50 Fun Facts About 70s Cars

Which black Pontiac did Burt Reynolds drive as the Bandit in the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit?

Trans Am sales almost doubled within two years of the film's release. Director Hal Needham picked the car after seeing an advertisement for the not-yet-launched 1977 model.

Which red Ford with a white stripe carried the detectives of 1970s TV's Starsky & Hutch?

Gran Torino coupes were picked from Ford's lease stock, then given the white stripe by the studio's transport chief. Star Paul Michael Glaser thought the result looked like a tomato.

Which Volkswagen overtook the Ford Model T in 1972 as the most-produced car in history?

Beetle number 15,007,034 broke the record on 17 February 1972. The original stayed in production until July 2003, when the last one was built in Puebla, Mexico.

Which British sports car turns into a submarine in the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me?

Lotus Esprit bodyshells showed each stage of the change, but only one was a real submarine, nicknamed Wet Nellie. Elon Musk later bought it.

Which Lamborghini with scissor doors was first shown as a prototype at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show?

Countach comes from an exclamation of astonishment in the Piedmontese language. The wedge-shaped supercar stayed in production from 1974 until 1990.

Which Ford subcompact was recalled in 1978 over fuel tanks that could catch fire in rear crashes?

Pinto owners were covered by a recall of 1.5 million cars, the largest in automotive history at the time. Ford acted days before regulators were due to order it.

Which chopped-tail AMC subcompact went on sale on April Fools' Day in 1970?

Gremlin designer Dick Teague said he sketched the idea on an air sickness bag during a flight. The production car was AMC's existing compact with a shorter wheelbase and the tail chopped off.

Which Hollywood star played a Porsche 917 driver in the 1971 racing film Le Mans?

Steve McQueen had hoped to enter the real race with Jackie Stewart, but their Porsche entry was turned down. His main 917 from the film was later sold and raced through the 1970s.

Which safety option on big 1974 Cadillacs and Buicks was dropped by 1977 for lack of buyer interest?

Front airbags, sold by GM as the Air Cushion Restraint System, first went into a fleet of 1973 Chevrolets bought by the government. Cars with the system had lap belts but no shoulder belts.

Which US president signed the first national 55 mph speed limit into law in January 1974?

Richard Nixon had first proposed 50 mph for cars as an emergency answer to the 1973 oil crisis, then approved the higher figure. The national limit was not repealed until 1995.

Which bubble-shaped AMC compact of 1975 later became the Mirthmobile in the film Wayne's World?

Pacer bodywork was 37 percent glass, which led Car and Driver to dub it a flying fishbowl. AMC pitched it as a small car as wide as a full-size one.

Under which name was the first Volkswagen Golf sold to drivers in the United States?

Rabbit assembly moved to America in 1978, when Volkswagen opened its Westmoreland plant in Pennsylvania. In Mexico the same car was called the Caribe.

Which exhaust device did most new American cars gain for 1975 to meet emissions rules?

Catalytic converter surfaces are contaminated by lead, so cars fitted with one can run only on unleaded fuel. The same clean-air rules pushed lead out of American gasoline.

Which small Honda arrived in 1972, just before the oil crisis sent buyers hunting for economy cars?

Civic buyers in California could only get the cleaner-burning CVCC engine, because of the state's stricter emissions standards. The first generation stayed in production until 1979.

Which Chevrolet subcompact was designed to be shipped nose-down, thirty to a special railcar?

Vega shipments used Vert-A-Pac railcars designed with Southern Pacific, which held 30 cars against 18 on an ordinary three-level carrier. Motor Trend named it 1971 Car of the Year.

Which Chevrolet marked its 25th anniversary in 1978 by pacing the Indianapolis 500?

Corvette buyers could order a black-and-silver replica of the pace car, and 6,502 were built. Every 1978 model also wore silver anniversary emblems.

Which late-1970s film features a supercharged black Ford Falcon called the Pursuit Special?

Mad Max hands Mel Gibson's patrolman the car as an incentive to stay on the force. It began as a white 1973 Falcon XB GT hardtop before a Melbourne customiser reworked it.

Which Cadillac's 1976 soft-top was marketed as the final convertible America would ever build?

Eldorado convertibles came back in 1984, eight years after the supposed farewell. The 1970 model had introduced Cadillac's enormous 8.2-litre V8.

Which Ford president, fired in 1978 after clashing with Henry Ford II, went on to rescue Chrysler?

Lee Iacocca was dismissed even though Ford posted a $2 billion profit that year. At Chrysler he won the federal loan guarantee that kept the company in business.

Which gadget became a mid-1970s craze as truckers used it to warn each other of speed traps?

CB radio also helped drivers find service stations with fuel during the shortages that followed the 1973 oil crisis. The novelty song Convoy took the craze to number one in January 1976.

Which 1971 film follows a driver named Kowalski racing a white Dodge Challenger to San Francisco?

Vanishing Point's stunt coordinator Carey Loftin asked for the Challenger because of its sturdy torsion bar suspension and its horsepower. The story starts in Denver late on a Friday night.

Which 1974 Dodge sedan with a police package serves as the Bluesmobile in The Blues Brothers?

Monaco squad cars were, in co-writer Dan Aykroyd's view, the hottest cars used by police during the 1970s. The film's example carries the big 440 Magnum engine.

Which winged 1970 Plymouth, built for NASCAR, had a horn that beeped like a Looney Tunes character?

Superbird engineers mounted the huge rear wing on tall struts so that it sat in less disturbed air. On the street, the nose cone and wing made hardly any difference to performance.

Which executive behind the Pontiac GTO left GM in 1973 and went on to build his own sports car?

John DeLorean had been the youngest division chief in General Motors history. His DMC sports car later found fame in the 1985 film Back to the Future.

Which singer bought the very first Stutz Blackhawk sold in 1970, beating Frank Sinatra to the car?

Elvis Presley paid $26,500 for it in October 1970, then had George Barris customise it. Sinatra had turned the car down rather than pose for the distributor's publicity photos.

Which actor was the long-running advertising spokesman for the Chrysler Cordoba?

Ricardo Montalbán took over from the car's first spokesman, Richard Basehart. His eloquent praise of the leather interior became a notable part of the commercials.

Which Kalamazoo company built the boxy sedans that served as New York's classic taxicabs?

Checker sold the same car to private buyers as the Marathon from 1960 to 1982 and, from 1964, fitted it with Chevrolet sixes and small-block V8s.

Which upmarket 4x4, launched in 1970, was built only as a two-door for its first eleven years?

Range Rover engineers gave it permanent four-wheel drive and disc brakes on every wheel, with a top speed of around 100 mph. A four-door did not arrive until 1981.

Which three-wheeled Reliant arrived in 1973 as the replacement for the Regal?

Robin fame spread far beyond Britain when Jeremy Clarkson tipped a specially side-weighted one over at least six times on Top Gear. He later admitted the car had been modified to make that easy.

Which celebrated Jaguar sports car bowed out in 1974, to be replaced by the XJ-S grand tourer?

E-Type production closed with a final roadster in June 1974. Its successor was a radical departure, a grand tourer that at first offered no convertible roof at all.

Which class of small, sporty car is the 1976 Volkswagen Golf GTI widely credited with defining?

Hot hatch became the label for a whole class of cars popular in the 1970s and early 1980s. The 1971 Autobianchi A112 Abarth had tried a similar recipe a few years earlier.

Which British luxury carmaker went into receivership in 1971 and was rescued by nationalisation?

Rolls-Royce was sunk by the cost of developing the RB211 jet engine for Lockheed's TriStar airliner. The engine itself went on to be a great success.

Which jeans brand lent its name to a denim-look interior trim package on 1970s AMC cars?

Levi's trim used spun nylon made to look like denim, because fire safety rules barred real cotton. Copper rivets and red logo tabs completed the look.

Which Japanese brand's 240Z sports car, sold at home as the Fairlady Z, reached America for 1970?

Datsun was the export badge of Nissan, whose American chief Yutaka Katayama, known as Mister K, introduced the car. It stayed in production until 1978.

Which unusual type of engine powered Mazda's RX-7 sports car when it went on sale in 1978?

Wankel rotary power kept the engine compact and light, so Mazda could mount it behind the front axle. The RX-7 lasted through three generations until 2002.

Which downsized Ford arrived as the 1973 oil embargo began and became Motor Trend's Car of the Year?

Mustang II buyers got a car almost 19 inches shorter and 490 lb lighter than the 1973 model. More than 1.1 million were sold across the 1974 to 1978 model years.

Which fuel did the trouble-plagued Oldsmobile 5.7-litre V8 introduced by GM in 1978 run on?

Diesel versions of the V8 drew myriad lawsuits from owners. GM redesigned the heads and bolts several times, but the engine's reputation never recovered and it was dropped after 1985.

Which AMC compact does James Bond steal for the corkscrew river jump in The Man with the Golden Gun?

Hornet stunt driver Bumps Willert landed the 360-degree spin on the first take and earned a $30,000 bonus on the spot. Cornell engineers had first tested the jump as a computer simulation.

Which carmaker's 99 Turbo of the late 1970s was among the first family cars with a turbocharger?

Saab had tried a Triumph V8 in the 99 before settling on a turbocharged engine instead. Popular Mechanics later ranked the car second among the greatest turbocharged cars.

Which French carmaker bought Maserati in 1968 and put its V6 into the futuristic SM grand tourer?

Citroën's flagship won Motor Trend's Car of the Year award for 1972, unheard of for a non-American car at the time. It married the Italian V6 to the firm's sophisticated suspension.

Which maker put rear-facing seats in the bed of its BRAT pickup to dodge an American truck tariff?

Subaru's trick let it pay the 2.5 percent car duty rather than the 25 percent Chicken Tax on light trucks. The plastic jump seats lasted until 1985.

In which country was the gull-winged Bricklin SV-1 sports car assembled with a government loan?

Canada's province of New Brunswick lent the money, and the cars were put together in Saint John. The name SV-1 stood for safety vehicle one.

Which Jeep's 1974 sales brochure is widely credited with introducing the term sport utility vehicle?

Cherokee buyers got a sporty two-door take on the Wagoneer, a design that dated back to 1963. The name stayed on Jeep's full-size model through 1983.

Which Italian, later named Car Designer of the Century, styled the first Volkswagen Golf?

Giorgetto Giugiaro's straight-lined work of the 1970s is known as his folded paper era. He also drew the Maserati Bora and the BMW M1.

Which Le Mans winner joined Brock Yates to win the first competitive Cannonball dash in 1971?

Dan Gurney and Yates raced from New York City to Redondo Beach, California, in an unofficial, unsanctioned event. Gurney insisted afterwards that they had never exceeded 175 mph.

Which British Leyland family car of 1973 came with a squared-off steering wheel called the quartic?

Austin Allegro buyers disliked the odd wheel so much that it was dropped in 1974. British Leyland waited until June 1975 to announce its demise, rather quietly.

Which Formula One team raced the six-wheeled P34, which finished first and second in Sweden in 1976?

Tyrrell's car ran four specially made 10-inch wheels at the front and two ordinary ones at the back. Jody Scheckter led home team-mate Patrick Depailler that day.

Which rocket car burning liquefied natural gas set a 622 mph land speed record in Utah in 1970?

Blue Flame driver Gary Gabelich held the record for thirteen years, until Thrust2 exceeded it in 1983. The car was built in Milwaukee by the makers of a rocket dragster.

The first Soviet Lada of 1970 was a toughened, licence-built version of which Italian family sedan?

Fiat 124 engineering had won the 1967 European Car of the Year award before it was adapted for rough Russian roads. The Soviet version was built almost unaltered until 1982.

Which car part had to pass a new 5 mph front barrier test on American models from 1973?

Bumpers faced a gentler 2.5 mph test at the rear that first year. The rule, Standard 215, took effect on 1 September 1972, just as production of 1973 models began.