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2025 Car Mileage with the Best Gas MileageRetro Review: Monte Carlo SS
Part NASCAR legend and part personal luxury car, the Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS offered a unique take on the two-door coupe.
Personal Luxury NASCARs
Today, for two door cars you have your muscle cars like the Mustang, your light and sporty handling cars like the Miata, grand touring cars like the Lexus LC 500, and your see-how-the-other-America-lives billionaire’s club supercars like the Koenigsegg Jesko. One once popular two door, however, is missing from today’s mix, the “personal luxury car.”
The personal luxury car segment was the province of the Ford Thunderbird and similar semi-luxury coupes. As the 21st century car market has bifurcated into luxury and non-luxury brands and vehicles, most “consumer” brands dropped their “upscale” models like the Thunderbird and the Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Curiously, both those cars, the Thunderbird and the Monte Carlo, became NASCAR legends despite neither being thought of as performance cars in their day, overshadowed by their muscle car counterparts, the Mustang and the Camaro. That is not to say the Monte Carlo did not get a “sporty” street version, however, it did, the Monte Carlo SS.
First Gen Monte Carlo SS
The Monte Carlo debuted in 1970 just as John DeLorean was taking over the helm at Chevy, fresh from his successes (GTO) at Pontiac. Chevy’s own personal luxury car was their answer to the popular Ford Thunderbird and the likes of the Buick Rivera and Oldsmobile Toronado. To best emulate these semi-luxury cars, Chevy designers “borrowed” heavily from GM’s new Cadillac Eldorado design for the new Monte Carlo.
This being the early 1970s, the Monte Carlo was offered with a range of V8 engines, a pair of “Turbo-Fire” V8s at 350 and 400 cubic inches and a pair of “Turbo-Jet” V8s, either 402 cu.-in. or 454 cu.-in. The latter of these came exclusively with the SS (Super Sport) trim package that not only featured the 360-horsepower V8 but also performance items like a heavy-duty suspension. As a personal luxury car, the Monte Carlo SS came not with a manual but a Hydra-Matic automatic transmission.
The SS package raised the price of the Monte Carlo by $420, perhaps the biggest reason just 3,823 were sold in that initial year. For 1971, the Monte Carlo SS was given a four-spoke steering wheel and “European symbol knobs” (which appear to just be … knobs). Clearly, the buyers of personal luxury cars were not the kind to cross shop with performance cars because the SS package on the Monte Carlo sold ever more poorly in 1971, moving just 1,919 units, prompting its discontinuation (the 454 V8 would still be optional through 1975, mid-way into the car’s second generation).
Fourth Gen Return of the SS
The Monte Carlo continued to crib from Cadillac’s designs for the next two generations, eschewing any trappings of performance. That is until 1983, well into the Monte Carlo’s fourth generation. For that year’s car, Chevy reintroduced the SS badge to lend sheen to the 305 cu.-in. V8 offering. Because 1983 was deep into the Malaise Era, a time when Detroit was refusing to give up on the V8 despite emissions and fuel-efficiency regulations that choked power, the 305 engine was rated to a whopping 175 horsepower. Not the most auspicious return for the Monte Carlo SS, at least not for the street-going version.
While the Monte Carlo street car had been focused on the personal luxury segment, the Monte Carlo NASCAR had been busy contending on the oval track. Starting with the 1984 season, Dale Earnhardt began racing for Chevy in a Monte Carlo. Those Monte Carlos, however, lacked the downforce necessary to be highly competitive, so Chevy engineers went to work on the body design to improve its aerodynamics. This solution was a new three-paneled rear window canted to 25 degrees that they called the Aerodeck.
The Aerodeck design helped Earnhardt and his Monte Carlo storm NASCAR competition for season wins in both 1986 and 1987 (and a string of dominant performances through 1995). Homologation requirements called for 200 production cars and so Chevy was obliged to build the Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupe, reproducing the Aerodeck rear window for the street, in 1986. Production on the Aerocoupe was expanded for 1987, with 6,052 of the 39,251 Monte Carlo Super Sports being Aerocoupes.
Even track success could not save the Monte Carlo from market imperatives and final production on the fourth-generation car concluded in 1987 for those final 1988 model year cars.
2000 Resurrection
The Monte Carlo name returned in 1994 for the 1995 model year of the Chevy Lumina with the Monte Carlo being that car’s two-door variant. The Monte Carlo eventually reclaimed its nameplate unto itself for a sixth generation, starting in 2000. Like its Lumina incarnation, the new sixth-generation Monte Carlo was based off GM’s W body architecture and was therefore front-wheel drive (making the Monte Carlo SS the first Chevy SS to be front-wheel drive). The new design of the car emphasized its NASCAR connections with a ducktail spoiler and smoothed over aerodynamic body panels.
The top of two trims was the Monte Carlo SS (the other being the LS). The SS was given a 3.8L V6, which was subsequently supercharged for the 2004 and 2005 model years. For 2006, Chevy gave the SS the engine it needed to live up to the NASCAR trappings with the addition of a an LS4 5.3L small-black V8 with 303 horsepower.
It was during the sixth generation that we saw NASCAR special editions of the Monte Carlo, starting with the Dale Earnhardt Special Edition in 2002. This did not improve performance and in fact came with the 3.8L V6, but the cosmetic package did come with two different unique paint schemes, either black with silver rocker panels or an all-black version. The package also came with “Intimidator” SS badges after Earhart’s notorious nickname and his signature on the gauge cluster.
More NASCAR themed special editions followed: both the 2003 Jeff Gordon Special Edition and 2004 Dale Earnhart Jr. Special Edition both came with the 3.8L V6, special badging and 5-spoke diamond cut wheels. For the Intimidator Edition (2004) and Tony Stewart Special Edition, the Monte Carlo finally got at least supercharger tacked onto its V6 along with special badging and other cosmetic changes.
The last of the Monte Carlo SSs were produced in 2007. The market for personal luxury cars had been falling for years and Chevy’s plans to bring back the Camaro meant there was neither demand nor space for a middling front-wheel drive two-door with a split personality. Though never quite the performance machine on the street that it was on the NASCAR circuit, the Monte Carlo SS held its own against the likes of the Thunderbird for decades before both of those cars and their breed, the personal luxury car, went extinct.
