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Alex Kwanten
@oldmotors

17,868 followers

For this #WagonWednesday it’s a slide-scan double shot of vintage Vegas, circa the summer of 1978. Look closely and you’ll see two matching green #ChevroletVega Kammback wagons, an early 1971-73 model in the foreground and a big bumper post-’74 across the street. At the time, Vega production had ended only a year earlier, and more than 2 Million had been built, so they were omnipresent on American roads which was, well … a mixed bag. Some Vega owners loved their cars but many more did not, and almost every aspect of the car, from design to production, was flawed. The story began in October of 1968 when GM Chairman Jim Roche declared GM’s intention to build a proper American small car with a modern OHC four. The car Roche had in mind was in its early stages, GM’s XP-887, a corporate idea project under Ed Cole and Clare MacKichan and not yet a Chevrolet. Chevy, then run by John DeLorean, was already working on a different small car project, as imports had continued to chip away at market share in the 1960s, but Cole canceled it and forced DeLorean’s staff to take the XP-887. Chevy soon discovered that the project and its cost estimates were pie-in-the-sky stuff, and it took a crash program of re-engineering, led by Jim Musser and later Lloyd Reuss, to get it ready in just 18 months. Meanwhile, Hank Haga’s Chevy studio worked to restyle it, coming up with a very attractive shape that was probably the car’s best asset. Just as the design neared completion, GM’s pricing committee ordered a round of major cost-cutting. Cole then forced Chevy’s marketing folks to use the Vega name. Production began in July of 1970 at the new $75M Lordstown facility, but the car came out overweight and under-contented with inner fender liners one of the items deleted by the bean counters, leading to massive rust issues. The alloy-block, cast-iron-head OHC engine also soon developed overheating problems. Then GM sped up the production line, leading to a worker revolt at Lordstown. By 1972, 95% of Vegas built had been recalled at least once. The car still looked good, drove well and was cheap to buy, and production steadily rose, peaking at 460K units in 1974, but the dye was cast.