What is motor trend 1971 car of they year?

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member

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1971 Motor Trend Car of the Year - Chevrolet Vega The Chevrolet Vega was a subcompact car sold from 1971 through 1977. Available in coupe, hatchback and station wagon body styles (referred to as the Notchback, Hatchback and Kammback, respectively, in the brochures), it was based on the GM H platform.

What's your opinion the the Vega? In the rust belt they turned to Iron Oxide real fast and the engine didn't last long either.

BTW, I lost confidence in Motor Trend after they called the Vega the car of the year.
 
Any BRAND NEW car is nice. First year of a brand new model... How were they supposed to know the Vega would go down in history as one of the biggest POS cars of all time? Not like they had a lot of choices to begin with.

It was kind of a dumb name but the 70's were a dumb time. American vehicles were ALL garbage... two years in the rust belt and you could see through the floor in most. Clothing was ugly and awful... corduroy?!? All the popular music made you want to kill yourself. Even the upbeat music was drab and depressing.
 
Dumb time? Yeah, we're so much smarter now. It's just like the old days of high gas prices and inflation...just like the Carter years...oops, I mean the 70s.
 
(quoted from post at 06:22:24 09/22/21)
<img src=https://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cvphotos/cvphoto101947.jpg>
1971 Motor Trend Car of the Year - Chevrolet Vega The Chevrolet Vega was a subcompact car sold from 1971 through 1977. Available in coupe, hatchback and station wagon body styles (referred to as the Notchback, Hatchback and Kammback, respectively, in the brochures), it was based on the GM H platform.

What's your opinion the the Vega? In the rust belt they turned to Iron Oxide real fast and the engine didn't last long either.

BTW, I lost confidence in Motor Trend after they called the Vega the car of the year.
had a Vega for about 10 years through most of the nineties. Square tube chassis, 4 link, 12.5-1 355 with a glide. Ran low tens at 130. Not much on it was made by GM, though.
 

The air filter was not serviceable my take a vega did not last to the recommended service interval. I think it was stamped replace at 50K... The heads and block were just plain junk they may have been more inline with todays engines but not in the 70's... With todays technology that 4cyl would be one ell of a fast ride.
 
I think you are right.
The younger generation thought foreign cars were more reliable.
Both my kids are Honda and Toyota fans.
I'm a GM fan. Never owned a Vega or Corvair.
 
My sister bought a brand new one in yellow. Was a pretty little car, neat interior and dash. In 18 months, rust was marching down the middle of both front fenders. I did her first oil change, guy at the factory that installed the oil filter must have had a sense of humor, I had to destroy it to get it off...
 
My cousin had a Vega when she was in college. She also had problems with it using too much oil and GM decided to give out free Vega engines if you reported it before 36K miles. My uncle drove it to the dealership with about 10 miles left on the warranty and she got a new engine. People comment about resleeving the block and having a good engine. There used to be numerous companies that advertised in the back of magazines that would do that service fairly cheap. Afterwards, you had a decent engine...until the body rusted away. There were also dozens of companies that manufactured the V8 small block conversion kit. Yes, it was fast. But you still had a car that had inadequate braking and the front end that couldn't handle it. But you could spin the rear tires, couldn't you? Until you tore out the rear end. Back in 1975, I actually wanted a Chevy Monza real bad. It looked aerodynamic, available with the cool spider on the hood, and was available with the small block. (You just didn't have room to work on it)
Getting back on the original topic, yes it was the car of the year. At least until you drove it.
 
Call it a coincidence, about the same time the government was cracking down on automakers to lower HP and improve emissions and MPG GM came out with the Vega.

-Relatively cheap to buy.

-Came with what many would call a disposable engine.

-In some regards it was overbuilt as it was capable of being converted to a V-8 with not much more than some backyard fabricating skills and a trip to the wreckers.

Would be a little far fetched to suggest this was a planned up yours to the EPA but with the way it turned out who knows.

All the auto makers knew in that era that satisfying the "need for speed" would sell more cars.
 
(quoted from post at 03:59:20 09/22/21) Buddy of mine had one. Back window blew out.Going down the highway. The Pinto was a better car.
That is not saying too much good about the Vega. The pinto's gas tank would rupture in a rear end collision.
 
That sounds like my story. I had a 1969 Roadrunner. Wife got pregnant and I sold it for a lightly used 1974 Vega with an automatic transmission. It lasted a couple years or so until the motor went bad at @ 36,000 miles. I sold it to a friend who opened up the engine. The cylinders were scored real bad...but the thing I still remember was all the carbon built up around the valves. There was so much build up that the valve weren't closing. The auto trans felt like it could go at any time. The Yugo's probably had a better tranny!
 
>The pinto's gas tank would rupture in a rear end collision.<

Yes, the media really hammered that to death. In reality, all small cars back then had a tendency to have that happen. You really had no protection back then if you were in a wreck driving a small car. My first car was a '66 Mustang. (Yea, another Ford product) The floor of the trunk was the top of the gas tank. You filled it with gas from the rear. (But that gas cap was COOL!) That car had a gum wrapper for a frame. As far as having an explosion when you got rear-ended, that Mustang was far worse. You just didn't hear about it from the media.
 
The Pinto got a bad rap on that one.

The real story: There was a place where two body panels were spot welded together behind the gas tank. That left a
sharp tab that could get forced into the gas tank in a rear end collision thus rupturing the tank. The repair was
to either bend over the offending tab, trim it off, or put a cover on it. A 5 minute fix.

No worse than Chevy's side saddle gas tanks that were prone to rupture in a side collision. They all have their
weaknesses. Some get more air play than others. Given the complexity of designing and manufacturing an automobile,
I'm surprised there aren't more of these little defects in ALL cars.
 
>With todays technology that 4cyl would be one ell of a fast ride. <

I've said this from day one: GM should have kept the 153 4-cylinder that was available in the late 60s and put that motor in the Vega. I used to have a '69 Nova with the four cylinder 153/Powerglide. Gutless as can be, but it would have been much quicker with a manual transmission behind it. It was also durable and easy to work on. Only slightly heavier than the Vega engine. At least the engine would have outlasted the car.
 
(quoted from post at 08:55:55 09/22/21) The Pinto got a bad rap on that one.
I agree. We owned two of them. They were good solid cars and we drove the hell out of both of them. I'm a Chevy guy for the most part, but I cannot say anything bad about our Pintos. At one time I had looked at a Chevette, which was about the same size as the Pinto at that time. I opened the driver's door and it weighed about half as much as the one on my Pinto! Just felt lighter and cheaper all around. I didn't buy it.
 
I don't know anything, first hand, about the Vegas. I was informed years ago by both family, neighbors & a couple Chevy dealers that they were junk when they hit the lot. The one retired Chevy dealership owner told me they should have been advertised as, proudly delivered with rust!. So, I never had an interest in one.... nor the Pinto, nor the Gremlin, nor anything Chrysler came limping to the barn with. The only good.... or should I say neat thing to come out of that fiasco, were the Vert-A-Pac cars. A very neat idea, albeit a bit labor intensive. It did keep the cars safe from the people/kids that liked to throw rocks at the open auto racks full of new cars. They were a nuisance when the Vert cars got in a wreck as you couldn't get the dang doors open.

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The Stac-Pac was a neat idea too. Essentially a container to haul the longer wheelbase GM cars in.


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Mike
 
Back in 1971 life was good , cars were good . I had a new 1971 Duster 340 the only one anywhere around or even sold by any of the dealers in my district. I was driving a MARKED CAR that stood out like a sore thumb . Now THAT was a great car . Life was good . Being a Parts Manager for a large Chrysler Plymouth dealer ship the perks that went with the job was the DEMO'S i got to pick and choose , i was allowed 1200 miles before i had to take another . So i got to drive a lot of the new Road Runners , GTX's and CUDA's ,Dusters . Just once did i ever take a BIG BOAT Chrysler convertible for a weekend . Most i never had for more then a week because someone would see me driving it on the weekend evening and have to look at it even go for a ride in it and before i left work Monday evening that person would come in a buy it and i was out in the lot looking for my next ride home . We sure did have some fun cars back then and cars one could work on with out a 5000 dollar scan tool that you have to update every year for a grand, nothing like being held HOSTAGE .
 
(quoted from post at 06:59:20 09/22/21) Buddy of mine had one. Back window blew out.Going down the highway. The Pinto was a better car.
into: due to gas tank location and resulting fires, the Pinto was known as 'Ford's portable 4-burner stove'. :(
 
I had a 1971 that my dad got in 1971. First Vega sold in the town we lived in at the time. Ran well and handled well till it got around 50K mile o it then the engine started to use a lot of oil. In 74 I traded it in on the Dodge van I ordered
 
I had a 73 Subaru, my first foreign front-wheel drive. I enjoyed it, but, boy did it rust,
and the engine swallowed a valve at about 75,000 miles. However, Subaru kept at it and now
has a pretty high rating. I sold my wreckage for more than I paid for it. Only car I owned
that had no depreciation.
 
Those were the runabouts only. The station wagons had a whole different setup for the gas tank and weren't effected.

We had three wagons at various times and they were dang good little cars in their day.
 
GM invested a great deal of development resources in the Vega, and introduced significant innovations. As is usually the case, some such innovations worked out while others did not.

Most folks forget or never knew that the Vega was designed for a two rotor Wankel engine. Unfortunately, the federales changed emissions regulations and GM decided that they could not make the Wankel meet such regulations while at the same time meeting reliability and fuel economy targets. Accordingly, they quickly designed a new 4 cylinder engine that could be economically manufactured by a hostile UAW work force, a handicap not evident in Germany or Japan.

The cast iron cylinder head had no expensive provisions for removing the camshaft other than from the front and did not have hydraulic cam followers. Shim adjustment of the cam followers, just about universal in OHC designs at the time, was impossible so the tapered screw type cam follower was developed. Easier to adjust lash than removing the camshaft to change shims, reliable, and cheap.

To control costs, the aluminum cylinder block was a high silicon, sleeveless die casting. Think about that a bit. The dies must be parted to remove the casting so the cylinder bores were Siamesed, the entire 4 cylinder siamesed bore part, not connected to the water jacket at the top of the block, a necessity to allow vertical parting of the dies. Innovative and easy to produce but head gasket failure became an issue until new head gasket materials were introduced for (IIRC) the 74 model year.

The cylinder bore part of the block vibrated vis a vis the water jacket at the head gasket, causing head gasket failure, and allowing coolant into the cylinders resulting in rapid failure of high silicon aluminum bores. The high silicon die cast aluminum block was not the issue. Head gasket failure was. This was eventually resolved but the damage had been done by that time.

Cost constraints were imperative so Engineering worked within such constraints in order to design a vehicle that could be sold at a profit, a necessity for any business to remain viable.

There is, of course much more to the Vega story, and this brief synopsis is highly condensed for purposes of time.

Of course, in hind sight, some decisions should have been made differently. Such it true of just about any innovative endeavor.

Dean
 
>We had three wagons at various times and they were dang good little cars in their day.<

And unlike the Vega, the Pinto wagons could be ordered with a V6 engine.
 
Not much here about the Chevy Chevette. Another piece of junk by Chevrolet, in my opinion. I had one, the starter solenoid stopped working. I showed my wife how to start it by using a screw driver. Some how the hood came down on her arm. It bent the hood, but did nothing serious to her arm. My daughter was driving home on the freeway from a 4H meeting. The car starting heating. She drove it until it stopped. She started walking home at night. That was before cell phones. A nice older person picked her up. Then the timing belt broke one time. Not one of my favor cars I have owned. Stan
 
I had a GT Vega back in the early eighties.Don't remember if it was a 71' or 72'.I built a high compression big cammed thirty over 350 and put that in it.Made a decent car out of it after that.Was sitting at four way waiting my turn and an empty log truck coming down the hill to my left didn't see stop sign at intersection hit the binders and went sideways flipping truck and the bunk sliding into me and my little V8 Vega.Car was totalled and by the grace of God I walked away.Drug the pile of junk home yanked the running gear and put it in my other hotrod a 1934 Plymouth five window coupe.Now that was a ride.Too many stories with that car to mention here.All I can say is:Oh to be young and drive a way cool car that won its fair share of street races.
Paul
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Have a picture of the Vega somewhere but here's picture of the Plymouth,by this time the 350 was replaced with a 440/727 and a nine inch Ford rear.
 
Bought a brand new Vega GT in 1974 just as I graduated from college. 1st new car. 4spd stick. It was fun to drive. Made a great car for 2 years until it was burning oil in a major way. Got rid of it for a Toyota Corolla wagon with a 5spd stick. The 5spd was rare. That car lasted a lot longer.
 
Ha! Anyone of that era who thought forgien cars were more reliable never drove a Fiat of that time period. LOL!

Fix It Again Tony. LOL!
 
Agreed.

Few considered foreign cars more reliable in the 60s or 70s.

Such belief's did not become common until the 80s.

Dean
 
Neighbor had a Cosworth Vega, that was something. When he started that you knew it wasn't a normal engine in it. Dam thing rusted so fast in MI you could see pieces fall off every day.
 
(quoted from post at 16:24:35 09/22/21) Neighbor had a Cosworth Vega, that was something. When he started that you knew it wasn't a normal engine in it. Dam thing rusted so fast in MI you could see pieces fall off every day.
non-rustbelt CV is worth pretty good change today. Never were very many &amp; few survivors.
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I almost bought one in 1976 but did not.

Fastest accelerating American made car available in 1976.

Dean
 
I didn't know chevy used a cosworth engine.
IN the rust belt the engine and body fell apart at about the same rate.
 
Chevrolet hired Cosworth to design the engine, specifically the cylinder head.

IIRC, displacement was reduced from 2.4 to 2.0 L for the Cosworth.

Dean
 
(quoted from post at 18:14:34 09/22/21) I didn't know chevy used a cosworth engine.
IN the rust belt the engine and body fell apart at about the same rate.
f about 2,000,000 Vegas, only 3508 had the Cosworth twin cam engine &amp; cost 2X a standard production Vega.
 

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