Chevrolet Vega vs. Ford Pinto

[phoebeisis]

Maxx- my 98 Suburban-cheapo LS trim- has cloth seats-no rips ,tears and no visible wear despite 14 years 218,000 miles-stuff wears like iron!! Almost impossible to stain-just simple green any stain-rub it-and it disappears.Same story on carpet.
Leather on the other hand-always has cracks in these older vehicles.
That old vinyl was best of both worlds-hot in summer cold in winter and always cracked!!

[MaxxMPG]

Many B-class entries have a cloth interior that is a woven material, and I wonder how it will last without pilling or puckering or wearing thin. Staining likely isn't bad, and the "dark titanium" on the Sonic will likely survive the occasional spill without a stain. Modern cloth interiors are pretty durable, and will certainly last longer than the vinyl seating of years past. I still miss the display of dozens of colors of duct tape in hardware stores, where people would buy a roll that was closest in hue to the vinyl seats in their car. And that duct tape would hold until the first sunny day. After that, it became glue-sludge that ended up on clothing.

I still remember the inexpesive "compact" cars sold a decade before the Pinto/Vega. When I was learning to read, the family car was a '60 Falcon. And I remember seeing a knob on the dash with the word "choke", and in my frail grasp of the written word, asked my mom what the word meant, since I understood "choke" to mean something really bad. Adding to the confusion, my dad would pull that knob outward before starting the car, and he wouldn't choke? And neither would the car? The wipers in that car ran on vacuum, so when the throttle was wide open (which in a Falcon, happened whenever you wanted the car to move), the wipers would slow to a stop. I also remember the '63 F-85 that had the major upgrade of electric wipers. Two speeds - "on" and "off" - and "on" didn't do well in heavy rain. I also remember going to various junkyards with my dad to buy a new wiper motor. The car loved wiper motors and demanded a new one every so often.

Nope, they sure don't build them like they used to!

[phoebeisis]

We -my dad- was a cheapskate and bought a 1961 Rambler SW with the straight six with new Tech aluminum heads-he was cheap-always measuring mpg when no one else did.It was probably much cheaper than a Chevy or Ford-
Well it ate headgaskets warped heads about every 3 months
I well remember going down the road with that thing blowing steam out the hood-dad cursing!!

[MaxxMPG]

Other trivia:

During development, the size of the Pinto was dictated by the dimensions of the VW Beetle. The wheelbase was the same, and the overall length wasn't much different. Ford's idea was to offer a car that matched the Beetle in size and economy, but with a real heater, conventional handling, and better acceleration.

The Vega was the first car to be developed by the corporate engineering center, rather than being designed by a specific GM division and then pitched to corporate management. The resulting corporate subcompact was not wanted by any of the divisions, and Chevrolet hated the burden of being stuck with it. The plant that built the Vega (which now builds the Cruze) had some of the first robots ever used by the auto industry. And as GM demanded improvements in productivity, workers allegedly sabotaged random cars and that is said to explain much of the disastrous build quality that the Vega 'enjoyed'.

Both cars were "built to a price" to compete with the imported economy cars, and so the advertised base stickers included only a powertrain and whatever emissions/safety gear was required by law. In fact, the early AMC Gremlin - introduced to compete with the Pinto/Vega, had a base model priced to undercut the competition. This rare base model (who knows if more than one was even built) omitted the rear seat, and the rear hatch glass was fixed in place - both cost cutting measures. The car had plenty of luggage space, and you had to reach past the front seats to stow cargo.

In about six months, the lowest price Chevrolet will be the Spark. Sized in between the Fiat 500 and the first-gen Geo Metro, it will take its place as the price leader. And even the lowest cost model will have A/C, 4 speaker AM/FM radio, tilt wheel, power windows, rear wiper/washer, aluminum wheels, and loads of safety gear (10 air bags, ABS with BA, Stability control, etc). Time will tell if the Spark slots below the current Versa/Accent/Rio price leaders, but it will arrive with some goodies that the others charge extra for.

The lowest price Ford is the Fiesta S sedan, and it also packs a lot of safety and standard features into its under-$14k MSRP.

The Pinto/Vega shootout continues today, with Ford and GM each using social media to reach the youth market and entice them with cars that have all the basics as standard equipment.

The difference is that now, as opposed to 40 years ago, there are a lot more players in the game. Toyota and Datsun are no longer golf-cart-sized curiosities, the Subaru is no longer an egg-shaped lawn tractor with gas/oil mixed in the tank, Honda is no longer a motorcycle with a roof attached, and the Korean automakers have evolved from disposable $4995 products with bumper-car styling to world-class products offering more car for less money.

[SentraSE-R]

Those old Datsuns and Toyotas were the leading edge of the tidal wave that toppled the Big Three. I bought a new 1970 Datsun pickup for $1900 that got 25 mpg no matter how hard I flogged it, and the more capable Datsun 510 didn't cost significantly more. My parents bought me a new 1973 Pinto wagon, and I was disappointed it only got 21-22 mpg.

I bought the Datsun truck when I lived in Arizona, with one significant service consideration in mind: Datsun had a significant presence in Mexico, so I could find service and parts there, as well as in the USA. The Mexican pickups had 1.5 liter engines v. the PL521's 1.6 liter (or the 1.3 liter engines in the '68-69 U.S. Datsun pickups).