Hitting the Highway with Topps Autos of 1977

Late in America’s Bicentennial year of 1976 Topps released a set of cards devoted to one of the most iconic symbols of American ingenuity…the new automobile. Topps Autos of 1977 presented 98 of the new car models scheduled for release the following year, and it’s a card set that, ultimately, proved to be underwhelming.

The obscurity of Topps Autos of 1977 is a bit of a head-scratcher. It seemed like a card product that should have been a major hit, but instead is periodically forgotten until every few years when somebody writes a magazine article or blog post on the subject. Interest then gets whipped up for a few weeks or months.

A Bumpy Ride

Topps Autos of 1977 is a pretty straightforward set. It includes 98 cards featuring cars with a 1977 release year, plus one checklist card. Twenty foil stickers of the car maker’s badges or mascots are also in the mix, with one found per pack. That’s it. There is one wax wrapper, blue with a generic car depicted, plus the point-of-sale box. Each pack contained five cards, one foil sticker and one stick of gum. The retail price was ten cents.

There are reports of short-print and extra-print cards, but those are hard to confirm because interest and trading in this set is so low. It’s possible that, instead of short-prints, there is simply a difference in demand, since some collectors only want specific cars or makers.

The foil stickers are often reported to be damaged with patterned strips across the surface. It can be deduced that producing this set may have been a budget decision for Topps.

At the time it was produced, the auto manufacturers did not charge any money to license their brands to toymakers like Mattel or Tyco because they felt that having their cars represented as Hot Wheels or Matchbox Models was free promotion. They would even provide blueprints and specs to the toymakers.

It’s pretty clear that Topps just used promotional photos provided by the car manufacturers for the images on the front of the cards, and employed their press releases for the text on the backs.

The only copyright on the cards is for Topps Chewing Gum Inc. With no license fees or royalties to be paid, Topps only had to give the images and text to their production department to apply the borders and lettering with no worries.

The composition of the set is pretty interesting. The base set is divided into two sections, domestic and foreign, and the cars are roughly arranged with the make of the cars in alphabetical order (with the exception of one Ford, misplaced in the middle of the Dodge section).

Car Bomb

For a set with potentially immense crossover appeal, demand is pretty low for Topps Autos of 1977. Individual cards can be found in collectible condition for under four dollars, while the foil stickers sometimes go for even less. Sealed wax packs can be found in the $20 to $30 range. Complete sets of the base set, and sometimes the foil stickers too, can be found for under a hundred dollars.

One possible reason for the lack of interest in Autos of 1977 is the general lack of enthusiasm for real-world autos of 1977 among gearheads. 1977 is considered the dark ages, the nadir of automotive design. Many of the cars depicted in full hype mode in this set are bowling-shoe-ugly examples of the least imaginative period of Detroit.

Among the cars included are automotive laughingstocks like the AMC Pacer, the Buick Riviera and the VW Rabbit. Even the “sporty” cars, like the Mustang, Plymouth Gran Fury and Chevy Nova looked boxy and slow that year. 1977 was just not a good year for cars.

The most appealing aspect of collecting this set is its low price and its “Hey, I didn’t know that existed” factor. That might be the most attractive thing about Topps Autos of 1977—the fact is that it’s a really good idea for a trading card set that was released at the worst possible point in automotive history.