Nice Vega

Saw a nice Vagly to day at a car show. Had a 350 engine in . Body was mint.

iceracer wrote: Saw a nice Vagly to day at a car show. Had a 350 engine in . Body was mint.

I always liked the look, regardless.

The body was likely better than factory since they were know for rusting in the show rooms.
Also interesting, in the earliest years they were shipped standing up.

that's a neat way to ship a car. I assume with no oil in the crankcase?

isn't the vega the reason we have side post batteries from GM?

and why is that? Too low a hood to have toppost?

I recall someone mentioning it was how it was transported for sale... but honestly I don't know for sure... maybe i'll google it :)

well.. the caps would still be ontop?

I owned a '72 and bought it because I liked the "mini Camaro" looks. Unfortunately, I didn't appreciate the "funky" assembly (non)quality of some of the car. For example, the front clip was made up of about 6 or 7 largish pieces (hood, fenders, grille surround panel, head light buckets) and on my car ALL these pieces were just thrown together with little thought given to panel gaps/fits. The dashboard wasn't much better, even tho on my "low line" model, there were very few parts involved.

The looks went down hill after about the '73 model. Tho I would sort of like to own a Monza hatchback, but only if it was a '75 with a V8.

Per Wiki:

The Vega was designed to be shipped vertically, nose down. Railroad cars named Vert-A-Pac were designed jointly by General Motors and Southern Pacific — each holding 30 Vegas versus 18 in normal tri-level autoracks. Each car was fitted with four removable cast-steel sockets in the undercarriage. Plastic spacers were wedged beside the powertrain to prevent damage to engine and transmission mount, and were removed during unloading. The rail car ramp/doors were opened and closed via forklift. Chevrolet conducted vibration and low-speed crash tests to ensure the suspended, nose-down cars would not shift or incur damage in railroad collisions. Chevrolet's goal was to deliver cars topped with fluids and ready to drive to the dealership. To do this, engineers had to design an engine oil baffle to prevent oil from entering the No. 1 cylinder; Batteries had filler caps located high up on the rear edge of the battery case to prevent acid spilling; the carburetor float bowl had a tube that drained gasoline into the vapor canister during shipment, and the windshield washer bottle stood at a 45 degree angle.

pretty clever really

Looks like all the engineering brain thrust went into how to ship the cars and not much into the car itself. The engines in particular were a sorry excuse for engineering.

There's no such thing as a nice Vega. Sorry......to me the worst car ever made. Aluminum block that likes to crack, shock towers that will rust right through............heck I have been through this many times. Maybe the fact they were shipped standing up was the only interesting thing about them. I think it was when GM truly started to go wrong.

I think the Vega was one of the most attractively styled cars of the early 70s. There really isn't a bad line drawn on this car. Hats off to the stylists. The execution, however, was something else entirely. I so wanted to like these (a GT), even in the 1980s when there were still a few left, but as noted the quality was so indescribably bad even I knew there was no fixing it. Even a 'good one' that hadn't yet rusted to bits still rattled and creaked like a Jeep CJ when you drove it. I did own a Pinto, it's main competitor. While the Pinto also suffered from careless build quality, it was four times the car the Vega ever was. Just uglier.

For a short while I had a '76 GT. At the time, I liked the car. My buddy worked at the engine plant(Tonawanda), where four days they built engines for production and one day was replacement short blocks. It even somewhat handled well, for what it was. Too bad GMs quality was horrendous and the engine was crap. It could have been a nice vehicle.

Woah. Had to double take the title... thought it said "Nice.." nevermind.

I did like my '75 Kammback. Even moreso when I put better tires on it. It had a replacement block with iron liners - no oil burning, no overheating, no engine problems.

integraguy wrote: The looks went down hill after about the '73 model. Tho I would sort of like to own a Monza hatchback, but only if it was a '75 with a V8.

I had a '77 Spyder hatch with "supposedly" a 305. That car was QUICK!

Motion Performance used to make the "454 Vega" kit

I lusted after the '75 black and gold Cosworth Vega back in the day. Very nice looking ride. Funny, you see quite a few coupes and wagons still out on the 1/4 milers, engine mods of course and tube framing. Still, nice to see survivors, even with the new heartbeat

If GM had only sleeved the cylinders at the beginning of production, instead of finding out that aluminum engine really needed iron sleeves, which it later received, but by then it was doomed, they would have been much more successful, and fondly remembered.

Their stock unibody chassis was supposedly pretty stiff for its weight , so said the SAE.

After they fixed the engine, they quit building it. Typical GM Then the Vega morphed into the Monza.

Neighbor had one growing up. Silver with black rally stripes (GT). Was stolen and recovered then parked in our yard whereby my brother inexplicably tossed a hammer through the rear window.

I always wanted one with a Buick turbo v6. A very good looking car (the early ones). Later cars shared a lot with the Monza (front suspension I think).

Guy here in VT was building a wagon Cosworth at one time. He hillclimbed another. Very fast. Co-driver hit a tree with it. Tweaked the ENTIRE car from not too hard a hit.

I put a 350 in a vega back in the 80's. the car was rust free. It's really a bad swap. If you give the car any traction, the back window will easily break under acceleration. The car ends up really nose heavy, and the size of the control arms and spring perches severly restricts your ability to beef up the suspension. Nowadays, I'm sure there are solutions for these things, but back then there wasn't. And I was in college and had no money or time to try to do anything on my own. I purosely ran the stock rearend so that I couldn't get enough traction to bend the car. I always kept a spare rear because they'd fail about every 6 months or so.
I also put a 289 in a pinto wagon in the 70's. That swap was much better, probably because of the lighter and smaller engine and that since it was a wagon, the weight distribution might have been better.
I recently saw a Vega with an LS1 in it, and that's a much better swap.

triumph5 wrote: If GM had only sleeved the cylinders at the beginning of production, instead of finding out that aluminum engine really needed iron sleeves, which it later received, but by then it was doomed, they would have been much more successful, and fondly remembered.

They were actually trying to push the envelope - and tore it a bit. Early cars had cooling issues, and the engine actually needed to have the oil changed regularly - imagine that.