Yesterday, we looked at a bright yellow (and gray and black) Fiat 131 that had earned proud beater status, and which had fortunately not been found torched in a ravine somewhere. But parts availability and repair costs are bound to be a pain point for an uncommon Italian car. Maybe something a little more common would be preferable, perhaps something with front-wheel-drive to help in winter driving. The Chevrolet Celebrity was once loved by the general public and enjoyed soaring popularity, but like a fading celebrity, this beater is now unknown, unloved and doing anything it can to stay in the biz.
This Celebrity has certainly seen a heaping helping of winter driving if that rust is any indication. Road salt has tried its hardest to kill this venerable A-Body but it has survived, owing to the reliable, if uninspiring, Iron Duke powering it.
This appears to be a 1984 model based on the grille and taillights, but seeing how battered it is, it’s possible those parts could have been scavenged from other Celebrities. The Celebrity story is one I will soon tell: I spotted precisely two in NYC, and the other was a post-facelift example that was in the exact opposite condition!
This gnarly looking Chevy is just one exhaust backfire from being the archetypal beater. But is it the ultimate beater? Or would you like to see what is behind door No. 3?
Maybe not the ultimate beater, but a hooptie for sure.
For someone who´s first language is not English, it might be perfectly fine to drive around in a car with a name like “Celebrity”.
But what if English IS your first language and you´re being asked what car you drive and you answer “A Celebrity”. Does that feel like you are probably driving a car with one of the dumbest names ever?
Or am I just rambling pointless crap? Its hot and humid today over here. So please bear with me.
I think GM was trying out some alliteration with the name: Chevrolet Celebrity and at the time there was a proliferation of “c” names in Chevy’s lineup.
Chevrolet Citation (one of the worst names of all time – Hey so what happened when the cop stopped you? – He gave me a citation.)
Chevrolet Caprice Classic
Chevrolet Chevette
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Celebrity
You could also get a Cheyenne package for your C10 Chevrolet pickup.
The poor Malibu was left standing out in the cold with the “M” name – should have went back to Chevelle. Oops, forgot the El Camino, but drop the “El” and it still had a “c” name.
Chevrolet Cavalier Convertible
There was also the Chevrolet Monte Carlo…
Andy Rooney once had a rant about the alliteration in Chevrolet names. He said the Monte Carlo should have been named Carlo Monte to keep with the theme.
That’s just awesome.
Don’t forget the Cavalier and Camaro.
The Malibu had at least one friend to hang out with: the Monte Carlo.
edit: Dang, you beat me to it Ed!
Looks like nobody mentioned the Corsica yet.
Mustn’t forget that “Citation” was originally used by Edsel.
And also, Chevy has continued its “C” theme with compacts ever since. Corsica, Cobalt, Cruze
Aveo.
The leading “C” is silent on that one. 🙂
“Leave off the “C” for crap!”
The Aveo wasn’t a real Chevy though. It was a rebadged Daewoo.
I’ve never noticed they were the Caveo. The build quality of the badges was as good as the cars- the C’s fell off!
I thought about putting “Daewoo Aveo” as the comment, but decided against splitting hairs.
I’m not into modern cars very much, but isn’t the Cruze based on a Daewoo as well?
@matador: No. The Cruze is a derivative of the global Delta II platform, largely engineered by GM DAT and GM Opel.
Daewoo has been dead for a while now.
I would say the Geo Metro is compact while the Corsica/Tempest is mid-sized.
Citation also means an honor, like a medal for bravery, etc. Hence the badge that looks like a ribbon. And don’t forget that Edsel Division sold Citations, too.
One potential name for Citation was Chapparal [I think]
And Citation was a horse, a racehorse that won the Triple Crown in 1948. Last one to do it for 25 years before Secretariat in 1973. That may be the attraction to the name for both Ford (Edsel) and later Chevy.
I heard then the monicker Chapparal was also studied for the car code-named “Panther” who’ll became the Camaro.
For me Chapparal brings to mind the builder of racing cars, and specifically the 2J “vacuum car”. Would be a shame to apply it to a mere sedan (and a lousy one at that), plus I wonder if they had it trademarked.
Then again, that knowledge would only be shared by a small group of gearheads and racing fans…
Chevy just missed a meaningful name with El Camino. Should have been El Camion. (It’s a truck, not a road!)
Ford “Probe?” Perhaps GM should have brought out the Chevy “Catheter” just to compete.
I vote for Colostomy!
I think the follow up to the Ford Probe was the Chevy Climax. 🙂 Or maybe Chlamydia?
Hmm, Ford has a Power Stroke and Dodge has a Cummins; Chevrolet has the Duramax.
Such wonderful innuendo on all three counts.
Could have been the prelude to the Chevy Colonic…
Chevy Clap (ready for derision: Clapper, Crap, Claptrap …)
Friend: “So what did you get?”
New-car owner:”I got the Clap!”
Voice-over: Get the Clap at your Chevy dealer today!
Any real celebrity wanting to escape public attention would drive a ubiquitous car like this.
“Citation” can suggest an award? or the like, which was Chevy’s intention, but it’s not the 1st meaning one thinks of around vehicles. It’s also a boring term in scholarship; “op. cit.” abbreviates “opera citato,” or “work cited” in Latin.
I remember some comedian commenting on how no actual celebrity would be seen driving a Celebrity!
When the Celebrity was new, I never thought they would last. The four banger sideways under the short hood with the sure to be weak new fangled transaxle. No room to work under there and too much electronic mumbo jumbo.
But here it is all these years later chugging away happily just like an old Chevelle should. Makes me want to sing “Like a Rock”
All of these A bodies are actually good cars for what they are: cheap, honest basic transportation. Sure, theyre ugly, slow, boring and have all the personality of a light switch. But the same can be said of pretty much ANY midsize sedan, at least when compared to more interesting cars. Im no fan of GM but they got these cars right as evidenced by how long they stayed in production.
Let me fix your last sentence:
“…but they eventually got these cars right because of how long they stayed in production”
Build the same car for almost twenty years, and one would hope that even GM would eventually figure out how to build it right. Good luck finding one of the first year or two or three; and that applies to almost any GM car.
I think the secret to longevity in nearly any car is to find one with a long production run and buy one from near the end, actually…
I agree, GM did brag about getting the bugs worked out of 90’s Cieras/Centurys. But, was like trying to sell 70’s polyester leisure suits to Gen X’ers.
“I agree, GM did brag about getting the bugs worked out of 90’s Cieras/Centurys. But, was like trying to sell 70’s polyester leisure suits to Gen X’ers.”
As a Gen Xer myself, I can assure you that the only time people our age were driving these A bodies, they were mostly hand me downs when we were in H.S. or college. Beggars cant be choosers, y’know.
In the southeast in these times, GM cars were strong sellers to our generation, but it would’ve been a Beretta, Grand Prix coupe, S-10 p/u or Blazer, C/K series, J cars or a 3rd gen F body. These A bodies are family cars and in those days if you didn’t have a family or if you weren’t planning your retirement, you did NOT want to be caught dead in a family car.
Well, I could probably find an early Camaro Berlinetta just a few posts up.
I don’t think you are completely wrong about what you are saying Paul, but your sample of GMers in Eugene is not representative, due to their deep unpopularity with the people there. I expect an early Celebrity would only be in Eugene because of a students inheritance. The kind of people who bought them new just don’t live there. You mentioned the same effect about your own truck verses the Hilux in the Courier article.
There are always exceptions 🙂
I don’t understand your point about Eugene, and disagree. Back in the 70s and 80s, Eugene wasn’t all about Toyotas.
Furthermore, I suspect that a rather healthy percentage of the older American cars I see here (and there are plenty) were not bought new, but bought used, possibly former rental cars and such. But all that is academic.
The real point is that I have observed the phenomena over and over for quite some decades now: The big Three, especially GM, were quite consistently challenged to introduce a new car without a significant “issues”. That stands in pretty stark contrast to the Japanese, who almost universally avoided that problem.
It’s one of the key reasons GM’s market share declined so strongly in the 80s, and led to its ultimate demise. Folks got very tired of being GM’s beta testers, and having to pay (through the nose) for the privilege.
@Paul: Just a few nights ago on NPR’s This American Life, I heard the story (rebroadcast from 2010) of how GM’s Fremont plant, possibly the worst in the nation, was turned around by a joint venture to become NUMMI, and how the lessons learned from the Japanese model of production are still in use today. It was really neat to hear firsthand accounts from some of the managers, plant workers, etc. at the time. One floor worker talked about how sometimes Regals would go out into the yard with Monte Carlo front ends, how any kind of drug or alcohol was available during work hours, how the workers were unfireable due to union rules…it was a great listen.
Paul, are you referring to the X cars? If so, youre absolutely right and the issues due to the half baked rushed release is well known. These were an offhoot…a perfected version of the same thing, really. But what issues were still happening with these when they came out? I wasn’t aware there were any by the time the X morphed to the A.
One other thing that you were wrong about: there’s plenty of work room under the hood. I have an old Cutlass wagon with the 3300 that I use for dirty or large chores sometimes and there’s a cavern up there, but it never needs any work.
Very rare car here we didnt get em new but as usual some emigrated in later life I spotted a mint red V6 on trademe recently and saw a blue early version doing lawn ornament duty in my travels, in this part of the world the shitbox Fiat from yesterday would be easier to source bits for.
I think those two “AAA” stickers on the back bumper are a clue to this car’s longevity. Some senior citizen undoubtedly kept the miles down for the first 15 or 20 years, saving the car so that the bulk of it’s aging could occur under the ownership of the hard-living grandchild.
Don’t miss these at all.
Chevrolet celebrity with the 2.8 v6 was a good car. I hope the name celebrity would come back. l miss that chevrolet.
I’m a fan of the Celebrity Eurosport, especially in wagon form.
Back in 1986, I rented a black, loaded Eurosport wagon for a few months while away from home on a project. I wasn’t expecting much since my daily driver was a CRX, but the handling was surprisingly sharp while giving a good highway ride. I grew to like the car even despite the somewhat anemic four under the hood.
I think Chevrolet Cilantro sounds like a nice small CUV.
Only if it were built in Mexico….
When my sister got married (to husband #2), they traded her 2nd generation Celica for a Pontiac G6000. These A body cars, at least the pre-facelift models, have always struck me as looking like they were designed by a very tired computer with almost no human input. Except for the tires/wheels, steering wheel, and the dashboard knobs, the Celebrity is a mass of squares and rectangles.
BTW, my sister’s G was such an enormous POS she vowed never to buy domestic again….and hasn’t to this day.
Corvair.
Corvair Corsa.
Classic (’05 N body Malibu).
CS & CL trim levels too.
Have to remember that New York City cars don’t always rack up a lot of miles over the years, esp. for drivers who rarely leave the boroughs. The sideswipe damage down the passenger side almost certainly happened while parked on the street. Interesting the both front doors had to be replaced. Should have checked the reg. sticker for the correct year, and took a peek at the odometer. I’d bet it hasn’t even hit 100k yet.
There are similar cars in Chicago that never leave Cook County!
And the amount of rust will make you wonder how it even manages to get around Cook County. There is no annual inspection in Illinois (just an emissions inspection every other year for a car older than 5 years old). Thus, rustbuckets and beaters are all too common around Chicago, especially in the winter. A rule of thumb: let the beater go first. That guy is obviously unafraid of hitting something.
Those of us who are old enough can remember when the only “C” word on a Chevrolet was Chevrolet.
My mother in law’s last car was a Citation Eurosport wagon. My wife and I would borrow it when we needed to move something that wouldn’t fit in one of our cars. I remember it being a perfectly acceptable, middle of the road type vehicle that likely was well suited to its target audience. Not the type of car I would consider buying for myself but it certainly wasn’t the worst car I’ve ever driven either.
This is just from hazy memroies, but when Celeb’s were 10 years old, many teens were beating around in them in the 90’s. Just from parking lots near local HS, and mall.
This generation of teens refuse to put down the smart phones to leave their bedrooms!
Considering the risky things teens commonly do in cars, that may not be a bad thing, at least from the perspective of concerned parents.
…In what manner did you think it was even relevant to the conversation to begin belittling the younger generations?
Ford, like Chevy, has the alliteration thing going.
E – Escape, Edge, Explorer
F- Fiesta, Focus, Five Hundred (Taurus), Flex, Fusion (Futura)
Of course there are outliers – Mustang, Thunderbird, Taurus (Five Hundred)
I do like how the back of the Celebrity is concave, including the tail lights. Overall, it is a clean design. One of the first cars I drove, was a gold Eurosport 4-door. Always have a little fond memory for that car. I recall putting a pair of gloves on the rear bumper, forgetting them, and then going to the store about 7 miles away, 50 mph at least – and the gloves were still there! I couldn’t believe it.
The “Hey, let’s make everything at Ford start with E or F” ended up being a near-disaster in its execution. Instead of improving the flagging Windstar and Taurus, which, while inferior to their competitors, at least had some name recognition, Ford decided to dump them completely for the untested names Freestar (which was fundamentally just a different front end on the c. 2001 Windstar) and Fusion (which, admittedly, turned out to be pretty good). At least the Five Hundred, which was a competent platform, got to wear the Taurus name after Mulally reminded everyone that, y’know, it’s not a bad thing to have 20 years of positive association with a model name.
But at at the end of the day, very little changed. The Crown Victoria, Ranger, and Mustang soldiered on.
Speaking of Edsel models, perhaps AMC should have researched the Pacer name a bit more thoroughly. Not exactly a good omen…
This is a 1986 plus Celebrity due to the Third Brake Light and the DUT plate is from mid-2007. Though Carfax says this Celebrity is from 1985. Anyone else notice what looks like an aftermarket trunk lock? The last road going Celebrity I recall seeing in Tompkins County was a 1982 model year driven by one of the district’s school bus drivers and it was scrapped around 2006 or so. I would agree that Downstate is not as hard on vehicles compared to Upstate, but this Celebrity seems (a bit) excessively rusty.
The rear Bull Bars in these photos sure are interesting since while I have seen a number of front Bull Bars on Lexus taxicabs among other vehicles their rear end brethren are not so common it seems. That Lincoln with the droopy nose and mismatched body panels sure is eye catching.
The CHMSL in the back window looks aftermarket, probably has been there for many, many years. In 1986, Celebrities (like Caprices) got restyled with rounded fascias front and rear and smaller quad headlights, then got halogen “aero” headlights for ’87. I haven’t seen an 82-85 Celebrity like this in over a decade.
Trunk lock was probably broken/broken into at some point. Looks like they riveted a piece of metal over it.
That trunk lock has an anti-jimmy plate bolted around the bezel. It’s meant to be an extra piece of hardened metal so no thief could either slide-hammer out or pry out the lock cylinder easily. This was very common on street-parked cars in big cities years ago.
Just saw a Celebrity in Portland, OR last night and I bet there are others about.
Thank you for the info.
William, after the first installment (with the really nice ute), my mind kind of assumed that the whole series would be from the Southern hemisphere and thought – why would they sell a Celebrity in Australia? I was poised to read and find out… Then I realized it was parked on the right (starboard!) side of the road and was disappointed.
Like the series though. Keep it up!
What would one call a variant of the CC Effect where the vehicle in question is the same all but extinct model featured on CC that day, but in a 180 degree opposite condition? That’s what I saw in a grocery store parking lot in Florissant, MO yesterday. Dark blue Celebrity sedan, pre-’86, in almost perfect condition. The “almost” part was a missing factory original wire wheel cover.
The one company I worked for a had a motor pool and they bought a lot of Celebritys back in the day. We had a bunch of the early 1980’s versions with the 2.8 and auto box. Those were not the best cars, they had many problems and some of them had really bad drivability issues.
When the fuel injected 4 cylinder models came out in the mid 1980’s they were much better than the old carbureted V6 ones; the fuelie V6’s were beasts compared to the older ones. Those fleet cars were pleasant cars to drive, rather bland, but had good stereos and air conditioning. Not unlike many cars today, they just did their job(s).
With the passing of 30+ years, I find the Eurosport Celebs interesting, particularly the wagons. A nice later 80’s with the fuel injected motor and the black out trim would be a nice cheap wheels car for me.
Still a few Celebrities here, the other day I saw an early model wagon that I don’t recall seeing before.
I got a deal on a four year old Celebrity wagon and drove it for a year. In some ways it was outstanding, but weak on finish and refinement. It was really cheap in some areas such as the exhaust manifold that was about as thick as a beer can, and the A/C line that leaked from every joint. Oh, and the sticky steering rack. I wound up selling it to by a Volvo DL, which was plenty refined and even more unreliable.
Team Celebrity all the way! This is the one car of the three that I actually have some experience with, having ridden in a navy-blue ’84 wagon to school in the morning from 7th Grade through 9th, with a friend’s Mom taking a bunch of us to school in the morning. So many friends / families had these cars. Compared to the Taurus, they seemed so clunky – but commodious and functional.
One of my mom’s best girlfriends had bought a new, inaugural-year ’82 *2-door* to the house, and I remember being really excited to see a new Chevrolet model in our driveway. I thought it looked like a big Cavalier, but I liked those, too. I remember straining to remember the name “Celebrity” after I had witnessed my first one.
I seem to recall reading about how “Celebrity” was used by Oldsmobile in the 60’s for upscale Jetfires, maybe? The one car I read about had about six names. I just Googled “Oldsmobile Celebity”, and besides 80’s Cieras, came up with a 1962 Oldsmobile Super 88 Celebrity. It’s not just super…it’s a celebrity! 🙂