Isn’t it amazing how one simple car can leave a lasting impression?
In the spring of 1995, there was a lot going on in my world as a teenager in Smithers, British Columbia, none larger than the passing of each day to reach my 16th birthday in June of that year. I had already long memorized my ICBC issued ‘Safe Driver’s Guide’ to the point that the booklet had lost its shape, and I was eagerly awaiting my opportunity to write my learner’s license and get on the road. Living in a small town in Northern BC, I needed an escape, any kind of escape, but preferably with four wheels.
It was during those cool, late-winter days that my Mom was looking to upgrade from her pristine, red-over-black 1992 Ford Tempo GL sedan that she had purchased new during the summer of ’92. It was Mom’s ‘first car’ and she loved it, spending lots of time washing, waxing and pampering that cherry red sedan. While most can tell a tale of their own experiences with the Tempo, Mom’s certainly was a winner and while it was in mint condition in and out, she was looking for something a little more personable, though I should also note that the rapid depreciation was also weighing in on the decision to move on to something else.
It was at O’Neill Chev-Olds in Smithers that she found herself something ideal: a 1995 Chevrolet Beretta Z26. I’ll point out, of course, that the Beretta two-door had already been available on the market for several years along with its four door sedan counterpart in the Chevrolet Corsica. That said, this was the first appearance of a new Z26 model in town, despite the fact it was available as of the 1994 model year. Smithers is not much of a ‘car’ town given its location in Northern BC, it’s truck country in those parts, so while we would have Corsicas and Berettas in small numbers around town, they were of the Plain Jane variety. A pair of fresh, shiny Z26s on the local lot was something different!
The pair consisted of one Z26 in red and one Z26 in white. Mom initially fell for the red finish first, given her love for the bright red ’92 Tempo she was looking to upgrade from. I remember getting home from work that weekend and Mom excitedly telling me about the car she found and how it was exactly what she was looking for. It was the right combination of style (the Beretta stood out of the crowd by the mid-90s given how curvy and round cars were becoming by that time), performance and features. The 3.1L V6 delivered punchy acceleration and its sport tuned exhaust delivered the sound. Mom was hooked, but it still had to be the right deal.
It was during the slow paced negotiations on the trade-in that the red Z26 was scooped up, interestingly enough that buyer lived just around the corner from us. While she was sad that she didn’t get a chance to pick up the red Z26, she looked to the other option in the white option instead. I believe the negotiations on the white went on for another week or so, but in the end, the dealer came up to the right price point and the deal was done.
Somewhere there is a picture of us standing in front of that car on the dealership lot on a dreary March 1995 morning and I remember Mom and I driving around town all day in that car, tunes blaring, numerous spins up and down Main Street, just enjoying the new ride. I was absolutely hooked on it too… for me, it represented everything I wanted in a car: booming stereo, lots of power, tons of options, all drenched in beautiful new car smell… I just couldn’t afford something like it!
The day I turned 16 in June 1995 I went in and passed my learner’s test and drove home with that coveted paper in hand, though it wasn’t in the Beretta. It actually became the forbidden fruit… I certainly was not allowed to drive it while I was still fresh… and even once I was a fully qualified driver six weeks later, it was still only on the odd occasion when I was accompanied by Mom that I was allowed to drive it.
I had purchased a 1990 Chevrolet Sprint as my first car and while I was completely happy with it, the Beretta was still that much more amazing. That said, I understood my Mom’s hesitation in allowing me the freedom to run around in her car whenever I wanted and I was more than happy with the little bit of time I did get to have with it back then, usually when I got to take it down to the car wash and get it all shined up for her, ‘accidentally’ taking a few spins around town afterwards to dry it off before bringing it back home.
In the summer of 1996, we took the Beretta on its first significant road trip, which was a long weekend drive down to Vancouver so that Mom & my younger brother could take in Garth Brooks. I was happy to go along for the ride and keep Mom company, allowing her to switch off driving with me for the long 12 hour run from Smithers. We were making great time and into the last leg of the journey in the Fraser Canyon when a red Chevy pick up came across the center line on a corner at the summit of Jackass Mountain, heading straight at us.
I am not sure exactly what happened, but fortunately for us the front bumper of the truck hit the back driver’s side of the Beretta and knocked us off course, instead of striking us (and killing us) head on. The car squealed and twisted on the asphalt for a few moments after impact but Mom managed to hold on to the wheel tight and get it straightened out and I am forever grateful for that, given we would have gone over a steep embankment and rolled down into the Fraser River instead. We reported the incident at Boston Bar’s RCMP detachment and I would carry on the drive into Vancouver from there. I should note that there was very little damage to the car, just a few scratches in the paint and a light depression in the metal, it was fixed up to factory condition a few weeks later.
After 10 years of service, Mom was starting look for something new. The Beretta had been a trusty, reliable vehicle for her for many years and while it was still in great condition all around, it was time for something fresh. Mom called me just after New Year’s 2006 to tell me about some of the choices she had found in her searches and one particular vehicle that stood out, a 2005 Hyundai Tucson that was a dealer ‘demo’ model and was therefore equipped with every single option and available accessory piece. It was exactly what she had been looking for.
Of course, that left the question, what was going to happen to that beloved Beretta? Mom would get absolutely crushed on trade and the car, while being 11 years old, only had 77,000 km on the clock, barely broken in! I also couldn’t stomach the thought of someone else enjoying it, so I made arrangements to buy it and take it home. I remember the day I met Mom in Prince George to pick up the car. We had lunch together prior to her handing me the keys and the papers. It was an amazing day, like the passing of the torch. The trip back to Calgary in the Beretta was quick, smooth and absolutely flawless with great fuel mileage in turn, something my Mom had always appreciated about the car. I will admit too, that I pushed that car to the limits on some quiet, lonely straight stretches on the Yellowhead highway and it handled those speeds with ease.
It became my daily driver in Calgary and handled the grind well, though it racked up the miles at a significantly quicker pace than it was used to, reaching 100,000 km about a year later. It needed a set of front brakes replaced and a new muffler (which I upgraded a bit to sweeten its wonderful exhaust note) and I tossed on a set of 17″ 5-spoke rims I had kicking around to give it an updated look, it’s ‘cabbage shredder’ type OEM wheels were very old school at that point. All in all, I enjoyed many hours behind the wheel of that car, all of those years later, in an entirely different place.
My wife and I would take it on a road trip out to Kamloops in the hot summer months of 2007 and once again, it provided us with a flawless journey, handling the tight curves of the mountain passes on the Trans Canada highway. I remember a young fellow stopping me to chat about the car during a gas stop in Revelstoke, remarking about the uniqueness of the car and offering to provide his number should I ever want to sell it. Always a head turner, that car was for Mom and I, at least in our circles!
In 2008 and after more than two years of heavy commuting (reaching almost 70,000 km in those two plus years), it was time to look to retirement. I became a father in May of that year and the occasional trip I would have to take with an infant in the back of the Beretta would highlight the need for a second ‘family friendly’ vehicle. While many would wonder how I could let it go after so many years, I would simply say that Mom and I both got our full enjoyment out of it. Mom had a long relationship with it, very short drives over a long period of time. I had a short relationship with it, but spent a lot of time in it, racking up almost similar miles in two and a half years as Mom did during her 11.
In December of that year, I said goodbye, though I wasn’t around to see the car leave. By that time, it had began to drip power steering fluid and had developed a rust hole in the lower driver’s side door jamb (a very odd location for sure), but it still ran like it was new and still had shiny paint. I let it go for $2,800 to a nice younger fellow who lived out in Banff and that is likely where it carried out its final days, riding on base Cavalier steel wheels and hubcap, as I had let go of the ‘cabbage shredders’ and had a buyer for the 17″ 5-spokes it rode on. It left my house, as my wife told me, plowing away in the snowfall we received that day, sort of a fitting end to its time in our lives, biting through the snow like Mom always said no other car could.
For almost 14 years that car was appreciated in all aspects of vehicle ownership: style, options, performance, efficiency, reliability and gave the most cherished of them all, a lifetime of memories.
Such a great read… one of my favorites of yours, Carey. Your mom’s / your car was a beauty, for sure. I gasped on the train while reading about the mishap with the truck. Wow. You have to know you were all being watched over. These Berettas…Man, these just take me back to high school. Their styling was knockout gorgeous when new, then stale after almost ten years on the market. But they look so good to me (again) as you just don’t see them anymore. So great to read about what sounds like a really positive set of experiences with one. From other accounts I’ve read, quality and reliability was hit-or-miss. Looking forward to your next piece.
I bought a 1987 Beretta GT, black/maroon interior when they first hit the showrooms. I worked for a Chevy Dealer that is no longer in business at the time and my Beretta was one of the first off the truck!
I was one of the first people in my area of No. NJ to have a Beretta GT and got MANY admiring looks and shout outs the first few months before the cars were more plentiful.
It was a great car, comfortable and powerful with decent MPG. The only downfall was the paint! It looked awful after 2 years; like it had gone thru several sand storms! The car was already of out warranty and I no longer worked at the dealership. Chevy was very unresponsive which very disheartening.
I got rid of it in 1991 with over 80K for a brand new 1991 Saturn SL2. [That’s another story] Other than the awful paint, it worked really well.
About 4 months after I traded it in, GM wrote me they were beginning to re-paint all of those 1987 Chevy Berettas! UGH!
I see not a few recent-model Chevy trucks, usually white, with random patches of paint missing, exposing primer. I can’t imagine how negligent owners could account for this, so what’s going wrong? Is it a paint-shop fail?
I had an 89 GT in that medium blue metallic color. The paint started to flake off. I mentioned it to a co-worker who said her sister had the same problem and Chevy re-painted the car for free. I called my dealer and sure enough they repainted it – but just the “horizontal” surfaces as per the recall. This was “pre-internet” and I never would have known about the recall if I didn’t talk to my co-worker. It was almost like it was a “silent” recall.
Neil,
Seems to be something about white that nearly every “domestic-brand” vehicle from the mid 90s developed a sort of automotive mange. Part (all?) of the problem stems from paints re-formulated to be more friendly to the environment along with more environmentally friend painting processes.
Possibly, though I wonder why the Japanese seem to suffer less from this, yet they’re no less on board with the environmental “program.” Maybe they invested in an alternative high-quality formula, but Detroit didn’t & simply used it as an excuse to cheapen.
So far the only obvious finish degradation on my white ’10 Civic is the black door-frame paint fading, even though I never wax the car or wash it very often.
Ford had issues with their white paint peeling off from the late 1990’s into mid 2000’s.
I have seen several Civics of the 06-11 era develop the missing paint/primer showing illness. my neighbor 2 doors down has a blue 2009 Civic that has patches of white primer showing through the paint on the roof (the worst of it is directly above the windshield on the roof) It looks horrible and she has always babied it. Of course the 06-09 Civic had block cracking/coolant leak issues that have led to a recall on the cars. It seems like this generation Civic is really a let down in the reliability game compared with the 01-05 Civics
The issue with paint film delamination is a long and painful one. It stems from the process the domestic makers used, and typically differed from the OEM’s in Europe and Asia. The problem is that typically the coating failed at the factory Electrocoat (Elpo) to topcoat films, as they did not use any intermediate primer, and processes were favoured that cut expense, and time, and pushed the practical envelope. The Elpo is baked on and is usually a black or grey, and over time, the UV from the sun would break down the tenuous bond of the topcoat films from the Elpo, with some colours being particularly notable for failure. Whites, silver, light blue metallics etc were bad, whereas other colours not to the same extent. GM, Chrysler and Ford all had horrible years from the mid 70’s and in some cases service policy programs were created to repaint them. Ford trucks in the 90’s as an example, most painted certain colours ( Silver, charcoal, et.) failed in only a few years, and as an example, most Ford dealers were swamped with repaints for years. The problem was also not cured with the switch to Basecoat/Clearcoat, but in that case brought the spectre of clear to base coat delam into the picture. IE: Dodge Ram pickups and Caravans from the mid to late 90’s. There were some notable processes that were notable for integrity, such as the Saturn vehicles, as they used a SMC (Sheet Moulded Compound) body panel, with a intermediary prime coat, with a B/C topcoat process that stood the test of time. Although the non SMC panels may have had the delam issue, I personally don’t recall any. The non domestic makers used different techniques and processes that in general had more care and attention, with more steps, and as a result, far less outright coating failures. Colour fade (Honda and Toyota reds notably), but at least it held together while the car rusted away. Having been a refinish tech and later a OEM Supplier insider in the coatings industry, I saw it all, and the above is really only the simplified and “coles notes” version of the issue. Its too bad really, as nothing pissed folks off like a peeling two year old car still being paid for, and a Manufacturer that denied claims repeatedly.
Thanks for the detailed response.
The scary thing about products as complex as cars is, you don’t know what shortcuts the manufacturer took until it’s too late. Same goes for household appliances; we just had to toss a 1½ yr-old µwave after it began emitting a burning smell (probably insulation). Of course it was out of warranty; do we have to buy commercial-grade now?
Glad to know there’s another happy former Beretta owner out there. I had a base ’89 in maroon, my first car and my first new car. Drove it for 150,000 miles. Mine wasn’t as powerful as yours, given its 2.0 L 4, but it was fun with the five-speed transmission. I too gave mine up when it got tiresome to squeeze child seats into the back.
Great story. And it brought back memories of riding my motorcycle through Smithers in 1987. At my age, a Beretta seems like a late model car, but at least where I live they’re now rare enough to fully deserve the “Curbside Classic” title, especially in that tasteful trim. And the personal experiences cinch the deal. Thanks for sharing!
As the former owner of two 95 Berettas, I can fully understand your enthusiasm for these cars. Both of ours were base models, one a black 3.1 V6, the other, a Raspberry Metallic 2.2 4 cylinder. The V6 was peppy and fun to drive, but suffered from a few mechanical glitches at 98,000 miles. Once we sorted those put, we racked the car up to 160,000 miles before selling it. The 4 cylinder had a much better track record with mechanicals and was just as great a handler, but got slightly better gas mileage, albeit with about less power. Initially, I hated the Radpberry color ( the same pinkish purple hue seen on Geo Storms and Trackers) but the fact that most people hated the color meant it sat on the dealers lot for so long, we got a great deal on it. I came to like it after living with it because it was so uncommon on a Beretta. I kept that car until February of 2009, when I traded it in on a 2010 Camaro, that I ordered before production began. The Camaro has been dead reliable, and initially was fun because it was the first one in central Ohio at the time. People gawked, pointed, took cell phone pictures of it and you couldn’t go anywhere without being asked about it. Now, while I still like the Camaro, I’d trade it back in for my old Beretta in a heartbeat. The Beretta was cleanly styled with that dished in rear window, clean tail treatment, low sloped hood, and airy greenhouse that was so easy to see out of. The Camaro now is hard to get on and out of,is hard to see out of, and feels somewhat ponderous for its size. And while it looked really wild when new, it’s styling isn’t standing the test of time. It already looks somewhat cartoonish. The Beretta still looks clean and handsome. Here, my old Raspberry Beretta.
Nice car and nice story. The Cavalier wheels you put on at the end look much like the base Baretta wheels from when it was new.
You’re right, the base Beretta shared those same hubcaps as the Cavalier in those days, I forgot all about that.
My wife had a ’99 Cavalier sedan that these particular wheels & caps came from. In fact, now that we’re on the topic, that Cavalier rode on the 16″ cabbage shredder wheels from the Beretta because they had almost brand new tires… whereas these stock ones were pretty much done, tread wise.
We would have sold the Cavalier with the 16″ Beretta wheels on it at some point.
I thought that was a great story – I went straight to Google Maps to see if we’d passed through Smithers on our trip to Fairbanks in 1978. Not quite, as it turns out.
As it happens, I’m one of those who was never very much impressed with Berettas and Corsicas. I’m glad that you had such good experiences with yours.
Great story! You definitely captured the fascination of finally getting your license and having a cool car be the focus of that new freedom. When I was in H.S, these were one of the cars to have at the time….and they appealed equally to the guys and the girls. By todays standards, performance is pretty mild but I remember driving a GTZ with the Quad 4 and it felt like a rocket. That little engine’s rough and rowdy demeanor meant it felt like a LOT of gnarly things were going on and that added to the enjoyment.
Your car definitely still looked fresh and sharp. The styling on these always was pretty clean and no nonsense which is why it has aged well. Outside of those cabbage slicer wheels (sawblade designs NEVER looked good to me) theres really not much about these cars that comes off as ‘dated’. Cant say the same about its main competitor, the Probe.
What a great story. I took a Grand Am with the 3.1 for a spin and loved the engine too.
The Beretta certainly was a head turner. Even the cows turned their heads.
I like that speedometer photo, at “100.” Somewhere I have one of the speedometer of a rented, Slant-Six Plymouth Volaré at over “100” in Nova Scotia. It often made an impression on USA viewers who didn’t remember about kilometers. “Slant Six Volaré? Must have been going downhill!”
As for the comments about paint…our 1994 Ford Taurus GL in Performance White has had no paint problems at all on the visible surfaces, but the white has been flaking off to primer on the non-visible side edges of the hood since it was about four years old. Touch-up lacquer from the auto parts store adheres just fine, better than the original paint and since it doesn’t affect anything you can see when the hood is closed, I just accept that as part of maintaining a 20+ year old daily driver. Touch up paint is cheap!
Funny…the opposing surfaces of the front fenders have no such problem.
Whew, glad to see you escaped intact the “joys” of mountain highway driving in BC! Always liked the Beretta, one of my buddys had one as his first new car in blue.
Great write up, really made me feel the love your family had for this car. I am a lifetime Ford man, but the parents of a high school friend of mine had an arrest-me-red Beretta. It wasn’t a hot Z26 with the big block, but I still secretly admired that car.
Great write-up! I always loved the style of the Beretta, unlike the somewhat bland rental car style of the Corsica. The white on your Beretta looked great and the Z26 package was somewhat rare. I knew several people that had Berettas and loved them. They were durable, comfortable, packaged nicely and handled quite well. Another case of GM phasing out a great car and nameplate after it sold well and was profitable for them for many years.
My Beretta was an ’89 in red with the 2.8 MPI and 3-speed automatic. While I enjoyed that car greatly, it turned out to be something of a parts mule. Many of the more expensive items needed to be replaced twice. IIRC, two ignition modules, two engine control computers, two fuel pumps and even two transmissions. Fortunately, I was able to do many of the repairs short of the transmission myself.
I wouldn’t mind having another one, but would go with a later model with the 4-speed automatic. It seems the THM125C 3-speed just wasn’t tough enough for the V6. Our family had several 2.5L Iron Duke equipped cars and zero issues with the THM125C in those.
I had a 1990 Beretta that i bought while working at a pontiac/GMC/ Buick dealer. The guy handed over the keys when he found out that the reason it was over heating was a bad head gasket. The headgasket blowing, cracked the head. I was able to get it from him for $200. My GM discounts got me all the parts I needed (new head, HG, rocker arms/push rods etc) for cheap. I could have left the push rods and rockers in but I figured why not since I had to transfer the rockers to the new head.
It cost me $700 total for the car and every thing else and 5 hours of my time after work at night and I had a good running car that i drove for 2 years.
They were good point A to point B cars.
Do you remember the Indy Berettas in the yellow, sea green and purple? I love the look of them.
One of my buddys classmates in the neighboring HS had a brand new Indy in that sea green. His parents were loaded, but Phillip was also that ‘perfect’ kid: Straight A’s captain of the football team, prom king, etc. He was a good guy too, not the usual D-bag whose parents bought him a nice new ride only to be totaled within the first 6 months.
I remember these cars well…I was a VW owner…GTI’s and a Corrado but I always appreciated the clean styling of the Berretta. One of GM’s better designs especially in the era of the ugly upright “formal” backlight on so many of their cars.
I still remember the exhaust note from the 2.8 or 3.1 litre V6.
I also remember how well the bodies held up in our salty Buffalo streets, much better than comparable Fords or Japanese cars….Unfortunately they werent as mechanically robust as the Japanese.
While I’ve never been a great fan of the Beretta, it is hard to dislike a car that gave such good service to your family. I can see why your mother liked this one, since the Beretta was a good looking car. FWIW, I think the white one looks so much better than the red one she almost got. Your wheels make this perhaps the most attractive Beretta in my memory.
Isn’t it funny how we can remember every excruciating detail of some of the transactions our parents went through when buying a car during our adolescent or teen years? A great read.
GM really got the styling right on the Beretta. Always admired it’s looks. The 5 spoke wheels you added were a huge improvement. The ’79 GMC Cabrillo we had was peeling its paint off the roof by it’s 1st birthday. GM paid to repaint the roof but by year 2 the paint was peeling off the tailgate and fading badly. GM wouldn’t fix that. It was the light blue color.
’96 Tercel has really bad peeling clearcoat and chalky, fading paint. A dark blue color, I’ve seen a couple of others around town that look the same.
’86 Jetta in Polar silver, which actually is more of a gold color, has held up well. Recently picked up an identical color ’87, and it’s 30 year old paint still looks great as well. These are both German built examples.
Had an ’87 Golf Westmoreland built, also in the Polar silver color. By age 10 the paint was fading badly and getting chalky looking. The paint jobs coming out of that plant were very inferior compared to the Wolfsburg built examples in the same time period.
Glad you escaped the red Chevy pickup, that was too close. I had some idiot woman pull out of a parking lot on to the street in front of me yesterday and I screeched to a stop with inches to spare. Got a dirty look and middle finger for my efforts. After 14 years you still got a very good price for the Beretta. Nice story, the car served your family well.
Berettas had a bad reputation, but the few people I personally knew who had them seemed to like them.
I always thought they looked great in z26 trim and yours is no exception. That red bowtie and purple lettering really take me back to the 90’s.
I had a 1996 white Corsica with the 3100/4 speed auto drive train and really liked that car. My long time friend from high school bought a 1994 blue one from the same dealer several years before and he racked up well over 100K miles in that short time due to his job and had little to no trouble with his. Mine was a low mileage program car with but 21K miles and was in perfect shape and had been obviously lightly used and cared for by the former fleet owner. It was a very solid feeling and driving car that was absolutely marvelous in the Winter months. That damn car would go through anything I threw at it and it never once got stuck or went off the road. I once out dragged a mid 80’s Mustang GT with it to the total surprise of the Stang driver and the two punks who were riding with him. It also saw mid 30’s mileage on the highway and averaged in the high 20’s overall which was impressive considering the power and perfect shifting transmission. I also got lucky and my car had the split folding rear seat which came in useful. Had that car well past 100K miles with the only issue being the dealer replacing the intake gaskets before the warranty ran out. It was just barely starting to seep but they replaced it no questions asked.
Nice writeup of a car that obviously meant a lot to you and your Mom! I always admired the Beretta Z26–the blanked grille panel, spoiler and “cabbage shredder” wheels gave a healthy dose of attitude to an already attractive car. My drafting/CAD teacher in high school had a white Z26 and I always admired it when I passed in the parking lot.
I wonder why they picked Z26? If it had the 3.1, one thinks Z30 or Z31 would be more appropriate. It wasn’t like they were afraid to go numerically higher than the Camaro’s Z28 appellation, since the Lumina’s performance model ended up as Z32.