Junkyard Find: 1992 Chevrolet Beretta GT
The Chevrolet Division hit one of its all-too-common low points in the early 1990s; the early-80s-design Camaro and Corvette looked more dated by the minute, the Cavalier was a laughingstock, the Lumina might as well have had gigantic “RENTAL CAR” badging on the decklid, and minivan shoppers ignored the confusingly-named Lumina APV in their mad rush to the nearest Chrysler dealership.
And then there was the Beretta GT. While not as quick as the Quad 4-equipped Beretta GTZ, the GT came with a 135-horsepower, 3.1 liter pushrod V6 that moved its 2,700 pounds pretty briskly.
Berettas mostly ended up being treated as throwaway cars, but this one soldiered on for a very impressive 260,000 miles.
The turquoise-and-pink “Flashdance”-style GT decals would have looked dated in 1986. In 1992, they may have passed as retro-nostalgic. The decade-nostalgia cycle really speeded up starting with the 1990s, and the 80s were already big by ’92.
Few remember the Beretta just 20 years later. Does it deserve to be forgotten?
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
More by Murilee Martin
Comments
Join the conversation
A friend of ours had a silver Beretta for years and years, it had some pretty bad rust but it was bulletproof mechanically. It had about 240K on it when some drunk smashed into it just after my friend and his GF (now wife) got out of it. It wasn't worth fixing and went to the scrapyard. He replaced it with a 2007? Camry, and it wasn't nearly as good mechanically as the old Beretta was. The Camry just got traded in on a Grand Cherokee.
Is that GT really supposed to be the only emblem on that door panel? The "flashdance" writing takes me back to GT versions of everything, particularly the early 90's full size trucks (think Sierra GT and Yukon GT), but mainly the GMC Syclone, Typhoon, and Sonoma GT trucks with their totally 90's plastic body cladding, a point of contention on the Junkyard Finds forum. By no means an appropriate comparison, seeing the window lines of the Beretta always made me long for seeing the Buick LeSabre and/or Oldsmobile Eighty Eight coupes instead.