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I think more people look at Vegas than Pintos and probably Gremlins. People like to drop V8's into them.
The 130 hp 2.8 MFI with 3-speed automatic did 0-60 in 10 flat, at least according to the '85 Celebrity sales brochure. Of course, when I went to order mine, I had to buy the optional 4-speed automatic, which a Chevy Service Manager I knew warned me about and at 37K it had lost 3rd and 4th gear. 13K out of warranty, but Chevy replaced the trans for $100.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:74_Vega_GT.jpg
That car I saw could have been had for $300-400, IIRC - probably worth it, but that was before scrap prices had any old hulk worth so much.
Even the lowly VW Bug was built like a Rolls Royce compared to that thing.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
The vents remind me of these VeeDubs:
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I think it's interesting to read the motoring press at the time, because (and we're all guilty of this), the years and old wives' tales have a way of making us look at things differently decades later. I find that things usually weren't as great or as awful back then as we remember them now (and I'm guilty too).
Eh, you can do that with any car. At least, I remember seeing Buford Pusser rip the door off an early 70's Camaro with his bare hands, in one of those old "Walking Tall" movies.
And, I'm sure that's gotta be accurate because, after all, I saw it on tv. :P
As for old VW bugs, the main reason their "build quality" if you can call it that, is so high is because they just don't have that many parts. The fenders are bolt-on, and have rubber seals separating them from the body...something that would be unacceptable on most cars after around 1952 I'd guess. And the roof panel actually overlaps the sides, rather than coming to a seam, so you don't see a gap. They also have bumpers that stick out, so if they are uneven, it's not evident.
As far as places where you can see gaps, such as the hood, trunk, and doors, the ones I've seen are every bit as sloppy as anything else I've seen. One redeeming feature I've noticed though, is that the sheetmetal on them still seems fairly thick. Now, it could simply be that because they're so small, that sheetmetal doesn't have very far to span, unsupported, like it would on a bigger car. But another possibility...since the Bug had been in production since 1939, I wonder if they still used sheetmetal that was as thick as it was in 1939? Or, did they thin it out in later years?
My mom had a 1970 Beetle, my dad blew the engine and put a Porsche 912 engine in it, she didn't care for that and sold the car, before I was born.
I can remember one time looking at a new one at our hometown dealer, and something prompted me to reach up inside the front fenders and for the first time I felt a plastic inner fender liner, when I knew earlier ones didn't have it. This was mid-'74 model year. Many years later I read an online account by an engineer who was assigned to Lordstown and he mentioned remembering the night's shift where they started installing them, mid'74.
Gremlins would not have been that much of a challenge, since AMC sold them from the factory with a V8, although I don't think it was done in all model years.
I had a 232 in my '72 Gremlin - my first car. I could easily spin the wheels from a stop if I wasn't careful with the accelerator. Weird car in many ways though; I'll never forget that Chrysler starter!
There was a game show in the '70's with Tom Kennedy as the host, and I think it was called 'Split Second', but I'll have to check. There were five cars on the stage, always Chevys or Pontiacs, and the winner that day got a key and tried to start the car. If it didn't start, the winner would be back the next day. I always had to laugh when the person won five days straight, as they'd have their choice of the five cars. Always comical is that ABC must have told them to 'ham it up' when choosing, but you knew when there was a Vega, Nova, Camaro, Impala, and Corvette, which they'd be choosing.
http://www.autosavant.com/2009/07/20/the-cars-that-killed-gm-chevrolet-vega/
If you don't want to read through it, here's the summary:
"The Vega-so promising, so tragic-was a first for GM: a complete quality disaster. Up to that point, Chevy was considered a reliable brand. The public held GM vehicles in high esteem. But anyone who owned a Vega no longer could hold that opinion. It was the first nail in the coffin. Many more were to come-X-cars, Chevy-mobiles, Cimarron-each one carefully nailed in place by a complacent, arrogant corporate bureaucracy, with the steadying hand of an indifferent workforce."
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
How the Vega could have ever passed its shake-down cruise remains a great mystery.
Consumer Reports even gave the Vega a 'better than average' reliability report after one year based on owner's surveys. Andre can confirm. And there is no way, absolutely no way, that rust bubbles appeared on the body within the first twelve months. I lived in salty, rusty, NW PA and was a student of the Vega and my grandparents had the first Vega our dealer got in. It simply did not happen...in one year.
Two to three or so? Yes. Since the '74's sold like crazy, I've got to believe the word wasn't out yet. '75, yes, and in '76 they were forced to 'sleeve' the four and add rustproofing. Frankly, I had every Vega brochure from the get-go and I never remember them talking about rustproofing until the '76 model year.
The car, particularly the early ones, was a quality disaster, no doubt. But that guy's memory is off...considerably, as far as a timeline is concerned.
That and most of their offerings since then (apart from trucks maybe). Now I mentioned this in another forum yesterday I think, that when I worked at a GM dealer for 2 days I actually took aliking to the Chevy Cruze. It feels solid and well built, but people's perception and memory will remind them of the Cavaliers and Sunfires, and perceived depreciation might steer others away. However the old GM dealer old school mentality still remains as they tend to do things [non-permissible content removed] backwards, hence I left the GM dealership after only 2 days.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Regarding VW love...can we banish all such posts to a separate topic like the Studebaker fans? I'm just kidding! Sort of. :shades:
I was stunned at how thin the doors were, and a very thin plastic instrument panel piece did come off in my hands--I believe it was an ashtray cover. I had never seen a car with smaller tires and wheels in my 15 years--they reminded me of Hot Wheels car tires/wheels. And normally I'd like frameless door glass...but it didn't do anything for those Subies!
The Pontiac dealer got out of them in just a couple or three years IIRC.
I also seem to remember rotary Mazdas of that era having self-destructing engines a la Vega, just not overheating.
I don't think anyone could present an adequate argument to apologize for the Vega.
If anything, the magazines in the early days only show the desperate hope that America could produce a car that was a true "import fighter".
The loathing that was eventually heaped upon the Vega was, I think in inverse proportion to the hopes people had for it.
You might say it's like the fallen hero--the wrath of the mob is turned most fiercely on such a person.
But VW and Chrysler have nothing to brag about, either.
Not to mention poor Hyundai...looks like so many get junked 9 years out that none of 'em make it to 10! :P
While VW, GM, and Chrysler are at the bottom of the pack, I'm sure they're still improving. If you pulled one of those reliability charts from 10 years ago, I'm sure they'd look a lot worse.
So I'm sure GM is doing better. Only problem is, so is everyone else.
That GM figure breaks down to 1.7 problems per car at age 10. I wish my 2000 Park Ave (okay, it's 13) only had 1.7 things wrong with it. It had to go in the shop the other day, and according to just the codes in the computer, there were four things wrong with it, right there!
Within the past 12 months, it's also needed brake work (and not just new pads and rotors...they had to work on one of the calipers), new swaybar links (not the car's fault though, because the previous mechanic over-tightened them), and a new front axle and boot, because the old one was leaking and making a mess.
It also needed a fuel filter...dunno if that's "maintenance" or "repair", but it was still a "problem".
And Andre, you're absolutely right, all makers are much better than they did, say, 20 years ago. The bar keeps being raised.
OK, I'll stop.
Yeah, what's up with that?
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I always get a kick out of how folks dismiss the thousands of data points that go into the plot, as if there is some mass hysteria present in CR subscribers...
Over on the GM forum we'd discussed some how in a recent CR the 2011 Nissan Juke shows "much worse than average" while the 2012 shows "much better than average". Even CR seems a tad sheepish about it, only saying in the text that 'reliability should be average'. I, frankly, have a little trouble believing that there is truly that much difference in the two consecutive model years, even knowing that the 2011 was the first model year for the Juke. In my forty years of looking at CR, I've never seen anything that dramatic before. But I won't get into that more here, since it's the classic car forum and I'd be hard-pressed to identify any ten-year-old car as a 'classic'!
And CR did a review of new vs. existing models, found that new models were more trouble-prone, consistent with your Juke observation...
I bring this up because, as much as GM, etc, have improved from the dark days of the 80s, they're still playing catch up.
Upon re-reading your post, I get what you're saying.
So Hyundai's implode right after the warranty is up.
We should define any 10+ year old as a survivor, and thus a classic.
It was a much nicer driving car off the showroom floor than the Pinto and light-years ahead of just about any economy import. We owned a pair of Volvo 144s in the mid-'70s that drove OK - the '73 was far better trimmed than the '68 - but were reliability disasters. Dad would get rental cars when they were in the shop, so I drove a lot of rentals. One week we got a '74 or '75 Vega hatchback and I drive it for a week. It was a nice car. Sporty, like a shrunken Camaro. I liked driving it a lot better than the Volvo.
Long term quality issues were absolutely true. But I can see why they sold so well. They were great at making a good impression.
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