Are most cars reliable if regular maintenance is done? Are car horror stories unfair?

3-spd auto, I guess, plus ac . . .

May I assume the acceleration was “unimpressive” . . . ?!

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1980’s cars were slow, traffic moved slower than today. Not a sports car for the buyer but a Chevette is faster than a bus ride.

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That was still 12 to 14 years ago. There might be a few Chevettes around in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, or maybe Africa. Where our castoffs often show up.

How are areas where they don’t salt the roads?

I haven’t seen a Chevette in Dallas in 10 years, at least.

Passed a chevette diesel few years back. One of few cars I can pass.
It looked really scruffy.

The Chevette was just a basic “appliance” car. Drive it, wear it out, throw it away. That said it got me around for 3ish years (and before that my folks had it from new 5 years). It did not have a fatal flaw like the Vega or Pinto.

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Agree. You wouldn’t see any Chevelles around either if they weren’t desirable cars. The only difference is no one (or essentially no one) is going to refurbish a Chevette like they do Chevelles and some of the other vehicles.

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The same applies to Chevelles. You’ll see very few plain jane 4 door Chevelle sedans these days, they’re most all the 2 doors, even though I bet more 4 doors were made.

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And the wagons, that at one time weren’t desireable, I think bring a premium today!

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The 1964-1967 Chevelle station wagon was offered as a two door. Like, the 1950s Nomads, they might be worth more than the four door models. The Nomad nameplate was retired before the Chevelle was released.

You kind of have to wonder why manufacturers decided to make a 2 door station wagon. What segment of the market were they trying to capture? Surfers and delivery drivers?

Delivery drivers I think. How many surfers would buy a new car?

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Yep, 2 door wagons were surprisingly common for commercial use.

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I might be wrong but I think they were the for runners for the vans that became popular around that time or shortly after.

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I think some people with young children wanted the 2 door wagons so the silly kids could not get out while moving . Not many vehicle had child locks on the passenger cars then .

Not just in regard to little kids. When I first worked for my state’s child protective agency, in 1967, most of our agency’s cars were 4 door sedans, but we had a few 2 door sedans which were used when transporting teens back home from their stay at a juvenile detention facility.

Because the homes they came from were frequently… not so good… these teens had a habit of trying to escape, rather than returning home. The 2 door sedans made their elopement a little bit more difficult.

You’d figure GM would have learned it’s lesson from the Vega. The Vega was very unreliable. I know I owned 2 of them. But even with it’s flaws many of us liked the vehicle. It was a mini Camaro in styling. Handled decently. The Cogsworth had some decent power. But it was unreliable. The Chevette was MAYBE a bit more reliable…but not by much.

Last week I came up to an intersection and had to dig back into my memory to place the make. It was a 1955 Willys. It must have been restored. The next day I saw a Chevette on the road. The paint was badly faded, but the Chevette was moving right along. The next day, we went by a motel in our area and there were at least a half dozen King Midgets in the parking lot. Apparently, there was a King Midget convention in town. My wife joked that maybe our local university had purchased them for its fleet. The institution had purchased some other real winners in past years including Chevettes, Citations, Volares and 4 cylinder Ford Tauruses to name a few.

That job sounds rough. I had also never considered that with 2 door wagons.