The conventional wisdom about the 1971–1977 Chevrolet Vega is that it was a good-looking, good-handling subcompact undermined by terrible execution; its corrosion and reliability problems have become legendary. However, in many ways, the Vega as badly compromised by its sporty styling as it was by its disastrous aluminum-block four. Here’s why.
I want to start out by saying that I’m not looking to critique the styling of the Chevrolet Vega. The early Vega, for all its other problems, was in most respects a great-looking car, and even the late versions were still better-looking than many rivals. There was also nothing aesthetically wrong with the Vega’s principal stylistic influences, the Fiat 124 Sport Coupe and the second-generation Chevrolet Camaro. They were handsome cars, and it’s no surprise that the designers of the XP-877 (as the Vega was originally known) were taken with them.
However, in trying to make the Vega look like the offspring of a 124 coupe and a Camaro, Chevrolet made a whole series of compromises that undermined the car’s ability to perform what was supposed to be its primary mission: luring buyers out of cheap imported subcompact sedans back into the Bowtie fold, where they might eventually buy Monte Carlos and Impalas like respectable citizens.
In early 1971, Chevrolet engineers Lloyd Reuss and Charles Hughes gave a big SAE presentation on the design and development of the Vega, which had recently debuted. Their talk made clear that the pebble that started this avalanche of questionable compromises was HEIGHT.
For a subcompact car to be small on the outside while still carrying normal-size people inside, it’s helpful if it’s fairly tall. In this way, occupants can sit upright and still have adequate legroom even if the cabin isn’t very long. This has been the secret of many successful small cars, up to the more recent Honda Fit, Mazda2, and Ford Fiesta. It was also an important feature of the Fiat 124 sedan, which was roomy for its modest exterior dimensions.
Chevrolet knew all that, but Reuss and Hughes said they had soundly rejected the idea of a tall, short-wheelbase car, ostensibly because it would have raised the center of gravity too much (something that seldom prevents various tall, boxy European sedans and hatchbacks from handling quite well), but also because it would have imposed “severe limitations on styling.”
It’s obvious that styling was a central driving force in the XP-877 project. GM Styling VP Bill Mitchell had decided by 1968 that the car should look like the Fiat 124 — not the dull, upright, boxy, space-efficient 124 sedan, oh no, but the longer, lower, wider, decidedly less practical new 124 Sport Coupe. Stylist John Houlihan, who was transferred to the Chevrolet Advanced studio in the summer of 1968 to work on the XP-877, has confirmed that there were big photos of the 124 Sport Coupe hung up all around the studio as inspiration.
To look like the Fiat 124 coupe, the Vega had to be low. With an overall height of 51.9 inches, the two-door sedan wasn’t quite as low as the Fiat, but it was 2 inches lower than the considerably larger Nova and 4 inches lower than the 124 sedan. The three-door Vega coupe was an additional 1.9 inches lower still, standing just 50 inches high.
This had a cascading effect: To provide adequate headroom and legroom, passengers needed to be more reclined, with their legs extended. So, the wheelbase was stretched to 97 inches, 1.7 inches longer than a Fiat 124 or Datsun 510 sedan, and the front toe board was pushed forward as far forward as possible — only 11 inches behind the front axle center line.
Pushing the dash close to the front axle meant the longitudinally mounted four-cylinder engine had to move forward too, so the nose had to be longer to accommodate it. To provide adequate crush space in a frontal impact, there had to be extra space in front of the engine, resulting in a total of 31 inches of front overhang.
It was a similar story in back: Rear-seat passengers were sitting practically on top of the live rear axle (the hip point of a rear passenger was only 13.5 inches in front of the rear axle center line), so the tail had to be lengthened to provide adequate luggage space behind the axle.
(I apologize for the terrible quality of these illustrations — they were badly scanned from very glossy originals, creating a horrendous moiré pattern that was hard to fix without making them illegible.)
Adding all this up, the early production Vega ended up 169.7 inches long, which was 7 to 12 inches longer than most of its intended rivals. This pushed its base curb weight to more than 2,200 lb, around 200 lb heavier than the average weight of competitive models. If this had been a four-door sedan, the larger dimensions might have been an asset in the U.S. market, but the Vega was a low-slung coupe with low-slung coupe interior space, so it was basically a 2+2 despite its size. (No four-door Vega was ever seriously contemplated, and even the two-door “Kammback” wagon was an afterthought.)
As a moderately priced sporty coupe along the lines of the Ford Capri or Opel Manta (sold here as the Opel 1900 Rallye), the size, shape, and proportions of the Vega would have made plenty of sense. As an alternative to cheaper imported sedans, it was a head-scratcher. Chevrolet’s own market research had revealed that sleek styling was a low priority for their target audience — of the 17 major priorities the marketing study had identified, exterior styling had ranked 11th and interior styling 13th out of 17. The six leading buyer priorities had been economy of operation, durability, handling, dependability, popularity, and right size.
“This finding,” said Reuss and Hughes, “was not interpreted as meaning that customers would not welcome attractive styling—they undoubtedly would. However, it is important to the success of this kind of product that attractive styling not compromise any of the more dominant attributes.” Yet, the basic design of the Vega did just that. True, the Vega handled pretty well, but it was biggish on the outside and small on the inside; utility wasn’t its strong suit (except perhaps for the Kammback wagon); and its weight made for unspectacular fuel economy except in highway cruising, which didn’t help on the “economy of operation” front. (Later, after the advent of catalytic converters, you could conceivably match the Vega’s gas mileage with a six-cylinder Nova.)
The point I’m making here is that even if it hadn’t scored so appallingly on durability and dependability, the Vega was really aimed in the wrong direction for its original objective. If the Vega had been as durable as the later Chevette, it still wouldn’t have had much to offer a buyer considering a more practical imported sedan like a Toyota Corona or Datsun 510 — the Vega just wasn’t that kind of car. Its strongest appeal was to buyers who wanted a sporty-looking small coupe, but couldn’t swing the payments on a Camaro or Mustang.
There were plenty of those buyers in the U.S. in the early ’70s, so the Vega sold quite well, even after word started getting around about its reliability and rust problems. However, the Vega didn’t do anything to stem the growth of imports. The previous market leaders, Volkswagen and Datsun, both stumbled in the mid-’70s — for reasons not of Chevrolet’s making — but annual U.S. Toyota sales were inching towards the 300,000-unit mark, which they finally passed in 1976. I can easily imagine Bill Mitchell’s seething contempt for the unsexy shape of the popular T100 Toyota Corona sedan (above), but unlike the Vega, the Corona was good at most of the things Chevrolet’s own market research had said import buyers actually prioritized, and its U.S. sales growth reflected that. Toyota also had the increasingly popular Celica for the sporty coupe market, so they weren’t missing out on that segment either.
Discounting the rare and expensive Cosworth Vega, the silver 1977 Vega GT coupe pictured above was probably the nicest stock Vega Chevrolet ever offered. The 1976–1977 “Dura-Built” four-cylinder engine, which now carried a special 5-year/60,000-mile warranty, had finally tackled many of the Vega engine’s earlier problems, and corrosion protection was improved enough that consumer publications like Consumer Guide no longer warned new-car buyers to categorically avoid the Vega.
The previously optional L11 two-barrel engine was now standard, with 84 hp and 117 lb-ft of torque; the previous year’s standard single-barrel version had only 70 hp.
The 4-speed manual transmission was standard for 1977, which was long overdue, but this particular car has the rare optional Borg-Warner T-50 5-speed manual, whose ratios provided better all-around performance and greater highway fuel economy. It worked better in the four-cylinder Vega than in the bigger V-8 Cutlass. This coupe also has factory air, which wasn’t common on these cars, but the sunroof is an aftermarket installation.
The late-model Vega still handled respectably well, especially with the F41 sport suspension (standard on the GT). Its ride wasn’t great, and the Dura-Built engine remained loud and nasty, but manual-shift cars now rated 28 mpg on the contemporary EPA combined scale, actually 2 mpg better than a 5-speed Toyota Celica. The Vega had picked up 356 lb since 1971 and now had a Chevette-like front end that didn’t do its looks any favors, but it was still a basically handsome coupe.
Would you want one, though? This final-year Vega was fairly cheap — the GT coupe started at $3,760, and while adding the usual array of options could push the sticker to $4,500 or more, I’m sure you could score a steep discount off the list price. However, it wasn’t a particularly good value even considered strictly as a sporty car. The Toyota Celica, which was roughly the same vintage as the Vega, but had been improved considerably since its debut, was now a considerably better deal, even though it now cost more and was somewhat thirstier than the Chevrolet.
When the silver Vega GT sold in April 1977, a Celica GT Liftback listed for $4,799. That was hundreds more than you’d likely pay for the Vega, but the Toyota was now the better car in most respects, even without taking into account its superior repair record and resale values. Buyers thought so too: Combined U.S. Celica sales for 1976–1977 (last two years of this generation) totaled 264,152 cars, while Vega sales for the same period totaled 238,925. The Vega had sold better overall, of course: about 1.9 million units from 1971 to 1977, whereas global sales of the original Celica totaled about 1.1 million (of which about half a million came here). However, it was an ominous sign of things to come for GM. Chevrolet wasn’t TOO worried when import buyers had been mostly buying cars smaller and cheaper (or pricier and more exotic) than GM cared to build, but now, customers were starting to be willing to pay a premium for the better imports, a trend that would accelerate in the 1980s.
Back in 1971, Reuss and Hughes had noted that Chevrolet market research revealed typical import buyers to have “sharply different attitudes and values” than domestic buyers. The same market research had shown Chevrolet what those import buyers wanted, but Chevrolet had arrogantly decided they knew better. So, what was supposed to be a subcompact import-fighter sedan became a good-looking but mediocre compact sporty coupe. By the end, it was no longer really competitive even in that niche, while total U.S. import sales had grown from about 1.5 million to more than 2 million.
Obviously, no one GM product, however brilliant, was likely to change that trend, but the arrogance was a much bigger problem, and one that GM has never really fixed.
Related Reading
GM’s Deadly Sin #2: Chevrolet Vega – GM’s First Deadly Sin (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: Chevrolet Vega – Winner Of 1971 Small Car Comparison And GM’s Deadly Sin No.2 (by Paul N)
Vintage R&T Road Test: 1973 Chevrolet Vega GT – Improved, Up To A Point (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1974 Chevrolet Vega Panel Express – A Sedan Delivery For The ’70s (by Tom Klockau)
Curbside Classic: 1974 Vega Kammback – GM’s Deadly Sexy Sin #2, Take Two (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1976 Chevrolet Cosworth Vega – GM Deadly Sin #27 – Too Little, Too Late, Way Too Expensive (by Paul N)
The early Vegas were especially terrible in Alaska, where I was living during their brief and benighted lives. The aluminum blocks would shrink around the cast iron pistons when temperatures dropped below zero, and cranking them over while the solid 10W/40 oil stuck to the oil pan would provide a free ‘overbore’ machining. Then the next summer the oil smoke would help reduce the mosquito population. The engines required replacement before the bodies (with a single-coat paint job to reduce costs) could rust out. Very few Vegas made it to the 1980’s, much less until today.
This site keeps repeating the GM mantra that the last Vegas with the Durabuilt engine were much improved. Maybe so, but in my experience, they were still pretty awful. In spring 1979, I bought a 1977 Vega 2-door, automatic and air with 28,000 miles and a new engine dealer installed under the 60k warranty. The price was $1,800, reflecting the horrible depreciation these things had. My dad decided it had to be a good deal, and was my financing, so, there I was. The new engine lasted about 50,000 miles (better than the first one anyway) to maybe 80,000 miles. By then, it was a rusty wreck. I got $600 for it on trade in, so I’m pretty those 50k miles were the cheapest I’ve ever driven or ever will again, so maybe Dad was right.
That, sadly, WAS a great improvement on the early cars, which often started rusting badly within a year or so and suffered countless engine problems at low mileage, and the Dura-Built engines at least tried to improve on weak areas like the valve seals. However, it was ultimately like a failing student who improves their grades and still ends up with a “D,” and there were definitely reasons the resale values remained terrible.
Yes. LESS awful is still awful. Just less so. That means it is improved. However, to does not necessarily mean it is GOOD. It is better, or perhaps more accurately, less bad.
I agree with every premise presented in this post, I would add one more. I believe that the top brass at GM had actual contempt for small cars and sneered at anyone who wanted/bought one. Astounding levels of arrogance seems like it was common in the executive suite. Anyone who bought a Beetle was an idiot for not wanting an Impala. They kicked and screamed at the idea of building a small car like a toddler who refuses to go to bed. And the Vega was a perfect demonstration of all of that.
My first car was a 74 Vega.I ordered a dark blue GT hatchback with black interior. 4 speed.I think it took about 2 months to get to the dealer. I recall it was around 3700, out the door. I only kept it for about 2 years but the tin worms were starting to creep in. I never experienced the reliability issues because I was always good about doing my own oil changes etc. Its sad that GM didn’t at least galvanize the bodies on these cars to keep them from rusting so fast.
Nobody in the industry was galvanized bodies when the Vega was in development / introduced; not until mid-‘75 on Porsche 911s was such an application first seen.
That’s not true: Galvanized body components started showing up on domestic passenger cars in the latter ’60s. The Pinto, developed at the same time as the Vega, used galvanized sheet metal in “in a total of twenty-two critical structural members and areas highly susceptible to corrosion.” The extent and effectiveness of this was, er, highly variable, but it was being used.
I took to understanding ‘bodies’ as a totality from the writer in this instance in light of it being the Vega we are talking about…
Having owned or regularly driven all three body variants (hatchback, notchback, Kammback), I always felt the hatchbacks looked “squashed.” The notch and Kammbacks had a higher roofline (a bit over an inch higher, going from memory – the doors would swap between them, but not with a hatchback), and I never felt cramped in my ’71 notchback or Dad’s ’73 Kammback (I was 6′-5″ at the time). When I bought CV #2196, even having started to loose height in my ‘senior’ years, it was really ‘snug;’ my helmet was brushing the headliner when I autocrossed the car.
At any rate, I remember my Dad being infatuated with a neighbor’s MGB (I was maybe 12 at the time); he loved how his legs went so far under the cowl. I suspect his choice of a year-old ’71 notchback for his new daily driver was heavily influenced by that “sporty” aspect he liked. Of course, he ended up rebuilding the engine at around 40K, and I subsequently swapped that engine out for a sleeved engine when I got the car my senior year in HS at around 80K (he had already bought the ’73 Kammback by that point). The sleeved engine had few issues, and I eventually swapped in a Buick V6 my last year in college. Being a Southern car, rust was a minimal issue, mainly around the base of the windshield, which I would sand and repaint every few years.
Reliability aside, that Blue one Pictured is Beautiful (as far as Vegas go). I definitely like the earlier “Camaro” looking front/Grille.
“… the final year Vega GT base price was $3,760….a 1977 Toyota Celica liftback was $4,799…” (the Celica was also a “final year, btw)”.
The Celica had a standard rear window defogger and power brakes, I’m quite certain. On the Vega, those would be about $95-100 and $60-65 options. And now cars were comparably equipped, and you’re still looking at $800-$900 difference.
Most Vega GTs probably did go for $4,500, or more (add auto, $260, maybe power steering, which Celica didn’t offer, another $120, and A/C $550).
But many Celica Liftbacks stickered for close to $6,000–if one got auto, A/C, and added shipping.
That was in the neighborhood of an Olds Cutlass, 1977 T-bird, or new for 1977 Impala/Caprice, all big cars with V8s.
By 1977, the Vega GT was essentially irrelevant. Domestic-oriented buyers would have moved on to the Monza or Mustang II. Meanwhile Celica sales were growing strongly and its reputation was becoming well established.
I’m not saying the Vega was a better value.
I am saying that by 1977, in the real world, Celicas had become relatively pricey cars. In an era when, in the NY suburbs at least, people still bought new cars, and some of them wanted to brag, one of the few one-car families as VERY proud their black 1977 Celica Liftback, and how much it cost (that’s where my $6 comes from).
Price and value are different.
Generally, one gets what one pays for.
Yes, Toyota’s reputation was growing, as was Honda’s.
Still, I suspect that GM sold more Vegas in 1977 than Toyota sold Celicas. Ford probably sold more Mark IV/V.
And I would add that, anecdotally at least, the percent of Celicas in US Toyota sales PEAKED with the first generation (197x-1977). For all I know, 1975-77 Celica sales may have been peak Celica sales volume in the US, I didn’t see as many 2nd gen on the streets. Third gen, I saw quite a few, so 1983-85 Celica may have been the high water volume.
That doesn’t mean that the Celica got worse. Buyer tastes changed, and Toyota had a wider variety of cars, and Tercel, Corolla, and later Camry were big and growing sellers.
Still, I suspect that GM sold more Vegas in 1977 than Toyota sold Celicas.
Aaron was comparing specifically the Vega GT to the Celica, as I was too. Sure, total Vega sales were higher, but I very much doubt Vega GT sales were. I’d bet on it.
By 1977 Vega sales were mostly low end cars. And in fact, total coupe sales were some 37k. There’s no breakout for GTs. But I wouldn’t be surprised if more Celicas were sold than all of those coupes.
The 1976–1977 Celica actually outsold the 1976–1977 Vega in total. Total Vega sales for that period were 160,523 for 1976 and 78,402; U.S. Toyota Celica sales for the same period were 100,438 for 1976 and 163,714 for 1977.
The late Vega was essentially boxed in: People who wanted something cheap that got good gas mileage could get a Chevette, while people who wanted a small sporty coupe could get the H-body Monza, which could be ordered with a wider range of engines.
The 1977 Celica (last year of the A20/A30 generation) outsold the 1977 Vega (all Vega models, not just the coupe or GT) by about 2 to 1. The restyled 1978 A40 Celica, which was the generation styled by CALTY, did even better; that was the U.S. peak for the Celica.
Although the 1978 outsold the 1977 in the States, the 1976 and 1977 cars were basically indistinguishable, so collectively, there were somewhat more of them on the road.
I stand corrected. Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
I will assume your data is correct, my quick spot-check supports you.
Google AI says Toyota sold 560k units in 1977, 90k trucks and 470k cars, and Vega sales fell off a cliff (78k total, another 32k Pontiac Astre).
In 1977, now that I think about it, Toyotas line-up consisted of Corollas (numerous variants), Coronas, and Celicas. I recall “newer”, big-bumper Coronas were very rare then. So, yes, 2 out of every three cars was a Corolla, logical, so Celica was 1 of 3.
On Long Island, these “big bumper” 74-77 Celicas were not uncommon, though I could not discern the model year (except for Liftback. 1976 or 1977).
Now that I think about it, Vegas with “concealed” front turn signals, and the slightly reshaped tail lamps were not terribly common–for a Chevy. Pontiac Astres seem “not uncommon”, but definitely more Celicas.
And yes, I agree, Celicas were infinitely better and cooler than Vegas. I aspired to buy a used 1st gen Celica in HS in the early 80s, (or a Capri or Manta), but did not succeed. In 1982, I would have been very happy to be able to have brand-new 1972 Manta, Capri, or Celica.
Anyway, good point on Celica sales, thank you
Count me another Vega fan, but I’d prefer the Celica if I had to drive it every day.
Is there anything more GM than disregarding your own market research and building what you felt like anyway?
Typical GM of the era. Frankly, the Pinto suffered from similar design issues, with its very low and swoopy body. What redeemed it somewhat was its low price.
One wonders if Bill Mitchell’s hand was in all of this. He was known to dislike small cars, and perhaps he couldn’t countenance a boxy and tall sedan a la Fiat 124 or such?
I reckon you’re right. Even before his time as chief, one reason for the rear-enginedness of the Corvair was that it was hard to styling a small car with good big-car proportions without it becoming too low to be usable. And sure enough, the Corvair did have the proportions of their full-size lower-wider-longer cars.
(Btw, if you ask me where that info comes from, I’m convinced it’s somewhere on/linked to this site, and if not, quite possibly from Unsafe At Any Speed).
My ownership of a 1973 Vega and a 1978 Fiesta overlapped for a while. The Fiesta was two feet shorter than the Vega but had more room for passengers and far more carrying capacity for everything from lumber and firewood, to furniture, and wheels and tires. But with the right tires, especially on a wet road, the Vega was more fun up to about 9/10ths. If you tried to push to 11, the Fiesta’s front wheel drive could be your friend, though terminal understeer isn’t always benign. By the way, I specifically chose my Vega (GT hatchback) for its coupe styling, as a mini-Camaro, but the backseat room did test some friendships.
Mk I Fiesta was my first new car. HF II also hated small cars, but imported this as a quick way to counter the small imports such as the Civic, that I did cross shop, along with the VW Rabbit. The Ford was a modern highly space efficient design, unlike the Beetle it replaced. In my old age, I have a Honda Fit. The idea of moving up to bigger, more luxurious cars did not work as I aged and my income grew, with the exception of the entry level BMW that was a brief fling in middle age.
Very interesting article! I had no idea the Vega sedan was taller than the hatchback, but it makes sense as they definitely look sleeker.
My parents had a 74 Vega sedan for a little while in the late 70s when I was a kid. That interior pic brings back a few memories. Two years was all they could take before they traded it for a new 79 Rabbit. It was a true deadly sin because it soured my parents on GM and American cars in general. They mostly bought VW and Honda after that, never again even considering a GM vehicle.
GM under Bill Mitchell was very much a styling organization that built cars. In some ways, the Vega was a replay of the Corvair. The Corvair’s only really successes had come from the sporty Monza, and a second small car was hastily conceived to fill the gap. But here, the Pinto followed the same formula instead of the one so successfully executed by the earlier Falcon, so GM saw no gap that required filling until it eventually followed up with the Falcon-like Chevette.
As a brilliantly styled sporty small car, the Vega knocked it out of the park. Unfortunately, that segment was not a very big park.
Very interesting, and not something I’d thought about previously. It seems to me that GM (and Ford with the Pinto) didn’t really think about what drew people to purchase a smaller car. While their overseas arms offered four door sedans in this and smaller sizes, they locked themselves into a two door 2+2 semi-coupe. Styling triumphed over practicality.
Were they still thinking to move buyers up the model range to something bigger if they wanted something more practical? That (dealer-driven?) mindset seems to have stymied US car development and competitiveness again and again. A classic case of management being out of touch with waht the market wanted.
And more tellingly, it was those small sedan imports that America was buying. Effectively GM built a Celica-alternative rather than targeting the Corona.
This article was great. One other factoid (besides the hatchback being lower than the sedan and Kammback – and the doors not interchanging!) that sticks out is that a larger, six-cylinder Nova might have gotten the same fuel economy. Astounding.
I still love the styling of the Vega hatch. Always will.
I highly doubt that. I had a ’76 Astre, the Pontiac variant of the Vega. With the two barrel carb and four speed, at a constant 55 miles per hour, I consistently got 32 miles per gallon. A Nova would never approach that figure.
Really not a bad car 7 years and 105,000 miles, little rust-Chicago area.
I typically got around 30 on the highway in my ’71 (pre-3.8l swap), too.
Later, after the advent of catalytic converters, you could conceivably match the Vega’s gas mileage with a six-cylinder Nova.
I was just quoting the article, but I found this interesting which was probably why I made a mental note of it.
Except for the late models (which were a bit better), typical real-world (not EPA) mileage for the Vega was 20–21 mpg, which you could match with a later Nova 250 with a catalytic converter. So, if you had an earlier Vega and traded it in on later Nova six, you could likely match or exceed the mileage you were getting.
I just pulled my mileage records from the ’71 (yeah, I know), and my hand-calculated _averages_ (mostly city driving in ATL while I was at Ga Tech) for three years were 23.0, 23.4 and 24.2. My car had the 4-speed manual and whatever the tallest axle ratio was with that transmission. I used a GT head when I swapped in the sleeved engine, but retained the single-barrel carb and added a tube header. As stated above, it could easily touch 30 mpg on the highway.
The ’73 Kammback GT my Dad bought to add to our Vega fleet had an automatic and air conditioning. I don’t have records, but don’t remember it getting very good mileage, certainly not anywhere as good as the ’71. My second brother added a ’72 Kammback (non-GT automatic) to the fleet and it, too, didn’t return very good mileage, and I suspect your 20-21 estimate is probably accurate for those two cars.
We have two long term tests of the Vega in our archives. C/D got 22.6 mpg in their 15k mile test; R&T got 19.1 in their 24k mile test. Both were 4-speed coupes.
I’ll start with the caveat that I have never seen or been in a Vega in real life, but I find the criticisms of packaging here interesting. (As an aside, I think the ’71 is just a superb looker, considerably nicer, in fact, than the 124 coupe).
Cars like the T100 Corona mentioned – indeed, any of the like-sized Japanese cars of the time – were utterly dreadful to sit in. ALL of them put you in a squat toilet position, arse bones pointed down, knees right up in the air, and, with the back seat occupied, never enough useful leg/knee room front or back (not to mention awful under-padded seats all round). So I can’t really see how the lowness of the Vega was worse: for sure, by those drawings shown, they’d thought quite a lot about accommodation. That is, I can’t see why someone trying one out would think it no good.
In addition, the reported economy of the Vega seems insignificantly worse than the Japanese competition, a few mpg here or there, ie: not enough to put people off. A Corona with the common automatic was a 20mpg car. The Vega (it seems)was a 16-17mpg car in the same circumstances, though I guess good marketing could whip up that gap into something that seemed significant.
I’d say too that a really good-looking car will sell better than a plodder. Examples are legion, and they sell and continue to sell even when they’re mediocre cars. The original Mustang, especially as a 6 cylinder, was just a dullard Falcon with much less room, after all.
Of course, the nonsense saying that a tall car can’t handle was just completely belied by every (ugly) tall French car of the time. I suspect Paul N is right – Bill Mitchell’s diktats about small cars and looks was probably pretty forceful in all this.
I wonder if the impractical configuration actually hurt GM with import buyers, since anyone who didn’t buy a Vega due to its lack of utility didn’t have to pay the price for its lack of quality. A VW or Toyota owner seduced by a Vega’s design would not have been impressed by its engine or finish.
Parked next to a red 77 Vega while picking up parts at Pinebelt Chevrolet in my Grand Prix about twelve years ago. Hadn’t seen one in person in a long time and was surprised how tall it was. Looked to be an unrestored unit. Boy, was the fit and finish poor!
I would image there was some very intense arguments at GM HQ about the Vega.
Some wanted to kill it, some wanted to fix it. Others wished it would just go away.
Typical of GM, it put a new face on the Vega via the Monza/Starfire/Sunbird/Skyhawk and sold another 1.5M units to amortize the investment.
https://monza.homestead.com/Production.html
Seems Lido wasn’t the only one to pull a rabbit out of his hat via platform sharing.
Development of the Monza started in 1971, well before Vega’s problems were widely known, and intended as an ‘upscale’ offering on the H-body platform.
To be fair, there’s an old auto industry adage that says it takes just as much money to build a small car as a large one. If true, it most definitely explains the extremes GM went to with the Vega’s design and engineering. it was just way cheaper (and easier to sell) to design a less efficient, but much sportier small car to maximize profit of what would have to be a low price.
I don’t know the sales numbers, but it would be interesting to compare the Vega’s numbers with the two-box 1975 Chevette. Not exactly a paragon of efficiency, either, but way better than the Vega. And that was also the same year the much sportier Monza (and the various versions other divisions got) was introduced.
In the long run, I wonder how GM might have done to have went with the Chevette for 1971, and skipped the Vega, altogether. While it’s true it was FWD, when the Omnirizon arrived for 1978, it certainly sold like gangbusters.
It’s interesting that Chrysler dawdled and vacillated for so long, finally landing on the Hillman Avenger/Plymouth Cricket — and then doomed the product in the end by treating it with contempt. The Cricket was certainly no worse than a Vega or Pinto in terms of rust, but was WAY better o either of them in terms of packaging.
The captive Mitsubishi’s, on the other hand, rose above Chrysler’s ineptitude and quashed further vacillation.
Looking at the size and shape of the Vega and the comprises it required makes me think the Ford Pinto was the better idea. Of course Ford made its own deadly sin grade mistakes, but the Pinto’s road racing palmares make it potentially more attractive with much less trouble prone 2.0 OHC four and decent tires and suspension
“the larger dimensions might would have been an asset in the U.S. market,”
I think “…might would…” is a typo..
Great article Aaron. That both the Pinto and the Vega hatchback were 50″ tall is interesting. Having ridden in all of these cars, In my opinion, the Dasun 510, the Toyota Corona, and the Fiat 124 sedan were all more comfortable cars.
The 124 Coupe looks great. A lovely greenhouse.
Oops, yes, that should have been either “might” or “would,” not both.
When Aaron started out talking about a tall sedan as influence the first thing I thought of was the Alfa Giulia. Tall and boxy.
I thought of that too, but since Mitchell was so fixated on the Fiat 124, that seemed more immediately relevant.