Quote:
Originally Posted by markinnaples
Thanks everyone. Also, a question I've pondered as stated above is why they didn't push the 1969 model into 1970 after the sales figures were so strong in 1969 and the general popularity of that year. Another year of the 1969 body with minor changes could have been another great sales year (I wish they would have done that just to increase the number of that body style existing today).
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From what I read after and since, the '69 production was intended to end in July/August, as usual, but Fischer was having trouble getting the dies for the quarter panels to come out right. They kept trying to modify them into the time period where they couldn't start production on time and just kept the '69 body going. Fischer, eventually gave up on the faulty dies and started all over and that ran into the strike time, so the '70 model didn't come out until after that. This wasn't a planned mid-year introduction and to refer to the '70 as a 70.5 isn't accurate from that standpoint. Yes, it was only produced for half a year, but GM didn't intend that to happen. And yes, the 2nd gen body was a love it or hate it and there wasn't much neutral ground between them around where I grew up and lived.
As for poor sales numbers after that, remember the mandates for emissions taking effect in '71 and low hp numbers and then in '73, this country was in a serious fuel shortage as well as rising prices of both fuel and cars having an effect on new car sales.