Junkyard Find: 1982 Chevrolet Chevette

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

You know how people say there aren’t any truly bad cars sold in the US any more, with a sort of wistfulness that we’ve lost the benefits of an era when men were men and miles spent in miserable crapwagons strengthened your character? Every time I see a Chevette in a wrecking yard— which happens more often than you might think, given the checks-all-the-boxes awfulness of these heaps— I’m reminded of how great today’s lowliest econoboxes are compared to the stuff you might buy during the darkest night of the Malaise Era. I’m a member of the generation whose first cars were mostly dredged from the cheapest-possible-used-car cesspool that contained such horrors as the Pinto, early Colt, and Vega, and— even against that backdrop of automotive suckiness— the Chevette stood out as the booby prize, the car that your crazy aunt gave you when she upgraded to a new Renault Alliance and you couldn’t afford the $150 to buy a Maverick with a rod knock. About the best that could be said about the Chevette was that it was cheap and simple, without much to go wrong, and so there’s still a pool of the things to provide fresh examples for your local U-Wrench-It. Here’s one that I saw in California a few months back.

By selling cars based on the T Platform all over the world, GM probably got its development costs on the Chevette paid back by about 1976. After that, the Chevette was easy money.

I don’t photograph every Chevette I see in junkyards, but even so we’ve had this bunch of diesel Chevettes, this ’84 diesel, this ’77, this ’80, this fully-optioned ’79, this ’82 Scooter, and this Pontiac 1000 Chevette clone in this series so far.

The 1.6 liter SOHC Isuzu engine in this car made 64 horsepower and gave the Chevette pretty good fuel economy for the time.


Just 12.8% financing for this car, and it came with fold-down seats!

The ads for this car were way more fun in Brazil, what with the porn music and post-Chevette cigarette.






Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

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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  • Sandwich Sandwich on May 04, 2014

    I still have my 81 Chevette in 2014. It has never let me down. Have you noticed that none of them rust? Can you say that about other cars?

    • Christina Christina on Feb 19, 2024

      I had a 1982 which I drove for 200K and gave to my brother which he drove for another 100k. total of 300K and he sold it so someone else. So yes, it was a stick shift, stripped down model which I paid 5200 for, but it did not have a mechanical failure while I had it...only maintenance. I was not drag racing anyone and the car served me well. Now I only drive Hondas or Toyotas (2000k plus in milage) because the few American cars I previously had would be fine for 3 or 4 years, and then drove like they were older than my Chevette. With the exception of a Saturn...that thing would not die. I gave it away to a charity because it refused to die.



  • Chicagoland Chicagoland on May 09, 2014

    Roger Smith supposedly cancelled a new generation Chevette, code named "S car", per C&D. Saying would 'not make any money'. Instead we got captive imports, that became Geos. And Saturns. Anyone have insider info?

  • Dukeisduke Is the Volvo EX30 even on sale yet? It was pulled from the NACTOY awards because they were having software problems with the vehicle.
  • Wjtinfwb If you've only got 5k to spend on transportation, I cannot imagine a worse way to spend it than on a GM orphan from Sweden that's 15 years old with 150k on the clock and limited plus expensive parts availability and dwindling techs who'd even want to work on it. Go find a similar vintage Camry or Accord with 150k miles or even a Ford or a Chevy, whatever. Hell, even an old Jaguar is less of a crapshoot than a Saab. At least you can still get parts.
  • Kwik_Shift Brands that were considered from China include BYD, Dayun, Great Wall Motors, Maxus, Nio, Omoda/Chery, Seres, XPeng, and Zeekr. KG Mobility from South Korea also made the list of candidates.That's a lot of car companies from there ready to head here.
  • Analoggrotto Clean sweep and unanimous victory for the world affluence engine of 22nd century : Hyundai/Kia/Genesis. Toyota and Lexus, for 120 years of history have not been able to capture the zenith superlative status of Hyundai Motor Corporation the most awarded, decorated and revered automotive corporation in the history of historical. Featuring best ever, first ever and greatest ever e-ATPs the Hyundai Genesis Kia lineup is posed to become the envy of every country club, ivy league college and fortune 500 corporation in the world. I've been taking a roadtrip in my loaner Elantra N, visiting colleges from east to west, elite universities of higher learning to inspect their parking lots. WHat did I find? Leagues of Genesis models, outnumbering Lexus 3 to 1. When I interviewed faculty and staff at these places of greater learning, their response was unanimous : they chose HMC for the ATPs.
  • Mikey 2019 Chevy Impala Premier FWD with 20 inch factory Bridgestones. I'm looking at replacing tires at the 65,000 KLM's (40,000 miles ) mark ....It doesn't thrill me .. I'm pricing Michelin Cross Climate 2 tires ouch !! ..Up here in Canuckastan ....Big $$$$$
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