What outside appearences differ between the 71/72 chevelles. When i see a 71/72 i cant tell which year it is. Not that ir really matters. Just curious.

The front end is the only osmetic difference. The grill on a 72 flows to the headlights. Also, it does not have split turnsignal bezels.

1971 Front-end (http://www.chevelles.com/images/71outline.gif)
1972 Front-end (http://www.chevelles.com/images/72outline.gif)

The front turn signal lights are slightly different, The 71 has a 1/2 inch wide break in the lense where as the 72 doesn't

The front grill is different. The 71 has an oval shaped outline of chrome trim surrounding the grill with one chrome strip running across the middle horizontally. The 72 doesnt have the oval outline on the grill and it's grill blends into the head light trim.

Thats all I can think of right now after 4 beers at 1230 AM.

Clark

EDIT
Man I type slow. Somone beat me to it.

Some of the '71's have a ring around the tail lamp that is wider in circumference than on the '72's. However as I am informed this changed mid year into '71 so some '71's got the wide ring tail lamp and some '71's and all '72's got the smaller ring around the tail lamp.

As previously said, the front turn signal chrome bezel is the fastest way to tell the differents. The 71 lense bezel is split in half and the 72 is a full open bezel..Next quick one is the grills as mentioned