question about the ye olde parking brakes (fuel, seats, trucks)
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any reason the Duster/Dart/Valiant/Demon/Dart Sport/Scamp compacts thru 1976 as well as the Maverick/Comets (can't remember the year they were finished was it 1977?) had the old fashioned twist release/pull up parking brake
as opposed to the modern foot brake with hand release level seen on the Granada/Monarch and Aspen/Volare? i always thought this to be odd. i could be wrong but I don't think the AMC and GM compacts had the hand brakes
even more odd, why on earth did the 1969 Plymouth Fury (and i think the Dodges too) have it's ignition key switch on the left side of the steering wheel? something like that would make me not want to buy the car(even as a fan of the big Fuselages I didn't care for the '69). what did they think they were doing bringing a "European twist" to the interior?
The hand brake was not a parking brake but a manual brake that actuated the rear brakes. They were called an emergency brake, not a parking brake. They would actually stop the car is fairly short order unlike a parking brake. The 75 Monza the wife drove had a brake handle at the console between the seats like the Euro cars of the day. The car was a major POS and the local Chevy dealer had the car more in 2 years of ownership than we did. We only had the car for 6 months. The rest of the time was waiting for yet another head. The last time the dealership brought the car out in front of a wrecker and said don't bring it back. That was my last GM car.
Chrysler made cars under their umbrella had the ignition switch and a lot of models had the electronic gear selector on the left side. They thought it made the right side of the steering wheel more spacious. The 64 Polara SS I drove back then had the electronic shift on the left side out of the way for other crap....like a reverb unit, CB,tape player, etc. The earlier models had the switch on the left side and the dash mounted starter button on the right. I guess you are not familiar with the overdrive handle pull either.
My guess as to why the Duster/Dart/Valiant/Demon/Dart Sport/Scamp compacts still had the old twist e brakes was because they were the low dollar cars of the day and they kept them simple...?
Heck look at the Nova, it had an external hood release all the way until it came to an end in December 1978......meanwhile I believe all other Chevys (except for trucks) had internal hood releases in them during the late 70's.
It could also be because they knew the car line was coming to an end and decided to not spend money in upgrades.....that's one of the reasons why the Olds 307 was the last carbed U.S. built engine, ending in 1990 while everything else had been fuel injected for the last 3-4 years. GM wasn't about to spend the coin to fuel inject an engine that was on death row since probably 1987.
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