Over the holiday break there was a story in the paper about the demise of domestic small cars. Strike that, the never-rise of the domestic small car market in the 60’s and 70’s. To have a demise you first have to rise. And in the wake of the foreign entry level car dumping coupled with gas crisis that happened on our shores, the Big Three never recovered.
They tried to introduce cars to compete like the Gremlin, Pinto, Vega and our featured car this morning, the Chevette. But most of these cars were shortened versions of large cars. They were never designed from the ground up to be econo-boxes like their competition so performance, fuel economy, handling and overall being sprite-and-tight suffered. American manufacturers are still trying to recover from the sting 40 years later. Although I will say the Ford Focus has done the job, finally.
To relive a piece of historical insignificance, you can bid on this car in Madison, Wisconsin which starts at $595 bucks.
wallymann
was not the chevette based on opel’s kadett which traces it’s lineage back to the 30s? to say that *all* 70s econoboxes were “never designed from the ground up to be econo-boxes” isnt 100% true, eh? heck, as i understand it the ’70s kadett is a bit of a cult-car in germany these days.
Groosh
Good point, I brought the Chevette into the story but the article did not as I remember. But that’s the drag of first impressions for American heavy iron made small. Everything gets tossed into the mix. What’s interesting is the Japanese have made full turn to high quality luxury cars which they were never known for yet Americans still can’t get the small car right. Heck even the Koreans are making that turn quicker.
Shane Williams
My first car was a black on red 1979 chevette, my wife and I bought it from her grandmother for $1000.
Groosh
Sounds like it was a fond memory. I also got my first car from my grandma, a 1976 Buick Sylark. We called it the beige bomber.