Who could forget the car that rusted on the showroom floor!

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Photos/z_Projects_in_progress/051115_TurkeyCars/051107_brill_turkeycar_vega.jpg
If you could stop the rusting, a small block would make this car kick.:yes:

I had a 74 GT. It was actually a good little car at the time.
Kim

Wow, they look pretty good sitting there. That is crazy how they were shipped. Unbelievable.

Wow, they look pretty good sitting there. That is crazy how they were shipped. Unbelievable.

Makes me wonder about where the oil and fuel went when they tipped them up like that. Or if maybe that's why there were so many problems "Oil installation is part of dealer prep" :D

K

I had a 350 powered Vega. It was a total rat, but it sure was snakey to drive. The chicks didn't get it either.

This is the only thing vegas are good for.

This one's mine.
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o225/RGS4387/Vegafinished.jpg


Randy

That's one bad a$$ looking Vega Randy!:thumbsup:

I saw a Bill Jenkins Pro Stock Vega on TV go through auction for some huge money. I car pooled to work with a guy who had a 4 speed Vega. He beat the thing to death and it still kept going. Not enough power to hurt itself I guess. I rode in a friends 350 powered Vega that worked pretty well and was a pretty simple swap too. They were engineered to be inexpensive for sure. Randy has the right idea but I imagine that car is a little more expensive than when new.

My dad said the automatic could not pull its self up on the grease rack when it was brand new, had to get someone to push at the same time.

I had a V-8 vega in 1977 and want one again just like Randy's. Looking to get rid of your ride Randy?

good looking & little :)

who couldn't have fun with that combo & a transplant of V-8 !!!

main problem was NO Frame !! I saw & was involved in many torque boxs being torn out of the rear suspension mounting points :eek:

till you put in the proper frame Vega's are just to flimsy to FLY ;)

Looking to get rid of your ride Randy?


If you talked to my wife about it, she'd probably hook you right up for cheap! :D

Randy

My brother-in-law had a 72 he bought new in 73 while in the Air Force. He beat it to death for three years and when it died he did the V8 conversion with the help of a couple of the flight line mechanics on base. It was a scary ride on skinny tires and he was replacing the rear axle every couple of months. He finally traded it in on a taurus wagon the first year they came out. The dealer had it on the lot for twice what it cost new and it sold in less than a week! I tried to get him to tub it and put a 12 bolt in but he was a hard head (and tight wad) just wish he had given me a chance to buy it!:sad:

Our old drag car. Ran a destroked 302 (filled block) 13:1, Brodix aluminum heads, Doug Nash 5 + 1, 5:13 rear gear. We had a terrible time getting that car to hook! We would put the 9,000 chip in the box and line her up! I miss those days. Car was totaled a few years ago when a brake failure caused the car to go off the end of the track and do end-over cartwheel. My buddy driving walked away...

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/data/500/medium/AR-BC320_20060212_171611.jpg

This is the only thing vegas are good for.

This one's mine.
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o225/RGS4387/Vegafinished.jpg


Randy

I'll bet the chicks dig that

I had a '74 GT daily driver.

http://thelincolnmarkviiclub.org/Gallery/albums/album16/Vega.jpg

First car I owned with working A/C! :cool:

Makes me wonder about where the oil and fuel went when they tipped them up like that. Or if maybe that's why there were so many problems "Oil installation is part of dealer prep" :DK

I remember that the batteries had the caps offset to prevent acid leaking when the cars were shipped standing on their nose.

Paul

I bought a lemon yellow 71 new in 71. It rusted on the way home from the dealer.

My wife told me not to buy it, but I wouldn't listen.:clonk:

My wife reminded me (I was working out of the country for Sam at the time)that my sister bought a notch back the first year they came out. The dealer replaced 2 heads, the engine and the front fenders all in the first 6 months she owned it! Then she put 270,000 miles on it before it rusted away.:D
The wife said it was an automatic and couldn't get out of it's own way if your life depended on it!:D

My buddy had one in 1980 ,high school.
Had a BEWARE OF DOG PLATE ON THE FRONT,LIKE YOU PUT ON A FENCE!!!!,
It was green,two speed auto-no go--
BUT DID AWSOME BURNOUTS ON DEAD ,BLOATED GROWND HOGS,THE MEAT WAS COMING IN THE WINDOWS--I CAN STILL SMELL IT
AWSOME JUST AWSOME--


BOB H

Where were these shipped from?

LK

There were 3 V8 Vegas at our High School (early 80's). Two were wagons (my personal preference), but all were built on the cheap and squirrelly as he!!.

A friends dad had a really bitchin GT with a 427, 9" and Cobra style side pipes. It had a full frame, after market rims, maybe G60's on the back, but the body looked stock. It was a scary fast, in an almost outta control type way.

About 12 years ago, we had a shop that basically was one corner of an airplane hanger sized warehouse. In our area alone, we had a decent size office/storeroom and room for six busses, a 40' trailer and as many as 10 cars. It was huge. The owner was an 80 year old inventor with his office/lab in a seperate three story building. This guy was a packrat from way back. There was some of everything stashed in the warehouse. There was a couple armored personel carriers, an airplane, a one man submarine, a flight simulator, a firetruck, about 50 Lincoln Mk III's, dozens of misc. cars, and the life long possessions of 10 households. If I needed anything, I would first shop in the warehouse. Normally, whatever I wanted, short of food, could be located.

Anyway, one whole corner was dedicated to Cosworth Vega's. At least 4 complete cars and over 100' of shelving (6'-8' high) of parts, used and new. There were literaly cases of brand new pistons, in the boxes. Fuel injection units, complete heads, everything imagineable. For the most part, this old guy just lost interest one day about 10 years earlier and never came back into the warehouse. Coffee cups that were half full, evaporated, plenty of dust and unfortunately, cats. Tons of stereo equipment, too bad all from the 8 track era.

I owned a 71 Vega GT back in 1971. Other than the engine which started burning oil at 100 miles per quart around 13,000 miles, the thing was a fun little car. In fact I have never driven a car that handled any better at 100 mph than that Vega. The faster it went the better it handled. Back then I could take a 283 chevy in a race with it. I could get rubber in 3 gears and it would do 110.
When the engine started burning all that oil I tried to blow it up. I wound the thing to 8000 rpm, it bogged out at around 6500, once it hit 7000 it was like it got a power boost.
While it may not have been the greatest car i ever owned I still had a heck of a lot of fun in that little car.

Yeah, I remember the Vega.

My parents owned a '71 wagon :sad: till 1977 (when it died:hurray:).

The sad part is my dad, when my mom got pregnant with me, traded in his '64 CORVETTE for
a "FUEL EFFICIENT FAMILY WAGON"!!!!!!!:o :o :o

DAD, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?



No, he was not into swapping motors or tubbing out rear ends, either.:yes:

I helped a friend put a 307 into a 74 vega when the 4 cyl died. It was a purely budget move. He already had the engine, bought the kit, did the swap in a weekend and got his driver back on the road. It wasn't much faster than the 4 cyl with the smogged 307 and a 2bb. but at least it ran. And, he could say he had a V8 Vega!

A buddy of mine ran a Vega Wagon with a 400 SBC, Fuelie Heads an Retro Mechanical Roller with a 3500 Stall Converter on the street. It drove like a Kawasaki 750 2 Stroke as the Front wheels were off the ground most the time - lol

A buddy of mine ran a Vega Wagon with a 400 SBC, Fuelie Heads an Retro Mechanical Roller with a 3500 Stall Converter on the street. It drove like a Kawasaki 750 2 Stroke as the Front wheels were off the ground most the time - lol

As a rule they actually ran on three. The body twisted too much to get the other wheel up!:D

Makes me wonder about where the oil and fuel went when they tipped them up like that. Or if maybe that's why there were so many problems "Oil installation is part of dealer prep" :D

K
Besides what was mentioned about the battery having special baffles, the oil pan likwise had special baffles.


The Vega was designed by GM corporate and dumped on Chevrolet to sell. They were attractive but they had problems. The high silicon etched all-aluminum linerless blocks were designed to be throw-away and not rebored. That is why so many burned oil and were toast by 40,000 miles. Likewise the air cleaner was throwaway every 50,000 miles - you could not check the element, rather you had to throw away the housing on blind faith and replace it with a new $50 housing (1973 dollars!). By 1975 models they began using iron liners in the bores and also offered the liners as a retrofit for pre-75 models. Rust was another issue, plus faulty '72 axles that would break, plus a backfire condition that caused a few Vegas to blow up! The only automatics in '71 were the 2-speed Powerglide and the semi-automatic Powerglide known as the Torque Drive. The Torque Drive was dropped for '72 and at the same time the TH350 became available through '75, being replaced with the TH200 for '76. The Powerglide was dropped in March '73. The parking brake was responsible for rear drum self-adjustment, not the conventional backup and stop. If you had an automatic and weren't in the habit of using the parking brake, your rear drums wouldn't be self-adjusted.

That's a great picture of the '71s (I call it since I'm an expert ;) ) I used to have all the newspaper clippings on the Vega from the fall of '70 since I thought it was attractive and the way of the future... Yes, the seventies were bleak in retrospect... I still have all the brochures from the beginning :o

Cam :D

thanks I didn't know that :)

all I was interested in ... were the fact that they were available CHEAP !!

as the motors all went sour .... making a plentiful source of body's that were

only two or three years old .... :D

they might have saved the Vega .... with just a couple of fixs as everyone I

know liked the style & size ... OH well

What I did learn about the Vega while cutting it up to build my racecar is that thery're very heavy for their size.

Everywhere you look, roof included is multipanel steel construction spot welded and pinch welded together. Alot of areas have three and four layers of steel spot welded together.

I can't begin to tell you how many spot weld cutters and cutoff wheels we went through to cut this car apart. Or how many man hours we spent cutting it apart.

Today, the ONLY Vega parts remaining on my car is the outer roof skin panel, the upper 1/3 of the rear quarter panels, and the taillight panel.

All the rest is tubing, sheet aluminum, fiberglass, and Lexan.

Randy

Interesting....did not know the torque drive was avaliable in the Vega. (it was on the Nova)

Never seen cars shipped like that....what is that? A semi trailer with side fold down doors?

I think those are shipping via boat?
kinda cool but can't be any good for the car.
I remember when the engines went south you could get good coin at the scrap yard for the aluminum block.

I think those are shipping via boat?

I think it's a rail car. I think most all vega's were made in GM's Lordstown Ohio plant. Some were made in Quebec.

Who could forget the car that rusted on the showroom floor!

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Photos/z_Projects_in_progress/051115_TurkeyCars/051107_brill_turkeycar_vega.jpg
If you could stop the rusting, a small block would make this car kick.:yes:

What exacly is going on in this pic? Is that guy backing off or driving on some sort of contraption in shipping these cars? I have never heard of cars sitting on end like that before.

I think it's a rail car. I think most all vega's were made in GM's Lordstown Ohio plant. Some were made in Quebec.

Yes they were assembled in Lordstown Ohio(probably explains the rust). I toured the plant and saw some get assembled on a grade school field trip. I remember thinking how cool it would be to be an auto worker... Good thing I changed my mind somewhere along the way.

I think that is a rail car also. I have a cousin that retired from there, I will ask him the next time i see him.

I had a '72 with a 331, 400 turbo, and narrowed 12 bolt.
Ladder bar suspension. Car went 11.20 n/a and was a blast.
This was in 1981-1982.

Yes they were assembled in Lordstown Ohio(probably explains the rust)

What exactly was it that caused them to rust so bad?