Junkyard Find: 1985 Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport Wagon
The midsize Celebrity came between the rear-drive Malibu and the Lumina, went through only one generation, and has been largely forgotten by now. Most examples got crushed before the turn of the century, and the wagons have become especially rare. Here’s a Celebrity wagon with the not-very-European Eurosport option package, spotted at a San Francisco Bay Area self-serve yard.
The Eurosport Celebrity got black window trim, a black steering wheel, and an allegedly stiffer suspension.
The clattery, bone-shakingly miserable Iron Duke pushrod four-cylinder engine was standard equipment in the Celebrity for ’85, but this one has the optional fuel-injected 2.8 V6.
Remember when The General went in for kicky sans-serif typeface for gauges?
Yes, the Eurosport had rear drums with crude balance weights.
My mother bought an Iron Duke-powered ’85 Celebrity Eurosport sedan while I was off at college, and I recall borrowing the thing during a holiday visit and being stunned by the irredeemable terribleness of the car (my name for it was the “UrineSport”). Approximately 17 minutes out of warranty, the car developed multiple costly drivetrain problems, all the window regulators and door-lock mechanisms broke, the heater core burst, and so on. As a result, that Celebrity was the last Detroit car my parents ever bought.
Still, this one managed to survive for 27 years.
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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I still want a supercharged 3800 black Eurosport wagon. But then again, I have a "way too fast wagon" fetish. Another car on my list would be a 1968-69 Plymouth Satellite with a 6.4 Hemi swap. And maybe a LS3 80s Buick Estate too. Why not haul stuff and haul ass at the same time?
On a still day, you could hear these cars falling apart in your driveway. I had a neighbor that had one of these and it was a disaster. No wonder this company had to soak the taxpayers for the interest and tax free $30 billion that $49.5 billion bailout ended up costing us - and increasing each year with interest paid to China for the deficit spending used to cover this.