M/T: Was luxury worth it in 1968?
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:26 am
https://www.motortrend.com/news/feature ... t-in-1968/
Top 1/4 mile ET was the Caprice with 16.2, on an 89 mph trap, also the best of the group. Worst was the Imperial with an 18.4 @ 77 which is a huge difference.
They also listed a mileage range and the Caprice looks like it must be a typo. It looks like a city/highway type mix, based on actual testing. 3 of the cars were below 10 on the city. Somehow the Caprice with the high output 427 had a claimed 20.2 city. Like I said, must be a typo (original print, though). The rest of them got between 12 and 15 on the highway. With the Caprice again listing a suspicious 25.4. That seems basically impossible in a car geared to turn 4000 rpm @ 102 mph in top gear (only middle of the pack in terms of ratio though).
The vehicles:A half-century ago our findings were starkly different: “How much luxury do you get for your dollar? Will the addition of luxury options make a Chevy, Ford or Plymouth a luxury car? Luxury is as luxury does. It can be a state of mind, but ultimately becomes much more than that out of physical necessity. It is not only a material judgment, but is psychological as well. In the final analysis, after testing and comparing these six cars, one overwhelming conclusion is evident. The cars themselves repeatedly and belligerently make you aware of it: there is no compromise with luxury; it has to be a total concept. You can’t dress-up a lesser car and get the comfort, feel, ride and ‘image’ of a luxury car. A line from an Aesop fable, The Fox and the Mask, states it simply: ‘Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.’”
We undertook a similar mission in May 1968 when we asked “Can the lowly family sedan attain the stature of the majestic marques?” in a feature titled “Luxury: The great American dream.” That time we chose three pairings, one each from Detroit’s Big Three, with a loaded entry brand taking on its flagship stablemate: Chevrolet Caprice versus Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Ford LTD versus Lincoln Continental, and Plymouth VIP versus Chrysler Imperial LeBaron.
In 1968 that price premium was far greater—comparing base prices, the fancy car price premium ranged from 67 to 108 percent. Optioning the mass-market models up closed the gaps to 48 percent for the GM pairing, 51 percent for the Ford/Lincoln duo, and a 77 percent from Plymouth to Imperial. It’s interesting to note that the base price of luxury in 1968 isn’t far off our price cap, when converting to 2018 dollars—$40,515 for the Caddy, $41,653 for the Lincoln, and $50,730 for the Imperial.
It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but in 1968, your mainstream full-size family sedan came standard with a manual transmission and manual steering! The automatic added between $216.20 (Plymouth) and $237.00 (Chevrolet), or $1,500-$1,700 today. Air conditioning was still optional even on the luxury cars (which at least tossed in the slushboxes for free), and A/C represented the biggest ticket item on all six cars. Prices ranged from $350.25 on the Plymouth to $515.74 on the Cadillac (an early automatic climate-control version). That’s $2,500-$3,700 today.
Indeed sound system upgrades were the second-priciest options on each of the lux-brand cars, but the one in the Chevy Caprice was singled out for its sound quality.
“Chevrolet tried valiantly with Caprice, but it doesn’t come close to the Coupe de Ville, even with vinyl roof and flashy wheel covers. With the VIP, Plymouth has produced a car of nondescript, movie-type elegance. It looks like a limousine, but what is it? It comes closest to its big car counterpart in ‘image,’ but, rather than elevating the VIP in stature, the close resemblance only impairs the prestige of the Imperial. Ford’s LTD is relatively close to the Continental—you know they are from the same maker—but Continental still has its own mystique.”
All used fairly large engines, ranging from the 383 in the Plymouth VIP (smallest and lowest power and torque of the bunch but the second quickest to 60 due probably to the steepest gearing of the group at 3.23). They all had pretty similar HP numbers to each other, though the torque varied more. Lowest output was 340 hp and highest was 385.“Big engines are used in all the cars we tested. And, big engines are a vital necessity to power all the accessory equipment running off the mill. Surprisingly, there was little difference in acceleration times, on all cars we tested, when running with and without air conditioners on. In other cars we have tested, especilly the big bombs, we noticed a considerable drain on power with air conditioning in operation. Peraps that fact is taken into consideration on the luxury models and compensated for.”
The Chevy was the hotrod of the bunch, its 385-hp 427-cubic-inch V-8 outmuscling all others, helped by a lowest-in-test curb weight of 3,840 pounds. That added up to an 8.0-second 0-60-mph time, followed by the Plymouth (8.5), Caddy (9.1), Ford (9.3), Lincoln (10.6), and Imperial (12.4).
Top 1/4 mile ET was the Caprice with 16.2, on an 89 mph trap, also the best of the group. Worst was the Imperial with an 18.4 @ 77 which is a huge difference.
The GM cars were the only ones fully body on frame. And the Caddy had the quickest steering at 16.6:1 (variable ratio). I will note that the 78 Brougham I drove in NJ had surprisingly fast variable ratio steering so maybe that was a thing. Slowest was the Ford LTD at 21.9:1 which seems completely ridiculous considering they all had power steering. And the boxes are different so it's not like they need to be the same ratio.“Imperial goes through moderate corners without much roll or sway, while the VIP, in reality a small car, handles atrociously. Cad and Caprice are both nimble and responsive, with the Caprice probably best among the smaller cars. An unusual phenomenon was the deceptive size of the Coupe de Ville, which psychologically aided handling. Outside it looked monstrously long; inside it seemed not much bigger than the Caprice. Continental handling was bad news too, with an unusual amount of correcting necessary to maintain a good road track. While not as responsive or agile as the Caprice, the LTD handles well, much better than the Lincoln.”
They also listed a mileage range and the Caprice looks like it must be a typo. It looks like a city/highway type mix, based on actual testing. 3 of the cars were below 10 on the city. Somehow the Caprice with the high output 427 had a claimed 20.2 city. Like I said, must be a typo (original print, though). The rest of them got between 12 and 15 on the highway. With the Caprice again listing a suspicious 25.4. That seems basically impossible in a car geared to turn 4000 rpm @ 102 mph in top gear (only middle of the pack in terms of ratio though).