My '79 Caprice (Bought New, Been in the Family Ever Since)

Description

One of GM's last all-new line of full-size cars, the '79 Caprice and Impala 2-doors, with their infamous "bent" window glass, were in the last year of a body style that was introduced for the 1977 model year. These "downsized" full-size cars were almost a foot shorter and 700 pounds lighter than the '76's they replaced. But, trunk space and interior room stayed the same. In one year, the 350 V8 went from being the smallest engine you could get in a big Chevy to being the largest. As big Chevys had been for years, they were traditional body-on-frame construction, but they were the first cars to be partially designed and engineered using CAD-CAM (Computer aided design-computer aided manufacturing). GM's other B-body cars, the Pontiac Catalina and Bonneville, Olds 88, and Buick LeSabre, and larger C-bodies, the Buick Electra, Olds 98 and Cadillac DeVille/Fleetwood, also got the downsizing treatment in '77. Almost a million-and-a-half full-size Chevy sedans, coupes and wagons were sold in those three years, unfortunately not enough to take back the number-one sales spot from the mid-size Olds Cutlass. The universal complaint back then was that GM had made the Chevy full-size cars TOO small. (In '77, they were only slightly longer than a "mid-size" Chevy Malibu. How times change;-) For the 1980 model year, they were mildly restyled, and that basic body lasted 11 years, until the "pregnant whale" '91-'96 models, which, along with the Buick Roadmaster, Olds Custom Cruiser and <b>...</b>

Keywords

Chevrolet, Chevy, 1979, 79, Caprice, Classic, Impala, V8, V-8, 305, 350, 5.0, 5.7, liter, engine, motor, tire, car, full, size, big, B-body

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