(first posted 9/7/2013) My mother-in-law, Helen, passed away a few weeks ago. She was not what we would call a “car person”. Mrs. JPC had mentioned to her a time or two that I write for an old-car website, and her reply would be something like, “That’s nice. Kroger had apples on sale, so I made an apple pie. Here, let me cut you some. Do you want some ice cream with it?”
Helen’s Chrysler may or may not have been a ’56 model, but it’s an educated guess.
I think Helen had maybe four cars throughout her entire life. The first was a big Chrysler, purchased for her when she got married in the 1950s. A car person (or a social climber) would have been happy about it, but to her it was just too big. She called it a boat and seldom drove it. Her driver’s license lapsed around that time, and she saw no reason to renew it; as a city dweller, she simply saw no reason to drive a car and concentrated her energy on raising five kids.
When her middle daughter got a driver’s license, Helen decided that maybe the time had come to renew her own, which she did. She latched onto an older VW (either a fastback or a squareback), which was a car she felt sufficiently comfortable in. Still, there wasn’t much reason to drive it, and the car didn’t get all that much use.
In the ’80s, her marriage ended and she was left with five grown kids, a house and not much else. Now, for the first time in her life, she really needed a car in order to go back to work, and (also for the first time) picked one out for herself. Her car would have to be two things: small (she wouldn’t drive anything big), and inexpensive. With her kids’ help she chose a silver Chevrolet Spectrum sedan, which was in her driveway when I met the future Mrs. JPC.
I got to drive it once. It was a perfectly wretched little car. The little four-cylinder engine was barely able to overcome the three-speed automatic, one of the few extra-cost features on Helen’s Spectrum. Power equipment? None. Actually, I was amazed that she had the kind of strength to wrestle with the car’s stiff manual steering during parking maneuvers. And it was such a treat on a hot day, as the “vent” blew heated air at the driver. Fortunately, it wasn’t a long reach to the other three window cranks to give the hot vent air somewhere else to go.
But I never, ever heard Helen complain about the Spectrum (or about much of anything else, for that matter). Its job was to take her to work, until she retired; a half-mile to the grocery store; a half-mile to church for Sunday Mass; and a mile or two to visit her nearby kids and grandkids. “I made a cake to bring over. Would you like some now, or should we save it for later?”
The only time the Spectrum ever made it onto an interstate highway was when her next-to-last grandchild was about to be born, in Dallas. It was decided that Mrs. JPC would pack our one-year-old kid into the Spectrum and accompany Helen from Indianapolis to Dallas to help out. Why, I asked the Mrs., don’t you take your Honda Accord? It would be more pleasant and comfortable by an order of magnitude (if not two). It was explained to me that if Helen felt the need to drive somewhere in Dallas, she would never drive the Accord–too big, you know.
I decided right then and there that Mrs. JPC had cleared one of the first hurdles toward eventual sainthood by driving that Spectrum all the way to Dallas and back with a one-year-old in the back. It goes without saying that Helen did not take a turn at the wheel, since she would live her entire life without ever driving a car on an interstate highway. Fortunately, their trip was in November, so the lack of air conditioning would not be an issue.
After 10 or 11 years, the Spectrum had racked up something like 34,000 miles. You see, the thing was such a penalty box that nobody in the family ever considered it an upgrade, so it became the car of last resort for anything beyond taking Helen to the store or to church. And, in truth, it didn’t really cause her any trouble. But it was getting to be an old car, and her son decided it was time for Mom to get into something decent. He helped her into a nice, shiny Civic with power steering and air conditioning. Initially, there was concern that she might find the Civic too big, but she adapted.
At the time, I had a secretary whose daughter was looking for some cheap wheels. The Spectrum was starting to get rusty, and it was not much of a car. It was, however, a genuine one-owner, low-mileage car that probably was as nice a car as one could get for the money. While I was thrilled to be able to help move that miserable excuse for a car out of the driveway, Helen liked the young woman and her family and felt good about her car going to someone who really needed it.
Image courtesy EnCarsGlobe.com
Yes, I know that the car in these pictures is two-door Isuzu I-Mark, and that Helen’s car was the badge-engineered Chevy version with four doors. It looked a lot like this Pontiac Sunburst, which again was the same thing. And I know that this I-Mark is a bit newer than an ’86, but does it really matter? I used to look at these as rotten little pieces of automotive crap that had no real reason for existing. Yet as time has passed, I think of Helen whenever I see one of these. The Spectrum wasn’t really so much a car as it was a delivery device for the ingredients of many delicious meals, desserts and after-school treats for the grandkids. It is fitting that I found this one in the parking lot of a Kroger grocery store. Maybe somebody else’s grandma was in there that day, buying tapioca to make some pudding. We say here that every car has a story, but sometimes the story isn’t so much about the car as about the person the car reminds us of. If this is the case, I guess that I have quite a fondness for these little cars after all.
It’s got Spectrumality! … brother, that ain’t Fahrvergnügen. 😉
Maybe one of these w. stick would be a lot more palatable?
I owned a 86 (IIRC) spectrum equipped the same as grandmas car but with a stick. It was everything described above but slightly more peppy slightly. The most joy I got from that heap was dumping the clutch and holding it at rev-limiter in the first three gears way longer than I should have. Mine made an exellent dune buggy and trail beater and after a rattle can rustoleum purple (which actually turned out better than the original paint did) I got $700 dollars on trade for a 92 civic. $700 dollars was $700 more than it was worth. Man that heap took some heat.
That’s a great write up on a not-great car. That’s why CC is so great, I love the personal stories. Sorry about your MIL.
Great story, JPC. These truly were $#!+boxes, the kind of car meant to bring someone into the dealership because of the entry-level price tag.
I remember a car…was it my Renault Alliance? …that blew hot air out of the center vents, too. Running the AC solved it, thankfully.
My mother got her driver’s license the same year I got mine, but then never really used it. Dad’s getting on in years and his health has been challenged, so Mom is thinking she may need finally to drive. Dad sold me his old Ford Focus when he bought a new one last year, and Mom keeps telling me she likes my Focus better. I can see my Focus going to Mom one day. Thankfully, it’s far less a penalty box than an I-Mark.
I’m sold, because if offers little touches like storage compartments in the armrests.
Our next door neighbor in the mid 1980s had a car like this, I think it was a Toyota Tercel or Starlet or something like that. I was only around 8-10 at the time that they had it. They kept it parked outside in the driveway. The wife drove a Buick Regal and the man had a Corvette in the garage. I assume this car was a beater commuter car since it was outside. I rode in it once when I was taken somewhere with the neighbor. It was a navy blue type color with black vinyl interior. Since they parked it outside, and having a dark color and black interior, even in the winter, it would get hot as Hades inside. I remember it was hot ALL_THE_TIME. I can’t remember ever being in a car that hot always. It was a manual transmission and had no options although it should have had a/c although it probably would not have gone very fast with it on. At the time I didn’t care being a kid, but today it must have been somewhat scary to drive. It was a tiny car, and back then, there were no airbags, ABS, or the kind of structural integrity that smaller cars have today. I look at the Smart4Two and wonder if it is safe but probably safer than most cars were years ago.
I would not say it was a scary car, having driving an early 80’s Honda Civic, Honda’s answer to the Tercel/Corolla of the day.
With AC, and running, and the light weight, even 67HP was adequate, just not as much on steeper grades, but then again, many cars suffered from that, so you simply turned it off when you did so, then hit the AC button once done.
It’s easy to say something is scary when you’ve never experienced, given what we’re used to these days in automobiles.
All that said, I never felt the Civic bad on the highway, in fact, it did very well for what it was for the times.
Yeah, but even in looking at it from that time, I remember driving a Chevette that belonged to a friend of my grandmothers. Having ONLY until that point in my life driven one other car, my grandmothers 87 LeSabre Limited, I knew that the Chevette was crappy. I knew it was underpowered, when I never even knew what underpowered was. The Chevette is lower grade that an early 80’s Civic, but still, small cars of that era are…..sketchy…at best.
Sometimes we, as car junkies, need to be regularly reminded that the vast majority of drivers out there don’t give a damn about the automobile except as a transportation appliance. Which means it needs to start every time, get them to and from their destination without any form of concern (much less drama), and be reasonably comfortable. Period. Handling, acceleration, performance are concepts that don’t register. Put them in something that’ll turn one of us on and they’ll probably dislike it because it expects too much owner input.
Why else all those Corollas?
And, to this crowd, what little interest they have in a car, assuming they have any at all, is in what status it’ll bring by their being seen in it. Well, why do you think there are so many leased BMW’s?
A nice writeup of a transportation appliance. I’ve driven a Spectrum in the past. While it’s nothing to write home to mother about, my feeling toward it weren’t quite as negative as the author’s. The biggest sin I could come up with is that it was terminally dull.
Which suited its owner just fine.
You summed up a great deal here with these comments.
I agree 100% all around.
JP, thank you for making a truly forgettable car unforgettable. I’m now wanting tapioca pudding.
I’m sorry about your mother-in-law.
I am saddened by the losses of all of the children of the depression, my parents included. But you are applying the standards of today to the cars of a generation ago. Like judging a 386 computer with the one I am typing this missive on. Two entirely different species. Thank heaven for progress, we really are the beneficiaries in ways we could have never foreseen. RIP and thank you to all the stepping stones in between.
Excellent, and true, observations.
An aunt of mine purchased one in 1987. She got divorced in 1986 and she decided that her 1980 Malibu was too old and she wanted a new car with her new life as a single mom. Hers was just like the one in the first picture but gray. The only options on her car were the automatic transmission, A/C, power steering, and a crappy dealer installed radio. From what I remember the car drove rather nicely, the A/C was quite good for our Caribbean summers, and even tough I never drove it because I was only 13 at the time, I don’t remember me or my cousins having any scare because the car was under powered.
Mechanically it was quite good as it lasted one year until the engine died because my aunt never changed the oil. My step dad helped her purchase a junkyard engine to replace the original one and she learned that she had to change the oil every 3 months. The car final demise came in 1990. My aunt moved to Florida with my cousins that summer and she left the car to my mom and my step dad to be sold. My step dad was coming home from work one night and was using the car, and he stopped for something and he was carjacked. Nothing happened to him but the car was not so lucky.
I remember these and they were around a fair amount back when fairly new. Now, not so much, even out here in non rust country where a 20 YO example could still survive as a solid daily driver.
A nice write up on a car that obviously was on the forgettable side.
My spectrum was an oakanagon valley (B.C) car and while it was structurally sound the bottoms of the fenders where non existant and the same with parts of the rear wheel wells hence the rustoleum paint job.
Great piece! I enjoy the more personal accounts. Helen actually reminds me of my grandmother a little. My grandmother, or “Nana” as I called her, never got her driver’s license.
When my grandparents were first married, my grandfather was teaching her to drive. They lived at the bottom of a hill in South Boston. One day the brakes on a truck parked at the top of the hill went out, and the truck went careening down the hill, into my grandfather’s parked car, totaling it. The incident essentially scarred Nana for life, and she never drove again.
She also raised 5 kids, while working, and relied on rides, public transportation, and walking (which she did a lot of and loved it). After my grandfather’s funeral, our good family friend, Peg, who was the same age as my grandmother, joked that she’d take Nana to the RMV to get her license (Peg had gone with my mom when she got her’s as a teen). My grandmother laughingly refused.
My condolences to MC.
Cars are a lot like food. If you’re used to Upper MidWest food, sushi and yakitori can be rather challenging. Likewise, the converse.
Grandma Fruchey’s last car? Early 80s Chevette that her second husband had purchased as a runabout for her to get groceries and go to shuffleboard games. He drove an old Cadillac to his real estate job. When she passed in 1999 no one was clamoring for that car.
My maternal grandmother on the other hand is in her 80s and still has an Aztex that she drives regularly. Its utility will likely make it desirable if it is her last car and has to be taken care of as part of the estate.
Neighbor with a little brown isuzu I mark with a diesel. Every morning drove it to the country club for his social whatevers and sometimes to play some golf. I never saw it make any long trips and never saw his other car which was locked in his garage. He was my idea of what retired people did.
I moved and don’t know what happened to him or the car. It’s over 15 years ago but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are both still making the half mile trip for his morning coffee.
Back when I was living in one of Gallup’s little neighborhoods (all the houses built in the 50s and many still with their original owners) their was an elderly gentleman with a 1985 Park Avenue in the driveway with towels on the seats to prevent fading. This was the car he would drive for groceries and such. In the 1 car garage was an Eldorado ETC from the end of production that only saw occasional duties for longer trips or when he wanted to impress someone. I always smiled at the artificial turf putting green he had in his front yard.
I moved out 5 years ago but I’d wager he’s still there still doing things the same way.
The story is what makes the car, regardless how bad it is. And the Spectrum wasn’t that good…. We only kept ours a little over a year – it was leaking oil and failing apart with only 30,000 miles on it.
I guess you got your 30K out of the car quickly, Helen just drug it out longer. 🙂
I will say it again and again – this website is the BEST! I had totally forgotten about these cars until I saw this writeup. Thanks JP! I haven’t seen one on the road in years. I dated a girl that bought one of these brand new only to have it totalled after 3 months of ownership. She wasn’t too happy with the car anyway so she replaced it with a Toyota Corolla. I had driven the Spectrum a few times and I only remember the seats being very unsupportive and the steering vague. Thanks again for the memory!
My aunt Shiela had a Spectrum about a year or so before trading it – same dealer – on a NUMMI Nova. She commuted some distance on the NY Thruway in the Capital District and presumably discovered not all Chevy-branded Japanese cars were created equal.
Ah yes, the Great Chevrolet Import Grab Bag: “Did you win a Toyota, an Isuzu or a Suzuki?”
Toyota?
You win!
First off JPC, my condolences on your MiL. It sounds like she was a great person.
Your Mother In Law sounds like my grandmother on my mom’s side. Both are of the same generation and both raised 5 kids.
My maternal grandparents were working class folks that lived in Shillington PA which is in the Reading PA area(the very essence of an Irish American family) After WWII my grandfather worked for the Reading Railroad and my grandmother worked for Bachman company in Berks PA(they make corn curls and pretzels)
They always had only one car at a time(they saw no need for two) because most of the time they walked or took the bus. For trips to Reading(which my grandfather called town) they ether walked(it was a 15 min walk to Reading) or took the bus. my grandfather took the bus to work. The car was only for long trips, heavy duty shopping and church and to take my grandmother to work.
When I was growing up they had a red Jeep Cherokee Chief from the 1970’s. In 1992 the Tin Worm started to claim the Jeep and they were forced to get a new vehicle. The jeep only had 50,000 or so miles on it when it was traded in. The car they bought was a no frills GMC Jimmy(the small one based off the S10) with the following options, 4 doors, 4WD(a must in PA), auto trans and cloth seats. It had no AC, no power options. They bought the Jimmy new with cash and from 1992 to 2004 it occupied the same space as the Jeep in front of the house. In 1995 my grandfather died and in 2004 we took the keys away from my grandmother and moved her into a assisted care place in MD(near my folks) due to the onset of dementia.(she died in 2009) I bought the truck from my grandmother in 2004 with only 34,983 miles on it and drove it till 2009 before I gave it to a good friend. It was really a no frills truck.
Like your MiL my grandparents viewed their vehicles as simply transportation and not a status symbol. As long as it started up and got them where they needed to go then they were happy.
As I’m reading the comments I am remembering another car that I think was called a spectrum. Imported by Chevy. Made, I think, by Suzuki. I remember a clutch cable that always stretched at inopportune times and going to pick up my SIL with a comalong and a 16 foot trailer behind my Impala. Not for a clutch cable that time.
My SIL would be named the destroyer if cars could talk. My last memory of the car was of it being removed from aforesaid 16 foot trailer behind aforesaid 77 Impala Wagon. Chronologically it was just before he destroyed the diesel jetta.
Some folks are cursed not just by choice of cars but the way they treat them. I loaned him my S-10 and he brought it back a week later, 5 quarts low on coolant and one quart low on oil. I think he just struck out on his own as far as I am concerned.
Sorry for the brain flatulence. I wonder how many of these econoboxes Chevy imported and who served as the source.
The Spectrum was an I-mark, the Suzuki(rebadged Cultus/Swift) was the Sprint, which morphed into to the Geo Metro, which is still built in Pakistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pak_Suzuki).
As JPC mentioned, Geo was quite the Buffet when came to where they sourced the vehicles. I can recall that GM did have an equity stake in both Isuzu and Suzuki,
I did have a Spectrum as a rental car a couple of times. It was alright, as far as I can remember
Not certain but I think that car appeared here with Holden Gemini written on it only in fordor sedan though it was a last ditch attempt to have an in house small Holden and along with the awful J body Aska entered Holdens lineup the Aska badged as a Camira only sold in NZ, OZ had its own excerable Camira J car,
Yes, Bryce, we had the 4 door Holden Gemini version here. A total flop as at the time Australians were moving into 5 door hatch backs in this size car. The excellent little Ford Laser/ Mazda 323 ate it for lunch and it was replaced by Nissan Pulsers fitted with Holden Family II motors, sold as Holden Astra.
I came across a cute little Spectrum in my school’s parking lot.
This must have been after the ill-advised Opel by Isuzu debacle.There were an awful lot of unpleasant cars, including the Daewoo-built Pontiac LeMon… er LeMans, and the Ford Aspire.
I didn’t click on this story at first because I really didn’t care to read about the Spectrum, but it turned out to be a great story about a person and a car. I remember several friends of my grandmothers that were like this, assorted Chevettes, Sunbirds, Sundances etc.
I bought one of these new in ’88 (a Chevy and it was my only new vehicle purchase so far). It wasn’t that bad of a car considering I was driving a ’75 Beetle before that the engine caught on fire in, so I viewed it as an upgrade. I had a stick shift and not much else, it didn’t even come with a radio which was alright by me seeing I probably was going to replace the stock deck anyway. I kept it for about five years until it was paid off and then bought a ’90 Ford Ranger. I sold it to a young kid that used it to deliver pizza and when I saw it last he had pretty much rounded off all the corners and three of the wheel covers were gone.
College buddy had one and managed to destroy it through abuse/neglect in the space of 4 years. Passing anything on a two-lane highway was stressful due to the planning involved…dropping back to floor it for a few seconds and pulling out at the right moment as oncoming traffic cleared. Usually pulling back into correct lane with only the minimum distance to oncoming traffic to spare. Except for vintage cars and riding mowers, this was the slowest accerating vehicle I’ve ever been in. Mostly due to auto trans that seemed to halve the available power.
Gee, there must be some dust in my eye, it’s starting to water.
Never thought an article about an ’80’s econobox could make me emotional.
I remember an older fellow who lived in the same neighbourhood as me. He had a little gold coloured Spectrum that he drove around for about three months and then parked. He replaced it with a 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass Salon which he drove for about a year, then parked, and began driving the little Spectrum again, which I could never understand. I suppose gas prices got to be too much. But that is one heck of a gap in automotive taste and trim level. You could’ve parked that spectrum in the passenger compartment of the Cutlass.
A salute to a life well lived! My condolences to the Mrs.
My mom stopped driving in the late ’70s due to medical challenges; Dad did all the driving for them. When Dad died in ’93 Mom had to learn again (they lived out in distant suburbia)….we found her a great shape used Sable and it was like she was a kid again for at least 2-3 years. Ultimately though her body gave up that dexterity and the last few years of her life she was in a facility. She became quite a terror in her motorized wheelchair!
So odd that GM delegated replacing the T platform to both Opel and Isuzu, winding up with two completely different cars.
I never “got” the Spectrum, seeing as how the Sprint and Corolla were available, but the rarity factor draws me to these cars, as does the styling. They were good looking in their day.
I do believe that the Geo Spectrum version of the I-Mark was ranked as the most reliable car in the entire GM fleet. At least for a couple of years. I think that was the second gen but I’m not certain. Perhaps not so much of a pillar of stoutness but a testament to the quality of the much of the rest of the GM fleet. I recall seeing some left-over Spectrums on Chevy dealers’ lots at significant mark downs.
It’s descendent, the Geo Storm (Impulse) was a hot seller for GM. Said to outsell the other GM sub compacts. GM was quite sad when Isuzu quit producing cars after 1993. At one time the Storm seemed to be everywhere in my area of Pa.
A very nice essay.
My condolences
What a touching story.
I’ve never saw one of these, but, in pictures it look pretty fine for me. No frills clean design.
THAT WAS A GREAT STORY!!
I see all the comments about cars for those of us who aren’t quite so picky as some of us might be, myself emphatically included. But even for those who only want to get from point A to point B, and are totally unconcerned about handling or acceleration, leather seats and all that, they still get it in no short time when in a car that does things better, that even in the absence of A/C, doesn’t blow 90F air out of the vents on a 70F day. That has seats that don’t make their back hurt when they get to work. They might not know what a shitbox is, but once they spend just a little bit of time in something modest, instead of crappy, they figure it out right away.
Modest is fine, it’s built to a price. Crappy is built to a price and the manufacturer didn’t care.
My paternal grandmother spent the first 40 years of her life in India, before 15 years in England and then Canada where she died. She never drove a car – I suspect she never even sat behind a wheel.
My maternal grandmother, on the other hand… learned to drive when she was about 20 and had a Morris Cowley which she had painted red, so it was known locally as the Red Menace. I remember visiting her in England, where she drove a bright blue Mini at what seemed like terrifying speeds along the single-track lanes in Kent.
What a nice and touching story. In contrast to many of us gearheads, there are many more people whose needs for transportation are pretty basic – and don’t need a lot of frills, size, and the like.
Condolences to your MIL, JPC.
Isuzu was benchmarking the B11 generation Sunny/Sentra as to what they were thinking with these cars, and considering that particular bar, I think they were pretty successful at improving upon Nissan’s mousetrap, to be honest. They sold relatively well despite whatever notions one might have; over 100,000 during the five year run, and 460,000+ if you include the Chevy/Geo badged Spectrums.
These cars supplanted various GM T-car based models in showrooms. As a Chevette replacement, the Spectrum was a giant step forward. The I-Mark was no Honda, but it was pretty decent compared to an Escort or LeMans from the same period.
It’s been almost 40 years, and I only drove it once, but I actually liked the I-Mark (at least compared to other cars I drove in comparison at the time.
As only brother with 3 sisters (2 younger, 1 same age) one of my “jobs” in their younger days was to help pick out inexpensive cars for them back when they were in college (my other job was to fix said car when it had a problem so there was also some self-preservation involved. We live in central Texas, and you’d thing it wouldn’t be too hard, but there were quite a few constraints on the selection that made it harder:
-Good gas mileage
– Not too many miles on it. Living in central Texas, lots of people buy small cars for good gas mileage, and distances can be pretty far here, so lots of them had significant mileage on them (especially for 40 years ago, today I’d have more of a buffer)
– Air conditioning a must
– Automatic a must
– Some style is important (probably move this up on my sister’s list vs my list)
– Inexpensive (probably most important criteria)
To make things easier there was:
– Driveline didn’t matter…could be FWD or RWD. FWD wasn’t so dominant 40 years ago. AWD was almost no-existent (not sure when Subaru went AWD, probably in the 80’s but my Dad owned a new 1976 DL that was FWD.
– Could be 4 doors, but 2 door preferred. They lived in same town as my parents, so cargo carrying wasn’t an issue (they could borrow parent’s car)
I should mention I had a VW Scirocco at the time…no air conditioning, manual transmission. It was my first VW, and I’ve not owned any other make since 1981.
Anyhow, I liked the Isuzu Impulse, which was pretty similar to the Scirocco, but there weren’t many of them in my sister’s price range, especially that were automatic. So I was pretty stoked when we found an I-Mark with automatic, not too many miles on it.
It drove fine, and had air conditioning but…it didn’t have the right “style” my sister was looking for. Forgot to mention this was for my youngest sister.
It was an older design, certainly, but that isn’t all bad…my undergraduate car was a Datsun 710, and other that poor traction (it was a light car with RWD, and I went to school in Vermont…that’s where my parents lived at the time, yes they moved from Vermont to Texas 40 years ago in 1982). But that’s not a big deal in central Texas, it does get slippery at times mostly after it rains, and the very few times we get winter precipitation…but to me, the I-Mark would be reminicent of the 710, which I had to keep going, but it was a really simple car to work on.
However the lack of “style” resulted in a veto from my sister. So..no sale.
I also kind of though Isuzus would be pretty durable….my sisters really aren’t into cars, but knowing they sometimes get in bad situations where the car might take a beating,,,,I thought that would be a plus. Too bad I never got a chance to find out.