The 1971 Chevrolet Caprice/Impala: Value-Priced, Cadillac-Style Luxury!

By the time 1971 rolled around, it was time for General Motors to redo its full-size vehicles, which had been in production since 1965. The cars that were introduced in 1965 had a number of refreshes over the years and in fact their sheet metal or at least portions of it changed pretty much every year from 1965 through the 1970 model year. This was definitely true for the Caprice and Impala duo which in 1970 had a rather handsome look but it was time as I said for something new. And in 1971 General Motors redid its entire full-size lineup. The vehicles at least had a look of being wider, longer, lower, that typical designer trend that is, or at least used to be so desired. Now it's more shorter, taller, narrower. In any case, the 71 Chevrolet Impala and Caprice were some of the best looking GM vehicles of the 1970s. Take a look here at the front end of the 1971 Caprice and you can see that it certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to some other luxury cars in the General Motors lineup, most notably Cadillac. That egg crate grille and hood, as well as that front header panel, have a very distinct Cadillac-like shape, and that was... Absolutely the intent. It wasn't that Cadillac imitated Chevrolet. It was that Chevrolet imitated Cadillac. This had been true for a number of years in the past, whether you looked at Chevrolets from, let's say, 1957 or 58, which were colloquially known as the baby Cadillacs of the era. Even in the 30s, the 39 Chevrolet also had a similar nickname. But it really became It became almost true in 1971 for a number of reasons. Yes, the Chevrolets were shorter vehicles overall than the Cadillacs. They rode atop a 121.5-inch wheelbase, which was 9.5 inches shorter than Cadillac's 131-inch wheelbase for the DeVilles or 133-inch wheelbase for the Fleetwoods. But the cars were just as wide at almost 80 inches wide. They could get no larger without having lights on them for being oversized vehicles. In addition to the new styling, there were a number of new features that were introduced on the 71 Impala and Caprice. This included a distinctive wraparound front windshield. Chevrolet had reverted back to this wraparound windshield versus the flat glass that was on the 1965 to 70 models. All vehicles also got GM's flow-through ventilation system, which allowed cabin air to exhaust out of the vehicle in the deck lid. And it would basically be taken in from the front of the car at the cowl, go through the passenger compartment, go through into the trunk, and then exhaust out the back there. It was a one-year-only setup that was flawed in a number of ways, most notably that some customers complained that... They were experiencing some asphyxiation because exhaust fumes were backdrafting into the car. This occurred despite the fact that General Motors tried to create positive pressure in the interior cabin by having the fan run at least on a low speed all the time. And that's one of the unique features about these vehicles is that even if you put the HVAC control off, the fan still runs. It's never really off. There is no offsetting unless you take out the fuse for the fan. The vehicles also had a new double roof panel on them for a stronger roof, but also to help with overall sound deadening and insulation. The inner panel had some perforations in it, and when coupled with the perforated headliner, it actually helped absorb interior cabin noise. And I have to say it worked beautifully. These 71 to 76 full-size General Motors vehicles, no matter which one you pick, they really are very, very quiet inside. GM would also work to smooth some of the surfaces. near the windshield although these cars did not have flush glass but to try to manage the airflow a bit over the side of the windows and they provided thicker door and window seals as well to try to keep all that outside din outside and i will say that it was absolutely effective on these vehicles they are very quiet to drive whether around town or on the freeway The 71 Caprice, in particular, had so many different luxury features, you could really equip it just the same as a Cadillac. You could get power windows, power locks, power seat, tilt wheel, 8-track tape player if you wanted, air conditioning. Anything that you really wanted, there weren't too many differentiators between the Caprice, so long as you optioned it up, and the Cadillac. In fact, you could get a 71 Caprice with a 454 cubic inch big block under hood, which actually made more horsepower than Cadillac's 472 cubic inch V8, which was under hood in the DeVilles. You were just really only missing that little bit of extra length that the DeVilles had. In fact, Motor Trend pitted a Cadillac Sedan DeVille against the Chevrolet Caprice in its May 1971 issue. And basically... Found that the Chevrolet was about two-thirds the price and had all of the Cadillac luxuries, and it was just a better value. And to be honest, I would tend to agree. I would even say Chevrolet was probably assembled a bit better than the Cadillac during this era because Cadillac sales were so high that it just really didn't have much care in its assembly process anymore because the line speed was running so quickly to try to keep up with demand. On the outside, the final production version of the Caprice was certainly a handsome vehicle, but there were a number of proposals that General Motors designers went through and rejected before they arrived at the final design. Take a look at this design here that's shown inside of GM Studios. This is a full-size clay model. You can see it's got those turbine plain Chevrolet wheel covers, but the grille here is an interesting treatment. It has that egg crate But it spills over into the headlight area. And the hood has a bit of that Cadillac-y form, or even Lincoln or Mercury, I would say. The 71 Mercury Marquis, in fact, I would say the front end looks very, very similar to the Chevrolet, although the side sections and the rear are certainly different on the Chevrolet than the Mercury. Along those lines, let's take a look at that bottom rocker area. I don't know what the clay sculptors were thinking here, as opposed to a simple drag section. There's a lot of different surfaces that are going on here, and it looks a little bit complicated in a very small area, especially given the relatively flat surfacing of the doors, although there is a very nice feature line that runs the length of the car. That provides a bit of a shoulder right underneath the window and partway up the door. Here's a different proposal for what looks to be an Impala Coupe outside. And you can see a number of things that really, if you squint, are quite interesting. First, let's take a look at that front end, and you have the twin-port grille that Chevrolet would resurrect in the 2000s with the Malibu. But here it is, and of course, it did appear on a number of Chevrolets during this era as well. However, take a look at those headlights and turn signals. Do those, let's say, conjure up any memories for anyone? If you said the 1972 Oldsmobile front end, then you'd be right. They're almost carbon copies, and my sense is that this front end was deemed inappropriate for the Impala. But the look was stolen and given to Oldsmobile, as was the case during the time frame. GM design leadership would travel between studios and see things they liked, and then direct designers to put a particular theme on a different vehicle if they thought that it fit that car more. And my guess is that this headlamp, as well as the turn signal theme, was just felt to be something other than a Chevrolet, and it made its way over to the Oldsmobile studio. For the 1972 model year, not the 1971 model year. If we take a look out back of this same proposal, you notice it's quite handsome. I'm surprised, first of all, that the Impala has that stainless trim lower. Perhaps that was going to be an optional package in this proposal. That would generally be something reserved for the Caprice. But I love the feature line that starts at the very front of the vehicle and gradually fades out partway through the door. Gives just a nice bit of sculpture to the overall vehicle. And, of course, you see the rear three-tail light treatment. That had been a Chevrolet upper-end hallmark for many years. Here's another proposal for a 71 Impala, but this time a four-door. And you can see the roof line, as well as the doors, are getting pretty close to final form. In fact, that whole side section is getting pretty close to the final form. But the front end is certainly very different with a gaping mouth grille and a hood that resembles really a 68 LTD hood, at least to my eye, or the back of a 67 Eldorado, kind of this surface that's been pushed up from underneath. And it looks like Chevrolet designers were employing a single headlight theme here as opposed to the quad headlight theme on the previous vehicle that you saw, perhaps to save cost or. In some cases, maybe to draw a little bit of a parallel to the Monte Carlo, which did have single headlights. Out back, you can see again, the side surfacing is pretty close to production on this vehicle, as is the rear window and the upper roof panel. But the rear with those very blocky three taillights is not what the designers ended up going with on the 71 Impala. And I think they were better for it. Let's take a look at another proposal, and this one, I don't know what to think about it. Put in the comments section what you think. I think this is over the top, and I'm glad this one got canned. Take a look at that front end, and at least to my eye, that resembles a 1970 Lincoln Continental front end, almost a carbon copy, at least the midsection. of the front end in particular the grille as well as the hood looks like the headlamps they're still trying to figure out what to do with here and there are a couple different proposals the driver's side is different than the passenger side take a look at the top of the fender on either side you can see that it's meant to be kind of half of the car one way half of the car is another way but this one is definitely not my favorite i will say that side sculpture is interesting Let's take a look at this model from the back, and it's similarly interesting. I guess the designers wheeled this one out onto the design patio to take a look at it in the sunlight, and I guess they determined that it looked no better outside than it did inside, unfortunately. This is a bit overwrought, kind of like if you've seen some of the proposals for the Mark IV once Lee Iacocca arrived. Thankfully, they were canned before going through to production. And we'll take one last look at some photographs of here an early concept model. This looks like a scale model in GM design that was an experiment on what the 71 Impala or Caprice might look like. This is far more radical than the other designs that you saw. Take a look at the dash to axle and the length of the hood, especially given that bird's beak front end that this has. Oh my goodness. But it does have some, I think, very attractive forms on it. Again, it has that feature line that fades out partway through the front door. But take a look at the rear here in this photo. I think this rear three-quarter is actually a great look. Now, some of that diving line, that diving sideline there, would get incorporated into other vehicles. It reminds me a bit, candidly, of the 1980 to 85 Seville and that line on the side of it. Of course, the Seville was generally accentuated with a molding, at least after the 1980 model year. And here, it's just plain. But I do actually really like it. It's pretty radical. The taillights, I think, are super cool, kind of like fish gills. And they've created that Chevrolet 3 taillight theme by dividing the single tail lamp into three. I think it's pretty handsome. But I will say the final car that they selected for production for both the 71 Caprice as well as Impala was quite the looker as well. And who could forget one of the coolest features of the 71 Caprice and Impala and that occurred on the coupes. That was this concave rear window that was started a few years prior and would continue a few years afterward. Certainly gave the rear end of these coupes a dramatic look and something different from the other General Motors full-size coupes of the era. Chevrolet was the only one that had this concave rear window which is interesting because Because it probably costs a lot more than the standard backlight. And it was on the lowest-priced vehicles, i.e. the Chevrolets. Now, underhood in the 71 Impala and Caprice were some great engines. Aside from the fact that 1971 was the first year where these engines were low-compression and designed to run on unleaded fuel, and that robbed some of the horsepower. Standard in the Impala was a 350-cubic-inch, 165-horsepower V8 topped with a two-barrel carburetor. Optional, you could get... A 350 with a four-barrel carburetor, 175 horsepower. Doesn't sound like a lot, but I'll tell you from driving these full-size vehicles as well as Monte Carlos with just a standard 350 two-barrel, it's a great engine. It is super smooth, and it's got tons of torque. It moves these cars out just fine. Honestly, it's a pretty, pretty good engine. If you had the Caprice, though, you got a standard 400 cubic inch Turbo Fire. Remember that name? Turbo Fire V8 that made 170 net horsepower and breathed through a two-barrel carburetor. Again, a pretty peppy engine. This was a bored-out small-block V8 from Chevrolet, the largest small-block at 400 cubic inches with Siamese cylinder walls. And confusingly, Chevrolet marketed another, well, they called it 400, but it was really a 402 cubic inch big block V8, totally different engine, 100% different than the turbo fire V8 was the 400 turbo jet V8. Ooh, turbo jet. It made 260 net horsepower. And then the top dog in the Caprice and Impala that you could get was a 285 horsepower turbo jet 454 big block. Now, again, the horsepower ratings were down for 1971, but these are some very respectable ratings for the time, especially compared to other GM divisions. And they endowed these Chevrolets with some pretty, pretty good scoot, whether they were the two-barrel or four-barrel equipped. And again, the engines that Chevrolet was producing during this time frame had absolute smoothness they were just a gem to drive as well as the turbo hydromatic 350 and 400 transmissions of course in 1971 in chevrolets in some Chevrolets at least you could get the Powerglide transmission and there was a whole nother Powerglide in some years that you could get we had to shift it yourself but we're going to save that for a totally different day In any event, the powertrains under hood were great. The interiors on these 71 Chevrolets is probably the biggest letdown of anywhere. This big instrument panel, it looked okay. They do tend to crack. I will say that you see them cracked very, very frequently. And I think the overall panel, it's a little bit plain and the interior fabrics, maybe in the Caprice look okay, but the door panels aren't all that luxurious. Pretty short armrests overall on some of the 71 Chevrolets and, you know, lots of hard plastic. So while the exteriors look quite good, the interiors were admittedly a bit of a letdown. But under hood, as well as the driving experience in these vehicles was great and if you can find one of these i would recommend picking it up whether it's a 71 or a 72 even a 73 i think also they look good despite the fact that they had the big front bumper but very reliable vehicles great to drive and just a whole ton of fun i almost bought a 72 Caprice at one point that kind of poo-pooed because i really wanted a big block one and it had the 400 which was standard and it was also a coupe Which I love because the coupes had that concave rear window that Chevrolet borrowed from the 1968 and 69 Chevrolets. And I think that that's just a cool look to it on the coupes. But I passed, and I guess, oh well. In any case, hope you enjoyed this spotlight on the 71 Caprice and Impala. 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