US Station Wagons before downsizing

Hi everybody.

I love these cars made before the new federal regulations of 1977 that, from what I understood, changed everything.

I tried to put together all the specifications I could find on the Internet for years 1975/1976.

I used mostly:

• Chrysler
  • Chrysler timeline - Wikipedia
  • Dodge Timeline - Wikipedia
  • Plymouth Timeline - Wikipedia
• Ford
  • Ford postwar template - Wikipedia
  • Template:Lincoln vehicles - Wikipedia
  • Mercury historic timeline - Wikipedia
• GM
  • Chevrolet cars timeline 1950-1979 - Wikipedia
  • Pontiac Early Timeline - Wikipedia
  • Buick postwar timeline - Wikipedia
  • Oldsmobile postwar timeline - Wikipedia
  • Cadillac timeline 1930-1979 - Wikipedia
• AMC
  • AMC Timeline - Wikipedia
• Car and automobile specifications and technical data - Carfolio.com
• Get Car Specs - Car specifications with thousands of models from all car makers
• Popular Mechanics-Google Books
  
• Cadillac history
  
• Stationwagon.com - the online home of the Station Wagon
• Chevywagons
• Buicks.net
  
• All cars covered by Allpar
• other sites.

The file is an xls and is here: http://depositfiles.com/files/6b9fu0byp


I would really appreciate if any expert on this topic could help me in fixing what is not correct.

Thanks!

 

As I said in my presentation message, I am not a spammer but a decent person.

 

I'm not sure what "federal regulations" you're talking about, or what you think they changed, but I can tell you that the GM full size wagons were downsized for the 1977 model year not because of federal regulations but in response to the oil crisis of 1973-74 (yes, that's about the lead time for this redesign). The full size cars were shrunk to fit on a variation of the chassis that had been used for the 1973-1977 intermediate cars. This same body style was built relatively unchanged for 1977-1990 and the 1991-1996 wagons actually used the same chassis and suspension, just a different body. Note that the intermediate cars were downsized for the 1978 model year for the same reason.

 

You're right dbev; certainly the most devastating and drastic of those regulations was in regards to emissions. Once those laws were in place, they spelled the demise of our muscle cars and other high powered and fast vehicles. By restricting the amount of emissions that could legally be put out by an automobile, the regs forced the manufacturers to come up with a quick fix and the only way they could do that was to install various componentry which absolutely destroyed horsepower. It wasn't until years later when American vehicles started to be fun to drive again.

 

Increasing insurance rates and more emphasis on safety were also factors. Once insurance companies realized that people could walk into any car dealership in the late '60s and walk out with what was essentially a racing car, they started to raise rates rapidly, especially for young people, which was the target market for these cars. That made them less and less affordable.

Increasing concerns about safety and pressure from the federal government on auto manufacturers to reduce the power and top speed of these cars also spelled their doom. So it was really a combination of increasingly tough emissions regulations, a greater emphasis on safety, and increasing cost of ownership that led to the demise of the muscle car era, at least as it was defined back then.

 

I'm curious as to what "devastating and drastic" regulations were implemented between the 1976 and 1977 model years, which is what the original post was about. I was actually old enough to drive during the mid-1970s and I well remember the rounds of "downsizing" that took place due to Oil Crisis I and Oil Crisis II. The changes had nothing to do with government regulations, unless you count CAFE. The changes were really more of a knee-jerk reaction to the market at the time.

 

As for downsizing, it's all relative.
As a boy of about 14, I had a copy of 'Road and Track' which outlined the new Lincoln Continentals for 1980, whose engines had been downsized from 7.5 to 6.6 litres.
Now, if you fronted up with a car containing a 6.6 litre engine here in Europe, people would think it was a truck or a tourist coach.

 

The timeline goes something like this:

1962:

Closed crankcase ventilation. (Cali may have started in '61)

1966 Clean Air Act:

Resulted in smog pumps on some cars, revised timing settings and advance curves and mixture calibration. (starting with the '67's in Cali and '68 for the 49 state's)

1967:

Collapsable steering columns and dual circuit brakes. (some cars had the dual circuit brakes already)

1968:

Side marker lights

1969:

Crash beams in the doors

1970 Clean Air Act:

Led to unleaded fuels, evaporative emission control and increased emissions standards.

1971:

GM lowers all compression ratio's for the upcoming unleaded fuels. Evaporative emissions devices installed.

1972:

California vehicles get EGR, the other manufacturers lower compression ratio's.

1973:

EGR on 49 state vehicles, federal safety bumpers (the big bumpers). The Arab oil embargo in late October. Many states enact the 55 MPH speed limit on December 1st.

1975:

All '75 model year vehicles have catalytic converters. Unleaded fuel the norm.

Somewhere along in here came another round of emissions laws and the CAFE standards that eventually lead to the computerized engine controls of 1980 (Cali) and '81 (49 state) and the O/D automatics with locking torque converters.

There may be some slight error's as I did this all from memory. I don't specifically recall anything "drastic" in '76 or '77 with either regulations or in the cars themselves, other than the downsizing started as perviously mentioned.

 

I just wanted to add some specific comments. These are all true but there are exceptions and details.


1962:

Closed crankcase ventilation. (Cali may have started in '61)
Now known as PCV, positive crankcase ventilation.

1966 Clean Air Act:

Resulted in smog pumps on some cars, revised timing settings and advance curves and mixture calibration. (starting with the '67's in Cali and '68 for the 49 state's)

1967:

Collapsable steering columns and dual circuit brakes. (some cars had the dual circuit brakes already)

1968:

Side marker lights

1969:

Crash beams in the doors

1970 Clean Air Act:

Led to unleaded fuels, evaporative emission control and increased emissions standards.

1971:

GM lowers all compression ratio's for the upcoming unleaded fuels. Evaporative emissions devices installed.

1972:

California vehicles get EGR, the other manufacturers lower compression ratio's.
This was installed for two reasons, 1. Lowered Nitrous oxides at moderate RPM. 2. Lowers combustion chamber temperature which corrected the pinging problems many cars had as a result of other changes to engines for emissions. EGR does nothing at idle or high RPM.

1973:

EGR on 49 state vehicles, federal safety bumpers (the big bumpers). The Arab oil embargo in late October. Many states enact the 55 MPH speed limit on December 1st.
The bumpers got much larger in 1974. The states enacted the 55 MPH speed limit under pressure from the Fed. Government. The Feds threatened to cut off road funding if they did not comply.

1975:

All '75 model year vehicles have catalytic converters. Unleaded fuel the norm.

Some 1975 and 1976 vehicles did not require catalytic converters. One that I know of was the 318 equipped Aspen and Volare models. I'm sure there were others.

Somewhere along in here came another round of emissions laws and the CAFE standards that eventually lead to the computerized engine controls of 1980 (Cali) and '81 (49 state) and the O/D automatics with locking torque converters.

I'm not sure either but this resulted in OBD I standards and later OBD II for monitoring of system performance and the California 8 year 80,000 mile warrentee requirements on emission controls.

There may be some slight error's as I did this all from memory. I don't specifically recall anything "drastic" in '76 or '77 with either regulations or in the cars themselves, other than the downsizing started as perviously mentioned.

You have a good memory and I'm sure others remember more detail.

 

I think the late seventies were the low-point of these laws. I seem to remember that the 302 V8 on the contemporary Mustang, for example, produced just 95 bhp, with a high-performance version throwing out 105.
Good God.

 

In the 1970s in the US, the term "downsizing" was specifically applied by the automakers to the reduction in size of a particular automobile platform, not necessarily the engine. For example, the 1976 Olds Custom Cruiser had a 127" wheelbase and weighed nearly 5,300 lbs. The downsized 1977 models, built on a version of the A-body chassis, had a 116" wheelbase and weighed about 4,400 lbs.

 

You're right, but the 1980 Continental was still a very large car.

 

I've read in the brochures that the only SW to maintain its full-size was the Ford Country Squire. See here.

A question: which full-size wagon pre-downsizing had 4-wheels disc brakes?

I have to add that many technological features that became standard in US cars in the 1970s arrived in Europe much later (EGR, catalytic converter and unleaded fuel, door's beams). I didn't know that, and I am really amazed. The Euro 1 regulation became effective in 1992!

 

The big Ford wagons for '75-78 (I think, may be off by a year at the start) = they had a rear disc brake option. I believe it came with the tow package. Front discs were standard.

The rear disc option was discontinued when the wagons were downsized for '79.

 

Thanks Krash Kadillak!!!

I've been browsing a bit more inside brochures and, as far as I understand those specifications, it is so.

The cars I like the most, overall, are:

• 1978 Ford LTD Country Squire
• 1978 Mercury Marquis Colony Park Wagon

In my understanding, they're still full-size and may be found with four-wheel disc brakes. Then, Mercury is more luxury than Ford, right?