The 1976 Vega reportedly had over 300 improvements or changes, who can name ten of them off the top of your head? That’s probably Ph.D. level car knowledge, come to think of it. New headlight bezels and a wider grille are two of them. This 1976 Chevrolet Vega GT hatchback can be found posted here on craigslist in beautiful Olympia, Washington. The seller is asking $2,950 for this project.
This looks like a nice car but it does need work. The seller is running it off of an outboard motor gas can and electric fuel pump in the spare tire well, so plan on finding a gas tank for it. It also needs some exhaust work and electrical work. I thought that I’d get the bad part out of the way first. The tires have good tread but they’re on the older side so add that to the to-do list.
It does come with around $1,000 in NOS spare parts so that’s a good thing. And, other than a small “blister” of rust on the left-front fender, the car is solid other than surface rust probably from being in the Olympia area. The Vega was made for the 1971 to 1977 model years and earlier cars seem to be more desirable, which is often the case.
The interior looks great and yes, the seller has appeared to take the photos with a pinhole camera or by using some unusual filter either during or after. I’m not quite sure why they all look like they were taken through a porthole but you can still see the car, luckily. Other than maybe needing new carpeting, I can’t see anything else in the interior that stands out, other than needing some side panel work in the back seat area. This car even has power steering, power brakes, and AC!
The engine is Chevy’s 140 cubic-inch inline-four which would have had around 80 horsepower. The seller says that it’s been rebuilt using steel cylinder liners and it starts and runs well. This car has a 5-speed manual so that should make it fun to drive, even with only 80-hp on tap. Any thoughts on this Vega – Good buy or good-bye?
If it were a 74 or 75, then that would be great. The 76-77 models here with the front turn signals behind the grill and the horrible rear tail lights with the blocky amber area added really hurt the appearance of the vehicle.
White interior, with white door panels/plastics. That’s actually very rare as white was not normally used for these interiors with the exception of the bicentennial models and those often had red interiors. White here is very hard to clean, so I’m curious if they had any respray of vinyl paint. I suspect that might be the case here.
5 speed, definitely a bonus.
Engine is detuned and limited. But the engine itself is not a bad one, for by this time they had steel sleeves, hydraulic lifters, and could be high revving little beasties.
Fuel pump issues? Pump is in the tank. More often the pump doesn’t fail, but the oil pressure sender on the drive side of the block under the manifolds fails. Right next to the exhaust, they get baked and fail. You can quickly test this by using a piece of wire to short the outside terminals of the plug together and listen at the gas cap. Likely the pump will start up again. I’ve rescued a lot of Vega’s on the side of the road due to that $15 oil pressure sender failing like that.
Still wish it was a 74 GT Kammback wagon. I’d be seriously interested.
I’ve always wanted to do a Cosworth conversion to a wagon. Wonder if anyone’s ever done it. Talk about a niche vehicle…
Alex, Impossible to find a running Cos donor. You want power put a B or D series Honda/Acura engine in it. Then it would always run……longer then the Vega body for sure.
I think the “hidden” front turn signals are actually quite kewl & innovative.
As for the tailites, they dont look THAT bad – maybe chevy wanted them to be export ready?
& can you swap in ’74-5 tailites?
Not sure if ’71-3 tailites can be used & how they would look with a 5mph bumper.
The LAST thing any vega(or 4 cyl pinto) motor needs is an a/c compressor. lol
It wouldn’t have been sleeved. Hydraulic lifters, teflon coated valve guides, redesigned head, but the block still had the aluminum bore. No Vega, (even Cosworths), left the factory with a sleeved block, although they were available from Chevrolet Parts.
Improvements to a Vega? Like ——- on a bull!
I really liked the 70-73 body style Vega GT’s The Camaro-esque front end and the 4 rear tail lights just scream Chevrolet. The GT option came with a really nice dash, the GT factory wheels shod with Goodyear A70-13 Polyglas tires, the GT stripe (not sure if it was standard or optional) suspension updates made an awesome little car. It’s a shame the engines were so poorly designed and the bodies seemed to breed rust. But… all that said, I would love to own one, you just don’t see one. I would be sorely tempted to swap in a LLT V6. The weight difference is under 100 lbs, and a simple battery relocation can to the rear can make a substantial difference in handling.
Hmmm…I have an extra 87′ Buick 3.8 Turbo V6 that might fit nicely in here. My offer however, would be sub-$2k.
I have owned 14 of those, plus 2 Astres, and a Monza and a Sunbird. If the name “Vegaman” were not taken, I could have been that guy. My father was a fireman at the Lordstown Assembly plant, and every year mom would get a new 4 speed GT Kammback, except to 1976, which was 5 speed in Firethorn red with a red custom interior. Gorgeous car. I took my drivers test in that car. I actually like the 76-77 front appearance better than the 74-75. This car has the incorrect headlamp bezzels, they should be flat black on GT (and Coworth) the 76/77 tail lamps were goofy, but the Kammback tail lamps were unchanged for the entire !e del run. Th 1976 was greatly improved with the Durabilt engine, it even had a 5/50 warranty. The interior is weird here, incorrect seats, and the standard interior did not come in white, I think the door panels. The bicentennial had the base seats in white, with unique cloth inserts, and the custom interior door panels in white. Nice solid car, I’ll shut up now!
You could at least get the “Heritage interior” with white door panels. Now This is what I’d recreate!
http://oldcarbrochures.org/United%20States/Chevrolet/1976-Chevrolet/1976-Chevrolet-Heritage-Interior-Sheet/slides/1976_Chevrolet_Heritage_Interior_Sheet-02.html
You learn something new everyday still!
Whether you wanted to or not!
Got you beat with 26 of these things from 1984-1990. Vega’s, Monzas, Skyhawks, Sunbirds, Astres, etc. If it had a Vega engine, body, or drive train, I had it. I bought, fixed, sold, and scrapped a bunch of them.
GT’s had flat black painted bezels, but in the 76-77 years GM got cheap and stopped painting the bezels partway through production.
I prefer the 74 models because those rubber bumper strips resisted minor parking lot bumps and the thick heavy bumpers were good solid protection. In high school getting bumper tapped by new drivers wasn’t unusual in the parking lot. In the last three months, I have had my Chevrolet Volt hit *twice* in the rear bumper cover resulting in $2K+ damage each time. I would prefer the bumper strips, honestly.
I don’t ever remember seeing a Vega with white door panels, not even the bicentenial ones. Any H-body is fine with me!
Those seats aren’t original. They’re from a much newer car.
I have seen 80 Monza’s with the horizontal seats as found in this. They fit in the Vega without any modification.
Vega was the beginning of the end for GM.
There were nicks in the armor long before the Vega. Most notable the Corvair. Little known but in the late 60’s there was the breaking V8 motor mount cover up.
After the Vega the decline was swift. Funny how GM guys defend them. Misery loves company.
Kinda look like Monza Seat!
I owned one of these flops. Bought it new in 76 or 77. Everything (everything!) fell apart or off, it rusted faster than a fiat, and the engine was, politely, a pos.
It was the only new car I ever purchased for which I earnestly wanted my money back.
There’s a reason these things are rare!
V8 conversion material.
I had a 72 GT, it was swapped out with a small block V8 (265) had Comey shocks all around and fender flares with wide tires…was slot of fun
I’ve always liked the looks of these, and still do. I must admit that the only ones I’ve ever driven had V8 transplants; a guy I worked with had a brisk sideline building those. The automatics were nice, but the 409 with the 4-speed was brutal, its clutch almost needing both legs to hold the pedal down, and I was driving in lunch-hour traffic! Too bad, because that was a Kamm-back, and I loved its looks.
They were not made to last in Tennessee’s climate, though. A few years later I’d walk up an alley between my office and my wife’s for lunch, and there was a Vega parked behind an apartment there. Its whole rear panel was rusted into a sort of metallic lacework, with just enough metal to support its bumper sticker, which read: BUY AMERICAN!
only gm… could build.. the corvair.. the monza…the vega.. the diesels made from a 350 gas engine..and on..and on… and yet today.. still be in business..
Every manufacturer makes the occasional turd Mike, every one of them. They did then, they do now, and will in the future. That you can bank on.
Can’t speak for the Monza much (drove one once, not enchanted) or anything having to do with diesels, but the Corvair was a better car than its detractors keep saying, and from ’65 on were a good as they were pretty. I guess I’ve driven two of the originals and two more of the later cars, one a very sweet convertible; the only thing disappointing about that one was my trip from Palo Alto to the beach, over my favorite twisty road, was ruined by the passenger who squalled whenever we went over 30 mph …
What GM kept not getting quite right were the sneaky little details, like the Cosworth Vegas having excellent oiling into the cylinder head but no way to return it fast enough. The folks who ran these successfully sussed out the problem and fixed it with well-concealed external return lines, while neglecting to share the info … until later. But GM was hardly alone in letting their customers be the experimental development drives. Henry Ford was a master at selling cars to his “test drivers”, and then making running fixes to whatever needed them. Usually.
Bought an orange GT with 5 spd and A/C with 190K on it for daily driving in my teens. It was rusted out and burned oil. I changed thermostat and it stopped burning oil. Hit a curb in snow and front tire came through floor. Beat floor down with sledge and drove a few more days. If I let go of steering wheel I would’ve died. I liked that car.
GM boasted they had more engineering time in the Vega than any other vehicle. This could have been an amazing car for the masses, but no, unproven technology and no real solution for YEARS. VW had problems wit the Rabbits when they came out, but they would have factory sponsored “campaigns” to fix the issues and made improvements on a yearly basis. GM has forever had that “Take what you get and like it” attitude, which to me is why the Japanese were able to take over the American market with cars like the Toyota Celica GT, the Camry, and the Honda Accord. GM still hasn’t learned.
Had a nice 73 Cam back wagon got me through high school. Wouldn’t mind with placing it like a fine one it was that bronze color. I wonder if you could put an earlier front fascia on a newer model.
You can do a lot with these, I’d buy it. Remember, its better to look cool than to be cool. And easier too.
I often wondered why GM just didn’t. Install the 151 4 cylinder in these in 1971. They already had that engine for the Nova & they used it later in the Sunbird & Monza, which is the same chassis as this. That never made sense to me. It would have made a far more reliable car, with less engineering costs.
No wonder we had to bail out GM some 30 years later lol.
I always liked the style of these especially the earliest version, although the 1974 & 1975 has some appeal to me. I had a 1976 at one point, the only Vega I ever owned. It too wasn’t bad looking, although it was a well used $75.00 pos by the time I had it.
It was dark green with a tan interior. With the higher mounted headlights it made me think of a frog, so I named it Kermit.
One night, while cruising the local Milwaukee “strip”, I was at a red light. I saw some cute little thing at the bus stop with her friends. Light turned green, I revved up that little aluminum engine & dropped her into drive, trying to do the best burn out the little frog could muster up. My u-joints decided that was a bad idea and committed suicide. There I sat, not moving, with my driveshaft spinning on the ground lol. Needless to say, that cute little thing & her friends were not impressed lol. What a dork!
The 151 should never have been offered in the Nova & i bet they could have brought the Vega to market a lot earlier than the Gremlin with the 151 & saved a lot of development costs. & that motor has just high quality expensive gears that mesh – no timing chain OR belt!
& the liquid cooled glide(already offered) was pretty much indestructible in light cars & even the nova.
& the 151 could have been made more powerful with just intake & exhaust manifolds changes.
Sure the 151 was heavier than the junk aluminum motor, but the tiny gremlin had an even heavier strait 6 in it.
I don’t know, having not saved enough of my ’70s car magazines, but if the engine Joe (etc.) is mentioning is the original Chevy II 4-banger, as outlined in an article in a late ’60s R&T, and NOT the later and cheaper Iron Duke, then he’s picking on the wrong GM engine. Most of the interest was its mechanical description as basically one half of a 283 V8. Using a new block that reset the relative arrangement from slanted (as the Pontiac Tempest 4 would be) to upright as with most straight-fours, but with essentially the same head design, crank journals, pistons and rods. That it was more than overdesigned for a 2.5 liter four was demonstrated by the 200+ hp at very high (for the time) RPMs and great reliability in small-bore racing applications. For a while there my Dream Car would have been a Sprite or Midget with one of those under the bonnet: close to the same weight, about twice the poo.
My brother had a ’76 Cosworth Vega back in the early 90’s. It looked cool but that was about the only good thing about it. Noisy interior, noisy engine with no torque, awkward shifter, cheesy interior. I can’t imagine this would be any better
My first Vega was a 1972 GT Wagon. I put over 21,000 in less than a year and then traded it for a 1970 Torino GT. My second Vega was a 1972 GT fast back. I put a steel sleeve motor in it, did great, took it to Germany in 1976. A friend drove it for an hour over 100 mph. The number three cylinder came loose. I bought a ’75 Vega GT (with the ’74 Spirit decals) drove that for for a while in Germany, but need something bigger.
In ’79, I bought a ’77 Monza coupe with a 305ci in it. Loved that car! Had to trade it for a family car!
In 1985, I bought a ’76 Ponitac Astre stationwagon. I put a steel sleaved block in that car. drove it for a year and the trany died. Found a wrecked ’79 Monza stationwagon with a V6 (Buick). I stripped that Monza down and put everything in my Astre. Had a nice sleeper!
With the different combinations, the 305 was a blast, but I could keep from spinning the rear tires most of the time. The Buick V6 seemed to me to be the perfect fit. The front end handled better with less weight and I wasn’t spinning the tires from a stop each time. As for the original Vega engines, there was a reason the Vegas turned out to be real popular with engine swaps!