A Chevrolet Vega fan — let’s call him RS — just submitted two comments about the post, “Why the Chevrolet Vega turned out the way that it did.” One of RS’s comments was in ALL CAPS. That’s considered shouting on the Internet, so I didn’t approve it. The other comment, which was entitled, “What the real car authorities say about the Vega in retrospect,” is posted below. Note to future letter writers: Please include links if you are going to quote extensively from other media outlets.
Car and Driver editor Patrick Bedard driver of the C&D ’73 Vega GT after finishing first in the C&D Showroom Stock Challenge III, 1974 said, “You have to admire a car like that. If it wins, it must be the best, never mind all of the horror stories you hear, some of them from me.”
A 1971 Chevrolet Vega pamphlet targeted at dealers explained why imported small cars appealed to a different kind of buyer. Click on images to enlarge (Old Car Brochures).
Motor Trend Technical Director, Frank Markus said in Motor Trend Classic, “Chevrolet spun the Vega as a more American, upscale car. And let’s face it, the car looked hot. So can you blame us for falling hook, line, and sinker for the Vega and naming it 1971’s Car of the Year?”
Also see ‘‘Detroit Mind’ led to collapse of U.S. automakers’
After driving my 6k mile ’73 Vega GT in 2010 Markus said, “After a few gentle miles, I begin to understand how this car won its awards and comparison tests.” “Well-maintained examples are great looking, nice-driving, economical classics — like Baltic Ave. with a Hotel, the best ones can be had for $10K or less. Emotionally, Jim Brokaw summed it up in January 1972: Gremlin has power, but Pinto has the price, and a much quieter ride. Which car is best? Vega.”
After driving my 2k mile ’76 Cosworth Vega in 2013 Markus said, “The thin low-end torque does give way to reasonable power above 4000 rpm. The dogleg-first shift pattern takes practice to use smoothly but the shifter’s close gate and snickery-snick mechanical precision feel delightful. The slow-ratio steering takes some getting used to, but the manual brakes actuate at the top of a reassuringly firm pedal. I can definitely sense some of the Vega’s raw, untamed nature that my predecessors described. Stylish and historically significant but ridiculously overpriced in its day and ultimately a bit unfinished, the ultimate Vega now represents a serious collector bargain.”
Also see ‘Four-door subcompacts were not exotic in late-60s and early-70s’
Portraits of Automotive History “Falling Star: The Checkered History of the Chevrolet Vega” editor Aaron Severson said, “As with the Corvair, any statements about the Vega’s failure have to be carefully qualified. Chevrolet sold more than 2 million Vegas during its seven-year lifespan, which is excellent by any standards. During the difficult period of the OPEC embargo — which briefly made big cars almost unsaleable — Chevrolet sold all the Vegas they could build.”
Cars in Depth May 26, 2013 said, “GM is not ashamed of the Vega and they have one on display at the GM Heritage Center.”
Hemmings Classic Car editor Craig Fitzgerald said, “The idea that the 1971 to 1977 Chevrolet Vega was an unpopular lemon from day one is a myth.”
Hemmings Classic Car editor in chief Terry Shea said, “The much-maligned Chevrolet Vega was ahead of its time, advancing new technology in an industry that desperately needed it in the 1970s — “Small, attractive, economical to buy and efficient to own, the sporty and thrifty little car marked big changes at GM, upending nearly 60 years of the way Chevrolet did business.”
Shea said, “Chevrolet did save the best for last in the form of the sublime Cosworth Vega, a sports car with an exotic double-overhead-cam, 16-valve, four cylinder engine; a suspension to match and sophistication decades ahead of most other cars.
— RS
RE:SOURCES
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet Vega (1971, 1976)
Indie Auto invites your comments (see below) or letters to the editor (go here). Letters may be lightly edited for style.
I’m glad this fellow likes his Vegas – given his initials, I believe that he has posted on Curbside Classic and Facebook in defense of the Vega – but his collection of quotes only proves that buff books don’t look at long-term reliability when testing a car.
I have a 1975 test of a Pontiac Astre (Pontiac’s badge-engineered Vega) by Consumer Reports. The testers weren’t terribly enthused about the car, but they specifically noted that so many readers were complaining about disastrous engine problems that they recommended not buying the car. (And before anyone claims that the magazine was biased against domestic cars – they issued a similar caveat regarding the reliability and dealer service of the formerly top-rated Fiat 128 around the same time.)
Some quotes are taken out of context. Yes, the Vega was not an immediate sales failure. It did sell respectably well through 1975. But there was no internet in those days, and people drove fewer miles annually, so word of serious problems spread much more slowly among the general public. By 1975, word was out…hence, GM making numerous changes to the 1976 Vega and advertising the revised engine as being “Dura-Built.” GM wouldn’t have made those changes – and sponsored a durability run to prove their effectiveness – if it hadn’t been faced with terrible word-of-mouth regarding the car’s reliability.
I’m glad someone likes his Vega. The Cosworth version would make a fun, inexpensive special interest car. Otherwise, even today, I’ll pass…
Well put. I find it amusing when folks point to car buff magazines as an authoritative source of information given their heavy dependence on auto industry advertising — and sometimes heavy-handed tactics in gaining more favorable coverage.
Really Steve? Motor Trend Classic in the Spring 2013 issue of Motor Trend Classic aid, “Overblown. The China Syndrome might have overhyped the TMI (Three-Mile Island) incident as bad press might have exaggerated the Vega’s woes.” You’re amusing.
Am I reading correctly that you are arguing that the Motor Trend Classic quote sums up your view of the media’s Vega coverage? If so, do you find this magazine to be a paragon of journalistic rigor and independence?
Yes Steve, Motor Trend nailed it. And so did Hemmings Classic Car, because they actually know something.
You got all the answers. Too bad they’re just an opinion. Got any referenced facts? How many changes were made to the small block Chevy V8 engine in decades from 1955 before it was finally replaced?
If changes and updates weren’t made to engines we would still have six cylinder engines with 70 hp and 7 to 1 compression ratios like the 40s.The Vega aluminum-silicon block was sound engineering and not changed over seven years. other than the head gasket the first year. GM learned their lesson though. The next small car, they gave their small car buyers what they truly deserved, an Americanized Opel that was unsafe, underpowered and cramped but it would keep running if they never checked their coolant. They went a step further in the 80s, selling rebadged Japanese imports. They never spent as much on new technology for US cars again except alternative fuel. Happy?
Peter, why are you so defensive about the Vega?
If you would like to learn more about Indie Auto’s approach, you may want to read the “Introduction.” Yes, this is journal of opinion.
Geeber The only real changes that needed to be made to the Vega engine was protection from misuse (lack of maintenance and the simple act of checking fluids) The block was not changed in seven years. The head had a few revisions including a switch to quieter hydraulic valves mainly because it was std in the Oldsmobile variant by that time. Longer lasting seals that nobody replaced and a longer lasting water pump that would last at lest during the warranty period. Now you finally have some facts to supplement to your 50-year old opinion. The Vega engine was sound engineering that misused especially by second owners who paid hundreds not thousands,
Motor Trend, September 1974, editor John Lamm said, “incidentally, because present problems with overheating and warpage of the Vega engines have been caused by owners driving around with too little coolant, all Vegas will have an instrument panel light warning when coolant is down one quart.”
I gather that you disagree with John Z. DeLorean’s take on the Vega?
Like John wrote himself said in the Vega chapter– engineers are a proud group partial to their own designs. GM rejected the designs from Chevy and Pontiac and went with GM Engineering–Cole’s Vega. That about sums that up. Ask John about the Monza. He thought it was great…(based on Vega) cause he was involved with it and made GM money with it.
Here are a few quotes from DeLorean’s book, On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors:
“A study of the conception and gestation of the Vega reveals not a lesson in scientific marketing and development, but rather a classic case of management ineptitude.” (p. 159)
“So while they were going for an innovative production process in using aluminum, they were relying on an old basic design for the engine. What resulted was a relatively large, noisy, top-heavy combination of aluminum and iron which cost far too much to build, looked like it had been taken off a 1920 farm tractor and weighed more than the cast iron engine Chevy had proposed, or the foreign-built, four-cylinder iron engine the Ford Pinto was to use.” (pp. 162-163)
“The marketing problems with the Vega were substantial. By late winter 1969, it was well known in the corporation that the car was far above its original estimates in weight and cost. The Fourteenth Floor was pretty shook up about this. The big question was: ‘How the hell can we promote a car that is going to be bigger and cost more than any car in the market in which it is supposed to compete?'” (p. 164)
“As general manager of Chevy, I was called on to explain the unexplainable. How could we call our car ‘competitive’ when it weighed almost 400 pounds more, and was priced more than $300 above the intended foreign competitor.” (p. 166)
“The brewing trouble in Lordstown attracted national media attention, especially after a couple of reporters touring Lordstown noticed a few long-haired youths on the line and in union halls The stories started flying fast and furiously out of this little central Ohio town that a monumental sociological struggle was taking place as young, militant workers rebelled against the mindless system of mass production. This struggle was called ‘the Lordstown Syndrome.’ It captured the imagination of young Americans, the very people to whom we were trying to sell new Vegas. The stories completely misplayed the situation. Sure, young workers were rebelling against the system in America. But not at Lordstown. What was taking place was a classical confrontation of union and management over the oldest issue in the history of auto-labor relations — a work speed-up. The company was trying to do the same job with fewer workers, and the workers were refusing to go along.” (p. 169)
“In the battle between the company and the UAW, which was being waged in the press, once-happy workers at the Lordstown plant charged that the company was so productivity conscious that the workers were being forced to push cars along the line that were little more than ‘pieces of junk.’ The company countered that the workers were sabotaging the cars. That feud left the unfortunate conclusion in the minds of consumers that both sides felt that the Vega was of poor quality. That impression gained the status of fact when the company was forced to recall 132,000 cars for defective carburetors, which had caused fires.” (pp. 169-170)
“Later, when the heat distortion problems inherent in aluminum engines surfaced, Vega engines started to burn out when excessive thermal expansion forced water out of the cooling system. Once water was forced out, the engine’s ability to cool was impaired. The little engines overheated and eventually were severely damaged or completely burnt out. These problems led to the recall of thousands more Vegas with engine trouble.” (p. 170)
“By the end of the Lordstown strike, the once bright little mini-car from GM was held in disrepute by a growing segment of the market. The combination of the Lordstown strike, its erroneous ‘youth-worker-against-the-system’ theme and the real and apparent quality problems the car was experiencing just about ruined its image and our marketing program. . . . Consequently, two years after its dramatic introductions, the Vega was in deep trouble.” (p. 170)
DeLorean’s chapter on the Vega is well worth reading in full. Yet even from these quotes you can see that Peter’s recollection of DeLorean’s take is rather selective.
I remember plenty of engines in American vehicles owned by friends and relatives during the 1970s – the Mopar Slant Six, the 350 Rocket V-8 in Oldsmobiles, even the four cylinders used in the Ford Pinto – that soldiered on despite owner use and neglect. Blaming the owner is the oldest trick in the book to cover for poor design and engineering. GM had been building cars for over a half a century when the Vega debuted. It should have been familiar with American maintenance habits (or lack thereof). That excuse won’t fly.
If the Vega was so great, one wonders why GM went to the trouble to make changes and then stage a durability run when the car had been in production for five years.
As for the opinions of various GM executives on the car: a Chevrolet spokesman, when asked why GM offered a longer warranty on the Vega, replied, “We’re trying to help the image of the Vega engine.” (Page 157 of the Automobile Quarterly book, Chevrolet – A History from 1911.)
If the engine was so great, and everything was the fault of the owner, one wonders why GM did this, and why the Vega’s image needed “help.”
On the same page of the book, Vince Piggins of Chevrolet explained why GM felt it necessary to stage a durability run of the revised 1976 Vega: “…they (management) all told me I was crazy. And let’s face it, it was a hell of a gamble, but we needed a gamble to pull us out of the position we were in.”
I’m glad people like their Vegas, and I wouldn’t turn down a mint Cosworth edition today. But, as an Old Cars Weekly writer put, “The Vega was supposed to be Chevrolet’s defense against rising sales of imports. General Custer had a better defense.”
My mother bought a 1972 Vega station wagon. It was a good car, but the engine was not reliable from the moment it left the showroom floor. There were also some issues with the quality of the fittings. My mom eventually traded it in on a 1974 Camaro. The dealer gave her a good deal, as he was aware of all of the visits she had made to the dealership service department. What if the Vega’s debut had been held off until 1972 ? Would the issues at the Lordstown plant been resolved. With so much riding on the Vega 2300, why didn’t G.M. and its primary driver, Ed Cole, do more field testing of the engine ? By late 1976, the Vega was better, but it was too late. I think the Vega was the first of G.M.’s (excluding the air-cooled 1923 Chevrolet) unspoken policy of letting the customers finish developing its cars. What is interesting to me, was that poor Chrysler in 1978, pretty much launched the Omni and Horizon with very few problems, although if you source your engines from Volkswagen and copy the Rabbit, make Chrysler made safe choices. (I owned two Omnis: A 1979 O-24 coupe and a 1982 four-door custom, both with the VW 1.7-liter engines, which were great cars and required very little maintenance other than flushing the cooling system, changing the oil and transmission fluid, chassis lubrication, replacing the front brake pads and rotating the tires.) I guess G.M. did not learn their lessons with the X-cars, followed by the J-cars, and so forth. Sad, sad, sad !
Another possibility to ponder is what if the Vega was launched with the 4 cylinder engine of the Chevy II/Nova and the 2300 engine was available later? Then what if Bunkie Knudsen was chosen as president of GM instead of Ed Cole? But that would be for an other story. 😉
I saw on this forum various photos of clay models showing the development of the 1968-72 Nova and the last photo showed a photo of a Gremlin lookalike? Did GM had once toyed with the possibility to follow AMC with the Gremlin or developing this car as a Vega alternative or maybe an earlier Vega prototype? https://www.stevesnovasite.com/threads/1968-chevy-ii-nova-clay-designs-from-1965.616730/#post-5470050
Stéphane, that’s a fascinating link. Thank you for sharing it!
A posted article argues that the 1967 Camaro was based upon the 1968 Chevy II: “Critical Nova dimensions, including dash to rear axle and cowl height — were locked in by the time the Camaro program got under way. As Rybicki told an interviewer in 1985, ‘The decision was made that [the 1967 Camaro] would have to come off the [1968] Chevy II underbody and cowl and [that] suspension, and engines and windshield [be shared].'”
Is this all true? It seems pretty obvious to me that the windshields aren’t shared. The Chevy II’s windshield has curved top corners whereas the Camaro’s are angular.
Excellent comments, Geeber, Steve and James. I’m curious as to why I don’t recall seeing or reading anywhere in the automotive press, why Ed Cole never took the hit for the Corvair and the Vega.
In your 02/24/2023 expanded post, “1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado: Collectible Automobile tells only part of the story”, Geeber commented, in part, that “Ed Cole, the engineer, was determined to have those cars [Corvair & Vega] incorporate his pet features, but they drove up costs, and thus required short cuts in other areas. He was so in love with those features for their own sake that he overlooked how Americans actually use and maintain their cars.”
Despite this, Cole continued his climb to the top of the GM corporate ladder. To this day, anonymous head office bean counters get the finger of blame pointed at them. The Vega was GM’s last chance to prove it could successfully build and market an American-designed small car. Beginning with the Chevette, every subsequent GM-branded compact and subcompact originated overseas.
Ultimately, Corvair and Vega, not Cole, were vilified. It would be many decades, several presidents and millions of poor quality cars before GM’s decline and neglect of its customers vs shareholders finally caught up with them.
While Ed Cole was a great engineer at G.M., he was far more ambitious than Bunkie Knudsen (who was younger) or the younger still John Z. DeLorean. G.M. may not have been as politicized as Ford, an adept politician like Cole was able to parlay the 1955 Motoramic Chevrolet into succeeding Chevrolet G.M. Thomas H. Keating, who moved up to car and truck V.P. Cole did not get to the Presidency of G.M. by standing up against the bean-counters, so he was not prone to heed the warnings of his subordinates if it meant against Fred Donner’s finance side. Thus, Cole’s two biggest Corvair errors, in my opinion, were the swing-axles without the stabilizer bar (corrected by a demanding Knudsen for 1964 for Bunkie to move to Chevrolet) and not putting enough “meat” in the engine block for a displacement increase above 164-cu.in. Yes, Chevrolet, Alcoa (Roger Penske in his driver days) and Reynolds Aluminum (C haparral and McLaren) developed extensively tested aluminum-alloy racing blocks in the 1960s, with late -1960s variations on amount of silica in the block mix to try to build blocks without cast-iron bore-sleeves. If one would have been prudent, the 140-cu.in. aluminum four would have been tested more an either an Opel four-banger or a Nova 153-cu.-in. four with balance shafts would have launched the Vega.
I stupidly forgot about Saturn (that different kind of GM, non-GM car). In my defense, before Saturn failed, they did go to Europe for a car when the brand first went upmarket to expand their range of offerings. In the end, Saturn lost its autonomy and credibility as it was left selling a bunch of badge-engineered GM products. Maybe if they’d offered a different kind of pickup…
CJ, that’s an interesting idea: A different kind of pickup. That got me to brainstorming. Part of my frustration with the U.S. auto industry is that over the last few decades we have had fewer substantive product choices even though the sheer number of major automakers in the U.S. market has increased. As a case in point, while in the 1970s you could buy a truly subcompact truck, in recent years you couldn’t. Even the so-called compact trucks are more like mid-sized.
In addition, no one has really tried to do an aerodynamic truck. Whatever else one might say about the proposed Tesla Cybertruck, it at least steps away from the stereotypical brick-on-wheels look of pretty much all pickups sold in the U.S.
To me a different kind of truck would be subcompact, aerodynamic, and offer all-wheel-drive but not be jacked up unnecessarily. The truck would also be unusually practical, such as by having bumpers that offered real protection. I suppose it would have to offer the usual high-end stuff, but I would be interested in a version that has manually cranked windows, buttons for major controls rather than touch screens, and interior surfaces that are easily cleanable. Extra points for an interior that doesn’t smell like a chemistry lab.
After reading your comment Steve, I envisioned a pickup version of a 2nd gen Honda Element, incorporating a more areo-friendly frontal design. Imagine it as a companion to the Ridgeline. Now imagine if Saturn management had been able to conceive of something like this and then go on to create a truly unique niche of fun, sporty, practical and compact vehicles that could have been the forerunners of today’s CUVs.
By the way, roll-up windows = 45 rpm records = B & W TV = we of a certain age, lol!
Steve and CJ check out the Canoo pickups. They are apparently still in prototype only however they will gladly take your deposit. They look like the old VW type 2 pickups, only more aerodynamic. Since proper electric vehicles can be done on a skateboard platform there is no real need for the front box on a truck, or a car for that matter. and the motors can be put anywhere how about some creativity? It’s like carmakers keeping lap robe holders on cars into the 60s and spare tires.
Yeah, it’s an interesting design. We did a short piece discussing EV startups such as Canoo (go here). My current sense is that the big question the company faces is whether it will have enough money to start production. The Motley Fool isn’t optimistic about Canoo’s future, but I hope they make it.
I also checked out the Canoo. I feel like if I were in the market for a small truck I would want something a bit less Lego-meets-Transformers. Nevertheless, given the right price, distribution network and marketing, I think it could be a successful niche product. Probably NOT truck-enough for Texas, though ;).
Lest we forget that VW offered a US built Rabbit based pickup.
Ed Cole was a great engineer to complete the small-block Chevrolet V-8 that was bristling with innovations: The 265 V-8 was relatively defect-free for a new mass-produced engine. But part of the tragedy of the mixed engineering legacy of Ed Cole is that he was a part of the G.M. corporate mind-set began to turn a deaf ear to customers after the cars (to a lesser extent much simpler trucks) rolled out of the dealerships. Product development after the product introductions were to handle issues that today are recall items. Look at the issues with the Vegas, the Turbo Hydramatic 200, the X-cars, the J-cars, etc. By the early 1980s, G.M., in my opinion, embraced the philosophy that the customers were responsible for working out the undeveloped product issues.