Vert-a-Pac railcars: Thanks, guys, I thought I was the only dinosaur old enough to remember them.
Chevrolet Vega: Oh, the stories. This was the car that GM headquarters staff wanted to build (they also designed it). After the Vega failed miserably, the “car guys” got to build the Chevette, the one they had wanted when the Vega was jammed down their throats.
A garage owner in my hometown was a dyed-in-the-wool “Chevy man”. Every time someone mentioned a Vega or he saw one, he’d cuss and throw something.
Remember the AMC Pacer, the goldfish bowl on wheels? It was also slated to use the Wankel engine. When that possibility went away, there was barely room front-to-back in the engine compartment to shoehorn in AMC’s straight six.
One of my first cars was a Vega (hey it was cheap). I constantly had engine problems. I solved that by shoe horning a Vette 350 into her. What a car that was. I could ma***he throttle at 100mph and she would still light em up.
Most of these “Verti Paks” were Southern Pacific owned, they carried the Vegas in ‘trays’ that were hinged at the bottom, the Vega was driven onto the tray and and anchored by use of eyes welded to their frames at the assembly point [ like towing eyes], once secured, the trays were lifed by large forklifts and locked at the top center of the car, the Vega’s rode to the destination in a nose down position.
…Yes, the Vega had engine problems…The cyl. block was aluminum and no cyl. liners and after so many miles they began to use oil…Chevrolet eventually modified them, I believe it was a process of spraying some material in the cyl. bore in an effort to prevent the piston / cyl bore wear…At that time they then included a 60,000 mile warranty on the engine {before days of longer warranties}, to try to overcome the problem, etc…Think that action was only partly successful. I too had a Vega…A '73 Gt wagon…and after I sold it some years later I saw it and looked at the odometer and it registered 93,000 miles so some lasted longer than others…
Eventually the Vega engines had cast iron cylinder liners, which pretty much solved the premature wear/oil consumption problems, but the damage to the car’s reputation had been done. The non-engine parts of the car weren’t very durable either.
For a while you could get kits from several makers which had all the parts necessary to drop a smallblock Chevy V8 into a Vega body. Made the little beasts very fast but they were hard to control, especially if the smallblock had been “massaged” before being installed in the Vega body. My brother-in-law’s roommate had a Vega with a Chevy smallblock that had been seriously souped up. The brother-in-law said it was such a scary ride he wouldn’t get into it again.
…The Wankle engined proto’s I was around were a bit scary too as they would get up and run…John Delorean brought them to market and I believe he was trying to create a vehicle with zeor- defects…He missed that mark by a long ways.
Well my original 4 cyl had sleeves. I remember quite well trying to take the block to the recycler. They said we had to remove the liners before they would accept it. So a friend and I proceded to try and break the sleeves out with a sledgehammer. We inded up bustin up the rest of the block from around the cylinders. It took a couple hours to do and we got some hard looks from the recycler’s employees.
I wouldn’t recomend dropping a small block into a Vega. It was a fun car (and still is as last I heard the guy that bought it from me is still driveing it) but very dangerous if you don’t know how to handle it.
…Yes, that sounds like too much engine for that size car…and especially a little bit too much weight on the front…The Cosworth Vega was a bit different…and built as a performance engine and of course very light, it too as an aluminum block. Only {if I remember correctly}, 122 CI in cyl. vol…but it was a high rev’er…Almost a typical race engine. It was smaller in CI than the normal 4-cyl Vega engine. There is at least one of them I see occasionally in this area when the weather is nice…Out possibly for parades, etc…
Yea it was definately front heavy. Mine was the stationwagon version and it handled better than the coupe version (I had a friend with coupe version). It was a fun car and I would have kept it but when I moved back down to California from Washington I had 6 vehicles and two trailers and I had to get rid of a few of them.
…My Vega was a GT Wagon too and I’m trying to remember I believe it had 70 series tires on it…with sport suspension…One could whip it around corners quite easy…
I didn’t invest a whole lot in the suspension, just front springs, as I always figgured I would wreck it one day. Then I could jerk out the engine and tranny and put them in something else. But as it turns out I never did wreck it. I even sold it for more money then I paid for it 20 years ago.