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Guilty Pleasure: 1977-79 Caprice "Fish Bowl" Coupe

 
1 822 views Jul 21, 2011

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1977-79 Box Caprice Coupe


GM made some strange-looking stuff during the mid-to-late Malaise Era, and the passage of a few decades hasn't really dulled much of the "what the hell were they thinking?" reaction that we still give such fine machines as the "Bustle Back" Seville. I was going to feature the Bustle Back for today's Guilty Pleasures installment, but we can't do another Cadillac so soon after the last one— that's the law! In any case, making a crazy-looking luxury car is one thing, but applying a crazy-looking hot-wire-shaped terrarium-style rear window to your bread-and-butter full-sized Chevy takes the madness to near-Aztekian levels.
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1977-79 Box Caprice Coupe


These things caused double-takes when they were new, and (outside of a few donk aficionados in West Oakland) don't seem to have much of a following. We don't need to talk about the miserable horsepower levels of the '77-79 big Chevrolets, and the build quality wasn't up to the standards set a decade earlier, but the Fish Bowl Caprice coupes have enough geeky coolness to be worth driving today.

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1977-79 Box Caprice Coupe

I don't care what they say— the Fish Bowl looks great.

Image source: Old Car Brochures





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Comment (1)

  1. fb_1431009018 avatar Jeff Stork Posted: 7/23/2011 12:11pm PDT

    One question, Bitter Betty- do you hate all American cars or just GM cars? The downsized GM B and C body cars was one of the most successful programs ever undertaken by an American Automaker. The stakes were HUGE, and the cars are remarkably good. Build quality is MUCH better than the 71-76 B and C, and the wraparound window imparted a touch of elegance to the big Chevy. True the collectors haven't embraced them yet, but that's largely because they're still in daily use all across the country.
     
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