More Dieting in Detroit

The squeeze of 79: downsizing spreads to the big cars

"In 1959 we designed what we thought would sell. Today the primary design objective is to suit the law."

So says Richard G. Macadam, design vice president for Chrysler, echoing a lament made by many U.S. automen. The 1979 models that are now popping up in showrooms are geared as much to beating a legal deadline as they are to cruising smoothly down an Interstate. Congress has said Detroit must increase the average fuel-efficiency of its cars in steps to 27.5 m.p.g. by 1985, and for the model-year that is just beginning the requirement inches up to 19 m.p.g., vs. 18 for the '78s.

For buyers, this will mean not only slightly better mileage but higher sticker prices. Citing, among other things, the cost of making their cars more fuel-efficient, the Big Three have raised their prices about 4% as the new model-year begins, and further hikes may be ahead. Inflation long ago drove the automakers to abandon single-shot increases for an entire model-year. Now the hikes come in bits and pieces. Ford's Mustang, for example, increased in price 14% from the start of the '78 model-year to now. The average price of a U.S.-made car, including taxes and licensing fees, has risen to $6,830, from $5,600 three years ago.

Downsizing, begun in the '76 model-year by GM with its Cadillac Seville and Chevrolet Chevette, has spread to most of Detroit's bigger '79 cars. Chrysler has introduced a New Yorker that looks much like the large cars of old; yet it is 800 lbs. lighter and 9 in. shorter than last year's version. GM shortened its Cadillac Eldorado by 20 in. and slashed 1,150 lbs. from its body, thus slaying, presumably for good, the last of GM's giants. The few remaining 1978 Eldorados are selling briskly to speculators who hope to make a resale killing.

That leaves Ford's bigger autos--the Lincoln Continental and Mark V--the only full-size cars not going on a diet for 1979. It will be the last year, though, for Ford's yachts; the company is pushing them as collector's items at collector's prices. The Mark V lists at $13,067 and is expected to sell well. That presents a problem for Ford. To meet the 19-m.p.g. average this year, the company must offset the thirst of its big models with increased production of little cars. But sales of its mainstay in that field, the Pinto, dropped after the disclosure in July that Pintos of '71 through '76 model-years have fuel tanks that have ruptured in rear-end crashes. So Ford redesigned the tank and is pushing Pinto sales hard. In July, the company began an incentive plan that pays dealers up to $325 for each '78 Pinto sold.

As exteriors shrink, automakers are turning more and more to front-wheel drive as a way to maintain interior space; it eliminates the transmission hump in the floorboards. Buick's Riviera has front-wheel drive for 1979. In the spring, GM will introduce a front-wheel drive Chevy Nova. Ford has lagged behind GM and Chrysler (with its Omni/Horizon) in getting into front-wheel drive; its only entry in the field now is the Fiesta, which it makes in Spain and sells in the U.S. But Ford intends to produce a front-wheel-drive car domestically by 1981.

More attention is being paid to aerodynamics--designing "slippery" vehicles with less wind resistance and better fuel economy. As Ford's design chief, William Bordinat, told TIME Detroit Correspondent Paul Witteman: "We never gave a damn about aerodynamics before. Now it has become important." For 1979, Ford has two aerodynamically designed offerings, the Mustang and the Capri, complete with contoured rear-view mirrors and sloping hoods. American Motors, whose mainstay nowadays is its Jeeps, has also struck a blow of sorts for slipperiness by replacing its boxy Gremlin with a sleeker-looking liftback called the Spirit.

In their grille-to-grille battle with imports, U.S. manufacturers have shown some progress. Two million foreign-made cars were sold through early September, a record, but their percentage of U.S. sales dipped to 17.9%, from 18.1% last year. Overall, sales are expected to reach 11.4 million cars in calendar '78, falling just short of the 1973 record of 11.44 million.

As Detroit rolls toward the 1985 fuel-economy deadline, there is no consensus on what cars of the early '80s will look like, but there are clues in the '79s. Like some of them, cars of the next decade will use more lightweight plastics and aluminum and will become even smaller. Chevrolet General Manager Robert D. Lund predicted last week that 7 of 10 Chevys sold in 1985 will be compacts or subcompacts. Engines will be smaller and more fuel-efficient, using fuel injection and turbocharging (which force feeds air into the engine and improves combustion) to maintain at least some of the peppiness of a gas-guzzling V8. Buick has a turbocharged V6 on its '79 Riviera, and other GM divisions plan to use it next year.

But none of the cars of the future will remotely resemble the machine parked last month in Westchester County, N.Y. Alongside the expected lineup of restored Ford Model T's and A's was a 1968 Cadillac DeVille convertible (12 to 13 m.p.g.) owned by Bradley T. Flynn of Pelham Manor. He entered it in a "special category" at the seventh annual Mount Kisco Lions Club antique-auto show.

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