Chevrolet Vega

In 1967, Ed Cole, president of General Motors Corporation , introduced the company’s top management to an initiative to develop a project of a subcompact model designed for mastering serial production by the beginning of the 70s. Under the designation XP-887, his brainchild won a landslide victory over the competitive projects of the Chevrolet and Pontiac divisions, and was soon ambitiously baptized as the “killer of imports.” Officially, GM’s readiness in the coming years to deliver a car of this class was announced in 1968, and the advertising campaign began in May 1970. The original idea was a car weighing 2,000 pounds and with a retail price of $ 2,000.

In accordance with the prevailing trends at the time of its development in the American automobile industry, a sporty, “muscular” style was chosen for the future Vega in the spirit of the Chevrolet Camaro , which was also preparing at that time for the release of the second generation. As a result, a car was born that corresponded to European small cars in size, like the Ford Cortina Mark II, but at the same time in appearance and proportions it was more like European sports cars of the time, such as the Fiat 124 Coupé or Ferrari 365 GT . The payment for external sportiness turned out to be relatively close due to the long overhangs and low roof of the cabin, which, however, at that time was not considered a significant drawback - in this model of this class, which was on the crest of the wave of economic growth in the late 60s and 70s the rule was bought either by young novice drivers who were not yet concerned about the problem of placing a family in a car, or for the role of a second or third car in the family.

The range of body types offered included a two-door notchback coupe (with a small protruding trunk), officially designated as a Hatchback Coupe, a three-door hatchback with a slope, but retaining a hint of three-volume rear part of the body, and a rather elegant three-door station wagon, which received the Kammback brand designation honor of the Swiss Unibald Kamm , who proposed a similar body shape back in the 1930s (today the body, based on Kamm's developments, has become the de facto standard for small cars). Also, a number of delivery vans with blank panels instead of rear windows were built on the basis of the kambek .

Although the model originally made her debut under the symbol Gemini (pun: GM Mini - GeMini) , in the end the name “ Vega ” was chosen for her - in honor of a bright star in the constellation Lyra.

From an engineering point of view, the design of the car was essentially carried out around its engine, the development of which had begun even before the final decision on the creation of the future Vega was made. At that time, the obsolete rear-engined compact Chevrolet Corvair model, which had aluminum engine and transmission crankcases, was just planned for decommissioning. In order to preserve the production capacities and unique technologies released at the same time, aluminum was also chosen as the material for the Vega engine block.

The traditional design for aluminum engines implied the presence of cast-iron sleeves pressed into the block, the material of which, unlike soft aluminum, had a sufficiently high hardness to serve directly as the inner wall of the cylinder in contact with the piston when the engine was working (this is exactly how they were arranged, for example , Volga and Moskvich-412 engines, some BMW and Jaguar V12 models). At Corvair, the cylinders themselves, along with air-cooled jackets, were cast from cast iron and fastened to the aluminum block with long studs (as on the Zaporozhets).

However, the calculations showed that if you get rid of the liners, the savings will be about $ 8 for each engine - a significant figure considering that it was planned to release millions of copies of the new car. As a result, the optimal solution, as it seemed then, was found: 17% silicon was added to the alloy from which the cylinder block was cast, which in combination with a special hardening treatment of the cylinder mirror (chemical etching - of a specially selected composition, the acid washed aluminum from the wall surface, without touching the silicon crystals, which created their increased concentration) provided acceptable hardness and wear resistance. The result was the world's first engine with an aluminum block without sleeves. Oddly enough, for the same reasons of economy, the cylinder head was made of cast iron, while even on most engines with a cast iron block it was made of aluminum at that time - the aluminum block head for Vega was designed, but before mass production never survived. So the gain of 25 kg of weight obtained from the aluminum block was largely canceled.

The test run-in of the new power unit was carried out on “mules”, assembled on the basis of Fiat 124 purchased in Italy, and various “Opels” were used to test the transmission.

The engine had a relatively large displacement of 2.3 liters, a long piston stroke and a very flexible torque characteristic (136 ft-lbs / 185 Nm at 2400 rpm) at a low maximum power (90 bhp / 80 hp at 4400 rpm.), which copied the characteristic behavior of traditional American V8. In combination with the unprecedentedly “long” main pair of the rear axle, which has a gear ratio of 2.53: 1, this engine allowed the car to develop a speed of 70 mph (112 km / h), typical of American highways of those years, at just 2,600 rpm. / min, while maintaining a sufficient supply of power for maneuvering speed. However, the large and light four-cylinder engine turned out to be poorly balanced, and vibrated quite strongly during operation, especially when the carburetor was incorrectly adjusted - the balancing shafts in its design were absent due to all the same savings.

This, however, was far from the only car problem that arose due to the fault of this motor. Shortly after the start of sales, appeals began for warranty cases related to the destruction of the muffler on vehicles with an L11 engine that had a two-chamber carburetor. It turned out that due to strong vibration, the carburetor adjusting screws were loosened, the mixture was overly enriched, and the car “shot” at the muffler, destroying it. This entailed the recall of 130 thousand Veg. The second review in the summer of 1972 concerned 350 thousand cars with a standard engine and Rochester carburetor, the throttle of which jammed in the open position. The constant problems of the engines of the first releases were increased oil consumption and chronic overheating due to too small channels of the unit cooling jacket. In turn, due to the small capacity of the oil pan of the overheating sump or a significant drop in the oil level during operation, it often turned out to be enough for the fragile aluminum walls of the block to be damaged and the motor to fail prematurely, requiring expensive repairs in the form of a replacement block. As a result, the engine gained an extremely bad reputation, which soon spread to the car as a whole.

All this turned out to be a consequence of the too early launch of the still “raw” car, which was not ready for mass production along with other models of 1971 (calendar autumn 1970). In fact, the first buyers acted as testers, revealing the imperfections of the extremely problematic design. To this was added the characteristic of the United States more than a negligent attitude to the maintenance of automobiles, which Vega did not forgive due to the aforementioned design details. Later, factory car testers recalled that in those years the test program did not imply checking the car for “protection against fools,” and during the tests they had no problems with the engine, because before each shift they checked the oil and coolant levels - if overheating occurred during the tests, the tester responsible for the car would most likely just be fired. As a result, the engine was never even tested for behavior in such extreme situations.

Initially, there were also plans to install a Wankel rotary engine, the production license of which was acquired by GM for a lot of money, but they could not bring it to the required level of reliability and compliance with new standards for air emissions, and by 1975 they finally abandoned it. They didn’t have a serial implementation and work on the “hot” versions of Vega, equipped with a specially developed 283 cc (4.6 L) aluminum V8, with which the car even with automatic transmission “left” from 14 seconds on a quarter (1/4 mile or approx. 400 m).

Contrary to the sporty appearance, the basic gearbox option for the Vega, for reasons of the same economy, was by no means conducive to dynamic driving, the three-speed “mechanics”, and with the not-so-good selection of gear ratios, they recall that the car started off sluggishly, as if on second gear (however, this assessment was largely affected by high expectations, based on the experience of driving cars with engines of a much larger displacement and with a much larger torque), and a huge gap in eredatochnyh between 1-2 and 2-3 Gearbox makes managing many situations malokomfortnym. Reviews were not even better about the PowerGlide model, which was installed on the car for a surcharge, a primitive two-speed automatic transmission. A four-speed gearbox was also offered only for a surcharge, and for a long time remained the least popular choice. The modern three-speed automatic transmission of the Turbo-Hydramatic model became available only in the 1972 model year, and the five-speed manual gearbox that was most suitable for it was installed on the car by order only in the last two years of its release.

Along with design flaws, problems with the corrosion resistance of the body showed themselves early. GM was very proud of the new pre-paint body treatment technology, commercially known as Elpo, which included electrophoretic deposition of the soil by immersion in a bath combined with zinc phosphate treatment of a steel sheet — exactly until it became clear that the Vega bodies were contrary to expectations are more likely to rust than traditionally prepared and painted. It turned out that although in theory during the process of preparing for painting the soil had to penetrate into each hidden cavity of the body, in practice in many places, for example, in the cavities of the front wings, air pockets formed when immersed in the primer bath, and these places turned out to be not protected by a primer layer. During operation, dirt, debris and road salt clogged in the cracks between the mudguards of the wings and the shield of the engine compartment, as a result of which the front wings rotted to through holes in several years. The initial project included plastic fenders, which were supposed to prevent such a development of events, but each fender would have cost $ 1.14 - twice as much per car, which the company management found unacceptable and went into the Vega series without them. As a result, in 1974, they began to install the wing flaps, and the company had to spend millions on the warranty replacement of body parts on early-production cars. However, not only the front fenders turned out to be prone to the development of corrosion, but also the external sills and body ducts, the lower parts of the doors, the panel under the windshield. Bolts also rusted very quickly, with which the angles of the front wheels were adjusted, which ultimately did not allow for adjustment.

To the obvious quality problems, criticism was added related to the excessively rough and spartan interior trim of the car, which was completely lined with exceptionally cheap hard plastic, including decorative door panels completely stamped from it. Over time, the plastic became brittle and cracked, so that on a rare car, the interior was preserved in its original form. His equipment was also more than primitive, even to the extent that there was not even a glove box on the instrument panel. In principle, the budget trim was also characteristic of the larger Chevrolets, minus the most expensive trim levels - however, in this case, it too clearly made an unpleasant contrast with the very neat trim of the European and Japanese cars of those years competing with the Vega, especially considering the fact that the Vega was not so cheap - the well-packaged comeback was closely matched to the BMW 2002 at a price.

The unique strengths of Vega were the controllability, which was provided by a spring suspension that was quite advanced compared to the competitors who still used leaf springs on the rear axle, and the Opel disc front brakes, which also very favorably differed from the standard in those days on inexpensive American cars "Drums" in a circle.

For all that, the initial sales of Vega were very good, especially after the start of the gas crisis in 1973, which generally spurred the sale of small, economical cars. The press was supportive, and in 1971 Vega became Motor Trend of the Year. This continued until 1974, that is, until the time when structural defects in the power unit and the body became apparent. After that, “Vega” was not saved either by good economy or by relatively good dynamics - 12.2 s. up to 100 km / h in the basic version, neither standard handling by American standards, nor low price, nor a five-year engine warranty that appeared after its extensive modernization in 1976 (Dura-Built 140) : throughput channels in the cooling jacket of the unit were increased and a new water pump appeared, which solved the problem of overheating, a redesigned head appeared with new hydraulic valve followers, modified valve guides and oil scraper rings, which reduced oil consumption by about 50%, a new cylinder head gasket, a new thermostat, so on. This unique engine “died” with her, although later the same technology was perfected by European companies such as Porsche , Mercedes-Benz and BMW , as a result, now case-free aluminum blocks have become commonplace (it’s worth noting, however, that modern engines of this type are designed for a completely different level of maintenance, and are also equipped with effective electronic warning systems for malfunctions that were not available on Vega).

The GM Vega did not have a direct follower: the Chevrolet Monza subcompact, which was produced in parallel with it since 1975 and had a common platform with Vega, was larger in size and had a more outspoken sports orientation (to the extent that it was originally the only body option was a hatchback coupe with a capacity of 2 + 2), while the Chevrolet Chevette introduced in 1977 was built on the Opel Kadett C platform and, on the contrary, was significantly more compact. However, in 1978, the remaining hatchback bodies were used as the basis for the “temporary” model - the Chevrolet Monza S, which had a Vega body with a front end from Monza and was offered as an extra-budget version of the latter. Exactly the same “posthumous death” was also found by the Vega-based station wagons, which in 1978–79 were offered with a new front end design as part of the Monza model range.

Engine Specifications

note: after 1972 power values ​​are given in SAE Net hp, before - in bhp ^[1] ; the L-11 engine became standard in 1977 ^[2] .

In total, in the years 1971-77 model years, 1,966,157 cars were produced, including 3,508 with tuning from Cosworth. The peak of production occurred in the period after the start of the 1973 gas crisis. In the most successful years, about 2.5 thousand “Vegs” gathered daily. From 1973-74, a second factory joined the production of the machine - the Sainte-Thérèse Assembly in Quebec, Canada.