be saved by commonizing the three coupes on bodies and frames that shared a lot more with the B-cars. From 1966-70 the Riviera ended up with its own frame shared with no other car, and this was costing Buick big time. The Toro and Eldo, since they shared only with each other, were no doubt also much more expensive to make than other GM large cars. Shift all three to B-based bodies and frames and the total cost savings were likely huge. Once this was realized, the logical thing to do is make the change ASAP–why wait until 1972 or 1973 to start saving all that money?
It might have also seemed less necessary to cut these costs earlier, when profits were higher.
The botched execution is a different matter. That was Mitchell’s fault, not the bean counters’ 🙂
Michael, I’d agree that the 1971 E-body redesigns were hardly the most “pound foolish” decision GM made. It does strike me as an example of the problems that can result from product proliferation. And while the 1971 E-body designs were not Mitchell’s finest works, coming up with so many variants on the big-car platform must have quite the stylistic challenge.
You make a good point about executive turnover; I’ll look into that when I have a moment. In the absence of a timing issue, it would seem as though shifting the E-body to the mid-sized platform would have been — at worst — cost neutral compared to the big-car platform. DeLorean talked about how the Grand Prix was more profitable when it was downsized because it cost less to produce than its full-sized predecessor.
It’s a small point, but I’m curious as to who insisted that the Eldorado be placed on a 126-inch wheelbase, up six inches from the previous year. That arguably made the designers’ work harder.
I who made that call and why is well worth investigating.
By the time they made this call was made they might have known that Ford was planning to go larger with the 1972s. Or did Ford go larger with the 1972s because they knew GM was going enormous with the 1971s?
Either way, the decision on go so long was an odd one, and I also wonder how it happened.
A vs. B is much clearer. The A-body was not wide enough to compete with the Lincoln. For the front seat to feel at least as roomy, they needed to go with the B-body. Pontiac’s image (and price) supported a tighter, sportier car. Cadillac’s, not so much. The B might have also had NVH advantages.
Detroit realized about the time these cars hit dealer lots that they’d gone too big with their early 1970s cars. Ford began work on both the Mustang II and Granada around 1970 because of the growing backlash against how large cars had gotten. GM conducted the first downsizing studies that year but was, as usual, slower to act on them then more vigorous once it decided to go down that path. Ford downsized one model and added a new luxury compact. GM downsized EVERYTHING. Ford and Chrysler then nearly went out of business trying to keep up.
Some interesting stuff here on the Seville, the studies that preceded it, and the role of personnel changes:
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/1976-1979-cadillac-seville.htm
That’s useful background. Thank you for the link.
I don’t know if it was so clearcut that the A-body was not wide enough to compete with the Mark series. For one thing, shoulder room in the first-generation E-body was about the same as with the 1973 A-body. So by switching to the B-body, GM was essentially moving a size up when it came to width.
The Mark IV was a bit roomier than the Mark III — and had 1.6 inches more shoulder room than a 1973 A-body (or a mid-sized Mercury). That said, the Mark IV came out a year later than the second-generation Eldorado, so it seems questionable that GM would have had precise intelligence when sizing decisions needed to be locked in for the 1971 Eldorado.
I noticed the same with the specs. Interior specs can be gamed so they don’t always line up with perceptions. It might be necessary to actually sit in the car to see if the B-bodies felt significantly roomier up front than the A’s. They should have, otherwise what’s the point? Same with how each compared to the first-gen E. In exterior width the B’s were three inches wider, with the Lincoln falling in between but closer to the B.
Also agree that it’s much more likely that the 1972 Lincoln was a response to the 1971 Cadillac than the other way around.
Wayne Kady is still around. Maybe some assistants to the suits who made these calls still are as well?
I could speculate on some potential thoughts on the platform decisions.
We do know that the Riviera was originally planned and designed on an A body platform. Photos of this are on Dean’s Garage. One can envision how Oldsmobile and Cadillac general managers would not want to be sharing an A body derivative with the “lesser” Monte Carlo and Grand Prix. “We are better and more upscale than that”. So, as Michael Karesh points to, getting a corporate decision to have a platform shared between the 3 upper end brands would sound like a worthwhile idea; platform sharing was what had made GM the most successful manufacturer.
What GM did with the B body derived platform made these cars obese, but one can see how such a decision could have been arrived at when working with the concept that they are going to work from a platform already in the system.
I would agree that the 2nd generation Eldo is not one of Mitchell’s better efforts.
If you happen to have the 2/71 Car and Driver, there’s an informative interview with John Beltz, who as chief engineer was responsible for the 1966 Toronado and as general manager was responsible for the 1971. C/D vouched for him as a car guy. They asked why he took a relatively sporty coupe that appealed to enthusiasts and made it yet another insulated boring luxury coupe. He replied that the original Toronado was too aggressive for the public. Cadillac came out with a foot-longer, 500-lb-heavier, cushier, and more conventionally styled Eldorado and killed them in sales despite its much higher price. He stressed how the new car was much better insulated from any noise and harshness, implying that the market wanted this much more than somewhat sporty handling. (The 1966 was criticized for its ride quality.) So basically Olds decided that if they couldn’t beat the Eldorado they were going to do an Eldorado.
I imagine this then forced the Eldorado to be larger still, because a Cadillac had to be larger than an Oldsmobile.
Motor Trend compared the Mark III to the 1970 Eldorado (7/70) and then the 1971 Eldorado (7/71) and preferred the Lincoln for a “more intimate feel” and “some feel of the road.” Then when they drove the 1972 Mark IV they felt that both of these advantages had been lost. But Lincoln sold a huge number of those cars so apparently that market did want larger, cushier, more insulated cars. Lincoln simply did a better job with the styling.
Notably, none of the reviews or previews wondered why GM had moved the coupes to the B and not to the A. That might have simply been seen as Chevrolet and Pontiac’s part of the field.
After reading the latest comments here, my first thought was also that Oldsmobile, Buick & Cadillac would definitely NOT have tolerated sharing a platform with “lowly” Pontiac, (and soon thereafter, Chevrolet) regardless of how cost effective such a plan might have been. No doubt the prevailing thought at GM was that potential customers would view smaller E-body cars as cheap, as bigger always equalled better, especially when it came to selling luxury cars. Recall that one of the 1970 Monte Carlo’s bragging points when it was introduced was having the longest hood ever on a Chevrolet. Also, consider the possible counter attack in ads by Lincoln: “Bigger than a Cadillac…”. That would simply not have been acceptable. Marketing the new Seville as a car of international-size began to convince traditional American luxury car buyers that smaller did not have to equal cheap. Imagine, however, the paradigm shift required for Cadillac and GM to become that “progressive” in 1975.