Several months ago I was wandering around near the Rock River during flood season, looking for CCs. As the banks had flooded the road, all of the nearby homeowners were parked on the access road. Walking back to the car, I saw these three late-model cars and just had to take a picture. All are cars that are rarely seen around here–a PT Cruiser convertible, a well-preserved Cav Z24, and a final-gen Eclipse.
And before you J-car fanciers get all wound up over my calling a Cavalier rare, let me tell you that most Cavaliers around here are the el cheapo verison and either pretty worn out or boy-racer modified–even the final-year ’05s. I am guessing that the owner of the burnt-orange example here is the original owner, as it was mint. And the PT–could Michael Scott have moved to Illinois from Scranton?
So, which one would you pick: the PT, the Cav or the Mitsubishi? Or one of the kayaks, perhaps?
For a car built well into the 21st century, those Cavaliers are pretty impressive in the sheer speed at which they deterioarte.
Most modern cars take AT LEAST 9 or 10 years to start looking really beat up (usually longer), but Cavaliers can easily reach the “beater” stage of automotive life by year 6 or 7. We’ve gotten to point where even though the newest ’05 models aren’t quite ten years old, it’s difficult to find any Cavalier without missing hubcabs, peeling trim, dents, and/or rust.
I’ve noticed mid-2000s Aveos and small Kias have similar deterioration rates, but nothing quite trumps the Cavalier in disposable-ness.
It’s difficult around here to find a Cavalier or Sunfire that not only doesn’t have rust, but isn’t driven by someone with their hat on backwards wearing a UFC T-shirt.
Very true around Albuquerque, especially with the Pontiac for some reason. As I’ve said before, no other semi-modern automobile says “I park this car on my lawn” like a Sunfire.
Mazda 3s seem to rust particularly badly in Central Canada.
As bad as those are, they were better than the 2001-2004 Proteges, especially the Protege5. Those were shockingly rust prone.
But does it have more to do with the car itself or the types of owners that gravitate towards the car?
The types of owners. I can show you many fine examples of the Cavalier in question (also the PT Cruisers and probably the Eclipses, too) owned by older, more affluent people. They seem to hold up as well as any other car.
All too frequently the least expensive cars in the lineup go to the least capable of caring for a car, or in the case of high school kids, the least capable of caring about a car. I saw this repeatedly when I was selling cars. We’d get someone in a cheap-o Tercel and then see it six months later, totally trashed. Or on the hook of the wrecker, even.
It seems to be a fact of life.
Why would an older “affluent” person be driving a Cavalier let alone “many”?
They’re cheap cars that are rarely taken care of. People drive Cavaliers because they don’t have much money.
To clarify my comment further, I would say that the older, more affluent owners are relative to the backwards UFC hat-wearing ones. Or the high school ones. I live near a rather large retirement community, many of the older folks who didn’t hang on to their last land barge usually have something small and practical. Four-door Cavaliers, Focus, Corollas, etc.
Everyday cars, nothing fancy.
“More affluent” may be relative but “older” is not. Show me a well-preserved Cavalier (and all the good ones I see are sedans) and I’ll show you an owner in his/her late 80s or 90s who’s had Chevys since the vacuum-shift days.
The purchase process had been that their needs and budget called for a compact car, this was the one Chevrolet made, and that was that. Nobody who cross-shopped a Focus (let alone Honda or Toyota) ended up with a Cav.
6 or 7 years before decay seems too long. I grew up all around this generation Cavalier — friends had them, neighbors had them, my extended family had them, teachers had them, ect. I can say first hand in outright confidence that these cars were shit piles, every last one of them. These rusted worse than any other 90s-00s car, were put together with the most brittle and warp prone plastics/rubber pieces and creaked and rattled without even moving. These aren’t the results of owner abuse. Not unless owner abuse means actually driving it to places like it’s designed to every day and not just sit in a garage and maybe get driven to church on Sunday by an elderly owner. No, owner abuse means spilling crap on the carpet, not changing fluids or getting into accidents without repair(which I also wouldn’t blame since these plummeted in depreciation and weren’t worth fixing).
The 95+ Cavalier is what instantly pops into my head when I hear disposable car, actually, they are my personal benchmark for that term. Legitimate owner abuse may accelerate the inevitable but these cars frankly deserve the abuse. Glue the side moldings back on and then the mirror falls off, glue the mirror back on and then the freaking dash cracks!
I have seen early-mid 00s Cavaliers, Kias, and Hyundais, along with the occasional BMW or Mercedes that are completely smashed bondo buckets while in the Bronx and parts of Queens. It seems that the trend with cars becoming beaters is the first ones to enter that stage are either bottom rung econoboxes that could have possibly been beaters from the factory or high mileage/salvage title luxury cars that some low income status seeker got their hands on. NYC cars also tend to get more abuse than cars from the suburbs.
I never understood the derision accorded the Cruiser. I’ve never driven one, either, so perhaps my judgement is incomplete. On paper, a Turbo PT with a manual transmission would be my choice. I’ve had the Eclipse – or I should say its Chrysler twin – and found it impossibly difficult to do simple repairs, at least in V6 trim. The Chevrolet I also have never driven, but as a green inventory grunt for GMAC in the 70’s I had a Pontiac Sunbird driver with an obscure small V8 and a four speed that was ridiculous fun to drive. I have noticed that the Cavalier turbo versions are creeping up in price, at least in the Craigslist context, so someone out there is voting with their wallets. However, since my primary residence is the coast, a good kayak is mandatory for Cascade Head and Salmon River estuary exploration. I guess with some imagination and good fishing, the kayak could work as primary transportation.
When was there ever a “turbo version” Cavalier?
We used to have a PT Cruiser that was my wife’s daily driver; it had the high output turbo and automatic. It was a very entertaining car to drive in the sense that you needed to pay attention to what you were doing. It didn’t take long to learn that too much throttle got you wheelspin (if the front wheels were aimed straight ahead), or an unexpected lane change (if the wheels were turned off center). I can’t speak about the Cruiser’s reliabilty as we purchased it new and only kept it three years or so; it never quit or left us stranded. It did have a fault in the ABS circuit that three different Chrysler dealers could not diagnose or fix, and that would have been an issue if we had kept the car. It got traded in on a Camry as my wife wanted a bigger car.
The only thing I can say about the PTs reliability is they used to be everywhere, not so much anymore. They seem to be dropping pretty quick. They always had a rep as a “girls car” too. I think they’re ugly personally but my 70 year old aunt loved them and wanted one.
You’re probably thinking of the Cobalt SS, which was available in both supercharged and turbocharged versions, there is no such thing as a turbo Cavalier, also the car in the picture is not a Cavalier Z24, its a fancied up base model.
Probably one of the more popular, “sun n chrome” packages that offered chrome wheels and a sunroof, or chrome wheels and a CD player. Cavalier Z24’s had bigger wheels than the car in the photo.
There was never a Cavalier turbo, but I know other J cars had turbo versions, the Pontiac Sunbird, and I think the Buick Skyhawk
A lot of other cars had turbos. Cavaliers never did though.
He also mentioned some “obscure” V8 in his Sunbird, the only V8 I could in Sunbirds was the Chevy 305, which isn’t exactly “obscure”
Well, they’re probably not super common. Pontiac and Chevrolet stuck Chevy V8’s in their H-specials, Oldsmobile stuck the little 260 V8 in a couple of them and Buick only offered the 3.8 V6 in its Skyhawk.
There were turbo J-cars, but only in the Pontiac and Buick versions from what I recall, the big engine option in the Cavalier was the 2.8/3.1 V6.
Chevy 305s are common as dirt man. They were in everything in the 80s. Chevy even put it in the Corvette at one point, it was in the IROC Z, caprices, etc.
No, I mean 305 Chevrolet engines in a 1976-1980 Pontiac Sunbrid to be clear, THAT is not all that common, but thanks for letting me know that the “305” is common, I really wasn’t sure…….
Thanks for the info Carmine. I assumed the Z24 had those chrome wheels. I guess it’s a loaded-up LS then.
I remember the circa 2000-02 Z24s had wheels that looked a lot like the Porsche Fuchs wheels. I remember seeing a 2000 Z24 on the showroom floor at Mills Chevrolet in (I think) Polo Green. I thought it was a pretty sharp little coupe. Last summer I saw a red 1995 or so Z24 convertible with the white interior, in really nice shape. Yet another car I need to write up!
I always thought the Z24 was slick looking, when I sold Chevies in 1995-1996, we hardly ever had any on the lot though, tons of regular Cavaliers, but only a few Z24’s.
That’s an LS Sport, which replaced the Z24 after the 2003 refresh. My aunt has one.
You can have the kayaks, as I’m a john-boat kind of guy, but the Cavalier stands out especially. Our esteemed commenter GEOZINGER can attest to their durability, as can I, since we bought a used 1997 for our daughter in 2000, replacing our dearly-beloved 1990 Acclaim, which she beat up really bad.
Funny, all the time she drove the Cavalier, she LOVED the car, and never put scratch on it or tore it up!
The Cavalier relocated across the street when a neighbor bought it for their daughter, and it remained in the family for years!
The PT Cruiser? Yes, of course it will be a CC as well. Make mine a Dream Cruiser, and the “wood” had better be in fine shape!
Was the Cavalier a coupe? Were you able to get over the fact that the rear windows didn’t roll down?
Ha ha! Our daughter’s Cavalier was a sedan – she carried too much stuff to-and-from college in those days!
Yep, my 1997 Coupe is STILL on the road, 261,000 miles. My younger daughter drives it, but rarely. But she really doesn’t like to drive…
Like so many of her generation, they hang out online, not in person, so they really don’t drive much. It’s probably not a bad thing overall, just think of all of the dead dinosaurs we smoked just crusing for chicks! 😉
Say whatever you want about the old Cockroaches, mine is still hanging in there…
Gawd what a decision. To be honest, it would depend on whether or not the Cavalier or the Mitsu were manually driven, especially if the Eclipse has the 6spd. Otherwise it would be a toss-up on which had the best stereo. The PT Cruiser would not be in my list of choices as it is and always has been an ugly wart of a car with poor reliability, as well as that uncomfortable dining-room-chair seating where it feels like I’m sitting on the car, not in it.
I agree they are all potential CC material. I wouldn’t want to own any of them though, especially not the Cavalier.
They are CC material, especially the Eclipse. That car was such a massive disappointment and a great embodiment of what happened to Mitsubishi, which some blame on Daimler.
I don’t know how much more expensive it would’ve been to re-body the Lancer and drop in a turbo motor instead of reskinning the V6 Galant to create the 3rd and 4th generation Eclipse. They could have sold many more cars that way, instead of bringing the Lancer Evo over. That car had a great reputation but didn’t have the established sales history the Eclipse GSX did.
Depressing, really.
True, this a Eclipse was the final nail in the coffin for what, at one time, was one of the most popular sport coupes sold in the US, the previous generation did the Eclipse line no flavors either, I feel that was when the Eclipse jumped the shark.
Its interesting to recall though, what a large line up of cars Mitsubishi had in the 90’s compared to the 3 or so cars it barely sells today, there was the tech filled 3000GT sport car flagship, Diamante, Galant, Eclipse, Mirage, Montero, etc etc, I’m sure I’m forgetting a few, and Mitsubishi pushed the interesting technology, AWD, AWS, turbos, adjustable suspensions, they had interesting potential, and now today, they are fading away into oblivion.
I would not touch the Crapalier. By the last year the Z24 package was offered, it was basically just a cavalier with fancy badging and slightly better seats.
I drove a PT sedan as a loaner for a few weeks and also drove a stick version of the sedan and I liked it well enough.
The Mitsu? Well I will admit I like the Eclipse ever since the first one with the pop up headlights arrived.
It competed with the Probe, Prelude, Celica, MX-6 and by the time it the last one left the factory, it was the last that group made.
The Cavalier in question is most likely an LS Sport. That designation replaced the Z24 in 2003, IIRC. With the 2.2 Ecotec and the 4T40 autobox (or a richtige Getrag getrieb, if you’re lucky), it’s a nearly bulletproof little Cockroach of the Road (TM).
The major drawback to these cars is that they did not get the rear inner fender liner that the Sunfires of the same vintage did; the rear quarters under the side windows will eventually burst with rust. Why they cheaped out there, I’ll never understand.
Early 02 was the last time a Z24 existed, the 02’s are actually pretty rare. It was replaced with the LS Sport package when the 2.2 Ecotec took over for the 2.4 (quad 4) and 2.2 ohv engine.
I had an 02 Z24. It was pretty quick and rode/handled nicely, always got 32mpg no matter how I drove it. Put about 75K miles on it with only needing to replace wheel bearing in the front end.
The once annoyance it had was the getrag 5 speed used to rattle when accelerating in first gear under 2400 rpm. I brought it in to have it fixed under warranty and they showed me the TSB that said it was normal and they can’t fix it.
Gave it to my sister who put another 50K trouble free miles on it until it was traded on a G6.
Future CC’s, yep. My pick? Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority…
Three good future CC’s, and not just for the vehicles, themselves, but how they represent the companies that manufactured them and where they were ultimately headed. All three were bottom-feeder players, aimed at the lowest end of the market. If you could provide a pay-stub for the most menial McJob, it wasn’t particularly difficult to get into a small, basic Dodge, Chevy, or Mitsubishi. Unfortunately, the cars’ low-cost engineering and driving dynamics were all too apparent.
Look at what’s happened to the three companies in the ensuing years since these three, at one time popular cars were sold: GM went bankrupt, saved only by the US government; Chrysler has been bought three times (Daimler, Cerberus, and now Fiat); and Mitsubishi is hanging onto the US market by the thinnest of threads.
Another, somewhat interesting caveat is that all three of these cars were offered as convertibles. Don’t exactly know if that means anything, but, given the dearth of low-cost, affordable convertibles, it might say something.
Future CC’s, indeed.
Gee, Tom – I don’t think anyone has actually answered the question yet – which car would I pick to drive. I understand the reluctance of folks to answer, as this is more like a “pick the least unappealing one”.
I will take the PT – it is a convertible. There. That’s the only reason.
I’ll hop on that bus… Even though I’ve put many thousands of miles on a J body or two, I’d still go with one. I’ve always heard that the last gen of the Eclipse was an understeering hog, and I’m not a big fan of convertibles. If the PT Crusher in mind were a regular one, or a Woodward Cruise edition, that could sway my choice.
But sticking with the three there? The Cav.
Well, it is also a Mopar JP, so you have a second reason 🙂
clown car, disposable car, or chick car…. Hmm
Yeah I’ll take the kayaks
The last J car rolled off the line in 2005, and they are disappearing rapidly here is salt-land. When I see one, it stands out, looking like a 1962 beehive hairdo. They were potato chip durable till the last ones.
On that “other” car website, had a junkyard feature of a 2004 Sunfire, already at Pick and Pull at 9 years old. While same year Focuses are still running strong. We don’t need to mention that a 9 year old Civic is just broken in.
I barrowed friend’s 1999 Z24 when it was 4 years old, and it drove like a 1971 Vega, loud, rough, noisy, c-r-a-p. Rather drive a biege Corolla without a radio.
I had a ’03 PT Cruiser GT 5 door with the manual from Aug ’09 up til this June. It definitely filled the need I had for a 2nd car: good on gas, fun to drive, stylish, useful, good performance and easy to upgrade. I had looked at GTIs but there are some spotty years where reliability is dismal. I don’t much like Japanese cars for the most part, but did check out a Honda element–gutless engine, near impossible to find a manual, and too expensive. I looked pretty hard for a Subaru Baja but since it was offered, a turbo/manual would’ve been all I would be willing to consider and good luck finding one that wasn’t ridiculous overpriced, and I couldn’t find one that wasn’t silver or grey. No thanks. I considered a Dodge SRT-4 being that I love my Mopars but somehow I didn’t realize that the turbo model didn’t debut until the 2-door was killed off. No effing way was I gonna drive a 4 door sedan so that was dead in the water. I test drove a PT GT a year newer with a lot more miles, interior wasn’t great but it hauled ass and handled pretty well. Mine was #2 that I looked at. Didn’t like the color as much (red vs electric blue) had those dopey flame decals and full face chrome wheels on it but with 50K miles, a lower pricetag and it was spotless I couldn’t pass it up. I would absolutely NOT own one of these in any other version than GT/manual trans. If you lower it a bit, upgrade the swaybars and do a few basic turbo tweeks like hardpipes and lop off the muffler you can have a wild little ride that will turn heads. I had a blowoff valve and a CAI as well as an uncorked exhaust so you best believe people looked surprised to hear a PT spitting such pissed off turbo sounds!
That said, the steering sucked. My singlecab Ram has a better turning radius! I chased down a CEL code related to the evap canister which is to say I had to spend $300 to win an argument with a computer. Seems all it does is tell you if your gas cap is loose, but it takes an expensive failure prone part to do that. My hydraulic clutch master/slave cylinders went out 2 years ago which apparently is a fluke. The clutch always seemed horribly inadequate for the power this car had–and I hadn’t even installed the Mopar Stage 1 upgrade yet. Apparently the disc was getting thin at 77K (not unusual in a high strung turbo car with a leadfoot driver) so I popped for a replacement while everything was apart. What really sucked is that I wanted to upgrade to a HD clutch but it would’ve taken 2 weeks to get it and since I was moving at the time, I needed my car. So replaced with the same crappy piece.
In my opinion, Chrysler really had a winner with the PT at first. But it was a smash hit and they decided to milk it rather than keep it fresh. The Chevy HHR (also a Brian Nesbitt design) realized one thing that the PT didn’t: panel van version. I absolutely LUSTED after the PT panel cruiser concept! It was the right color, and had the GT/5spd drivetrain. If only….
The 260 went in the Pontiac Sunbird. I would guess it had a less than 1% penetration. It was the only one out of 80-100 cars of the Portland Zone. That qualifies as obscure to me. Editing my comments for accuracy hardly a strength – or a necessity. Won’t happen again.
PT convertibles are rare. So rare that until I saw one two summers ago I had forgotten its’ existence extended beyond a show car and the Revell model kit but they had actually built them.