I’m not going to speculate how this Sunbird ended up in Lima, Peru; maybe some migratory instinct? But here it is, caught in the lens of Rivera Notario; proof that Sunbirds can still fly after all these decades, given a little love, a commodity that it found in somewhat scarcer quantities hereabouts.
J Cars have offically been listed as “threatened” under the Edangered Vehicle Act. How much longer before they’re extinct, except for a few preserved examples kept for breeding experiments, which have not yet borne fruit.
Perhaps flying too close to the sun damaged its chromosomes?
My aunt, God rest her soul, was a prison guard for 20 years. About half that, she drove one of these, in dark maroon. She jokingly called it her Mercedes.
She later upgraded to a 4 cylinder Ranger that she drove until retirement.
(She had a nice Olds 88, then a Buick LeSabre, after Olds went away, for all other driving.)
My first car was the first-year version of this, a 1982 (really an ’81-1/2, it had a spring intro) J2000, which is what Pontiac called this car for the first year only before eventually reverting to Sunbird. Already was four years old when I bought it but still looked almost new. The featured car is from several facelifts later, now only with superficial differences from the Chevy Cavalier like grille texture and taillight lenses, whereas in 1982 the entire front clip was very different and the rear lights were at least a different shape. There were quite a few mechanical upgrades before the first year’s production was even through, including a new engine choice (Brazilian fuel-injected OHC 1.8L optional rather than the carbureted Chevrolet 1.8L that my car had). The second year brought a smoother-shifting manual finally with a 5th gear. Handling and ride improvements too, which I could sample back-to-back thanks to a 1987 J body I rented while I owned the 1982. The J2000/Sunbird had a very long run – spring 1981 through 1994 in a single generation. To put that in perspective, there were five generations of Honda Accords produced during the Sunbird’s run!
The Pontiac Sunfire that appeared in 1995 with a all-new body but still on the 1982 J platform (with some updates) also stuck around for for an inordinately long 11 years.
Pontiac phased in the change from J2000 to Sunbird.
’82 – J2000
’83 – 2000
’84 – 2000 Sunbird
’85 to ’94 – Sunbird
The convertible that first appeared in ’83 was also called 2000 Sunbird, before the other body styles took that name for ’84.
My parents bought a new ’84 Sunbird, kind of mimicing my sister’s earlier purchase of one that same year (parents lived 1900 miles from my sister). This after their ’78 Chevy Caprice Classic wagon was in an accident that my Dad didn’t want to bother getting it fixed.
Well, he should have bothered to…the Sunbird turned out to be the worst car he ever owned. Probably just his particular example, my sister’s was alright (other than rusting out, but most cars did where she lives). Despite being maintained at the dealer, it first threw a timing belt at less than 1k miles, needed a new engine at about 40k, and the replacement itself threw a rod at less than 80k miles (e.g. 40k on the replacement.
It was enough to put my Dad off on GM for awhile, he bought a Dodge 600 then 3 Mercury Sables in a row, before he went back and his last 2 cars were Chevy Impalas, which were fine (Mom still has the 2nd Impala). I know there are sample bad cars, but this one must have been built on a Friday, not just the engine but had leaky power steering, and switchgear regularly went bad on it.
It was scrapped by about 1991 (only 7 years old) when 2nd engine threw a rod.
When I first started traveling to Taiwan for work in the late ‘90’s, Sunbirds (and Tempo’s, and Neons as well as Chrysler LH cars) were quite common. I don’t remember other J Cars. My Taiwanese counterpart had a maroon Sunbird; he was a very talented mechanical engineer and thought it was a great car. But he ended up totaling it and if I recall correctly switched to a more generic Japanese brand. By my last visit to Taiwan around 2011, the American cars were mostly gone, with the exception of an occasional F150 or full size van, which literally stood out in dense Taipei traffic.
I’m trying to reconcile talented mechanical engineer with thought the Sunbird was a great car. Does not compute!
I had the same disconnect at the time. And when he came to the US and I drove him around in our Corolla, he was surprised that I could drive a manual transmission – and even more surprised that the Corolla was usually my wife’s daily driver, so she could drive a stick also. And his Sunbird, like every private car I rode in in Taiwan, and most newer taxis there, was an automatic. But he WAS a great engineer … just not a car guy.
Can we go back to paperboard or vinyl headliners held in place by metal strips every 12 inches or so? Every car with a modern-style glued upholstery-over-foam headliner will droop if you own it long enough…
Those bow-hung headliners you like had finite lifespans, as well. Either way, if you own a car long enough, you’re likely to have to replace the headliner. Either way, that’s entirely possible; either way, such a car is far too old for the automaker to care about.
(Back to paperboard headliners?! Shirley, you can’t be serious…!)
or whatever was on the ceiling of the ’66 Dodge Polara wagon i rode in as a kid and still looked new after 17 years. Looked like perforated, painted cardboard. Don’t know what it was actually made of.
Sounds like the stuff the upholstered foam is glued to in newer cars.
Perú used to allow the import of used cars. Most came from Japan, but not all 🙂
Pardon my ignorance, but if Peru drives on the right (LHD), how did it allow used imports from Japan, which drives on the left (RHD)?
Most countries allow wrong-hand-drive cars. There are problems with this—the driver’s sightlines are hindered in ways that make crashes more likely (Study 1, Study 2, Study 3), and the wrong-side-of-road headlamps are safety hazards as well.
There’s a nice industry of converting RHD to LHD. As far as I know (here in Uruguay that’s not allowed, but I’ve seen lots of them in Paraguay) the dahsboard is reversed (either exchanged or literally torn down and glued again, depending on the quality of the work), all steering and braking mechanicals are also changed. You can easily recognize them because the wipers are left as original, the lever in automatic cars has the button in the other side, and several lower quality conversions keep many controls on the wrong side. As for headlamps, airbags, and other safety measures that are probably related to the side of the road, I don’t think they are taken into account.