Cars & Coffee events in Brisbane tend to attract the same people so I almost always end up seeing the same cars. I went to a meet last year and expected to see largely the same fleet but, to my delight, the most bizarre of coincidences happened. I found two cars never sold in my country and which I never thought anybody would import. And that’s how the first time I ever saw an Opel Monza in the metal was also the first time I saw a Chevrolet Monza in the metal.
Despite their shared name and overlapping production runs – the Opel was produced from 1978 until 1986, the Chevrolet from 1975 until 1980 – these two Monzas couldn’t be any more different. The Opel sat at the top of its model range, the Chevrolet close to the very bottom. Both were hatchbacks (although the Chevrolet also came in a coupe and a wagon) and both were rear-wheel-drive. The Opel had a range of six-cylinder engines and, later, four-cylinder engines; so did the Chevy. And that’s about where the similarities end.
The Chevrolet Monza, in hatchback coupe form, measured 179.3 inches long and 65.4 inches wide. The Opel was bigger but, being European, was hardly gargantuan for a flagship coupe – it was 184.7 inches long and 68.3 inches wide. That meant it was actually considerably smaller than Chevrolet’s “compact” Nova although its rear seat was no more cramped.
Like the featured Opel Monza from earlier today, this Chevy at Cars & Coffee has some unfortunate cosmetic addenda. It can’t disguise the inherent attractiveness of the Monza’s body, however. It seems odd to refer to a 70s domestic economy car with patchy build quality as “pretty” but the Ferrari-aping design sure turned heads. In contrast, the notchback Towne Coupe and the wagon were handsome, while the “regular” 1978-80 hatchback coupe was inoffensive but a retrograde step from the original (later “Sport”) hatchback.
While this Monza has been heavily worked over, the fender badge is indeed correct – the Monza was available with a 5.7 litre (350 cubic-inch V8) and a two-barrel carb but only in 1975 and only in California and high-altitude areas; other markets had the short-lived 262 cubic-inch V8 that year.
Despite its size, the 350 produced just 125 hp and 235 ft-lbs and wouldn’t hit 60 mph in any less than 10 seconds. It was also only available with a three-speed automatic so, unsurprisingly, this example has been modified in yet another regard.
The owner wasn’t around when I photographed their car so I couldn’t ask what they’d done under the hood. Suffice it to say, though, this car has probably had much of its emissions gear yanked out, among other performance improvements. These were tidy handlers in their day, at least compared to the rival Ford Mustang II. Sticking a V8 in the front did make it slightly nose-heavy, however. With the 262 V8, the Monza had 58:42 front/rear weight distribution.
A Monza is an odd choice of Chevy to import. Camaros don’t quite have the same iconic status as the Mustang here and are far less common on Australian roads so they seem like the natural choice for somebody who wants to import a classic, high-performance Chevy. I salute Monza Man, however, for bringing over something a little unfamiliar. There are precious few Monzas left in their home market, most having rusted away or been modded and hooned to death. To find one in Australia was a bizarre but entirely pleasant stroke of luck.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1979 Chevrolet Monza Coupe – Vega II or Mustang Too?
Vintage Road & Track Comparison: Mustang II V8 vs Monza 2+2 V8 – Battle Of The Pygmy Ponies
I always thought the H-body hatchbacks were a decent shape, the ducktail spoiler on the orange car adds a junior Z/28 vibe that’s not inappropriate, although the side pipes are a bit much.
Considering that the U.S. H-body cars were supposed to have the abortive GM Rotary Combustion Engine, I wonder if anybody tried dropping a Mazda 13B engine in one of these. It’d be better balanced and probably end up with roughly similar overall performance (assuming a naturally aspirated 13B, I’d guess basically similar to the contemporary Mazda Cosmo/RX-5), although it probably wouldn’t have been a great deal less thirsty than than the V-8.
I had a 1975 2+2 fastback with the 262 V8 and 4-speed manual, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It did have a couple of weak spots from not beefing it up enough to handle the V8, but it was a decent-handling car that would cruise at 80 mph at 2000 rpm.
The availability of these cars, I’m sure, reinforced in people’s minds the idea of doing V8 Vegas to the point that it would have taken a really independent thinker to consider a rotary-engine swap into either a Vega or Monza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxv2uEYD6JM
https://www.streetmusclemag.com/news/a-rotary-powered-chevy-vega-begs-the-question-why/
Yep!
As a Vega owner at the time, when I graduated from college and had s regular paycheck, I briefly considered a V8 Monza. Only automatics were available on California, but import laws were more relaxed then and it would have been easy enough to import a 49-State 4 speed V8, which I think by then was a 305 not 262. So one weekend, I test drove a new automatic at a nearby beach town I used to visit regularly. I didn’t buy a Monza, but I now live in that town 40 years later. The former Chevy store now sells only Honda. I find most of Chevy’s 1977 lineup more aesthetically appealing than Honda’s 2019 cars.
The H-body Monza may well be in the top 10 most beautiful GMs, right there with the 70 F bodies and original Riviera. The market position as a pseudo Mustang II competitor or Vega successor(never could quite figure out which) and dollar store market position and quality is all that sullies it. It’s surprising to me examples like this aren’t more common sights with hot rodders, even the original Vega is a more common sight.
Nobody ever figured out whether this was supposed to be a Mustang II competitor or a Vega successor – including GM – although I’ll be tempted to say the former, because for about a year the last use of what we know as the Vega hatchback body was called a Monza. They used the Kammback version until they dropped the line. No windowless delivery wagons were ever done as a Monza, to the best of my knowledge. And then there was that abysmal notchback coupe, with a trunk so shallow that it could barely hold a briefcase.
It was to be a MII competitor, as the Vega was presumed to have a longer lifespan. But the crash and burn of the Vega made it expedient to expand the Monza line into the crappy little Town Coupe (or whatever they were called) as well as the Kammback. Those two were just glorified Vegas with a Monza nameplate.
The Towne Coupe notchback was as different from the Vega as the 2+2 fastback was – they both have a square-cornered windshield and the real-Monza dash introduced for 1976. The wagon, added to the line in ’78 when the Vega nameplate was dropped, has the Vega’s round-cornered windshield and its’ complete dash including strip speedometer.
At Pontiac stores the Sunbird wagon was even more obvious with its’ single round headlights separate from the grille while Sunbird coupes and 2+2s had quad square lights incorporated in a full-width split grille opening. The latter was by far the best-differentiated of the B-O-P H-bodies, making me think it was intended for Chevy AND Pontiac all along while the Buick and Olds were last-minute post OPEC ’74 additions to give those dealers a small car to sell.
There was also a “Monza” version of the Vega hatchback for part of the 1978 model year but only around 2000 units were made, compared to around 50,000 wagons over two years (’78-9).
It has a fatal flaw: the body is too narrow. That somehow worked ok on the Vega, but not on the Monza.
I think the big distinctive quad headlight assemblies (admittedly my least favorite aspect) make it look unflatteringly narrow at some angles, but from the rear views I feel the proportions are near perfect.
On that thought I feel like the Monza is the inverse of the 80s frog eye Ford EXP, the single headlight buckets on that effectively made the Escort body look bulbous.
Hey buddy, I’m kinda biased growing up in Australia, but I’d be including the Holden HQ series in sedan and coupe in that top ten list of GM vehicles.
Ok, I know this car was not a Good car, and it was once so common that it’s hard to see this as beautiful in the way a rare and expensive car is thought of as beautiful, but it really was a beautiful car to me.
The lines on this car are just perfect. It’s nicely balanced, the fenders, hood, doors, and tail are sleek and well defined and simple and clean. The car is nicely balanced and proportioned and the roof and lower body taper in a clean arc and the back window tapers in a nice clean arc and the tail is nicely pulled into a point. There’s enough trim to be subtly decorative. The hood has a nice bulge which tapers back from the almost grilleless nose. The rectangular headlights look sleek and modern without the google eyed look of the round headlights. The car is stanced well and has an attractive amount of body side contouring which flows well from the roof. No extraneous bumps, lumps, scallops, bits of ugly plastic, weird blobby non shapes (I’m thinking of some of the rounded rectangles Ford used as taillights in the ’70’s)
I think this is one of the most attractive cars ever made, and certainly one of the most attractive mass market cars ever made. In the 1970’s there wasn’t a lot of competition for attractive, and there was ugly and less ugly, ranging from various Datsuns and Subarus on the ugly scale to cars like the Colonnades and B/C bodies as less ugly, but everything else was somewhere on the ugly scale. I could see this car as being contemporary even today. Honda apparently thought so and copied parts of it/a Mexican AMC for the Crosstour.
Yes, I KNOW it was a crap car and GM made millions of the things, but to me it’s still gorgeous.
in other words, not this:
I actually like that as well. For a body kit, it’s not hideous.
A ’76 Monza 2+2 in red (four cylinder and five speed) was the successor to my ’73 Vega GT and my second modern car. It was definitely a ‘blue collar GT’ with really good road manners, nice handling, and a very odd European-ish five speed with reverse above first, the right onto second and third, then one more right for fourth and fifth. Basically, first was intended to get you started, and never used afterwards. I do remember it as a very nice shifting transmission.
The big difference between it and my Vega was weight. Where I could throw around the Vega with reckless abandon, a trait that had me auto crossing the car all three years I owned it (and yes, the engine held up), the Monza was obviously heavier in it’s behavior. Any thoughts of autocross were dropped, although I spent a lot of time comfortably rallying it.
Knacker it all you want as GM-junk, it was definitely one of GM’s better cars for the disastrous ’70’s, and I wouldn’t mind owning another one today. Unfortunately, three years later I traded it on a Monza Kammback, V-6 and five speed, which was undoubtedly the worst POS I’ve ever owned.
I agree with most here, i had a blue 75 Monza with the 262 v8 and it drove and handled well. and yes this was a Mustang 2 competitor, although the stang really wasnt much compared to the Monza as the Chevy handled way better and looked much sleeker. The stang was good as a mini Monte Carlo to which i really liked the Monza town coupe. I thought it was a cute mini Cady.
I am an outlier and was never really crazy about this car’s styling. But then I never liked the fastback Mustang II that well either. I preferred the bigger Duster.
The thing I remember about these was the bad press they got because of how it was necessary to unhitch the engine from its mounts and raise the back up in order to access the rear plugs. That V8 was snug, snug, snug. That would not be such a big deal now, but spark plug changes were a more or less annual event back then.
A school roommate had an 80 version, only with the 4 and a stick (4 speed, I think). It was a real contrast with another roommate’s 75 Mustang with a similar drivetrain. The Monza interior seemed like nothing but acres of playskool plastics. It looked terribly cheap next to the much older MII.
I always thought the american Monza was an early “Saturn-ed” Version of the german Monza.
Where I live in the mid west many of those Monzas that survived the rust monster were
tubbed out and turned into drag racers.
Bob
I seemed to recall that this was the 1st US production car with square sealed beam headlamps. Also the 1st US production car to wear cast aluminum wheels. A Monza show car was shown with the cast wheels with the circles in them and the public liked those wheels so much Chevy made them available on their production Monzas.
Bob
One of the best looking, most badass and successful IMSA racers of the era.
… and here is the Aussie connection, Alan Moffat’s car raced in the Australian Group C Sports Sedan championship in the 70s. So the import of the car is not as far-fetched as one may imagine.
Interesting that both the Opel and Chevy have rather gimmicky (bordering on unattractive) B pillars. IMO they look quite plasticky, overstyled, and too broad in proportion to the exterior styling of both cars. Add the B pillar from the 1975 Chev Nova two door hatchback to the mix, and it appeared General Motors at one time had a problem designing tasteful and well integrated B pillars on some of their small, sporty cars.
It compromises the exterior design some, of all three cars. Three overall designs that are quite appealing otherwise. 🙂
That’s period GM. I guess they tried to put some strength back into the body after cutting out that big hatch in the rear. There was a fair bit of band-aid approach to body integrity back in the seventies – remember the Triumph Stag’s awkward B-pillar and roll-bar thingummy? The Aussie Torana hatchback similarly suffered from an overly fat and clumsy B-pillar.
My first (and third!) cars were the Pontiac version of the Monza, so I can’t say anything bad about them. In hindsight I can see how many things about them are less than ideal, but I still think they look fantastic. Mine were both base model 4-cylinders, one stick and one auto. I’d love to get another one, and put the 2.4/6-speed from a Solstice/Sky in it, rather than the usual SBC.
Oh, and the Opel Monza is very cool, I never heard of those until a couple years ago. I think it looks a little like the 82-85 Toyota Supra, probably Because I’ve seen lots of those…
One year only interior seen here. I had a friend who had a Monza, also a ’75 that I rode in once. Sitting in the front passenger seat, I felt like I was almost in another room from the driver, the center floor tunnel was so tall and wide. The ’76 got a completely different dashboard and the floor tunnel was much smaller. Was there something about the intended rotary engine that would have needed the extra space in the larger ’75 tunnel?
I was about to make a correction and note the Monza was never available as a wagon, but I forgot about those rebadged Vega wagons sold as Monzas for the last two years.
My mother at the time had a Pontiac Sunbird 1978 v6 3.8 L , I remenber it was easy to loose the rear end even with the auto trans . I also remenber that I beat easily every Monza with their smaller 3.2 L v6 . BTW there was no Monza station wagon in canada , only the
Véga & Dés-Astre ( lovely built at Ste-Thérèse , Qc where we nickname those in french désastre & dégat … stand for disaster & spill ) had a s-w version available .
I drove a Monza with the 262 V-8 and a manual transmission. The V-8 torque was really fun in the light car but the motor was a real let-down. It didn’t have to be, either. I have always wondered why GM bothered with the 262 to begin with. The 305 was available and made even better torque and power, with no fuel economy penalty.
The good part is bolt on parts for an easy 50 hp were only your parts store away.
I didn’t like the Monza or the Vega for that matter. The seats were on the floor.
Can’t say I’m a fan of the Monza.
Now the Opel Monza is an entirely different matter 👌
My father owned a V8 Monza as a kid. The one thing about it that I remember distinctly is the trouble he had when it came time to do a tune-up. He was not exactly pleased to be told by the Haynes manual that in order to change the rear-most plugs, one must unbolt the two engine mounts on the side and jack the front of the motor up
I kinda forgot about these cars. They were pretty common in the cruising/street race wars of the 1980’s. Seemed like they suddenly disappeared by the ’90’s.
I’m also curious about how it came to Australia… it’s too bad that you could not locate the owner. There might have been an interesting story behind that.
Matt, you can check out the story on the MTAQ (Motor Trades Association of QLD) online magazine, they did an article in Dec/Jan 19.
I am Monza man and there is a story about it on the MTAQ website December/ January 19 online magazine, my name is Simon Lillington, I also have a FB page called OZ Monzas, all the ones I know of in Australia, enjoy