(Update: I just heard back from them. They acknowledge that they’re not car experts. And the shooting dates have been pushed off to December/January. So if anyone knows of a beige 1985 or earlier Chevette in Virginia. Coincidentally, that’s exactly the color of the one Eric703 found in Virginia and posted here in 2018. Wonder if it’s still there?)
I got the following urgent request email the other day. Said they need a 1985 or earlier beige Chevette. Then I took a look at the image they attached and referred to. Umm, Never mind.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am working for a German documentary film production company. Currently, we are shooting a documentary in the US, in Virginia – mainly the area of Charlottesville – that is set in 1985. For some scenes we need a car, a beige Chevrolet Chevette pre 1985 (similar to the one in the picture attached).
This might be a bit of a long shot – but maybe you could help me with finding one or indicate where I could look for one.
The matter is quite pressing as we need to rent the car between the 14th and 19th of September 2021. Any recommendation or hint would be very much appreciated!
Thank you in advance for your time and assistance and sending my best regards from Berlin
Maike Carstensen
Production Assistant
Fruitmarket Arts and Media
+49 176 21434359
My response:
If the Chevette looked like that, GM might not have gone bankrupt. 😉
You WIN this post!
Styling the Chevette like the Scirocco wouldn’t have helped; engineering it like the Scirocco might have.
I’ll take a wild guess that this is the 1985 story in question, but who knows: https://abcnews.go.com/US/convicted-killer-decades-maintaining-innocence-believes-freedom-finally/story?id=52914848
Looks likely to me.
Driving 300 miles in a rented Chevette could make anyone murderous, particularly with all the hills on Route 29 between NoVa and Lynchburg. I was going to complain about its frequent speed limit changes (and my two tickets), but a Chevette driver wouldn’t have to worry about those.
I wonder if the producers are hoping someone near the crime scene remembers seeing this car after 36 years. One of the commenters at your link mentioned an existing German documentary on the crime. Perhaps they have new information.
The new information seems to be that he changed his mind about his confession when he found out that he would be extradited to the US and sentenced to many decades in prison. When he confessed, he thought he’d be tried in Germany and sentenced to a couple of years for killing Americans. So did he confess because he did it, or did he confess because he was such a swell guy that he wanted to help his murderess girlfriend get away with slaughtering her parents? Either way, there have been greater injustices done in Charlottesville since lunch today. It also seems that the surplus blood at the scene was his rather than his girlfriend’s, which does make one wonder what passes for new information. I thought that the murderers’ advocates usually claim that their choice of priorities is down to the barbarity of the death penalty, but neither of the two convicted for the murders in Charlottesville ever faced the death penalty. I guess they just like murderers.
It’s pretty funny that it was a German who sent a photograph of one of the better looking mass produced cars in the nation’s history as an example of what an old Chevette might look like. It probably is not a reflection of the accuracy of his work in general. /s
The Scirocco is one of the few recent cars that can be identified instantly and decisively in a blurry image. One wiper.
That doesn’t bode well for being a well researched documentary
A pic of a ’78 Scirocco in what appears to be Japan, masquerading as a Chevette. It’s like a movie or something…
Yes – it’s in Japan – the plate and the direction of traffic
I was surprised how rare on the ground Chevettes seem to have become.
I did find a few listings of cars for sale; perhaps one of them could be rented if the color isn’t vital to the story.
http://davidsclassiccars.com/chevrolet/205102-1983-chevrolet-chevette.html
If the color is a necessity to the storyline, I would probably have someone buy this Canadian one ($2500 Canadian is roughly nothing in Euros) and have whoever the Canadian equivalent of Earl Scheib might be paint it beige.
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/portage-la-prairie/chevette/1581707910?undefined
Edit: Apparently there is also a Chevette Owners Club with approximately 3700 members listed on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChevetteOwners/discussion/preview
In fact I -think I see a beige Chevette in their 2021 group picture although it’s hard to be really sure of the color.
To quote Packard, ask the man who owns one.
Actually, he probably has several, for the parts.
Duuuuuuuuude. (shaking my head) I need to believe they simply attached the wrong image and couldn’t “recall” the email. We all have done this at some point. Zero resemblance.
Maybe the story line is that someone came to the US and wound up driving a boring white Shovette that only LOOKED similar to this Fau Vay, mit visions auf Wolfsburg dancing in deinem kopfs….
This makes me wonder if Paul was attacked by a phishing scam.
Our IT guys always tell you to look out for spelling and grammatical errors and other weird clues.
Getting the car wrong this badly smells phishy to me!!!
You’d better run a diagnostic on your machine, Paul. ;o)
“Dear Mr. Car Guy: I am producing a high-budget blockbuster about the 1980s USa, and I remember that all America cars of that era used the owners Social Security number as their license plate. Can you send me yours for inclusion in our professional movie? Thanks you.”
That’s so hilarious! I live in Charlottesville but haven’t seen a running Chevette in loooong time!
I think we can narrow the Scirocco’s years to 76-77 since it appears to not have the 78-81 wraparound front turn signals and the single wiper first appears in 76. The 74-75 had two front wipers, For completeness, the second generation Scirocco had a single wiper and body color B pillars 82-83 and reverted to twin wipers with black vinyl covered B pillars from 84 to end of production in 92
In fact, to narrow it further, it looks like the rare narrow-body planned for the Japanese market but never sold. Or the equally rare Syncro AWD and lifted Scirocco, also never sold. Either way, the car while of course a VW, does have a slightly Chevette-ish frontal aspect ratio in the photo.
Yup, my brother had a 1975 (baby blue, sold due to engine block crack), 1978 (gold, totalled by the idiot), and 1980 (white Scirocco S, traded in for 1989 Toyota 4Runner). So, it was easy for me to spot the difference between the revisions during its model run.
This reminds me of the time my wife and I watched the movie “Green Book”. Great movie. The second time we watched it, I noticed something in the first 2-3 seconds of the movie. It was a 1964 Chevy taxi cab pulling away from the curb. Nothing unusual except the movie takes place in late 1962.
Also the black paint that makes the grille parts around the headlight match the rest was gone. There’s almost always something about old cars in period movies that shows that they’re old like stained or tattered headliners or cracked steering wheels.
Also like in Hidden Figures there is a bogus engine failure in the Green Book that makes no sense and stops the car in some location. And in both cases the “fix” doesn’t make sense either.
I don’t know why at least big budget period films don’t ask someone who knows something about these things.
In Carol the same black Oldsmobile that would have been almost new showed up in several states, and it was missing some chrome pieces and had flat looking paint. Often narrow stripe whitewalls show up on cars in years before they existed.
I’m sure a CC article on these two car related movie mistakes would get hundreds of replies as well.
The worst “error” of this sort I ever saw was on a soap opera many years ago. I think it may have been “The Edge of Night.” The scene opened with “stock footage” from who knows where depicting a Porsche 356 speeding along a curving roadway through wooded mountains. The car misses a curve and crashes into the woods.Cut to commercial.
Return from the commercial to a close-up of the driver slumped over the steering wheel. The camera pans backward revealing… a wrecked… mid-60s Ford Mustang surrounded by trees.
In Hidden Figures, the police car that stops by when the ladies are trying to get their old car going is a 1964 Ford. Problem is that the film is set in 1961 at the time.
When I was little (think mid 80s), there was a house on Route 7 just west of Berryville that had no fewer than 15 Chevettes parked in their front yard for years and years. I would gawk at the collection every time we drove past it to and from Dulles. I still try to figure out which yard it was on the rare occasions I head back out to Winchester, but the cars are long gone sadly.
As the owner of a pristine 1981 Scirocco S I thank you for setting the record straight
Meh ;
Chevette, Volkswagen, they’re all the same…..
I like the link to the survivors for sale .
Every so often I see one puttering/wheezing around Los Angeles .
-Nate
Imagine “needing” a Chevette!
If they dont have any luck while shooting in the US, I have 2 Chevettes in Amsterdam. Gray and black though…
The ’77 Chevette I wrote about a few years ago is, in fact, still at the same house. I will leave a note on their door today asking if they’d be interested in loaning the car to the film producers. Let’s hope for the best!
Back in the day (40 years ago) I bought a ’78 Scirocco, still sentimentally my favorite car, but it suited me 40 years ago well, though undoubtedly would be less so now at my current age.
It was a Champagne edition, otherwise pretty much stock, save for the Jensen AM/FM stereo that was added. It didn’t have air conditioning, which is main reason I sold it, as I’d moved from Massachusetts where it wasn’t a big deal to Central Texas, where it was. Still I kept it until I bought my ’86 GTi (which had air conditioning). In 1985 I still had the Scirocco though not in Charlottsville (15 years prior my Dad had a ’68 Renault R10 while we were living a bit north of there, in Manassas).