The 1970 model year marked yet another important turning point for the Motor City’s automakers.

Here in 2021 the trendy term is “inflection point,” but the 1970 model year marked another critical turning point for the U.S. auto industry. A few of the important trends:

+   The Motor City’s muscle car epoch reached its climax with over-the-top performance models such as the Chevelle 454 LS6, Buick 455 Stage I, Mustang Boss 429, and Hemi ‘Cuda. The muscle car era was not quite over, but it had achieved its acme as compression ratios and horsepower ratings began to tumble the following year.

+   The full-size Ford Galaxie took the number-one spot in sales for 1970, but that was due in no small part to a crippling 67-day strike at General Motors by the United Auto Workers, which helped to knock Chevrolet out of the top slot. The work stoppage led to layoffs at steel plants and parts suppliers and reportedly cut production at GM by more than 250,000 vehicles.

+   The Detroit Four realigned their compact offerings, with Ford repackaging the aging Falcon as the smartly-styled Maverick, while American Motors updated the familiar Rambler American as the Hornet.

+   AMC scored a surprising coup with the Gremlin, a cleverly engineered Hornet variant that allowed the little company to enter the new subcompact category months before Ford or Chevrolet, and to compete against the Pinto and Vega with a minimal investment. (See our feature on the Gremlin here.)

+   Imports continued their steady march up the U.S. sales charts. Volkswagen remained the best-selling import but with Toyota and Datsun coming up fast. Both Japanese carmakers reached the one-million mark in production at around this time, and they were just warming up, as Detroit would soon learn. The Datsun 510 and Toyota Corona were hot properties on the dealer lots, and on October 22, 1969, Datsun rolled out the brilliant 1970 240Z. Datsun’s transcendent six-cylinder sports car proved that the Japanese car makers could do more than econoboxes.

The American automobile market was changing at a rapid clip, and with the 1973 recession and the OPEC oil embargo, the rate of change would accelerate. While the times were challenging, the industry managed to produce some memorable cars in 1970. While we couldn’t include every make and model, we’ve tried to present a representative sample in the photo gallery below. We hope we caught a few of your favorites. Click on any image to start a slide show.