Another car of the year - Citation

jal-SD

Well-known Member
I saw in the Car of the Year thread below that the Chevy Citation was featured in about 1980. Where did they go? Company I worked for in the early '80's had two Citations leased for grunts like me to drive for work travel. Both V-6's, the 2-door sports model was a 4 speed manual. The 4-door sedan had an automatic transmission. Four of us drove the snot out of them. I liked them, nice ride, good mileage and plenty of get up and go. We were all sad to see them go, especially when the powers that be leased a piece of junk known as a Chevett for us along with a I think was a Chevelle. (It was never available, boss latched on to it.) If I remember right, the Chevett left me setting someplace every time I drove it except once. I wasn't the only staff that refused to drive it. I used to drive my own vehicle & collect no milage if the Chevett was the only vehicle available. (We had a couple of Impalas leased, too.) We all cheered when the lease on that hunk of junk was up. Any one else have any experience with either a Citation or a Chevett?
 
My dad was real good at falling for the car of the year. He did that in 1971 with the Vega he got fist Vega sold in Athens TN. and then years later he fell for it again with the Citation which was a 1980 and I still have it.
 
We had a Phoenix, which was a Citation with Pontiac badges. We put 80,000 miles on it with only a water pump change, tires and brakes. It was demoted to my work car and then traded when I got a pickup. It had the much maligned 2.8 V6 and automatic transmission. For what I had invested it was a very good car and was often overloaded with 5 people and enough luggage for a weeks vacation and it never left us down.
 
If my dad was still with us he'd be hunting you down .... ha!! He was a died-in-the-wool Chevette owner, he had three of them for sure, maybe even four. I remember being with him driving around and it wasn't the most comfortable car I'd ever been in. Safety was also an issue but not the fault of General Motors. RIP dad, thinking of you this fall equinox day.
 
The Citation was a very good car.

My Father bought a new one with 60 degree V6 and automatic in 1980.

Never any trouble.

I sold it in 1990 for my Mother after my Father passed.

Dean
 
When his kids were small, my brother had a Citation. He bought it used and put many trouble-free miles on it. I think he traded it off when he bought a Chevy Luv. Rust and Chevy Luv trucks seem to Luv each other. For some reason, Ralph Nadar tried to pick on the Citation just like he did the Corvair, but the Citation was so popular he shot himself in the foot with his attempt. As far as the Chevette is concerned, way back when gasoline was over $4/gallon, I bought a factory Chevette diesel (with a 5-speed) on ebay really cheap that needed engine work. I bought it because I figured petro would be going to $10/gallon and figured I'd need it as a work car. I got all the engine parts together for a rebuild, but fuel dropped enough that I decided I didn't want to be seen in a Chevette, so it still sits in my shed. Perhaps when fuel goes to $10/gallon, I'll rebuild the engine and drive it. :) Before you laugh too hard at the Chevette, the heater core is super easy to change. Modern vehicles could take a lesson there.
 
Had a Buick Century. I don't know if that was the same body as the Citation or not. It was comfortable, would go anywhere, but didn't want to stop in the snow. This cured me of ever having another front wheel drive car.
In 1980 I bought my only new car. It was a red/orange Chevette. [This replaced my first car, which was a 1967 Malibu convertible, which had rotted away]. The Chevette was dependable, and good in the snow. Gas engine, four speed. We got several years of good service out of it before it started bothering. A neighbor gave me his diesel Chevette as it had some engine troubles and no one seemed to know how to fix it. It was an automatic, and couldn't hardly get out of its own way. I fixed it up, and we ran two Chevettes for a while!
 
I bought my wife a five speed Chevette scooter that she thought she wanted until she got tired of shifting it. I then drove it and she drove my El Camino. I really liked the Chevette, about 35 mpg, room for your azz and a gallon of gas. Then a few years later I bought her Citation !! that was a nice car. I've had all GM cars and trucks and the only dog out of the bunch was a 97 Jimmy, was a high priced cool looking pile of junk.
 
My dad bought a Chevy Citation new in 1981. It was a 4 spd standard transmission and 4 cyl . It was a bit underpowered but a very dependable car. I believe it got traded around 1985 or 1986. My neighbor who worked at GM in Syracuse till they closed drove a Citation for around 20 years. One of my former employers had a Chevette and one of my friends family had one . They were a pretty dependable and economical car from what I know about them.
 
Back then, at a place I worked, got a smacked up Chevette for next to nothing. They wanted it for a parts fetching car. They sent it to a body shop we did a lot of business with. It was on their frame straightener and almost back to normal. They pulled it just... a...little...more and pop the car tore in half.
 
I bought a new Citation with the 4 cylinder Iron duke engine and 4 speed manual transmission. The car always got me and back. I had 28 claims on the warranty. Some claims I remember The front struts collapsed, The chrome came off grill, lighter feel out of dash, The doors rusted through in 23 months. Gm was good on their warranty fixed ever thing with no argument
 
I ordered a new 76 Monza with that Vega engine, ordered it with the nicest wheels/tires/interior and 4 spd. I don't remember what it's called but those little cars were shipped by rail standing on there nose. When it came it had the front bumper cover rubbed through and a hole poked through one quarter panel along with cheap tires on steel rims. It must of came loose in shipping.

I ordered another one that came perfect like I ordered. I put about 80,000 miles on it and didn't really have any trouble with it outside of transmission syncros.
 
Bob, The Buick Skylark was the equivalent to the Citation and my parents bought the first one at the local Buick dealer in 1980. It had one issue that I do not remember anymore which was covered under warranty. The car lasted several years.
 


All true in the link. I will add the CV joints were junk they leaked oil as all chebbys do and the transmissions were a good money maker for me. I brought the trans pump parts in bulk along with a few other trans parts. I still have the special tools to rebuild the CV shafts and some transmission parts. The carbs were as lean as they can be I brought the carb parts in a assortment that I still have so I could adjust them. Varajet chokes were exspensive as ell all needed them. Sealing the valve cover gaskets yearly was common the heat along with poor engineering made me a many a buck.

And where did they put the distributor are when they went EFI the crank sensor that was known to break off in the block... I take it yall citation owners never owned a good car, Toyota.

Ford had chebby beat engine wise... Chebby never made a good L4 are V6 in those days... Emissions and HEAT was a killer to them...


https://www.motorbiscuit.com/worst-car-wednesday-chevy-citation-this-success-became-a-mess/
 
1979 Citation with the 60 degree V-6 was only car I bought new and was a good compact car for 125,000 miles. Replaced a 1966 Renault R-16 ,also front drive and comfortable hatchback that rusted out and was slower.
 
My sister got a citation as her first new car. She brought it home and was showing it off to me. Dad had old cars with no features so this was 5 steps above.....

I took hold of the blinker lever it had 5 different functions which is normal now but we never saw a blinker lever that did more than up and down.

It came off in my hand, I had the blinker lever pulled out of the steering column. The look on my sisters face....... I was a dead person.

No problem no problem, it just sticks in here I say. I was just stalling for the few seconds I needed to run for my life.....

I jammed the lever back in its socket, and darned if that worked and never gave her any trouble.

Whew.

The end of the week we took a brother sister trip out west to Washington and Oregon some relatives out there. So sis was babying the car some. We got to Montana and Mount St Helens blew up for the second time. The entire state of Idaho (granted not very wide) we never say, was in the haze of the ashes. It also drizzled rain. Sis was beside herself what the ash was doing to her new car engibpbe. The drizzle cemented the ash onto the car. When we got home she went over the car with basically her thumb, pushing all that ash off the car without scrubbing it into the paint.

Yes, the Citation has a bit of memories with me. All in all it was a good car for her, I know they were sort of a Dak link with a lot of poor management decisions on their components, but it worked for her.

Paul
 
Then in the 1990s wife (girlfriend at the time) and a couple friends would go to the north woods and help marshal/ time a SCCA racing event, Sports cars would race through the logging roads of northern Minnesota in a timed rally race for two days. Was and is actually a national event, 10 races across the country. The top drivers had 100,000 dollar sports cars with 200,000 dollar engines in them. But there were more local regional classes. A couple of gals came with a Citation, they had a different engine/ drivetrain shoved into it. It was fun to see it racing on logging roads. They had to work on the suspension components a few races to get it to hold up, shock mounts and all......

It was just fun to see tho.

Paul
 
Dad traded a Caprice Classic (one of the ones with a TH200 transmission) on a Citation. Our Citation was one of the biggest pieces of junk you ever saw. The base of the iron duke 4 was good but the rest was junk. Pieces of the transmission thrown in the bottom of the pan. Parts of the electronic carburation missing if I remember right. Didn't handle well on gravel, etc.

We had some Chevettes through the years. My sister had two, Grandma had one and then we had one as a parts runner. One of my sisters let her down once but the rest were pretty dependable. Of course they were a econobox and not much on creature comforts but for what they were a pretty decent car.

JMHO

jt
 
The Vega we had I was doing my paper route in it one night and it jumped out of reverse. It would not go backwards after that. My dad took it to a shop and guy who worked on it got hit in the head by part of the transmission. The case of the transmission broke when it jumped out of reverse. They replaced the 3 speed with a 4 speed but used the 3 speed shiftier
 
The Chevrolet Citation was a 1980 model that came out in April of 1979. I had one of the first (GM
employee)having bought it the day before actual introduction. It was the Iron Duke 4 banger and the THM125
trans later renamed the 3T40. Hate to say it BUT, it was the worst piece of junk that I have ever bought,
new or used!
It was followed by the Celebrity. A bit bigger and my wife enjoyed it but it was not a long distance car for
us. We drove it on our 25th anniversary to Camp Lejeune to visit our son, then to Jacksonville, Fla. From
there we drove to Fort Meyers, Atlanta, Fort Campbell, Ky, Indianapolis and home. No more 4 bangers for me
unless is said Ford Tractor!
 

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