Originally Posted by fdcg27
I don't think that those who've never owned one should comment on how good or bad these cars were.
Having owned one, I'll share our experience.
We had an '80 4dr V-6 Citation four door. At the time, GM was by far the largest automaker in the world. They did know how to design, engineer, develop and build cars.
The car had incredible interior space even by current standards and offered a smooth and quiet highway ride along with good trip fuel economy.
The 2.8 offered strong acceleration, but it was let down at highway speeds by the incredibly tall overall gearing mated with a three speed automatic.
Handling was pretty good even with the soft suspension and on open sweepers it'll fade most anything else in its rearview mirror.
Heat and AC were very good in the GM tradition of the time.
The brakes never seemed great, although they were sufficient to save us in a swoop and squat attempt on I-71 by some gomer in a Fierro. I should have followed him until he got off and had a serious bit of convo with him, but wifey told me not to and we did have somewhere to be.
I later sold the car to a buddy who used it on his long commute for a few years.
The main issue with the Citation was the incredible amount of cost cutting that went into its design and build. Overall, the car had a really cheap interior look that was also lacking in durability.
Had GM budgeted another few hundred bucks into these cars, I'm convinced that they'd now be considered great cars of their era.
They did spawn the evergreen J cars as well as the then most reliable cars for sale FWD A cars, so the X cars must have had something right.
Excellent summation.
I had an 84 Citation 2 notchback. Triggered by my Father's 84 Oldsmobile Ciera. Both were roomy, rode well and were actually nicely trimmed. I loved it and wish I had it in my driveway.
The X body didn't spawn the J Body, though. That was an effort shared with Opel, Vauxhall, GM NA with Chevrolet taking the engineering lead in the US. See "The Decline & Fall Of The American Auto Industry" by Brock Yates for all the dirty details.
The Js shared some parts with the X which made them heavier than their weak Chevy designed 1.8 could handle, but this was a whole new platform unrelated to the X Body.