(EXPANDED FROM 11/26/2021)
The 1971-73 Ford Mustang has been criticized for growing too big and fat (e.g., Mueller, 2010). However, Ford didn’t act in isolation. All of the pony cars bloated out when they were redesigned in the early-70s. The Pontiac Firebird was one of the biggest offenders. Model for model, the second-generation Firebird became the heaviest pony car.
The 1971 Mustang added roughly 300 pounds from a comparably equipped 1967 model. Even so, it was still 260 pounds lighter than the Firebird, whose redesigned body was introduced during the 1970 model year (Wikipedia, 2021b).
The above table only shows weights for six-cylinder models. The top-end Firebird Trans Am V8 weighed even more: 3,575 pounds. That was heavier than a Dodge Challenger R/T (by 80 pounds), Mercury Cougar XR-7 (by 260 pounds) and AMC Javelin AMX (by 330 pounds).
Firebird well tailored to visually minimize extra girth
Like the rest of the pony cars, the Firebird got heavier partly because it grew in length and width. In addition, the so-called F-body the Firebird shared with the Chevrolet Camaro was also weighed down by new features. These included exceptionally long doors, which eliminated quarter windows between the B- and C-pillars.
General Motors’ designers deserve credit for visually minimizing the F-body’s bigger size. This was achieved with curvaceous fender shapes, a tapered fastback roofline and a lithe rear end.
The F-body stood in stark contrast to Ford’s pony cars, which had slab sides, heavy creases and kammback rear ends. The unhappy result was that the Mustang and Cougar looked even more ponderous than they actually were.
The most extreme example was the Mustang fastback. Its almost horizontal C-pillar and huge rear end looked more like an ice cream truck than a sporty coupe.
The F-body also hid its width better than Chrysler’s pony car twins. Whereas the Challenger and Plymouth Barracuda had flat hoods and horizontal grilles that accentuated each car’s width, the F-body had Jaguaresque curves and more upright grilles.
Aside from the Trans Am, whose added-on graphics gave it an overamped boy-racer look, the Firebird looked positively understated compared to the bulging mess that was the 1971 AMC Javelin.
It wouldn’t have taken much to fix the Firebird
The 1970-73 Firebird and Camaro arguably had the best styling in the entire history of each nameplate. Alas, a car designer can do only so much with an obese platform. That raises the question: What if the Firebird’s styling had been used on a smaller platform? Hey, how about the size of the original Mustang?
Also see ‘Lee Iacocca got lucky with the 1964-66 Ford Mustang’
The image below shows the 1970 Firebird from one of its more flattering angles. Even so, the car does not have the lean look of an imported sporty coupe of that era. Both the front and rear overhangs are arguably too long. Meanwhile, the greenhouse is so low that it has a turret-topped quality. This is exacerbated by the unusually upright A-pillar and an overly long door.
The photoshopped Firebird addresses all of these issues. The wheelbase ahead of the cowl is cut by four inches. The front and rear overhangs are each trimmed by around two inches. You can’t see it in this side view, but the width is reduced by around 3.5 inches.
Also see ‘1967-70 Firebird shows limits of ad illustrations’
Meanwhile, the greenhouse is raised roughly an inch and the windshield is given a sharper angle without getting rid of its lovely curvature. Adding small quarter windows gives the Firebird an airier and more rounded look.
OHC six was an ideal match with a lighter Firebird
Pruning the Firebird’s dimensions should have resulted in some weight loss. However, even the original F-body was much heavier than the Mustang’s, so additional work was needed.
The Firebird would have been a great match with Pontiac’s overhead-cam six weight if the car’s weight have been cut by 300 pounds. That engine was retired after 1969, partly due to slow sales. The OHC six had generated only 20 percent of the Firebird’s 1967-68 sales (go here for further discussion).
Of course, keeping the OHC six assumes that the engine’s reliability issues were fixed and the Firebird’s new platform could be designed to fit the engine, which was reportedly on the tall side.
Pontiac arguably gave up on this engine too soon. Sales would have inevitably grown once the next recession hit. That happened in 1970. Suddenly, compact two-door coupes with good fuel economy were popular. Meanwhile, sales collapsed for all of those bigger, glitzier and more powerful pony cars.
Ford executive Lee Iacocca said it best when he quipped, “The Mustang market never left us, we left it” (Wikipedia, 2021a).
Pony car sales went down as the bloat went up
The graph below shows how every pony car except for the Mustang saw its output fall below 100,000 units by 1972. The Firebird maintained a fourth-place standing behind the Mustang, Camaro and Cougar, but output fell to less than 30,000 in 1972.
From 1970 through 1973 the Firebird averaged under 45,000 units per year. Compare that to 1968, when production peaked at over 106,000 units.
U.S. automakers must have been nonplussed to see how their costly pony car redesigns were selling so poorly that some may have been big money losers.
Duster and Maverick outsold top pony cars in early-70s
Pony car sales tanked at the same time when the Plymouth Duster — a modest redesign of the aging Valiant — sold more than 224,000 units per year between 1970-73.
While a goodly portion of those Dusters were strippo models, you could option one to levels approaching that of the 1967-69 Barracuda. A key reason why the 1970-73 Barracuda was one of the worst-selling pony cars could have been because the Duster was a better deal.
Or consider the Ford Maverick. When it was introduced in the spring of 1969, the car was sold as a bargain-basement import fighter. The coupe was essentially a shortened and decontented 1969-70 Mustang. However, the Maverick may not have siphoned away many Mustang sales because it had a bare-bones design even with its sporty trim package, the oddly-named Grabber.
That said, Ford sold far more Mavericks than Mustangs during 1970-73: Roughly one million units versus 609,000 units, respectively.
Might the Mustang have done better if it hadn’t bloated out so much? Here’s one indicator: Even though 1970 sales were depressed by a recession and an aging design overshadowed by the new F-body, the Mustang still sold much better than in 1971-73. Bigger didn’t turn out to be a better.
The ‘Sexy European’ upstaged U.S. pony cars
Another warning sign was the early-70s Capri, which was Ford of Europe’s version of a U.S. pony car. In 1970, the first year the Capri was imported through Lincoln-Mercury dealers, sales were modest — roughly 17,300 units. However, by 1973 sales had soared to 113,100 units. Tellingly, in 1972-73 the Capri outsold every American pony car except the Mustang. That was despite an escalating price tag.
Also see ‘1970 Plymouth Barracuda should have been like an Australian Valiant Charger’
By 1973 the Capri’s list price matched its U.S. competitors even though the car was much smaller. For roughly the same price of a 1973 Capri V6 ($3,261), you could get a Firebird V8 in mid-range Esprit or Formula trim. Yet more than twice as many buyers opted for a Capri.
As the 1970s progressed, currency fluctuations ultimately destroyed the Capri’s viability as an import. Meanwhile, GM’s F-body boomed in popularity, particularly between the 1973 and 1979 oil crises.
In 1977 Firebird output reached almost 156,000 units. That was a few thousand more than the Mustang II, which in 1974 had been downsized onto the subcompact Pinto platform.
Almost half of the Firebirds produced in 1977 were Trans Ams. The model’s popularity was spurred by its prominent role in the hit movie, “Smokey and the Bandit.” Without a trace of irony, Top Speed has described this year’s model as “undoubtedly the most iconic Pontiac Firebird in history” (Florea, 2023).
Firebird became a vulgar caricature of a pony car
So yes, the Firebird — like the Camaro — went on to have some very good years. But as discussed further here, over the last half century the Mustang has tended to sell better when it was smaller and lighter than the F-body.
With the 1970 redesign, GM doubled down on bigger and heavier pony cars — and never looked back. Compare the final Firebird shown above with the 1968 model above it.
Here we have the automotive equivalent of Elvis Presley’s decline. It’s too bad GM did not put the Firebird on a diet before its bloating out became embarrassing.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted on Aug. 8, 2018, expanded on Nov. 27, 2020, updated on Nov. 26, 2021, and expanded on Aug. 18, 2023. Specifications and production figures are from Bonsall (1979), Flammang (1992), Gunnell (2002), the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006) and the Classic Car Database (2021). Shipping weights are used in comparisons.
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.
- Bonsall, Thomas E.; 1979. Pontiac: The Complete History, 1926-1979. Bookman Dan!, Baltimore, Maryland.
- Classic Car Database; 2021. “Search for specifications.” Accessed Nov. 25.
- Flammang, James M.; 1992. Standard Catalog of Imported Cars, 1946-1990. First Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Florea, Ciprian; 2023. “Everything You Should Know About The The Trans Am From Smokey And The Bandit.” Top Speed. Posted May 7.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Mueller, Mike; 2010. The Complete Book of Mustang: Every Model Since 1964 1/2. Motorbooks, Minneapolis, MN.
- Wikipedia; 2021a. “Ford Mustang,” Last edited Nov. 8.
- Wikipedia; 2021b. “Pontiac Firebird.” Last edited Nov. 18.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Capri (1970)
- oldcarbrochures.org: AMC Javelin (1971); Ford Maverick (1971); Ford Mustang (1970); Plymouth Duster (1970); Pontiac Firebird (1967, 1968, 1970, 1977)
Gee Whiz, you’re starting to sound like Consumer Reports! The problem is that yearly model changes tend to add pounds and size, The manufacturer needs to give the buyer a reason to trade in. Nowadays product cycles are much longer, but back then buyers expected the new cars to look different from the old models. Truthfully the change wasn’t usually for the better! GM held onto this basic F body for eleven years, in ’82 the downsized F bodies appeared and they ran until 1996. You can’t give a new car buyer less, you’ve got to give them more. The car makers had to sell more room, more efficiency, and more fuel mileage.
The longer length and size gave these cars more presence against the Mustang II and Fox bodies. Besides, they were just drop dead gorgeous, I wouldn’t carp over a little extra weight. Well it’s true that the cars got bigger. Though I’ve got no problem with a bit of expansion when the end results were this good.
Jose, I’ve never bought into the idea that to be a car buff one has to hate Consumer Reports. Even during the era when they paid virtually no attention to sportiness, the magazine still offered useful information in its road tests and frequency-of-repair tables that you wouldn’t find in the commercial buff media.
Why? Because Consumer Reports has always been run as a nonprofit that accepts no advertising. They also have bought their test cars off dealer lots with secret buyers rather than borrowing press cars (that could be specially prepared by the manufacturer). Imagine how Car and Driver’s famous road test of the Ferrari versus the Pontiac GTO would have turned out if it had been conducted with that level of objectivity.
Since I was a kid I have preferred cars to be light, nimble and efficient. So back in the day I gravitated more to Road & Track, with its emphasis on imports, than any of the other buff magazines.
I have a bias. And I do present facts that back my perspective, such as that sales data show how in the early-70s the public shifted to smaller cars — and Detroit was caught flat footed. As a case in point, the Capri outsold the Firebird from 1971 through 1974.
Yes, the Firebird subsequently saw a sales spike, but over the long run GM’s pony cars didn’t do as well as the Fox-bodied Mustang (go here and here for further discussion). That’s not merely an opinion — it’s a fact.
To be clear, I agree that the 1970 Firebird has some terrific lines. However, to my eyes the car would have looked even better if it were a size smaller. Of course, styling is subjective.
Once again, G.M. tried to do to much in too little time. I think the changes scheduled for 1970 model year Camaro and Firebird easily could have been moved back a year or two to the start of 1971 or 1972. G.M.’s product launch plans had all new B- and C-bodies for September, 1971, plus the Vega 2300. The U.A.W. strike affected the 1970, 1971 and 1972 model year G.M. plans, delaying the G.M. colonnade intermediates to 1973. From 1966 into the 1970s, G.M. put two-doors cars with huge heavy, long doors into production: The Riviera, the Toronado, the Eldorado, the second-generation F-bodies and so forth. Yet access to the rear-seats was still a contortionists’ dream. G.M. may have been the automobile styling leader, but their interior packaging for their sporty coupes’ rear seats best suited for children or miniature adults.
But this also raises the question of what was the prevailing mindset the product planners, stylists and marketers at this time. The Corvair was gone, the Vega was G.M.’s Future small car and everything else was evolving into vehicles based onlarger, longer, wider, and heavier platforms. Only, did the Mercury Capri and the Duster / Demon twins go into the opposite direction. Of course, G.M.’s mindset would run into disaster (as did the mirror-reflections at Ford and Chrysler) by mid-1973.
Besides poor sales one of the main reasons Pontiac dropped the OHC 6 was that it would not fit under the hood of the 1970 Firebird. Too bad as it could have had a revival with the gas crisis of 1974 as did the Buick V6 when GM purchased the engine back from AMC.
Steve, nice article. I like the sales figures and comparisons. Having read Ate Up with Motor’s treatment of the decline of the Pony car, I am not surprised, but the sales of the sub pony cars was a surprise. My neighbor had a 1969 Maverick. Awful, though he was very proud of its cost cutting. It needed a hatchback and higher rear seat headroom. The Duster/Demon pair was another ugly design. Awkward from most angles.
It would have been nice if GM had been able to function as one company rather than five. It could have developed or retained smaller lighter cars, such as the OHC six and the Y bodies. An OHC Banshee could have not competed with Corvette, and pre-empted the Datsun 240-280 series. I don’t understand why the OHC six was not tipped over 45 degrees. There was lots of room in the engine bay, most of the cars were very wide, and it wouldn’t have cost much to do so.
As much as I like this period of car design, the American cars were mostly styling exercises that only worked when larger than needed. I must say the Mustang II was abominable. I enjoyed the later “Euro” versions of the Camaro and Firebird.
Oops,
“The wheelbase ahead of the front wheels is cut by four inches. ”
I know this is a typo. I assume you cut 4 inches out of the wheelbase behind the front wheels. I agree, the trimmed car looks much better. I would have trimmed the rear another 6 inches and added a hatchback. 240Z!
Yup; I meant ahead of the cowl (fixed). Thank you!
A hatch would have been great from a practical standpoint. The tricky part would have been what to do with the rear window. Should it have not wrapped around the side so much?
It would be interesting to cut another six inches from the deck. That would give the car a more international look.
If I were to edit the design I would also shift the rear quarter window back just a bit more to give it better proportions vis a vis the door window. Or move the door a few inches forward?
Cutting 4″ from the wheelbase ahead of the passenger cabin, as proposed in the article, results in a much greater proportion of those cast iron engines being lofted out ahead of the front axle line. It is bad for an in-line six, bad for a small block V-8, tragedy for a big block. Making the engines actually fit in the hole is one thing. Making them fit properly into the right location is another. This wheelbase chop at the front of the car is going to have consequences for handling and for traction. Even the sporty versions would suffer. As for the high performance versions….. just disaster. No thanks. It wouldn’t to work. You’d have an imprecise, horrible understeering pig of a thing.
Cut overhang if you must downsize. Definitely light-weight the car (there is plenty of opportunity for this but it costs). Leave the proportions alone. The low roof and the original wheelbase stays!
Yes, weight distribution matters (sort of). However, I question your assertion that the chop would create a meaningful problem. The proportions of the car would end up being fairly similar to other compacts of the 1960s and 1970s.
For example, the Maverick two-door coupe had a similar wheelbase and proportions. Also note that some pony cars did not get a wheelbase stretch ahead of the cowl (e.g., the 1964-69 Barracuda and the first-generation Javelin). Or how about the Fox-body Mustang, which had a relatively short snout and an even shorter wheelbase. Were any of these cars so terrible when it came to traction and handling?
Hi Steve!
There isn’t the room to move the engine very much farther aft, if at all. You could try changing the shape of the firewall to allow the engine to be pushed backwards some more, although that would come at the expense of interior room (foot-well width and possibly room for HVAC services), NVH issues, heat issues and engine R&M (repairs and maintenance). Don’t forget these engines were maintenance hogs compared with today’s (sparkplugs, distributors, exhaust systems, a growing collection of hoses and pipes and the like… all needed attention and all needed space to get at them- warranty and R&M work couldn’t become excessively onerous). Note also that chopping the wheelbase up front as much as proposed would require a new front sub-frame assembly and that would require development to deal with NVH, heat, maintenance, space issues etc. None of this would have been trivial.
A chop of 4″ results in the CoG of the engine no longer being behind the front axle line but rather in front of it. The chances are it would also have to be moved up a little higher as well (these engines had wet sumps which need to clear the steering and the cross member). The cooling pack would have to go further forward in all likelihood. All of this un-good since these cars were meant to perform. At minimum they were sporty with outstanding handling for the time. The performance versions were quick (even today a 13.8 sec 1/4 is reasonably good). Since we are talking Pontiac, consider the 455SD. How well could it have been expected to behave with that cast iron Pontiac big block’s CoG out ahead of the front wheels? And what about traction issues at the back? Same issue goes for the Pontiac 400 or the Oldsmobile 403. Optioning the WS6 suspension calibration and expecting it to have coped with such poor weight distribution and delinquent polar moment would have been a lost cause- just hopeless. Handling would have been poor. Traction would have been poor. Not much of a muscle car…
1970s compact cars were engineered and built with a different set of compromises. Performance and handling was not as important. Engines and state of tune were not as demanding.
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The options are to redesign/re-engineer the entire car from scratch or instead cut overhang and aggressively light weight all of it. Light weighting, then lowering and pushing the CoG as far aft as was physically possible (with a bespoke front sub-frame and improved frame connectors) was what we tried and it worked out well. Trouble was time and cost. It couldn’t be justified financially as a one-off. Still, it is reasonable to assume that a reasonable light weighting programme would have been more economic as a series production affair. Perhaps GM could have made the numbers work. It sure would have been cheaper than a complete rework of the whole car. Then again, perhaps not and that’s why they did not. Pity.
I did a thought experiment about this when I was mucking around with the Trans Am. It had been involved in a front shunt by the time I got it. Most of the damage was under the car since it had gone well “off-road” during its excursion. That’s why it was necessary to get it a new front sub-frame. Instead of a factory item, a bespoke one was fabricated (long story how this came to be the decision). The thought experiment was along the lines of how could this set-up be improved (since we were rebuilding so much of it) if “Uncle Pontiac” was doing a mid-cycle model revision aiming to improve the car’s dynamics or if it were a project to homologate the car for, say, endurance racing. Assuming that using an aluminium engine was out of the question (pretty much everything was cast iron at that time) the best that could be done was to get the engine down behind the axle line as low as possible. The firewall got massaged right proper (by a qualified panel beater, no less). The engine was given a dry sump and a bottom end girdle. The girdle was needed to guarantee the engine’s longevity. The girdle necessitated the dry sump system and that in turn let the engine sit lower (much) in the car. The sub-frame was fabricated up to go around the engine. Three heat exchangers were fitted for the engine cooling pack; one out back and two in front. It fit and left just about enough room to get at everything (OK, except for just a few tough to access items). None of the major components had a CoG ahead of the axle line. At the rear the axle was moved as far forwards as it could be without demanding major structural work and avoiding things looking silly. The car was lightened and then unfortunately it gained a little of the fat back again when it proved necessary to improve insulation at the firewall again. Car looks near standard. It isn’t but it doesn’t look cut up.
Count that as one saved.
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The 2G F-body soldiered on for a long time. I suspect one of the reasons was that it was adaptable enough to fit so many engines, transmissions, suspensions, emission systems as well as other options, features, functions and cosmetics to it. This was due to its simplicity and to its size. For example, there was enough room to manage NVH and heat effectively without needing major rework, refinement and redevelopment for each update or alteration applied. Sometimes a non-idealised design works out because it can be adapted. 2GF was an example.
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BTW at one point the Ford Capri was going to be the basis for the next performance car for Ford Australia. They were considering engineering a VERY hot Capri V-6 (some designers even wanted the Cleveland instead) to be the next in the GTHO series (intended for production after the Falcon GTHO Phase 4). Unfortunately it couldn’t happen. Meanwhile the South Africans managed to get one done with a 302 Windsor. As the Capri is a stretched Escort, this must have been right on the outer limit of what was sensibly possible for the standard chassis/body. Someone had fun.
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I’ve only just come across your site. It is most excellent. Lot’s of reading here. Thanks for providing it.
One can make the argument that the GM US built response to the Capri was the Chevrolet Monza in 2+2 and then the Landau coupe. But, prior to that before the DM-$ exchange rate hurt all German cars it was the Opel Manta Rallye. The Capri became a more serious entrant after it gained the V6 option.
The Camaro and Firebird owned the Ponycar market after the Barracuda, Challenger and Javelin ceased and the Mustang went down to a Pinto based iteration (Mustang II).
As for the OHC Pontiac engine, anyone know how its build cost comp[ared to the regular OHV 6 or the V8? Technically interesting and something appealing to the Road & Track set if the numbers weren’t right it was going to be doomed. I do remember an article in R&T or C&D about a Firebird with the OHC and they were surprised at how high the sticker price was – exceeded a V8 model.
Isn’t it interesting that G.M./Buick gave up on the V-6 too early. If Buick or Oldsmobile had kept developing the 231 cu.in. Buick and put the 90-degree crank and balance shafts, what appeared in the late 1987 and early 1990s, it might have led to a smaller second generation F-body. While Chevrolet had its small-blocks, Pontiac was still wedded to its basic 1955 287 cu.in. V-8 that begat the 317, 347, 389, 421, 428 and the 455 cu.in. V-8s, all cast-iron, so no wonder the Pontiac Firebirds were so heavy. The O.H.C. Sprint in-line six with the modifications made to Jay Leno’s first-gen Firebird were simply reliability upgrades that Pontiac engineers should have done once the in-service problems started cropping up. The O.H.C.’s weaknesses (other than the camshaft belt replacement requirement) were NOT fundamental flaws like the Vega 2300 aluminum engine cooling issues. Plus, Pontiac had experience with the slanted 166 cu. in. Typhoon four-cylinder engine. After all, didn’t Chevrolet supply the 230-cu. in. cast-iron blocks to Pontiac with the 230 version which was an enlarged Chevy II 194 six introduced as the G.M. intermediates’ base engine in late 1963 ? Just like John DeLorean being over-ruled by Bill Mitchell on slimming down the 1973-1977 A-bodies, I suspect the same thing happened with the F-bodies for 1970. After all, according to the gospel of “Grosse Pointe Myopia”, bigger cars mean bigger profits !
Why didn’t GM seek to develop a V6 from its SBC and Pontiac V8s earlier on instead of buying the Buick V6 tooling back from AMC after the latter took over Kaiser-Jeep?
The same goes regarding why unlike Oldsmobile, Pontiac were seemingly content not to give its version of the 215 BOP V8 a unique twist? Can understand Chevrolet being involved with the Corvair, although were there any short-lived plans for it to become involved with the 215 BOP V8 or put its own unique spin on it?
Had the Pontiac OHC Six been properly developed, it would have made a decent starting point for a OHC Four with similar displacement range as the 153 Chevy. Which would have negated the need for the Vega and Iron Duke engines.
Do wonder if GM could have built the 1980 60-degree V6 much earlier by about a decade or two? Know Vauxhall autonomy wise would have benefited a suitable Six in place of its old Bedford inline-six or the Opel CIH Six.
No clue if GM had any suitable 60-degree V6 answer to Ford’s Cologne and Essex V6s in the 1960s, however maybe one could have been expediently developed from the 1960s Cadillac V12 prototype engine?
https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/a-cadillac-v12-that-never-was/
Buying back the Buick V6 tooling was probably faster than developing a V6 derivative of the Chevrolet small block. The Buick V6 was ready for the 1975 model year. The Chevrolet 90 degree V6 didn’t debut until 1978 model year with a 200 cubic inch version for the Malibu.
I loved these as a teenager car nut! I always thought these were a rather international sort of design, sorta Ferrari-ish; something one of the more outre Italian coachbuilders might show.
Of course, most European designers would have given more thought to packaging. You would have less waste space up front, and a bigger trunk. Rear passenger space would be a higher priority. But these felt like they were designed in the classic sports car manner – put the engine in the best place for weight distribution, then fit the driver/passenger(s) and bodywork around that. There’s a lot of waste space up front, particularly overhang – but overall I feel it has the classic front-engine Ferrari proportioning. Probably even space for a V12 – knowing the American hot-rodding tradition, I’m sure that’s been done!