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

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.

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:

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.

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!

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

PS - I wonder if you are mixing up the X-bodys and A-bodies. The Abodies didn't have roll down windows but had a rotating vent window at the back of the fixed rear side glass.

Article about it here

As I recall, and as the photo link I listed in the previous message show, the x-bodies had 4 electric windows and my recollection of my 80 x-body is that the rear window rolled down halfway. I think even the new smaller full sized Chevy Impala rear window for 78 (or 76 or 77) only rolled down halfway.

Ok, so maybe the guys over at Curbside had it wrong regarding the X-bodies. But they were dead on with the A-bodies, through

1981 at least. For '82-87, that platform became the G. I don't know if they changed the backseat windows at that point.