Walking around some blocks of the student neighborhood near the University of Oregon on a gray winter’s day can be as depressing as recalling much of GM’s decline and fall products from the seventies on. It’s a sea of dull and cheap apartments already looking shabby and run-down rental houses, fronted by waves of drab colored hand-me-down Toyotas, Nissans, and the like. But every so often, a cheery sight appears, like this cherry-red 1979 Malibu coupe. It’s there to remind me that GM was still able to hit a few high notes while cranking out Vegas, Monzas and Citations; and that it hadn’t yet totally forgotten the magic formula that it first hit upon in 1955 and reprised with the ’64 Chevelle: a trim and tidy RWD coupe weighing about 3,000 pounds and powered by the SBC V8. Quite the mood elevator indeed. (Read More…)