(first posted in 2010 at TTAC; 12/19/2014 at CC) The 1980s was the worst decade ever for GM. It lost a full ten points of market share, starting the decade with 45%, and ending with 35%, an unprecedented disaster. Its stock over the same period dropped some 50%. And the car that kicked off that decade of hell, and helped propel GM towards its continued long term decline, especially in passenger car production, was the 1980 Citation.
So much was riding on it and its X-Body stablemates, as they represented the very future of GM: more compact and efficient FWD cars. But GM bungled it, and the Citation came to represent everything that was wrong. It had one of the most spectacular first years ever for a new car, and then it crashed, almost instantly. It makes the Vega look like a Toyota in comparison.
Of course numbers don’t tell the whole story, but I challenge you to find another newly introduced car that did so well in its first year and whose sales collapsed so spectacularly thereafter. And that 811k in 1980 doesn’t tell the whole story: the Citation was so popular, supply couldn’t keep up with demand. Folks waited months for their deadly sins to be delivered, and Chevy might well have been able to sell a million in the lengthened 1980 MY if they could have made them fast enough. But they were so poorly built, the drop-off was almost instantaneous. By its fourth year, the Citation had dropped some 90%. And in 1985, it was all over. And how many of those some 1.5 million Citation buyers swore off GM cars forever?
Having jumped ahead to the final outcome, let’s step back a bit and consider the setting for this tragedy. For the third time at the beginning of a new decade, GM was determined to take on the import competition. In 1960, it was the VW Beetle, and GM countered with the conceptually similar (rear engine) but bigger Corvair. It failed at its intended mission for a number of reasons, but there were no egregious issues with its quality or durability (for the standards of the time). But GM had cut corners, and had to make a series of improvements to its suspension to save face, including a substantially redesigned second generation, even though the Corvair was by then already doomed.
In 1970, it was Toyota and Datsun, as well as a few fading European imports that GM countered with the Vega. Despite them all being highly conventional rwd cars, Chevrolet bungled the Vega’s engine and rust-resistance. And although build quality was certainly not up to the Japanese competition’s level, it was not atrocious, in terms of what was yet to come.
For 1980, GM had the revolutionary Honda Accord in its visor, as well as the goal of redefining the compact American car in an all-new fwd package. The Citation and its X-Body brethren from Pontiac, Olds and Buick were the closing number of GM’s overly-ambitious downsizing drama in three acts, which had begun three years earlier.
Make no mistake: this mammoth undertaking that would result in the 1977 Caprice and the rest of the full-sized line up, the 1978 Malibu and the other midsized cars, and the 1980 Citation and friends was no less than the biggest single corporate industrial re-investment ever up to that time. GM was betting its whole future here, and we all know how it turned out.
GM’s biggest act of hubris was in even thinking it could execute such an undertaking, given its history. And clearly, the results got worse with each act. The fact that the Citation would be GM’s first ever-front wheel drive mass-market car didn’t help. As well as GM’s perpetual obsession with the next quarter’s profit. The mega-billions GM committed to its downsizing was taking its toll on the bottom line, and the Citation was behind schedule. Switching production facilities and suppliers over to a completely new generation of cars was taking its toll. GM’s corporate culture was not in fighting trim, unaccustomed to such complex demands.
Typical for GM, the Citation looked best on paper, or to the automotive writers who were suckered when they drive the most un-production-like “ringers” ever hand assembled and wrote breathless reports on the Citation’s spectacular “better than a BMW” abilities. Naturally, it won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year, which all too often was a portend of disaster soon to come. Not long ago, C/D’s Patrick Bedard wrote a mea-culpa about how they fell for GM’s bait.
The Citation’s basic body package was highly modern for the times, with a very roomy interior, a practical hatchback (a notch-back coupe was available but never popular), lightweight (2500 lbs), and featuring a new transverse engine/transaxle arrangement. On paper, it was a brilliant achievement.
Unforgivably, GM’s greatest industrial re-investment didn’t include a new four cylinder engine. The noisy, crude and rude “Iron Duke” 2.5 L OHV four was adapted for its new east-west orientation, and shook 90 hp from its crankshaft. This alone was a colossal mistake; a properly modern and smooth new four would have gone a long way to soothe the other discomforts of the Citation experience. The Accord’s four was like an electric motor in comparison; so much for meeting the competition head on, with an engine suited for a tractor.
Admittedly, GM was a more ambitious with the optional engine: the nigh-immortal 60-degree V6, built until 2010 in China. In its first incarnation here, it had 2.8 L and 115 hp (110 beginning in 1981).
And in 1981, the sporty X-11 Citation was graced with a bumped-up HO version, which churned out 135 hp. Just the ticket to fully display the Citation’s truly prodigious torque steer and other entertaining characteristics, some of them quite genuine, especially in later model years.
Since quietness was always disproportionately high on the list of criteria for GM cars, and because neither of the Citation’s engines were intrinsically quiet and smooth, extreme measures were taken to isolate them from the passenger compartment. The front subframe that carried the drive train and front suspension was attached to the body with very soft rubber mounts. This led to a remarkable sensation during acceleration.
It felt as if your favorite X-Car was composed of two separate components (which it sort of was), or to take the analogy further, it felt like the body was a semi-trailer hooked to the back of a semi-truck. Floor it, and the truck tractor started heading one direction (left, if I remember correctly) while the trailer both followed as well as tried to keep the truck from running off the roadway. Amusing, sort of. I had the chance to do it several times a day, in my Skylark company car. And I got quite good at it: kind of like crabbing an airplane. I did used to wonder if one day my car’s front sub frame would just fully detach and head off into to the median by itself; it sure seemed to want to very badly.
One might eventually get used to that, and if you had a good running V6, these cars could feel pretty lively given their light weight. But what goes fast must slow down, eventually, especially in LA traffic. And that’s where the fun disappeared, in a cloud of burning rubber. GM made almost the same penny-ante mistake with Citation as with the Corvair. Then, they left off a $14 camber-compensating spring. Now it was a $14 (?) rear brake proportioning valve. Drivers complained, NHTSA sued GM, which GM ended up winning in 1987, way too late: the perception/sales battle was then long lost. My Skylark with wider tires and wheels wasn’t too bad that way, but I once drove a four cylinder Citation that was highly prone. Let’s just say that my old Peugeot 404 had a very effective ride-height sensing rear proportioning valve even though it was rwd, and the Citation didn’t, with 60% of its weight on the front.
That was just for starters (and stoppers). In between, a seemingly endless rash of maladies made these cars recall kings and queens. Transmission hoses that leaked and cause fires. Various driveability issues: fuel injection was deemed too expensive; meanwhile the two-barrel carb on the V6 was the most complicated and expensive fuel mixing device Rube Goldberg was ever commissioned to design. (A replacement cost over $1000 in today’s money, as I well know). Shifting the manual transmission was like sending messages to a distant cohort in secret code via carrier pigeon. The X-Cars had to be recalled numerous times.
The Citation interiors were hard and cheap. Sundry pieces of trim were prone to suddenly disassociating themselves from the rest of the car, in shame perhaps. Starting on day one. General build quality varied greatly, somewhere between miserable and mediocre. Cost cutting resulted in skin cutting from rough edges. Within one model year, the word was out and the jig was up: the Citation was a lemon.
In a truly cynical move, GM found the pennies to add a “II” suffix to the Citation in 1984, even though anyone would be hard pressed to see any difference. Enough fools fell for the Citation II to bump sales by 5k units that year, before they realized that it was just a Citation Too.
What really must have burned GM with the Citation’s flame out was that Toyota was dealing with the exact same challenge: to convert its RWD Carina/Corona lines to fwd. The all-new Camry appeared in 1983, just as the Citation was crashing. Ironically, the Camry had a distinctly Citation-ish look to it too, especially the hatchback. But looks can be deceiving. First year Camrys are considered solid and long-lived. I can think of no better example of the contrasting state of affairs that predicted their makers’ respective trajectories in 1983 than these two similar and yet so different cars. GM’s Death Warrant Exhibit A.
Perhaps we should just leave it there, but there is a relevant if ironic postscript to the Citation: it became essentially immortal, in new garb. The Chevy Celebrity and its A-Body kin were nothing more than a Citation inner body and platform with a new exterior suit, although the doors undoubtedly interchange. The magic of a restyle and a little attention to working out the most blatant kinks resulted in a long-lived career (through 1996), at least for the Olds and Buick versions. And eventually they got fairly reliable…just a bit too late.
But the A-Bodies are just the most obvious genetic offshoot. Let’s face it; just about every fwd GM car built since the first Citation that torque-steered its way off the assembly line has X-chromosomes in it, to one degree or another. The Citation was GM’s starting point with the fwd car, as well as the beginning of its end.
Related reading:
1971 Chevrolet Vega: GM’s Deadly Sin #2
1986 Toyota Camry: Toyota Builds a Better Citation, Forever
I have never been a fan of these although I have known folks who had them and liked them. Probably my initial dislike came with the first one I saw which was a red stripper coupe. I had ordered a new Malibu coupe, which I still own, and took delivery in early March of 1979. I was back in the dealership a couple of weeks later and the owner took me to look at the Citation. He also told me that it was what he thought GM was going to replace my brand new car with. That didn’t go over too well with me.
Well, the Malibu is still running and I rarely see a Citation.
The article evidently explains why I was able to have as much fun as I did with the torque steer of my wife’s ’97 V6 Grand Am.
For me. it’s hard to imagine that the Citation was worse than the Vega. Essentially, this would mean that they would have had to have been pushed off the end of the assembly line, going by how awful my ex-wife’s Vega was. Remember, too, that the Vega was introduced when there was a prolonged strike in 1970, and the build quality was atrocious. The Vega’s sales trajectory differed from the Citation’s only because the 2 car’s sales were buoyed by gasoline shortages at different times in each car’s design cycle.
The Vega was a deeply flawed car in so many ways. In terms of Deadly Sin magnitude, the only reason the Citation was a larger failure than the Vega was that the latter was aimed right at the heart of the auto market, and so it’s failure was more profound than that of the Vega.
The higher sticker prices and interest rates of 1980’s made people more risk averse. When a Vega died, it was a ‘cheap disposable’ car, but the X car was supposed to be “the future American Car”.
I’ve been wanting to write your first sentence here all day. I’ll never forget a week-end trip in my friend’s new Vega. Has to be one of the worst cars of all time. Parts were literally coming off the car on the road. We were driving in rain when one of the wipers came apart and became dysfunctional and the other was only half working by the time we got home. The carpet was loose and coming up in front and back. The engine was missing, the radio barely functional. This was a brand new car, nicely equipped with automatic, A/C, etc. The car was traded in less than a year. The X-cars were bad, no question, and I heard plenty of horror stories from friends and co-workers about them. But the Vega was truly terrible.
Bob Lutz recently made the excuse that ‘we were experts in RWD and had to switch right away’ as if to rationalize it all. But as stated in article “…Toyota was dealing with the exact same challenge: to convert its RWD Carina/Corona lines to fwd”.
The Citation made the Ford Escort look like a bank vault in comparing quality. IMHO.
The only thing GM can claim is how the A-Body derivative was an improvement and lasted until 1996, but it appealed to old timers, and didn’t get needed younger buyers from buying imports.
I was 14 and a big reader of Car and Driver, when our silver Citation came home. I remember opening the ashtray “door” and almost cutting myself on the unfinished hard plastic surrounding the ashtray. I remember thinking how disgraceful that was, that no one on the assembly line thought of checking the finish quality of the semi-hidden plastic surround. Even at 14, it was obvious Amrica had seriours manufacturing issues.
My father had one, a 4 cylinder car. He never bought another US-made car after that. My lasting memory of that thing was how dead it felt, dead steering, dead engine, uninspired gearbox. That car was one of the reasons why US-made cars lost it out to the Europeans on the Israeli market. Up until the 70s American cars actually had the upper segment of the market for themselves on account of their reliability more than anything. Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs were bought by dental surgeons with German background who could afford the expensive servicing and parts; people relying on their cars for work bought Mopars, GM products, Fords and Israeli-assembled Studebakers. Then the 70s came and build quality collapsed… To me this was the greatest sin of all – I truly believe that, were the Citation as reliable as, say, the mid-60s Nova (or any of the Japanese competition at the time), it would have sold well, inspired or not. And when – in Israel – the Japanese started offering cars just as luxurious as the American cars but far more reliable, buyers switched (my father – after experimenting with Peugeot’s 505 and 405 – became a Toyota Avensis adherent).
I still see Citations running around here in the Puget Sound area of the NW. I also have mixed feelings when I do, from “Wholly Crap!, someone’s still driving one of those!” to “Wholly Crap!, someone’s still driving one of those!”. While they may say the same words, one is of shock and the other of amazement.
What could have been one of the biggest hits for GM, had they put more focus and effort into it ended up a bomb. Did GM learn from it’s repeated history lesson this time? I’m not sure myself. I have had several Chevy Celebrity cars and loved them. Whatever mistakes they made in the Citation did not seem to be present in any of the Celebrity cars I had owned.
My uncle had one of these, and got nearly 200K out of it. Obviously that’s the exception, not the rule.
OTOH, one of the asst mgrs. at my first job also had one. A wretched POS that ran usually on 3-4 cylinders (2.8 V6) if at all.
The X-11 was kind of a neat car and very well COULD have established an enthusiast following for domestic fwd performance cars. However, with turbos everywhere, Chrysler carved out a lasting niche that still carries a fair amount of street cred today, if only they could consistently keep a presence…AND not go about it halfassed. Im looking at you, Neon SRT-4.
After the very attractive ’77 B-bodies, the clean ’78 A-bodies, and the original ’79 E-bodies, I though GM was back in a styling and design leadership role. Unfortunately, I always found the X-cars too generic looking, and downright homely in the case of the five door Citation. When I realized that many of the blasé pre-production spy photos were close to the finished design, I was disappointed to say the least. Styling-wise, I found the Citation 3 door hatch made the ’75 Monza look like a Corvette. And the two door notchback looked like an oversized toy car, deliberately styled to look anonymous. Like GM was now dictating that the future was boring looking cars, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. IMO, even the Escort/Lynx had a freshness the X-cars lacked. Both in their packaging/style, but also their marketing. And though the K-cars were very conservatively styled, and nearly as bland, it was hard not to cheer for Chrysler’s comeback and underdog status.
Two family members owned X-cars at the time. One a five door Citation and the other a Phoenix LJ five door. I found the better equipped Phoenix a nicer car. But they both seemed cheaply made. Almost like GM was telling buyers, “This is the future, so you better get used to it.”
Even before it was released, and after being heavily promoted in the media, I never desired to own one of these as a young man. I found the styling cynically boring to my youthful eyes. Even though they clearly were very practical cars. The ones I saw and were exposed to, seemed cheap and without enough character to be desirable.
I agree that the 1977-79 B, C, A/G, and E bodies were GM’s hits, but the X was a body blow.
B eginning
A scent
E xcellence
X death
When these came out, I too had fallen for the pre release hoopla, and headed to a Chevy dealer to try one out. OMG, the thing struck me as a cheaply made, underpowered slug. I remember thinking “if this is the new GM, they’re in trouble”
Paul, the link to the Car and Driver story needs to be edited, too many http there
Sorry; fixed now.
I never owned any of the GM “X” bodies , but I did purchase 3 GM vehicles during this period. All Three were a disappointment. By the third GM’r I had learned my lesson and never went back. The 80’s at GM was Roger Smith who…..was a clueless buffoon surrounded by similar clueless buffoons. (Edited by the comment moderator)
PLEASE no politics
However apt the words may be…….
“What were they thinking?”
GM brass in 1979 probably expected Chrysler to die, and the imports would not build ‘transplant’ factories, expecting 45% + share “forever”. But also expecting small car owners to ‘move up’ to their bigger cars.
Also, there were too many workers at GM in those days who just saw it as a ‘paycheck’ and just did minimum to ‘cover themselves’. And the attitude of “where will buyers go, Ford? HAHA”.
With most old cars I feel a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for them. Even if they weren’t highly regarded at the time. At the very least, I will reliably feel some empathy or connection to them. I can’t feel anything for the X-cars. I’ve seen tons of them up close. Rode in a variety of them. And drove a couple. Of course the front wheel drive and packaging were groundbreaking for GM, but beyond this approach to their design, I feel virtually no sentiment towards these cars. And I’ve tried!
As much as people are critical of appliance cars today, at least they are durable and reliable. And we should be so grateful for that. Given how much was riding on this car, I am amazed how half baked it was. Plus for me, they exude so much sterility in car form.
Come on you guys…admit it…the concept WAS kinda smart….
I agree about the concept, not the execution, unfortunately. It could have been a hit–the sales numbers showed it sure was until people realized they weren’t going to get the same kind of thing that people had been raving about with the B/C, A, and E bodies.
Now, visualize that the car had been developed, fine tuned and built by Toyota in 1979-80. And the sales (and reputation) would have been . . . . . . . ?
Toyota did just that. But it was in 1983. Toyota is a pretty conservative company, they don’t go out on a limb, ever. It wasn’t until it was pretty clear that FWD cars were going mainstream before Toyota started cranking them out.
Even if they would have had the balls to release it in 1979, the Honda Accord was sucking up all of the “wunder car” notoriety at that time. The Accord had a three year head start in that regard and I’m not entirely sure that the Camry would have been able to catch up. Better it was released several years later, when they knew for sure that FWD cars were going to be accepted.
The all-new FWD Tercel came out in 1979, and developed a reputation for being mechanically bulletproof and very long-lived.
Don’t you think the Tercel was more like a direct competitor for a subcompact like the Civic than a compact or mid-sized car?
Of course. I was just confirming that Toyota started switching to FWD in the mass market cars before GM did, and did it without and problems.
Not to split hairs, but I think the US market debut was model year 1980. I don’t remember specifically, but that probably was fall of 1979. But, point taken about the reliability aspect.
My brother’s wife had a 1979 Tercel, which was exactly what you described. Nothing could stop Tercel at all.
Although in some respects, Toyota approached FWD not unlike GM did in this period — hesitantly, reluctantly, and gradually — and for about the same reasons (concerns about buyer acceptance and retooling costs). Also, like the UPP cars, the L10 Tercel was quite a bit different in mechanical layout from Toyota’s subsequent transverse-engine/FWD cars.
(To geozinger’s point, the Tercel was introduced in Japan in August 1978 as a 1979 model, so Paul is correct.)
The point remains, of course, that Toyota managed to make the transition without embarrassing itself in the process.
Even if it had just been fine-tuned by GM it probably would have been good. The bad GM compacts I’ve ridden in from this era suffer not from bad design or lack of utility but from the lack of “fine-tuning” at the end: be that the engine, the workmanship on interior parts, etc. They half-arsed things they could have afforded to get right and still turned a huge profit.
I remember being excited by the X-cars when they debuted in the spring of 1979. They debuted just as we heard about fuel shortages in California, which would spread to the rest of the country by the summer of 1979. That really heightened interest in these cars, and made it look as though GM was ahead of the game.
The principal of our high school had the first X-car in town. He traded his 1975 Chevrolet Estate Wagon for a Citation five-door hatchback.
The Oldsmobile version was the one that caught my attention, as we were an Oldsmobile family. Oldsmobile tried to turn it into a miniature Delta 88. I remember hoping that my parents would trade their huge 1976 Delta 88 Royale Holiday sedan for an Omega Brougham. My father, however, saw no reason to trade a perfectly good car with less than 50,000 miles on the odometer, regardless of whether there was a fuel shortage. In retrospect, it was a good thing that my father wasn’t one to trade his cars very often!
right?
Absolutely – that’s the real shame of the Citation. It really was a great car… in brochures and magazine tests anyway. I know the styling isn’t remembered all that fondly now, but I’m a big fan. To me it looks like both a proper Chevy and a thoroughly modern (in 1980) car all at once; not just a rip-off of a European design or a shrunken head version of a Malibu/Nova. If only GM had continued going down that path… instead they got super conservative with all of their styling as a direct result of the Citation fallout. Some people loved that their cars continued carrying styling elements of the ’70s through the next couple decades, but of course with each and every following year less and less of those people existed.
I never would have guessed that GM sold them in Europe, or most of those cars listed above… wow. Did they have an actual dealership network in Germany at the time or were they only like “special order” cars through Opel?
We had the Olds Delta 88 as V8 Diesel. Could that be?
GM offered a diesel V-8 in the full-size Oldsmobiles, beginning with the 1978 model year. It turned out to be another Deadly Sin.
I remember that. Can’t GM do anything right? If GM wants to offer a diesel engine for its cars, fine, but they should’ve done a better job than they did.
It did a lot of things right. Just not the X cars and diesel engines.
I knew a teacher who had a Citation when I was a boy. I don’t know how long she had the car, or how she felt about the car, whether it was a reliable car for her.
Yes, the Diesel cars were rather popular in Europa. Of course, due to the fact that diesel fuel is subsidized over there and people are far more familiar with Diesels in the first place.
And, the later versions of the Oldsmobile Diesel had the bugs worked out of them; the cars were fairly reliable. It was that late 1970’s perfect storm of GM ineptitude that the car launched less than perfectly developed and the early versions set the tone for the whole production run.
Fun reading, for what it’s worth: http://www.caranddriver.com/features/battle-of-the-diesel-beaters
thanks.
enjoyed reading that piece.
There is a light blue 5-dr. Citation exactly like the featured car that I see in my hometown at the doctor’s office all the time. I haven’t yet spoken to the owner but if I can catch him someday I will. It is in remarkable condition and seems to run great as well. Truly a rare find!
Going back to the comments regarding 80’s GM products, a few years can make a huge difference in quality for the General. I owned a rare 1984 Buick Century T-type coupe with the awful 3.0 litre V-6. I loved that car, although it was as unreliable as can be. Three engine rebuilds in 70,000 miles was enough for me. I always thought about that car and how much I loved it, and as a result I tried another one several years later – a white 1987 Limited sedan with the T package. What a great car! The 3.8 SFI engine was fast and reliable as hell. I put well over 100,000 miles on that car and never had a major issue with it (one fuel injector gave me some trouble and was replaced, other than that, zilch!) My wife had a 1986 base Cavalier coupe that was absolutely bullet proof. It was built like a little tank and NEVER gave her an ounce of trouble. She put 120,000 miles on that car and got rid of it because rust was taking over the body.
So not all GM cars were totally bad. They put products out much too early before they are perfected, and then over the years as problems arise they fix them, much to the chagrin of the owners.
Same experience here. My 1988 Electra T-Type sedan was the overall best car that I’ve ever owned. I sold it with 221K miles on the original engine and transmission still working great, and just saw it driving less than a year ago while out on my noontime walk. Original front axles, original exhaust system right back to the tailpipe tip, original timing chain – can anybody say that they have a 1988 Accord with over 200K miles on any of those items? Ha ha. 3X timing belt replacements ($) on the Honda whereas my Buick required none.
I say this as somebody who has two Hondas as daily drivers right now. Between me and my sister, our two Odysseys have been through SIX automatic transmissions!
My father-in-law had a company vehicle through the 70, 80s, 90s because he was in outside sales. He had a mixed bag over the years including a Ford Custom without power steering and a 76 Volare that ran well, but you could almost hear it rust away.
He then got a 78 Olds Cutlass that was a very good car that he really enjoyed. Then along came the 81 Citation that was hated above any other car he ever had. The 2.5 liter Iron Duke 4 that was noisy and gutless when he was used to 6 cylinders at least. It was in the shop often for annoying things too.
He was very happy when they gave him a new 84 Celebrity with a 6 cylinder. It seemed to be much improved over the Citation and was the last Chevy he ever owned, as the company switched to Ford Tauruses in 87 and stayed with them until he retired.
My mom traded her 1980 Mazda 626 for an ’82 Citation… I was supposed to get the 626. Thanks, mom.
poor chap. what did you get instead ? 😉
I bought a ’75 Fiat Mirafiori 131s for $350… worth every penny 😉
hehehe
uh….viva italia…..how long did that beast last?
My favorite write-up, ever. I rented a room from an evil old lady on a summer off from college, when I was doing radio in a small town. She had a barf green Pontiac Phoenix with ancient green tires to match. That was the ugliest car I’ve ever seen, ugly right to the core.
Imagine if GM had bungled the ’77 Caprice like that!
Um, well, they kind of did. Consumer reports reported them as a not-recommended for multiple reasons, with the big two being 1) the THM200 Chevette tranny behind a SBC V8 in a full-sized car; and 2) the non-hardened camshaft lobes in the 305 V8.
We ignored that, and foolishly bought one from a retired man (who, in retrospect, undoubtedly had read that report before he sold his) on my paper route that had only 28K miles on it.
At 40K we rebuilt the transmission for the first time.
At 85K, the cam lobes had worn down. We limped it along until 105K when I pulled the motor, swapped in a Turbo 350 tranny, re-sealed and cammed the motor and rebuilt everything bolted onto it. It took me about three months in my parents’ driveway to get it all done.
It was a decent car after that, although the front bench seating position was a non-adjustable 6″ high off of the floor (or so it felt). It was given to my sister after she graduated from college and she kept it for several years thereafter.
The guy who sold us this 1977, shortly thereafter purchased a 1980 version of the exact same car.
By my standards, having to rebuilt the automatic transmission at 40K miles and having a camshaft failure before 100K miles puts it squarely in the lemon category. I knew multiple people who owned X-body cars who never, ever had those kinds of problems with them.
I guess everybody has had different experiences . . . these were mine
Wow , that’s amazing , GM sill had soft cam problems since 1973 that I knew about ~
I well remember a ’73 C 30 pickup with a flat cam , we were trying to figure out which of the dozen or more cams in the Factory Parts Book to choose and in the end we just randomly picked one and slapped it in with a set of new lifters and that 100,000 mile old work truck really came alive ! it’d easily chirp the tires going into second gear (TH350 Slushbox tranny) , or spin the tire from a dead stop if you dropped the hammer .
Fun days , we kept that GM part # for a long time , I don’t like / own and V configuration engines so I let the # get away , I wish I hadn’t .
Over the decades , I have learned that initial cam breakin regimine ” work hardens ” the cam’s lobes and tappet feet , if you just fire it up and let it run slowly or vary the RPM’s , the cam will never bed in properly and will be flat by 50,000 miles ~ maybe that’s what happened to all those millions of 1970’s small block V-8 Chevies ? .
I used to have a Cam Maker’s break in tag , it said 3,500 RPM’s instantly at initial startup and _hold_ it there for at least 60 seconds .
I can tell you , time slows down when you’re holding a freshly rebuilt engine @ 3,500 RPM’s as you watch the sweep second hand go tick………………….tick…………………..tick…………………….tick
-Nate
Which is infuriating…because even the TH200C could have been right, out of the gate! I had an 86 Caprice…TBI 4.3 and 200 Metric trans. It was kind of beat, and looked awful…but ran perfectly, the trans was fine with 160,000 miles. I had to replace a radiator and fix a bunch of little stuff, mostly related to the car sitting for several years, but even at 11 below zero, that car started every time! I was pretty impressed how well the little V6 hauled around that big car. Even without overdrive, I got about 22MPG on my mostly-highway commute.
My first car was a 1981 Chevy Citation that my mom passed down to me. I loved that car from its non working a/c to it’s weird sideways radio. When the 2.8l six gave out my dad and I replaced it with a 3.1l later model engine. It was so much faster that I understeered into a curb and totaled it one day. I still think about that car.
A friend of mine in Junior High had one of these (well, his parents did). Nowadays I would find their driveway very interesting, at the time I was all “What are they thinking” – They had an orange and black AMC Hornet Sportabout wagon, which was semi-retired in favor of an Oldsmobile with the Salon fake hatchback body, that was then replaced by a Citation (I rode in it a couple of times and thought the radio orientation bizarre but it got us where we were going) and then that was replaced in fairly short order by a new Chevy Nova (The NUMMI Toyota Corolla clone). That one they kept for as long as I stayed friends with my buddy, I have no idea if they knew it was really a Toyota or if they just figured GM somehow got more reliable…
The elephant in the room no one discusses is this: every miserable part in a Cavalier or Citation was designed and approved for production by engineers. Do we have a retired GM engineer out there who will explain why GM repeatedly put on the market such crappy components? Possible explanations include: (a) the engineers were incompetent; (b) the engineers spent their careers drunk or high; (c) the engineers wanted to sabotage the company; (d) managers told the engineers to design crap; (e) all of the above.
If you’ve ever worked in Corporate America, you wouldn’t need to ask that question. Such predictable outcomes. Thank God I’m out of that Hell!
Jerry, what your missing is: Designed by competent engineers. Then the parts are costed down by accountants. Sent back to the engineers to redesign to get them down to a price. Engineers may not be happy doing this, but it is there job.
Alternate scenario: Designed by competent engineers. Then the parts are costed down by accountants. Said part is redesigned by the supplier’s engineers to meet the price limits set by the accountants. This takes the company’s engineers out of the loop and the job is done by other engineers who are only working on one part, not the whole system.
Meanwhile, the part itself, redesigned, meets the specs set up by accounting (which has probably been dropped once or twice since the initial design, to get the cost down). It meets the initial intent, which, hopefully, lasts out the warranty period. After that, its not the manufacturer’s worry.
And that how all (repeat: ALL) mass market auto companies do it. You want to drive a car where the engineers have more say than the accountants? Better start saving up for the Ferrari. Or Bugatti.
The real difference between auto companies is how much say the accountants have over the designers. Smart companies rely on the accountants to keep costs in check, but keep a willingness to spend money for quality. Too many companies (read: GM) put the money first, second, third, fourth and sixth. The product itself comes in fifth, at best.
Add to this (which is all true) the fact that GM, like many automakers, didn’t generally have a “platform team” approach. If you were an interior lighting engineer, for instance, you’d be working on interior lighting for all the cars the division produced. So, a lot of the people involved in each project wouldn’t really be in a position to view the product holistically, particularly if it hadn’t been released yet. (That’s also why a lot of cars tend to improve in quality in various obvious and non-obvious ways later in life: Subsequent revisions are informed by real-world experience with actual cars rather than sets of component specifications.)
What I have always wondered.
In the corporate hierarchy of GM is anyone held accountable for mistakes like the Vega ,or Citation? Are there any sacrificial Lambs?
Or do they just solider on with the next years model?
I had read somewhere that GM was(is) so bloated and slow to react to production /engineering issues that the consumer ultimately pays the price.
Failure at GM was usually shown by a lack of, or complete end to, promotion – not by firing for incompetence. If somebody started out designing door handles and thirty years later hasn’t progressed beyond speedometer dials, its painfully obvious that he’s either pissed somebody off way above him, big time; or, his design ability is only good enough to be trusted to small jobs where another 10-15 designers are working on alternatives.
(Don’t laugh, my boss at A.R. Adams Cycle in the early 70’s was a designer for Ford in the fifties before coming back to Erie to take over the family business. His only big accomplishment was the “big M” logo on the ’55-58 or so Mercurys. Period. One day, he brought in a load of his design stuff from the early-mid 50’s before he left for me to look at. Its obvious why he left. In 1955, his original designs would have been more appropriate for a 1952 Mercury. He was a good technical draftsman, but didn’t have a design bone in his body. It was painfully obvious that he considered leaving Ford for Schwinn/Raleigh was a huge step down, but he was one of those guy who’s biggest talent would have been to take the original part and dumb it down to meet the specs demanded by accounting. I seriously doubt he was alone in the company.)
Jerry, I think it was a combination of corporate cynicism combined with bean counters run amok. The engineers and GM Design ruled the roost until Alfred Sloan retired, and over time the accountants took over. Everything wrong with the Vega, for example, can be pinned at least indirectly to bean counters.
Today it seems engineering and design are having the final say at GM, and the final product is vastly improved.
My daughter just leased a new Chevy Equinox at Thanksgiving time, the deals were hard to pass up. I’ve been in them several times before, even had it’s Terrain cousin as a daily rental once when parts didn’t come in on time for my G6. But I spent some time traveling in town in the back of the ‘Nox and it’s really not a bad place to spend some time.
Hers is the LS which is the least expensive one, but it seems very well screwed together (thanks, CAMI!)(No sunroof on this car). Even being the lowest trim level, the seat fabrics are very nice, the back seat seems pretty decent (none of those things ever do my back any favors, though).
One of the ladies at church has the previous generation of the ‘Nox and I’ve spent some seat time in that one (great for hauling stuff to the food pantry!), but the newer ones seem much better assembled.
I hope this is a continuation of a trend with GM, as there haven’t been too many misses lately, excepting the ignition key controversy.
I believe that the deadliest automotive sin is that Chevrolet continued the Citation line, despite customer complaints of problems with the car. Shouldn’t Chevrolet have fixed the problems *during* production and development, rather than wait until it’s sold to customers?
Without a doubt, GM worked overtime designing and building some bad cars in the 1980s. Any one of their duds would have sunk a smaller company, but GM was so big, it kept sailing along as if nothing happened. X-bodies, Olds diesels, the Rocket V8/Chevy debacle, …
Still, you could buy some solid GM cars, but you had exercise your due diligence to find them.
I ordered a new 81 Skylark based on the Car of the Year selection and the specs; fwd, roomy, thrifty V6, etc. Sporty too – got the 4 spd manual.
First impression – the black paint had more orange peel than a Florida orchard. The 4 spd cable transmission was the most balky, artificial feeling thing I’d ever shifted.
At about 60 days it sprang a fuel leak in the engine compartment that if I hadn’t caught would have turned it into a flaming torch – in the shop for several days. Then the transmission locked up – back to the shop for a week while parts were ordered. Then the clutch started acting up – back to the shop……
When it emerged, I went right to the Olds dealer and traded it for a…………Olds Cutlass diesel………. which, surprisingly, never spent a night in the shop.
Don’t be surprised. My father had a (no, this is not a joke) grey Buick LeSabre diesel station wagon (I don’t think it was offered in brown that year). One of his first Buicks, and instrumental in dropping Chevrolet for Buick for almost the rest of his life. A very good car. Don’t remember the year.
Another great article Paul…I owned a 1980 Skylark and it was the worst car I ever owned; I’m not going to try and list all the problems it had-that would make this post way too long, but it was the last GM automobile I owned. As far as being GM’s greatest sin in my opinion it’s tied with the Corvair for that dubious distinction. After Ralph Nader published his book “Unsafe At Any Speed” GM officials did unethical things like taping his telephone and tailing him; when news of this became public it was a tremendous public relations disaster for GM-Congress passed the Highway Traffic Safety Act which led to the founding of the NHTSA and now cars are equipped with all manner of safety equipment. Yes, the X-Cars were terrible vehicles, but GM’s record with small cars ranges from at best mediocrity to failure, because GM always regarded small cars as toys to keep the natives happy while they went along with their grandiose plans to put a Cadillac or SUV in everyone’s garage. Maybe their automobiles are better today, but about the time I think it’s safe to venture back into a GM dealership along comes events like the ignition switch recall-I don’t think GM has changed that much over the years, I’ll continue to avoid their vehicles like the plague.
We had a Citation as a loaner in 1980 while my dad’s ’77 Buick Century was in the shop after an accident. My dad really liked it, and he let my sister and I drive it as well. (I was 17 and didn’t even get my beginners until the next year). Everyone I knew who had an X-body liked them…initially. We got another 6 good years out of the Century after it was fixed. I don’t think a Citation would have done nearly as well, and I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw any X-body cars on the road. The A-bodies that came after, on the other hand, are still on the road even here in Ontario, and I’ve seen many still in good shape. GM can build a good car…too bad they generally choose to rest on their laurels.
I saw one of these driving about in Tacoma, WA the other day. It immediately drew my attention with the large cloud of smoke pouring from under the hood loud clattering the miserable little motor was making, which was clearly audible even over my loud music. Amazed at spotting a running driving X car in the wild, I couldn’t help but stare as I saw it pull up to the light and very quickly stop running or driving as the cloud of smoke grew thicker and darker. It was at that moment that a very haggard looking man in his early 40’s who looked like he had seen better times back when Motley Crue was still touring kicked open the driver door and stomped out on to the pavement and pulled up the hood. He tossed his cap on the ground, stomping, swearing, and swinging his arms much like when a crank-start jalopy breaks down in an old timey cartoon as the cars behind him started honking and swerving around him. I wondered what stroke of misfortune lead that man to drive that rusted misshapen hulk.
Kind of makes one wonder who in their right mind would let their car deteriorate to the point where it starts smoking like that.
I have spent almost a decade doing charity automotive repair work as part of a church ministry so I’ve seen cars like a 1988 Cavalier with almost 300K miles on it (and no working headlights or wipers) that were still being driven (and/or lived in) because that’s all that they had.
The fact that smoke was coming from underneath the hood was probably the least of this person’s worries . . . up until that moment you saw him, at any rate.
A good Christmastime reminder to be thankful for all that you have, for I can assure you that there are people in your area (wherever you are – I live in an affluent area and many people hide quite literally in the forests between the neighborhoods) that are worse off.
I’ve never been a fan of earlier Cavaliers. They weren’t bad looking overall, but its nose was unattractive.
I remember as a kid I used to see these cars everywhere and I was always under the assumption that they were good vehicles due to how common these cars were, little did I know they’ve turned out to be one of the worst cars to come out of Detroit, I personally thought the X-body cars looked better in the Oldsmobile/Buick versions than the Chevrolet/Pontiac versions, for some odd reason I see more Buick Skylark’s of this vintage than I do with the Chevy Citation’s.
My Uncle had an Iron Duke Skylark run 150k without much fuss. They seemed to be much better than the Chevy X-car. I didn’t even realize they were related for many years.
My wife purchased two Pontiac X body models back in the early 1980s
while working for PMD-GM.
They were called Phoenix, both 5 dr. hatch backs.
She only kept each for a year and moved on to larger Pontiac models.
No problems arose during the short ownership.
What ever happened with the Quad Four engine, she had one in a Grand -Am model it was a super noisy engine. Gm said they were going to build a Quad 6 and 8 cyl.
But never did……..it was a flop!
My 1980 Phoenix had the Iron Duke. That was GM’s deal. Objects that are given nicknames they haven’t earned are cruisin’ for a bruisin’, and this one was never earned. Two years ago in a comment, I said I got about 100K out of mine before replacing it, but my memory now tells me the figure was closer to 95K. Most engines nowadays aren’t even getting their timing belts changed until over 100K miles.The pontiac 4 was noisy, and I remember thinking it was best that it only had 90 hp, because the torque steer was quite noticeable. As for the manual trans I had to wait 6 months for, it was a POS of the worst kind. Once the car got up to speed it was a smooth cruiser, but there was a lot of downshifting, along with holding the lever to keep it from popping out. It’s all too bad, because the X-Cars still look great to me, especially the notchback coupes. They arguably had more presence than the K-Cars, which looked somewhat flimsy and upright by comparison.
Barry, there have been three Iron Duke/Tech 4 driven cars in my family: 84 Olds Ciera, 84 Citation II and an 86 Olds Calais [still in the family, little brother bought a 98 Tracker, so it may become mine {again} soon].
When I bought the Citation I became keenly aware of the sound of an Iron Duke rattling by. They all sounded the same, but different. I could tell an X Body with the 4 from a block away.
Flooring them provides much sound and fury signifying nothing.
The basic idea was good. The project ,which was initiated in 1969 with the total automotive systems concept, has suffered of several delays. Early, the car would have had to use the Ed Cole’s rotary engine (again him) and its compactness would have been perfect in a FWD car but as it was aborted for its unreliability, thirsty and its bad level pollutions, the Chevy’s engineers had to find another solutions for the powertrain. Furthermore, I think that the main GM’s mistake was to turn this Chevy’s project into a corporate project, for instance, they had to use the Pontiac’s “Iron Duke” engine whereas they should have create a “homemade” brand-new engine.
The rotary was planned for the H Body, Vega based Monza and it’s clones. AMC built the Pacer intending on buying the rotary from GM.
The “Iron Duke” was a direct response to the Vega all aluminum engine and the name chosen to deflect comparison with the “2300”.
In the Tasc Program, the rotary was planned for a fwd powertrain. Ihttp://www.deansgarage.com/2010/gm-styling-images-from-the-early-%E2%80%9960s/
Furthermore, GM had a deal with Amc. Initially, Amc had to fit this powertrain into the Pacer.
AMC designing the Pacer around GM’s “vaporware” rotary seems incredibly stupid.
Yes, stupid. all this money could have been better used in the Gm x-cars program and a good range of engines. Finally, gm for their x-cars and amc for the pacer, had the same issue: Find another not really adapted engines .
I have had my 1982 Citation X-11 (HO 2.8L/3speed TH125) back on the road for about 6 months. I take it out 1-2x a week as the shake-down process continues: find new problem, fix it, discover new problem, rinse and repeat.
My thoughts are that for a 34 year old economy car, it’s really not as bad as the reputation they acquired back in the day. It puts into perspective how “luxurious” gadget filled our cars have become – its a huge, stark difference between my 2007 Volvo V70 and the Citation – which the original owner had ordered with power windows, power locks, cruise control and tilt-wheel – pretty well kitted out for a 1982 car.
The positives: visibility is so much better than any contemporary car. The interior space utilization is remarkable – particularly for a vehicle that is shorter and narrower than my wagon (and fit easily in the garage).
The negatives are that the ergonomics are pretty out there. The 1980’s pre-“button explosion” cars were better.
It does remind you immediately of how far we have come with electronic fuel injection. The car has a computer controlled Rochester carburetor. You — must — set the choke on a cold start. It will not start on the first try if it has been sitting for an extended length of time – its got a mechanical fuel pump, so to fill the float bowl, it has to be cranked at least once.
You wonder how we ever got along with a non-lockup 3 speed automatic. Where you’d expect to feel a lockup, there isn’t one. The engine is in the 3500/4000 rpm range at 60+ mph highway speeds. Which seems really high compared a newer car.
As a 1982, the brakes are fine. They have not locked up on me yet in a panic stop.
The interior plastics – and as a Chevy without the upgraded interior, it’s very plastic. But the design doesn’t feel “cheap” like a current Japanese or Korean economy car of the same class always seems to.
One thing that should be noted: in 1982 the A-bodies launched. Even then, Americans seemed to prefer a three-box design over a 3 or 4 door hatch. Minus the quality control stigma and a more appealing configuration, X-body (and particular Citation) sales were destined to drop.
Steve, your Citation used a lock up torque converter. The switch has obviously been disconnected. When they go out, when coming to a stop the car will buck, jerk and stall much like a manual left in high gear.
My Calais did it. My Citation did it and I mistakenly had the transmission replaced.
On the Olds, I had the torque converter switch disconnected [somewhere around 1999], and it drives just as you describe your Citation as doing.
The torque converter switch dying and “morning sickness” of the steering rack were common problems on both Xs and As.
Re: starting procedures, carbureted cars take a pump of the gas pedal first, which primes the carburetor for ignition.
Hope that helps a little. I loved my 84 Citation II Club Coupe [notchback] and wish I’d never traded it for the Calais.
For what’s worth:
A rough and dirty count suggests that GM sold about 1.7 million of these cars. Today, 13 November 2016 finds Zero Citations of any year for sale on the Dallas Craigslist…Dallas where we have zero rust. However, there are a 1980 VW Rabbit, and a 1980 Corolla SR-5 for sale..
And to be completely unfair about it, I found 32 1965 Mustangs for sale…
Thanks for that. I watched the whole thing, even though I don’t understand a word of German. It’s a sickness.
65db: very quiet car, one of the things I liked most about the 84 I had.
What strikes me reading this a second time several years later is how AUSTERE these cars are. The inner B pillar structure is exposed on the outside, the seats are flat, there’s no water temp gauge; in a comparable Datsun, Mazda, Toyota, Honda, etc, you could expect to see a more comprehensively finished product, and you could generally expect adjustable headrests, a fifth gear, more upholstered surfaces.
This plays a big part, I think, in what turned the public off. Yes, the engine was rough and the brakes locked, but these were presented in a very stingy fashion all around. Lots of vinyl, lots of nickel-and-diming for extras.
Let’s not forget that showroom appeal was generally lacking.
The optional gauge package got you a tach, oil pressure, ammeter and water temperature gauges.
These things were improved quite a bit starting in MY ’82. They had a relocated and improved steering gear which eliminated much of the “crabbing” of the first two model years, plus the build quality was arguably a bit better, as well. My Dad had an ’84 Skylark Limited with the 2.8 V6 and it ran ok and was comfy. The car was about 10 yrs old when he bought it, but it was in good shape and had been well-maintained. I remember the heavy doors seemed quite clunky, however. It had morning sickness with the steering rack, but never had problems with the brakes.
But the huge damage to GM’s rep had been done. I’m surprised Paul doesn’t consider this GM’s #1 DS as it lead the charge to a 30 year decline into bankruptcy. So much promise, so much disappointment.
Paul did call it the ‘deadliest’ sin, so I guess that means it’s the worst.
However, there are some caveats that are worth mentioning in those production figures. That big first year was actually a year and a half (like the first year Mustang). Someone else posted that the first year (1980) was really closer to 539k (with the rest of the 811k more like 1979 figures). Still nothing to sneeze at, though.
Then, there’s that big drop-off for 1982. As stated, I would wager that the A-body launch sucked up a whole bunch of sales that might otherwise have went to the X-body. So there are mitigating factors to consider when dissing how quickly Citation sales went downhill.
I’m not saying that the Citation doesn’t deserve all the vitriol it gets, particularly if personal experience is involved. Still, some seemingly dismal negatives should be taken with a grain of salt.
Lots of wisdom here from armchair quarterbacks. I guess we have two lines or suggestion.
1. Instead of FWD have the Nova X body just get a modest redo like the Maverick-Fairmont transition 18 months before;
I think that would be a deadly sin of sloth. VW went FWD, heck even Chrysler. To not go FWD is to let the bean counters hold sway and make your new offerings almost immediately antique.
2. Always a favorite around here, make it more like a 3 year later Camry.
That might have seemed easier than the route taken. A single lightweight 2.0 OHC engine. Less stress on the drivetrain, less torque steer. Less chance of failure. Although my Consumer Guide says that the 83-84 Camry suffered failures with the automatic, ignition module, and oil pump gasket.
The deadly sin here was tuning a small roomy car to American tastes with V6s and majority automatics and creature comforts. Overseas models did not have this and could see no way to offer it in 78 or even 88. Thank God that the first x cars had a few issues. Beter to harp on that than wonder why your option is so sparsely equipped.
The Fox (Fairmont) wasn’t a “modest redo” of the Falcon platform, but a clean-sheet redesign, other than in its driveline. Yes, Ford could’ve done it FWD as we armchair quarterbacks know, but it at least served them well in the period before the Taurus was developed.
And in 1982-85, Ford’s offerings seemed really retrograde to those of us in the buying public. FWD was modern. The Fox platform is much more popular now than it was in the first half of the 80s, at least for compact and midsized sedans. The Fairmont and LTD/Marquis of 1982-85 was sort of like the 1946-48 Ford with its transverse springs in their respective markets. Nothing wrong with them as far as basic automotive service, but definitely obsolete.
Honestly, the general consensus here seems to be that the FWD X-body was a fair way towards being a really good car for 1980 — good size, good packaging, a very reasonable-looking modern family vehicle — but was let down by often-infuriating indifference and/or cheaping out on the execution and details.
That’s the deadly sin. Do American tastes require engines that feel and sound like tractors, abrupt rear brake lockup, or feeling like the front end is held on with rubber bands? And I thought I was cynical about these things…
You’re dead bang on ~ the first year they came out it sold like hot cakes because it looked good and was cheap to buy and (theoretically) maintain .
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I _LOVED_ mine as did my then Wife .
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Then the troubles began =8-^ .
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The Iron Duke wasn’t tractor like in any way ~ it was just a small engine that could and unless you foolishly thrashed it trying to force it to do things it wasn’t designed to do, it was just a buzzy little thing with not much power .
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-Nate
Though not only applicable to the X cars, I agree re: the details, aka the component parts. The rear brake valve and the subframe bushings could easily been added/changed with little change in cost. These details are where the Japanese manufacturers overtook the competition in the ’80s and continue to a lesser degree to this day.
Count me on-board with this as a Deadly Sin. I’m also on-board with the idea that they sinned three times with small cars at the beginning of a decade. The Corvair, Vega, and Citation all contained items they knew or should have known were likely to cause problems, and they pushed them through to the buyer anyway.
If that sort of idiocy isn’t a sin in any business, there are no sins.
The GM ignition switch scandal fits this pattern. If looking for a Sin to round out the series, that may be their most recent.
What were they thinking? Why would GM imagine that people would tolerate crap like this? Were they just cheaping out in construction and hoping nobody would notice?
It’s just occurred to me that the citation is a dead ringer for the Moskvitch Aleko, a Soviet sorta reverse engineered Chrysler alpine. That was a piece of crap too, even by Russian standards.
> Of course numbers don’t tell the whole story, but I challenge you to find another newly introduced car that did so well in its first year and whose sales collapsed so spectacularly thereafter.
Corvair and AMC Pacer come quickly to mind, although both had some good years at the start.
Those fenders and side sheet metal job screams 70’s.
1980 Citation sales #’s are high, since that first model year ran from April ’79 to summer [Aug?] 1980.
Corvair was tainted by Nadar and comedian Ernie Kovacs dying in a crash in one, before seat belts were standardized.
I had not known the Celebrity was a derivative of the Citation.
A rental Citation unit was made available to me in Florida in 1982. It was considered an upgrade from whatever the lowest model on the lot was. I didn’t mind it, in the sense that it started every time and got me from point A to B, but that is as far as details are concerned that I can recall.
Lee ;
You really were lucky ! .
Until it broke a Citation was the -perfect- economy car .
Then the rear brakes locked up at speed for no apparent reason, then the power steering would piss out all the fluid, then…….
Chevrolet had a wniier on thier hands then the bean counters killed it dead .
Apparently they fixed the problems and used the X-Car platform to success elsewhere but drove most low cost buyers away forever .
-Nate
When I received a 1982 Citation, it had only 6 miles on it. It practically still had an attached imbilcal cord. It was my first real new car, although it was for my job. I felt like I did when I got my own pair of white boxers, instead of a pair my brother previously wore. My company bought a fleet of identical white Citations – and I was one of the guys who got one for his own usage since I traveled non-stop throughout Colorado. It was not the car I would have selected, but it was NEW – and it was MINE!
White, with a burgundy vinyl interior. And what’s that? A CUP HOLDER? Holy crap! That was as good as having FWD! It was large enough for a family bucket of Diet Coke from Gopher Foods. With a long enough straw, I could drive a long time – and if I used a catheter, I could drive all day! It was a roomy machine, odd looking, very nerdy, but it was huge inside. The four door had a large hatch. It could swallow up alot of stuff with the rear seat folded down. It had air conditioning and cruise control.
That first week out was a honeymoon. 32 miles per gallon – that was stunning. Yes, it was gutless, noisy and struggled up Kenosha Pass, but the newness of that Citation soothed any fears of mechanical failure. The engine sounded like it wasn’t tuned, but I was confident that our intrepid garage folks could quiet the knocking and pinging coming from under the hood.
Back in Denver that Friday, I took my new Citation out to get a car wash after a week’s accumulation of road dirt. I twisted the black plastic switch and blasted the front of the car with lots of white foamy soap. Wow – a lot was coming off that front end, so it was grimey? I came closer to the grille and bumper to remove every bit of road dirt.
To my horror I twisted the black plastic knob to “rinse” and discovered that it wasn’t road dirt that was being blasted off the front of my new Citation. It was all the chrome. My new Citation now had a light grey plastic grille. I ruined my new car? I was sickened when I returned to the garage and told the guys what had happened. That is when I learned that the fleet of new Citations were a fleet of crappy lemons.
The staff driving the other Citations had problems that were a lot bigger than blasting the chrome off of a grille. Rear brake lock-up on I-25, engine problems on the Foothills Parkway. A problem with a new Citation at the Boulder location and other mishaps. Week-old cars that couldn’t make it a week without needing to be returned to the dealership. They dutifully recorded by issue and I was told that I shouldn’t be surprised.
By the end of that summer, my Citation had left me stranded daily. Honest – daily. I would drive it into the mountains, the engine grinding and popping like a tin toy all the way, and after two hours – the engine would shut down, leaving me about 100 miles away from Denver. The company needed to rent other cars to replace the Citations at the Chevrolet dealership. My replacement car was a new Ford Escort. When my Citation was “fixed”, I would return the Escort and take another trip in the Citation. Then it would break down again 100 miles away from Denver. It did this for a few months until after wasting another week at the Chevy dealership – someone over there discovered that my car had a crack in the distributor cap. After 100 miles, the crack expanded – and the car would shut down. Fixed!
Within a short time, there was a new set of problems. However, since these smaller issues didn’t prevent me from driving the Citation – I drove it around with these problems. During this time, I noticed that the front door stopped fully closing, leaving a nice finger-wide gap at the A pillar that was causing the air whistiling I often heard. On one cold crisp morning, all the knobs lost their identifying labels – the glue used failed in the cold, causing all the silver labels to flake onto the floor during the cold night. So, from then on, you had to try each black knob to discover what each did. The transmission started to complain through the floor on uphill climbs.
Then the Citation started to leak. The mechanics discovered that the engine had broken all the subframe mounts and on uphill mountain climbs, twisted itself repeatedly in such a way that it broke the water pump housing, causing the Citation to leak. That took a while to fix.
During these days and weeks in the shop, I drove around in the little Escort. I discovered that although it was a smaller car – it was a fun and dependable one. I didn’t want to return it to pick up my Lemony Citation, but I was fortunate to have the use of nice new cars and dutifully complied.
By the end of the year, all the Citations, except for mine, were long gone and replaced by J cars. There was a lot of anger between my company and the Chevy dealership over the Citation fiasco and the fleet of X Cars killed the contract agreement between the two businesses.
My new supervisor was unaware of these car issues, so when I didn’t want to use the Citation on my next trip to Keystone Resort – she thought I was being spoiled and to prove it – took my car! At the end of the first day at the Resort – she still hadn’t shown up for the meetings that were arranged. Hmmm! She showed up the following day and told us that my car left her stranded at the i-70 exit for Silver Plume the day before.
That was the end of my experiences with my once-new 1982 Citation.
Just so ~ I foolishly bought a cherry (!) 1982 Citation four door, it was a hot mess to say the least .
Some years later I got to maintain and occasionally drive a 1982 two door Escort ‘L’ (stripper) it was incredibly cheap and crude but soldiered on faithfully for several years in spite of having been treated like a red haired step child previously .
Those Escorts were -so- cheaply built you had to bend the unibody to make some of the front end adjustments but I didn’t mind driving it and it was dirt cheap to run and reliable, what the Citation could have been .
-Nate
The Citation had a cup holder???
I know this is missing the forest for the trees, but I can’t fathom a 1982 Chevy having one.
Here’s an interesting chart:
Sales AMC Pacer Citation
Year 1 145K 811K
Year 2 120K 83% 413K 51%
Year 3 20K 13% 166K 20%
Year 4 8K 6% 92K 11%
The Citation is very Pacer-esque!
Which is sad, because the Pacer was doomed because it was ill-conceived. The Citation was actually a pretty good package, ruined by almost insanely stupid execution. As was pointed out, it could have been GM’s Camry before the Camry.