1970s Vauxhall | Vauxhall Chevette | 1970s Mercedes Benz | Car factory | Drive in | 1976 

That long???? WOW! GM was being generous. We had a Citroen club - bought brand new, that car required significant rust repairs 2 years later.

@@tcpnetworks Yes! My dad had a GS Club estate and It was pock-marked all over with rust by the time It was 3 years old. I remember him treating It but it didn't help.

As much as that !😁

Bah Ahahahaha! Spot on!

I bought a new VW Golf in 1997. The dealer wanted to 'fix the rust spots' before it left the showroom!! I told him where to park it and how to return my deposit,. A very curious thing then happened. I threw caution to the wind.....and bought a new FIAT - the traditional butt of rust and reliabilty jokes. Duringr 6 years of ownership and 84, 000 miles, the only fault was 1 headlight bulb failing. Tyres replaced routinely and not a single rattle or loose piece of trim. It had more 'fun factor' than the VW too, fun to drive. I was the first to be thoroughly amazed, especially with the generous part ex' price I got when changing it. Very refreshing somehow.

Your comment beat me to it 😂😂

Good one! I got a chuckle out of it.

For a week, after school, my brother and i had to wait for the all clear then push start one of the rancid things. The pars had a ford escort on order, only a dealer special 1.3 mk4 but it was the enterprise by comparison when it arrived. All those checks and they still missed the fact it was cr@p!

We were really fit as kids. We had a Mk1 Cortina.

@@philhealey449 so were we. We had to out run the bullies.

You can just imagine some bloke looking at the spec sheet at vauxhall calling his mate over and saying "i know things are bad round here but we've built an escort somehow!"

@@deefenbakerone4369 mistake do happen My friend ordered a corsa with electric windows and no air bag He go an airbag and keep fit windows

It seems like car companies offer their models in Zanussi white at no further cost. If you want another colour then cough up another £500. Metallic paint only too, not even a choice of non-metallic red, blue, green or yellow like you used to get in the 1990s.

Matt the Council Estate Capitalist ....they advertise cars at £18,000 but when ordering by the time you go through all the menu for add ons that should have been on it as standard it costs you £38,000

The Opel version was much much better

Opel themselves were so impressed with the Chevette hatchback (developed by Vauxhall when the two companies weren’t fully integrated) that they briefly sold the 3 door Chevette as the Kadett City, before the Corsa A (AKA Vauxhall Nova) was introduced. The Chevette was a refinement on the basic Kadett design, in many ways.

@@BungleBare Opel offered more versions of the Kadett than the Chevette including coupe versions. The Kadett Ciry was the bargain basement model with derated engine. The Chevette and Kadett both used a GM platform.

Ron McCullock The T-car programme was pretty diverse, including variations in both of the Americas, Japan, and Korea. There might have been South African variations too, but these seem to have been Viva based. Never understood why there wasn’t a Vauxhall version of the neat Kadett coupe. I suppose it would have required Opel engines to be used. Although the Chevette (Vauxhall I mean - there was a Chevrolet Chevette as well) used a GM global platform, it used existing British engines; 1300cc Viva engines in the normal models, and Lotus derived engines in the HS/HSR homologation specials. Probably internal politics, and jockeying for position within GM, being behind such decisions.

@@BungleBare Thanks for the information John, most Interesting

Well, done, great idea to check! It was a bit crazy putting Vauxhaul next to Mercedes, it looks ridiculous knowing what we know about 70's cars now, but that model of Mercedes had more chance of surviving, over the everyday 190 etc; in other words, most Mercs from then have long since departed, along with the humble little Chevette ;-).

The Merc is still on the road and the Vauxhall was probably junked by 1986. Probably rotted through

I wonder if the current owner is aware of this video... They would be chuffed to bits to see it..

Do you reckon any of those Chevettes are still about?

@@mikeb6385 I have owned this car since 1993. Only use it during the summer months, not covering many miles. Always garaged in a heated environment when not in use.

And the parts filed for divorce not long after

@@sneakerfreak2002 I'd still like to try an SD1 and a Princess, there's no accounting for stupid, even after the divorce 😉.

That's a cool memory to have

Rust the great equalizer between both of them.

👍

Bet none of the chevette’s have 😂

IT IS TOO!! Taxed and MOT'd until 22 November 2020....

@@anthonylittler1701 Howmanyleft shows about 149 Chevettes on SORN and 147 on road. So considering they made over a 120,000 of the little fuckers.

tcpnetworks I think ones which are untaxed don’t show up. So there could be another 100

Don’t count on it

Not true. Dynamically they were great. Great steering and suspension. A little underpowered but kept up with traffic on the motorway no problem. Nicest thing was how easy they were to work on. Loads of access under the bonnet and pretty standard (i.e. Viva) everything else.

@@Otto-AutoPilot so very true

I'd assume the checklist was standard for GM worldwide, or at least the T-Car models. The fact that an Opel Kadett or Isuzu Gemini would be better built than a Vauxhall or Chevy Chevette would be down to supplier quality issues and the Anglo-American "good enough is good enough, keep the line moving, these aren't Cadillacs after all" attitude.

My sister bought a (US) 1985 Chevette and the damn thing broke down before she got out of the dealership parking lot. Guess both Chevettes were pretty similar in that respect :)

@@chrisfreemesser5707 I've never driven one. I was too young to drive a car during the time it was on the market.

I drove a couple of 5-year old US Chevettes in 1991 for work (they were mainly run out and fleet cars for their final model year or two) and those cars were, without exception, the worst cars I have ever driven. Yes, it was an old unloved fleet car, but it was so miserable to drive. Uncomfortable, cramped with the transmission tunnel, poorly finished, horribly designed dashboard and gauges (of which there were very few) and, of course, it was a slow heap of crap on the road. It wasn’t even that economical, although the State of Connecticut probably didn’t care about that. If you search through RU-vid, MotorTrend tests a similar Pontiac T1000 from the early 1980s- it’s a notable test for how bad that car is! To put all of this in perspective, the other car choices in our work pool at the time were Dodge Omnis (aka Chrysler Horizons) and Geo Metros (aka Suzuki Cultus), the former also being a run out model and the latter coming with an insipid 3-cylinder motor. All three were pretty dreary cars - couldn’t imagine owning any of them - yet both the Omni and Metro were far superior to the Chevette. It wasn’t even close. I do believe the UK Chevettes were better cars than the US Chevettes, if nothing else because of their unique front fascia and better equipment levels. Can’t speak for reliability though, I think all GMs from that era on both sides of the Atlantic were pretty horrid.

@@RoadCone411 Your description reminds me of a newer Chevrolet called the Cavalier. I had to drive one of these for a day and couldn't believe what a crapmobile it was. The engine is noisy and weak but does seem to last, as these rusty, dented heaps are passed around from one welfare mother to the next and still keep running. In some places in Canada, these are derisively referred to as Prairie Cadillacs.

@@jabom99 I've driven my share of Cavaliers and, yes, they are not good cars either. The mid-1980s versions were the worst, but even after the early 1990s facelift, they were still so far off the pace. None of the J-cars were good but the Cavalier always seemed to be the most plasticky and nasty. I will say, however, that every Cavalier I've driven is far better than every Chevette I've driven. At least I can get reasonably comfortable in a Cavalier...the Chevette was a truly terrible car with few redeeming qualities. It was cheap, that was its defining feature, but so were early Hyundais and even they had more character and drove better than a Chevette. How the little Chevette was America's best-selling car for a number of years is beyond me.

That was a Mercedes.

Mercedes-Benz

Chevette

Mitsubishi!

@@nigeldowsett8560 There's always one .😊

@bomber command 😂

GM stands for Great Madness, they killed of Saab in Europe and now Holden down under is breathing its last breaths

Stonechips - the curse of the tailgater!

You would expect that considering the Mercedes probably cost twice the price and had an owner that probably could afford to maintain it to specification. The Chevette was in the realm of tired Mums collecting the kids, doing the shopping, skipping a service when the cash was short and ignoring any looming problems. ..and news to many in denial is the fact that Mercedes do rust, quite spectacularly in some instances.

There are probably as many Chevettes on the road now as those Mercedes ... they CAN last if looked after, but who looks after a dirt cheap car?

I remember as a kid a neighbour had a Firenza, I can't remember if it was an Opel or a Vauxhall, but I do remember it being a piece of $#!+. The same neighbour later owned an Oldsmobile Firenza, it was only marginally better.

Standard wear in the discotheques and factories of England. 😃

@@moochincrawdad 😂

www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/684899055805041606/ :)

Yes, it's the same car. Different from the Chevrolet Chevette sold in North America.

The Chevette wasn't the worst offering on the UK market in the 70s. It was based on the half decent Opel Kadett but with the horrible pushrod Vauxhall Viva engine. Can only imagine what the yanks made of it though

There are none left on the roads if that tells you anything. :)

Very few left here in the UK but I'm surprised it was ever marketed in the US since I understand you guys were more into big V8s at the time. The fuel crisis must have hit very hard indeed that's all I can say

@@DavidDavid-kl4ru It was introduced here in the late 70s as a way to compete with Japanese imports. Fail ! The big powerful V8 had been in decline since the mid 70s and poeple wanted good economy. Of course fuel got much cheaper a decade later and people started buying pickup trucks because they were good quality and had rear wheel drive V8 engines. Now trucks are the most popular vehicles here.