(first posted 10/20/2015) Returning to the regular schedule, after Caprice Week- next on our Classic Ads’ posts, is a somewhat important issue.
At the time, R&T were very impressed with the Chevy Citation and the GM X-bodies in general, declaring them the most important cars to come out of Detroit for a long time and true competitors to foreign cars. I’ll be uploading posts from this issue throughout the week with related articles, but for now- the Ads:
Harry up and enter the sweepstakes.
It’s ugly but somehow I like it.
Back in the seventies Jacky Steward did many Ads for Ford.
It seems every month, Renault had a new Ad for the 5 (sorry, the Le Car).
Chevrolet had really invested in the Citation’s Ad. This was a center-of-issue, multiple paged affair, where supposedly you would be answered any question of query you could think of regarding this car:
I actually like the way it looked- as for the car itself…
Contrary to Chevrolet, Oldsmobile settled for one page to sell their X-body Citation sister.
Did you have this set-up in your car?
Read it and weep…
Alright, more from this issue later this week.
I spy with my little eye….. a Tuba!
A sousaphone, no less!
Thanks! Those ads are amazing! And I know it’s a lot of work to scan them. I get so saddened by all the Citation-hype. It could, and should have been a great car, instead of GM’s greatest sin. A fitting standard for the new GM cars of the 80s indeed.
Jackie Stewart didn’t just feature in ads for Ford cars, he assisted in the development of a few models.
Of the X cars, I think the Omega was in some ways the “runt of the litter”. This ad is sort of an example of how much consideration the Omega model line got from customers and GM.
Ironically, just like the Vega, the Citation got a HUGE/expensive build up in the beginning….but the cars didn’t live up to/deserve the hype. In both instances heavily let down by engineering.
Sad, that half or more of the foreign brands in these ads are no longer sold in the U.S. as they have had big turn arounds in the last 10-20 years.
About the foreign brands–I remember seeing these ads as a kid, but seldom seeing the actual cars! I think I may have seen more ads for the Lancia Zagato than Lancia Zagatos, ever.
GM probably got caught up in all the hype and figured, “Magazines love ’em [X cars], just kick them out the plant doors, buyers will snap them up” Not caring about long term anything.
GM was unwilling (although uniquely able) to take a loss on the first quarter or two while ramping up of radically new car that was to set the groundwork for everything to come for the next decade, and cut corners so the X-Cars were profitable from Job One. The press, of course, was presented with heavily massaged ringers which were the cars they all should’ve been all along.
Ended up costing them more in the long run.
GM used the ancient adage, “they will come back and buy real [bigger] cars, so make ’em cheap…”
But, it took them until 1992 to get them ‘right’, the A body Century/Ciera, but only old timers bought them.
I remember seeing some of these cars when I was a boy. My favourite car ads were the Peugeot, the Porsche-Audi ads, the Ford Mustang, the Datsun 280ZX, and the Honda Civic ad. 🙂
Neat to say the least .
-Nate
The ad for custom wire wheels in 13″ they 15″ in is a throwback. Walking the autoshow last weekend even econoboxes have 16-17s now and nicer to luxury have 20-22s.
Ian Williams:
Wagon wheels are just for show. We ran 13-14″ rims forever,
gave us no problems.
IIRC I read somewhere the buff books received “ringers”…IOW, the Citation the way the public should have been able to buy it. That may just be GM’s Deadliest Sin of all.
Car and Driver was still writing glowing reviews of the X-cars a year after driving the “ringers.” They took bribes and told lies.
reliability issues aside for some of those cars. What choices! It certainly was nice to have all that variety models and manufacturers. Made my childhood car spotting entertaining. Where is the wayback machine when I need it.
Poor Citation.
I will never understand all this hate.
For those of us old enough to remember the introduction of the X-cars, I think the hate stems from disgust over how good the cars were on paper (space and fuel efficiency, reasonably good handling, decent styling) vs. how poorly executed they were in reality (inadequate testing during development and also cost-cutting on components).
They had the potential to be every bit as revolutionary as the 1977 B and C bodies were but, unfortunately, GM decided to rush them into production, and cut corners along the way. For a car enthusiast and a patriotic American, this was a huge disappointment.
First truly disposable car GM made. What they learned from these is to make even cheaper engines later in the 80s with plastic gears and aluminum foil on the edges. As art director for Chevy-citation, in later years I was amazed to see hundreds of citations stacked on top of each other in Detroit Junkyards. At least the artwork was good! – CS
Saw a repeat later marketed as VOLT.
Why the hate?
Ever driven one? Ever OWNED one?
Exactly. For goodness’ sake, they used the Lancia Beta as a template, at the time probably the best handling FWD sedan / coupe built (yes, it rusted badly, but that’s another matter) and managed to come up with these things: dead steering, unresponsive handling, no feeling brakes etc. etc.
And then there’s the reliability issues, perhaps the worst sin – if they were reliable much of the other complaints could have been disregarded and I believe they would have been a success. But not if things started falling apart during the 1st 50,000 miles…
Well, let me just say that of 28 cars over 40 years, my 1980 Buick Skylark was the worst car I ever owned (and that’s saying a lot given I also owned a 81 Cutlass diesel). I too was sucked in by the glowing reviews and marketing hype. It had a litany of sins – the worst being a fairly large carburetor leak that almost incinerated me.
For those of us old enough to remember those times, it certainly didn’t seem like a “malaise” era at all, but rather an exciting one full of promise and new wonders. Ah, the X-cars, so good on paper, and such disasters in the real world.
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I new-car-shopped with my dad in the early 1980s and we test-drove (and rented) several different GM vehicles of that era.
Amazing how many of these brands are not in the US or around anymore. The Honda ad comparing it to the Model T and Beetle is pretty good. Too bad the Citation’s attention to detail in it’s ad’s didn’t translate into the final X-car product.
The X11 in the ad is the same color as the Hot Wheels one (white, red stripe, red gut) that was one of my favorite toys at around this time.
I thought the same thing. I have one of those.
I have one of those too.
And Hotwheels made a Dodge Aries wagon at the same time. It was the future!
I like how the Citation ad with the specs says “0 to 50 in 9 seconds flat.” Not zero to sixty, zero to FIFTY. Wonder what its 0 to 60 time was?
Want that ’59 Buick in the classifieds, although the Vette, 427 Cobra or Ferrari would surely have been better investments.
You have to remember that the “national” speed limit at the time these cars rolled the roads was 55 MPH and attempts were made to discourage going any faster than 55. That’s why for several years speedometers stopped at 85 MPH.
But yeah, I’ll concede that it was a trick, an attempt to make a car seem faster than it really was. But I have seen vintage road tests in British magazines that also featured 0 to 50 MPH times.
Watching some old Motor Trend video reviews, I think it was the Pontiac T1000 that was mentioned as having a decent 0-55 time, but the last 5 mph to 60 brought it down to 13 seconds or something like that.
0-60 in 30 seconds
Downhill.
Chevrolet with its Citation wasn’t the only car manufacturer to brag about its zero-to-FIFTY acceleration.
Volkswagen Rabbit advertising did it, too.
That’s not surprising. I owned two VW Rabbit diesels. I always said that, if you dropped one out of a cargo plane, the car wouldn’t get past 80MPH before it hit the ground.
The 85mph speedometers were required by law briefly (less than a year and a half IIRC, though they continued to be made long after the law was rescinded). I don’t think there was a law making 0-60mph figures in advertising illegal, but manufacturers didn’t want to look like they were promoting illegal activity during the double-nickel era.
Unfortunately I bought all the glowing reviews of the X-cars from the car rags, in retrospect the purchase of a ’80 Skylark was the biggest mistake of any of my car
purchases(well, the Chevy Vega came close). The fact that GM gave ringers to the
car mags for testing was something I didn’t find out until much later, and this raises an
interesting question if the magazines were aware of this at the time, if so, they certainly said nothing about it at the time.
After my debacle with the X-car I haven’t put much faith in their road tests of cars.
It would be interesting to read the Consumer Reports tests of any X-cars, as the magazine purchased its test cars straight from the dealer. Its test cars were more likely to be representative of what the average customer received.
My recollection of Consumer Reports is hazy, but I would say, unless they were alarmed by the X-cars propensity to swap ends under certain hard braking conditions, they rated the X-cars as
“very promising, but we don’t recommend new models without a reliability record”
And why not? What competition did they have? Fairmont? slower and thirstier. And after that, it was downhill for domestics. Imports?. Accord? smaller and slower with automatic. Corona? Rear drive, too small. Ditto Datsun 510 and Mazda 626.
And, as we all know,the record never made to to “average”, let alone “better than average.” Too bad….
I have a 1982 Consumer Reports New Cars magazine in which they say:
“We’re less enthusiastic about the X-cars now, including Citation. The main reason is continuing owner complaints of mechanical problems that still occasion recalls after two years of production. Early four-cylinder models suffered faulty carburetion that led to poor driveability, which may be why the fuel injection system has been substituted for ’82. A large number of X-cars were reeled in last year to check for a possible leaky power steering hose and excessive play at the wheel. Now, owners of 245,000 manual-shift models are being notified of potential slippage in the self-adjusting clutch. It’s unclear whether such defects are due to insufficient engineering development or poor work on the assembly line, but they can’t be ignored.”
And that’s without even mentioning the locking rear brakes! I suspect they were still enthusiastic about these cars in 1981, but I haven’t been able to find a copy of CR new cars for that model year (the ’82 edition I bought new when I was 17 and kept all these years).
It’s my understanding that the X-car brakes didn’t lock every time there was a panic stop, which made the defect harder to initially detect.
Consumer Guide Auto Test was also initially very favorable on the X-cars, and they also sourced their cars directly from a dealerships. Like Consumer Reports, it wasn’t until all the bad repair data and recalls started pouring in that they changed their tune. Initially, all the press was positive–the design, in theory, was really good. Early owner reviews were also good too.
I know Car and Driver now claims they were duped (c’mon guys, really?), but I don’t think the X-cars they tested were any different than the specially prepped cars that they routinely borrowed from the manufacturers. Press cars were always specially prepped–it wasn’t news then, and it doesn’t get C/D off the hook now… There’s no shame in admitting it: the editors fell for the X-cars, as did over 1 million U.S. buyers, so plenty of people were smitten, and then burned, by the new designs.
Glad you mentioned that, it was in fact Consumer Guide Magazine I was quoting from, not Consumer Reports. Me bad.
I, too fell for the hype. I have mentioned my ’80 Phoenix here before. First and Last car I ever bought new (with a loan from my parents). The Iron Duke 4 cylinder was more irony than iron, and the 4 speed manual I waited 6 months to get was a mess. I replaced my engine at around 119K, which would be considered a travesty nowadays. The synchros in the transmission never worked, and it popped out of 4th at the slightest provocation. It’s such a shame because the packaging was wonderful.
BTW it sure took me a long time to find that tuba…
My father traded a ’71 Skylark for an ’81 Skylark (he was a creature of habit and big GM guy; he fought in the Pacific and would never consider a Japanese car). He liked that car (as did I when I drove it) until it swapped ends on him at 60 after braking on a wet highway. Fortunately, nothing happened, other than a bad scare. It was gone soon after that.
In retrospect, those two Skylarks were a parable of GM’s dominance in the early 70’s and its downfall a decade later. I still have fond memories of that ’71 with its torquey 350 and solid construction, and nothing but disdain for the ’81 that could have killed him.
I’ve often wondered what GMs fate would have been had it done the X bodies correctly. They were styled in a way that people wanted, it was (overdue) FWD. If the cars had had the engineering, build quality, so on – would it have made for a totally different next 20 years I wonder. It really was the car people wanted at that time – they were right. It just didn’t follow through, so I wonder if it had.
Totally agree. In Israel, these cars ruined the good name US-made cars had as far as reliability was concerned. An X as reliable as a 60s Nova would have been a great success and would have contributed to GM’s financial well-being.
Here are the inflation-adjusted prices of the cars featured in the classified ads:
1959 Buick Electra 225 convertible:
$4,800 = $15,731 (that’s a good price today for a 1959 GM convertible in good, original condition).
1965 Chevrolet Corvette coupe:
$7,000 = $22,942
1967 Fiat Dino coupe:
$7,800 = $25,564
1966 Lotus Elan:
$5,000 = $16,387
1966 Mercedes 230 SL
$7,800 = $25,564
Who wants to take the DeLorean back to 1979?
The multiple page ads for the 1980 Chevrolet Citation almost appears as a Sales Brochure even you could tell from the type of paper that it was printed on. It was a high quality type of paper like the ones Sales Brochures were printed from which was even different from the magazine. Its kind of a shame Chevrolet would spend that type of money for an insert and the car themselves were of poor quality and an utter failure. Haste makes waste and the Nova could have been continued through 1980 much like its Ford Granada and Plymouth Volare’ competitors.
Pontiac ran complete fold-out Phoenix sales brochures in some of the car mags too.
I have often wondered if many of the Citation’s lock up ills were user error(such as the later Audi 5000 acceleration issue)? FWD was still new in 1980 and folks would have not been used to the FWD quirks and driving style.(such as the cars being front heavy or oversteer etc) having driven many of the 1980’s-1990’s FWD GM and Ford FWD cars, I can say that they did drive differently then their RWD counterparts of the same era.(you could tell you were in a RWD or FWD car)
As for if the X body was a success? Maybe not a sales success but work on the this platform did allow refinement and spawned the A, L and N bodies of the 1980’s-1990’s and the A body cars were a big success.
I would love a mint condition 1985 Citation II with the 2.8l multiport V6.
I’m with you–I think the truth has been stretched over the years. I worked in the automotive aftermarket business and I don’t recall anyone complaining about spinning around when braking. The only thing I recall with X cars and the later A cars was steering racks leaking from the inner tie rod–the aftermarket solved it with stainless sleeves.
My 60k mile old lady owned 1989 Ciera (true, an X-car derivative) suffered from rear brake lock-up, so much so that when it happened to me unexpectedly I actually spun around and almost flipped over after I hit the curb from spinning. Luckily no one was coming towards me as I would have hit them head on.
User error doesn’t explain it.its accepted that most of the unintended acceleration problems in Audis proved to be happening to older folks who got flamboozled and pushed the wrong pedal. X-Cars did exhibit torque steer (with just 90 hp in the 4 cylinder) at a time when it could have been eliminated. I remember being surprised about that in my Phoenix after the car rags crowed about neutral handling. The technology was already out there. The Golf/Rabbit was 6 years on the market, and the Omni/Horizon 3. They both handled better. There was a recall on my car to install brake system modulators so that should tell you something.
My car also developed a cowl shake that was traced to… wait for it… out of balance rear tires. Whaaaa? So I am not surprised to hear that they had a reputation for spinning.
I turned 16 the year the X cars came out–me and my friends were not impressed that there wasn’t going to be cool V8’s when we could own new cars. Boy look at those curb weights–if GM had spent the money upfront with fuel injection and better designed brakes those cars would have flown
Great find on the Western Wheel ad, Yohai71. I just bought a FIAT two weeks ago and it’s got a set of Westerns on it. There’s very little to be found about them on the internet, but now I know they were a Rockwell company.
I know Jackie Stewart is a little guy, but he looks absolutely miniscule in that Mustang, as if he is driving on the right side.
I have nothing but complete and total hatred for X-Cars. I worked on them, back in the early ’90s when I moonlighted at my friends used car lot. Changed enough steering racks to fill a cargo ship. Among other repairs. These piles were a complete, and total, waste of perfectly good metal. And all the engineers should have been shot for letting the beancounters run that whorehouse…
Some great points in here. Car magazines always inevitably run into the classic “conflict of interest”……the same people that buy advertisements in their magazines are the ones with their products under review. Many reviewers–even when they dislike something–will try to stay as neutral as possible. In hindsight, the glowing reviews of the Citation seem like total nonsense……the car’s QC issues gave it a short lifespan once the reputation and word had got out. The X11 seems like a decent idea on paper, though. The funnier thing is that in the ad, nowhere do they mention (that I can find) power ratings…..they probably figured that people would balk at the power, but truthfully, 9 seconds from 0-60 is pretty good for that day.
See, they caught you with their advertising! The ad doesn’t say 9 seconds from 0-60.
Yes ;
I bought one too , it was horrible ~ the brakes caught me by surprise on the SB Hollywood Freeway where it dumps into the SB Harbor Freeway , a wide , open looking ramp that looks made for high speed but isn’t (judging by the daily crashes there) ~ I *touched* the brake pedal @ 50 MPH and the rear wheels instantly locked up and the rear end wanted to come around .
I simply let off the brakes and counter steered and all was fine but it really caught me by surprise .
Having the wife in the car at the time made it worse .
Once again GM snatched defeat from the very jaws of victory with this awful car .
At the time , it was stylish , roomy and cost effective .
Too bad it was also an unreliable turd .
Two weeks after I bought it I got a job @ LAX as a Fleet mechanic , they gave me , the new guy , a whole bunch of these to change the steering racks out in , what a PIA .
Under 20,000 miles and every one leaked and had burned to a crisp fluid in them .
-Nate
Not to flog a dead horse, but the big Companies don’t always learn their lessons. Before all the brouhaha over the ignition switches that cost GM $$$ and executives, there was also the problem with the Malibu Maxx, which I believe was GM USA’s first foray into electrically activated steering. I was researching the Maxx about 8 years ago as a possible used car purchase based on its roominess and apparent utility, and uncovered a number of horror stories from people who suddenly found themselves without steering control. Apparently, the plating used on the column would wear off and cut the electrical connection to the motor. GM refused to acknowledge it at the time, and only issued recalls many years later.
A buddy of mine told me about his experience in a Chevy Citation as a teenager. He tapped the brakes while in a traffic circle. The backend swung around and he got hit by the following car.
The family had no idea of the braking issues because most news was via TV or newspapers back then which had yet to pick up the story.
IIRC, an Audi replaced the Citation which had its own issues.
I considered entering that Monroe sweepstakes but wasn’t old enough to claim a prize. But I do remember choosing the Monroe Mustang as the grand prize I’d select, over the Mustang pace car replica figuring it would be rarer and more subdued, even though the pace car replica was probably a better car (didn’t it have the 5.0 V8?)
Yugo stole that Honda ad positioning their car as the successor to the Model T and Beetle almost verbatim. Likewise, Western Wheel stole the well-known “double your pleasure” tagline from a long-running Doublemint Gum commercial.
The Pioneer radio is weird – looks like an analog dial but apparently there’s some sort of electronic LED pointer behind it or something.
Car ads were so wordy and cerebral back then.
I loved Pioneer in car tape decks. I am pretty sure my 8 track was a Pioneer, and then my cassette deck too.
I want to say that my first set of aftermarket rear speakers were Pioneer as well, but I can’t remember that well because they were swiped one nasty evening.
Great ads! The Civic feeding off the Beetle tradition is an interesting concept. Forty two years later, Civic is still produced in large volumes, although with mostly lots of upgrates.
I don’t mean this as rude, but is Jackie Stewart kind of small in stature?
He kind of looks like he’s sitting in another car -behind- the Mustang. I am (barely) six feet tall and I sat way up high in my fox-Mustangs.
(Actually I’m 5’11 3/4″ after my L5 disc dissolved, but in denial) 😀
Sorry if what I said is “heightist”.
The ad that stands out to me is the Honda one. It’s the most honest and prescient of the ads we’ve been seeing here at CC. If I were to update it, the next significant car would be the 1st gen Prius.
Slam Dunk!! Thats my Fiat Dino in the classifieds. Bought January 79 in a bid to flip after graduating HS and doing factory work for a year before entering college. Being paid in full and thoroughly enjoyed I had no need or desire to bargain aggressively on what would have been a fair mark up. All worked out well and still have, appreciate, and enjoy the car. In retrospect the ad copy was pretty accurate to – though by todays standards the car would be classified as ‘quick’, back in the day she was unquestionably a thoroughbred amongst those she shared the roads with – a sentiment that anybody I gave a ride to would agree with.
As for the GM X cars … My mom bought one … sold it off a few years later as being unsafe, my mother .. for gods sakes – and she was correct. Got her first Camry and never looked back – just sideways to Honda, which she loved!
I had this issue in 1979…didn’t have a subscription, so I must have bought it at newsstand. I was in my junior year at undergraduate, and it wasn’t going so well for me…was having trouble with the course load, partly because the curriculum wasn’t well sorted out, we didn’t have the prerequisite for a CS course that was mandatory, so we essentially had to learn what was in the class plus the class we didn’t get to take…so it was a weed out course for us (I was in EE). I postponed the CS class till my senior year, which made all the difference, the elective I took was a lot easier and allowed me the time for my other difficult classes. As there were only 28 people in the program (actually more Masters than Bachelors candidates believe it or not) they hadn’t put much time into planning the classes.
For some reason I remember reading the issue in the school library, which doesn’t seem to make much sense to me (would normally read at home) but that’s how I remember it. More than likely it was a welcome distraction from the classes, kind of a reward to myself after getting through some concept or working a bunch of problems.
Like most people I was bowled over by the X cars then, especially since I lived in Vermont, and these were kind of the start of a trend of FWD cars which I thought were great, especially since these were mid-size ones (guess Saab was also mid-sized but there weren’t a lot of others in 1979). My Dad had a 1976 Subaru DL which he bought new, with FWD, but many of the others were pretty expensive till FWD became more common. I was driving a ’74 Datsun 710 which as a light RWD was pretty bad in the snow. Two years later, (40 years ago) I hit some black ice on I89 coming from my home in Mass (first professional job was there) to visit my parents. I got the sheetmetal fixed up (fortunately damage to headlights, hood, and fender, but car was still driveable). Decided I needed to get a FWD car so that’s when I bought my ’78 Scirocco.
I looked at one of these cars (new) before I bought the Scirocco, an ’81 Pontiac Phoenix. There weren’t (yet) many of these used, but I don’t really know why I was looking at them other than curiousity; even though I was in a pretty good job, inflation was sky high and interest rates for some used cars was 24%…I did well to get 16% for my Scirocco, but my manager was coincidentally President of the company credit union (a volunteer position, his “real” job had nothing to do with the credit union) and I think he pulled some strings on my behalf…for one thing, I hadn’t been there long enough to qualify for much of a loan (new members were restricted on loan amounts) but the extra amount got me the Scirocco….but doubt I could swing a new X car then. If I knew what we know now about the X cars in retrospect, I probably would have done much better with a ’79 Nova (but there again, it was RWD, but a bit heavier than the 710).
Paul had mentioned in another post that he liked the X car he drove in the early 80’s, but it seemed to have similar attributes to the other person who liked their X car, namely it had the 2.8 rather than the 4; his was a Buick, don’t know if that made any difference, but maybe the highline cars fared a bit better than entry ones?
Anyhow, now live in the sunbelt, RWD would be just fine…but the timing was such that I moved south just as FWD cars were really taking off, maybe 1983 or 1984…lots of models had same name but were now FWD without any name change (just different model year).