Late-1970s to Early-80s GM Midsized and Compact Car Question

On GM's 1978 & later A-body midsized(of which I owned one),
the backseat windows did not roll down. I recently found out
that this was also the case with their X-body compact sedans.


Now I'm not asking about why they didn't roll down all the way.
No. In the aforementioned cars, they didn't roll down at ALL -
and no provision was present to roll them down - either a
crank or power button. I'm probably the first person ever to
ask this question on line.


What was GM thinking? Was it cost-cutting? Safety? Or
something else? Weirrrd.

wrote:
> On GM's 1978 & later A-body midsized(of which I owned one),
> the backseat windows did not roll down. I recently found out
> that this was also the case with their X-body compact sedans.
>
>
> Now I'm not asking about why they didn't roll down all the way.
> No. In the aforementioned cars, they didn't roll down at ALL -
> and no provision was present to roll them down - either a
> crank or power button. I'm probably the first person ever to
> ask this question on line.
>
>
> What was GM thinking? Was it cost-cutting? Safety? Or
> something else? Weirrrd.

In most of them it was due to the design of the rear 1/4 not having a
way to mount all the crap associated with the windows. Plus it did save
money as well.

--
Steve W.

On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 14:15:01 -0400, "Steve W." >
wrote:

wrote:
>> On GM's 1978 & later A-body midsized(of which I owned one),
>> the backseat windows did not roll down. I recently found out
>> that this was also the case with their X-body compact sedans.
>>
>>
>> Now I'm not asking about why they didn't roll down all the way.
>> No. In the aforementioned cars, they didn't roll down at ALL -
>> and no provision was present to roll them down - either a
>> crank or power button. I'm probably the first person ever to
>> ask this question on line.
>>
>>
>> What was GM thinking? Was it cost-cutting? Safety? Or
>> something else? Weirrrd.
>
>In most of them it was due to the design of the rear 1/4 not having a
>way to mount all the crap associated with the windows. Plus it did save
>money as well.

My recollection is that they did roll halfway down in the 4 doors.
They only rolled halfway down because the shape of the body shell and
door was such that there just wasn't room inside the door for the
entire window to be rolled down and fit inside the door. I'm sure
there were some two doors where the windows in the back did not roll
down at all. My 99 Mustang's rear windows do not roll down at all,
they are just fixed in place. Very possibly the driving force was as
you suggest, to save money and that they could have made it roll down
had they really wanted to. My 69 Firebird rear windows roll all the
way down.

Ashton Crusher wrote: "My recollection is that they did roll halfway down
in the 4 doors. "


Uhh, recall that I did mention owning A-bodies in my
orig. post. Two of them - 4 door '81 Buick Centurys.
Back windows rolled down in neither of those. Same
on 4 door X-body Skylarks, Citations, and Omegas.


At Curbside Classics some people posted they think
the reason was to preserve backseat hip room in the
smaller shorter wheelbase 1978 A-bodies. The door
armrests were scooped out of the back doors in those
sedans, leaving little to no room for window roll-down
mechanics inside the doors. Others think GM were
just being cheapskates, trying to recoup R&D costs
associated with the downsizing trend of the late '70s.


All plausible reasons, but no excuse to omit a common-
sense feature.

> wrote:

> On GM's 1978 & later A-body midsized(of which I owned one),
> the backseat windows did not roll down. I recently found out
> that this was also the case with their X-body compact sedans.
>
>
> Now I'm not asking about why they didn't roll down all the way.
> No. In the aforementioned cars, they didn't roll down at ALL -
> and no provision was present to roll them down - either a
> crank or power button. I'm probably the first person ever to
> ask this question on line.
>
>
> What was GM thinking? Was it cost-cutting? Safety? Or
> something else? Weirrrd.

Hey, we saved you $150 by putting in fixed windows.
Now, can we interest you in the optional $1000 A/C system? :-)

Some guy named "Relton" says:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...vrolet-malibu/

--
relton
January 28th, 2010 at 8:02 am

The fixed rear windows were the result of a mistake in body engineering. The door
sheet metal people didn’t allow enouigh room for a window regulator mechanism,
the launch date was near, so GM punted and used fixed glass. There was a crash
program to develop a window regulator that would work, but the public seemed to
accept the fixed glass, so it never came to fruition.

I was there for this debacle.
Bob
--

Sanity Clause wrote: "The fixed rear windows were the
result of a mistake in body engineering. The door
sheet metal people didn't allow enouigh room for a
window regulator mechanism, "


Right. It all boils down to preserving the
rear hip room present in the much larger
Colonnade A-bodies these new 1978s
were replacing. The shortish 108.5"
wheelbase meant the rear wheel wells
cut sharply into back seat width. So the
only way to add hip room was to recess the
rear armrests into the doors. Look at a
photo of the back seat of any 4-door
1978-87 A/G body. The armrest and handle
are INSIDE the door. This left no room
for the window glass, let alone any
lowering mechanism, electric or
manual.

So mystery solved.

End of thread.

On Thursday, August 27, 2015 at 2:03:41 PM UTC-5, wrote:
> So mystery solved.
>
> End of thread.

The rear windows on my 1978 and 1983 Dodge vans are hinged at the top, they flip open.

JR:

Full-size vans are big, floppy, flexing utilitarian boxes
that are drafty enough already. They don't even need
windows that fully open in any direction, LOL!

On Wed, 26 Aug 2015 04:17:41 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

>Ashton Crusher wrote: "My recollection is that they did roll halfway down
>in the 4 doors. "
>
>
>Uhh, recall that I did mention owning A-bodies in my
>orig. post. Two of them - 4 door '81 Buick Centurys.
>Back windows rolled down in neither of those. Same
>on 4 door X-body Skylarks, Citations, and Omegas.
>


Then your memory is wrong. Otherwise how do you explain why the
drivers door has window switches for FOUR windows.

http://oldcarbrochures.org/NA/Chevro...on-Brochure-15