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I do remember GM cars from that time too...the neighbor of the RX-7 family had one of the "glass house" 77-79 Caprice coupes, a girl I knew who's dad was a cop had a 78-80 or so Malibu coupe, and an old couple down the street had a bustleback Seville. You know you're nuts when all of this sticks in your head 30 years later :shades:
And to support my Vega rust experience:
From the NY Times:
Twin brothers John and Jim Winkler shared a Vega in 1980 while attending high school in St. Louis. "Our four-year-old Vega rusted so badly that the windshield fell out," John recalled.
The Chevy Vega:
But even worse than the Pinto, many readers insisted, was the Chevrolet Vega. This compact, meant to take on imports like the Volkswagen Beetle, actually won honors as Motor Trend's Car of the Year for 1971. It sold well. Then the body started to rust. The aluminum engine started to warp. There were engine fires and mounting recalls. Horrified buyers fled, and General Motors killed the car by the late 1970s.....
""I owned a '71 Vega GT. For the first year, I enjoyed the car, but after that many problems started developing. At the end of the second year, I was washing the car, and my finger went right through the lower part of the front fender because of rust...."
"The Vega was arguably worse than the Pinto. It had an unsleeved aluminum-block engine with an iron head, which overheated and warped. Cowl sheet metal rusted through in two years. Junk. ..."
"I bought a 72 Vega when I was 16. It was my first car. It was awful, but being my first car, I still look back on it fondly...lots of fun times in it! The rust was unbelievable. In college friends of mine used to walk around it banging on the sides; then when I moved it there would be a perfect rust dust outline on the ground where it had been parked."
From http://listing-index.ebay.com/cars/Chevrolet_Vega.html:
Although Chevrolet sold over two million Vegas during its lifetime, the car was plagued with poor reliability and several highly publicized design problems including carburetor fires, engine overheating problems, and premature body rust, which began to affect sales after 1974. The Vega was later dubbed as "the car that began rusting on the showroom floor". Labor/management strife at its Lordstown, Ohio production plant added to the car's woes.
Neither Lemko nor I will say that Vegas didn't have a lot of problems...even though I do know a guy who got 108K out of his '73 without doing too much to it and it still looked decent...in fact, he worked at Lordstown.
What gets us is, I think, nobody can admit that anything foreign was ever crappy.
It was a much bigger problem than fenders. Holes on the core body around the windshield, and on the large rear hatch around the window.
I do remember a commercial for the Vega in the later '70's that touted the durable engines and how they drove the cars through Death Valley in the summer without problems "except a broken belt". But it was too late.
Honda did also replace front fenders for free.
Of course, yes, the Vega was a nice looking car. It's not like people stopped buying them because they were unattractive.
My brother had a 72 Vega that went longer than most - he got it over 100k with one head gasket replacement. He had to replace the oil pan twice because it split. I was part of replacement number one and was very happy not to be part of replacement #2. I don't doubt that my brother hit the same road hazard twice....
lemko - was your old Caprice made in Linden, NJ? They made Caprices there until the end and then switched to Blazers because they were more profitable. Like all NJ auto plants it's long gone.
They certainly had issues with rotor seals, thus they all tended to use oil at some point. That would usually lead to smoking at some point with high mileage. They also had cold start issues and if not well maintained could be a bear to start when cold <20 degrees or so.
Of course I have fond memories of them, I didn't actually own one. I got to drive a couple routinely. The Rx-7 my neighbor had was sold to a friend of mine. It was an '81 or so with 130k miles on it and rusting bad by the time my friend got it in the late 80's. It smoked like crazy but still ran fairly strong.
My brother only had his a year before it was totaled. It had about 60k when he bought it and 75k when it was wrecked. It burned some oil, but not enough to smoke and it was quick and handled great and it was reliable for the short time he had it.
But no question rotaries are quirky and certainly not something for a mainstream car. In an RX-7 it was fun and different. I just love how they rev and rev. They had a buzzer that would go off when approaching redline, cause if you weren't watching the tach, you had no idea how many rpm it was spinning. Though they are not known for developing a lot of torque, what they do produce is available across a wide rpm range. Plus they don't get good fuel economy at all.
I'm not claiming the RX-7/rotary engine was great, but I just liked them pimples and all.
Certifiable!
I'm the same way. I can remember all of the cars my neighbors drove as a kid. One of my neighbors had a mid 60's Porsche 912 that was immaculate but rarely driven. I still remember it sounding like a VW bug.
Then I had another neighbor that was a high wheeling traveling salesmen. He drove 60-70k a year and basically bought a new car every year or two. He had a couple of diesel Toronados in the late 70's to early 80's. If it was very cold out, I could count on a tow truck showing up to help get it started. then he had the first Dodge Laser turbo I ever saw, that led to a Turbo Lebaron convertible and so on. All of those were bad cars. I think I saw the Lebaron on the hook more than under it's own power. Another neighbor had an Omni GLH turbo. I remember waiting for the bus and hearing the turbo spool up as he took off.
I can remember all of that BS, but don't ask me about anything covered in my physics or calc classes;)
:sick:
A HS friend of mine had a Renault Alliance. EEEHHHHWWW! He followed that up with a Pontiac T1000 that actually might have been a step up.
I had a Hyundai Excel loaner back in the early 90's that was horrid. In terms of comfort and having to drive it etc.
So yes, bad foreign cars exist.
What I will NEVER know is how they can get that much power out of that tiny "beer keg" of an engine!
These are NOT good cars for a careless owner. They all will burn a bit of oil by design and they do NOT tolerate being run low on oil at all. They need clean oil too.
If you overheat one, it is toast. If you are the kind of a person who will blow a radiator hose and then try to nurse it home or to a shop, you will kill it on the spot.
Other than that, I can't think of too many cars that are as much fun!
Oh, I sure can! Anything French, Italian or British although maybe fun cars to drive will define "crappiness" to it's fullest extent.
The early offerings from Korea were pretty bad. So bad, in fact that I can say I don' think I would ever buy one. Yes, much improved now.
The early offerings from Japan were, as someone said, crude, tinny and primitive. BUT...they didn't break! They ran and ran!
The Big 3 had it made and they got fat and lazy and paid the price.
I cannot speak for the quality of Japanese cars in the 70s and early 80s, they may have put GM to shame in the "junk" category...but by 1985, they were something to behold, esp if all you knew was Big 3 cars...my 1985 Prelude was built quite solid, and sitting in the driver's seat, my first thought was that somebody took the time to design a dashboard that was actually driver-friendly (before the word ergonomics was used)...engine sounded solid, and it was in no way tinny or cheaply made...bought it for $12,500, put 20K miles in 20 months, and sold it for $11,800 IIRC, dealer was willing to give me $11,300 on a trade...try that with any Big 3 car that isn't a Corvette...the car was simply good, and this was in Detroit, in the belly of the UAW beast...traded it for an 86 Accord, wanted a 4-door instead of 2-door...(my other car at the time was a 1983 Grand Marquis)...
1988, traded the Accord for a decked out, full power, 4 wheel steering, 5 speed 88 Prelude...found out how upset the wife was for trading her 85 Prelude, she finally confessed to me that she really wanted the 2 door, so we bought the 88 Prelude, which we put 185K miles until we gave it to her brother in 2001...13 years of good service, with no major repairs that I can remember, altho there was some recall whn we had 140K miles, and Honda repaired it...also, the drivers seatbelt wore out at 125K, and they replaced it for free, stating that safety items like seatbelts are lifetime warranty...my 2004 Crown Vic was replaced at 110K for $350.00...to this day, she knows that the best car she ever owned was that 88 Prelude...
Also, in 88, bought a new Honda (Acura) Legend...well made, quiet, solid as a rock, lasted for 165K and traded it for a 98 Buick Regal, coming back to Big 3...from day 1, the A/C not only would not cool the back seat of the car, but FRONT seat occupants would not feel cool if it went over 85 degrees, and Buick told me that was "normal"...that was the last straw with GM...it was also the last GM car I bought and probably would never buy another, except I might consider a DTS, hoping the A/C is better, hence the questions to lemko about his Caddy
But my personal experience with 4 Hondas between 85-88 is that they were the best designed, best made, solid, cars I have ever owned...if Honda brought back 4 wheel steering, my wife would buy one tomorrow, even tho she has her 2004 Ram 1500 Hemi...
I remember, one of the car magazines tested both 4WS and the non 4WS Preludes on a track and found zero advantage to the 4WS.
In any event, they never sold well.
The Holy Grail Prelude would be a 1991 SI with either a stick or an automatic. Throw away the "books" on these IF you can find a nice one which is a near impossible task.
Gimmick or not, it was neat. I remember driving one and found it interesting. It certainly never caught on just as GM found out with quadrasteer in their trucks.
1) the car was priced at 16,995, had 40k miles, and the dealer (used cars, no brand specific dealership) wouldn't budge a dime on it. I told him I had 16k to spend and he let me walk. He also was a bit put off that am 21 year old college kid buying this thing, his first words before we even talked price were "You can't afford this car" :mad:
2) I grew up in a Ford family, my parents never owned anything that wasn't a domestic until 1991 when my mom just had to have a Nissan 240SX. My dad the skeptic still had a pair of Ford Broncos and his usual GM rental/company car so he was not one to let go of the "Buy American" mentallity.
3) Theft. Those Si's like other Hondas were prone to theft. I didn't have a garage and I was commuting to a college not known for it's neighborhood.
In the end, I still kick myself for not getting the chance to own one of those Si's which to this day are one of my favorite cars Honda has ever offered (other than my beloved S2000), but like I said before, my probe GT was a great alternative, one that I hold in very high regard and one that if I could find a well cared for example I would snatch up again in a heartbeat.
I guess they weren't neat or interesting enough because they sure didn't sell very well.
Well it wasn't like it was a "flux capacitor" or anything. I probably wouldn't have paid extra for it.
I remember a neighbor had a Beetle convertible, I liked the raspy clattery noise it made. The neighbor on the other side had an insanely loud Fiat X1/9 along with some other cool stuff - an early 40s Chevy truck, a Toyota Extra Cab like in 'Back to the Future', and they bought the first Camry I ever saw. A family down the street who had a kid I didn't get along with always had odd wagons, I remember they had both an 80s Civic and a 63 Falcon. Two neighbors on my block both had identical blue ca. 84 Buick Century sedans. A kid I knew's mother had a white Dodge Mirada CMX which I am pretty sure had T-Tops, which seemed like a cool car, and another kid's family had a Dodge "600" K-car spinoff. I remember my best friend's mother had a Cavalier Type 10 fastback and his dad drove a fullsize Blazer. Oh, the days of malaise :shades:
LOL, I remember a few like that.... Both being out of my league....
Our '73 Nova coupe, six with stick, Rally Wheels and Exterior Decor Group (side moldings and chromed door and window frames) cost $2,625.00 at the bottom of the sticker. Twenty-two months later, Dad bought a new '74 Impala, window sticker $4,408.00. We got $2,700 for the Nova.
Admittedly, between Oct. '72 when we bought the Nova, and August '74, the gas crunch hit, and all of a sudden, more stick-shift 6-cyl. Novas were wanted than before.
I also remember my Dad getting $5,300 trade for his '80 Monte Carlo V6 no air, against his new '84 Monte Carlo V8 (bottom line of sticker $11,409.00). Not bad.
When I had that rental G6 last November it not only gave the factory but the UAW local number!
Does GM ever reengineer a freaking problem. Apparently there is a TSB on 08 and newer Malibus for the ISS. My god, this problem goes back the '00 on almost everything GM makes. My wife's '01 Impala had an issue with it as did my '00 Suburban. While I'll admit it's not a major problem (annoying yes), but the fact that they obviously haven't solved the issue tells me volumes about how they go about improving their vehicles. How much money does GM spend under warranty to fix this obviously defective part?
It was even stranger with some German cars, due to dollar depreciation I think. 1971 280SL - new price $8532, retail price 11/76 - $8845!
Looks kind of like an Impala of those days. Were they rebadges?
We had a 66 Biscayne that was as stripper as you could get!
The four doors remind me of taxis from that era.
A 409 Biscayne? What a sleeper!
I bet the exhaust manifolds were a striking cherry red whilst doin' that tho.. lol
I do wish they came out with V-tec sooner...having that 5 speed, 4WS, and 190 HP instead of 135 HP would have been a "perfect-er" car than it already was...
Make that car today, put in a 260 HP V6, and I might buy three tomorrow, one to drive, one for spare parts, and an extra to keep to drive after 200K miles, so I would be set for cars for my wife for the next 25 years or so...
Sorry, guys, 4WS was something quite nice, and it really was a car to remember...
But that was that not because Pinto's at the time had a rep for catching fire if rear-ended? In par for the course CR predictability, they condemned it.
I can't believe that GM's experiment with their self-destructing cylinder bores has not been mentioned yet..
edit- ok was mentioned once in a quote somewhere later.
What shocked me in reading about the Vegas was the rust. Amazingly, I don't recall that being nearly as big an issue as the poor engine life. I wonder if the cold north climate didn't let the rust work as fast? It's the only thing I can think of would explain it.
Ah, the unlamented Alliance. Reminds me of a story.
I was driving home from the beach on a back road late one summer night in 1990 or thereabouts when I spotted a glow up ahead. I rounded the next curve & saw the source of the glow: a Renault Alliance burning brightly by the side of the road. A guy in his 20s, obviously the driver, was standing a safe distance away.
I pulled over & asked if anyone was hurt & if I could do anything. He said that he was the car's sole occupant & that he was unhurt, & a nearby homeowner had called the police. (This was pre-cellphone, obviously.)
"Don't worry about me", he said. "I managed to save all of my favorite tapes."
He was smiling when he said this. He was having a hard time concealing his joy.
It worked with his logic. The AMC dealer was the nearest dealership and he was walking.
For one summer I had a 56 Fairlane with a Thunderbird V8 in it. That was a nice sleeper!
I drove one and I tried hard to see the benefits but I ended up agreeing with the car magazines.
I suppose for 1200.00 SOMEONE had to like it!
Thing is according to Wiki there are four F250 assembly plants and one is in Mexico and one in Venezuela so the odds are 50/50 this person's truck wasn't even made here. I'm betting the owner has no idea that they aren't all made in the USA.
I bet a 292 in a 57 Ford would beat it. :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Heh. Did that to a work van w/ a Chevy 350. Ran it till it got so hot, it pinged at IDLE!!! Work mechanic went out that nite, replaced the blown radiator hose, fillied it w/ antifreeze, and we drove it for 2 more yrs 'till they replaced it (they are on a 10 yr cycle).