i found concept pictures of the 1973 chevelle

I happened across a small collection of hot rod magazines from the 70,s and sure enough got lucky going through them and found an article and some artist renderings for the the all new redesigned chevelle for 1973 and it looks cool they didnt stray very much from the concept drawings when i compared them to my car. Its always nice finding nostalgic info about third gen chevelle's

ahh no pictures?

not yet ill try wen i get a chance

i've seen some early concept drawings for the "colonnade" cars that were supposed to come out for the '71 model year, but got pushed back to the '73 model year for some reason or another. the pics i saw were dated to the late 60's.
most of the basic styling cues were there- the basic shape of the car and the "colonnade" roof line- but they had smaller bumpers and plans for more powerful engines.
the bumper regs and gas crunch- along with tightening emissions and fuel economy standards and the gas crunch and a failing economy- all put a real dent into what eventually came out in '73, and by the time the "colonnade" cars finally hit the streets GM was already hard at work on the downsized models that would eventually come out for the '78 model year- and those cars were to be quickly replaced within a few model years by a whole new lineup of cars with 4 and 6 cylinder engines driving the (gasp) front wheels.
the Citation is what eventually replaced the Malibu, with the "G" body cars only continuing alongside their fwd "replacements" into the 87 and 88 model years because people were still buying them instead of those new fangled front wheel drive death boxes..
the 70's and early 80's must have been a really strange time to work at GM..

I have that book with the concept in it its from a book called Automobile, i just cant find it to scan it

novaderrik wrote:i've seen some early concept drawings for the "colonnade" cars that were supposed to come out for the '71 model year, but got pushed back to the '73 model year for some reason or another.....

GM wanted to bring out the redesign in 1972, but they weren't ready until 1973 partly because of the UAW strike in 1970. Also GM's switch in 1971 to engines designed to run on unleaded gas, & upcoming federal standards requiring increased safety standards (5 mph bumpers) swayed their decision to hold off on the redesign.

Here is a rendering of the 70 GTO while we are waiting on the Chevelle:



Notice the "fins" behind the quarter window & also picture the tail end without the wing. Hmmmm..........

I found the book here at home but now cant get scanner to work AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG


its collectible automobile and its dated
august 1999 volume 16 number 2


http://backissues.com/issue/Collectible-Automobile-Volume-16-Number-2

I have it too, but no scanner.

now we have the concept pictures


TAAAA DAAAA

I like the final product much better.
Second from the top looks like a cutlass to me.
One of them looks like a riviera.

I agree with Roadcaptain

that last one looks like a 71-72 GTO

*grins*

I LOVE seeing concept drawings like this. It is interesting to see the different styling option that had been considered prior to finalizing the product.


And ... the Citation replaced the Malibu? From everything I've read/seen, the Chevy Celebrity replaced the Malibu.... Hmm...interesting. I may have to do some more digging .

EDIT ... but, actually, I'm convinced the Celebrity replaced the Malibu. After all, the Buick "version" of the Celebrity was the Buick Century ... which was also a relative of the Malibu in the late 70s and early 80s. Hmmm....which makes all of this crap GM has pulled even more interesting..... The Malibu was replaced with the Celebrity, but unlike the Buick version, the RWD nameplate didn't carry over to the new FWD car. Chevy didn't pull that crap until the mid-1990s when they renamed the coupe version of the Lumina (which had replaced, drum roll, the Celebrity) the "monte carlo". A couple years later, they renamed the Corsica ... "malibu". And, a few years after that, they renamed the Celebrity/Lumina sedan ... "impala". ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh



Cort | 36swm.IL | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker ...drive south, Nov 09
WRMNshowcase.legos.HO.models.MCs.RTs.CHD = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort
"I should've drove all night" ... BonJovi ... 'Misunderstood'

look at a Citation, and look at a 78-81 Malibu. there are a lot of the same styling cues going on there. the front ends (grilles, headlight bezels, marker lights, bumper etc) and rear ends (tail lights, bumper) look a lot alike. the 2 door coupe Citation was also pretty boxy like a 78-81 Malibu. they also fit squarely into the "midsize" area in the lineup between the "fullsize" Celebrity and the "compact" Cavalier (which took the sales niche of the Nova and Vega/Monza).
the Celebrity was kind of a slightly larger Citation- which, as you pointed out, was replaced by the Lumina nameplate, which was then replaced by the Impala nameplate- which has always been a "fullsize" brand. that tells me that the Celebrity was more intended to be the "fullsize" fwd car in the "new for the 80's" Chevy lineup. they only kept the rwd B bodies around until '96 because they were really good sellers and some people didn't want to give up their old school rwd cars, but the intention was to replace it with the Celebrity in the early 80's.
this all makes the 80's kind of a weird time for the domestic auto makers, as they were selling the smaller, lighter, and more efficient cars of the "future" to combat the flood of imports from Japan and Europe along side the bigger, heavier, and relatively inefficient rwd cars of the "past". they essentially had 2 cars for every market niche- which probably contributed over the long term to their reputations amongst the consumers as being "stuck in the past", which led to their financial problems over the last few years.
but i guess all of this has nothing to do with futuristic styling cues from the late 60's being applied to cars that came out in the mid 70's, except to point out where it led to in the following years.