Haphazardly Made, Sparsely Trimmed & Underpowered
Driving down some dead end road in the Alberta Badlands a discovery, the crushed remains of a car. But its not just any old automobile but one with quite the “reputation”. And it’s not because it was so awesome, or stylish or had some other virtuous features. No. Plain and simple in design and execution it was a piece of junk*. Presenting what was, even when new, a rolling turd, uninspiring and lacking any character, a cheap-ass throw away econo-box, now rusting away and forgotten. The New York Times spoke of them as “haphazardly made, sparsely trimmed & underpowered”. Yup, that sums it up pretty well.
We’re talking about the much maligned Chevrolet Chevette available from 1976-1987 that’s consistently on many “worst car” lists. Imagine it…some sixty ponies, zero to one hundred clicks in under an hour, questionable safety and body panels prone to rusting, sometimes after only a year or two. How they sold millions of them is anyone’s guess. Wait, it’s because they could be had for little coin, a base line example costing well under $5k CAD in the early years. And they sipped gas, getting mileage rivalling many modern compacts.
This one’s a 1978 model – we can tell from the Fisher Body Tag – Fisher made the sheet metal for most GM cars. We chuckle that it’s survived, even in that mangled state, where as most other Chevettes have long since been recycled into soup cans. Odd how that is.
*Your author drove one once and indeed it was awful.
Later that weekend…
Hanna Roundhouse Revisited.
Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.
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Date of adventure: April, 2018.
Location: Red Deer River Valley Alberta.
Crushed in the Alberta Badlands.
Body by Fisher.
Engine by Briggs & Stratton.
Not one of GM’s better Car’s for sure ,even Ford had issues with there Pinto 😉
The Big Three were just unable to produce a decent small car at the time.
Good read and pictures as always .
The big three had no idea then when it came to economy cars back then. GM made some real stinkers in particular. Still one can’t have a soft spot for the little throw-away Chevette. As basic a car as could be made at the time.
I used to drive the Pontiac twin (The Acadian) as a pizza delivery car back in Manitoba. That goes back to the days when the stores bought the cars. They were the epitome of “cheap, basic transportation”. Even a radio was optional.
We read that you could even order one less a back seat. Crazy! Such basic transportation these. Yes, the Acadian, the 60s model which seems to have obtained minor celebrity status and is reasonably well respected and the later rebadged Chevette that was often mocked. US Pontiac versions, I see, we’re called T1000 or simply 1000.
I hadn’t heard about the delete rear seat option. My Dad had a ’64 Acadian wagon when I was a kid. 250 CI straight six with three on the tree. He pretty much built an entire cabin by hauling all of the material to the lake one car load at a time.
We saw a two seat “Chevette Scooter” at a small town car show and the original build sheet shown us confirmed they could be ordered this way. I doubt many were so made, however. This one was a 77 or 78 model, I think, bought new by the fellow’s dad and kept all original and in impeccable shape. And it was lemon yellow with brown-ish upholstery to boot! It had every delete option there was as I recall and I don’t even think there was a radio. Look under “plain Jane” in the dictionary and you’d see this car.
Junk right out of the showroom.
Yeah, that seems to be the consensus. They sure sold a lot of them though. Not that many are around today.
For such a small car, was a big turd. I took my driver education in one way back in 1985. The car’s bad rep was well deserved.
I was in the market for a car long ago and was offered one (in pretty decent shape too). A test drive was all that was needed. There’s no way I was buying this!
I’ve driven worse.
When young this would have been one of the nicer cars I owned.
It ran when parked!
Honestly, it did!