I was on my way to an appointment and about to cross the Arkansas River on the highway 64 bridge between Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas when I spotted the Citation pulling up beside me. I grabbed my cell phone for a snapshot or two. It’s in good shape despite at least one hubcap and the unobtainium plastic between the bumper and the quarter panel missing in action.
It’s a 2.8 V-6. I followed it for a while and it was keeping up with traffic well and didn’t smoke at all. First a shot of the right side. The glare of the cheap Nissan plastics on my windshield never fails to annoy, even on a cloudy winter day.
Notice that there are no rust holes from a dealer’s emblem being screwed onto the trunk, as was the norm back then. You don’t see many of these in traffic anymore. This one must have been a keeper judging by the lack of rust, the original emblems (it even had the Citation II on the front fender) and the condition of the paint.
It’s either an 84 or 85 model as Chevrolet rebranded the Citation as the “Citation II” for those years, as if we’d be fooled into thinking it was a different car! I am thinking it is an ’84 model as the 112 hp V-6 was upgraded to fuel injection with a whopping 130 hp for 1985 and I don’t see any ‘fuel injection’ emblems here.
It’s like a ray of sunshine on a gray day! Perfect color for your pictures, good catch.
The only experience I have with one of these is a neighbor around the block with whose kid I went to middle school, sometimes on a rainy day they would drive us and had one in a red tone, I always found it odd how the radio was vertical.
My sister was “given” a Citation from her sister’s husband in the late 80s-early 90s. Her’s was a 2 door sedan in a non descript shade of metallic blue. The only time that I ever rode in it I noticed that odd looking vertical radio but when I pointed it out to my sister she seemed genuinely surprised. She had never noticed the unusual placement.
That is a staggeringly great sighting! I can’t remember the last time I saw a Citation of any description in traffic. It’s been at least 10 years.
The last Citation I saw on the road was in Quito, Ecuador, last year. Quite a find, here or there! I remember lots of tan (beige?) Citations but don’t remember many yellow ones. The Ecuadorean sighting was red, and IIRC it was a notchback.
Citations were purposeful attractive Chevrolets. The proportions of the design are excellent. Simple, clean, roomy and handsome. Sadly, they were built out of the poorest materials available. Poor sound deadening. Consequently, they were unsafe to drive over 60 miles per hour, loud and reeked of cheap.
Mine was new, but lasted only one year. It was towed repeatedly. What a GM Deadly Sin!
I agree, I always liked packaging of these. First year sales showed that GM did a lot right. Ensuing sales reflected how much they did terribly wrong. If these things had been built with even average quality just think of what they could have done for GM.
+1
Agreed. The Citation showed so much promise. Unlike the Vega, which was given a pass by some for being a relatively disposable second car, the X-body was mainstream transportation, ushering in the new, efficient FWD drivetrain to a primary, core demographic.
And, since it was from stalwart GM, it had to be reliable! What an incredible disappointment it was for hundreds of thousands of otherwise loyal GM buyers, driving them straight into the outstretched arms of the Japanese, never to return for at least a generation. It was truly the beginning of the end for GM, which only got worse by the impending appointment of the ten-year, bungling tenure of bean-counter GM CEO Roger Smith.
After a glowing review by no less than Car and Driver (in which any foibles were quickly explained by a GM rep as only applying to their ‘pre-production’ car), I test drove a brand-new, black 1981 Citation X-11 (the new one with the hood scoop) just like in the article. And, just like C&D’s car, the transmission kept popping out of fourth gear upon deceleration from highway speed. I had to hold the shifter down to keep it from doing it which, I presume, was due to the engine shifting on the rubber, firewall-mounted engine mounts. No, thanks.
I saw an x-12 commuting to portland a couple of weeks ago. It looked like it had been through a war, as did the driver.
X12? Wasn’t it X11, or were there both?
X-11. I had a 1980 X-11; fast, good handling or much of anything else positive it WAS NOT! At the time it seemed fairly good, unless you tried to run it next to any late 60s, 1970 “muscle car”.
I traded it for a new ’85 Dodge Lancer turbo…WOW!! Well, IF you could get its cable shifter to catch the next gear…IF……. 🙁 DFO
Buddy’s step dad had a Rampage. Drove it a couple of times myself. I can attest to the crappy shifter. And that’s when it was new.
A guy I worked with bought one of these after being on a waiting list to get one when they first came out. His was an X-11. He was always bragging about how much better of a car his was than the choice I made to replace my aging LTD, a Fairmont Futura. Claiming its “European Sports Design” and all… I told him that the Fairmont also came in a European Sports style, but I didn’t like it! I was still a Brougham fan after having an LTD. I wanted bright work, damn it! Not black accents… Anyway…
I didn’t have to wait for mine. He did. His platform was essentially gone by the mid-eighties (although it may’ve had a second life as the platforms for later GM FWD cars). My Fox platform car had quite an illustrious career, going all the way up to the nineties and even included a Lincoln, the Mark-VII.
It was probably just us 20 somethings having an old fashioned Ford vs Chevy debate. ;o)
Having grown up a Chevy fan as a kid, with a couple of Impalas, and even the Caprice of Novas, the Concours, I thought that Chevrolet missed an opportunity here. The backup lights on those taillights should’ve been in the center, not the inside, as God intended for a Chevrolet!!!
Let’s use a ’73 Chevy as Exhibit A, shall we? – Your witness…
“…(although it may’ve had a second life as the platforms for later GM FWD cars)…”
Yes. The FWD X car platform was used for the FWD A car, and lasted until 1996, under the Buick Century and Olds Ciera.
Originally, on 1980 model year Citations, the center section was reserved for a separate amber rear turn signal. Changing to all-red and a king-size reflector was an act of cheapening-out, so of course it was done in the cheapest way possible.
The 1982 Celebrity had amber turn signals too and and of course that was the first thing to go with the 1st re-freshening.
Had one as my first car and it has given me a preference for amber turn signals to this day.
The amber turn signals weren’t exclusive to 1980; rather, this was part of the Custom Exterior Group or Deluxe Exterior Trim or whatever they called it. It included extra chrome around the windows, wheel openings, and rocker panel, plus the three-color taillights. I think this was offered throughout the entire Citation run; it was through 1982 anyway. Is anyone here sure the amber turn signals were functional, not like those on the ’76-’77 Vega that didn’t actually light up?
I know the ones on the early Chevettes were functional. I’ve heard about the Vega ones not being so, but always thought that was an urban legend based on someone who’d gotten behind a Vega with a replacement flasher from an earlier model year or a wagon.
On a related note, I always thought it was odd that the mid-late ’70s move towards amber rear signals wasn’t seen on wagons at all. Was there some proposed legislation floating around that would’ve given them an extra couple years to phase-in?
I came across the old German Autotest video from 1979…
You can click on gear icon and then select “Auto-translate” and “English”.
Good grief…looks like it came with a factory dent in the right rear quarter panel, just ahead of the bumper. And for whatever reason, GM blacked out the rear retroreflectors built into the taillamps (surrounding the reverse lamp) and glued separate ones onto the bumper instead—have seen these same tails on a Japan-market Citation.
Marckyle64: Since you blocked out the licensce plate on a car that you don’t even know (smh), maybe you could run the FREE plate search on CarFax to get us the true year. Thanks.
Wow, this is a nastalgic view for me, when I was between 1-4 years old the house across the street had a Citation in this exact shade of yellow sitting stationary beside the garage. Oddly enoug it seemed exotic to me, probably for the color.
That sure is clean.
Nice find, thanks for sharing.
What an amazing find, a nearly 35 year old Chevy Citation and a lovely color to boot! So I take it the V6 is the most reliable engine that was available?
Can anyone tell me what is the function of L-shaped rubber piece hanging under the engine? This annoyed me for years since nobody back then could answer my question.
This rubber piece seems to be exclusive to the first two or three years of production and only X-body.
Thanks!
As a teenager, I remember spotting that piece dangling down at the time. For me, it helped give a sense of re-enforcement towards the X-body’s reputation for being fragile and/or defective.
I’ve always wondered what those were for. Some sort of engine mount vibration absorber?
I think the rubber piece was only installed on V6 engines. I don’t know the function.
Great find!
Good looking car, I like it! And it’s even older than my GTI!
USAA bumper sticker….back in the 1980s, only officers and officer candidates (West Point, etc, and ROTC) were eligible for USAA.
Some body, or bodies, obviously cared about this car.
Seeing one of these is like seeing a 1980 Volare or Aspen in my book – someone got really lucky and waited until near the end of production to get one, and wound up with a decent car to keep for the long haul. Not a pleasant car or an attractive car or a luxurious car, but a decent one.
The car that saved Chrysler, and Ford. If the Citation and the other Xs hadn’t been so appealing, yet so poorly engineered and put together, no one would have bought a K car, fairmont, or Escort. The fact that this was such the right car at the right time, comfortable, roomy, fuel efficient, and attractive compared with the competition but then turned out to be so unbelievably bad cast a huge pall over all of GM’s products. If they hadn’t been so appealing, fewer people would have bought them and the eventual implosion wouldn’t have been as much of a disaster. The K car wasn’t as attractive and didn’t have the useful hatchback and didn’t offer the V6, plus it was tainted by the Volare/Aspen so there weren’t too many more Chrysler loyalists and the Fairmont was yesterday’s fish compared with this. The Japanese didn’t offer anything really family sized at this time so the only family sized cars left were the K cars or the Fairmont, or the A bodies.
If GM had gotten this car right at the beginning, like Chrysler got the K/L bodies reasonably right, Chrysler and Ford might not exist today and GM wouldn’t be closing plants. The whole Saturn disaster, the Nummi failure, none of that would have happened and I’m also guessing that some of the smaller Japanese automakers and VW might have been forced out.
Haha, some sweeping assumptions/generalizations there!
Last citation I’ve seen to date (sadly I took no photo’s) was this same yellow at a garage sale for $400 back in 2013. It too was the 2.8 with automatic. 4dr. My friend Billy went to look at it. Said it had a leaking oil smell and the power steering pump bracket was broken. He didn’t buy it either. I sometimes wish I had.
The piece hanging down was to deflect air onto the axle joint. I believe it was actually plastic, not rubber.
Good catch and I love the color! I haven’t seen a running Citation in several years. The one pictured has been sitting for a long time in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, but I finally stopped to shoot it last September. Looks like the quarter panel filler is in good shape though. The yellow Festiva in the background is similarly not a runner.
My mother bought an ’81 Citation V6 4-door hatch, silver with an all-vinyl maroon interior. It wasn’t a bad car, but then she didn’t pile on the miles very quickly. And it was garaged. It seemed like a spacious luxury car compared to our ’79 VW Rabbit at the time.