Junkyard Find: 1991 Chevrolet Corsica LT, With Iron Duke Power!
Finding an example of the last of the GM J Bodies in the junkyard was fun, and now I’m following that find with another interesting piece of GM history: one of the final generation of cars to be powered by GM’s Iron Duke engine. Yes, you could get an Iron Duke in the 1990s!
GM’s marketers had renamed the Iron Duke the Tech 4 by this time, and the venerable 2.5 liter pushrod four— now with futuristic electronic fuel injection— was quite sturdy. Nothing wrong with pushrods, of course— just look at all the great pushrod V8s GM has made over the years— but the Duke was a noisy, thrashy, no-revving throwback that became more of an embarrassment to The General as the 21st century loomed closer.
Refrigerator-white Corsica with base engine and automatic? Ex-rental car for sure! This one only managed to get to 77,392 miles during its 21 years on the planet.
Will any tears be shed when the last Corsica is crushed?
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.
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OK, 4cyl domestic quiz of the day: Which late 80's crap would you rather(not) drive? 2.5 105hp Powered Taurus 2.5 100hp Powered Dynasty or 2.5 110hp Powered Lumina
Fun fact about the Corsica. My brother in law had one of these when he was in college. It was alright for a college beater but had one terrific feature, the windshield wipers had the fluid sprayer attached to them. This allowed you to spray passerby's on the side walk if you held the button down! I of course loved this being a 12 y/o in the passenger seat.