People don't talk about the 1977 ish honda accord that literally rusted the front fenders in two years. There was a fold "way up there" by the cowl where road junk/ salt collected. Some nerd came up with a plastic shield/ inner liner and honda copied that idea!
For all its foibles, Vega was GM's attempt to try a bunch of new tech all at once. It had an overhead cam, for example. And they came out with those upright shipping containers as they acknowledged that freight expense was a big deal-- IIRC this lead to the invention of the maintenance free unvented battery.
The car started out in 1970 and as awful as it was they made it worse with labor relations in the mid 70's-- They sold every Vega they could make and were working 24/7 stamping them out, and sped up the assembly line speed as well. The UAW stomped their feet over the topic and the quality suffered through intentional or unintentional error.
Pontiac managed to get the "iron duke" in the astre, sorting out the oil burning unlined aluminum motor, but the damage was done.
My mom had two vegas and they were as lousy as any other 70s car but not worse. Remember they were from the smog years with huge 5 mph bumpers. Going FWD with the J-body was a huge engineering step up from there.
For all its foibles, Vega was GM's attempt to try a bunch of new tech all at once. It had an overhead cam, for example. And they came out with those upright shipping containers as they acknowledged that freight expense was a big deal-- IIRC this lead to the invention of the maintenance free unvented battery.
The car started out in 1970 and as awful as it was they made it worse with labor relations in the mid 70's-- They sold every Vega they could make and were working 24/7 stamping them out, and sped up the assembly line speed as well. The UAW stomped their feet over the topic and the quality suffered through intentional or unintentional error.
Pontiac managed to get the "iron duke" in the astre, sorting out the oil burning unlined aluminum motor, but the damage was done.
My mom had two vegas and they were as lousy as any other 70s car but not worse. Remember they were from the smog years with huge 5 mph bumpers. Going FWD with the J-body was a huge engineering step up from there.