Chevrolet Citation

[MarkV]

So, what do you guys think/know about these? They seem like they were far ahead of their time in 1979/1980:

Curbside Classic: 1980 Chevrolet Citation – GM’s Deadliest Sin Ever | The Truth About Cars

[NTX5467]

Remember . . . this was GM's first small fwd car, so it was "all new" (other than some engine stuff). Rather than the Chevy, I think I'd aim more toward the Olds and Buick versions. MUCH nicer trim and such. More "engine" in the Buicks, too!

The Citation X-11 had some trick stuff for that time. Suspension upgrades along with a HO version of the V-6 (but not as powerful as later "normal' versions!) that had a staged 2bbl carb on it.

The factory two-tone Citations got the first factory-applied "chip guard" under the lower paint color. Slightly soft to deflect rocks from the rocker panel area . . . to decrease probability of rock chip-caused surface rust. The same coating was available from the vendor, but the Citation was the first factory use of it.

People talk about the Aspen/Volare and other non-GM cars having problems back then. The new Citation had 6, repeat 6(!), recalls before their show date! Nothing significant, but last minute changes, like (as I recall) jack mounting issues or similar.

Just some thoughts,

NTX5467

[rick60]

I purchased a 1980 Olds Omega new. I put 66,000 miles on it in four years. it never gave me any problems. A lot of the complaints about these cars were the result of mechanics not taking the time to properly adjust the carbs. Later models had TBI systems. They ran well. I sold the Omega and purchased a used 1982 Celebrity. That was the worst car that I ever owned. I repaired it on a weekly basis. I think the public only remembers the bad ones. The only other problems that i recall were "morning sickness" in the power steering, occasional head gasket leak and noisy cam gears on the four cylinders. I think the Olds and Buick versions were styled better than the Citation.

[Dave@Moon]

The list of recalls for these cars is truly mind-boggling, but it doesn't tell the whole story. They were rushed to production by people who would never drive one so quickly that no one had checked to see if the spare tires fit, and in fact after 2 weeks they were all recalled for replacement spare tires because an owner found that they wouldn't fit the front hubs.

During this period of "good enough" engineering all 4 American car companies thought less of product than margin. If there was a profit left after the warranty expired that was "good enough". The quality of the (then) foreign competition was not yet acknowledged by upper management, and wouldn't be until their cars (full-size, full-featured) began to have early problems.

I had a Buick Apollo version for a company car in 1980, when they'd been on the market for about 7 or 8 months. I drove it for 4 months with no problems, except abysmal gas mileage. This tiny V6 sedan got all of 14 mpg no matter what kind of driving I did, including day-long interstate drives (@ only 55 mph) and day long driving around mid-town Manhattan (giving a Polish power company VIP a tour).

With X-body sales sinking like a rock over these issues the J-body cars (Cavalier, Cimmaron, Firenza, etc.) were rushed into production equally fast by people who would never drive one, with nearly the same result. As a result GM's decision making began to slow (with new models like the Saturn introduced at a snail's pace after 1986), and eventually the company began to unravel.

[earl e rizer]

One of the worst cars GM ever produced. If you want to know what happened to Detroit and why its a ghost town, just drive one of these.

It's almost as if GM wanted to go under!

[Guest my3buicks]

Had an 82 Pontiac Pheonix LJ Coupe (Light Sage Green), and it was one of the best cars I ever owned, bought it with 6K miles, sold it with 148K on it - it had a really nice interior, lots of room, great trunk space, had the 2.5 iron duke, had more than adequate power, and it required only general maintenance.

I thought it was a rather handsome car at the time also.

Never uttered a bad word about that car.

[MCHinson]

Maybe the Pontiacs were better cars. We had a 1981 Pontiac Phoenix and it was a great car also. We drove it for years and ended up selling it to my sister-in-law who drove it for years after that.

[X-Frame]

I remember a friend of mine having a X-11 and didn't keep it very long, was a dud for him. It looked like the red one below, but his was black:

[Greg J]

There was a catchy commercial for the Citation when it came out, I stumbled on it on Youtube a while back. Check out that trailer pulling with no rear wheels!

1980 chevrolet citation commercial - YouTube

[Dandy Dave]

A local fellow here had a new one when they came out. It gave him his share of headaches. It started to rust in just two years and he traded it for a Jeep Cherokee around 1983.

Run away as fast as you can, especially from the half breed carburated/ computer controled morphodite..... Dandy Dave!

[rons49]

The Dark Days Of Detroit( sic Today?). I always attempted to buy American. In 1970 after waiting 8 weeks to find out Dodge could not locate a Dart Swinger 340 in Plum Crazy in July'70 I bought a Beetle. Fine car for it's market, but I got married and my new wife got car sick in it, soooo off to the crap pile of US opportunity. Bought a 6 cyl Duster in 73 not bad( except for water leaks on your feet) and had it for 6 years by keeping a supply of towels in the trunk. In 77 I bought a Cordoba. It had so many things wrong that I logged in 3950 miles the first year. The car nearly killed my wife when the OSAC valve failed upon acceleration onto a highway. After marking the tires and finding proof the car never moved from the spot that I left it at the dealers repair area, I wrote to Lynn Townsend. Not even a reply. Marched in to my local Toyota dealer and bought a new Corrolla on Dec 7, 1977. Then came the pride of Roger Smith, my 79 Malibu, Just as poorly delivered as the Chrysler. Even the cam #1 exhaust lobe wore out in 78k miles( class action suit covered some cost). In 83 got a Sentra, good car. In 87, a Plymouth Reliant. I liked the car except it started using a quart of oil in 800 miles. New engine at 20k. Loved that 7 year/70,000 mi warranty. Than a Dynasty, with the infamous Ultra-drive Transmission where a 25 cent C-clip failure required a total rebuild. Love that 7/70 warranty. And you ask was the Citation that bad... it was that bad. It is sad that good American workers and their families need to be the scapegoats of greed and inempt management. Yeah, our cars are back, but think of the price we all paid.

[Dandy Dave]

You guys got me to thinking, I had one given to me a number of years ago and I did run it for a short time. As much as I am sworn to the preservation of our automotive past and automobiles, I gave that one to a buddy of mine to enter in the local Demolition Derby. He did not win, but did have some fun for a little while. I was never happier to see a car get wrecked and scraped. Several years ago I past a rusty one on the interstate. I could not believe that there was one still alive and running in the North East 25 to 30 years later. Dandy Dave!

[Matt Harwood]

If there was a worse car ever built, I haven't heard of it.

[poci1957]

Hey Wes, if you are interested in a very good article about the design of the X cars see the last issue of Collectible Automobile magazine. The article describes the huge commitment GM made to this program and you will see they provided the design architecture for GM front wheel drive compacts for 20 years. Historically they are very important, for both good and bad. Todd

[X-Frame]

If there was a worse car ever built, I haven't heard of it.

Vega

Chevette

Pinto

Gremlin

To name a few None of them lasted very long on the road.

[NTX5467]

By observation, over the years, a good car can be made otherwise by POOR pre-delivery inspection/service at the dealership. Not that they should be rebuilt in "pre-delivery" mode, waiting for the customer to decide what might need to be fixed first (plus generate a lot of poor will in the process!), but a lot of these issues could have been addressed by dealerships knowing HOW to spec the cars rather than just checking popular boxes on the order form.

For example, all of the 1/2 ton pickups we stocked in the later 1970s had P235/75R-15 tires (many with rally wheels!), hd rear springs (got the GVW over the 6001lb rating for no catalytic converter), one notch deeper rear axle (usually 3.42 . . . might have hurt fuel economy some, but "worked" better for our customers; 350 3/4 tons got 4.10 and 1-ton 454s got 3.73). In other words, the correct choice of options on the vehicles made us one of the largest volume truck dealers in the region because we knew how to spec them "to work" for our customers.

As for the cars, the sales manager and service manager "talked". Hence, if a problem cropped up, we didn't order that option or figured out a way to get it fixed. Like adding water separators to all of the diesels we sold . . . although GM might not have recommended it, for example. We didn't order 3rd Gen Camaros with rear disc brakes (for stock) due to the design of the parking brake on the rear calipers.

We were also blessed with some managers and techs who were very motivated to fix problems and do what we could to address some design issues to better satisfy our customers (many of whom had purchased many other vehicles from us . . . and continued to do so in later years). Plus a service manager with enough clout with the service reps to get things covered that other dealers seemingly couldn't . . . after the factory warranty had ended.

Here's an example. After we got TBI injection on the 350 V-8 pickups and Suburbans, the fuel pump/sending unit had a plastic baffle it sat in inside of the fuel tank. The baffle was there to keep fuel around the pump all of the time, if possible. It was located by two dowels (a "u"-shaped affair) that was tacked to the inside of the tank, but held down by one slip-on speed nut. With time, the one speed nut would get loose and allow the baffle to move around inside of the tank, as the fuel sloshed around in normal driving. Vehicles ran out of gas with the gauge showing 3/4 full, or died running over a speed bump in the mall parking lot. GM put out a TSB on the issue, with the "fix kit" being two thick flat washers and TWO speed nuts to hold the baflle down. They admited they had a problem, but WE were one of the few dealers who were able to get it covered under warranty after the basic warranty period had expired . . . usually by not up to 6 months. In addition to the fix kit, it took a new sending unit and pump assy, which had been beat to smithereenes by the sloshing fuel moving the baffle around. In reality, it might have been equally an issue of poor assembly quality (lack of pushing the speed nut down hard enough, or it eating into the baffle's plastic and then getting loose . . . as it might have been to save 10 cents by using only one speed nut rather than two.

As for the wet feet on the Duster? Probably the seals which sealed the windshield wiper transmission as it passed through the underside of the panel to the outside . . . as conventional wisdom probably thought it was a windshield seal issue. Or perhaps they had leaking a/c cases like they did on the larger C-body cars . . . due to retention clips/gasket interface not working . . . in a time before silicone sealers.

And then there was the time we had 75 new Suburbans with water in their spare tire wells. Wet carpets and complaints of "sloshing noises in the back". Our motivated trim techs traced it to assembly line welding issues . . . as 7 plant employees (flown in by Chev from Flint) saw the issues first hand "in the field". They also watched as our techs "over-fixed" it, compared to how the factory workers said would be "good enough". As the Zone Manager said, "They are fixing it as THEY will have to live with what they do . . . unlike y'all who only see it while it's in your work station." A valid observation. Our guys had seen enough of those later Suburbans to also know the tops were not all on "square" and knew where to look to see if they were, which determined how they addressed other repair issues on those bodies.

By observation, the worst vehicles can be the first ones out and the last ones out. "First ones" as they are the ones after everybody's been schooled on how to build them, before they learn how to do it best. "Last ones" as those are the ones built as the tooling has aged to the point of needing to be replaced, which can result in some poor panel fits and such.

And, if the respective corporation has been having some money issues, corners on rust-proofing can be cut, too. Unfortunately, I saw several Cordobas/Chargers which were a few years old and already had surface rust forming where the door skins were folded over the door structures . . . sans seam sealer, just painted. Plus the unexplained perforations over the top of the side windows, in the roof, a few inches above the trim!

I don't know how an OSAC control on a Chrysler emissions system might cause a significant operational problem, with all due respect. All it does is turn on or off the vacuum to the distributor's vacuum advance, obviously during particular operational modes, for emissions control purposes. No vacuum advance, which is usually absent during deep throttle applications, might result in more sluggish acceleration and increased fuel consumption. I don't recall the local dealer ever having any issues in that respect, with all due respect. Perhaps there's something I'm not aware of? That particular Chrysler/Plymouth dealer also ordered vehicles that wouldn't cause customer service headaches, back then. As Chrysler's Holley 4bbls were known issues back then, that's one reason that they were usually replaced with Carter AVSs or the cars they might come on weren't ordered (i.e., Road Runners and such).

Vehicles back then had character and particular unique characteristics of how they did things and how they felt to drive them. By observation, many disgruntled customers (purchasing the particular brand of vehicle for the first time) never did understand their vehicles very well. I found that to get the best performance/wear out of a vehicle, you have to tailor how you use the vehicle to what it's capable of doing AND learn how to best extract the performance it might have hidden in it . . . within reason. I saw Ford customers try a Chevy truck for one trade cycle and then get AND stay with Fords afterward . . . and vice versa. Or a Ford customer buy a Plymouth, or even just test drive one, and beat a hasty retreat to the Blue Oval sign! Or a confirmed Chrysler product owner venture to a Buick (or other similar GM brand dealership) and head back to their firm-riding Mopar from the "floaty" GM or Ford vehicle. AND, there have always been unique idiosyncracies as to how repairs are done on/for the respective brands . . . especially back then . . . just as there have been mechanics which could do better repairing one OEM's vehicles than other OEM's vehicles. Many might have been good with all of them, but they were GREAT with one particular brand.

I know that marketing types might desire to dispute my observations that particular people are best (and happiest!) driving particular brands of vehicles, but then most modern vehicles have had the earlier unique (and endearing in some cases) characteristics numbed/dumbed-down so much that most really are very close to the same . . . IF you closed your eyes.

I know that the much-heralded J. D. Powers studies are "marketing gold" for some, but I've observed that it's not that the vehicle initially had an issue that caused some concern for the customer, but the manner in which the dealer's employees addressed and handled the customer's concern in a mutually beneficial manner. Motivated employees doing what they might to fully satisfy their customers . . . even IF what they did was not spelled out in a factory TSB. Whether it's a dealership or private repair shop, the entity MUST gain the customer's trust and then continue to earn it as the repair(s) are executed and completed . . . hopefully exceeding the customer's expectations and building the customer's enthusiasm for doing business with the particular dealership/repair shop in the future. Even IF the vehicle might not have had the best design/build/quality control at the factory!!!!

Respectfully,

NTX5467

[R W Burgess]

Good reply NTX, especially the "learning your vehicle's" characteristics. Different brands certainly operate differently, as has been my experience.

It always seemed to me, that the added new technology had a steep learning curve for everyone involved in the early days!

[John_Maine]

When the Citation came out in April '99, one of our bank messengers bought one. He drove the same route every day, twice a day, 240 miles. He put 100K on it in 18 months. It was a blue 4 door V6, auto. He traded it for an identical '81 model and put about 75K on that one before retiring. As I recall, he loved the Citation and never had any problems with either.

[CarlLaFong]

Vega

Chevette

Pinto

Gremlin

To name a few None of them lasted very long on the road.

I have to agree 75%. I think the Pinto was given a bad rap. Yeah, I know all about the whole gas tank thing. They were pretty good cars. I know of several people, including my mother, that had them and got good service out of them. Mom's had 125K on it when she traded it in. It was still rock solid, ran and drove just fine. She took good care of her cars, but she wasn't a fanatic about it.

[Larry Schramm]

I loved driving the 83-85 Buick Skylarks. I had a couple of T-Types with the high output V-6's, 4 on the floor, sunroof, sport tires and suspension. They were GREAT cars. Wish I had one now.

[Guest steve283]

I knew a girl whom had one that said skylark or skybird on one side and citation on the other.I asked if it had been wrecked she said no,it came that way.I dont know if it was factory or not,but I got a laugh from it.

[Dandy Dave]

I knew a girl whom had one that said skylark or skybird on one side and citation on the other.I asked if it had been wrecked she said no,it came that way.I dont know if it was factory or not,but I got a laugh from it.

I had a friend that had about a 72 Pontiac Ventura. The interior was Chevy Nova. And yes, new from the factory. Dandy Dave!

[Guest my3buicks]

When I worked at a Chevy dealer in 1990 era, we got an S10 pickup in with a GMC Sonoma tailgate and GMC wheel centers.

[checker]

These cars were ugly then and even uglier today. My coworker had a new Celebrity Eurosport. There's a misnomer.

The Vega is not in the same class as this GM embarrassment.

[R W Burgess]

.......The Vega is not in the same class as this GM embarrassment.

Not sure what you mean by this? I owned two Vega's, both GT's, a '72 and a '74. Both cars handles well, looked sporty, nice vinyl interior with cool dash panel.

THe '72 started acting funny one day, missed or skipped a beat. By then I had heard about the aluminum cylinder problems. I traded her for a mid size car, but wrecked it and ended up with the '74 on trade. Never had a problem with that car, but back in those days I traded every couple years or so anyway.

Ahh, the good old days!

I miss them!

[checker]

Wayne, you validated my statement. The Vega looked sporty and handled well. The Citation did not.

[R W Burgess]

Funny thing Doug, GM at the time could have chnaged that Vega motor design and saved that car. I don't think they ever had a sportier looking car after they killed the Vega.

I won't address the suspected rust problems, and other quality issues, though.

Wayne

[Guest]

Hey guys, remember this car that came up in this section for sale?? nice little car.

MNBuick

Junior Member

Join Date: Oct 2011

Posts: 10

1980 Buick Skylark WITH PICTURES

I have a 1980 Buick Skylark, 8,460 original miles, original parts and tires, 4 cylinder, am radio, (no a/c), 2 door, cloth interior. Excellent condition. It has been stored for the last 15 years in a windowless garage. I am wondering what it might be worth when I sell it. Thank you! Your replies are appreciated.

Attached Thumbnails

http://forums.aaca.org/attachments/f169/103242d1318639266t-1980-buick-skylark-pictures-p1010618.jpg

http://forums.aaca.org/attachments/f169/103244d1318639266-1980-buick-skylark-pictures-p1010622.jpg

http://forums.aaca.org/attachments/f169/103243d1318639266-1980-buick-skylark-pictures-p1010619.jpg

http://forums.aaca.org/attachments/f169/103241d1318639266-1980-buick-skylark-pictures-p1010615.jpg

What a great way for a new person to get into our hobby, I wouldn't mind having it myself.

D.

Edited March 5, 2012 by helfen (see edit history)

[earl e rizer]

These cars were ugly then and even uglier today. My coworker had a new Celebrity Eurosport. There's a misnomer.

The Vega is not in the same class as this GM embarrassment.

Ugly is right. To me a vehicle worth restoring or driving as a hobby car should have some esthetic value. These don't.

[NTX5467]

Vegas were pretty neat cars! Especially the "panel wagon" version! When I first sat in one, it seemed that if the cowl hadn't been there, I could have kicked the lh front headlight with my foot.

The engine design was, according to the DeLorean book, straight from GM's "14th Floor", as DeLorean had a high-revving 4 cyl in his proposal . . . which was more Italianesce in orientation than the long stroke "torque" motor they ended up with. The engine's material was later used by Mercedes Benz in their aluminum V-8s. One specific difference was that the Vega 4 cyl was an "open deck" block rather than the solid "closed deck" design which M-B used. In later life, we honed them just like a steel block and re-rung them with good results.

Funny thing was that it seemed that those owners who "drove" their cars had fewer problems than those owners who "put-putted around" in them. The former group would have had more issues with clutch cable longevity than the latter group, as I recall.

One of the things the Citation needed, just like any other fwd car back then, was a front tire pressure setting of about 32psi cold, with the rear pressure about 28psi. Handling and response improved markedly . . . at least on the later Beretta/Corsicas and other fwd cars I've set up that way. Put the greatest air pressure on the heaviest end of the vehicle.

When I saw the 3rd gen Camaro's undercarriage for the first time, my thought was "High-technology Vega with front struts". Of course, the Vegas with the Buick 3.8L V-6 transplanted into them were some pretty nice cars!

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Centurion]

I was among the hundreds of thousands of buyers who eagerly awaited the new 1980 General Motors X-cars, and was thrilled to watch the first trainloads to the Northwest passing my office window in Pendleton, Oregon.

I ordered one in March, 1979, and my car finally arrived in September. Mine was one of the rarely seen 1980 Skylark Sport Coupe models with a specific grille, smoked glass taillamp lenses, and a beautiful black instrument panel with full gauges. I ordered the car with the v6 and 4-speed manual transmission (4th gear overdrive).

I loved the car, and drove it seven years and 97,000 miles. My friends with Saabs and other imports drove the car when it was new and were thoroughly impressed, thinking that the American car makers had finally turned the corner. I recorded mileage that was consistently better than 30-mpg on the highway.

Yes, I had a few problems along the way, but the most irritating was an electrical problem that required me to replace the alternator a few times during the course of ownership.

The thing that I loved most about the X-Body was the packaging. These were remarkably spacious cars for their size, and they evidently scored very highly in safety testing.

Had the cars been better engineered and assembled, I'm convinced that the X-Body cars had the potential to attract and retain millions of customers for GM. Sadly, the cars proved to be a missed opportunity, and none of my several friends who bought 1980 and 1981 X-Body cars ever stepped into a General Motors showroom again. The 1982 J-Body and A-Body front wheel drive cars would go on to create further damage to the company's reputation. Thankfully, the company was re-learning the quality lesson by the middle-1980's, and my front wheel drive '89 LeSabre has been exemplary and is still going strong at 230,000 miles.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Centurion (see edit history)

[R W Burgess]

...............Sadly, the cars proved to be a missed opportunity, and none of my several friends who bought 1980 and 1981 X-Body cars ever stepped into a General Motors showroom again.

Brian, that's a sad fact. A couple years of poor decisions by the poweres that be has almost ruined a company, and certainly cost stockholders fortunes.

What upsets me is that, even now, we have nowhere to go to contact these decision makers to tell them what they are doing wrong. I tried for 2 years to let GM know that they needed extra paint options for the bottom color on pickups. I finally painted it myself, a pretty green (against white). Everywhere this truck is driven people remark about the color combination. Gee, you'd think that eventually someone in the Corporation would realize that they have a serious problem. I'm just terribly upset over the views of the new designers!

Wayne

[Guest]

Brian, that's a sad fact. A couple years of poor decisions by the poweres that be has almost ruined a company, and certainly cost stockholders fortunes.

What upsets me is that, even now, we have nowhere to go to contact these decision makers to tell them what they are doing wrong. I tried for 2 years to let GM know that they needed extra paint options for the bottom color on pickups. I finally painted it myself, a pretty green (against white). Everywhere this truck is driven people remark about the color combination. Gee, you'd think that eventually someone in the Corporation would realize that they have a serious problem. I'm just terribly upset over the views of the new designers!

Wayne

__________________________________________________________________

Wayne, you are correct. In the old days almost all manufacturers had what was called a dealer council. Dealers would express their concerns and customer concerns to the manufacturer. There were also serviceability teams that would go out to dealers to learn how to design cars to be easier to work on. Mercedes would make a designer spend a considerable amount of time on the factory floor putting cars together like any other factory worker before he was allowed to put pencil to paper so he would know how to NOT layer parts on a part that needed to be serviced regularly.

Product planning seems to be at times in a total disconnect with need of the consumer. Things like making a truck bed rail so high that you need to climb into the back of the bed to get something in the front of the bed out, or installing a instrument cluster in the center of the dash when eyes should be forward are just a couple of things that come to mind.

D.

[john2dameron]

To start with, quality control in Detroit seemed to be non-existent from the mid seventies into the early eighties. Then there was that thing called "Motor Trend's Car of the Year." That apparently was a joke. Dodge Omni/Plyouth Horizon was selected in 1978 I think, Citation in 1980 and Cavalier maybe in 1982. All 3 of them were jokes. I only knew one person that had good luck with a Citation and he was very talented mechanically so that's probably what kept it going. I had a '81 Malibu that was a fairly decent car and a '89 Celebrity that was dependable but not a great car. My son wrecked a '86 Ford Aerostar that put me into the Celebrity and then the transmission went out of the Celebrity and we donated it to Goodwill but it had about 150,000 miles on it so I can't complain much about it.

[Guest my3buicks]

To start with, quality control in Detroit seemed to be non-existent from the mid seventies into the early eighties. Then there was that thing called "Motor Trend's Car of the Year." That apparently was a joke. Dodge Omni/Plyouth Horizon was selected in 1978 I think, Citation in 1980 and Cavalier maybe in 1982. All 3 of them were jokes. I only knew one person that had good luck with a Citation and he was very talented mechanically so that's probably what kept it going. I had a '81 Malibu that was a fairly decent car and a '89 Celebrity that was dependable but not a great car. My son wrecked a '86 Ford Aerostar that put me into the Celebrity and then the transmission went out of the Celebrity and we donated it to Goodwill but it had about 150,000 miles on it so I can't complain much about it.

You have to remember the Motor Trend Car of the Year can't look into the future to see if the cars are going to last. They are chosen by criteria that makes them pertinent right then and there in the market place. Ant at that point those cars were game leaders in their classes.

[LINC400]

You have to remember the Motor Trend Car of the Year can't look into the future to see if the cars are going to last. They are chosen by criteria that makes them pertinent right then and there in the market place. Ant at that point those cars were game leaders in their classes.

While that is true to a point, many, such as the Renault Alliance, were considered a joke from the moment they were named. And being named Car of the Year was thought to be more of an indication of who spent the most advertising dollars with a magazine as opposed to any merits of the car in many cases.

[Guest my3buicks]

ah, really:eek:

[Guest]

You have to remember the Motor Trend Car of the Year can't look into the future to see if the cars are going to last. They are chosen by criteria that makes them pertinent right then and there in the market place. Ant at that point those cars were game leaders in their classes.

__________________________________________________________________

True, wasn't Vega car of the year also?? 1971??? I wonder how the Cosworth Vega holds up and there is a club for this car, in fact there are dedicated clubs for Vega and Citation.

Could 1,966,157 people who bought new Vega's all be wrong?. Vega is welcome at VCCA,and any other Chevy produced including Citation and I could only assume there are people in AACA that collect them too. People collect Monza's, which are a spin off of Vega.

D.

[Guest my3buicks]

I had a 1975 Monza Town Coupe, sharp little car, and to be honest, 100K miles when i got rid of it and nothing other than routine maintenance was needed. Oh, a clutch if you don't consider that routine maintenance.

It was kind of the "Luxury" version of the Monza. Fun little car. Mine was a twin to the top one except with the wheel covers in body color like the bottom one.

[John_Maine]

rons49 - I had the mis-fortune to own a 1990 Dynasty. It was a nice car, good power, smooth, comfortable, good gas mileage, a lot to like about it. Unfortunately, the transmission failed 4 times in 5 years - at 36K, 48K, 57K and at 69K just before the 7/70 expired. The speedometer had to be replaced twice, the heater controls melted in the dash, it periodically wouldn't idle - if I took my foot off the gas, it quit; the front strut mounts broke a couple of times, it had an annoying squawking in the rear end that the dealership couldn't fix, the radiator failed at 50K, and on and on. After the warranty ran out, I told my wife that was it. We traded for a '94 Mercury Sable.

Then the Cordoba, my aunt and uncle bought one from their neighbor who was the general manager of the local Chysler-Plymouth dealer. It was a '75. I never knew what the problems really were with it, just that they had a lot of trouble with it and always had a loaner. My aunt said it just never ran right. I know the dealership tore the engine down at one point. They ended up trading it for a '78 Olds 98.