Chevrolet’s top models have long offered a lot for relatively little, even stepping on the toes of products from more premium GM brands. In the mid-1970s, the Caprice Classic shared many features with its Buick Centurion and Le Sabre Custom, Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale, and Pontiac Grand Ville Brougham B-body siblings, including a handsome open body style. That full size convertible would be the last of its kind for Chevrolet; nearly 50 years on, it has proven perennially desirable to enthusiasts from all walks of life.
Notable updates in safety and tailpipe emissions regulations affected U.S.-market cars for 1973, a year when Chevy shuffled its model range. Prior to that point, it had offered convertibles in the small Corvette, midsize Chevelle, and full size Impala lines, but the soft-top Chevelle was discontinued that year and the Impala lost its folding roof in favor of “the uppermost” Caprice, the newly badged Caprice Classic. This six-passenger convertible would be sold just three model years in numbers representing a small fraction of Chevrolet’s annual output.
While the 1973 Caprice Classic shared its basic, dating-to-1971 structure with the prior-year Impala soft-top, it
