Terrible Cars
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My dad has had AMC Ambassador sedans and a wagon, he almost bought an ugly-jazz Matador. They were good cars. I had two 1974 Javelins. Good drive trains, crappy interior quality, decent bodies, but Javelins were prone to rust around the tail lights, especially the 74's
I had a 1970 VW Squareback for a while, back when my wife and I were still dating. It had no front passenger seat. (There's a story behind that, from the brother I got the car from.)
I called it "The Babemobile". When she asked me why, I said "Because if I pick up chicks, they're automatically in the back seat!"
She liked that car. A lot...
Bought a 1980 Citation 4 door v6 manual transmission for $700. Staff car blue; with crappy peeling paint and rust here and there.
Drove it daily for 4 years in florida; retired and moved home. Drove it daily for 4 more years with 35 mile commute. Put brakes, a clutch, a water pump, and 2 alternators in it. Sanded it down and used spray cans to repaint it.
When the electrical harness started chafing and causing problems I sold it for $100 to a guy at work who wanted the motor for a skiff...
Ugly but it ran just fine.
Drove it daily for 4 years in florida; retired and moved home. Drove it daily for 4 more years with 35 mile commute. Put brakes, a clutch, a water pump, and 2 alternators in it. Sanded it down and used spray cans to repaint it.
When the electrical harness started chafing and causing problems I sold it for $100 to a guy at work who wanted the motor for a skiff...
Ugly but it ran just fine.
Don't forget the "Chrysler TC by Maserati"
Lee Iaccoca dumped millions into a Maserati "partnership" only to end up with this absolute turd of a LeBaron masquerading as "European luxury". They botched it so badly, that the cars sold for a base price of around $35K in the early 90's, yet cost Chrysler $80k each to produce in the early 90's.
Lee Iaccoca dumped millions into a Maserati "partnership" only to end up with this absolute turd of a LeBaron masquerading as "European luxury". They botched it so badly, that the cars sold for a base price of around $35K in the early 90's, yet cost Chrysler $80k each to produce in the early 90's.
I had a Ford Tempo company car. It stalled and had to be restarted twice before I could get it off the dealer's lot when I picked it up. It would routinely stall if you let your speed drop below about 20 mph, which was great fun the day I got caught in a snowstorm in West Virginia and had to drive 15 miles on unplowed roads (shifting into neutral to keep the revs up whenever I had to brake). The dealer supposedly fixed it. I started to work one morning, it stalled about 50 feet from my driveway. I pulled to the curb and left it there, drove my own car to work, called the dealer and told them where their wrecker driver could find it.
Awful taste, great execution.
When my son was in high school he and I "invented" a game we called Gaelic Squirrel Ball. Basically the players dressed in kilts and tried to catch squirrels crossing the road using a special gadget attached to the front of their car, and guide said squirrels into a hockey-like goal. Apparently it caught on.
It is a travesty how neutered the V8 engines of the late '70s and '80s were. The Buick 3.8 is a 231. It is the best engine ever made. Over the years I've owned probably 15 cars with that engine from an'81 Regal to a '94 Park Ave Ultra. The supercharger on that '94 really wakes up the 3800.
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OP
Yes, V8s from that era, in stock form, were quite weak.
Think of the V8 Mustang GT from the 80s/early 90s, the Fox Body
225 hp from five liters of American Muscle.
225.
That's it. It's laughable, really.
1992 Camaro - just slightly better.
I'd LOVE to have that!
ronn47
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Just needs to have flames painted on the sides.
Snoopz
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Yep, the days of popping the hood and there's the motor, just the basic hoses, "needed" wires, didn't
have to take the whole car apart just to work on something simple, or need special tools, are gone.
The hardest thing for me back in the day was when the oil pan on the Chevelle got smashed from
bouncing the front end up and down, was a pain to replace, pull the front end off, drop trans,
cross-member, raise the front end up on jacks to get the "right angle" for the oil pan to clear
the breast plate, but still could change plugs (even with Hooker Headers), oil filter, actually
work under the hood. 454 LS-7 and a ZL-1 BB...the era is gone...
-Snoopz
Yeah, I think about those days, too.
Then I think about all those tune-ups I haven't had to do, all those 3,000 mile oil changes that were done, changing the oil from 10W30 in the winter to 10W40 in the summer, the rust, etc. and all the other endless things that had to be done more frequently, plus the generally much shorter vehicle life span in mileage.
It was truly much easier to do a lot of the general maintenance back then, but I'll trade a lot of that for what we have today in a heartbeat. Like a 200-plus horsepower car that gets mid-30s on the road, tune-ups that are only required every 100,000 miles and only involve plugs and wires, oil changes every 10,000 miles, virtually no rust problems, engines that easily get 300,000 miles and more, etc.
But I do miss the days when I could pop the hood on my buddy's 1968 Plymouth Fury 3 and say to myself "Is that REALLY a 383 V-8 waaaaaaaaay back there?" with enough space between the radiator and fan blades to stand on the ground while in the engine compartment.
OP
TRUE TRUE TRUE
Also - back then - 7.3L of American V8 Iron was 450hp.
Today - 3liters of aluminum block gets you that. Or more.
And still gets better mpg than the old stuff.
Technology. Always evolving, always getting figured out.
To add - I'll use an MR2 reference. 1991 Turbo model is a 2.0 with turbo making 200/200. Add some upgrades and youre pushing 270Wheel HP for not much money.
OR, a popular swap now is putting in a small camry v6, aluminum block. More hp and tq than the factory item and weighs significantly less. And takes up less space, too. And runs on regular vs premium ha.
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Yeah.
To be fair, the 80s saw a HUGE turnaround in American car quality and personally I'm of the opinion that Lee Iacocca is the person who was single-handedly responsible for this. Chrysler was close to going under because of the absolute insistence of American automobile companies turning out sh*t products, and quite frankly Ford, GM, and AMC weren't far behind because they weren't reading the writing on the wall, either.
He managed to finagle a loan guarantee from Uncle Sam and then proceeded to steer the company into actually doing real engineering stuff to produce quality automobiles with quality drive trains that were reliable and affordable. When he had Chrysler slap that 5-year/50,000 mile warranty on his new cars, the rest of the automotive industry realized they HAD to start upping their game as well.
New engines that produced more power with smaller displacement and higher fuel economy hit the market. Fuel injection became the standard and cars started doing things not possible before...like start as soon as you turned the ignition key even if it had sat there for weeks. No pumping of the gas or working a choke required. Vapor lock became a thing of the past. Small four cylinder engines were putting out horsepower similar to the grossly underpowered V-8s with radically better gas mileage and much less maintenance.
By the late 80s, GM was pushing 200 HP with their Quad-4 engine, anti-lock braking systems were coming into the scene, airbag technology was just starting to become a standard, Catalytic converter technology and engineering improved and became standard, driving leaded gas usage down and radically reducing air pollution and smog issues.
It was a decade of "it's about effin' time" for American automobile engineering and production.
Timfoilhat
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I had an 86 Ford Escort GT...purchased in 1990, kept for 6 months, sold for a 1991 Jeep Wrangler.
The Ford was a little bit of fun, as much fun as reasonably available in a 4 cylinder econobox. But the rings leaked oil so the car blew smoke. And the water pump died and stranded me in backcountry Wisconsin. And it needed tires and brakes. Bought that car for $5k and spent another $5k keeping it on the road. I needed something reliable to get to work/school so instead I bought a new Jeep (LOL). It actually was reliable, but I broke it a lot having adventures on the weekends.
Before the Escort was the Granada that my parents supplied. It was a total pig, but I had a car to get around with and that translated to having girls around. My dad used to tell me he got that car because he was looking out for me. I'm not sure if he was talking about safety or the backseat that was big enough for hookups.
The Ford was a little bit of fun, as much fun as reasonably available in a 4 cylinder econobox. But the rings leaked oil so the car blew smoke. And the water pump died and stranded me in backcountry Wisconsin. And it needed tires and brakes. Bought that car for $5k and spent another $5k keeping it on the road. I needed something reliable to get to work/school so instead I bought a new Jeep (LOL). It actually was reliable, but I broke it a lot having adventures on the weekends.
Before the Escort was the Granada that my parents supplied. It was a total pig, but I had a car to get around with and that translated to having girls around. My dad used to tell me he got that car because he was looking out for me. I'm not sure if he was talking about safety or the backseat that was big enough for hookups.
RedneckFur
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I have to agree on the Buick 3.8. Growing up my mom had and Olds and a Pontiac, both with that engine. Knew lots of folks who had late 90's GM cars with the 3.8 under the hood. Never knew of any that had any problems. I know a few folks that got 300K+ miles on theirs before finally selling them or giving them to the kid to drive to high school.
The one in my '95 LeSabre got 311,000 miles on it before I got rid of it. It was still running, but there was definitely a rod bearing going.
My '05 LeSabre got to 304,000 miles and was still going strong when I totaled it in an accident. I was upset. If I still had it, it would be around 330,000 now.
The 3.8 is a strong engine. Well engineered and built, good power to weight ratio in the vehicles it's installed in, and gets fantastic mileage in the mid 30's on the road.
That's Rodimus Prime.
I worked as a tech in the 80s and 90s, both in independent repair shops and dealerships. I remember the recall on on the T1000/Chevettes to add bracing to the seat bolts. They'd pull through the floors in an impact. We added bracing.
I also remember the TONS of engine recalls on the Fieros. We did so many engine swaps that the guy working next to me could swap a 2.5 into one of them in 4.5 hrs. I never got that fast.
We also had Yugo at that dealership. They were BAD. Very cheaply made. Shifter was so vague you really had trouble knowing what gear you were getting.
Anything made by Jaguar in those days was a problem too.
In 1986 they made a Pontiac Grand-am with a 3.0. The engine was unbalanced and would shake the crap out of you at high idle. It was crazy how bad the car shook. Customers did NOT want to hear it was normal for them.
Also the early GM overdrive transmissions were spectacularly bad. The early TH700s and TH440T4s had a failure rate over 100%. It was a good time to be a transmission tech! I can still build any variation of those transmissions in my sleep, and still have parts on the shelf for them.
Joe
I also remember the TONS of engine recalls on the Fieros. We did so many engine swaps that the guy working next to me could swap a 2.5 into one of them in 4.5 hrs. I never got that fast.
We also had Yugo at that dealership. They were BAD. Very cheaply made. Shifter was so vague you really had trouble knowing what gear you were getting.
Anything made by Jaguar in those days was a problem too.
In 1986 they made a Pontiac Grand-am with a 3.0. The engine was unbalanced and would shake the crap out of you at high idle. It was crazy how bad the car shook. Customers did NOT want to hear it was normal for them.
Also the early GM overdrive transmissions were spectacularly bad. The early TH700s and TH440T4s had a failure rate over 100%. It was a good time to be a transmission tech! I can still build any variation of those transmissions in my sleep, and still have parts on the shelf for them.
Joe
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