Remember the Great Vega Hunt? Paul was looking for surviving, running, non-garage queen examples of Vegas with the original 2300 engine. This 1974 Chevrolet Vega I photographed in Washington Heights in Manhattan may just qualify.
You can split the lengthy run of the Chevrolet Vega into three phases: the slim-bumpered Vegas of 1971-73; the 1974-75 models with their restyled front and rear ends; and the 1976-77 models with their much-improved Dura-Built 140 engines. This ’74, therefore, has the heavier bumpers of the later cars but without their mechanical improvements.
For all their problems – and they were legion – the Vega was still a hot ticket in ’74 thanks to the oil crisis and ensuing high gas prices. 1974 proved to be the height of Vega popularity with 460,374 units produced. The following year, sales were slashed in half.
Part of that may have been the introduction of the Vega’s shapely Monza cousin but the Vega’s extensive recall record had also caught up with it. Despite having been on the market for a few years, the Vega still suffered from engine leaks, excessive oil consumption and overheating. For 1976, Chevrolet finally ushered in the extensively-tested and publicized Dura-Built and a much longer warranty but the damage had been done and sales had tumbled.
276,028 Vega hatchbacks were produced in 1974, outselling the notchback by 4-to-1 and the surprisingly popular kammback wagon by just over 2-to-1. Remarkably, the Vega managed to pull off 5-MPH bumpers rather well – it helped that they didn’t look merely stuck on, and that the Vega had been treated to a new front end design reminiscent of the ’74 Camaro. It took until 1977 for Ford to give the Pinto a visual refresh that better integrated the hulking big bumpers imposed on it by government regulations.
Though the Pinto was homelier than the Vega – and though it suffered issues of its own – the Ford outsold the Chevy in ’74, production totalling 544,209. The Pinto had consistently outsold the Vega though Ford had cause for alarm when the Pinto, too, suffered a huge sales decline for ’75. This was well before the famous Mother Jones article was published in which the little Ford was called a “firetrap”. Yes, domestic subcompacts were decidedly dire in the 1970s. It’s no wonder the Japanese were well on their way to dominating this and many other segments in North America.
What a pity GM had skimped on the engineering budget for the Vega as it was a pretty little thing and relatively fun-to-drive. For 1974, there was a wide range of Vegas to choose from including GT versions of the hatchback and kammback, a new, plusher notchback called the LX, a “wood”-panelled Estate wagon, and a delightfully incongruous Estate GT.
This example is just a regular ’74 hatchback with the optional three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic auto but the standard tune of the 140 cubic-inch four, producing 75 hp and 115 ft-lbs and using a 1-barrel carburettor. The GT models had a 2-barrel carb and produced 85 hp and 122 ft-lbs that year. The standard transmission was a three-speed manual but there was also a four-speed manual available. The two-speed Powerglide auto was gone by ’74.
Like unreliable Oldsmobiles killed diesels for Americans, did memories of self-destructing Vegas and self-immolating Pintos kill the image of hatchbacks? Hatchback Pintos and Vegas far outsold their booted brethren. Fast forward ten years from this Vega, however, and notchback Cavaliers, Stanzas, Camrys and Accords were outselling their moribund hatchback siblings.
This Vega was certainly a find. But when Paul conceived the Great Vega Hunt, he stipulated we should be looking for Vegas equipped with the original 2300 engine and ones that aren’t garage queens. With this Vega’s vanity plate and clean exterior, it looks a little too perfect (or about as perfect as a Vega can look). There may be a mismatched wheelcover but mark my words, this Vega is well taken care of and I doubt it’s ever parked on city streets for long or driven in the winter. No, this neat ’74 won’t win me the trophy for the Great Vega Hunt. Perhaps my next find will.
Photographed in Washington Heights, Manhattan in 2014.
Related Reading:
Announcing The Great Vega Hunt: Who Will Find A Genuine CC Running Vega 2300?
The Great Vega Hunt Continues: Bone Stock 1973 Notchback – With Powerglide!
The Great Vega Hunt Limps On: Stock-Looking 1976-77 Vega Hatchback
CC: Chevrolet Vega – Winner Of 1971 Small Car Comparison And GM’s Deadly Sin No.2
Hey!
“…about as perfect as a Vega can look”? One presumes you mean “..about as perfect as a ’74 Vega can look”, as the original ’71 is a really good-looking car. Everyone thinks so – well, everyone typing this comment, anyway. This Camaro-fronted one is next best, and even with the inevitable front and rear girder planks attached (and even there, as you say, it wears them quite well).
[Apologies to US readers for this sidebar, but William, I have never before noticed how very similar the roofline of the ’76 Holden LX Torana hatch is to the Vega, not until looking at the close ups here. Torana’s all-Aussie designed, ofcourse. My arse it was, and we really did believe that line back in the day, btw].
For non-Aussies who may be curious:
https://www.shannons.com.au/auctions/2017-shannons-sydney-winter-classic-auction/I1HE91FP4CA4TAJ7/
Somebody from GM NA certainly cross-pollinated with somebody from Holden. The picture pulled up such that I could only see the greenhouse and it was uncannily identical.
It’s a really good looking car, if Opel had a version of the Vega, probably the front end would be seemed to the Torana’s snout.
That is one beauty!! i got into cars around mid 1973 and fondly remember this car. It is so nice to see one in this shape. You got the prize as far as i’m concerned william!!
Wow, an incredible streetside find, and in NYC no less.
This thing raises all kinds of questions. Is it driven by a fan who understands its needs and limitations but who loves it anyway? Or is it driven by a clueless kid who bought an old subcompact Chevy from his reclusive Great Aunt Janet who put 12,000 miles on it before she stopped driving herself to the grocery (but never in the rain or snow, thank you) in 2004? If the latter, boy-howdy is he in for a rude awakening in the near future.
I usually don’t mind vinyl roofs on 1970s cars but this one is bad.
I 100% agree with you on the roof JP. I never understood why vinyl roofs were so popular in the ’70’s, and the vinyl roof treatment on this car is truly awful. My question to the designers and stylists on the vinyl roof: “What were you thinking?”
This vinyl roof is so bad I thought it might be dealer installed, but this image from the ’74 brochure options page shows the same style top. Between the skinny c-pillar and thick chrome trim strips, the vinyl is almost completely hidden.
The Pinto and Vega both used weird vinyl tops with covered C-pillars and painted sheet metal hatches. I guess the designers learned their lesson with the Monza and Mustang II since they offered vinyl tops on the notchback models, but limited the hatchbacks to bare metal roofs.
Part of me hates the restyled nose on these cars. The original mini Camaro face worked so well. This look, not so much. The timing of this article is perfect, however, because I just recently came across some design ideas the stylists at GM were playing with for a sub-Corvair model circa 1968; let’s just say it isn’t hard to see where this car’s frontal styling was inspired from:
Wow! How did you find that?
Looks like a picture from 1980….
So, in 1974, the Pinto and Vega sold over 1 MILLION copies, wow!
X percent were dissatisfied…that’s a lot of lost future sales.
Still, how many Corollas and B210s were sold in 1974? Fiats? VWs? I bet the two American cars outsold all of them combined.
That’s what you call loyalty…squandered. GM could have done SO much better with the Vega, which during that era had good handling and a nicer interior than the Pinto and B210, and even Corolla (but the Corolla had a useable rear seat and nifty little standard features).
All the Vega needed was the 1900cc Opel engine….right there, in plain sight.
A couple of weeks ago, in a thread that I now can’t seem to locate, someone posted a link to United States International Trade Commission reports with a lot of detailed U.S. sales figures for import brands from the 1964-84 era, most of which I had never seen before. Here’s what those reports had for those brands/models (and a few others) for 1974. I believe that all of these numbers are calendar year, not model year, and they are cars only, no trucks:
VOLKSWAGEN [total 334,515]
Type 1 243,664
Dasher 37,232
Type 2 29,919
Type 4 23,250
Other 450
Notes: Type 1 includes Beetle, Karmann Ghia and Thing…Type 2 is the Transporter (e.g., Bus, Kombi), which I think most people would regard as a van or truck, not a car, but it is included in these tables…”Other” includes 335 Sciroccos, 58 Rabbits and 57 Type 3s….I am guessing that the Scirocco and Rabbit were introduced very late in CY1974 as 1975 models, accounting for these tiny sales totals; sales of these models in CY1975 were 98,215 Rabbits and 16,108 Sciroccos….Similarly, I’m guessing that the 57 Type 3s were leftover 1973 models that weren’t sold until CY1974.
TOYOTA [total 238,137]
Corolla 103,394
Celica 59,172
Corona 53,047
Mark II 14,233
Other 8,291
Notes: Another online source I know of with Toyota U.S. sales data has numbers which match for the Corona, and are close but not identical for the other models above. That source shows sales of 8,204 Land Cruisers and 87 Carinas (apparently leftover 1973 models that weren’t sold until CY1974). Those two numbers add up to 8,291, which matches the “Other” total above.
DATSUN [total 189,026]
B-210 73,317
260Z 45,328
710 33,366
610 32,916
Other 4,099
Notes: I have no idea what “Other” represents. One possibility is that it represents sales in Hawaii, which were apparently handled through a separate sales organization.
FIAT [TOTAL 70,611]
128/X19 38,413
124 32,128
Other 70
MAZDA [total 61,190]
RX-2 20,984
RX-4 18,590
RX-3 17,111
808 4,295
Other 210
OPEL [59,279]
HONDA [43,119]
SUBARU [22,980]
Thanks MCT!
Pinto and Vega did outsell the imports! 1 million is a lot…. Much of that loyalty (MOST of it for GM) went up in smoke!
Capri was another one, like Opel
I didn’t include the Capri in my earlier post, but it was 75,260. The Dodge Colt was 42,925.
The very next year, 1975, Toyota passed VW and never looked back.
Oh wow! I’ll have to track down the original thread, this is some excellent data.
The original thread (a post where Paul asked whether anyone knew of sources that could be used to determine total U.S. light vehicle sales going back in time) seems to have disappeared. You can find the reports this way:
1) go to this link: https://www.usitc.gov/commission_publications_library
2) Where it says “Search Publications”, enter “automobile”, then press the Search button.
3) You will be presented with a list of results, starting with the most recent. Continue back in time until you reach October 1985 (it should be on the third page of results). You will see a report number 1762, with the following title: “The U.S. Automotive Industry: U.S. Factory Sales, Retail Sales, Imports, Exports, Apparent Consumption, Suggested Retail Prices, and Trade Prices with Selected Countries for Motor Vehicles, 1964-1984”
4) If you continue going back in time, you will find reports with the same or similar title going back to 1976. While most of the data in the earlier reports was carried over to future years’ reports, the older reports sometimes have a bit of detail for earlier years that was omitted from the later reports.
Thank you so much for this, MCT!
Also, Ford sold about 300K Pinto based Mustang IIs in 1974.
Will, this one counts toward the “Great Vega Hunt”. Absolutely. Incredible find.
I noticed several things about this particular example:
1.) Prior to this one, I don’t recall ever having seen a hatchback with what appears to be a partial vinyl roof covering;
2.) I wonder if the current owner actually knows any of the Vega’s history. I mention this because of the custom plate. Instead of “74 CHEVY”, someone in the know about Vegas would probably have had plates that read “74 VEGA”, as if to say they have one of the last ones.
Regardless, long live this car.
Stylewise, my faves are the 1971-’73 and ’76 & ’77 models.
Then the hunt continues… Most likely, the tag “74 VEGA” was already taken in Pennsylvania, so there’s a good chance it’s out there guys!
Kudos to the owner for driving this across state lines (even though it’s just a neighboring state).
Right you are! I checked PennDOT’s web page for Personalized Registration Plate Availability, and indeed “74VEGA” is listed as “a configuration previously issued and therefore not available”
It’s unclear whether 74VEGA is actually a current issue though, but still, there’s reason to believe that another one may be out there!
Ford offered vinyl roof coverings on Pinto and Bobcat hatchbacks and I believe even the Pinto sedan offered it.
Vega hatchback is what I meant – but thanks. I have seen the Pintos and Bobcats with them.
This actually holds potential for a future CC debate: worst vinyl roof covering.
+1!
The AMC Matador Barcelona II is usually a finalist. 🙂
Weird as this vinyl top looks, it appears to be a factory option, as shown by the attached brochure image.
The drop in sales for 1975 despite the gas crunch should’ve been Detroit’s first clue that the natural product cycle for a small car is closer to five years than ten, but they still persisted to try and get a full decade out of each compact-car program and make do with nosejobs when a full reskin was due as seen on the Sonic (well, Holden Barina but the same car) we covered the other day.
In 1975, the country was in the worst recession since WWII. I think sales of everything were down.
I think even Toyota sales dropped or stayed level. Everything was down…and big cars were way down.
1976 started a recovery, and 1977 was better yet. Sales were good until late summer of 1979, when the 2nd oil crisis (gasoline went from $0.65 in NY to over $1–the mechanical pumps sold in half-gallons because they couldn’t go over $0.999 per gallon). Then by 1980 we had another recession.
I can’t help but think government meddling with car design had a fair bit to do with that. Between the Early Emission-control Era thirst and drivability problems and the often gawky-looking result from the bumper laws, you had a pretty good incentive NOT to buy a new car. Hey, you could get a nice used car instead! If enough people didn’t buy new cars in a market the size of America’s, there’s your recession – quite apart from other factors.
U.S. sales for the Japanese automakers were generally down in ’74 – something I was surprised to see when I looked the numbers up a while back. Sales of small domestic cars increased substantially for the 1974 model year, as illustrated by this post, so I would have expected the same to be true for Japanese imports, but it wasn’t. Of the five Japanese automakers then doing business in the U.S. on their own, the only one who wasn’t down in 1974 was Honda, which saw growth of only a few thousand units during a period in which their year-to-year sales were otherwise growing almost exponentially.
Why did this happen? Speculation on a few possible explanations: the recession made people more budget-conscious about getting a car for the lowest price possible (even in 1974, I’m guessing that the out-the-door price on imports was higher); for the same reason, the recession made people wary of buying imports due to concerns about the expense of parts or service; the recession caused large numbers of people who might have otherwise bought a small car (domestic or import) to put off buying a new car at all, but also caused a lot of people who might otherwise have bought a larger domestic car to turn to small cars instead, and most of these people stayed domestic, resulting in a net influx of customers for small domestic cars, but not for economy-oriented imports.
Datsun and Subaru climbed back above their 1973 sales levels in 1975, while Honda resumed its charge upward (Honda’s 1975 sales were more than two and a half times what they had been in 1973). Toyota had just a so-so year in ’75 (up, but still a little below where they had been in ’73), but bounced back above their 1973 level in 1976. Mazda, which was hit by a fuel-economy related backlash due to its use of rotary engines, didn’t exceed their 1973 level until 1979.
We’ve batted around the question of “Why did Vega and Pinto sales drop so much in 1975?” before. I think there are four basic possible reasons, and I think all four were contributing factors, with no one really dominant over the others:
1) People began to realize that these weren’t very good cars (the problems with them began to become public knowledge; the design was aging).
2) People began to realize how far superior Japanese imports were to domestic subcompacts, and became more receptive to buying Japanese cars.
3) As the recession continued, a lot of people put off buying any new car at all.
4) Sales were cannibalized by the new variations of the GM H-body that appeared in 1975 (Monza, Astre, Skyhawk, Starfire).
Over the long haul, #2 may be the single biggest reason why the domestics eventually lost their competitiveness in this segment, but it was a long-term process that didn’t have any especially big bump in 1975, and I don’t think it was any bigger of a contributor to the Vega and Pinto’s decline in ’75 than the other three. Contrary to what you might think, the Japanese took a sales hit from the 1974-75 recession (see my prior post). Sales of Japanese cars as a whole were down for 1974, and were only a little bit above their 1973 level in 1975 (if you take Honda out of the equation, the rest were still collectively below where they been in ’73).
What a find, and in Gotham, no less! I was thinking Paul’s challenge (dare?) would go unmet. I learned how to drive in my father’s 1974 Vega notchback, with only the three-speed automatic and an AM radio as options. It did indeed handle well and was reasonably peppy for his 70-mile daily round trip commute to Chicago. But that car barely lasted until 1979, its life prolonged when both rusted-out front fenders and the hood were replaced due to an accident. For the last six months or so, Dad was adding a quart of oil almost daily, too. To see one its litter mates still apparently rolling along is a shock indeed.
It would be hard enough to find a running first gen Vega. The real issue is locating one with the original engine since those things grenaded in short order and if someone even bothered, the replacement engine would be the later, more stout version.
It’s quite stunning when one considers the sheer number of them that were built. That’s a lot of junked Vegas. Of course, considering how readily they rusted, I don’t think there’s much doubt that the majority have completely deteriorated back into the earth.
The owner is proud of his Vega. Take a look at the license plate.
My family bought a Vega GT Kammback in 1974, after looking at the Opel 1900 , Dodge Colt, Datsun 610, Pinto, and various Toyota wagons.
My dad’s reasoning was that with our recent experience of numerous vacations ruined by our ’69 Chrysler Town and Country’s unreliability, he wanted a car that would have a nearby dealer nearly everywhere.
Well we sure did end up using those nearby dealers.
Seven years later, the rusted out hulk of the Vega set itself on fire as I was trying to get home from college. My parents bought a Rabbit Diesel to replace it, which was a paragon of reliability by comparison, which should tel you something.
I think hatchbacks in America were killed less by the Vega and Pinto, only some of which were hatchbacks, and more by the many dudly cars that followed them over the next ten years, including the Chevette, Omni, Citation, gen-1 Escort, along with some tinny Japanese economy cars. By the ’90s, small car buyers (at least in the US) wanted a separate trunk.
Over the last decade though something unexpected has happened: hatchbacks are making a comeback and nowhere is it more noticeable than the luxury segment. Audi, Mercedes-AMG, BMW, Porsche, Jaguar, and Tesla are all selling high-end hatchbacks in North America. Hatches have returned to economy cars too, with several brands again offering them after a long hiatus. I note that Toyota has always called their 3 and 5 doors “liftbacks”, but for apparently the first time the nevived 2018 Corolla 5 door is called the Corolla Hatchbacks. Makes sense, because hatchbacks are hip again.
The Vega hatch consistently outsold the notch by around 3 or 4 to 1.
Pinto was a different story, the Runabout and the hatch generally being quite close in sales. Still, the hatch generally had the edge.
That PA vanity plate is 13 years old or more. The color gradients changed to solid color areas around 2006.
For a state that had cool plates 40-50-60 years ago, they are are butt-ugly today, aren’t they?
I can say that, I live here.
Kudos on keeping that Vega going! I had a black ’72 Kammback and it was a BALL to drive, when it ran.
The Pinto MPG my parents bought new in 1976 was a wet washrag by comparison. Even with a 4-on-the-floor like my Vega had had.
But it didn’t break either.
The years it took for Vega sales to finally fall show how much love and trust people HAD put in Chevrolet at one time, and how GM bean counters squandered it.
I always thought the “You’ve got a Friend in Pennsylvania” plate slogan was a clever pun, though, given the state’s Quaker heritage.
Well, there’s always the ‘Wander’ license plate from Indiana.
But the best is still “Eat Cheese or Die” from Wisconsin.
I actually found a 74-75 Vega on Craigslist this weekend. It was a sedan in “fair” condition, though it looked like it had not been on the road in years. Amazingly, it wasn’t rusted to bits but the underhood photo showed LOTS of oxidation.
Ohhh, CC effect time! I actually saw a 1974-75 Vega being driven in Grass Valley, California last Friday. Specifically it was an orange Kammback Wagon (or possibly the rare Panel Express; I can’t recall now if it had rear side windows). It was probably the first time I’d seen an actual running Vega in decades. When I saw it in the distance I pulled into a parking lot with the plan of waiting for it to pass by and then pulling back into traffic so I could follow it, take pictures, and submit them as an entry in the Great Vega Hunt. That turned out to be a mistake. The parking lot was congested and by the time I got turned around and back on the street a couple of other cars had gotten between me and the Vega. I saw it turn left at a stop sign, but by the time the other cars ahead of me got through the intersection I had lost it.
I should have predicted that another entry in the Great Vega Hunt would show up this week. The CC effect it strong. 🙂