Things are not always what they seem to be. This is especially true with cars. In the malaise era, we got plenty of sleek automobiles that were often covered in flashy graphics, ground effects, and spoilers that all promised lightning-quick acceleration. More often than not, these paper tigers couldn’t even outrun a station wagon from a decade before.
Pontiac was very guilty of this imbalance in the 1980s. In 1982, the brand launched one of its most advanced-looking products ever: the Firebird Trans Am. The new Firebird instantly made a lot of European exotics look old hat. The appearance was of something that would be unbeatable on the street, yet the reality was that it could barely defeat the Pontiac that some (perhaps unfairly) consider to be one of the worst cars ever built. Some tests show the Firebird wouldn’t have beaten it at all. What’s even funnier is that this car was sold right alongside the Firebird in the same Pontiac showroom.
And Now You Find Yourself In ‘82
I fully understand that the 1982 Trans Am was more than partially responsible for the people of Germany being subjected to the music career of David Hasselhoff. With all apologies to the people of Deutschland, I still find the first third-generation Firebird to be my favorite Pontiac of all time, looks-wise. It’s a beautiful car, regardless of being guilty by association of putting The Hoff singing on top of the Berlin Wall.
Pontiac design head John Schinella successfully lobbied to have their version of the new F-body feature a lower nose with pop-up lights. Combined with things like the “bowling ball” wheel covers and relatively flush glass, the team created a form with a low-for-the-time .31 drag coefficient. Unlike the Trans Am from the previous model year that wore a “screaming chicken” decal large enough to cover the entire hood, the new, more restrained 1982 model’s chicken sticker was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
Unfortunately, what was under that hood was not a screamer of any size. Base Firebirds actually got the clunky Iron Duke four cylinder, with an optional 2.8 liter V6 or a four-barrel 5.0 liter (305 cubic inch) V8 with only 145 horsepower. The top powerplant for the Trans Am was that same V8 with the available “crossfire” double throttle body fuel injection system, good for a mere 165 horsepower. That’s not a totally horrendous number for 1982, but at around 3200 pounds, the Firebird Trans Am was a relatively large and heavy car for the time. A four-speed manual was standard on the carbureted V8, but if you ordered the “ceasefire” option, you were stuck with a slushbox.
This meant Pontiac’s hot-looking sports coupe was not such a hot performer. The best that Car and Driver could get out of a four-barrel four-speed manual 1982 model was a 10.8-second slog to sixty. The fuel-injected version could drop that acceleration time down to a better-but-still terrible nine-second range. “Something is desperately wrong,” quipped the magazine, “when a Nissan Stanza econosedan beats the ballsiest four-speed T/A to 60 mph.”
It was actually worse than that. You didn’t need to go to the Datsun dealer down the street to find a family sedan that was faster than the T/A, there was one right on the Pontiac dealer’s showroom floor.
Who Can It Be Now?
General Motors took a major gamble by replacing its tried-and-true X-body compacts in 1979 with an all-new front-wheel-drive design that was unprecedented in America. Would buyers really be good with trading in their rear-drive Chevy Nova with a chassis that dated back twenty years for some newfangled Citation with specifications that more closely matched a VW Dasher/Passat? The answer was an overwhelming “yes”, with an astounding 1.1 million X-cars finding homes for the 1980 model year alone. How did they develop something so new so fast, and how did they successfully keep up with that overwhelming demand?
Well, the simple answer here was that they didn’t. It’s safe to say that the front-drive X-car wasn’t fully developed when it was launched, and major issues started to pop up right away. The most publicized problem was a brake proportioning fault that caused the rear drums to lock up prematurely. GM did a voluntary recall of some of the earliest models to modify the brake proportioning valve, though leaked documents stated that they knew it wasn’t going to fix the problem. Eventually, a larger number of cars were recalled to replace additional components, but the NHTSA sued to have every one of the million-plus 1980 cars recalled. They failed in their efforts, however, and the damage from bad publicity was insurmountable.
Further, building cars at a breakneck pace resulted in hit-and-miss quality for the X-cars – mainly misses, and they sealed GM’s bad reputation for decades. As a kid, I knew a family with a Citation that needed five new water pumps over the several years they had it. Some neighbors ordered two Buick X-Cars (the Skylark) at the same time to replace both of the gas guzzlers in their fleet; one was delivered with unacceptably granular paint, while the other one arrived with barely passable orange peel. How do you even do that?
Still, being introduced literally in the peak weeks of the second energy crisis, the X-car succeeded since it might have been the ultimate example of the right car at the right time: small on the outside, spacious on the inside, fuel efficient but actually a reasonable performer with the optional 2.8-liter V6. Pontiac’s version was the Phoenix, available as a four-door hatchback or a notchback two-door sedan.
I have no clue why 1981 Pontiac chose to put the Phoenix in a 1960s-style interpretation of the Wild West in this commercial, but here we are:
The top-of-the-line model had the cosmetically enhancing SJ package, but for 1982, the SJ became a distinct model with a big addition: a standard “high output” LH7 two-barrel version of the V6 that increased power by 23 horsepower to 135 and 145 lb-ft of torque.
Remember that a 1982 Phoenix SJ coupe weighed only 2,562 lbs, so with the standard 4-speed manual transmission, it was a reasonably quick car with zero to sixty times recorded in the very low nine-second range.
Pontiac gave their top-of-the-line Phoenix some subtle visual upgrades, including a rear spoiler, plus a Trans Am steering wheel and a full set of gauges in the typical Pontiac dashboard-of-many-many circles (though at least on the Phoenix SJ that had actual gauges in them).
The suspension with front and rear anti-roll bars was supposedly upgraded, along with 205/70 R13 tires. As Old Car Memories stated:
All of this Pontiac bragged about in their sales literature. What Pontiac didn’t mention was the 1982 Phoenix SJ if ordered correctly could out accelerate the fastest 1982 Trans Am that Pontiac offered. The Trans Am was Pontiac’s flagship sports car so it was understandable Pontiac didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag. Pontiac’s hottest 1982 Trans Am was equipped with the 165 horsepower LU5 Cross-Fire fuel injected 5.0 liter V8 was good on the average for high-8 second 0-60 mph times when equipped with the optional 3.23 rear axle ratio. The LU5 Trans Am could only be equipped with a 3-speed automatic transmission. Now here’s where it gets interesting, if an 1982 SJ buyer chose the lighter coupe and opted for the standard 4-speed manual 0-60 mph was obtainable in mid-8 seconds with an experienced driver at the helm. The end result was the 1982 Phoenix SJ was potentially quicker than the 1982 Trans Am.
My research says that “mid eight seconds” range seems a bit optimistic to me; high eights is the best I could find. Hot Rod tested an ’82 four-speed SJ Phoenix and pulled a 16.54-second quarter mile, or about 0.2 seconds slower than the stick carbureted same-year Trans Am they tested. Now, Hot Rod’s figures were for a quarter mile, so it’s entirely likely that the Phoenix and T/A could have been spot-on up to 60. However, I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Trans Am given to Hot Rod for testing was a “ringer,” a car modified in a way that GM almost admitted to having done with the GTO provided to Car and Driver in 1964 (author Patrick Bedard has written extensively about his skepticism of old GM press cars). At the same time, it’s entirely possible that the same massaging didn’t happen with the who-cares Phoenix, so the parity of the figures might be suspect.
Regardless, just listen to what we’re doing: trying to decide if Pontiac’s hottest sports coupe and the basis for K.I.T.T. could beat their same-model-year boxy five-passenger small front-drive coupe to sixty is like asking if your mom could win in a marathon against an Olympic runner. It’s absurd, but here we are. Admittedly, neither the ’82 Trans Am or the Phoenix were exactly going racing.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. In 1982 and 1984, the SCCA Showroom Stock Championship for the import-packed Class B was won by an X-body 1981 Citation X-11. I’m not sure if any of the nearly identical Phoenixes were in the race series, but the Pontiac featured the same motor as the X-11, even if the suspension modifications weren’t really the same. Sure, refinement was not a strong suit (one magazine described the manual transaxle as “feeling like a gear bag instead of a gear box”), but the competition records show that on a smooth racetrack, an H.O. V6 X-car proved more than a match for more expensive European iron like Saab 900 Turbos.
Buyers didn’t seem to care. A mere 995 Phoenix SJ coupes and 268 admittedly slower and heavier SJ 4-door hatchbacks were produced for 1982. The high-output powered Phoenix continued into the ’83 model year with the same power and a minor facelift, plus finally getting 14-inch wheels to replace the wimpy 13s on the earlier model.
By that time, Pontiac had finally upped the power of the F-body to more respectable levels, so that ’83 Trans Am in the photo below could finally show the Phoenix its cool ribbed taillights.
The Phoenix stopped getting any kind of updating at that point and was a dead car walking. After 1984, the forgotten Phoenix once again returned to the ashes, replaced by the much more successful- but not as quick- 1985 Grand Am.
I Keep Forgettin’ (The Trans Am Was So Slow)
As troubled and lambasted as the X-car was, by almost any measure, it had to be one of the most influential American cars ever built. For better or worse, it changed the template of the typical domestic sedan. Ultimately, front-wheel drive cars accounted for virtually all of General Motors’ lineup, and sadly, their relative later success has to be attributed in large part to the extensive testing and troubleshooting done by, well, the owners of those first X-cars.
Regardless, when it was running right and held together, a Phoenix could have kept up with the most muscley car that Pontiac had to offer in 1982, and absolutely nobody noticed. That doesn’t make it a great car, but it will always have those bragging rights that history can’t take away. It should also make us thankful every day that the malaise years are long behind us.
Pontiac Points: 58/100
Verdict: “Michael, I can’t evade that little family coupe next to us!”
Top graphic image: General Motors
The 82 Mustang GT had 157HP from a 302 with a two barrel carb and ran the ass off of the F Bodies.
You mentioned GM sending in a ringer, and yea in the 60’s it was rampant. I read an old Hot Rod Article that had a new Chevelle (or maybe Nova) that was running 12’s or low 13’s in the 1/4 mile, in the 60s, which was insane. Hot Rod literally pulled the engine apart to find it was actually a 427 with something around 12:1 compression, and definitely not the stock 396. It came directly from the GM fleet to Hot Rod. GM basically put in a race engine (or close to the upcoming L88). It was like adding 100+ HP.
I know to this day most OEMS still do a minor version of this, with cherry picking the best preproduction cars and best preproduction parts to put on them before handing them off for Press duty to make sure they really are the fastest possible. This practice seems much more reasonable though.
Then there’s the flip side: Engines like the Chevy L88 427 (and especially the aluminum ZL1 427)and LS6 454, Pontiac 400 Ram Air IV and 455 Super Duty, Ford 428/429 Cobra Jet, Mopar 426 Hemi, and so forth were actually vastly underrated in their stated horsepower/torque levels.
The ZL1 was a nasty, vicious full-race engine, factory rated at “425 horsepower.” Yeah. Maybe with a couple of spark plug wires unplugged.
Yes! I always marveled at the dichotomy of overrating the bottom 90% of the fleet but then underrating that top bit. To the unassuming buyer it put most people into the higher profit margins (buy overrating and showing off how fast that upper trim 427 tri-power was!) but largely made sure they did not try to order the ones that would largely kill them (the L88s etc). But all it usually took back then was to see the compression ratios and you could tell which was the real best. I know with the L88 it was also rated at only about 4500 RPM to get that 425 (or was it 430?) rating, meanwhile that solid lifter cam was not making full power until closer to 7000RPM.
I think they wanted to avoid a horsepower war, something similar happened with motorcycles in the 90s, everything from a 750 to a 1200 had 99 HP
Rated at 425 horsepower… in traffic. LOL
And even when OEM’s aren’t cherry picking cars, the ones they send out for review almost always have a whole bunch of optional extras, never the base model.
I wonder if the export taillamps with amber turn signal indicators would make Phoenix feebly faster…
My dad special ordered a bright red 1982 Trans Am with everything: WS6, T-tops, leather seats and most importantly – the Cross-Fire Infected engine (not a misspelling). It did not arrive until June of 1982 because of some delay with the rear disc brakes or something. The car was stunning to look at, was very fun to drive and handled very well. The power, on the other hand, was atrocious even by 1982 standards. I remember getting dusted by a huge early 70s Ford station wagon. We couldn’t help but laugh. When the TPI engine was announced, he traded it in on one of the first 1985 Trans Ams the dealer got. It was a revelation in that everything had been improved in those short 3 years. That car could at least hold its own against most of the competition in 1985.
I had an ’82 Citation with the V6, and I’ll tell you that it was a good car, particularly for that era. It was faster than most, decent mileage, roomy, and with the rear seat down, I had enough room for a 2 x 15″ bass cabinet and two bass guitars. Because nothing says “chunk of funk” like a beige 4 door Citation.
Honestly, the only problem we ever had (and it turned out to be the death of the car) was that the head gasket went in 1989, and my dad wasn’t about to get it fixed. But even then, it hadn’t rusted, everything else worked on the car, the interior was perfect. And it wasn’t like the car was garaged or anything.
There’s no funkier image that you could present than showing up to the gig with your bass rig loaded into a Chevy Citation the color of a Band-Aid. LOL
These cars are all sad, generic, square, underpowered slushmobiles that anyone but GM would have been too ashamed to put out. They all look the same, they’re all slow and filled with cheap plastic and piss poor build quality.
Oh, this was about malaise era, not today? Must have missed it. Whoops.
Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, non?
So how about one of those little French cars and Jerry Lewis?
I feel fortunate to have missed both the X body and the F body. The closest I got were a few drives in an Aeroback Cutlass, which fortunately didn’t grenade its TH250M while I was in it. I didn’t have an American car until the late 90s when the Malaise Era had been mostly exorcised. My only experience with an Iron Duke was an S-10 which was OK, but a 4 cylinder Ranger was much better
Oops I just remembered the driver’s ed cars were 80 or 81 Skylarks. Our 74 Volvo was way better
I have perhaps overly fond memories and opinions of a lot of malaise-era cars. For instance, I liked our Dodge Aspen station wagon and my dad’s ’77 and ’82 Dodge pickups were great. But I can assure you that the X-cars were crap, and I speak as one who owned an ’81 Buick Skylark for a couple of years. Easily my least favorite car I ever owned, as indicated by its nickname “POS”.
i like that the Citation ad copy says, “its high output V6 working its innards to the max,” like that sounds appealing in any way
I’m working my innards to the max right now
Makes it sound like the car ran on Taco Bell rather than gasoline.
We had an 82 X-11, 4 spd With a good launch it would take quite a few malaise era cars by surprise! That damn car went 280k before Dad gave it to me, and I put a other 30k on it. Motor never opened, original trans and clutch, too!
As a former delorean owner it always bugged me that everyone seemed to always pick on that car mainly because of how slow it was. It had a 2.8 v6 and could do 0-60 in 8.5, which was quicker than the trans am with the v8. It wasn’t far off the 82 corvettes time of about 8.1.
I mean, “not bad for the time” is not bad. But at the same time, as a car obsessed adolescent in the mid-80s, I remember feeling actual despair about my future as a driver, where every new car every year for the rest of my life would be even more gutless than the last. And I wasn’t even driving yet. Those were dark days. Dark, slow days. If you’re a car guy and not Uncle Rico, “back in ’82” is not the time you look back fondly on.
Which is why I always say: if you weren’t there, you children have absolutely no idea what thrilling beacons of hope the first Trans Ams and Z28s with Tuned Port Injection and the first 5.0 Mustangs were in the mid-80s, all 200 horsepower worth of them. That’s why I have no patience for people who roll their eyes at the numbers they put up – we were just happy that you could buy a muscle car again that would at least chirp the tires changing gears. American automotive performance has been on an unbroken line straight up since then. As a 13-year-old kid in 1985 when those cars hit the market, they will always hold a special place in my heart, because they were the bounce after hitting bottom.
To borrow a phrase from the most famous Trans Am driver of them all (see profile pic), those cars made you want to say, “Hot damn, we’re gonna make it!” And in today’s insane, eye-popping horsepower renaissance, I would say that we have indeed made it.
Great.
Now I’ve got a rotation of Asia, Men At Work, and Michael McDonald stuck in my head.
Thanks! 🙂
I’d welcome that over the non-stop loop of K-Pop Demon Hunters songs I’ve had in my head for months (parent of an 8-y/o). Not saying anything bad about, the songs are really quite good and deserve all the praise they get; it just gets a bit old having the same loop in your head for going on 2 months…
Once a car almost kills you, it’s hard to forgive. I don’t even think I have ever been prepared to forgive GM.
I was a passenger in a relatively new Citation back in the day. We got cut off on a wet freeway by another car. Did a minor avoidance manoeuvre, had all four wheels lock up and lost all steering. Slid straight into the ‘vee’ guardrail of an offramp. My seat shot forward and then ricochet back off it’s rails and collapsed leaving me in the back seat. Good thing, because there was really no concept of a crumple zone back then so the front passenger compartment was now about a foot and a half shorter.
The insurance company’s ‘look into the matter’ listed incorrect brake balancing, and, get this, a steering rack that had come apart. At first they thought it was caused by the collision, but then found it was actually an existing fault. I don’t usually carry grudges, but everytime I see GM and bankruptcy in a news story, I secretly wish it happens.
I do not mean to make light of your story, but this has been the vibe I’ve gotten from GM the whole time I’ve been alive. It’s like this haphazard assemblage of things you can sell as “car” with as much spite for drivers and mechanics as you can muster, every year, every model, and no regard for anything but cost, cost, cost.
I say this as someone with a more than passing respect for the Corvette program in IMSA and a terrible desire for a Blackwing.
I’ve reminded twice today specifically of the base model Iron Duke Firebird. And that that exact car features in the one of the PS2 Tokyo Xtreme Racers. As a late game option. With not a 305, but the Duke. Sure, if you drove it in game for some absurd distance, you could swap it for a v8, but…
Let’s just say as a youth I was…disappointed.
…would have loved a Phoenix over that…
God, that last bit hurts my heart. Burt Reynolds and James Garner ain’t died for this.
Rode around in a few X-cars in the mid 80’s (a Phoenix notchback that was my friend’s family car and an early Citation notchback that belonged to my Uncle). They did the job as basic transportation, at least from the eyes of 10 year-old me.
The funny thing is that when I turned 17 in 1992 and it was time for my first set of wheels, a 1982 Citation 5-door was the pick for me to share with my mom…..priced at $200 dollars! I used it for about a year before it caught fire and died a fiery death. Thankfully, it did not rise from the ashes.
That P.O.S. had rusted floorboards so bad that on one trip down the shore, I pulled off a chunk of metal that was scraping the ground below my ass, making a racket. When I used compound to brighten up the paint, I was alarmed by how much dark blue paint was coming off on the old t-shirts I was using to polish it. And when that transmission was put into drive, it made a “thunk” that felt like you just were rear-ended. Good times…..I can’t believe how little my parents valued my safety, LOL!
Can you imagine a 2015 car ending up in that state today without being hideously abused?
People forget just how terrible Malaise Era cars could be. I mean, I love them, but they were absolutely awful cars most of the time! A buddy of mine got a 1986 Monte Carlo “sport coupe” with the LG4 305 as his first car off of a relative for $10 (yes, that’s not a typo) in 1996. Basically, the car was ready for scrap. It got dropped off at his house barely running and with plenty of rot and other issues.
Most 10 year old cars now are still on the road and doing just fine without major rust, even up here in the Rust Belt. It’s amazing how much better cars have gotten since then.
Yeah, it’s amazing how much better cars are now. My mom’s ’72 Datsun B210 that she bought new, got junked when it was 9-years old and the strut towers collapsed in the driveway overnight.
Currently I have two vehicles that share daily duty, a nearly 20 year old GMC Sierra, and a nearly 25 year old Honda Accord. I live in the rust belt too.
When you compare the steaming piles that the US automakers were squeezing-out to the very good (for the time) cars the Japanese were bringing over, you can’t help think The Big 3 had it coming…
They did. But even those great little Japanese cars rusted out like it was their job back then.
While you’re absolutely correct; at least they remained functional long enough to rust out, unlike so many domestic cars of the time.
From my experience, the GMs were worse with rust.
That is how I ended up in Japanese cars. I wrecked one of the f-bodies and bought a $400 200SX to drive until I could find another f-body. The nissan (datsun) handled much better than even the last f-body that had quite a few suspension upgrades (I only had the one car, so I was riding my bike to the shop with suspensions arms strapped to my back to have them press in new bushings for me).
I ended up buying 2 more S12s and all of them were in much better shape than the f-bodies. That is a very big statement on the GM qualities because I bought all three of them as non-operational vehicles that had been sitting for a while before I got them.
They were even better than the GMs rust-wise. No significant rust on the S12s, all the f-bodies had obvious rust. The transmission even fell out of one of them because the frame section connected to the crossmember rotted so badly that the crossmember just dropped.
See username – the same thing happened to drum companies around the same time. Tama, Yamaha, and Pearl were stealing candy from Ludwig, Slingerland, and Gretsch the exact same way that Toyota, Honda, and Datsun/Nissan were doing to the Big Three, and for the same reasons: design and build quality.
Picture a guy in 1978 standing in front of a conked-out Chevy Vega on the side of the road watching a shiny new Honda Accord go by. He feels the same way a drummer in 1978 with flimsy bullshit Slingerland hardware feels watching a drummer set up his new Tama Imperialstars, with their stout, fully flexible hardware of the future.
I’ve never had to drive a 1970s Vega, but I’ve had to deal with flimsy bullshit 1970s Slingerland hardware. Hell with that. Just as with cars, thank God the Japanese made the Americans get their act together.
Perspective- in ’92 at 16 I had a rotted out ’78 LTDII coupe with 60k that was already 2 feet from the grave. Today at 49 I daily a ’14 Camry with 256k that is rust free and shows no signs of stopping.
My first car was a 1978 Camaro with about 78,000 miles, in 1988. Compared with every car I’ve owned since then, its deterioration over the time I had it was shocking. In terms of general build quality and staying together, my next car, a 1983 Celica GT, was a better car at 175k miles than my Camaro was at 100k.
I bought three 3rd gen F-bodies for less than $500 each, and they were all less than 10 years old with well under 100k miles on them.
They were piles of ass, in a bad way. Everything flexed, rattled and squeaked. It’s a good thing they were older than CD players, because every CD player I ever installed in one was guaranteed to skip severely over train tracks or other road irregularities.
Every now and then I think about finding and fixing a GTA, but can’t bring myself to do it. The sad truth is that these things just did not have good bones. You can’t even count on the trim staying in place or the headliner not falling in on you. For the level of effort to get one of these in a condition I’d be comfortable with, I could probably complete three other projects on less crappy cars.
Can confirm turd gens will always be rattlely I have done everything on my powertrain and suspension wise at this point and the interior still rattles to hell after like 65 mph haha interior is still in great condition though just need to replace the old ass headliner.
You have more determination than I.
Assuming that’s your car in your avatar, it is the exact color GTA that would tempt me.
Tis one of the birds we have, it is my 89 formula (I have owned it for 12+ years now) my dad has a 77 formula and we actually just bought a 79 formula from one of his work buddies that is retiring soon and moving to Canada. My bird does run and drive fairly decently but need to get exhaust back together as one of the clamps came undone.
I don’t think I’ve seen a Formula that color. Almost all of them around here were blue. There were some black and yellow ones but blue was by far the most common color.
I think I’ve only seen that color on GTAs.
Yeah true seemed to be of a more common color on the GTA’s. I don’t recall seeing any formulas in the wild as the same color as mine but have seen some listed online before. Mine will need a repaint at some point as the original paint is all scratched up and starting to chip.
How might a pile of ass be a good way?
Use some imagination!
Well, whose asses are we talking about here?
All the finest in the world, but the cherry on top is Bernie Sander’s.
Good point! That Citation was on its last stop with me, and it’s a miracle it lasted about 11 years based on everything written about these cars.
Now? My 23 year-old daughter has driven the same car for the last 6 years that will soon be 22 years-old (’04 Volvo V70). My 19 year-old son drives a 2005 Volvo V50.
Both cars look great (though not the cheapest to maintain, I will admit) and belie their age. I guess I was so scarred by that Citation that I’ve made it my life’s work to get my kids into some of the safest cars out there (especially with the tank-like V70).
I could not have imagined driving a 1972 Vega or Nova in 1992!
The VW Passat/Dasher comparison is apt, but the car GM used as the template for the X-bodies was even more interesting: the Lancia Beta! Which possibly proved to be an inauspicious choice, as the Beta ended up with a reputation in Europe not too dissimilar from the X-body’s rep in America, but the basic engineering principles were sound.
The oddest thing about the Beta was no hatchback!
Many always focus on the 70’s as far as malaise and HP numbers being abysmal, but I quite think 1980 to 1984 was some of the worst times for cars. everyone was still trying to get less emissions from the cars and it seemed like in the early 80’s going to weirdly small engine sizes was the last gasp. Anyone remember the 1980-81 V8 mustang displacement? 4.2 liters of Fury rated at a whopping 115 HP.
I do remember the cover story on Road and Track (or Motor Trend) declaring “Muscle was back!” when the IROC Camaro and Mustang GT both finally eclipsed 200 HP again.
Did a quick Google, and it was in fact R&T I remember looking wistfully at the lemon yellow IROC.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/vintage-road-test-camaro-iroc-z-vs-mustang-gt/
The 70s ended in the mid-80s.
This car actually had a lot going for it, but was let down by the nuts and bolts. The interior is fantastic, with those comfy corduroy seats and great-looking dash and IP.
I taught a friend to drive stick on her Citation X-11 (a million years ago), and it was fast for the time. I remember chirping the tires going into 3rd at about 50 MPH. But yes, it was a “gearbag”, and I found it terrible compared to the German manual transmissions I was used to.
We were all a’chatting about the Pontiac 6000 STE here the other day, and it’s worth noting that the STE got its power from the H.O. 2.8 V-6 that started its life in the Phoenix XJ and Citation X-11 – my folks had an ’84 6000 STE when I first started driving and the V6 was pretty sweet in that ride. Of course, it was like 1986-87, so everything is relative.
they were ugly but good. I recall one lasting quite a long time for my uncle.
I daresay that notchback coupe is actually a sharp looking design.
I hope someone, somewhere has one of these preserved in nice condition, but I doubt it.
Let’s see where The Bishop pulled his sub-headings from:
Asia – Heat of the Moment
Men at Work – Who Can It Be Now?
Michael McDonald – I Keep Forgettin’
I forgot about Pontiac’s Phoenix, but I still remember the TV show “The Phoenix” that was cancelled after 4 episodes and stars Judson Scott who famously has no credit for his role in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I remember that TV show! He played an alien who kicked ass at video games.
Fortunately, they brought him back to play Kirk’s kid David Marcus’ drug dealer on TNG, and he got credit for that. Great wardrobe on him.
Another Trek guest who asked not to be credited was Frank Langella, who was perfectly slimy as politician Jaro Essa on DS9.
My understanding on Judson’s credit in STII was that his agent was trying to get him better billing during the opening credits and manged to get no credit. I’m in awe that someone else remembers The Phoenix tv show.
I bet Harve Bennett was involved in that.
Fairly rare cars. Even as a person who was born when these came out, and a kid who loved cars in a family that only bought GM until after the 00’s rolled around, I don’t really remember these.
165 hp? My tuned 2012 Cruze got around that from 1.4 liters of turbocharged gerbils. It’s amazing how much better cars got from that early 1980’s nadir.
Yeah my tuned Sonic LT once frustrated a C3 Corvette on a late night freeway run. Poor guy kept trying to race past me, I’d let him get to my door, downshift to third and walk away from him just as he reached my front wheel. This repeated three or four times until he just got off the freeway. We were the only two cars on the road, so I wasn’t impeding anything or endangering anyone but myself and the Vette driver.
The Sonic wasn’t a comfortable car, but it sure was fun to rev out and toss around. I had a Cold Air Intake, ported the intake manifold, and ran a Bad News Racing tune to boost that poor 1.4 to 22+ PSI. I got rid of it at 75K miles, not sure how long it lived, I was very upfront with the buyer about what I had done to it, and that it likely had a shorter than expected lifetime because of it.
Mine lived to 250k miles with the tune, when I sold it. Still on the original clutch! Fun little car. But it would be sitting rotting in my possession right now.
I can’t even begin to imagine the slowness of an Iron Duke F-body. My only experience with the Duke was in a buddy’s GMC S-15. It was painfully slow with 2 guys in it, and positively glacial (and lots of clutch slipping required) with 2 guys and 500 lbs in the bed.
Whoever decided that GM should build 4-cylinder F-bodies should be taken out back and…
I go to GM headquarters annually for work and they had a prototype 2016 Camaro in the lobby and the engineer who was providing the usual tour commented “This will be the FIRST four-cylinder Camaro” and I had to raise my hand and be pedantic.
He gave me the stinkeye for the rest of the tour. You dont get to erase those turds from existence, Sparky.
It’s too bad you didn’t wear your “All hail the Duke” t-shirt when visiting that day.
Buy a Duke Nukem shirt for next year.
Don’t worry, the person responsible is long gone. Besides, all those early surviving F-bodies long ago had the Iron Duke shipped to USPS and had something spicier dropped under the hood. L67 or L32 would be my choice because it’s different.
For grins I just checked Polk and there are 487 Camaros and 357 Firebirds originally equipped with the 2.5 still registered. I’m sure there are probably a few that havent been converted – what a penalty box those were.
I had an 84 Camaro sport coupe in the Navy. My best friend said he drove someone else’s car that had the Duke & a manual. Said it was the heaviest clutch pedal he had ever driven.
My dad had an ’84 Firebird with the Iron Duke and 4 speed. Let out clutch in first gear and floor it. When engine noise is intolerable shift to second gear and floor it again. Repeat for third and fourth gear. I was in high school when he had it and it was embarrassing to drive. I usually used my Mom’s Chrysler minivan.
I drove a 4 cylinder F body inches early 90’s. It was so slow, I was convinced it was broken.
It’s not just the slowness, it is the NHV. The Iron Duke’s felt like they were grinding marbles at idle, with a pronounced up and down crank sway. And it never got better.
Didn’t those have timing gears instead of a chain? They sounded bloody awful, that’s for sure.
Plastic ones! Just to wring out that extra bit of unreliability.
I drove a Pontiac Sunfire from the 70s (Monza clone) with the Iron Puke and it made my buddy’s dad’s VW Rabbit Diesel with 48 hp feel like a Ferrari.
I’d be curious how many were sold with that engine. I got around on cheap 3rd gen f-bodies back in the day. I was always looking for the next one and never ran across a 4 cylinder example.