(first posted 9/26/2017) I found myself the other day in Curbsidelandia Ultimate Edition, otherwise known as Portland. It was a short trip, and I only managed to squeeze in a brief 15 minute walk-and-shoot, although I saw all kinds of marvelous CCs from the car. If I ever feel the need for new fodder, I do know where to go.
One of my Holy Grails has been a 1982 Cavalier; the one with the ultra-wheezy carburated 1.8 L four. I needed it to give it its highly deserved Deadly Sin award, and eventually I gave up and used one posted at the Cohort. The results (and 197 comments) are here. When I saw this two-headlight Cavalier wagon, my hopes raised..just a bit. But only a bit, as I was 90% certain it would be an ’83, as the ’82s were so crappy they’ve all long been junked. My hopes were not raised in vain, although I think I’m using that expression a bit differently than usual.
I quickly walked to the rear, to look for the tell-tale badge on the lower left side. Sure enough. The ’82s have no badge, as well as no proper engine.
I’m not going to repeat my Deadly Sin #22 sermon here again, but let’s just say that that GM managed to utterly misjudge the expectations of the market with their new Cavalier, thanks to Honda et al having raised the bar far beyond what the boffins on the 14th floor were even able to comprehend. But then comprehending what small cars were all about was not something they got until quite some years later; decades, actually.
Anyway, the Cavalier fell on its face, thanks in part (but for from wholly) to its anemic, buzzy, phlegmatic, lethargic brand new 1.8 L four. And so for 1983, they rushed out an enlarged and fuel injected (TBI) 2.0 L version that should have been in the 1982. Not that it would have made the Cavalier truly competitive, or compensated for its other weaknesses, but it would have at least been something other than an unmitigated embarrassment.
Typical GM; give us a few years, and we’ll get it the way it should have been at first. but of course by then, the competition will have jumped that much further ahead. Perpetually trying to play catch-up, but falling further behind.
This particular Cavalier wagon is an interesting case, as it exhibits all the signs of long-term productive use that so many old Toyota wagons and such are usually coveted for. But an ’83 Cavalier? Well, they’re just doing their part to keep Portland weird. Old Toyotas are so main stream; need to do something a bit different.
The two headlight front end was only used for two years, so they really are getting scarce. The rear view mirror mounted on the fender is not original, in case we have any Japanese readers.
The roof rails are another sign that this Cavalier is still leading a productive life. Old Cavaliers have become Cockroaches of the Road™, and this might well be the granddaddy of them all. Or is there a 1982 1.8 out there somewhere still running? Given that 196,000 were sold, the odds would suggest yes. But I’m not a gambling man.
I drive a 1990 Cavalier VL 4door. It has just over 70,000 miles on it, and the motor seems unstoppable. The rest of the car, however , is a little flimsy. Sort of like a 4 door Vega with an improved engine.
There’s a single-headlight wagon in my neighborhood in amazing shape that seems to be someone’s daily driver. It’s incredible considering any kind of Cavalier is getting thin here, where the salt flows like champagne in the winter.
I’m driving a 2001 Cavalier, with 192,000 miles on it. And it’s still starting up every morning I ask it to, and taking me where I want to go.
Eventually, GM got the car right. By which time nobody was going to give them credit for having done so.
2001. Also the year GM made a 4 speed auto standard equipment in the Cav. A 3 speed auto in the year 2000. Is that worse than a power glide in 1973?
In GM’s defense Toyota clung on to 4 speed autos way longer than they should have in the Corolla. In Toyota’s defense economy cars generally don’t get cutting edge tech to keep costs economical.
I’m a big fan of the KISS principle, so I’m not a big fan of technology just because. The driving dynamics of the three speed was pretty bad though, from what I remember. Really though, the worst thing about these cars at that point, were the crash ratings. They were pretty abysmal.
It sounds like the archetypal GM Good Used Car. It wasn’t up to the standard of the Ford Focus or (freshly decontented for ’01) Honda Civic as a new car. But as a used car it’s cheap to buy, doesn’t break often, is cheap to fix as these things go when it does, and fulfills the basic requirements of a car with minimal outlay. The ’57 Chevy was just such a car in the ’60s and now it’s near the top of the pantheon of classics.
Chevrolets had the best resale value of the “low-priced three.” They weren’t the disposable cheap option.
That’s precisely what I love about old Saturns! They were a little bit nicer than a Cavalier, but by now, are just as inexpensive.
It also helps that I’ve always found the S-series to be good-looking for what they were. That last facelift of the Cavalier was just ghastly. The car featured here spooks me a little, too.
A shot of the car. Wheels are from a 2000 Neon.. Bumper , headlights, and grille (I cut the slots myself) are from a ’94 Cavalier coupe. Driver’s door is from an ’86 wagon. I do what it takes to keep it on the road.
I, of course, owned an ’82 Type 10 with the 1.8. I lightened the car as much as possible, and disabled the smog pump (it disabled itself, actually, in a cloud of belt smoke when it siezed – I just put a shorter belt on to keep the power steering active). With the 4 speed manual, it actually wasn’t a bad driver, if a bit buzzy when revved.
I’d forgotten that one. You really are the GM DS man! 🙂
I sure know how to pick ’em!
I had a gold Type-10 4-speed. Loved it.
My Army base was on a fuel economy kick in the early ’80s. The base fleet manager figured that since MP patrol cars get so much use, they should all be economy cars. Either that or he wanted to be sure he could outrun us. Anyway, we were issued 5 new ’82 Cavaliers to replace some well worn AMC Concord patrol cars.
My disappointed MPs beat these things unmercifully. I spent a lot of time in the Colonel’s office explaining why I couldn’t keep brand new patrol cars on the road. Since the motor pool was also starting to suffer the Colonel’s wrath, the fleet manager finally caved and let me exchange the Cavaliers for some used slant-6 Volares he agreed to pull from the base taxi service.
The Cavalier pulled off something few cars could. It made a used taxi look like a step up. I’ll bet the base taxi drivers were pissed though.
The fact that first-year cars were going into fleet duty with the Feds at all is a sign of how far GM missed the mark.
How does that work – the base taxi service I mean. I never thought about something like that Who owns the cars, is it the army? Who are the drivers, is that a military job classification or? Who gets the money, Uncle Sam or the drivers or? And lastly, who hails them and where do they go, is it servicemen/women that want to go to a bar or are on leave or?
I truly am curious and have no idea.
I don’t know how the Army did it, I’m retired AF, but on active duty AF bases the base taxi was an on-call service for duty and appointment based needs. Most large bases had on-base bus service – taxi service was the exception when you needed transportation the bus service didn’t cover. Taxis and buses were driven by vehicle operations troops and it was their AFSC (AF Specialty Code, equivalent of an Army MOS). As far as I know base taxi services have been pretty much phased out – the days of first-term airmen not having their own cars are long in the past. Plus the post-911security measures would make base taxis a bit problematic.
When I was a kid we had that wagon in blue. 83 dual headlights automatic
Had it six months before it was totaled. It was 6 years old when we got it. Held up well in the wreck. We drove it another 18 months
Portland must be different all right, because I haven’t seen a Cavalier wagon in ages. Possibly because there’s no place to mount the giant racing wing, which many of the survivors have around here.
Cavalier wagons are very rare around here in the Portland Area and I have not seen one in a while. There are of course some living on secluded side streets.
I had forgotten about that 2 headlight front end.
GM and its small engines is hard to fathom. How the 1.8 in this car was lethargic and wheezy while the 1.7 in the Horizon/Omni was reasonably sprightly (even with the 3 speed automatic) is a puzzler. True, VW had done the basic engineering on the blocks and internals but Chrysler (late 70s Chrysler, even) was able to pull off a decent carb and ignition complement that made the car not unpleasant to drive. The 2.2 made it a little hot rod.
I have not bothered to look it up but I would suspect that there was also a weight penalty involved. GM’s small cars tended to be built like little Buicks with lots of added weight from either parts sharing or from big-car-based design philosophies.
I did a quick search, and it appears the Cavalier was about 350 pounds heavier than an Omni. Another factor that likely made a difference is the valvetrain; the GM engine was OHV, while the engines in the Chryslers were SOHC.
I never understood GM introducing a new pushrod four for ’82 – just shook my head…..
Ford did it in 1984, a 2.3L-4 based on the 200ci 6-cyl ostensibly because they couldn’t build enough of the sohc Pinto engine. I’m not sure how that translates to designing a ‘new’ old engine being a better idea than building more of the existing one though, even if some changes were needed to the factory.
GM was basically doing what Ford did, a few years later.
I’ve read that the 1.8 liter pushrod engine originally used the same pistons and connecting rods as the Citation’s 2.8 liter V6. What I don’t understand is how the savings from this move were all that significant, given that the engine block castings of the two engines couldn’t have been all that similar.
They also introduced a new pushrod V8 fifteen years later in the 1997 Corvette.
One of the things that’s often overlooked with a cam-in-block design, is that it simplifies the camshaft drive; it can be driven with a short chain, or even two gears. This eliminates a rubber belt that has to be replaced at regular intervals, or a system of long chain(s) with additional guide sprockets and/or plastic tensioner shoes. I remember my sister’s 1.8t VW New Beetle consuming a hydraulic tensioner about 20,000 after a timing belt replacement, necessitating another timing belt replacement. As with the 5 valve per cylinder head design, it felt like they made stuff unnecessarily complicated just because they could.
Interesting, the Chevy 1.8 beat the Chrysler 1.7 in horsepower (88 to 75) and in torque (100 to 90 ft lbs). But the Mopar’s longer stroke design was a higher revver than the Chevy, which made its slightly better torque and horsepower peaks 4-500 rpm lower. The Cav sedan outweighed the Omni by only about 300 pounds, though this was not an insignificant number on a car that weighed under 2500 pounds.
The base Omnirizon weighed about 200 lbs less than a base Cavalier. Not a lot, but it undoubtedly contributed.
I’d have to look it up, but I suspect that that the Cavalier got low numerical gearing, to boost its EPA numbers as well as arriving right after the nasty second energy crisis. That probably accounts for more of the difference.
I found some data on the Automobile Catalog website. 1982 base Cavalier 1.8 2bbl,, 4 speed final drive 3.65, curb weight 2450. 3 speed automatic final drive 2.84, curb weight 2475. 1982 base Omni 1.7 2bbl,, 4 speed final drive 3.48, curb weight 2176. 3 speed final drive 3.48, curb weight 2216. So, if these are correct, the Cavalier manual had about the same gearing, but weighed about 275 pounds more than the Omni. The Cavalier auto had higher (numerically lower) gearing and weighed about 260 pounds more. Note that 260-270 pounds is more than ten percent of the curb weight, so the auto Cavalier would have felt like a real dog in comparison to the lighter, better geared and crisp-shifting Torqueflight Omni. No wonder the reviewers wondered where the horsepower went.
FWIW, my car topped out right around 100mph, and it took a long time to get there… around town, however, the little 1.8 was more than adequate, and the car itself was a huge step up from my Vega (although the Vega had had the 3.8l swap by this time and went like stink).
Omnis were pretty light actually, in keeping with the old Chrysler Corporation’s philosophy of lighter, faster cars. A buddy of mine and I autocrossed one back in the late 80’s, with an atmo 2.2 and a five speed, it was very zippy.
Okay, I couldn’t resist posting this… we were “testing” the new video recorder the industrial design program at Georgia Tech had purchased in 1985. We strapped the separate, wired camera to the dash and took a drive around campus.
I love it. I also now really want to know what that song playing is, because it either inspired or (likely) ripped off this song from late 1983:
Thank you Shazam; it’s the same artist:
I saw Shannon perform live at the Portage Theatre in the Six Corners district of Chicago, two years ago. One of my best friends from college was visiting, and she, my partner and I all went to the Portage for a night of Latin Freestyle dancing, which also included performances by Shana Petrone, Sequal, Lisette Melendez, and a few others. The three of us were all dressed very 80’s, and were dancing in the area by the stage when Shannon’s manager came up to my partner… and they had a brief conversation.
After her manager left, my partner told me excitedly that Shannon’s manager had asked us to dance backup for her when she went on – naturally, as the last act that everyone had come to see. Naturally introverted me was thinking, This is okay… I can kind of lose myself among all the other people up there dancing, while Shannon does her opening number. That’ll be fun… kind of like one of those Club MTV shows from back when that channel actually played music and showed videos.
At some point, we all thought we had been forgotten – but it didn’t really matter, because we were all enjoying ourselves with this great concert. Sequal was up there performing either “It’s Not Too Late” or “I’m Over You”, their second to last number, when Shannon’s manager came down into the area by the stage and grabbed my partner and me each by a shoulder. (Our friend had gone to sit down for a little bit… but she had her phone with her, and it was charged.)
We went up the stairs on stage-left, and stood behind the curtains as Sequal performed the rest of their final song.
Then the percussive, synthesized backing track for Shannon’s “Give Me Tonight” starts playing, and the audience starts to cheer. Shannon is looking gorgeous and fit in her all-white attire, prancing around the stage and smiling at and engaging the audience. All of a sudden, I feel a hand on my back, and someone is pushing us out there onto the stage with all those hot, bright lights… and it’s just my partner and me. There are no other dancers out there to blend in with. And I can’t dance.
My partner, a former dancer / performer / theatrical lighting expert, is out there doing these crazy jumps and spins, and the audience loves him. Shannon also interacts with him on stage a little before she does some pushups as the audience goes crazy. All I can see is a bunch of bright lights in my face. Dance-wise, I suppose just did an amplified version of what I normally do on the dance floor, which is to say I just sort of flop around with style. My college friend videoed it on her phone. Even though I was quite aware of my limitations as a “backup dancer” for less than three minutes, the experience was exhilarating.
Once we got off the stage for Shannon’s performance of “Let The Music Play”, we stood behind the curtain on stage, watching her perform this iconic, dance floor classic of the 1980s. Some of the other acts came back out too to stand off stage by where we were. Sequal, protogees of producer Richard Martinee of Expose fame, in particular, seemed to be in awe.
As we were going down the stairs to leave the stage area and rejoin our friend, people were high-fiving my partner like crazy. Their hands quickly disappeared when I passed by. I’d show you the “receipts”, but there’s no way that video is ever seeing the light of day on a forum like this one. 🙂
Ohh. My. God. ?
My story of the time I got to meet Cyndi Lauper backstage of Twin Cities Pride 2005 is now so very, very tame ? (although she did leave with Prince, RIP).
How did I miss this post until today?
That. is. PERFECT! I’m both green with envy and so sorry for you. I personally would have had a complete nervous breakdown just as I was pushed onstage.
I once had a similar mortifying/exhilarating moment at a B-52s show sometime around 1990, aft6er which I vowed never to stand within 10 rows of any stage anywhere ever again.
When the context is appropriate, I’ll get around to describing my 2 other most exhilarating/mortifying brushes with celebrity, wherein I spill coffee on Tim Gunn’s tie one very hung over morning, and when I ride in the slowest elevator in NY with Brian Setzer and proceed to give him a death scowl when one of his entourage hit’s “Door Close” to skip my floor. Both shining moments for me.
Joesph I’m so jealous! I caught Peaches’ drumstick once. Give me tonight made a comeback with a remix in the late 90’s IIRC. They still very occasionally spin it in Orlando. The disc was called “Shannon: the lost mix”
Wow, now that brought me back to the South of Market club scene in San Francisco around then.
Got to put it on my iPod for the memories.
Haha, you made me think of lots of good times at The Covered Wagon in SoMa…
Wow. Between the musical soundtrack and the mechanical one, I had flashbacks to my Charger 2.2, which would have sounded about the same at about the same time.
My sister’s college graduation car was an ’82 Cavalier hatchback in red. Very pretty car, but true to form it never ran right, eventually catching fire and burning. I think I drove it once and was impressed with the way the 4-speed stick did not feel like it was really attached to anything, and yet the car would shift from gear to gear. Sister being the baby, Dad replaced it with an ’84 2-door automatic that was a much more sedate brown. This one did not catch fire, and it ran better and much longer. A little bouncy, but it got you there. I think the dealer, to their credit, gave him a good trade after all the trouble with the first one.
She drives Hondas now.
my thought after driving my mothers 71 pinto was ford figured if the stupid
people want these tiny no profit for us cars let’s make them so terrible that the customer
will dump it and buy a bigger ”more profit” model that’s exactly what mom did
gm might have had the same idea
I now have a job that has me covering an entire rural county in S.C.. I have seen a lot of potential C.C.s including a 2-light hatchback Cavalier. Hopefully I’ll see it again tomorrow and will be able to report if it’s an ’82.
Did they have “1.8” badging or any other tale tell marks of an ’82?
Mine had no special badging beyond the Type 10 emblems.
It’s one thing to live in a region with a climate so friendly to the longevity of cars. It’s another to want maintain a marginally desirable car for so long. It’s the latter that especially surprises me on a regular basis at CC.
I thought the original Monza front clip was one of the better GM domestic small car front clip designs of the mid to late 70s, and early 80s. And by that standard, I thought the original Cavalier clip looked especially cheap/unflattering. As many of the domestic two rectangular headlight designs did during the late 70s and early 80s, when they seemed to peak in their application by the domestic makers. Various models that originally started with two headlight designs looked significantly better when they later adopted four headlight makeovers. There were various examples, with the ’78 Concord, ’78 Regal/Monte Carlo/Cutlass, and the ’79 LTD coming immediately to mind. There were others. With the Cavalier being another a great example. In fact, I thought the cheap appearance in general of the base Cavalier, with their uninspired steel wheel design, made the Cimarron seem even more cynical as a mildly altered Cavalier derivative.
The funny thing to me about the original Cavalier nose was that the hatch had it’s own separate, superior design. Inset signals at the same spot as the headlamps, and a more pronounced nose that was fully integrated with the whole bumper. Why weren’t they all like this? This 1982 full line brochure shot really shows the contrast well:
I think GM knew they’d be accused of brand engineering, offering the J-cars across all car divisions, with so little to distinguish them in terms of design. The two headlight design was popular in Detroit at the time, and it clearly defined the Cavalier as the entry level model. You’re right, the design used for the hatchback does look better, but marginally IMO. Both designs still look cheap.
The hatchback’s nose was probably viewed as looking too sporty for a sedan.
Recall that the Monza that the Cavalier replaced also had two distinct noses, with the hatch originally having a sloping plastic-bumpered front clip and the notchback coupe having a much more formal, chromier grille. From ’78-’80 both body styles got redesigned front clips, and either body style could now have either front clip with the sportier trims getting the sloped plastic front.
I looked for more examples of the Cavalier’s hatchback nose, and I’m not especially impressed. Compared to other comparable sporty cars at the time like the Omni 024/Horizon TC3, the Mustang, the Celica, even the EXP/LN7, the nose is quite upright and not especially attractive. It’s quite generic in fact compared to the competition. Typical 80s GM blandness.
The ironic thing about the fastback nose is that it gives the impression of being aerodynamic. The flat tunneled headlights on both sides of the grill left very little slanted aerodynamic surface to slice through the air.
Yeah, but in profile…. 🙂
The black grille and headlight trim on this (if it’s original) is an example of post-launch decontenting after GM was forced to cut prices.
Yes, GM came out with the Cavalier Cadet model late in the 1982 model year, because the “complete car” (it cost more than a base Citation) was too pricey.
My employer bought an early ’82 model year Cavalier 4-door with a 4-speed manual of all things. With the high gearing (low numerically), it was very much a slug. I recall not being able to shift into 4th until reaching about 40 mph on level ground, quite a contrast to my 4-speed Volvo 240 (no electric overdrive), which could be shifted into 4th at 27 mph. And 4-cylinder Volvos of the day weren’t exactly sprightly.
If I recall correctly, the black four-spoke steering wheel seen in this example made its debut in the ’82 Cavalier Cadet (though I think it had been used in some prior Chevies as well). Other ’82 Cavaliers got a unique to the Cav 3-spoker, with neat leather wrapping on the step-up CL model.
The ’83s also got a blacked-out interior. ’82s got some chrome, particularly around the door release handle, as well as dash and console trim. CLs got woodgrained dash and console, except in the Type 10 hatchback which got black trim.
Yes, the 4-spoke steering wheel first appeared in 1971 as RPO NK4 — optional on the Nova, Chevelle, and Camaro. I think it became the standard Camaro wheel in 1973 but I’m not 100% on that.
The 4-spoke steering wheel was also standard equipment on the very rare 1971 Monte Carlo SS and the 1972 Monte Carlo Custom. My ’72 Monte Carlo Custom had that steering wheel. It was also the standard steering wheel on the Vega GT, Cosworth Vega, Camaro 1974-81, Monza 2+2 and the Corvette only for the 1976 model year.
I like the 1.8L, 2-headlight Cavalier because it does such a great job of showing what was really wrong with GM. I mean, how could anyone at GM have thought this was going to be a viable competitor to the Honda Accord?
Then, when it quickly became apparent that the 1.8L was a loser, GM essentially gave up, changed market focus, and simply built the cheapest possible small cars with driving dynamics that were as rudimentary as possible. If you had the cash (and a lot of people did), I can’t imagine anyone choosing a Cavalier over an Accord (or Corolla, for that matter). And it stayed this way, all the way through the Cobalt years, only changing with the introduction of the Cruze.
The Vega and Citation might have been bad cars, but the Cavalier was a mediocre car and, in the long run, that might have actually been worse.
Back in ’83, my newly married best friend moved back to the Washington DC area, and I went car-shopping with him. We test-drove a brand new ’83 ‘stripper’ Cavalier wagon. 2.0, FI, 4-speed stick, manual steering, no AC.
I was actually impressed with the car. After years of mediocre penalty-box Pintos, Vegas, Chevettes, etc…, I felt this was the first small American car that I could possibly live with. Yeah, it wasn’t quite up to the quality and refinement levels of a Corolla or Civic – but it wasn’t bad at all. Plus, I gave the Cavalier a few extra points because, unlike the Corolla and Civic, there was no timing-belt to deal with every 60,000 miles! But my friend couldn’t afford even a new stripper Chevy, and wound up buying a ’78 Colt wagon – the big rear-drive Colt that Chrysler imported before the K-car wagons came out.
A year earlier, his folks bought an ’82 stick-shift Cimmarron. Talk about malaise. That car had malaise in spades! Noisy, wheezy, gutless 1.8, with economy gearing that almost guaranteed a stall-out after every stop! I remember a contemporary review that summed it up as being “like a Honda Accord that doesn’t run very well”!
As for Shannon’s ‘Let The Music Play’, back in the ’80s, I used to record off Top-40 rock&pop radio onto my Ampex reel to reel tape-deck, then dub mix-cassettes for the car.
That was one of many hits I’d crank-up over & over again in my apartment. Lucky the neighbors never complained!
I like ‘Give Me Tonight’ even better, but never recorded it. Thanks to the ‘Net’, I will now.
Happy Motoring, Mark
This should be called the Car that saved Chrysler.
The Js were more expensive, in many cases, than a K car, smaller, heavier, and slower. They suffered from the stench of X car “innovation.”
The X car was roomier, especially in hatchback form, more powerful, better styled, more luxurious, and didn’t squeak and rattle as much as the K plus had the backing of a company with (prior to the X) a much better reputation for quality. The RWD Xs that the FWD x replaced had a very good reputation versus the competition.
But this Cavalier was more expensive than a comparably equipped K car, smaller inside, and much less powerful. The X’s disastrous quality left buyers looking at Ford, which had nothing contemporary, Japanese cars were generally too small, and then Chrysler by default. The K was cheap and rattly and put together approximately, but out of better components than GM was using.
I don’t think the K would have been the massive hit it was if it weren’t for GM’s stunning blunders. Lee’s huckstering kept the lights on but GM moved the product.
Amazing find Paul and I have not seen a Cavalier this old since Fall, 2014. I am going to keep my eyes peeled for old Cavaliers now. Amazing to think that this Cavalier is 35 years old and after market side view mirror is interesting.
Sticker shock was one reason the 82’s sold poor at first. Released in spring 1981, during depth of 19% “prime rate” loans.
Ads proclaimed ‘the complete car’, but domestic loyalists wanted a bargain. [Honda buyers were willing to pay and wait.] Citations could be had for less, and for a few bucks more, a base Malibu.
Anyway, J car did finally catch on in Mid America, by fall ’82.
In the Mid-eighties, a girlfriend drove a clean, low-mileage Pontiac J2000 wagon – white, with a burgundy interior. not a bad car, but not really a good one, either. As to the subject of this post: I have always wanted to combine an early Cavalier convertible with the front clip from one of the two-headlight cars, in order to produce the squarest, most generic-looking small convertible of then – or any other time. Surely, someone else has done it by now.
I was the owner of a brand new 1982 Cavalier CL wagon. It was metallic gold with a camel tan interior, AC, automatic and all the power options.
I ordered my Cavalier with the cloth tweed interior which was very durable and comfortable. The seats in my Cavalier were much more comfortable than the seats (I call them sand bags) in my 2012 Accord.
The one drawback of the early J cars was the anemic and rough 1.8 liter. It was a very reliable motor and delivered great fuel economy but weak.
My Cavalier served me very well for eight years and 170,000 miles.
The only real issue I had with my Cavalier were oil leaks that I had repaired. Other than that it ran without a hitch.
The Cavalier was a good, sturdy, practical little wagon that I still miss.
Gotta love a mint, barn find ’86 wagon with 61,000 original miles. 13’s ? Hell no. 1987 Fiero GT wheels with huge 60’s on it makes it handle like its on rails. No power to speak of, but it gets 28 mpg all day long.
I remember Brock Yates who wrote for Car and Driver at the time the Citation was being developed was allowed to cover the design process. He wrote in his book “The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry” that Chevrolet used as many parts from the X-Car as they could-to cut development costs-(despite the fact they added weight) and a last minute change substituted carbon steel for the high tensile strength steel originally planned. He wrote it added about 300 lbs to the vehicle’s weight but it was cheaper!
Just like GM.
The early Cavalier lace wheels would work wonders for the looks of this one.
Using the dual headlight front end for just the first two years of the Cavalier is baffling (especially for a company that pinches pennies like GM).
The problem is how similar the Cavalier’s third year front was to the Cimarron. Overnight, it was suddenly very obvious that the Cimarron was nothing but a ginned-up Cavalier.
If GM had kept the dual headlight Cavalier front end, maybe it wouldn’t have went so badly for the Cimarron. But when both cars looked virtually identical, well…
After a few years of what looked like the Opel front rebadged, Holden gave us this.
During my company’s fleet of Chevy Citations trying to kill us driver’s daily, the embarrassed Chevy dealer started replacing the Citations with the new JCars, Cavalier and Pontiac J2000. When my Citation was in the Chevy garage, I was given one of the new JCars. I was a bit disappointed in many ways. They all had a gutless 1.8L with an automatic that couldn’t climb up I-70 out of Denver, without a lot of drama and panic. You got into the far right lane, pushed the accelerator down to the floor and prayed that there wouldn’t be slower traffic, forcing an attempt to pass – which you couldn’t do.
Within a year, the poor Chevy dealer lost our business due to the Citations and Cavaliers. Such bad cars.