From some angles the 1973 Pontiac Grand Prix looked like a step down from the successful ’69-’72 edition, yet sales shot up 67 percent.
Sometimes, compromises work out for the best. For 1973, the Pontiac Grand Prix lost the classic long hood/short deck packaging it shared with the Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Now both products were consolidated on the same A-body platform used by all the other General Motors intermediate coupes, losing their apparent air of distinction. One more compromise: The ’73 Grand Prix was originally planned for a 1972 introduction, but a messy 67-day labor strike in late 1970 pushed the automaker’s product schedule back a full year. But things all worked out in the end, as sales shot up from 92,000 vehicles in ’72 to 154,000 in ’73, scoring the Grand Prix’s best sales year to date.
With the consolidation on the GM A-body package, the Grand Prix lost 2 inches of wheelbase to 116 inches, but overall length grew three inches to 216.6 inches. Actually, the extra length was due in large part to the federal government’s famed FMVSS 215 bumper standards for 1973, which required the bumpers to withstand a 5 mph barrier impact test at the front and a 2.5 mph whack at the rear.
Still, Pontiac’s styling staff, led by GM design boss Bill Mitchell and Pontiac studio chief Bill Porter, managed to include all the familiar Grand Prix styling elements, integrating them with the Colonnade roof and greenhouse package common to all the GM intermediate coupes. The design went through a number of iterations in clay and fiberglass that began back in 1969 before the studio arrived at the final result.
For 1973, the Duesenberg-inspired J designation was dropped and now the base model was simply named the Hardtop Coupe. However, the top-line SJ model continued with its standard 455 CID V8 with 250 hp, extra badging and trim, and a sporty Radial Tuned Suspension package. The base Grand Prix got along with a 400 cubic-inch, 230 hp V8 and more conservative chassis tuning. However, both Grand Prix models were blessed with real (not fake) African Crossfire Mahogany veneer trim for the instrument panel and console.
Most Grand Prix buyers by far opted for the base Hardtop Coupe, as the SJ accounted for only 13 percent of the volume. But more than 95 percent chose air conditioning, 75 percent took power windows and door locks, and the take rate for the Turbo-Hydramatic automatic transmission was +/- 100 percent. We can see how the personal luxury coupe segment was a profitable one for the automakers, as buyers typically loaded up their cars with extra-cost options.
The mighty leap in Grand Prix sales for ’73 might not be so easy to explain. Did buyers actually prefer the Colonnade styling over the previous long-hood look? Seems that way, although intermediate coupe sales were on the rise throughout the Motor City. Whatever it was, it worked. Despite all the changes, one element of the popular ’69-’72 Grand Prix that was carefully preserved, even improved, for ’73 was the intimate, cockpit-themed interior (below). Really, that was the essence of the personal luxury coupe—creating a private haven for the driver.
Like the Monte Carlo, the Grand Prix got uglier, softer and more successful. Which says a lot about the average (as opposed to ‘motorhead’) American car buyer. Quite frankly it didn’t matter what the Grand Prix looked like, as long as it was a personal luxury coupe and had the expected Grand Prix styling cues.
Because that’s where the market was at back in the 1970’s. Personal luxury coupes were everything for about three quarters of a decade, and it didn’t matter how gorgeous, plain, or ugly they looked. They sold. And it’s best exemplified by two of the extremes on the market. In the plain vanilla, not-even-a-special-model category was the Oldsmobile Cutlass which became the most successful example of them all. And, conversely, the “poster child for ignoring the fad during the design stage” was the AMC Matador.
Like the Monte Carlo, if I’m going to one, I’ll stick with the first generation. My father had a ’73 Monte Carlo – what a waste of sheet metal.
The long hood short deck was not lost, just look at the extended fan shroud on this gen Monte Carlo. And not quite A body, but A body – modified , these big coupe’s rode on 4 door A body frames.
“You don’t tamper with a classic. You refine it, maybe. Hone it.” That quote from the 1971 Pontiac catalog was what Pontiac did by the introduction of the 1973 Grand Prix. It was fighting an uphill battle against the 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which was the Grand Prix with a bowtie on the grille rather than an arrowhead.
The Grand Prix and the Monte Carlo opened the door for the Colonnade-generation A-bodies, and they sold well across all four divisions…however, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, as it were, was the “supreme” example of how that basic design resonated with the average car customer of the 1970s…
The big advantage to the Monte Carlo was that if you ordered the automatic transmission (yes, it was optional) you also got the mandatory L41 suspension option. Yes, dad’s car was an oversized boat, but it sure handled the twisties. Car and Driver made a big deal out of this. Considering I had talked dad into getting the L41 on his previous 1970 Camaro RS (which surprised the hell our of him), he definitely appreciated it.
American bumper safety standards became dead law during the Reagon Administration under Secretary of Transportation Liz Dole in charge of the USDOT. She was a Harvard trained lawyer and an elite bureaucrat as her only qualifications for the job, and her biggest legacy is the third brake light…
I was thinking VMSS 215 and the whole 5 mph issue, EA units and all that, might be worth a feature sometime. What do you think?
Absolutely
As you know it is quite the rabbit hole with insurance lobbyists, President Nixon and his Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe proposing the initial federal regulations around 1970 that hatched FMVSS 215…
And then there’s 216, the rollover standard. These two regs had an enormous effect on vehicle styling.
Try to find historical transcripts or audio from the 1971 Nixon White House tapes when Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca tried to get Secretary Volpe fired or overruled regarding new bumper safety standards…
I think 5 mph bumpers were a good idea but badly executed. Chrysler did OK but GM and Ford just stuck railroad ties on the front. I think we have the tools and materials to do it properly today and maybe it would cut down the trend of massive fish-mouth grilles
It’s easy to say that they should have allowed more time to implement so they could come onboard when a new car was designed around them. But seeing the overall designs of the ’70s, it probably wouldn’t have helped.
The Feds pay too much attention to what the insurance companies ask for. They lobby for something that will lower their liability, then charge consumers more because those parts cost more to replace.
I had a 74 GP for a few years, and loved that car. I drove across Canada in it, and it loved to stretch its legs across the prairies. It is truly one of the few cars I ever regretted selling.
My dad had a ’72 Gran Prix model J for a couple years in the 70s when I was a kid, I had a ’74 or ’75 in the 80s, my dad’s ’72 was a much nice car; better looking, nicer trim, it seemed better put together although dad had a bunch of problems with his and mine was a tank that never let me down.
For a minute, the SD455 was on the option list for the GP. The 4-speed transmission was still available, but as noted, rare as hen’s teeth. The GP sold very well in that pre-Embargo market, it found a much more secure niche than LeMans at least compared to Olds Cutlass and Buick Regal.
Per the ’73 brochure at oldcarbrochures.org, the automatic was standard equipment and no mention is made of a 4-speed, so I suppose you’d have to have been clued-in to even order it.
For a moment I was wondering if 3 on the tree was theoretically standard, with the only one built for stock made on the first day of ’73 production and sent to the Lansing dealership for the personal inspection of the Michigan Secretary of State, the elected big kahuna himself, to satisfy him that yes, such a combo exists and please communicate that to the relevant officials in other states that taxed cars based on MSRP not counting options. Maybe that happened with other models, like a Country Squire which was technically standard equipped with a 3 speed manual at that point.