(first posted 4/9/2015) GM’s most persistent Deadliest Sin was releasing new cars that were half-baked and lacking certain key ingredients. The results inevitable were not tasty. This problem goes way back, the poster boy being the 1971 Vega, although one could argue there were earlier examples too. And it continued for way too long, until it was too late.
The result is that from a car-spotting perspective, finding first-year examples of many GM models is nigh-near next to impossible. I’ve been looking for a genuine 1982 Cavalier for years; there’s plenty of later ones still around, but the first year version with the wheezy, buzzy, gutless 1.8 L pushrod four has become a unicorn, despite the fact that some 200k were sold. But here it is, thanks to CC Cohort William Oliver. And now we can finally and officially give the 1982 Cavalier its long-delayed Deadly Sin award.
half-baked but full-blown
Now before a select few of you have to reach for your blood pressure medicine, and jump in to tell me about your 1999 Cavalier that ran 389,000 miles without an oil change, let me preface the Cavalier’s sins by acknowledging two important things:
One: It did not arrive with the kind of truly horrendous problems that plagued the new X-Body cars just some two years earlier, which made them the most recalled cars ever.
Two: Like many GM cars that were made for a (too) long time, the Cavalier evolved into a fairly reliable grocery-getter. Or at least according to some of its owners.
But; and it’s a mighty big but: The Cavalier utterly failed at its intended original mission, which was to compete head-on with the Honda Accord, in performance, refinement and most importantly, in price.
When the first Accord arrived in 1976, it roiled the US market, due to its exceptional refinement, lively performance, excellent space utilization due to FWD, and other qualities that endeared it to reviewers and buyer. The only folks that really hated it were the executives at all the other car companies. The Accord was one of the very few true game-changers.
And it sold at rather lofty prices; pretty much in the same territory that GM’s intermediate cars sold for. GM’s pathetic little litter-box Chevette could only dream of such average transaction prices (ATP). And its Vega-based H-Bodies were hardly competitive in any of these realms either. So GM set itself out to build a true Accord fighter. What could go wrong? Well, if the lessons of the Corvair and Vega had been carefully considered, GM’s execs might have shown a wee bit less hubris than they did. But that was a requirement for being on the 14th floor.
The story of GM’s hubris and inability to understand the small car market, and its failure in bringing competitive cars to market is the core of Brock Yate’s book, The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry. It was written in 1983, one year after the failed launch of the Cavalier, and is essentially a Death Watch of the industry and a follow-up to his seminal 1968 C/D article “Grosse Pointe Myopians”. In that article, Yates clearly identifies the insular culture that had been bred in Detroit (Grosse Point is the exclusive suburb where almost all Big Three execs lived), and predicted the trouble to come as a result.
And did it ever come.
Keep in mind that the Cavalier (and the other J-Cars) were the first serious effort by GM to reclaim the huge compact car segment since its ill-fated Vega blunder ten years earlier. GM basically ceded that market to the Japanese, but they knew they could not be a viable long-term player without a competitive car in the heart of the post-energy crisis market.
GM Executive and former Chevrolet GM Robert Lund was the executive overseeing the J-Car development. At the infamous 1981 press launch of the J-Cars, he unleashed fighting words:
We are tired of hearing how the domestic industry let the Japanese take the subcompact market away from us. We need an unconventional Chevrolet – an unconventional package with an unconventional marketing strategy – if we are going to do a better job against the imports, and we spell that Japanese. Make no mistake about it, Cavalier is an import fighter! The whole Chevrolet division is spoiling for a fight!
Well, there wasn’t exactly a whole lot of ‘unconventional’ in the Cavalier. It was a a reasonably decent-looking but hardly leading-edge body with a whole lot of borrowed mechanical components from its bigger brother, the Citation (X-Body). That included suspension, brakes, steering, transmission, CV joints, numerous ancillary components, and eventually the V6 engine too. Of course it was much cheaper to just use these then tool up for lighter ones specifically designed for the lighter Cavalier.
All of that borrowing from the bigger X-Body meant that these components were heavier than needed, which substantially pushed up the target weight of the Cavalier (The J-Car’s basic body was to be shared with Opel (and Vauxhall), but Opel used its own components that kept its Ascona within its weight targets).
And we haven’t gotten to the engine yet.
image by Murilee Martin
The Cavalier arrived a bit under-baked in a number of areas, but its 1.8 L ohv cast-iron pushrod four was its Achilles’ Heel, and what truly made it a failure and Deadly Sin. Ironically, it was precisely its engine that so impressed everyone with the Honda Accord: a silky-smooth alloy OHC four that simply didn’t feel and sound like the typical four cylinder. Well, Honda did know a thing or two about engines.
The Opel-designed Family II SOHC four was of course the obvious engine to adapt to the Cavalier (and was available on the Olds, Buick and Pontiac versions). It was a modern design with an alloy head and ran reasonably-refined, if not perhaps in Honda territory.
But after an internal battle described by Yates, Chevrolet decided not to go that route, just like they chose not to use Opel-designed engines for the Vega. In a cost cutting move, Chevrolet cobbled up a new four cylinder, later called the ‘122 Engine‘. It was highly conventional, not all that different from the architecture used on its small block V8s for almost two decades. Essentially, it was an in-line four version of their 60 degree V6 engine, as debuted in the X-Cars, sharing some of its internal components.
It churned out 88hp, but not happily. And at that 1981 press introduction, the most immediate reaction from the journalists that first drove it was: where’s the zip? There wasn’t any; the overweight Cavalier was hamstrung by its wheezy carburated engine that buzzed at higher engine speeds, and just didn’t deliver the goods. It was a good two seconds slower than a five-speed Toyota Corolla.
Speaking of, there was no five speed manual to be had on the J-Cars. And by 1983, the Accord already had a four-speed automatic. The J-Cars would have to wait too many years before either of those were available on them. So much for spoiling for a fight; showing up with a plastic butter knife wasn’t going to cut it.
In fact, although GM targeted the gen1 Accord with its Cavalier, by the time the Cavalier arrived, Honda’s substantially improved gen2 Accord was already out, a car that was praised for raising the bar on refinement yet again. And of course, Honda kept up a steady barrage of new Accords every four years or so.
The result was that Chevrolet’s pricing for the Cavalier was totally out of line with the market, which could smell the difference between a genuine Accord and a flawed pretender. Initial sales were as sluggish as the 1.8 four, and Chevy, as usual, had to make some quick and desperate adjustments to keep it from tanking. Content levels and average prices were lowered, and a new low-end ‘Cadet’ model was introduced.
1987 Cavalier interior
This all set the Cavalier on a trajectory that it would maintain in its very long life: as a low-end car sold on its price and not on its qualities. Which turned the Cavalier into a $5 billion dollar blunder, since it never really became a profitable car line for GM, and its development was very costly. Which only sunk its reputation that much further. Undoubtedly it was the failure of the Cavalier and J-cars that gave Roger Smith the cockamamy idea to create Saturn. Which of course ended up making that $5 billion dollar blunder look like success in comparison (Saturn lost some $12 billion over its life). How about getting it right the first time? Or making it right, instead of starting a whole new company?
The 1983 Cavalier arrived with some critical changes in an effort to rectify the most glaring deficiencies. The engine’s capacity was increased to 2.0 liters, and TBI was added to improve driveability. Although torque got a little bump, horsepower stayed the same, at 88. And in 1984, that number dropped to 86. And then to 85 in in 1985. So much for any real progress. And engine refinement was hardly improved either. The Cavalier was saddled with a mediocre engine, except for the rare later V6 versions.
The four cylinder engine eventually got a major revision in the form of a new cylinder head a decade or so later, and a bump to 2.2 liters as well. But it will never be remembered for its Honda-like silkiness or enthusiasm.
When I first saw this brown Cavalier CS sedan, I wondered if it really was a 1982, or perhaps a 1983, which looked identical. But I distinctly remembered the 1983 proudly proclaiming the improved TBI 2.0 L engine on its rear end. This one lacks that.
And I found proof that the ’83s do have that badge, in this shot from oldparkedcars.com, as well as some others. Yes, we have us a genuine 1982 Cavalier 1.8. A car that was introduced by GM with very high expectations, and proceeded to fall flat on its face, once again.
Of course the real unicorn is the 1982 Cimarron, with the identical 1.8 engine. Murilee Martin found one in the junkyard (appropriately enough), but on the road? I’m quite sure I saw one a couple of years ago, going the other way on a divided road, driven by an older guy who undoubtedly bought it new. But there was no way to catch it, despite its slowness.
The 1982 Cavalier was the last time Chevrolet even pretended to compete with the Accord and such, until recent years. It effectively threw in the towel, and had to eat its fighting words. The NUMMI joint venture gave Chevy a genuine Toyota to sell, not that it made all that much difference. And the Cavalier became the poster boy for the decline and fall of GM.
A girl I knew in college had an ’82 Cavalier. It was circa 1989-90 and the thing was already fairly rusty despite having spent most of its life in Colorado (originally came from Burt Chevrolet in the Denver burbs, IIRC)
Its pathetic acceleration (even with a 4-speed) was made even worse by the combination of a/c and a high altitude emissions system in a fairly low-lying area (Illinois burbs of STL). The only car I’ve ever driven that was worse than that Cavalier was another college friend’s car – a 255-powered ’82 Thunderbird.
My housemate might just have the only surviving square headlight Cavalier Estate in the Willamette Valley and having traveled all over a bunch of the Continental 48 I have not seen another. Impressive how it survived to be over 30 years old and the fact it is closer in age to 1960s cars than a 2015 model year car.
Do I remember seeing a boosted version in the U.S.? I seem to recall a neighbor owning one in the mid 90’s.
There was a turbocharged Sunbird from around 1985 or so. I thought the upgrade for Cavaliers was just the V-6, but I don’t remember for sure.
1984 was the first year of the 150 hp turbo (I had a 4 door 4 spd), but it felt like the power didn’t arrive until 1985, or 3000 rpm, and then the steering wheel would try to turn back a year.
With some more thinking, it was probably a Celebrity turbo.
I find it very interesting that Toyota and GM, who arguably make the most boring cars, generate the most controversy on the internet.
I remember reading a Motor Trend Article on one of the J’s during the 1982 year with some model year run enhancements to both the 1.8 carbureted engine and the 125C’s gearing to try and increase performance and improve driveability. They actually started off with 2.84 gearing and then switched to a 3.18 and a 3.43 for some cars. They even spoke of an enlarged 2 liter version of this engine but I have never seen such an animal for the 1982 model year. The best answer of course came for 1983 with the Brazil 1.8 OHC TBI engine and the enlarged 2 liter OHV TBI 4 banger which added much better drive-ability and a little more torque. One has to of course wonder why these engines weren’t brought out in the first place and why GM went to all the trouble designing a one year only undersized and underpowered 1.8 2BBL OHV motor.
I remember driving a 1982 Cavalier coupe and it was indeed sluggish but not nearly as bad as a 1981 Escort wagon with automatic which was deathly slow.
I wonder how many Cadavers “Sold” people on buying Hondas, Toyotas, Nissans, Subbies and even Mopar K-cars for their next cars?
I was not unhappy with my 83 Skyhawk, although it was a bit small. I traded it for an 86 Electra T-type. When I bought the Skyhawk I wanted the fuel injected OHC engine with the 5 speed manual transmission think that the automatic’s performance would not be all that good. Then the electronic touch automatic climate control allowed me to easily shut down the A/C compressor for easy starts from a stop, which I usually did. The compressor seemed to suck up a big chunk of the engines low end torque.
I will be the contrarian. We had an early model year 82 4 speed manual, my sister had an 84 accord coupe 5 speed, and both cars were preceded by a 76 corolla 4 speed that completely rusted out in six years.
Compared to the creaky 76 corolla, the 82 cavalier was a luxury car. The cloth seats were well made, interior noise was relatively peaceful, and the stereo was great. The engine was not responsive – like it had a very heavy flywheel to counter vibration. Slow to rev, and definitely not happy at high RPMs. However as a teenager I ran it at top speed – low 80s – more than once. The shifter felt like a stick in a bucket of rocks.
The 84 accord was quieter, silky smooth engine and shifter, and equal (maybe better) upholstry.
But here is the difference – that cavalier never broke, never rusted (comparatively). We traded it in with 195,000 miles, minimal rust. The accord was long junked due to rust. We also had expensive timing belt and clutch repairs for the accord -compared to the cavalier.
No doubt the Accord was the better car, but for our family, the cavalier was well regarded. Definitely a cockroach – couldnt kill it.
Chevrolet ‘spoiling for a fight’ reminded me of an awkward ad campaign by Oldsmobile around the same time – ‘Engineered to Spoil You’. I remember thinking it sounded like it could infect you with some sort of physical decay or rot syndrome, or lower your IQ, or possibly endanger your soul :-).
GM was ‘spoiling’ its customers, and itself, but not in the way the ad men intended to suggest.
My experience with early J cars is limited to one. My best friend’s dad had a “fishing wagon” which was a beige 1982 Cavalier wagon. Well, all I can say was that car was durable! We put that thing through absolute torture! It ran and ran and ran until one day, at I think about 190,000 miles, it simply wouldn’t start. The motor seized and they had it junked. But that was a very reliable, durable little car. His Dad was meticulous about oil changes, servicing and such. Maybe that could have helped it last so long.
My wife’s 1986 Cavalier coupe was a great car, too. She loved her Cavalier. It didn’t have many options at all but it was comfortable and durable too. She had hardly any problems with that car in the 9 years she owned it. She sold it with about 140,000 miles on it and still comments on that car and its greatness.
I wonder if a lot of these cars were neglected and that is why they had such a bad reputation?
I think a lot of cars on the less expensive end of the spectrum end up getting treated poorly (for various reasons). Bought cheaply, by people who don’t/can’t maintain them, the cars break down. Then they get a reputation for crappiness…
We had an 82 Cavalier for just over a year. With the exception of the wheezy engine we liked the car but turned it in because the car payments were putting a strain on our one income budget. At the time GMAC was doing financing at 13%. Ouch!
My neighbour down the street is still running his 83 Cavalier as a daily work car. I should ask how many kms that rust bucket has. I’m sure his mechanical skills are the primary reason that car still travels the streets.
I had the Pontiac version of this, the ’82 J2000 in top-line LE form, and mine was from the early-production cars built in spring or summer of ’81, identifiiable by the split rear seat cushion (with console with cup holders, which saved having to supply a center seat belt). The engine was slow, and not Honda-smooth but leaps and bounds better than the Iron Duke in the ’82 X and A cars, much more refined and quiet. The carburetor was troublesome though – the Duke at least got TBI FI in ’82. Several running changes were made during the ’82 model year to increase apparent power, and in the J2000 the Brazilian OHC 1.8L FI four became available in late ’82 as an option. Even with my early OHV 1.8L, it was adequately quiet with all the extra soundproofing in the LE model.
The ’82 Cavalier could be distinguished from the ’83 if an interior shot were provided. The ’82 was the only Cavalier (or other J-car) to use chrome inner door handles and other chrome bits inside the cockpit. Chrome was banished from J-cars in 1983.
I’ve driven the Ascona 1.3 litre with 60 hp. Not fast is an understatement. Those cars was noisy, uncomfortable and not very well equiped. Not even Power Steering on the one I drove.
When I read that these cars in US (Cavalier) did cost almost as much as a Caprice, who on earth would buy a Cavalier? Well, a lot did, but I can’t find anything that this Cavalier did that the Caprice couldn’t. But, I can fint a lot of things that the Caprice could do and that the Cavalier couldn’t. Like ride, comfort, quietness, space, and long term reliability and durability, the Caprice is better.
My mother had a 1984 Cavalier coupe in two tone brown, her first new vehicle purchase. It was reasonably reliable, nimble compared to her parents’ Monte Carlo (my grandmother apparently loved driving it for that reason alone), and completely devoid of acceleration. It died midway through 1991. Despite still being able to get my grandfather’s employee discount, she has not purchased a GM car since. If the goal was to get buyers to graduate up the ladder, the Cavalier didn’t do its job at all.
It is maddening how incompetent GM became when they went front wheel drive all the time.
The X-Car had all the “conceptualization” of a great product. The intentions were there but someone let the bean counters nickle and dime the car to death. The end product was truly a horrific product and it need not have been.
The J-Cars were also brought out with the right idea. Had those cars been executed to the degree that Honda had done with the Accord pictured, GM would not have run off with over $34 billion of taxpayer money that ended up being tax and interest free.
Unfortunately for GM its incompetence continued throughout the 80’s and 90’s with dud after dud front wheel drive product that suffered from being built to look cheap and to stay that way. I marvel at the level of incompetence it took to approve these cars for production as they were. Had another $100 been spent on the interiors and other bits, the products would have almost been acceptable. A little more time and effort into interior design would have made that $100 look like $150 upgrade. ROFL.
Alas, we now have a new Malibu that looks like a lima bean complete with bait and switch pricing and the general build quality we’ve come to expect from a company that we saved and that shouldn’t have been.
True. GM had so many great ideas, but they were executed very poorly.
I marveled that they even managed to screw up coin holders in their center consoles! Back in the 1980s, you actually needed coins, for highway tolls, payphones, laundry, etc. And sitting in a toll booth (holding up traffic) trying to extract quarters from the balky plastic bits was more than a bit frustrating.
Often times you’re better off not having a feature at all, rather than having one that is poorly implemented, with the resultant perpetual frustration.
I had a 96 Cavalier that had an ongoing relationship with her favourite service advisor. Ongoing problems, head gasket, tranny failure among the most costly. She succumbed to a red light runner via a t bone, and was replaced by a Civic in 2004. That Civic is still on the road today as my son’s car, and has only needed regular maintenance over 250,000 kms.
It’s amazing how repetitive these GM Deadly Sins are. An obsessive emphasis on process (remember Brock Yates’ “Why should I care how you build them?”) and willingness to spend lavishly on the development and manufacturing process stages, coupled with letting the bean counters run wild on and (especially) inside the cars themselves that led to a shoddy image and selling on price.
Just a maddening unwillingness, over and over again, to learn one. simple. lesson; Put the money where the customer can see it!
There should be a button you can press that shows you the number of posts, and the number of unique contributors to CC comment thread. Tried reading through at lunch…not enough time. Sometimes the comments are almost and entertaining and interesting as the CC itself.
Some of these earlier Cavalier/Camira were reasonably reliable A friend of mine had one, his new partner brought it to his fleet it was a well worn 88 Camira 2.0 with three speed auto it did eventually die but for six months towards the end of its life it ran from Bathurst NSW to Pitt Town return daily some 200kms+each way, then the traumatic transmission gave out, and he went back to a six cylinder Commodore but while the J Camira was running it was fairly economical and started every morning.
The Cavalier is another DS that would be a great candidate for the ‘deadliest’ sin. It’s as if GM simply threw in the towel right from the start and gave up entirely on any meaningful small car development, betting their entire future on the conventional (and much more profitable) full-size car, unwilling to admit that well-built and engineered small cars was where the car market was heading. The only thing that kept them afloat much longer than it should have was their success in the SUV and pickup markets.
GM “showing up with a plastic butter knife wasn’t going to cut it” analogy sums it up very well; Honda and Toyota came to the small car fight equipped with razor-sharp scalpels.
I wouldn’t deem the J-car to be a “deadliest sin.” It needed a better engine and transmission (five-speed manual) from day one. The rest of the car was perfectly good. I don’t recall the J-cars as having any major engineering bugs. In rust resistance and crash protection (as it existed in those days), these were actually better than the Japanese competition.
GM’s sins were not releasing the car with a competitive drivetrain, and then neglecting it for too long. The car itself wasn’t beyond redemption, and, unlike the second- and third-generation Cadillac Sevilles, the basic concept of the J-cars wasn’t hopelessly out of touch with the market (except for the Cimarron, but that is a special case). Nor was this a case of GM spending lots of money to endow the J-car with unique engineering features that really went nowhere, much like the Oldsmobile Toronado. The frustrating part is that there was the basis for a greatest hit here, but GM gave up after getting the ball to the 70-yard line.
It does appear that the US versions were a worse car than was sold in other markets NZ has the dubious honour to have had the Australian Japanese and Chevrolet/Toyota J cars the best of the was the Aussie Camira the worst is a tossup between the Isuzu Aska junkheap and the Chevy the Aska had horrible roadholding the Chevy/Toyota is not much of a car being very out of date with other offerings its age.
Geeber- IMHO,
The car itself was perhaps not a deadly sin, but it was certainly a downward step on the path to Hell. Consider this: your dad needed a cheap car in the early 60’s so he bought a Corvair. Not a bad car, but pressure from your mom to sell it mounted after Nader scandal (and she’s afraid for baby-you to ride in it) and when the darnn thing threw its weird 90 degree fanbelt for the 4th time, it was gone. So Dad bought a Chevy II and got 5 or 6 decent, happy, years out of it. Suddenly it’s 1970 or 71 and Dad needs a commuter car – he buys a Vega and loses his shirt – rusts, won’t run, can’t sell it. So, with no money he suffers into a Chevette and slogs along cobbling the little cockroach together year after year. When Mom gets a job she gets a decent 74 Nova to drive and some faith in GM is restored. So, when 1980 comes along Mom gets a new Citation and for the first year it’s OK until mom scares herself silly by spinning it because of the brakes. Dad dumps the Chevette for $100 and starts driving the Citation; mom gets a new car – an 82 Cavalier. Then problems start with it. By 1986, mom hates the gutless little thing and Dad is tired of screwing with it. A Toyota/Honda dealer has opened in town, and after one of Dad’s friend’s raves about how reliable his Toyota/Honda is, Dad takes a look and buys one. By now he could have afforded a midsize GM car but the shrunken styling of the 86’s turns him off and anyhow, he’s been burned by GM’s new ideas a few too many times by now to try one. The Toyota/Honda gives him 5 or 6 years of happy painless service before it rusts away, but even as a rusted hulk, somebody wants to buy it from him.
Q#1: What car did Dad buy in 1992?
Q#2: What do you think Dad has bought for the rest of his life?
Great comment. As I’ve posted before here my ma went to Ford after 40 years of GM. Nothing Buick makes appealed to her at 35k, she would never buy another Chevy. It was a fight between the Korean makes and Ford for her.
Lokki, a competitive drivetrain would have solved a lot of those complaints. I don’t remember these cars as having particularly bad quality for that era. There was a solid foundation for a good car here, but GM choose to let it rot on the vine for far too long when it stumbled out of the gate.
Dad bought Mom a gray two door in 1985 when he finally had enough of her ’79 Mustang’s issues. Back then I thought the car was beyond cheap; they bought it for $8,500 and change and it was stripped. 4 speed stick, Vynl/cloth seats, no a/c, no rear defogger. The only options it had was the high end ETR Delco am/fm stereo and power steering. Rough and loud. It ate clutches every 35,000 miles. The washer fluid lines never worked right. Rusted way beyond any other car I’ve seen then or since. Yet, looking back on my Mom’s Type 10 coupe, it honestly wasn’t as bad as I remember it then. It got great gas mileage, and outside of the clutches, never left her stranded. They got 9 years out of that car, and for a GM of that vintage, that’s pretty damn good. The interior actually held up supprisingly well. In comparison to her Mustang, it was a revelation. The Mustang left her stranded easily over a dozen times; Ford never could figure out why other than it was “something” to do with the fuel system. That Cavalier still soured my parents to GM, however. Dad thought it was the epitomie of a shit box, and Mom was more than willing to move on to an Acura. And they even bought another Ford in the 1990’s regardless of the Mustang’s flaws.
I love reading these Deadly Sins so much, I should definitively get that book with the development of the Cavalier. This sin seems particularly unforgivable, as GM must have been finishing its development as it was clear they had screwed up the launch of the Citation. They should have learned! Also, why not releasing the Cavalier with the Brazilian engine from the start? And how couldn’t GM in the US make a decent 4 cylinder engine for soooooo long when it was the key to making a class leading small car, and they had Opel and Isuzu to learn from?
The Isuzu connection also makes me wonder. Up to what year GM could have bought up Honda or Toyota and solve all its small cars problems, instead of misguidedly try to compete against the Japanese and loose?
I think Honda would have been a rounding error on GM’s balance sheet in the early to mid 60’s.
The Lada was an outdated design indifferently assembled with tough and easy to fix engines. VAZ sold 15 million worldwide, but never in the US. Was the Cavalier the American Lada?
Perfect the 1.8 is not, but you don’t need a tech to keep it going and to me that is a HUGE plus SIMPLE IS GOODhttp://cimg.carsforsale.com/432928/45D43E81-A000-4384-B383-C1FA45E24449_29.jpg
I had the honers of owning a 1982 Chevy Cavalier with the 1.8 4 spd manual as my first car. My parents bought it from my aunt in 1988 for $800, I ended up with it in 1993 as my first car until it gave up its spirit in 1995 with what felt like the roughest 112,000 miles. Besides it being under powered the fact it had a carborator made life a nightmare to own it. Even with a new carborator it never felt truly safe. It was impossible to start then impossible to keep running. Things broke on this car that I could never think of happening. The worse l, the throttle cable breaking while pulling out into traffic.
The one thing that may throw one off as you can see in the photo. It was a hatch back with the incorrect nose clip. My aunt had an accident and they had an easier time finding the parts from the other body styles. I eventually painted the car white as the original maroon faded and peeled right off the car.
Definitely an experience of the worse 1st car the made me appreciate every and any car I have owned to follow.
I am one of those people who hates wasting money on new cars. I’ll buy a car new and drive it until it the wheels fall off or it becomes economically unfeasible to continue owning it.
My first new car was a ’73 Pontiac Firebird. Big engine. Loads of fun. “G” force power. Super handling and fast. Had it past 145 mph once and it was still gaining speed. Car ate rice burners for breakfast. 240 “Z”? Laughable! Air conditioning was poor, but it ran and ran and ran. No trade in value after 8 years so I kept it. Still have it. Still runs, 210K plus miles and never rebuilt it. Still fun to drive 45 years later and still has unbelievable power.
I bought a brand new ’82 Cavalier made in ’81 in January of ’82. Came with 5K miles on it. Was an executive car I was told. The car was fully loaded and was only missing 3 options, aluminum wheels, a sun roof, and a cassette player. Sticker price was about $12,000 if I remember correctly but since it was a dealer car I got it for considerably less.
Worst problem was below zero cold starting – it wouldn’t! If you tried, you would have to change the spark plugs. Cleaning them wouldn’t work – they had to be new. I removed the choke plate, drilled two large holes in it and the problem was solved. Started every time after that for the life of the car.
True that 1.8 had NO power. I took it out to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado- Once! Best I could get out of her was 32 mph upgrade flat out full throttle, 1st gear, volcano heat reading on the temp gauge on I70 westbound. The trucks and motor homes were quite upset trying to pass me.
But on the flat Illinois prairies after a couple of miles head start I could bury that speedometer and wind that needle way past 85. She could and did that all day long with the tachometer reading in the 4000 range.
Once when the car was quite old, the misses brought her home and shut her off. The whole car disappeared in a cloud of steam as it sat dieseling away. I asked her how long this had been going on. “Oh about 10 or 15 miles!”. New lower radiator hose and the car was none the wiser. Another time the wife got home and the engine was knocking quite loudly. Didn’t sound like a bearing, seemed to run ok, so I revved her up high and held it. A carbon chunk came free of a piston top and broke up and the engine was back to normal.
In the winter it was impossible to get the car stuck in snow. I tried. Other cars ( Toyota’s and Honda’s included ) would be spinning their wheels trying to get up the hill in the town I lived in. I would simply pass them all and toot the horn laughing. My other daily driver was a rear wheel drive car and I had been one of them.
I have never laughed so hard as when my little boy and I found an empty unplowed parking lot and did “donuts” in reverse.
I owned that car for about 16 years, and over 180K miles. I used to change the oil every 5k miles and it seldom needed any additional oil between changes.
In all the years I had this car, the only major surgery was the two CV joints in the front axles. That was the only two times the car left me stranded and I needed the Big Hook. The car also had a problem with a transmission solenoid the would lock the torque converter. Was a cheap, dirty, oily fix that was just a royal pain to repair. Tires and brakes were the main wear items. When I sold the car everything on it still worked, the power windows, the silly wiper on the hatchback window, the cruise control,the power steering, transaxle, ball joints, etc, and the air conditioning had never needed a recharge and was still cold. The carburetor did need occasional fiddling, but generally worked well. I never replaced the shocks or struts. The car rode well when the tires were good, and the handing was about even with the Toyota that I had test driven when I first purchased the car. The Toyota did have considerably more power, but I bought this Cavalier sight unseen and really couldn’t back out of the deal.
If I had known about replacement door skins I probably would have kept the car longer, but I didn’t. The doors had rusted so horribly that the Wife said the car was embarrassing. The rest of the body was rust free. I finally threw in the towel and sold the car. Perhaps I was just lucky after reading all of these comments, but I found the car to be practically indestructible, economical, and completely reliable.
Yes. Except for the lack of power, my old Chevy Cavalier was a success.
Just incredible. In Europe, the Cavalier/Ascona with family II ohc engines were massively popular, they were literally everywhere in the ’80s. All the big company fleets used them for their salesmen and they were a big hit with private buyers too- plenty of room, good handling, reliable,comfy and performance wise they blew contemporary Fords into the weeds. This was the car that had Ford worried when they introduced their Sierra- all their customers promptly abandoned Ford and bought cavaliers.
I owned a base model 1982 Cavalier with the smallest engine, a 1300, even that was by no means a slow car. 0-60 was around 12 secs and it would do 100mph, also capable of 40mpg. The larger 1600 and 1800 were equally good performers for their size.
These were a really well thought of car and fondly remembered by many here in the U.K, they were THE family car of the ’80s.
U.S manufacturers never did cotton onto the idea of, if you have a captive import from a successful European division, NOT messing about with it for U.S consumption.
If you got the Cavalier we did, you’d have loved it.
Want to make fools out of brand new chumpstangs, “Dodge” Challengers, and “Viagra boy” vettes? Smoke their ass in a first year H body. 6.6l, 8 mpg 63k original miles. Junk? Give it your best shot, I’ll wait for you at the next light. Piece of sh*t J body? Nope, got one of them too. No car payments, no annual taxes, 35 mpg, handles sick, droptop, and beast of all, MINT. Eat it clowns. When you’ve been a mechanic for 40 plus years, you KNOW what to drive. Never owned a foreign car, and never will. Longevity speaks for itself.
35+ year old J
That is awesome! The Type 10 front end if I remember correctly.
When I was young ~17yo in 1991 I had a 1982 Cavalier 2dr coupe. 4 speed manual, manual steering, manual windows, manual locks, am radio, no a/c.
I bought it from my uncle with a bad clutch. I would not move and had to be towed.
I learned how to put a clutch in a FWD the hard way. I was so broke I opted to just buy a remanufactured clutch disc and put that in. Yes, back then you could buy a remanufactured clutch and there were core charges on them.
The thing was a gutless wonder. The check engine light was perpetually on but it ran fine. The thing had a mountain of emissions crap under the hood. GMs very early CCC system. Feedback carburetor. AIR injection. EGR. Vacuum lines all over the place. It was obnoxiously loud because the exhaust manifold had HUGE cracks in it. (again, broke kid had no money nor sense to find a used one and fix it.) I drove the wheels off that thing.
It seemed like it would go FOREVER on a few gallons of fuel!
Lots of good memories in that piece of crap!
“GM should have brought over Opel designs!”
Well, they did, J car is one. Along with the Daewoo LeMans, Cadillac Catera and Saturn LS. Many others in 2000’s.
So even if the Vega used an Opel design, would have been like the Cavalier, dumbed down for US costs.
The J platform is not an Opel design. It was created in Detroit, but conceived so that GM’s overseas subsidiaries could adapt and use it too. The US version used a lot of X-car chassis and other components, thus making it heavier than than the Opel and Isuzu versions. They used their own suspension, brake, engines and transmission.
The company I was working for had a fleet of X cars and to keep from losing the fleet contract, the Chevy dealer began replacing the Citations with Cavaliers and J2000s. I was surprised to see a smaller car replacing the larger X cars, but the huge Chevy dealer in Denver was probably desperate to keep our business during the Citation fiasco.
I remember the Cavaliers were practically being given away. I do believe a lot of us didn’t want another small GM car after break downs in the Citation fleet, and I suspect that many auto buyers had, by this time, discovered that the FWD GM small cars had some major problems. This impacted the Cavalier, I believe, in looking back.
Still nice looking cars, but the JCars still required that you sat low to the floor like a Camaro. After a year with the Ford Futura, I felt that the Cavalier and the J2000 to be quite a step down in comfort, size and performance. I used the new J cars in the fleet but wouldn’t take one for my long distance trips.
I lived in Golden and had to climb a Rocky Mountain foothill west of Denver to reach my apartment on Sims Landing. So, I had to floor the accelerator pedal once on Rt 6 West up the hill. It is a nice climb and gave you a chance to feel how well a car could perform. All the drivers coming off I-25 and heading west towards Lakewood and Golden needed to do the same – gun their cars up that hill.
The Cavalier sounded like it was going to explode. The incredible noise, pinging and grinding coming out from under the hood as it accelerated up Rt. 6 West was very worrisome. Like the Citation, GM was telling us that their engines, for fuel efficiency, were set to lean burn which caused the engines to knock and ping. What I heard and wondered was if I was going to be able to even make it up that expressway hill at over 45 miles per hour. I could reach that speed and then some, but the noises from under the hood were absolutely horrible. It was new? It sounded like this new?
But we knew the Citations were worse. So I had a lot of hope for these little J cars. I had a lot of hope that GM would fix what was going wrong with their small FWD cars. But I didn’t want to be their guinea pig anymore with the Citation and now the Cavaliers and J2000.
Sad to report, the Cavaliers and the J2000 didn’t show themselves to be much better than the Citations they replaced. When it came time to drop my long term lease, I was first given a Mercury Cougar sedan for six months, and then a Ford Escort. Both much better cars than either GM products.
Odd coincidence, seeing this post today. Was just parked by a “late 80’s” . I’d guess, Cavalier wagon this afternoon.
Was quite surprised when I spotted it.
Intersection of “Fessenden St/Connecticut Av NW , in DC.
In a September 1981 comparison test, Popular Science and both reviewers Jim Dunne and Ed Jacobs, chose the Dodge Charger 2.2 over a 1.8 litre-equipped four door Pontiac J2000. Primarily, because of the performance advantage of the 2.2 litre in the Dodge. As well as the Charger’s better handling.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=nRN263ekdaIC&pg=PA37&dq=j2000&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimgKLPgMP7AhXnl4kEHbsXAUoQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=j2000&f=false
I did have a Cavalier, a 1996. I did not get reliable service from it. Major component failures at 54,000 kms sealed the deal with me and the General, moreso in that they made me pay a good portion of the repairs.
It did cart our son to college for a year prior to its departure from our garage.
The saddest thing of all was that GM probably had as much, if not more, engineering expertise as anyone in the world. Yet the seemingly constant flow of half-backed yet outwardly attractive (mostly) cars from the ’50s to even today belie the fact that they possessed such world-class talent. Starting with Fred Donner, the beancounters have much to answer for. And despite them, some brilliant cars were still occasionally able to see the light of day. But looking at the potential, one can only wonder…what if.
Sad reading. The GM executive mindset in those days is just plain alarming.
They thought this J-car was good enough? The European one coming out of Vauxhall and Opel would have been, maybe, but…. it wasn’t the same car.
X-car suspension pieces? Sure it kept cost down, but – weight? When you’re trying to save fuel?
A rough noisy low-powered pushrod four? Sure there are good pushrod engines, but this wasn’t one of them. Why even develop this thing? The Opel OHC should’ve gone in all of them.
Did management never look at the competition? Drive the competition? Or did they only consider US-built cars as competition? Did they not notice the rising tide of buyers attracted to imported cars, and ask why that was happening? Were they not aware of their product’s shortcomings?
Did they even care?
Or were they still living in the 1930s when you could count on having a GM buyer hooked for life?
I think the Fourteenth Floor Mob should have been kicked up the backside all the way to the unemployment line, before they had a chance to do any more damage.
They felt foreign cars were only ever bought by weenies and dirty hippies and communists;real Americans bought real (i.e., American; specifically GM) cars—thus it was always, and thus it always would be, as written in the Bible. See for yourself.
Did not notice this the first go round, but the feature car is not an inaugural year car; there were no CS Cavaliers for 1982. In 1983 the CS supplanted the former top-trim CL to adjust for the wildly optimistic pricing with the original cars, and lost much of that model’s content, specifically the high trim interior. Those missing features became optional in a “new” CL custom interior group that basically returned a CS back into the former CL, while still allowing for comparison shoppers to see a lower competitive starting price for a “well equipped” Cavalier. If the feature car had that CL interior group, CL badges would replace the CS scripts so as to not complicate things any further than necessary…
Always referred to these cars as ‘The Official Car of Domino Pizza’…thought it belonged in a blister pack hung at the checkout line, next to the disposable lighters and batteries. That being said, it could have ended up being a sensible vehicle, if it hadn’t been hampered by a weak engine and the resultant low expectations that followed.
I see all these references to X body suspension sharing. I don’t believe that was true. The J/N/L cars shared suspension components, while the X cars shared components with the A bodies. Front and rear suspensions of the J cars and X cars are completely different.
https://www.tascaparts.com/v-1984-chevrolet-citation-ii–base–2-5l-l4-gas/front-suspension–suspension-components
https://www.tascaparts.com/v-1984-chevrolet-cavalier–cl–2-0l-l4-gas/front-suspension–suspension-components
https://www.tascaparts.com/v-1984-chevrolet-citation-ii–base–2-5l-l4-gas/rear-suspension–rear-suspension
https://www.tascaparts.com/v-1984-chevrolet-cavalier–cl–2-0l-l4-gas/rear-suspension–rear-suspension
Front calipers and rotors swap, but I’m not sure how much weight savings would have resulted from a different design.
https://www.tascaparts.com/oem-parts/gm-caliper-passenger-side-rh-19140969?c=Zz1icmFrZXMmcz1mcm9udC1icmFrZXMmbD0xJm49QXNzZW1ibGllcyBQYWdlJmE9Y2hldnJvbGV0Jm89Y2F2YWxpZXImeT0xOTg0JnQ9Y2wmZT0yLTBsLWw0LWdhcw%3D%3D
https://www.tascaparts.com/oem-parts/gm-rotor-14075755?c=Zz1icmFrZXMmcz1mcm9udC1icmFrZXMmbD02Jm49QXNzZW1ibGllcyBQYWdlJmE9Y2hldnJvbGV0Jm89Y2F2YWxpZXImeT0xOTg0JnQ9Y2wmZT0yLTBsLWw0LWdhcw%3D%3D
Much of the weight difference between the Opel Ascona and the Chevrolet Cavalier was down to regulatory compliance. The German car had plastic decorations for bumpers. The US car had 5-mph impact bumpers that were great for sloppy parallel parking, but bad for any impact above 5 miles per hour while adding what was often hundreds of pounds right where you didn’t want them. 1982 Cavaliers also had door anti-intrusion beams and emissions controls that Asconas did not. I suspect Cavaliers also had more sound insulation to meet US expectations and muffle their thrashy engines.
People often say that the Cavalier shouldn’t have had an engine whose primary benefit was to GM in the form of reused tooling. It’s hard to argue that point, except that the Pontiac J2000 actually had the OHC Opel engine, and it too was dog slow. By the time the 1.8 liter OHC engine was federalized, it actually made four less horsepower than the 1.8 OHV engine in the Cavalier. Popular Mechanics achieved 0-60 in 18.9 seconds with a J2000 automatic. A four speed would have been quicker, but that is still four or five seconds slower than what Japanese competitors with automatics were achieving.
At the end of the day, GM’s European product owed quite a bit of its advantage to US market regulations. The Japanese cars performed better because they were better engineered than European or American cars, not because European cars were unfairly disadvantaged in their transitions to the US market. Does this mean that GM could never have benefited by leveraging Opel products? The Bitter SC performed better than any Cadillac during its time on the US market, and it used a federalized version of Opel’s luxury inline-6 mounted in Opel’s chassis. For some reason, GM waited until the Opel Omega was an also-ran in Europe to prove that the people who wanted the celebrated Opel Senator to be imported or produced here were wrong.
The Holden Camira was most surely a Holden Deadly Sin and a penalty box stinker of a car. Holden like GM in the USA had over 50% of the car market in early 1960s to being bailed out by GM headquarters for $500 million in 80s.
Still, 40-odd years later I can’t believe my parents traded a mint 1983 Mitsubishi Sigma SE 2.6 auto with air-con, and power steering (brought new) for a 1984 Holden Camira SLX (Australian J car and slightly used) with 1.6 (Australian-made Family II motor 88 hp and 93 lb⋅ft) auto and no power steering, air con that could only be used on flat terrain. Mitsubishi traded with 40,000 miles and no issues. I still wonder if my father had actually test-drove the Camira, the Sigma (98hp and 139 lb⋅ft) wasn’t the quickest car but oh my god, Camira is the slowest car I’ve ever driven. Harsh, everything cracked and grown. The engine loved a rev but I think a Briggs and Stratton lawn mover engine had more refinement. Unreliable (it had only about 7-8,000 miles when brought), constantly overheating which only improved after the mechanic bypassed the thermostat (after it was replaced 3 times). The only redeeming feature was its handling, but for a rock-hard ride, it should handle well. Replaced by a 1990 fuel injected 4 speed auto Mitsubishi Magna, amazing both cars designed in the 80’s, Magna was a revelation.
My father has some weird car trading history and even today in his 70’s still buys a great car, then the next car is crap. VW Beatle to FC Holden, traded for a new 1968 VF Valiant Pacer to a 1971 HQ Belmont (Kingswood stripper) wagon. Then traded for a new 1977 Mazda 323 (after ordering a Holden Torana SS V8 but changed his mind). From the Mazda to a 1980 GH Chrysler Sigma 2.6 (no replacement for displacement. 1300cc to 2600cc) wagon. Then to the 83 Sigma. I think I’ve inherited his car-buying craziness.
Good one, Travis. In hindsight that is a hard trade to understand. Also in hindsight, it was probably common though. Holden had always been weak in the midmarket, and it looked like they finally had a decent four. To read the magazines you’d think it was an Alfa with Holden badges.
But Aussies were used to driving with torque. The 2.6 Sigma was all about torque. The Camira, in 1.6 form only at first, had to have the snot revved out of it to get anywhere. Any Camira always sounded busy, very busy. Sure it thrived on revs and gave good performance stats, but the noise – well, you know.
The Sigma was a refined version of a package that had been on the market since ’77. Plenty of time to get all the bugs ironed out and fine tune it for Aussie driving conditions and preferences. And it was tough – you saw them everywhere. The Camira was a new design, unproven, and as it turned out, not a good bush car. Not in the tradition of anvil-tough Holdens of old. The Sigma they traded was probably still going strong when the Camira was scrapped.
Magna – no comparison! We had a manual ’89 (which replaced a truly awful ’83 Corona) and an ’00. Best cars ever built in Australia.
When I realized I couldn’t fit in the Fiero and still turn the wheel, I test drove a top trim ’84 Cavalier that I remember as reasonably refined and comfortable (good, plush seats), but slow. I was driving a ’74 Fleetwood, so bad NVH would have stood out. The interior in the Phoenix hatchback was so poorly finished, I never even drove one.
I ended up overcompensating and buying a 4 spd Turbo Sunbird, which was fun to drive but a mistake, particularly with NoVa traffic. The problems I remember were 2 clutches in 4 years, a noisy accessory belt, and a lot of turbo lag and torque steer once it arrived. I sold it to my brother when I got a wonderful ’88 Bonneville SE, and he blew the turbo in a year (I had the oil changed before 3000 miles religiously). They didn’t offer the turbo with the wagon, which I would have preferred.
We knew several people whose Honda engines failed at 50,000 miles, but that may have been in the late 70s. I never felt like I’d be Spam in a can if I wrecked the Sunbird, not true about my brother’s later Civic.
In 1982, I was a young man with a new degree in hand, and I purchased a Cavalier from Bud Wolfe Chevrolet in Indianapolis, and the sales lady must have spotted me as easy pickings. The problems with that car drained me and my wife financially. I have never looked at a GM vehicle since then.
Wait… I have questions.
First, the Cavalier was overly heavy and under-engineered because GM tried to take parts-bin stuff put together into a new car economically…
But then at the end of the article you say “Which turned the Cavalier into a $5 billion dollar blunder, since it never really became a profitable car line for GM, and its development was very costly.”
How was it’s development costly??? I understand the $5billion is the development and losses selling, but this seems to be a disconnect for me
There’s more to “development” than just reusing a few parts from another car line. The four cylinder engine was new, as were of course the whole body, interior and everything else. Reusing some parts just made those specific few parts cheaper. Plus GM’s development costs back then were notoriously high.
The real problem was that the only way to recoup GM’s investment would have been if the prices stayed high enough, as originally planned. But the J cars met a tepid reaction and prices had to be lowered. And over the years, the adjusted prices kept coming down in relation to the Japanese competition. GM was building them at a loss, for many years. Why? They needed the CAFE credits from their small cars to offset the low EPA ratings of their trucks and SUVs.
I had an 83 Cavalier CS hatchback with F41 suspension option. A nice dark blue just like the one in the brochure that year. It had a 5-spd, AM/FM cassette (LOL), power locks & windows, rear wiper, etc… incl a nice soft blue velour interior. I LOVED that car but I bought it in the fall. As soon as the weather turned cold GM’s entirely unreliable 1st generation throttle-body system failed. Hell, cold? Late August! I returned it to the dealer half a dozen times but they just kept saying there was nothing wrong with it. On further questioning they admitted that they “couldn’t take it off the lot for a test drive because their insurance wouldn’t allow it”?!?! It jerked and staggered so violently that I destroyed two sets of CV joints before I got rid of it at a loss. A classmate who worked at a Pontiac dealer later told me what trash the Chevy version of that engine was and how he had made extra money putting old-fashioned regular carburetors on them to correct the problems but it was too late for me. Haven’t owned a GM since.
I’ve got a 82 Olds Firenza 2dr S coupe with the carbureted 1.8L and automatic in the garage right now. I bought it from the High School auto shop in 1997 for $400 with 65k on it. It was my second car, the first was a 77 Olds 98. So this one was named the “Little Olds”. Between these 2 cars I learned a TON of automotive stuff. The 82 was a decent runner once it was warmed up. It got 35mpg but it wouldn’t win a speed contest. It loved in town driving and the 55mph back roads, but refused to do 70mph. It’s been sitting for the last 15 years waiting for me to do a full frame off restoration to it. It’s got 101k miles on it now. I attached a picture of it from about 2002 when It looked it’s best. The paint is rough now, but the underbody is near rust free due to the excessive oil leaks it’s had it’s entire life. I’ve been accumulating parts for it over the last decade(which are dirt cheap by the way). One day it will see the road again!