I remember my Dad carrying me out to a little greenish-yellow station wagon when I was two. We had that car a little more than a year and that’s my only memory of it. This puts me in rare company: one of the few Americans with a positive memory of a Chevy Vega. My parents would not be in that group. One rear end collision and one melted engine, and the Vega was gone. If I missed out on the joy of picking rust scabs, at least I got to sample the full majesty of the Chevette. Was it a bad car? Was it a match for the Vega? To steal a line from “Bloom County,” it wasn’t that bad, but Lord it wasn’t good.
The car in question was a blue Chevette hatch, my bud Joe's family car. Joe’s parents weren't poor as much as they were deeply frugal. When it was time to join the growing ranks of the “two car family,” they added a posh red Chevette to their stable. I became very (not to say over) familiar with the blue Chevette. At first, I rode shotgun. After I got my driving license, I became the Chevette’s wheelman. Joe didn’t get any kick out of driving (understandably); he was perfectly happy handing that job on me. He also palmed-off testing his home-built rocket-launchers on me, but I digress.
Aside from its unabashed expression of its owners and manufacturers’ penny-pinching, there was nothing particularly “wrong” about the Chevette’s interior. Speedometer, gas gauge, idiot lights and a glove box with no lock. Done. The seats were made of vinyl specifically designed to sear beachgoers' skin. The gear change was a mess and you had to use your whole hand to flick the turn signal. We referred to the back seat as the torture chamber and, by God, it was.
Driving the Chevette was like a dream. The car liberated us from our families, blessing us with the freedom that all young drivers feel when they first set sail for the big wide world. Not that it was pleasant. The Chevette looked and drove like a slightly jumped-up pedal car. There was none of the gliding heft of The General’s larger vehicles. Nor was there any of the sure feedback of other hatchbacks. Our Accord was getting on, and was never all that fast, but it felt like a car, not a toy. It was as if GM execs created the Chevette simply to justify their disdain for “those tinny foreign cars.”
The Chevette’s utter lack of get-up-and-go was remarkable. You could floor the 1.4-liter four and get nothing more than a slightly louder rattle. It wasn’t THAT slow (we had a VW MicroBus), but there was no power reserve. The Chevette’s anemic power delivery and iffy feedback (despite lacking power steering) made for careful driving. As for top end, the little Chevy might hit 60– downhill with a tailwind. Since we mostly stayed in town, the lack of top speed wasn’t much of a factor.
While the Chevette was stable to the point of catatonia in normal driving conditions, the rare occasions when I drove it in the rain were nigh-on religious experiences. Trying to guide an underpowered, numb feeling, lightweight rear wheel-drive car sitting on narrow tires while keeping track of other drivers without an effective window defrosting system evoked all the terror beloved of slasher movie audiences. I don’t think I ever drove the Chevette in the snow. If I had, I’m sure I would have remembered it. On the plus side, the Chevette proved to be a fairly reliable ride that withstood teenage abuse and neglect.
Looking back, I don’t think the Chevette deserves to be lumped-in with that era’s epic failures: the Ford Pinto and the Chevette's immediate predecessor, the Chevy Vega. No question: the Chevette was never the best car in its class (Dodge Omni, VW Rabbit, AMC Gremlin, Toyota Tercel, Renault Encore), nor was it the cheapest (especially if you added the options other cars offered as standard). The Chevette stayed in production as long as it did (1976 – 1987) to fill a “hole” in GM’s line-up, and then prop up CAFE ratings.
The Chevette wasn’t a failure for what it was. It was a failure for what it could have been. The Vega was horrible, but it was a start. Its replacement (Chevette and the Monza) didn’t move the game forward on any level other than reliability (and only relative to the Vega). No front wheel-drive, no style, no aluminum engine, no disc brakes– nothing that said small and inexpensive can be beautiful. In fact, the Chevette marks the point where the imports started to run away from the domestics, as Detroit turned their back on small vehicles and once again stuffed their pockets with cash from larger ones. Now there’s a memory for you.
62 Comments on “A Look Back: The Chevrolet Chevette...”
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Agreed. I bought a used 82 Chevette once for basic transportation. It looked cool compared to other Chevettes, with a lowered front end making it look like a hot rod—until I found out later, 4 broken springs were what gave it that cool look. The front springs were actually broken into 4 pieces each.
Happy to be reading more of these types of articles. When I was going to school to take my bachelors degree, I owned 2 Vegas, a silver hatchback, and then a purple GT. Next on to a red Pinto. During the gas shortage in 1980 I removed the back seat and used the area to store four 5 gallon gas cans ! I then drove it 4000 miles from Calgary Canada to San Diego and back. I suppose if anyone had rear ended me it could have been mistaken for a Mount Saint Helens eruption.
After I graduated, I bought a 280zx, however in a few years I was back at school doing my Masters degree in the rust capital of Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Back to the shit-boxes.
Over the 2 years I owned a beige Chevette and an orange Buick Skyhawk.
This article brought a smile to my face as I remember thinking these cars are the cross I must bear while I “improve” myself. Today I see the odd Chevette around town and like this article, it brings me back to a place I was 20 years ago. I must admit I still have a soft spot for the Pontiac Firefly rag top, though my wife will have none of it.
I will always be greatful to the Chevette for teaching me about engines. See, I learned what a piston was when a Chevette I was riding in punched one through the hood. Learned what oil was, too.
I learned how to replace floor pans and valves.
Pontiac T-1000, baby. The name alone was worth the price of admission.
My first car was a Chevette; the water pump and starter motor were replaced curbside. The body panels unbolted and the interior panels unscrewed, allowing them all to be renovated and repaired indoors without a garage. When the clutch went I still drove it for two days until I got it fixed. A dealer replaced the exhaust manifold for free because I supplied the parts (compare to a recent Mitsu dealer who charged $100 to say the Check Engine Light was lit because the gas cap wasn’t on tight enough).
Go to many 3rd World hell holes and you’ll still see Chevettes and other cars of their era held together with duct tape and string because they don’t require half the resources of NASA to diagnose and repair. I bet there will still be a Chevette running somewhere when the last Prius is rusting in the scrap yard … then tell me which is better for the environment.
Driving/sitting in a Chevette, NEW NEW NEW, 30 years ago was the point that I realized that something horrifying was happening to Detroit, and I would never buy another domestic car again. The seats may be the worst ever sold in a car outside of the Warsaw Pact. I remember going back to my Fiat (yeah, yeah, I know how to fix everything on one of them…who am I to say…) and thinking to myself: “This puppy may not go 1,000 miles without needing something, but by golly it at least has real seats, and goes, and stops and turns.” The tragedy of GM is that 30 years later they still don’t know how to make a decent competitive small car. I could forgive GM for the Chevette if they had ever learned anything.
My first girlfriend’s parents had the rarest of beasts…a DIESEL Chevette! If I recall, Chevy was only able to unload around 1500 of those POS on the American public.
My second (more serious) girlfriend had one Chevette, crashed it (into a CORVETTE), and dad replaced it with ANOTHER ONE!
If I ever see another one, it’ll be too soon!
Aw, guys.
Simple as a Jeep, but twice as reliable, Chevettes were good rides. For a time in my life, if I was shopping for a car and I didn’t know what I wanted, I ended up with a Chevette — like 5 times over about 15 years. Cops ignored them, and no self-respecting car thief would be caught dead in one. That made them the perfect city cars, as far as I was concerned.
As far as speed, you have to pick your battles. If your Chevette is an automatic, don’t pick any; if ever there was a case to be made against automatics in small-enigned cars, it was against slushbox-equipped Chevettes.
But manual-transmissions cars can be fast around town if you hold onto lower gears. Interestingly, the four speeds have a better gear spread than the five-speed versions. Top speed for a Chevette in good condition is barely 100. But with a four-speed, second gear is good from just under 10 mph to just over 60. Third was good from about 25 mph to right around 85.
Ask me how I know …
I autocrossed a couple of my Chevettes, with great success. On mid-speed courses, they were awesome challengers. While Euro-rods were constantly shifting between second and third gears, I’d just come out of the hole hard, speed-shift into second and run it like a go-kart. And I’d eat their lunch. Really.
One of my favorite weekend activities was to toss the helmet into my Chevette and go Porsche-huntin’ … though the Porsche Club guys didn’t find it funny at all. My Chevettes NEVER lost to a 944, and over time beat every 911 in the club events I ran. Not to mention beating most or all of the 911s EVERY time I ran.
Thanks for the article. Now I’m going to scan eBag and see what’s available …
I have two memories of the Chevette.
1)A friend’s family had one and a bag of milk had broken and leaked all over the carpet. The car smelled like it drove at that point
2)A ride snowboarding as a university student with someone driving an 8 year old Chevette. We had to will it up the hills and the speedo didn’t work (no worries about speeding tickets in that thing) but it got us there and back and apparently never broke down.
My first car was a hand me down Mazda GLC with massive rust “vents”. I don’t think that was one import that was running away from the Chev.
My perception was that Chevette drivers were not only driving a slow car but were driving it very unagressively. A VW Bug was not fast, but drivers usually flogged them to within an inch. Bug drivers could always be counted on to move the instant the light changed. Chevette drivers were the opposite. Thy would wait until the after the light had changed to restart the car, put it in gear and begin to accelerate — slowly.
“To steal a line from “Bloom County,” it wasn’t that bad, but lord it wasn’t good.”
The cartoon to which the author refers is one where Opus is a movie critic and in writing his review, goes on with, “Bad, bad, bad, bad!”, finally ending with, “Well, it wasn’t that bad but, Lord, it wasn’t good…”.
In any case, the Chevettes I most fondly recall are the super el-Cheapo Chevette Scooters. Imagine stripping an already stripped car to the bare bones. These were the Chevettes that had smooth cardboard inner door panels with no armrests.
But what I really like about the Chevette Scooter is how, for a short period (after the Vega was discontinued), it was actually the preferred choice of compact vehicle for hot-rodders to shoe-horn a small-block Chevy V8 into. Those Chevettes so-equipped could really scoot.
Robert Schwartz:
November 4th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
My perception was that Chevette drivers were not only driving a slow car but were driving it very unagressively
It wasnt that we didnt try… the poor chevette just didnt have the ability.
I learned a lot from the 2 chevettes I owned… I replaced a tranny and more but they were fun vehicles to own!
Hilarious commentary, Andrew.
Being an encyclopaedia of knowledge about the bad cars from the 70’s-80’s, a slight correction is warranted:
Chevette’s immediate predecessor, the Chevy Vega.
Not quite. None of the models exactly replace the other, but the genes of the Vega were reflected in the ‘75 H-bodies, not the ‘76 T-bodies (Chevette). Here’s the lineage:
Corvair –> not replaced
Chevette/T1000 –> produced from 1976-1987, not replaced?
Vega (produced 1971-1977) –> GM H-Bodies (Monza/Starfire (and the highline Starfire Firenza!)/Sunbird/Skyhawk) produced from 1975-1980 –> GM J-Bodies (Cavalier/Firenza/Sunbird/Skyhawk/Cimarron) produced 1981-2005 –> Current models (Cobalt/P5/Ion).
PS to Gerry T: My sister had a 77 Skyhawk POS. Hers was a dark brown, oval-shaped protuberance, prompting her friends to aptly call it the Poopmobile.
First girlfriend bought a new Chevette right out of high school in 1984.
I recall the local Chevy dealer selling them for $4,995 new, your choice of colors. No A/C, manual tranny, no rear defrost.
However, it served her well – she used to tell everyone she drove a “Vette”.
Well this subject is definitely an excellent one for laughs. Thanks Mr. Dederer!
One of my good friends owned a blue Chevette for ten years, in which he crossed the country at least several times. A fine craftsman, he made the thing a beautiful wooden dash.
My own sort of cmparable car was a ‘77 Corolla with the 1.2 liter engine, which I bought from one of the (future) Iraq weapons inspectors when it was 8 years old, and drove it for the next 8. You floored it–which I did all the time–and it felt like another person had started pushing. The steering was numb, but the turning circle was awesome. And it was amazingly inexpensive. For everything during the 8 yrs, 70k miles I had it, I spent about 10 grand on everything. That includes capital cost (purchase price – sale price equals not more than $600 in today’s dollars), repairs, gas, parking tickets. I did save a bit of money by tuning the thing myself. Among high points in that car’s life with me: it got shot once, when a police chase went through my neighborhood in DC. And I once ferried the svelt former head of Medicare (from Bush 1), Gail Wilensky, a Porsche driver, downtown from her office. I got two tickets in Rock Creek Park on that drive, one for speeding and one for going over the double yellow (I was passing a slowpoke) but in those days all you had to do was get a hearing and reschedule it once or twice and they would lose track of you. (Those were the only two tickets I ever got in that car. It didn’t feel safe above 55mph and even then it didn’t feel very safe.
It seems we have a budding fiction writer in our midst, Mr. jrhmobile:
I autocrossed a couple of my Chevettes, with great success. On mid-speed courses, they were awesome challengers. While Euro-rods were constantly shifting between second and third gears, I’d just come out of the hole hard, speed-shift into second and run it like a go-kart. And I’d eat their lunch. Really.
One of my favorite weekend activities was to toss the helmet into my Chevette and go Porsche-huntin’ … though the Porsche Club guys didn’t find it funny at all. My Chevettes NEVER lost to a 944, and over time beat every 911 in the club events I ran. Not to mention beating most or all of the 911s EVERY time I ran.
Yeah, I used to pass Corvettes in my Corolla–in my dreams.
Ok now I have to share my Chevevtte memory. I’m 5 years old, and my Mother, Grandmother and I are tooling about in the family chevette, on our way home from church. As we pull through a intersection, we get blindsided by a Ford Ranger. The chevette goes flying across the road and ends up on it’s roof, with us dangling by our seatbelts.
We all walk away from the accident, and when the wrecker people get the car right side up again, my mother starts the engine back up and we limp it home. I think she got about 150k miles out of that before she traded it in for a Chevy Citation (remember those? I still have PTSD thinking about it), which is a story for another time.
Ahh, the Chevette. My first job in HS in the 80’s was working the counter at the local Auto parts store. As part of my duties I would occasionally have to make deliveries. Our delivery cars were 2 Chevettes (81 and 82) and 2 Ford Falcons (65 and 66). We treated them all like stunt cars and they never broke down or complained. I remember seeing my buddy pull up to me in the 82 one day all bleary-eyed telling me how he just pulled the handbrake in the rain at about 50MPH. He spun the Vette about 4-5 times he said but he corrected and lived to tell the story. Good times.
Dave,
No fantasy here. Look up Cumberland Motor Club records in the mid ’90s. They’re online.
In an autocross, where folks can’t get above 60-70 mph dodging cones in a parking lot, things even out. And not having to shift between 2nd and 3rd was worth 2/10ths a shift. Every shift.
A high school buddy’s mom, now 82 and living in Anchorage AK still has the Chevette she bought when she was spending most of her time at Prudoe Bay doing data entry. The little econobox has just a bit more than 50,000 original miles on it. She still swears by it and has told of people leaving notes under the windshield that say, “Nice Chevette!” Magazines such as Sports Car Market forget the any car is just a machine, not (necessarily) an investment portfolio.
It is the memories and feelings we put upon any machine, which really give it value. One person’s collectible is another person’s old crock.
In a previous job, I was a pizza delivery driver. Our fleet consisted entirely of old Chevettes (it gets better, taxi cab yellow with a big red crown on top). And we neglected and abused them so badly, I’m surprised protective services weren’t called on us. Because of 20+ years of abuse and neglect, they varied from rattling like a Vegas craps table (during regular driving) to sounding like a cannon had gone off (going over railroad tracks).
Driving them was only redeemed by the RWD. As everyone else has mentioned, the autobox Chevettes are basically hamster-mill powered. Some cars would stall if you floored it (the only way to keep up with traffic), others couldn’t top 80km/h (if you tried, the car would just slowly lose power – not fun when you’re completely surrounded by transport trucks). But this being Canada, and the Chevettes having almost bald, skinny tires, winter was a hoon and a half. I remember going around a gentle s-curve during a snow storm. I’m sure the feeling was accentuated by being in the car, but I felt ridiculously sideways. Like, Clarkson in a Monaro sideways. I think the sheer lack of POWARRRR!!! is the only reason I only spun out once (well, accidentally, three point turns were a bitch with the slow and heavy steering).
So yeah, the Chevette was, and still is, a terrible car, but I’d love one as a winter beater.
Ah the dreaded Chevette, Shove-itte, Sh*t-vette, or whatever you want to call it. It was a truly awful automobile and evidence that Detroit cars were heading for the crapper!
My wife owned not 1, not 2, but 3 of those dreaded things in succession in her teen and college years. Admittedly, my 1981 Escort (which I had in the late 80s) didn’t exactly set the highway on fire, but it would run rings around that Chevy crapmobile. The THM-175 auto slushbox was miserable and sapped whatever slim amount of motivation came from the 1-bbl-carbed 4-banger. Run the A/C and you’d actually lose about 3~4 MPH!
I had the dubious distinction of driving that 3rd Shove-itte (a gray 1984 model) a couple times). As usual with GMs of that era, the glue holding the headliner deteriorated and the interior resembled a harem-tent. The brake pedal would literally flop back into place with a loud click when you released it. The steering was only approximate. The front end shimmied mercilessly at speeds over 60 (once you actually got there), and past 70, there was a danger of body panels flying off. Once, the gas strut support for the rear hatch failed while she was loading groceries and the hatch fell and KOed her!
Once she had a flat tire and tried using the lug wrench that came with the car. It was (and I kid you not) 9 inches long! How the freek do you expect anyone to get any leverage with THAT?
It’s only redeeming value is that it carried the girl I loved, (and still do) from A to B. Don’t even think of asking anything more from it. Gas mileage in the low to mid 20s was nothing to write home about, either. Traction in rain or snow? Yeah, right! Only my 1972 Nova was worse.
BTW, that 3rd Chevette died at 90000 miles in dramatic fashion, (I still refer to it as a mercy killing) when it threw a rod right through the side of the block. I told her that if she even THOUGHT of buying another one of those cussed things, I would be gone. She finally saw the light and we purchased an Olds Cutlass Supreme for her. Nowadays she drive an Avalanche!!!
I still see one about every 6 months or so. I haven’t seen one not in dilapadated condition in about 4 years.
As a comparison, that aforementioned 1981 Escort was sold at 130k miles and it was driven by it’s next owner all the way to 160k before it got clobbered by a van (no injuries, fortunately).
BTW: My Uncle also had a positive Vega experience. It was the first (and last) time I ever saw a 3-speed stick on the floor.
This car gives nostalgia a bad name. I’d rather go down memory lane discussing Milli Vanilli. Puhleeze.
I can accept jrh’s story about whipping Porshes in a Chevette. I had one and would routinely run the local hilly, curvy backcountry roads at an average speed of around 65 mph. With P155’s on them in a modern rubber formulation those little pipsqueeks could track like they were on rails if the rest of the suspension was in working order. Winter was a totally different story. Driving it in winter was more thrilling than the rides at an amusement park that was due to be condemned the next day.
The first car that had my name on the title was a 1978 Chevette coupe in burgandy. 1.6L originially rated at 68hp and a 3-speed auto. My parents bought it for me with just under 50k miles on the clock, and later signed it over to my when I managed to finder better insurance rates than I had under their policy. I rolled the odometer around to 120k miles before I traded it on a 1988 Celebrity Eurosport wagon. A major mistake that was.
Regardless of all its faults, I thought that was a great little car. Yeah, the seats were vinyl but they were adequate. Vinyl didn’t bother me since in my family most of the vehicles we owned had them. No AC, but with the door window down and the rear quarter windows flipped open it usually didn’t need it. The thing was a rattletrap though. Where most cars would have a cardboard deck cover the spare in the back, the Chevette had a stamped metal one with a flimsy piece of rubber flooring tossed over it. However, that part made a lot less noise when I bolted a pair of 6×9 speakers in enclosures to it.
Was it reliable? Usually. By that I mean it exhibited the same breakdown routine that every GM vehicle I ever had after it also exhibited. Life was pretty good until right around 100k miles and the thing would start breaking down. The alternator would fail, and the battery shortly thereafter. Then the starter. Etc. Etc. The speedo failed around then too. Once I got through that mess life was pretty good again until the slight running oil leak it had started getting worse.
Oh, and I called it a Vette too. Shortly after I got it I went to work one night and told people I got a new car. When they asked what it was I said “A Vette”. After gasps in astonishment they ran to the window to see. The groans of disappointment were priceless.
GM’s replacement for the Chevette was the a re-badged Suzuki called the Sprint in 1988 which later morphed into the Metro. Up until about a year ago I had one of those too. A 1994 coupe in bright green. The Metro was better in some ways, worse in others. Lots more room inside due to being FWD, but the handling took a decent hit because of it. Better seats in cloth, but more roadnoise than I ever remembered dealing with in the Chevette. Definitely much more reliable.
This car gives nostalgia a bad name. I’d rather go down memory lane discussing Milli Vanilli. Puhleeze.
Then don’t click here:
http://www.chevettes.com/
BTW, Milli Vanilli were pioneers in their field. After getting flamed for lip syncing their concerts, all their talentless successors are now doing it. :)
Yes, but didn’t Milli Vanilli lip synch to someone else’s voice?
Thanks for your memories. At Stephan Wilkinson’s suggestion, we’ll be making Saturday nostalgia day.
As part of that effort, after the TWAT awards are announced next week, we’ll be running a writing contest for “A look back.” Some of you might want to save your best nostalgic material for that.
OK I have to share that I had a 1984 Pontiac T-1000, a blue 4 door hatchback with automatic, AM radio and um, er, well, it had cloth blue cloth seats, carpet, and oh yeah, it had dual “rally sport” exterior mirrors! It was a 1.6 litre, had 2 barrel carburetor, feedback computer for the 3-way catalyst and a stepper motor on the carburetor to keep the air-fuel mixture correct for the catalyst (well, in GM’s dreams, anyway).
We were a young married couple, had a small child, lived on as tight a budget as you could possibly imagine and were tired of the 1977 Plymouth Volare’ wagon continually letting us down, so bought the Pontiac new.
Within a few months, we moved to Colorado, and on weekends, we would drive west up into the rockies (yeah, VERY slowly – it would go up the mountains in 2nd gear, rarely shifting to 3rd) and we’d find the old narrow-gauge railway roads and go on them (you rarely saw anything but CJ Jeeps on them otherwise) – yeah, young and dumb, I know.
But we started the call it “Blue – our automotive mule” and it was. Plus, strangely enough considering it was a GM product, it never let us down one single time in boondocks (this being well before the days of cell phone safety nets and all). We might be 50 miles from civilization on 2-tracks and narrow gauge railways in the Rockies (in the summer, of course) and all was well, every time.
Now with maturity and wisdom under my (more substantial) beltline, I would never dare such a stunt, never mind weekend after weekend. I think my guardian angel will probably kick my rump when I first see him, for making him work such overtime in the mid 1980’s!
Yeah, when I was asked to drive a Chevette about 10 years ago to move my wife’s colleage’s car across town, it was totally shocked at just how small and horrid the thing was.
I realized then, that my fondness for “Blue, the automotive mule” was true, but I’d forgotten how truly terrible the car was in comparison to anything “DECENT” or modern.
I think, in retrospect, that the ONLY reason the Chevette / Acadian / T-1000 was as “semi-decent” in the mid 1980’s, was because Opel engineers did the basic engineering for GM-Brazil, and GM HQ needed a cheap small car to build in the US and actually had to do it quickly, so ignored the usual “NIH” (”not invented here”) syndrome – and thus the car wasn’t entirely screwed-up by the guys who did the VEGA.
You know you’re a car lover when you can reminisce fondly about past POS’s.
Thanks for a good (refreshing) read, Andrew
Hey! Lay off of the Chevette. It may have been one of Car and Driver’s ten best third-world cars (January 1985) but it also had a metric tonne of personality. For anyone that ever dated an average looking girl, but who had a great personality, you know exactly what I mean!
The RWD Chevette was produced from MY76 to MY87 with a 1.6 Litre engine becoming standard in 1978. It was based on the T body Opel Kadet that also spawned the Pontiac Acadian / T1000 as well as the Isuzu Impulse. Parts of the T body even continued life in the P body Fiero.
The Chevette may have had an interior straight out of the stone age, but they were cheap, plentiful and durable. Just ask anyone who delivered pizza in the ’80s. I recall that when production ended in January 1987 General Motors did a little research and discovered that 85% of these NASCAR interiored econoboxes were still on the road.
And for those interested in a little more corporate irony, just compare the humble two door Chevette with the Saturn Sky. Overall length: Chevette – 161.9, Sky – 161.06; wheelbase: Chevette – 94.3, Sky – 95.09; personalities – immeasurable!
Talk about “there’s more here than meets the eye”…
As I recall, the Chevette was a quick-and-dirty badge engineered job, based on the Euro Opel Kadett. (A further badge job was the related “Opel By Isuzu”.) I rented a Chevette once and called the agency when it wouldn’t start. Turns out, all it needed was to be started with the clutch disengaged. (Yes, National rented sticks as recently as the early 80s.) It was cheap and slow. Recently at an old-timer car show, someone had an immaculate, low mileage Chevette Sandpiper that almost ran away with the Best In Show.
I guess today’s Chevette, segmentwise, would be the Aveo.
Kinda humorous, dontcha think, that 30 years after GM had to use Opel design and engineering to get into the econocar segment because GM's domestic talent was..uhhh..somewhat lacking, they STILl have to use Opel design and engineering to even get people to look at their domestic passenger car lines? The best part of the Vega was the manual transmission, initially a 3-speed. And get this: The transmission was an Opel 4-speed with one less gear and ratios juggled to compensate. Or…an Opel transmission dumbed-down for domestic consumption.
Back in Gas Crisis '73, my wife had a '72 Mercury Capri, I had the '72 Opel 1900 Manta Rallye. Cars that were light-years ahead of the Ford Pinto and the Chevrolet Vega in all areas. The more things change…well, you all know the rest.
You know, there really ought to be a whole section on cars like this. “Sh*tboxes I Have Loved,” or something.
It’s always amazing to me how a mass-produced vehicle can develop a charm despite its numerous flaws.
For me, my favourite bad car I owned was a ‘91 Escort GT with no interior and a 3″ exhaust that I bought for $150 (canadian). Never has anything been so loud and slow, but it was more FUN to drive (read: flog) than pretty much anything I’ve been in.
What say ye. moderators? Can we have a “Manure-streaked Diamonds” section?
What’s next, misty eyes over the Vega? Pinto?
These are best forgotten than remembered, unless it was your first car, in which case you can be pardoned. But cars like these were juicy bait for the Japanese to plunge head-first into the U.S. market and feast on it. The Japanese must have thought at the time: “Are they kidding?” The rest of the story everyone knows.
Back in the mid. ninetys my buddy had some financial problems.He ended up driving an 82 and a 84 Chevette him and his wife needed cars and it was all they could afford.That is a common thead in most comments I read today.
With some basic mechanical knowledge we kept those 2 cars running til he could afford something better.
As others have pointed out the VETTE was reliable,easy to fix,parts were cheap,and you could beat the crap out of it.and they could stand up to a Canadian winter With a standard shift, and a set of snow tires,and a little bit of driving skill it would get you around.
The Chevette was a basic car it never pretended to be anything else.Reviewing the comments I see more positive than negative.G.M.was and is rightfully proud to have built the Chevette.May its memorys live forever
Pinto next week.
Well that will be a blast from the past!
I must be several generations older ythan most of the reders of this site. My crappy car memories are from the 50s and 60s. Maybe I’ll write about eh joys of owning a 57 Chrysler New Yorker. I had half a dozen of them when I was in high school, back inthe dark ages.
Bob Elton
My parents had a Vega due to the “energy crisis” in the early-mid ’70’s. They still curse that car. “No power, the door handles broke off it, blah, blah, blah..”
They went from a 1970 Mach 1 Mustang with a 351 Cleveland to the Vega, and then rebounded into some giant, huge late ’70’s Chevy. That car must have been 22′ long whatever it was.. I guess big cars were all the rage in the late 70’s as if in protest and rebellion to those little cars people drove a few years earlier. Until the next “energy crisis” in 1980’s. Sell off the big cars and bring on the crap cars! Gutless pieces of chit! I disdain them all. Hence the desire and drive to have a 800+hp turbocharged Mustang… You can have one too easier then you think… http://www.turbomustangs.com/smf/
The 70s and 80s were dark days indeed for GM cars. Who wants to remember the Vega, the Chevette, the Citation and all of their various badge engineered Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile variations. It is a wonder that GM is even still in business today. One must not forget the V-8 diesel horror story or the Cadillac Cimarron. Yuck, it all leaves such a horrible taste in the mouth! Toyota was already way out ahead with thoroughly average but decent designs for the Corolla, Corona, Celica, Land Cruiser and Hilux. Even today I would much rather drive a restored 1980 Toyota anything than I would any of the 4 or 6 cylinder powered GM, Ford or Chrysler cars of the same era. And now we have Detroit executives bemoaning the idea that people don’t give the home team a chance …. pfffft, we gave the home team a chance for decades and they abused us.
As the unfortunate former owner of both a ‘75 Vega and a ‘81 Chevette, I can honestly say they were both ghastly vehicles. The Vega was my first vehicle, and ok, but it sucked transmission fluid through some sort of solenoid which it then routed to the carb. The result was a smoke cloud so thick I actually caused an intersection accident.
The Chevette was no better, leaking oil aout of every possible oriface it had, and to make matters worse, the hood flew up (and over) the roof driving down the highway.
If I had to pick a favorite of the two, it would definately be the Vega. At least it had a nice interior and some character. But after those two wonderful experiences, I bought my next vehicle – 87 Toyota truck!
spongecop
It was your modulater valve 50$ parts and labour in 1980.Did you ever have to buy an alternater for your Toyota you could of probably buy another Chevette for the same price
I know, I was 15 years old and did not know crud about cars. The Toyota did well with over 180K and all I ever did was a T-stat and the starter contacts points. Drove that truck all over the U.S. while in the Marine Corps and it never let me down. Can’t say that for the chevy crud.
Okay spongecop my B.S. detector is starting to go off:
How do you have a Chevette hood, with federally mandated dual latch, fly up and over the roof, unless that was one tremendously abused and neglected vehicle? A little unrepaired front collision damage?
Then you say that at 15 years old you drove all over the U.S. while in the Marine Corps. Don’t you have to be 16 to qualify for a drivers license and 17 for Semper Fi? Or are you one of those guys who served with W. during Nam?
Oh hang on spongecop – I just reread your post – you’re a Toyota owner! My B.S. detector is always going off around you guys so there’s no need to respond…
A long time ago, maybe 20 years or so, I remember catching a female standup comic on TV. Maybe it was Paula Poundstone, I’m not sure. It was someone sort of like that.
In her schtick she told about her crappy her life was, her job sucked, her boyfriend left her, her mother was mean to her, and she was so depressed that one day when she was driving home from work she decided to end it all by driving into a tree.
Unfortunately, she had a Chevette, the slowest car in the world (and something that would make one depressed). According to her, do you know what happened? After the car hit the tree?
The box of Kleenex fell off the dashboard!
When we were young marrieds in ‘80 or so, my wife and I needed a car and, having scored good jobs, decided to get a new one. Unfortunately, one of the bi-annual gas crises had just come along and economical cars were in short supply. We had to wait a week to test-drive a Chevette.
I’ve never been too fussy about automotive performance (I’d been driving my Dad’s 231cid Econo-Thrift and Power-Glide equipped ‘67 Camaro happily for some years) but this thing was awesome in its powerlessness. It stalled whenever you stopped (and the salesperson said they’d only fix that if we bought it) and, when you floored it on level pavement, you got extra noise but no detectable acceleration.
Thanks but no thanks. Sometimes, it’s better to pay extra for gas.
There are few cars for which the 2CV would represent a step up but the Chevette is surely a member of this elite club.
The Pinto was damn reliable. Not great technology but relaible. Mileage was good for the day and the three I owned/drove never caught fire. Move them ahead 30 years and they would be competitive with Aveos and such.
Reminiscing is fine but appyling today’s engineering standards to 30 year old cars ain’t fair.
When I was a kid, my single parent mom graduated us to a 1982 brand new chevette, 1.6 4 speed manual, no ac, I think it made 68hp. I think the horrible chevettes were the A/C Automatic ones, because we rented one in florida once, and it kept stalling out. She had this car till 1990… I learned to drive in it, and how do drive a stick shift. While not the fastest car in the world, I thought it *felt* sporty, and I recall the unassisted steering to be precise. I remember when we went to buy it, there WAS indeed a shortage of chevettes here on long island, they were flying out the dealer… basically you picked your color, and if you wanted the scooter edition or not. Our was an actually nice maroon, with matchbox-like metal flake paint (I think I paid extra for that on my town car). We did have problems a few times with the “computerized” carb (god how I love fuel injection), and went through a few clutches. (I’m not sure how many of these repairs were legit, or whether they were the single mom schoolteacher being taken advantage of by the dealer). But I don’t think it ever stranded us anywhere, and held up like a tank.
It really came through for us in a time when a bad ride could have sunk the family. Yes, escorts and even my dad’s pinto seemed luxurious in comparison, but when all was said and done, the escorts of the time were actually much more expensive cars, AND front drive was still seen as “skeptical” at the time. (I’m sure others remember that as well)
-John
It’s nice to see a few positive stories on POS cars. I have good memories of a Pinto of all things. Me and a buddy bought one for $50. This car had no electrical system so the old lady sold it cheap. We cut off the roof, doors, fenders, etc… Then we put truck tires on it. For a total investment of about $175 (including the beer) we had a very fun dune buggy.
We tore all over the North Nevada desert in that thing. The clutch finally went out about 10 miles from the nearest road. As far as I know the car is still there.
Ok – as someone who had several Chevette’s in the family and under my own ownership – I think it was a great small car. The Omni? that’s a laugh. Piece of junk. VW Rabbit? It bested the Vega to fastest time to rust out (I lived in the Northeast) and had the same crappy VW 1.7 liter engine that was in some of the Omni’s. All my Chevette’s were reliable, held up pretty well to the salt and during the last year of production cost only a few hundred more than the exulted $3999 Yugo yet it was 100 times (or more) better of a car. BTW: I loved the rear wheel drive and have made a personnal goal to never have another front wheel drive car (had a Plymouth TC3 and a Pontiac J2000 way back). My last Chevette was a Chevette S with a Sun roof, tinted Windows and the deep blue with redish/orange trim strip and white raised letter tires. Great car!
BTW Toyota recalled more cars last year then they sold…..
Wow, you and I are probably the only two people in the world with fond memories of the Vega. I remember the day my dad brought home a shiny red ‘72 Vega hatchback. It was so sleek compared to our Dodge Dart that my mom thought it was a “sports car.” He loved that car, too, right up to the point where he totaled it in an accident. Fortunately, he didn’t own the Vega long enough for it to self-destruct. To this day my dad thinks the Vega was one of the best cars he’s ever owned.