There’s a species of car that once flourished but which is now entirely extinct – the personal luxury coupe. These were big American-brand two-door, four-seaters; always rear-wheel drive and they usually came standard with or at least were available with a V8. There were high-performance sub-species of the species, too. They appealed to people – mostly men – who liked performance coupes such as Camaros and Mustangs but found them too small. The personal luxury coupe had a big trunk and usable rear seats, two things no Camaro, Firebird or Mustang have ever had.
One of the last of the sub-species of the high-performance personal luxury coupe was the 1983-1988 Chevy Monte Carlo SS. It was based on the popular Monte Carlo, which was closely related to the Pontiac Grand Prix and the Buick Regal and the Olds Cutlass. The latter was one of the best-selling vehicles on the market by the mid-are 1970s, to give you some idea of just how popular these cars once were. Not just the GM iterations, either. Ford’s Thunderbird was very popular and – of course – there was the Chrysler Cordoba.
But it was General Motors that created the high-performance sub-species of the personal luxury coupe – or at least, resurrected the idea in the early 1980s. There were many high-powered mid-sized coupes back in the ’60s and early ’70s. These were muscle cars. But they’d gone extinct by about 1975, which was the first year for catalytic converters and unleaded gas (which the cat-equipped cars required). The big coupes continued to be produced – just sans the muscle. They emphasized style and luxury. Ricardo Montalban’s commercials set the tone.
GM brought back the muscle, beginning with the ’83 Monte Carlo SS. It looked like a Winston Cup stock car (this was back when cigarettes were not demonized) which was on purpose and also served a purpose in that the stock car benefitted from the sleek “aero” fascia that helped to define the street car and also helped to sell the Monte SS as a street car, because it looked very much like a Winston Cup stock car.
It wasn’t just looks, either.
The Monte SS came standard with the same high output (L69) version of the 305 cubic inch small block V8 that was optionally available in both the Chevy Camaro Z28 and the Pontiac Trans-Am. This engine featured the Corvette L-82 350’s hotter camshaft as well as a performance calibrated Rochester Quadrajet, an aluminum intake manifold, better cylinder heads and a higher (9.5:1) compression ratio – but not the Z28 Camaro’s less-restrictive dual snorkel air intake. You did get a proper dual exhaust system, though, with a ’60s muscle car-looking pair of mufflers hanging like a bull just forward of the rear axle. Initially, you got a three speed automatic but in the second year of production (1984) this was changed over to GM’s 2004R four speed overdrive automatic.
As it happened, I was working a summer job that year at a Chevrolet dealership, doing pre-delivery prep. This entailed removing the plastic covers new cars were shipped with to protect the seats and clean the cars up before they were handed over to customers. It was a great job for a high school kid who wanted to get furtive seat time in new performance cars.
I very fondly remember my not-exactly-authorized test drives.
Specifically, I remember being surprised to hear (and feel) the Monte’s rear tires breaking traction on the upshift from first to second. My high school buddy’s ’71 GTX 440 with the 727 Torqueflite and slapstick shifter could do that – but it was an old muscle car. New cars weren’t supposed to be capable of doing that, at least not as they came. I got my old Camaro to chirp the tires on the 1-2 by installing a shift kit in the transmission. This brand-new Monte SS chirped the tires stock. I was impressed. The L69 305 also sounded wonderful when you flipped the air cleaner lid, so that you could hear the famous Quadrajet moan. It is a mournful, eerie sound – like that of a Banshee in Scottish lore. It is a sound nothing new can make because nothing new (or recent) has a Quadrajet – and we’re the poorer for it.
The Monte also could be optioned with the mag wheels that had been initially offered as optional wheels for the ’80-81 Z28 and (of course) it had a full gauge package, including tachometer. This was still pretty rare in those days; most cars had a speedometer, a fuel gauge and an array of Idiot Lights. Even better, it had no air bag in the steering wheel or anywhere else and you could get it with a bench front seat.
But it was arguably the roomy rear seats and the big-car trunk that sold this car as the practical alternative to a new Z28 or Trans-Am.
It did so well that there were soon similarly packaged iterations of the Pontiac Grand Prix and Olds Cutlass as well as – most famously – the Buick Regal Grand National (and its ultimate iteration, the GNX). The latter eclipsed all the others in terms of horsepower and performance – and did so with a turbo V6 rather than a carbureted V8. But that latter is arguably what made the ’83-88 Monte SS (and its Olds and Pontiac siblings, which had their own, division-specific V8s) special as it was truly the last of its kind, a final iteration of the kind of car that once defined American car.
Every now and then, I remember those test drives and smile.
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In addition to turning over the air cleaner lid, pull all that smog crap off and gut the catalytic converter. Since those cars are of antique status now, there won’t be much fuss about it. Imagine what that 305 H.O. can do when it can breathe.