CLUNKBUCKET

Everything but the same old cars

Say Chevy Chevette

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chevette-cs-08
The more or less recent edict handed down on high from the guys lighting Cuban cigars with $100 bills at General Motors was that they don’t want anyone saying Chevy anymore. Only Chevrolet. This being the case, they would certainly spit gag mouthfuls of their single malt Scotch and lapse into a fits of coughing if someone were to utter the word Chevette. So here goes. Chevy Chevette! There. We said it. This particular Chevette was seen on a trip out to a San Gabriel Valley junkyard where we have seen multiple Chevettes before. The General Motors Pinto and Import slayer was first sold in Brazil in competition with the Volkswagen Brasilia in 1974, and brought to North America soon after. Chevette sales continued until three years shy of the go-go ’90s. The Chevy hatchback holds the distinction of being the last subcompact rear-wheel drive car sold in the USA. The Chevette was produced in countless configurations, including Rally versions, Isusu diesel engine-equipped screamers, four-door hatchbacks, and as shown here, the deluxe CS package. With a reworked front and rear along with blacked out trim bits, the CS was the last refresh of the rear-driver before the mighty Chevette was scuttled in 1987.

Comments

  1. Brian Driggs says

    You say that’s an 87? I’m surprised it’s so well preserved after 22 years in a junk yard.

    The interior looks somewhat similar to the current lineup. One thing can be said of GM’s cheap plastics – they last forever…

  2. EvoStevo says

    What’s that steering wheel on the seat from? If I saw that in a junkyard I’d snag it for my E30. Come to think of it, is this the pick-your-part up in Wilmington?

  3. Mike Bumbeck says

    1987 was the end of the line. No telling what year this one is. Could be older! Saw it at the Pick-on-Peck in Irwindale over a month ago.

  4. Ronnie Schreiber says

    I had a friend with a Chevette. It made a 170 cu in slant six powered Dodge Dart rubber matted stripper seem like the pinnacle of automotive technology. Primitive? She blew up the engine or it got wrecked or something and she replaced it with an AMC Gremlin, which was an improvement. The Gremlin had terminal understeer because of the chopped off rear end (not like the unbobbed Hornet handled much better), but you couldn’t kill the AMC 6 if you tried (nor could Chrysler where it stayed in production as the 4.0 in the Cherokee). You could find things in the Gremlin that would endear you to it, shitbox though it was. The Chevette was just a piece of dreck from the get go.

    The biggest problem with the Chevette was the fact that GM decided to sell it here in the 1st place. It arrived just as the European and later Japanese companies were bringing in FWD cars with 4 wheel independent suspension, and sophisticated OHC engines, GM cheaped out by bringing in a car designed for the then developing world that was very basic and crude, pushrods and a live axle with cart springs. It’s hard to think of a US car made after WWII that was as primitive. The Chevette had nothing on my dad’s ’60 Rambler American.

    Of course, as one of the last RWD small cars, the Chevette is popular at the drag strip, though usually with at least a SBC in it.

  5. Bill Johnson says

    Take it from one who was there – even though it was an Opel Kadett first…it’s a Shove-It.