Last Fall, Paul announced the official Great Vega Hunt, with the goal of finding a true CC Vega sporting its original (running!) 2300 engine. Amazonray did indeed locate one this past summer — a 1974 hatchback with a 2300. But in my book, the car only barely qualified, as it had numerous aftermarket tchotchkes, including ‘mag’ wheels and a fairly non-stock paint job and interior. So I kept looking…
Two days ago, I checked my permanently saved eBay search and lo and behold, this beauty popped up!
Those of you who couldn’t wait and clicked the eBay link already know the car is Going Once-Going Twice-SOLD! The Buy It Now price was $4,000 US, and when I first saw the car, bidding was only at $520. It was at $1,250 the next morning, and Boom! Gone by that evening. I *really* hope it’s not going to get stripped and stuffed with a SBC… This car is a bit of a puzzle to me, as it has a GT hood stripe with the base wheels and grille (it was advertised as a base model).
I eBay-mailed the seller with a ton of questions, but they must have already had a deal pending, as I got no response. Inside, we find the GT steering wheel (without the normal GT emblem on the horn button) in front of a standard gauge package… The only air “conditioning” you got besides the heater was from the ‘2-60’ system and ‘crotch cooler’ vents down by your feet. Factory A/C vents would have been where the block-off plate is on the dash.
Shifting our view, we find standard seats and door panels. If you embiggen the photo, you’ll notice the automatic shifter offers both D and L ranges!
Under the hood, a venerable 2300 sits behind the optional HD radiator (a good choice, given the engine’s propensity to blow head gaskets). I would have loved to find out whether this engine is sleeved or not, and, given the clues available, I’m going to guess the engine has the 1bbl carburetor instead of the 2bbl that came with the GT package.
Other than the goofy combination of standard and GT parts (not completely unexpected on a 41 year-old car, though some features such as the hood stripe were available as standalone options), the thing’s actually in pretty good shape. With an advertised 25,000 miles (“original,” of course!), it’s a true survivor.
I have to admit, I was very tempted to drop a bid on the car ($2,300, of course!), but the look my wife gave me when I mentioned the car (much less bidding on it) convinced me it would make a better CC post than driveway ornament (which I would probably have had to sleep in).
So we’ve now found two Vegas still motivated their original 2300 engines. Will there be more?
Related Reading:
CC: Chevrolet Vega – Winner Of 1971 Small Car Comparison And GM’s Deadly Sin No.2
CCOTY 1971 Nomination: Chevrolet Vega 2300
Automotive History: The Many Faces of the GM H-Body
Curbside Classic: 1974 Vega Kammback – GM’s Deadly Sexy Sin #2 – Take Two, Or Three Even
Cohort Classic: 1976 Chevrolet Cosworth Vega – Too Little, Too Late, Way Too Expensive
Wow Ed ! What a find. The chalky door panels are still there, but I’m guessing the GT wheel came about because the standard version turned into polymer goo after 10 years.
Pretty nice interior for sure, much better than the nausea-inducing butterscotch houndstooth ours had.
I think you should really have bought it, thus ensuring that my hopelessly stalled VW project stays ahead of yours..
Not to goad you or anything, but I’m hoping to start reassembling the running gear before long… (c:
Gah! You’re still way behind me, but you have the advantage of a heated garage.
Not to mention I’m not dealing with rebuilding the machine shed this winter…
I do have a work island I have to finish for my wife before I can spend much time on the VWs, tho. (c:
That “shed” is awesome…not fair!
LONG LIVE THE SINGLE PORT ! .
I see you’re making a 12 volt conversion with a 912 generator ~ what voltage regulator are you using ? .
-Nate
I’d have to go look – I had a builder in Chicago do the engine for me (1385cc “hot rod 40 horse”). They found an old 1960s magazine article on a similar build and tried to replicate it as closely as possible.
Should be a strong running engine. I had a 1967 Beetle that had great power. I figured it was the 1500cc engine, later found it had a 40hp built to 1385cc.
That’s what I had done to my ’63 when it needed a rebuild: big bore cylinders/pistons with a bit more CR. With the lower gearing that all the 1200s had, it was pretty brisk (in relative terms, at the time).
Ed I purchased this car and trying to decide what to do with it. I always wanted a v8 vega now I have the right car and it’s too nice to convert. It runs great just the way it is but I planned to paint it. Thoughts?
Man, we forget how attractive the Vega was! On here we often say why didn’t they just sell the Opel at the chevy dealer rather than create the Vega, and while I’m sure the answer falls into many categories, one of them for me is that the Vega is such a beautiful small American car, and the Opel was an attractive, but not beautiful European car, and across the country people weren’t ready for European cars in the same number as they were for a beautiful, small american car.
I say this from the perspective of someone who had both at the same time as a kid. My dad drove a 1974 Opel Sportwagon with a stick, and my mom a 1974 Vega Sportwagon with an automatic. Unfortunately it didn’t last long, as Dad totaled his into telephone pole (he always credited the car’s crumple zones and three point belt as saving his life) and mom’s Vega’s axle cracked and we replaced it with a Jeep Wagoneer.
Its not like the Opel was some sort of “manna from the heavens” either, ALL the small cars from that era were pretty shitty in their own unique way.
My dad absolutely loved the Opel for what it was. It was quick with a 4-speed and RWD and made up for the fact that he couldn’t afford the BMW 2002 he wanted. It was his first small european daily driver into which he switched from a Ford Torino and he never looked back, moving on to an Audi Fox (which really was terrible!), and then a MB 300d.
I don’t doubt that the Opels did have some better driving characteristics, but for American needs, things like good air conditioning and good automatics take a top billing whereas they weren’t that such a priority for Opel engineers, and neither was adapting those things to the smaller Opel engines.
I’m glad you mentioned “good automatics”. The Opel had a three speed automatic, and the Vega had the….Powerglide.
My whole point was that GM could have used the Opel as a starting point, and improved aspects for American consumption, like the A/C. Of course, what they probbaly would have done is stick the Powerglide in it. All in all, it was probably best just to let GM step on its dick with the Vega.
Though more gears doesn’t always equal more gooder…..which one was probably more durable? I’m going to bet it was the Glide.
Though the Vega wasn’t adapted from the Opel, the next GM small car was, the T-car Chevette started an Opel Kadett and it was sprinkled with ketchup to “American it up”.
I think the 2 speed Toyoglide was still around during this time too, and the Honda-Matic was around until 1980, also a 2 speed, manual shifted too, so more like a Torq-Drive than a Powerglide.
Maybe not “gooder”, but I can assure you that especially on a small-engined car with an automatic, three gears are always decidedly better than two. Which probbaly explains why the Vega got the THM in 1974.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re getting at with your Chevette comment. But FWIW, the Chevette was a decidedly less problematic car than the Vega.
I’m saying that they did what you were saying that they should have done with the Vega, they went with an Opel base as a starting point and made something for the US market, actually the T-car was GM’s first “World Car” sold in every country GM had operation practically.
When the Vega got a Hydramatic, it got more than it needed, an air cooled Turbo 350.
I can still recall how irritatingly Sluggish, Slow and “Don’t Wanna Go” the one-bbl engine Vega was; handicapped by the 2 speed “Slip ‘n Slide” PowerGlide transmission.
The ice wagon didn’t actually accelerate; it merely gathered momentum going down the street.
Merging was an exercise in heart thumping frustration.
Not all small cars were shitty at that time. Europeans were pretty good at making small cars, such as the Renault 5, Peugeot 104, or VW Golf, even if I must reckon that these cars might not have been tough enough by american standards…
…Which was not the case of Opels at that time.
Opel’s cam-in-head engines, GM4 gearboxes and TH-180 automatics were pretty strong and known to endure high mileages (up to 180.000 miles) without any trouble.
Moreover, while good handlers, Opels were pretty confortable. And quite stylish IMHO ! Here you have a picture of a 1975 Rekord I daily drove during 5 years.
And with Commodores, you could get fuel-injected inline sixes strong enough to compete with beemers of that era.
So I totally agree with the idea that GM should have asked advice from its european subsidiary which at that time was pretty good at making cars the size of an american subcompact or compact, such as Asconas, Mantas, Rekords and Commodores.
Anyway, Ford did the exact same mistake : why did they build the Pinto and not some kind of US-spec Taunus / Cortina which were subcompacts by american standards but big enough to haul families ?
One get the feeling that, at that time, GM and Ford thought that small cars should be punishing their drivers.
Maybe that´s the reason why Americans got the miserly Chevette while we got the Kadett and the famous rally-winning GTE…
I’m no GM basher (I once owned a 1981 Malibu and I’m currently driving a 1979 Caprice. Almost everyday. In Paris) but I see the Vega as one of of the biggest missed opportunity. For both GM USA and GM Europe.
Lost in translation-thats what seems to happen to “good” little European cars when they get shipped the US. The good Renault 5 had about the same durability and longevity of a disposable diaper in the US, perhaps it was the LeCar badges? The Rabbit? also was pretty terrible too, advanced and modern? absolutely, but still shitty.
The thing is that the Vega was a good handling car too, it was like Car and Drivers “best compact” several years in a row, as voted by the staff and the readers of the magazine.
The thing isn’t that they felt that small car drivers should be punished, its that the narrow window of pricing that existed from a small car to the pretty cheap larger alternatives, in Europe many don’t aspire to own a large car, and many can’t even afford it, due to space constraints, displacement taxation and fuel prices, big cars and big engines in Europe are mostly reserved for the real well to do.
Where as here in the US, it was just a couple of hundred bucks more to jump from a Vega, to a Nova to a Chevlle to an Impala. Gas was like .70/gallon and there were no displacement taxes to keep that 350, 400 or 454 out of your engine bay, you were only limited by your credit and the size of your garage.
Correction, gas prices were about .38/gallon in 1971.
I think the Pinto made a lot of sense as a coupe, it’s just that I wonder why they didn’t put a Pinto nose and dash on a Taunus body for the wagon.
Well said, Constantini. And I must say, your Opel is much more attractive than Vauxhall’s similar-size Victor and Holden’s similar-size Torana (Google pic).
That’s one good looking Opel Rekord you had !
As a kid I liked the the Commodore (Rekord coupe) you also mentioned.
I’m going to call in to question the advertised year of 1973. I thought 5mph bumpers were required in front for 1973 then the rears enforced in ’74. I’m not absolutely sure on that, though.
The 3″ filler plate behind the front bumper is clearly visible in the first two photos – it’s definitely a ’73 (we had a ’73 Kammback).
Then why does it have deck lid vents like a ’71? If you remember, all the new GM full-size cars and the Vega had them for one year only.
Does anyone get the feeling this car had some replacement parts bolted in?
At least one commenter below recalls his ’73 having the vents. Perhaps GM didn’t change the Vega until the ’74 refresh?
If Cosworths count there are currently 4 original engined Vegas on ebay, 1 is not running 2 are Cosworths, and 1 is a 1976 manual GT hatch, with a/c. I saw this little red car earlier in the week, but its gone now, I don’t know why this seems to be such a challenge, there are usually 2 original engined Vega’s on ebay most of the time.
I would take this stick GT hatch Vega, but not for $2900, $1900…maybe.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chevrolet-Other-GT-1976-chevrolet-vega-gt-hatchback-2-door-2-3-l-/121482232483?forcerrptr=true&hash=item1c48e7c2a3&item=121482232483&pt=US_Cars_Trucks
Craigslist comes up with another nice one in Sarasota FL, GT hatch.
http://sarasota.craigslist.org/cto/4749805888.html
My buddy has a running 76 Astre with the 2300 if you want to get really obscure, I found it for sale in the Auto Trader from the original owners.
This isn’t as hard of challenge as Paul seems to think that it is……
That GT hatch is pretty rough… the one in FL looks nice, though. I need to refine my search, as neither of those popped up for me. I do see Vegas show up frequently with the original engine intact, but not so often are they in good running condition.
The Astre would be a find – wonder if it was built late enough in ’76 to get the Iron Duke engine?
Cosworths don’t count for this exercise, BTW! (c:
Nope, my friends Astre has the “DuraBuilt” 2300, which was the 2300 with all the improvements and the 5/50,000 engine warranty from the factory, it was basically the last gasp at trying to salvage some credibility for the 2300. The “Iron Duck” started to appear in Astres in 1977, though I think the cheapo Vega and Monzas still held on to the 2300 as the base motor for another year.
Hey! Cosworths are still 2300’s!
Not to nitpick, but the Cosworth Vega displacment is 2000 cc.
The challenge was to find a genuine, non-garage queen CC Vega with the 2300, and I don’t think it has been done yet in real life (not on Ebay). This car has clearly been a garage queen and it sounds like the one your buddy has may be too?
See the commenter below with a ’74 Kammback with the original 2300. Looks like it gets used…
I like Matt’s story. They may have been lemons, but Vegas were handsome cars. In 1980, in HS, my pal’s older sister had an Astre wagon. An family friends kid had a Manta. I liked the 1900 back then, but only saw them in magazines (unlike Mantas), at least on Long Island.
Packard Fan: The 71-73 had the same front end. If you look closely at the picture, you’ll see some ‘filler’ behind the front bumper. I suspect this front bumper is beefier than the 72, and protrudes further forward, while still looking “trim”. The 73 Cutlass Collonade was similar (74 front bumper looks big, while 73 looks only like it protrudes some–and 73 rear had stylish bumper, not bus bumper of 74)
In 1973, the front bumpers had to be ‘stronger’. Many carmakers kept a more stylish (and cheaper) bumper on the rear and waited till 1974 for the big rear bumper.
Wow, this is quite a find. And a notchback, too – weren’t those really slow sellers?
Those interior shots bring back memories – those door panels really were awful. Is that roof treatment original? Can’t tell if its really vinyl or some spray-on coating. This thing had to live in a seriously dry part of the country to have any sheetmetal left at all.
I will join the chorus of those who are fans of the Vega’s looks. Not so much this notchback, but the hatchback was a really, really attractive car – especially pre-74 models.
The roof paint is not standard. Who knows where the car spent most of its life, but it sold from Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, not too far from the TN border near Chattanooga. My guess is that it had bad fading or surface rust and the owner repainted. I don’t think a vinyl roof was offered on the Notch as early as 1973, which would be the only other plausible explanation I can think of.
Personally (and I’ll admit it’s likely selection bias), I always liked the looks of the notch (and Kammback, which shares the same doors and higher roofline) better than the hatchback.
I *think* I know where there’s a Vega with its original 2300 engine. There’s a long closed Chevy dealer in the tiny burg of Deshler, Ohio that has a dark green ’74 or ’75 in the showroom, and it looks all but showroom perfect. Never seems to be anyone around the place on those odd occasions that I pass through that village.
You are indeed correct, sir!
I indulge in my love of train watching there several times a year there (that town is BUSY with rail traffic!) and can’t help but notice that Vega every time I drive into town. Did you notice the other car in the showroom 🙂 ?
Is that a Google street view shot? Are there coordinates for this dealer? I would like to see this myself! I love abandoned car dealerships.
Just go to Deshler, Ohio in google maps street view. It’s on main street.
Found it! Its like time stopped, eerie. The current images show people(ghosts?) in the showroom and a newer Beetle parked outside, it looks like the service dept is still used as a mechanics shop.
Sager Motor Sales, any info on when it closed?
How bizarre. What’s the story behind that?
Don’t know. Next time I pass through I’ll see what I can find out. Can’t believe nobody’s mentioned that Vega’s roommate 🙂 .
1934 Chevy?
Now that would make for a good story. Can you stop and take some pictures through the window next time you’re there? And if you’re adventurous, maybe break in and really shoot it properly 🙂
The last unsold Vega. It should be worth something by now.
That GT steering wheel is such a classic, goes well in any Chevy interior. It was a great pleasure to watch the Pinto / Vega slugfest live while it happened. As a kid I kept up with the year-to-year changes until I fell madly in love with the Rabbit and Scirocco. In my Vega memory bank the emblem went to VEGA (all caps) around ’73 but it could have been ’74. Great find Ed.
Great find, not only is it running but a powerslide to boot. When I bought my 71 4 speed hatch around 1978, I only paid $300.00 and these cars were for sale everywhere for almost nothing. The transmission was so loud I thought it was bad, but a $75.00 replacement sounded the same, it had a big weight hanging off the tail shaft, probably an attempt to rid it of vibration. For the year I had it a water pump and t-belt, plus a starter engagement while running that only happened once, and a set of used tires for $50.00 was all it needed, and still ran ok when sold for $600.00 a year later. Never thought it would be a collector item.
My ’71 had the Opel 4-speed with the counterweight. My Dad bought it used (about a year old), and it was his DD to the high school vocational wing that he ran. Some disgruntled student(s) removed the drain plug from the transmission and we didn’t notice the puddle of lube. That thing ran several years before it started howling loudly (car was mine by then). It took two junkyard trips to find a workable replacement.
Our ’73 GT Kammback had the Powerglide (I’m pretty sure). It was a slug compared to my notch.
It shifted fine and didn’t grind or pop out of gear, and the used replacement sounded the same. They were both full of oil, they just seemed to be quite noisy. Maybe it was normal or they were both needing work. Never seemed to get any worse. I did once have a co-worker drain my 75 Rabbit trans into a pan and replaced the plug. It whined like crazy after a few miles, and a couple of weeks later let go in the dealership parking lot.
The notch sold about 55K units each in ’71 and ’72, while the hatch was 168K and 263K. I can’t find a break down for ’73, but suffice that the notch was less common but still sold in respectable numbers. All styles for ’73, including the wagon, were 395K. A shame that with the sales numbers so many people were convinced that Honda, Toyota and Datsun looked like a good idea by ’76.
The vented trunk lid leaves me a bit perplexed. I thought that approach to Flo-Through ventilation was a ’71 only phenomenon at GM. Maybe a ’71 lid, or perhaps GM didn’t change the Vega? That lid had my brain scrambling for a moment trying to recall if the Vega was a rear engine car!
I seem to remember my ’73 had the vents, too.
felicidades por esos halla zgos; tengo un dodge dart 1965 que deseo restaurar me hace mucha falta el emblema central del hood.favor darme el precio y forma de pago, cuento con direccion en eagle pass texas
Okay, a Vega with a 1v carb and a 2 speed auto? Better not be in a hurry to get anywhere! My ’76 Vega with a 2bbl and a 3-speed auto was pretty gutless, and this car would be even worse… I wouldn’t want to buy this particular car, but I’d love to take it for a test drive, to see just how unhurried it would be, and for general nostalgic purposes. I can’t even remember the last time I drove something with a Powerglide.
In 1971 my father rented a butterscotch Vega notchback with the Powerglide auto while visiting me in Tn. I drove that car for most of a day and what a lot of engine noise it produced for very little forward progress.
In 1972, I succumbed to all the Vega hype (and if you weren’t alive then, you wouldn’t believe the build-up the Vega got before it’s intro) and bought a 72 Vega Panel Express. Mine had the “hi-po” engine with a 4 speed manual transmission. So the 2 barrel was available WITHOUT the GT package, with any body style…though perhaps not with Powerglide? A 4 speed manual was an extra cost option, even though Japanese car companies were only a year or 2 away from offering 5 speed manual transmissions.
The GT steering wheel this car has was available in some form in just about every Chevy car in the 70s.
The 5 speed in the Vega was a year or so away, by 1976 you could get a 3,4 or 5 speed Vega, or an air-cooled Turbo 350.
I wonder why they bothered cataloging the 3-speed manual so late in the day.
1976 was the last year for it, it was still odd since the Monza got a 4 speed standard, by 1977, “el finale Vega”, the 4 speed was made standard.
The Nova still had a 3 speed “hand shaker” on the column until 1979!
Probably a matter of using up parts on hand, then.
The 4-speed was the *only* option on my ’71. It was as base as you could get without ordering “delete” options.
It was actually a fairly quick car (for its class and for the day), and almost everyone who rode with me commented on that (especially folks who had driven or ridden in an automatic Vega or Pinto). I put headers and a GT head on the engine but kept the 1bbl carb. It would easily chirp second gear.
I used to haunt the dealer’s parking lot dreaming about exactly that vehicle. Fortunately, some dreams do not come true.
Interestingly, the original Corvair had a lot more space for people (esp the 4-door!), and a smoother, more reliable engine.
Perhaps it even had better acceleration (to use the term loosely) and fuel economy–a powerglide equipped Corvair vs this Vega–any comments?
Well, the Corvair was a 2.3-2.7 liter flat-6 depending on the year and usually had anywhere between 80-95hp for the base models, similar to the Vegas, but with more cylinders, so the Corvair is probably a hair faster with a PowerGlide. Probably the closest comparison would be late Corvair coupe with the base 95hp motor and an a glide.
Reason? The Corvair was a compact, while Vega was a sub-compact car.
At the end of the 1974 comedy “For Pete’s Sake” (starring Barbara Striesand & Michael Sarrazin), the shot of an automatic, notchback Vega, towing IIRC a couple of trailers loaded w/ SEVERAL brahma bulls pegged my “Disbelief-O-Meter”! (c:
I have some questions about the Vega you located–it looks like it’s been repainted and
I don’t believe the racing stripe was available on the stripper model–only the GT model; although it may have been an option by then. This brings back some bad memories-I had a ’72 Vega GT-it ran good for 20k and then turned into an oil burner; after that I had all sorts of problems with it. I eventually traded it in on a ’75 Opel Sportwagan which was a great car-as long as the fuel injection worked properly-which was only about half the time. Aside from that major flaw it was superior to the Vega in every respect. I finally got tired of the fuel injection issues and traded it in on a 1980 Skylark–talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire! That was the last GM vehicle I owned.
I went back and looked at the 1973 Vega brochure, and where I thought it said the stripe was an option for any model, it actually looks like it may have only been on the GT (and then only on the hatch or kammback).
Interestingly, I also found that an LX trim was offered as a mid-year option addition. That makes this car even more of a mystery to me! The “sport” steering wheel was indeed part of the LX trim, and perhaps that’s why it does not have the GT emblem on the horn button on this car.
The black paint on the roof would seem to be consistent with someone removing a vinyl roof which lends even more credence to this car having been an LX – but – the LX trim also included other options this car does not have. From hbody.org:
…an LX option package was introduced exclusively for it, starting in ’73 including a vinyl top, custom exterior including full wheel covers, LX fender emblems, black grill (including chrome outline moldings), clear parking light lenses, custom interior with gauges and sport steering wheel.
We can’t see the parking light lenses (my ’71 had orange lenses), but the gauge package is clearly not on this car (it has the base strip speedo).
In addition, to have a hood stripe on a notch, either someone swapped sheet metal (not likely), paid a mint for it to be painted on (also not likely), or it must have been a special order option (inconsistent with the brochure).
At the end of the day, this car is ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma!’
It’s interesting that both the subject car and this picture shows an LX with the painted window frames rather than the chrome ones that came standard on the hatch and wagon but were an option for the sedan. You’d think they’d be included or required with the LX package, or at least “recommended” (translation, we’ll build it without if ordered but you won’t find one on a dealer lot and certainly not in our publicity photos!)
Yep, ours was not a GT but had the very zippy orange side stripe. Very relieved to see that being a 74 we had the THM.
Yes, they’re still out there.
I have a 1974 Vega Kammback with a 2300 engine. It’s stock with only the wheels traded out for GT wheels and a yellow instead of tan paint job. It has around 34,000 miles. Original interior and the radio still even works. Being a later model it has a turbo hydro automatic and a two barrel.
+1
Thanks for sharing your car!
Very nice! I always did like the Kammbacks and it’s nice to see such an original one. When I was a child in the mid 80’s a friend’s father had a black one much like yours, and I even got to ride in it a few times, though all I really remember about the rides is that it liked to stall out at stoplights…
The Vega gets a lot of hate and if you were unfortunate enough to have bought a brand-new car that was nothing but trouble from the moment you brought it home, and then totally used up at 10k miles, well, I can’t say that the hatred is unfounded.
With that said, the Vega was a revolutionary attempt at a new kind of small car, almost as earth shattering as the Corvair eleven years prior. It’s not very hard to understand how Car and Driver could name the Vega the winner in a small car comparison at the time (and C&D wasn’t just a shill for the car manufacturers like the other magazines, either). GM’s corporate execution of it was just so piss-poor as to make any of the new engineering utterly meaningless. A real shame and, what’s worse, the same flippant GM attitude would continue on small cars for nearly the next four decades. It wouldn’t be until the Cruze that GM would, finally, get serious about making a quality small car.
I appreciate some of the good qualities that the Vega had, like cute styling, good handling, and more torque than the average small car in 1971. But I can’t see how anyone can call it revolutionary, even forgetting all of its reliability sins. It was fundamentally very conservative in terms of its basic configuration and chassis: RWD, and Chevy-typical suspension. No FWD, or anything “revolutionary”.
The engine was innovative in the attempt to use aluminum cylinder wear surface without steel liners. That technology was inevitable, and GM didn’t have it fleshed out yet. I wouldn’t call it revolutionary either, evolutionary more like it. The rest of the engine was hardly avant garde either. And it came standard with a three-speed manual, or an optional two-speed automatic. hardly revolutionary.
I have that C&D comparison, and have written it up. And here’s the painful conclusion: the only reason the Corolla didn’t win was because of its 1200cc engine. But if the 1600cc engine that came out just months after that comparison had been available there, it would have won. C&D later said so.
So the Vega won mostly by default, mostly on its ability to cruise at freeway speeds without feeling stressed, unlike the VW, Simca, and Corolla 1200. And if the Pinto had the optional 2000cc engine instead of the 1600, it might have done better too.
But that modest advantage was very short lived anyway. And one more important fact: the Vega was considerably more expensive (15+%) than the other competitors. Which practically put it in a whole different class. So yes, it rode a bit quieter on the freeway, and it handled quite well, but even then, it’s many glaring shortcomings were already noted by C&D. As I said, it won by default, because it was being judged by American standards, and the other imports weren’t quite as good in those specific categories.
Revolutionary? Me thinks not. The Simca 1204, that came in second, might be called revolutionary, as it was essentially the template for all small cars to come. It too was hampered by a too-small engine; otherwise it shone in most categories.
Which engine was mounted on the Simca 1204 (aka Simca 1100) ?
Because, in France, you could get a Simca 1100 “Spécial” with a 75 DIN hp engine and 100 mph top speed.
A few years later, Simca started building the 1100 TI with 82 DIN hp, 109 mph top speed and 12,6 seconds to reach 65 mph.
I guess that all “foreign” engines were seriously detuned because of smog-regulations in the US. High-octane leaded gasoline was still the norm in Europe, for example.
A 1,600 cc Brand X engine in the US might have had the same power-output as the 1,300 cc Brand X engine in Europe, roughly said.
1200 cc, 62 (gross) hp. That equals about 50-55 “real” hp. Even then, it was third fastest in the compassion, with a 0-60 time of 14.6 seconds. It did get noisy above 70 mph. Keep in mind that Americans spent much more time on the freeways than Europeans back then, on their daily commute, which was very uncommon in Europe.
A high output engine like the ‘Special’ would have appealed to a small sporty-car set, but with a high-revving small engine, it would have had even less low-rpm torque, which is what Americans preferred.
My post on it is here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/un-curbside-classic-simca-1204-1971-small-car-comparison-no-2/
While the car itself probably wasn’t all that revolutionary, what ‘was’ revolutionary was the way it came to exist. In Delorean’s book, he talks about the Vega being GM’s first ‘corporate car’, i.e., one that came directly from the corporate office on the 14th floor. That was a completely new way of doing things at GM (and it wasn’t for the better). More than ever, the bean-counters were calling the shots on design and engineering.
And I’ve always maintained it was a direct result of a way to get back at Delorean and his end-run around corporate policies, specifically the one that technically prohibited the original GTO. If the GTO hadn’t been a runaway success, Delorean would have surely been fired. But, instead, he became a star and couldn’t be fired. The seethingly jealous 14th floor corporate execs never forgot it, and had been looking for a way to take down Delorean ever since.
And, thus, was born the Vega (“You’re such a genius, Delorean, let’s see what you can do with ‘this’…”).
Admittedly, having the Vega development be a corporate project was a change, although I still wouldn’t use the word “revolutionary”. It was a natural evolution of the way things had been heading at GM for decades: ever greater centralization. And frankly, in general terms, one that was inevitable.
And I don’t think it was at all a way to get back at DeLorean. He was promoted to Chevy in 1969, by which time the Vega had been under development (by corporate engineering) for several years. He came to Chevy just a little over one year from the Vega’s introduction. The timing precludes your hypothesis.
Not. Invented. Here.
Also known as NIH, it was the prevailing thinking in Detroit. There was a stigma surrounding projects that originated elsewhere. I remember C/D doing an interview with Lee Iacocca when he was with Chrysler and he referred to the way Ford engineers treated the Pantera. They couldn’t embrace it, he said. NIH.
So I’m sure that thinking influenced the decision by Ford and GM to develop their own small cars from road to roof. They would not be upstaged by their European brethren. It’s also the reason the original US Escort was so much different from the European Mk3 front-drive Escort. Total redundancy in design, but the Euro version was sharper looking and drove better. Was it necessary to design two versions of the same car? Of course not. Later US Escorts were Mazda-based, which led to even further divergence.
And yet the European Escorts were good enough for the rest of the world.
GM might have been scared away from the Opels after C and D, among others, crucified the Kadett, just about the time the Vega was being green lighted.
That was practically a spoof, and everyone knew it. It was deliberately done to be over the top, as was later verified by the perps. As a matter of fact, C&D had shortly before enthused about the Kadett Rallye 1900.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/the-opel-kadett-asassination-by-car-and-driver/
Didn’t GM pull their C&D ads for a while afterwards? If it was truly a spoof, doesn’t seem like GM quite got the joke.
“Spoof” isn’t really the right word; in retrospect, it comes off as a sort of spoof, because it’s so over the top and obviously rigged. It was a premeditated assassination, pure and simple. And the perps admitted to that.
Yes, GM was furious and not only pulled ads form C&D, but from all the magazines in the Ziff-Davis group, which was a big blow. Let’s just say it didn’t happen again; it was a very expensive stunt.
Did you read my story on it, I linked to above?
Yeah, I read it when it was first posted (I read pretty much all of your articles) but was too lazy to go back and re-read it. I figured any inaccuracies in my comments would quickly be corrected. .;)
In rereading the review all these decades later, the writing was over the top, but underneath it all, it seemed a fair review of the car’s actual pluses and minuses (they liked the clutch and the gearbox ratios). The writers viewed this car as a glimpse into the near future, and didn’t like the small size, bland styling and feel, and the lack of power. The hyperbole seemed more related to their fear that this car was some sort of vanguard car to an automotive future one small step up from a Trabant.
To return to my original argument, whether or not the article was over the top, GM certainly seemed to take it somewhat seriously, and had to be concerned that car magazine readers, as “knowlegable recommenders” of cars for family and friends, needed to be kept on the GM reservation. The Vega had some identifiable styling, a torquey engine, a bit more size, and, as much as possible, a miniaturization of the chassis and interior of the larger Chevies, to keep it all in the family. The Opel 1900/Ascona and/or the Manta would have been a better jumping off point for a small 70’s GM car in hindsight, but I still believe that the C/D article may have poisoned the Opel importation well a bit.
You may have a point. Opel sales did start to fall off in 1969, and the Corolla replaced the Kadett in the #2 import slot that year. I attributed that more to a general shift to Toyota, which was clearly on the ascendancy, and the fact that many Opel owners never really felt well served by their (reluctant) Buick dealers.
But maybe that piece fueled that development to some extent.
But the decision to build the Vega was already a done deal by then. And what really killed Opel was the dollar’s drop vs. the DM after 1971; there was no way to make a profit anymore on importing it from Germany. Which explains the “Opel by Isuzu”.
This seems kinda funny since C&D did very well in their showroom stock readers’ challenges with the Opel 1900/Manta.
Oh that Vega. So appealing to me (at 18), but such a failure, worse even than my early Hondas. I wanted a Vega in 1971, but they were a bit pricey, and a VW was a safe buy. “Lucky” for me I met a gal shortly thereafter with one of the first ’72 Vegas, a green hatch with a 2bbl engine and a ‘Glide. Faster than my Super Beetle, but that’s not saying much. And the thing sucked gas like a turbojet – 14 mpg! She never got to where it had head gasket/oil consumption problems because it was such so reliability challenged that she dumped it after less than 2 years and 10K miles. But I wasn’t off the hook yet because my employer purchased 4 1974 Vega notches. These at least had the 3spd auto, but they were still dreadful. It’s a real shame, because I found the Vega comfortable, and quite attractive (and still do).
BTW, I think the vents on the hatch disappeared for the 1974 model year, and I even think the 3spd THM became available in mid-72 model year.
For comparison, my base ’71 4-speed got up to 30 MPG highway and typically averaged in the mid-20s, even with me hooning it to death. It did have the tall rear axle, though. Our ’73 Kammback auto GT probably did low 20s highway and high teens around town.
I don’t know why it gave such poor mileage, but I know that it wasn’t the only one. I used to “compare notes” with other drivers of similar Vegas (1972, California standards, Powerglide and 2bbl), and they all experienced similar results. I’d forgotten about the dismal fuel economy until someone else commenting in a previous Vega post here mentioned the same results.
I don’t hate the Vega, it was just extremely disappointing and frustrating for me. YMMV!
All these comments on one of the worst crappers GM ever built, foisted upon the public and sold. As Mr Shakespeare would say “Much Ado About Nothing”.
I always thought it was interesting how much the shape of the Vega notchback was a prelude to the similar look of the ’75 Nova hatchback. I did find the Nova better looking.
The Vega may have been a scrap heap, but the fastback was one gorgeous looking car. I can only imagine how nice it would be to have a new Vega today, built with proper design, materials, and manufacturing.
Not all the small cars from that era were junk. When I got my drivers license back in 1975, I bought an orange 1973 Pinto sedan (same as the hatchback except it had a trunk and small back window) It was a 2.0L 4 speed. It had 40,000+ miles on it when I bought it, and I put close to 100,000 more miles on it, and never had any problems at all. I maintained it well, didn’t abuse it, I even put aluminum wheels and a stereo on it. The interior held up well, and there were never any signs of rust (though I live in Phoenix, AZ, things just don’t rust here) The Vega could have been just as good if it had been built right. What we need today are some small 2 door coupes, similar to the Vega, Pinto, and Gremlin. They did it with the Camaro and Mustang, but they are too expensive. They need something along the same lines, but priced lower. It doesn’t cost any more to build a nice looking car than it does an ugly car.
Without heading too far into “rant territory” I’ll just say that safety regulations, and first and foremost among those pedestrian impact regulations, make it very difficult to build a nice looking car anymore no matter how much it costs.
It should also be noted that when your small car is ugly, it’s easier to upsell a prospective buyer to the more attractive next size up.
OMG, is that a vinyl roof? Those must be the epitome of marketing (and profit) dominating anything to do with function. Even styling takes a back seat with awkward cut-lines and chrome strips. And that’s even before the lifting, and flapping, and rusting!
I realize there would have to be some concessions, but look at the new Chevy Spark. That thing is actually taller than it is wide. They could at least get the proportions right. They did a beautiful job on the Camaro with all the new restrictions, surely they could come up with a decent smaller car. In fact they recently had a couple, the Cavalier coupe and the Cobalt coupe. Not as attractive as the Vega hatchback, but decent. I would have bought one. I’ll bow out of this one now.
My mother had a ’72 (or3?) stripper model hatchback in Gulden’s Mustard color. Four on the floor, no air, overheated every 20 miles. I still remember my 5 year old legs sticking to the vinyl while we waited until it was safe to start up again after cool down. Nice looking little car, but even as a kid I can recall what a nightmare it was.