Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:

Happy Monday! We’re back to announce the winner of our Question of the Week contest, where our winner will take home the prize to end all prizes: a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store!

Last week, we asked: which car best represents the 1977 model year?

Thanks to everyone who cast their ballot! The comment thread displayed varied perspectives on the year, so we felt it important to lean on the People’s Choice this week and leave the winner up to you, the BaT community. The 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was the most mentioned car, and BaT member @ctap3 was the first to nominate it:

"When I think 1977, I think in black and gold... it's gotta be a Pontiac Trans Am"

16 ctap3 commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

The ‘77 Trans Am rose to Hollywood fame thanks to the 1977 film The Smokey and the Bandit, and despite the bleak industry outlook in ‘77, Don Sherman (when writing about the Firebird Trans Am) said it best in the April 1977 issue of Car and Driver:

“Why Pontiac chose to keep the Trans-Am around in the face of the retreating competition is of little interest here, other than to note the irony that of all the machines of the species there is little debating the fact that the best of the lot was preserved. (Automotive Darwinism is alive and well)!”

Congratulations, ctap3! Be sure to check your email inbox to claim the prize. Now, let’s take a look at some other notable nominees from this week’s discussion thread.

"1977 Honda Accord 5-speed hatchback. Really enjoyable to drive and own. Reliable and cheap to maintain. A way better car than anything available domestically. Notice served."

6 PDog commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

Image: Car and Driver

The Honda Accord CVCC also received a lot of love from the BaT community this week.

An unrelated but cool anecdote: Back in 1973, Soichiro Honda air-freighted a 1973 Chevy Impala to Japan, fitted a custom set of CVCC heads to its 350 V8, and shipped it back Stateside to the EPA, where it passed emissions testing with great success, essentially disproving GM’s remark that Honda’s CVCC design might’ve “worked on some little toy motorcycle engine” but showed no potential for one of their GM car engines.

@TigerM writes:

"AMC Pacer Wagon. A Motor Trend COTY candidate no less........

;^)"

6 sludgo commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

Image: Four Wheeler via MotorTrend

Now, imagine a Pacer pickup for ’77?

"VW Rabbit diesel."

5 singlespeed commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

Diesel-powered cars began proliferating in showrooms by 1977, with the VW Rabbit Diesel being one of them.

"There are probably much more “1977” answers than this, but I just want to call out the one-year-only 1977 Pontiac Can Am. It’s a Trans Am in a white dinner jacket."

12 shervinator commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

"The Chevy Impala/Caprice. The first model year of GM’s downsized full size cars. “The New Chevrolet” ads were all over TV and print. My folks ordered a Caprice Classic with the LM1 350 4-barrel V8, F41 suspension, and performance axle (which was a 3.08 vs standard 2.41s…). That car was awesome to drive, and made every other mainstream car around look old."

6 keith_k commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

"The chevette. Ultimate total piece of crap at a time when just about all cars were total pieces of crap!"

8 MINI1964 commented on Question of the Week: Which Car Best Represents the 1977 Model Year?—WINNER’S UPDATE

That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Congratulations once again to our winner ctap3, and thanks to everyone who participated! We’ll be back with a new question soon.

ORIGINAL POST:

Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.

This week’s question is: which car best represents the 1977 model year?

In 1976 and 1977, Detroit’s big cars were still holding on, downsized vehicles were becoming increasingly popular, and new tech was being stuffed into a wide variety of automobiles. 1977 was a year of change in the wide world of wheels, and there’s a lot of variety to choose from.

The One-Year Garage game on the BaT Podcast certainly brings out some interesting cars, and if you’re anything like us, you like to play along. This week we’re giving you the chance, with hope that this can become a recurring series within QotW.

We don’t want to spoil the discussion with any examples, but here’s a useful BaT search filter to help you get started.

Which car best represents the 1977 model year?

Nominate your favorites in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any other nominations you deem worthy. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.