Chevrolet Vega

jrosasmc · January 2002

I spent my earliest years in the early part of the 80s. And I can remember when rusted-out Vegas, Astres, and Monzas used to roam the streets. I still can recall the mufflers blowing out tons of smoke just because the motors burned way too much oil.

avalanche325 · January 2002

You say all that like it's a BAD thing.;-)

How about this one:
I was out late one night in my 73 wagon. I was taking a shortcut back from my girlfriends house, came around a corner and floored it. Got up to about 70 (open road) and let off the gas. It stayed on the floor!!!! I reached down to pull it up, figuring the return spring broke but it was jammed. I cruised it for a few miles back to civilization and pulled into a convienience store. HARD on the brakes. I got it stopped (it had an auto). I turned the key off and it sat there and ran for another ten minutes (very roughly - sort of dieseling). When it finally conked out I got out, opened the hood and the exhause manifold was glowing bright red. The throttle linkage had fallen off of the side of the carb and wedged it wide open. Put it back together and off I went (after cooling down). I am sure that really helped that fine engine out.

stickguy · January 2002

A women at my company recently retired after 26 years. In the write up on our lan BB, they mentioned she started in 1975, the same year she bought a new Vega, that she still has.

I would have asked her about it if I knew before she left.

She must have had a soft spot for that car (or been real cheap!), since it wasn't a case of not being able to afford something new.

badgerpaul · January 2002

Having to commute in that Vega must have made it seem like a lot longer than 26 years.

dustyk · February 2002

incorporated an aluminum block without iron liners. The cylinder walls were impregnated with silicone in a patented process that applied the material under intense pressure that provided a semi-hardened surface with a friction reducer. They also incorporated low tension piston rings.

In normal service this design worked quite well. This design's major weakness was an intolerance to overheating. Over a certain temperature the silicone would migrate out of the aluminum pores leaving the cylinder bore unprotected and ravaged by ring friction.

When you saw a Vega puking large amounts of oil smoke you were witnessing the result of a reversal of the silicone impregnation process. Inspection would reveal excessive cylinder wall scoring which rendered the oil control rings useless.

The majority of the engine components and final engine assembly were done at Messina, New York.

Dusty

badtoy · February 2002

used the same process for the V8s in the 928, but were far more successful with their quality control.

ghulet · March 2002

.....a really lovely '75-ish orange Pontiac Astre (bro of the famed, beloved Vega).

badtoy · March 2002

was a beautifully styled (still looks great today) small car with handling far above the norm (for the time), in search of an equally great powertrain (which it was designed to accept, from the very beginning).

Just another example of a great idea from GM's product designers without the backing of upper management. When the going gets tough, GM just quits.

sundaydriver3 · March 2002

Plus better steel galvanizing by then? But I think it was notchback only. Terrible.

badtoy · March 2002

They fixed the biggest problems in order to get a few more years of production out of it, then pulled the plug. If the idiots would sweat the details in the first place instead of relying on their customers to do their testing for them, they wouldn't be losing market the share the way they have.

speedshift · March 2002

Apparently GM made a conscious decision to be the Home Depot of auto makers. Lousy service but hey we're cheap. What a turnaround from the '60s when GM was at least competitive (and often dominating) in every field that mattered in the US market. Then at some point they decided to throw that away and compete on price rather than engineering. The aura of invincibility they had thirty years ago isn't something you throw away casually and then get back quickly. That's what's so incredibly stupid.

andre1969 · March 2002

...the Vega itself was retired after 1977. I'm not sure what year the Iron Duke first came out, but it had to have been right at the very end. However, the car's basic design did persist through 1980, as the Monza, Sunbird, Skyhawk, and Starfire. And as the Vega's sales declined, the Monza actually did quite well for awhile, and the Sunbird was one of Pontiac's stronger sellers for a few years, as well. The Buick and Olds variants never really caught on though, as people really hadn't bought into the concept of a tiny Buick or Olds yet.

a_l_hubcaps · March 2002

Andre-

Little-known Vega fact: After the 1977 model year, GM had a quantity of Vega bodies still lying around, but they had officially discontinued the model. So they stuck Monza fascias on them and sold them as 1978 Chevy Sportbacks. I bet they're really rare today, probably another example of a car that has no collector value in spite of its rarity.

-Andrew L

ghulet · March 2002

Maybe those are worth $500 in good running condition instead of the usual $250 (-;

My mom and stepdad briefly had a '78 Sunbird, bought new. It wasn't a bad car (it had a 3.8 V6, IIRC), but was lousy in snow (nose heavy RWD) and had a tiny, low back seat (not good when you have two growing boys). They traded it in on a 1980 Fiat Brava. My parents didn't have the best judgment about cars back then.

andre1969 · March 2002

Come to think of it, I think they did the same thing with the Monza, Sunbird, and company when they were phased out. 1980 was supposed to be the last year, but I could've sworn that they were selling leftovers as 1981 models. I think Ford did the same with the Pinto.

avalanche325 · March 2002

Cylinder scoring was not the only problem of the Aluminum block. Since it was mated to a cast iron head there was also an electrolysis problem. This caused the top surface of the cylinders, which were extremely thin, to pit. Then, the ol' head gaskit just would not hold. I have direct experience with this. I think the block casting was a poor design, not just the metallurgy. There were four very thin "cans" sitting in a water jacket.

jrosasmc · March 2002

Was the Vega much less reliable than the Corvair? Or vice-versa? Or was the Corvair not reliable at all?

speedshift · March 2002

Corvairs were dead reliable compared to the Vega--well, I guess that's not saying much. Let me put it another way: aside from throwing the occasional fanbelt, my Corvairs were as reliable as any Detroit iron of the period. Aside from some squirrely handling in the early ones I can't think of any major flaws in the car. They did leak oil.

Mr_Shiftright · March 2002

Corvairs were okay. They leaked a lot of oil, but that could be corrected, along with all the other flaws. The difference is that the Vega was not correctible except by massive intervention. The Vega was a pretty lousy car in real life. Even if it ran, it was cheap, shifting like a skunk, rusted away and was noisy. The Corvair was a Rolls Royce in comparison, in terms of build quality at least.

Looking back, it is apparent that the Vega was an okay idea on the drawing board, but was a car rushed into production without being developed. It was half-baked, and it's hard to re-bake something once it is out of the oven, if you know what I mean.

If someone they could have made a Vega with a decent smooth OHC engine, a workable shifter, some rust-proofing and about $100 in upgrades to seats and switches and knobs, it would have been a pretty nice car. Styling was okay, size was okay, economy was okay. It could have competed with contemporary Japanese cars.

jrosasmc · March 2002

Would you agree with me and say that the first Chevettes weren't built as better or as good as the Vegas?

andre1969 · March 2002

...were cheap, crude, unrefined little cars, but were actually fairly durable. A Vega might have performed better, and sure looked a lot nicer, but still had rust and engine issues.

I have an old Consumer Guide used car book that says of the Chevette something along the lines of "they squeak and rattle with age, but seem to keep on going". Basically, I'd guess they were a "nickel and dime you to death" car, versus a car that would just dump on you all at once!

Mr_Shiftright · March 2002

Chevette was a cheap little car. I guess the engine was based on a Brazilian GM design, or maybe the whole car for all I know. But it could stagger around for years if you didn't mind being humiliated by driving one.

andre1969 · March 2002

...but the Chevette was also marketed around the world as the Isuzu I-mark, Daewoo Maepsy, Opel Kadette (I think), and I'm sure others.

The thing that annoys me is that, from what I've seen in pictures, the I-Mark was a pretty good looking car back then. They had a coupe (NOT a hatchback) model that looked kinda Vega-ish. Also a notchback sedan that just looked better-equipped and more upscale than the Chevette hatchbacks GM pushed on us.

jrosasmc · March 2002

Are you talking about the first RWD I-Marks, rather than the mid-80s FWD versions?

andre1969 · March 2002

...yup, the earlier I-Marks, from the late '70's and early '80's, were the same basic design as the Chevette, but prettier to look at. The later I-Mark was the same as the Chevy Spectrum.

For instance, here's the "Vega-esque" coupe I was thinking of...

And the notchback sedan looked like this...

At a quick glance, they hide their Chevette origins pretty well, but look at the windshield/cowl area, and the front doors, and they're almost pure Chevette.

badtoy · March 2002

described the Chevette as a little cockroach -- can't kill em!! (Actually, although the analogy pains me, that's a good description for the Toyota Tercel!)

avalanche325 · March 2002

doesn't know much about cockroaches. If they did, they would know that parts don't routinely fall off of cockroaches. Parts definitaly fell off of the Chevette.

I do remember in an auto mag (can't remember which one) they compared a Lamborghini to a Chevette. They did a REAL test on the Lambo, not just how awesome it was, but how poor the build quality was. They said it was so bad it rivaled the Chevette.

jrosasmc · March 2002

And the Lamborghini probably was built worse, than say, a Mercedes or Volvo.

Mr_Shiftright · March 2002

Yeah, but Italian cars were all about the engines. They gave you the body for free. The engine was their soul and was the most special part of the car.

andre1969 · March 2002

...the 231 in my Cutlass Supreme blew up, I should've found a wrecked Lambo to swap the engine out of! ;-)

avalanche325 · March 2002

at the price of Italian cars.........they ain't giving you anything for free!

badtoy · March 2002

what image will buy you (as a manufacturer)!

jrosasmc · March 2002

I checked out a '78 Monza a couple of years ago, and even then, I found the build quality and fit/finish very appalling (for a GM subcompact).

andre1969 · March 2002

...my Mom was thinking about getting a new car. This was late 1979/early '80. The fuel crisis was in full swing, so she was thinking economy-minded. One of the cars she was thinking of was a Chevy Monza. I remember back then hoping she'd get one, especially since around Christmas time I got a Tyco racecar set that had a Monza racecar. I think the other car that came with that set was a Porsche. Sad isn't it, that I'd remember the Monza distinctly, but not the other car?

Anyway, Mom ended up getting a 1980 Malibu coupe, which is probably for the better, because it was still running well 7 years later, when I got my driver's license and she handed it down to me. I don't know if a Monza would've made it that far ;-)

avalanche325 · April 2002

I actually saw one on the road on Friday. It would have been maybe a 79??? It was the hatchback in very faded beige (I think it was called gobie beige). It had a 5.1 Liter badge. Weren't the first Monzas jest a rebadged 77 Vega? I seem to remember that they were exactly the same car for a year and then took on a life (not a very long one) of their own. Is this correct?

badtoy · April 2002

Although they were available with a small block V8. The Vega was designed to accept any powerplant GM decided to use, including a rotary.

ghulet · April 2002

My stepdad bought a '78 Sunbird (aka Pontiac Monza) new. I guess it wasn't an *awful* car (it did have the 3.8 V6) but it had the usual non-virtues (small back seat, front heavy) so it wasn't the best family car on earth for sure.

Speaking of Monza miniatures, I do remember having an orange Hot Wheels Monza as a kid, I think they put it out when the car was introduced (late '74).

andre1969 · April 2002

...but the only Monza model I can remember that looked like it was just a rebadged Vega was the sport wagon model they had. It looked just like a Vega wagon with a chromey, upright grille grafted on. The Vega was also available as a 2-door or hatchback, both fastback body styles, while the Monza was available as a formal-styled notchback sedan (I thought these were pretty attractive for the time, especially in Sunbird trim), and a fastback hatchback style that had a roofline that was trying to ape a certain Ferrari model. I forget the exact Ferrari model, but I've seen a few in pics, and the Monza's roofline does look like a copy. I think all the hatchback models had the 4-square headlight treatment, while the notchback Monza tried to look like a little Monte Carlo up front.

I know these things were designed to accept anything up to a Chevy 350, but how did they really handle and act with bigger engines? I have an old used car guide that covers the '77-86 era, and it says to pretty much avoid them all in general, but gives extra warnings about the V-6 and V-8 models because the extra weight would make the whole thing sag. My neighbor used to race Vegas when I was a kid, and he put 350's in them, but I'm sure he also built up the suspensions to match.

badtoy · April 2002

and it handled fine -- not as well as with the 4-cyl, but still not bad. Heavier springs and shocks were a good idea, but you wanted them anyway, just because of the extra power.

ghulet · April 2002

......I know our '78 Sunbird was nose-heavy with the 3.8 V6, so it handled poorly in snow. I can only imagine how the Monza handled with a 350 up front!! Since I was nine when they bought the car, I never drove it, but mom would comment about the things she liked (good a/c, nice looking, quick for the era, etc.) and hated (tiny back seat and trunk, lousy traction in rain and snow). Ours was a notchback coupe, finished in the requisite-for-'78 silver with burgandy vinyl interior, 3.8/automatic, the Pontiac four-spoke graphite mag wheels, a/c and aftermarket cassette stereo.

I guess the Ps didn't love it too much, they got rid of it in '80 (for a Fiat Brava sedan, of all things, very scary). Good thing we also had a '72 Ford Club Wagon (in very glamorous two-tone green) as our 'reliable' car, LOL!

Chevrolet Vega

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