Not A Ford Or An Oldsmobile: This Was The Best-Selling Car Of 1977

Scrolling back the years and seeing what was popular is always an eye-opening experience. 1977 might not be that long ago for some of us, but revisiting the trends and best-sellers of the year shows just how far we've come in the decades since, for better or for worse.

At the time, Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" was skyrocketing to the top of the music charts, the first "Star Wars" film was heating up the silver screen, and American drivers were still buying American cars. We still do today, of course — just look at the popularity of GM and Ford trucks — but in '77 it was actual coupes and sedans we were buying, not trucks and SUVs.

Specifically, the best-selling car in 1977 was the Chevrolet Impala/Caprice — the Caprice being the more luxurious model, offering a more plush interior and some external tweaks — but ultimately the two shared a platform and so it's easy to lump both models together in this regard. Jumping straight into the numbers, Chevrolet managed to shift more than 650,000 units in 1977 across all Caprice and Impala trim levels, which was a substantial increase over the units sold the previous model year.

Much was changed for the 1977 model, namely the fact that Chevy shrunk it considerably, and that clearly struck buyers as a positive thing. Not only was it smaller — shorter by around a foot — but it also weighed around 700 pounds less than the preceding model year, which would have helped handling characteristics to no end. The most popular iteration was the Caprice Classic Sedan with 212,840 sold, although trailing just behind with 196,824 sold was the Impala Sedan. The former sported an MSRP of $5,237 with an inline-six or $5,357 with a V8 engine in contrast to the Impala Sedan's $5,021 MSRP.

But what if, depending on your perspective, the best-selling car in 1977 actually was an Oldsmobile after all? Prior to the iconic Chevy Impala storming to the top of the charts, the Oldsmobile Cutlass was doing a pretty good job, taking the top-spot in both 1975 and 1976. Now, if you decide to split the Impala and Caprice into two separate models, then the Cutlass would actually have been the top seller again, just as it was the following year in '78 when 520,279 units sold was enough for the Cutlass to once again claim victory.

Still, that would be winning on a technicality, and so we feel the Impala/Caprice does indeed deserve its moment in the sun, disrupting the otherwise dominant late 1970s streak of the Cutlass. Yet despite these two models clearly demonstrating huge popularity in the late 1970s, once you fast-forward a few decades, these once iconic American sedans met their makers.

The Caprice nameplate was the first to go, being retired in 1996 in North America. The Cutlass was next, finding 1999 to be its final model year. This ended a 38 year production run, and it if you're wondering whatever happened to Oldsmobile after that, it was discontinued as an automaker altogether not long after in 2004. 

The Impala fared a little better, surviving until the 2020 model year and becoming one of the most successful models in the history of Chevrolet, although by this end it was nowhere near as compelling as it used to be; while the last 10th-generation Impala received generally favorable reviews, sales figures weren't enough to perpetuate the nameplate any further. SUVs and pickup trucks had become America's new favorite by that point, and so the storied sedan had to make way for the new models on the block.