The 1967 model year was a challenging one for the auto industry but a memorable one for car buyers, who were blessed with a multitude of choices.
We often think of the late 1960s as glory years for the American automobile industry, but there were struggles, too. Production and sales actually declined in 1967 as inflation and the costs of the Vietnam conflict took their toll. From a high mark of more than 9 million vehicles produced in calendar year 1965, the business shrank to around 8.3 million in ’67. Ford was especially hard hit as a 49-day strike by the United Auto Workers cost the company more than $70 million, a vast sum in those days, but workers at the Big Three managed to nail down wage boosts of nearly a dollar an hour.
The independent auto makers had essentially vanished by 1967, as the last of the small players, Studebaker, had folded for good the year before, and Kaiser Motors clung for dear life to the then-tiny niche market for utility vehicles. Yet for car buyers there seemed to be more choices than ever, as nearly every brand offered platforms in at least three size categories: fullsize, intermediate, and compact. And the personal luxury class was populated with distinctive products: Buick Riviera, Ford Thunderbird, and the front-drive Oldsmobile Toronado.
Of course, two hot categories that are celebrated by enthusiasts today were the pony car and muscle car segments. For ’67, General Motors rushed in to face the Mustang in the pony class with the Chevrolet Camaro and, at mid-year, the Pontiac Firebird, while Chrysler overhauled its Barracuda to claim a piece of the action. The muscle car scene was in full flower as well, as Chrysler joined the fray in ’67 with its big-engine intermediate image cars, the Dodge Coronet R/T and the Plymouth Belvedere GTX.
At the same time, forces were gathering on the horizon that the Motor City was painfully slow to recognize. While the global auto industry was growing, the USA’s share of it was shrinking, as other countries, chiefly Japan, were rapidly raising their games. Import sales in the USA topped 750,000 units in 67, as Toyota and Nissan’s Datsun brand had established a powerful toehold on the West Coast. Between 1958 and 1967, Datsun sold 100,000 cars in the USA. The following year, sales topped 50,000—the success was explosive. The Reckoning, as historian David Halberstam astutely labeled it, was coming soon.
In the gallery below, you’ll find a representative sample of the U.S. new car market for 1967.
This year was pretty significant because it not only introduced the version of the Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart that lasted for nine years, but it also introduced what I consider THE most interesting version of the Ford Thunderbird. We should have had pics of that car!!!
1967 was a high water mark for he auto industry because it the final year for car design driven solely by customer demand. All cars made beginning 1/1/1968, the US government began requiring safety and emissions equipment that would, over the next few years, have terrible effects on styling, reliability, power and fuel economy. We finally got to a point of recovery on all of these, but those in between years were terrible for car buffs.