Which Beat-Up Old Chevy Would You Take Home? 1991 Beretta vs 1991 Corsica

For today’s Showdown, we’re going to take a look at two related, similar, but very different cars. They’re the same year, and the same platform, but with different engines, transmissions, and number of doors. They’re both beat to hell outside, and kind of nice inside.

Yesterday’s matchup wasn’t even a contest, nor should it have been. The Honda Accord was the obvious choice. It’s cheaper, it’s a better car, and it’s a lot more enjoyable to drive. Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to see that Mercury Lynx, and maybe take it for a spin, but there’s no way I’d actually want to own it. Especially not for that price.

I used to have an Accord of about the same vintage (mine was an ’84 if I remember right) and I really enjoyed it, at least until it got so rusty that it was unsafe to drive. Without the interference from the tin worm, I have no doubt that mine could have reached half a million miles or more like this one. It ran like a top all the way to the junkyard.

Some cars used to be absolutely everywhere, then suddenly when you weren’t looking, they were gone. The Chevy Beretta and Corsica fall into that category. When was the last time you saw either one of them on the road? And yet, twenty years ago, they were so ubiquitous you didn’t even give them a second glance. When I found one of each, of the same year, in similar condition, for close to the same price, I knew it had to be a sign. Let’s check them out.

1991 Chevrolet Beretta GTZ – $1,800

Engine/drivetrain: 3.1-liter OHV V6, three-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Macomb, MI

Odometer reading: 90,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

My mom had a Chevy Beretta, and she got it for a very specific reason. She used a wheelchair; she could stand for brief periods but not walk as a result of injuries from a car crash. She didn’t drive for years, but when she decided to get back behind the wheel, the last thing she wanted was a van. So instead, we went shopping for two-door coupes, with the idea that she could use her folding wheelchair and slip it behind her seat. We tried that trick in a lot of showrooms, with a lot of bemused salespeople looking on, and we found only one car in her price range that had long enough doors to make room for the wheelchair, and was also easy to add hand controls to: the Beretta.

This Beretta is quite a bit fancier than Mom’s was, but it has the same drivetrain: GM’s stalwart 3.1 liter V6 and TH125C three-speed automatic. This is a GTZ, which means the standard engine would have been a Quad 4 with a five-speed stick, which would have been a lot more fun. Someone paid extra for the V6 and the automatic to make this car slower and less interesting. It has had a bunch of recent work done, and it runs and drives just fine; it’s just less entertaining than it could have been.

This was originally a Florida car, so it has seen a lot of sunshine. And when you look at the dashboard, you can tell. The whole right side is bubbled and cracked from the sun. Maybe it should have had one of those carpet cover thingies on it. The rest of the interior looks good, and from the looks of it, the GTZ got much nicer seats than the base model did.

The left front fender is bashed in, and it has a mismatched steel wheel on that corner, which tells me it was a hard enough hit to ruin one rim. And good luck finding another GTZ wheel in white. But it isn’t rusty, so that’s something.

1991 Chevrolet Corsica LT – $2,000

Engine/drivetrain: 2.2-liter OHV inline-4, five-speed manual, FWD

Location: Palmer, AK

Odometer reading: 81,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

The Beretta sold pretty well for a two-door; Chevy moved 900,000 of them over the course of a decade. But four-doors always sell better than two-doors, which is probably why everything has four doors now. The Corsica, sister model to the Beretta, sold 1.6 million examples in the same time period. That’s two and a half million of these things together; where the hell have they all gone? Well, this one has been plying the roads of Alaska for the past thirty years.

The standard engine in both the Beretta and the Corsica was the 2.0 (later 2.2) liter four-cylinder from the Cavalier, available with either a three-speed automatic or a five-speed manual. This one has the rarely-seen manual, and the seller says it runs and drives “fantastic.” For some reason, however, the shift lever has been replaced by a large open-end wrench. It’s kind of a cool look, but I’d like to know the story behind it.

The seller calls the interior of this car “incredibly nice,” which seems like a bit of a stretch. The upholstery is in good shape, and the dash top looks a hell of a lot better than the Beretta’s, but that carpet is toast. But maybe in Alaska you just can’t keep the carpet in a car nice. It has an aftermarket stereo with Bluetooth, which is a nice upgrade. Chances are the old stock Delco stereo would have conked out by now anyway.

Most Corsicas were traditional four-door sedans, but for a couple of years this liftback version was available too. You don’t see many of them, and the combination of the liftback with the manual transmission must be rare indeed. Too bad it took a hit in the left rear corner. Luckily it was not hard enough to break the rear window; I don’t know where you’d find a replacement for that. But it was enough to brand the title, if that matters to you.

Cars like these are still around, and you even see them for sale once in a while – usually for wildly inflated prices these days. These two are reasonably priced, due to the fact that they’re a bit banged-up, no doubt. No Radwood shows for these two, but either one would make an interesting beater. Which format would you rather have: a coupe with a V6 and an automatic, or a four-door hatchback with a stick?