quarter window questions

my first car as an adult was a 75 monte carlo white black cloth landu top 350 was shot so droped in a 305 had duals and glass packs. tore out tranny so traded back to uncle for 74 chevelle rebuilt the motor droped in a p/g swivels out of a elcamino swaped out bad fender and put 74 grille back in it had 75 when i bought, had monte turbines on it. that was back in the early 90s had lots of fun with that car went through 4 girl friends while rebuilding that car. (all said sell get newer, or one that ran) yet they were first to call me wanting rides when i was smoking tires around town. now many years later have my 77 monte and if it sells ill get another lost year more then likly a chevelle. if not stroking the motor and putting it on a diet(fiberglass) and go racing. i would say in couple years it would be back halved tubbed and cagged. then we will see how soon the are foregotten. just dont know what color yet thinking canary yellow with a black tribal on it but if anyone wants to make suggestions im open

heres a strange question my 74 chevelle malibu had the quarter windows like the ones on this 76 but most ive seen on here have the big ones. is this because mine had a vynal top?

no its based on the trim level selected when the car was ordered new

o if i come across one with the small how hard is it to put the large in ( is it just remove extra metal on outside and diff interior panel on in side. is glass already the big?)

That's actually a good question! I don't think it's ever been attempted to my knowledge. I would assume the glass is a different size, but I think it might be possible if you had the dimensions for the large quarter window & left enough metal to roll a lip all the way around. I would think it would be more hassle than it's worth though. Usually the smaller quarter windows came on higher trim level cars like Laguna & 442 models. Large quarter windows came on Base & Malibu models depending on year. To my knowledge all 73 Chevelles got large quarter windows though. Not sure about the Ponchos or Buicks though. I would assume they are the same way, but didn't Buicks get a totally different roofline or something?

My blue 74 malibu classic had the triangle window on inside and the outside was opera shaped (metal) , from what I found out by researching it was that they had not fully changed over the tooling all the way yet, so they used all the tri-shaped windows til they got the opera tooling done.

This means the opera windowed ones just had a piece of formed metal welded in place to "hide" the rest of the glass per say for lack of a better word.

just wondering my old 74 was chevelle malibu vynal top ac am/fm and i think 8-track. dont know what rims came from the factory had monte turbines when i got it. was real cool blue color white vyal black interior that was mint bench seat may even have had tilt had cruise.

Limey wrote:My blue 74 malibu classic had the triangle window on inside and the outside was opera shaped (metal) , from what I found out by researching it was that they had not fully changed over the tooling all the way yet, so they used all the tri-shaped windows til they got the opera tooling done.

This means the opera windowed ones just had a piece of formed metal welded in place to "hide" the rest of the glass per say for lack of a better word.

My first 74 was that way, as was a 74 I looked at last fall. My current one has small windows.

I heard that there was a 'kit' to convert cars to opera windows, but can't confirm.

Bill

First time I saw this was on a '74 Malibu. I was removing the interior sail panel trim and saw that it had a large, triangular window partially concealed behind a triangular padded trim piece. Curious, I pulled off the outside vinyl top and saw that a steel panel had been welded into place to convert the car to std. opera windows. I thought...wtf...someone must have done this at home! Then, I saw the same thing on a Lemans. Didn't look like it would be too difficult to fabricate your own steel panel and weld it in place if a person was inclined to do the conversion.

Saw the same thing on my cousin's 74 Classic.