Here’s one New Year’s resolution that just didn’t last long. I had promised myself the next time I shared a CC For Sale, I would do so from a US-sourced ad. But well, what can I do? These things just pop into my FB feed and the locals in El Salvador just put together these contraptions that I just feel will be interesting to share.
Keyword in that previous sentence is ‘interesting.’ I didn’t say ‘good’ or ‘great.’ After all, I don’t know many who would consider a Toyota engine on a Vega body a good idea. Not that it’s a bad one either. I just doubt this conversion is the result of a conscientious study on the subject. Knowing the locals, this unusual Toyota-GM melange was likely the result of:
- A Vega body with a dead engine in someone’s garage selling for peanuts and…
- A Toyota engine lying around someone’s workshop.
The former is rare (the Vega body, I mean), the latter, commonplace around here. With the two at hand, someone just figured, why not?
In any case, this Vega is a ’77. The owner is selling due to ‘cash flow issues,’ and considers it a ‘project’ 80% complete. What kind of project, I’ll leave you to decide. It does have a very telling “Crazy Dreams Car’s Club” sticker on the windshield, though the idea of an efficient and reliable engine on a Vega shouldn’t sound so crazy.
Ok, don’t pile on me. I do know that by ’77 these had improved. After all, this ’77 is still standing. Sans the original engine, but still standing.
As for how it drives, Toyota’s 21R was built from 1978 through 1987, and the 2L engine provided 99 HP with 114 lb. ft at 4000 RPM. I would think in a great number of respects an improvement over the original engine, but I suspect there are a lot of loose ends on this ‘project.’ Also, no mention of what other mods were done on the drivetrain, but I doubt the original tranny is in there.
Then again, the seller is not promising a ‘finished’ product.
Images come from the sales ad. Not the best quality, and hopefully not a reflection of the seller’s capabilities. Wish I had come across this one to take some better pics, but even if the location is quite evident in the photos (A public school in greater San Salvador), I don’t intend to look for it at all. Annoyingly, it’s in an area not known for its safety. Quite the opposite, actually. And as much as I like cars, I also happen to have a great fondness for staying alive.
So, forgive me. We’ll just have to make do with these low-res photos.
Too bad the Vega was such a lousy product at launch, as I always found it a nice cute car. Such a nasty rep to live with. That said, I don’t think the ‘Hand Wash Only’ sticker on the rear fender is meant as a pun (though it works rather well). Rather, the unintended joke is the result of the locals’ fondness for pointless stickers and badges. Or so I’d like to think.
Regardless of rep, someone did think this old Vega was worth reviving and turning it into something else. A better car than ever perhaps?
And well, while I doubt anyone would go through the trouble to import this Toyota-GM mix stateside, here’s the ad’s link. Proof that I’m not just imagining things.
Further reading:
Curbside Classic: Winner Of 1971 Small Car Comparison And GM’s Deadly Sin No. 2
Neat project. Sounds like how the people of Cuba keep their old “Yank Tanks” pre 1959 classics going. We may be doing this in the US more often if new ICE cars can no longer be sold new.
Neat project…if one had time on ones hands and just wanted to mess around.
I’d like it much better without the black-painted front clip. Keeping the whole car orange would have been much preferable by not giving the whole thing a decidedly handmade look. Then again, from many of your other posts from down there, it looks like “handmade” is a desirable look.
I’m also not at all sure what’s going on with the rock behind the rear wheel when the car seems to be parked on level ground. Maybe it you’re right and the transmission bugs aren’t worked out. There’s only reverse, and no clutch, and no brakes?
With the obligatory rock to keep it from rolling away 🙂
This is quite interesting, a mostly unrusted Vega with a reliable motor. Now just do something about the decomposing interior plastics and you’d have quite a nice little sport coupe. Almost as good as a Celica, but with better styling.
What’s going on with the blue headlights?
A huge mechanical drivability and durability improvement over the original set-up. If one is prepared to endure ‘70s small car ergonomics and interior room, along with 50 year old driving dynamics generally, this becomes a worthy choice. What small remnants that are left of the original U.S. Vega population are beginning to get quite a following, at least as measured by the intensity of interest by a few, if not a broadly based attraction. Interesting things often turn up in unexpected places.
The crowning touch to a Vega.
Just before I was pressured to sell my 74 Vega GT around 1990, I had explored some engine options to replace the original 2.3 litre 4 banger.
A 2.8 litre GM V6 was about right and that size engine was common in scrapyards back
in the early nineties. A V8 was never in the cards and would have created other issues.
After reading the article, a 4 cylinder from a Japanese car would have done the job nicely.
Even when I sold my Vega in 1980, when Japanese cars were common and had been around here long enough that I’m sure lots of used Toyota Celica and Datsun 510 engines were readily available, I don’t think anyone would have thought of a swap like this. It was just GM V6 and SBC. However the wheel trim rings from y Vega were stolen: they were popular to snap onto Corvair rims, which were a common swap onto Datsun 510’s. A 5.5” rim with 185/70-13 tires was the hot setup on a 510 in those days. So GM parts swapped to a Japanese car were more common than vice-versa.
When i was in the Air Force Reserve many years ago, a friend who had a Vega replaced the original engine with a 2.0 liter engine from a Ford Pinto. As I remember, the conversion was quite successful, the Pinto engine would have been a vast improvement.
iA Toyota ‘R’ series motor in the Vega (instead of the Meltdown-O-Matic 2300) could’ve altered the history and trajectory of GM…….
The most off-the-wall Vega engine swap I had ever seen was a 2.8 V-6 out of a Capri stuck under the hood of a Red 1972 Vega GT. Whoever swapped it in did a tidy job-it looked like it belonged there.
A much worse idea for most of you : I must be the only one dreaming of putting a 2.7 Tacoma in a pony car like the first gen Camaro . All show, no go :This would suit me perfectly as a daily driver. I don’t know if the following guy has finalized his more radical “dream”.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1102704_prius-v-power-plus-pontiac-pony-car-equals-firebird-hybrid