Zach thank you so much for giving my Phoenix a little limelight. The car has truly been a pleasure to daily drive and own. Unfortunately that is not the factory headliner because the headliner is missing 😅 my plan is to one day replace it with burlap. You did a fantastic job going over the history of the car! The unreliability issues of this car are truly inflated, especially when you ask the people who own them nowadays and drive them regularly. Many companies have to recall certain cars for certain issues, this was the case in the 80s and still the case today. Is any car that gets recalled a bad car? No. Is any car that isn't a performance car a bad car? No. The X-Body platform was the first of it's kind so it got the most attention with the biggest magnifying glass. Hell, I would say the N-Body platform is no better than the X-Bodies but you certainly don't hear about the waves of hate with those cars. One last note, notice how everyone is so quick to talk poorly about a car platform they probably never owned until they find out about the Citation X-11. For some reason because that car is "fast" it somehow is the exception 🙄 I digress, thank you so much again Zach! It was a fantastic time meeting and working with you! Can't wait for the other videos of my rides 😁
@@UraniumBullets it's junk in the sense that no one likes these. I have a 1997 Ford escort wagon of similar reputation. It's cool to maintain it and drive it as a unique piece, but it's just for economy, saving money, fuel, and to beat up. These kinds of cars were never meant to last forever, just to be good enough for the mom or dad who needed it when it was built... No offense meant.
@@bldontmatter5319 I certainly see your point, these most certainly were not "forever" cars. People honestly love it though! It gets so much attention wherever it goes from car people and non-car people alike. The only people who truly have negative feelings for it is anyone who remembers them when they came out. This is of course my own experience so I can't speak for the very few other Phoenixes that are still on the road.
@@bldontmatter5319 It's so ironic how nobody likes a Phoenix/Citation or an Escort, but the Nova is a chariot of glory and a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air? Why, that's God's car. It's hilarious to consider corporate at GM (or Ford) made every car from perhaps the 30s onward to be not a forever car, good enough for the mom or dad who needed it when it was built.... but somehow the little monkeys in the back seat latched onto those machines and decided "THIS CAR GOOD CAR" as they grew up... ...The same people who were probably going through miserable times personally in 1980 and "had" to drive a Citation deciding "THIS CAR BAD CAR." The weird cherry-picking of automobiles and collective deciding of taste never sat well with me. My only theory why American stuff post-1970s is considered "ALL CRAP HOSS" is that there was a cottage industry of performance bits that sprang up around the Model T and the A and throughout time, lasting to the present. That industry grew up around simple Panhard-system cars (front engine, rear-wheel-drive). By the time FWD came to the US car industry... new generations just couldn't be bothered (not to the same extent as earlier generations, obviously there's plenty of people hotrodding Escorts and FWD GM). Each generation after the boomers cares (on average) less and less about cars. So the fact that these cars are "too different" to carry on the "motorsport tradition" (the reality being not enough people could be bothered for it to stick) and also "Japanese cars are infinitely better" (this is only in-part true and it's ruined cars for everybody... Honda made their cars too good in 1990. We've been spoiled) just laps up the rest. My advice? Team up with like-minded dorks that dig Ford Escorts if you need some community around your car. They're out there. Otherwise, do what it sounds like you're doing: just enjoy it and admire how it's lasted this long. ^_^
The thing is American's DID love the X-Car. They sold 800,000 something Citations alone in its first year (they did stretch it a bit and had a long model year but still.) But they were so unreliable that they plummeted in sales and were done by 85. They still make Accords today. Also, when they redesigned the platform slightly and released them as the new A-Body, they sold really well.
Yeah, there's definitely some survivorship bias behind Zach's judgement of this car. It's over 40 years old and still here so it's gotta be one of the good ones.
Great show Zac ! These X bodies had a rough start but towards the end of their production they were pretty reliable and decent cars to own. I wouldn't hesitate in buying one of these X or A body cars today over some of these extremely hi-tech cars of today ( 2024 ) .
It was fun watching this and comparing to my 1981 Plymouth Reliant wagon. Both hated in their day and, with at least this one and mine, both still here 40+ years later
Zach Push it slowly to the floor once then halfway to the floor and turn the key. Pushing it to the floor sets or closes the choke and the halfway down gives it just the right amount of fuel for a quick start. It was in the owner's manual under getting started.
Justice for the X-Car! GM rushing it out to beat everyone to the beginning of the 80s is what did them in, honestly. If they wait til '81-'82, the built quality and reliability issues are probably non-existent. Great review as always.
Agreed. They tried to rush it on the cheap and it was deadly. In 1980 (admittedly an extra long year for the model) Chevy made 800,000 plus Citations. In 85? Less than 70,000. That's what killed GM.
When the Japanese automakers came to America, Americans noticed they were of better build quality than the Americans which is still true today. American brands don't follow the quality philosophy because they are more focused on making higher profits and cost cutting
9:50 One factor was maintenance of that drivetrain. Most people who bought these had never had a transverse front-wheel-drive car and most mechanics of the time had never serviced such an auto either.... The oil filter is in the back of the engine. The Haynes manual for this car literally says "don't try to get it from above or below, you'll have to take the passenger tire off and reach in there." I've done an oil change on this particular car before and yeah, it was a little silly, but I'm also from the future and used to Japanese cars that are sometimes like this. Most mechanics in 1980 had gotten used to decades and decades of "reach down and yank out" and to suddenly have this little car that symbolized everything changing be so different... naturally, many complaints and much moaning happened. Adding to the cesspool of hate for these cars.
Funny. I didn't realize that was a holdover from the X-cars. I had a Chevrolet Corsica (the L-body, which was a platform used only for that car, its coupe companion the Beretta, and the Canada-only Pontiac Tempest which was a way for those dealerships to sell a sedan in that class because GM decided to only sell 2 door Grand-Ams in Canada for reasons impossible for anyone to understand). Same oil filter access. The more you know! Still, huge shame GM decided to rush the X-bodies to market. I will never think they were in any way spectacular, but they certainly could have been not a nightmare if they didn't rush it.
@@TheNuje The only thing I can say I'm not crazy about Dan's Phoenix about... I'd do an oil filter relocation kit like a fancy hotrod just for peace of mind... And yeah, I'm rather familiar with the "I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-The-N-Body" L-Body. When you join the "GM Classic FWD Society" you learn all the flavors. ^_^ I myself had an N-body 1997 Olds Achieva... but I hadn't had it long enough to do an oil change.
@@gregorymalchuk272 The DREAD Quad-4. Honestly, it was just fine... except I was young and dumb enough to not know you absolutely mustn't let an Olds Quad-4 overheat.... and I let that happen.
One of our driver's ed cars in high school in the early 80s was an automatic Chevy Citation,its sibling...we also had a manual Chevette,& an automatic Cavalier....i chose the Chevette to learn in as I have always preferred manual cars.
My dad had several of them i found them to be very decent practical cars. I found your comments on the ac amusing. AC has been very common since the 50s
Hmmm.... 35mpg and a 3 speed auto? I doubt it did that stock. I bet (being in Oregon not California) that all the emissions equipment was removed and that's how it gets such good fuel economy. I bought a 533i in Portland and was delighted to get 27mpg on my drive home. Then I put a cat on it to smog it, and it melted the cat, because it was tuned to run lean to save fuel at the cost of high NOx emissions
Actually it still has all the emissions equipment. It gets such good fuel economy because it's only an Iron Duke and the way the transmission is geared. I bet when I take the emissions equipment off the fuel economy will be even better.
@@UraniumBulletsPlease don't take it off. It keeps it running good, and the early fuel evaporation and thermac are good for fuel economy and emissions.
I had a chevy citation that year same engine my first car in 1989 I was 19 at the time,I had the trunk model coupe,I'll never forget my first car and it was the same color as that pontiac
I think the model designation goes back to John Delorean and the 69 Grand Prix. He wanted that car to capture the essence and spirit of the Duesenbergs of the 1930s. He even insisted Pontiac use the old Duesenberg model designations, J and SJ.
I'm so used to Pontiac using trim names like SE, SSE, GT, GTP ,STE , etc.. it made me wonder what did SJ and LJ mean? Long jump? Super Jump? Who knows?
The X-cars were actually wildly popular when first introduced. Chevy sold 811,540 Citations for the 1980 model year. But then they tanked as news spread of their awful quality and other problems. Sales got approximately cut in half each succeeding year, over the next few years.
Those weren't cheap lol. Took me a solid year to find a set of them for the Phoenix. They originally retailed for like $15 in the early 80s and let's just say I paid about 20 times that amount 😅
Back in the 80s my best friend's mom had one of these it was a 1983 model. She was having issues with it then traded it in for a 1987 Pontiac Bonneville SE with burgundy interior and exterior. Is it me or does the Phoenix bird emblem kind of look like one of the power up icons from the video game Contra from Konami?
You skipped the most unique thing about these X-bodies and only for the 1979-80 model years - it has the cruise control switch on the gear shift lever! That was a rare option on these and AFAIK the only cars to have the switch on the gear lever. In '81 they moved it to the traditional location on the turn signal lever, and then for 1983-85 they had GM's multifunction "smart switch" with wipers, cruise, and brights all on the turn signal stalk.
I absolutely love having my cruise control there! It's hands down the most simple and convenient cruise control I've ever used. Even more of a reason why I only wanted an '80 Phoenix compared to the other years.
These cars weren't rejected because of RWD vs FWD. Quality. It was quality that gave them trouble. The X platform was a HUGE success out of the gates, but then the buying public caught wind of the terrible building quality. Initial quality was so bad that GM gave later Citations the "II" designation to fool people into believing it was updated. 10:44 GM (and Ford and Chrysler) were selling Japanese vehicles before the X platform. The 1970s Chevette was co-developed with Isuzu. The 1970s LUV was an Isuzu, too. Ford's Courier was a Mazda. Chrysler's 1970s small cars (Colt) were Mitsubishis. The NUMMI arrangement which gave Chevy a Corolla Sprinter was GM's official acknowledgement that their workforce was building shit vehicles. They intended to learn "The Toyota Way" in the NUMMI deal. Obviously, that didn't happen. With nearly 30 years of NUMMI manufacturing, GM didn't learn a damned thing. They continued making subpar interiors and ancient powertrains in every vehicle not manufactured in Fremont. In short, US buyers were perfectly fine with FWD vehicles - the imports had no trouble selling them. The US buyers had no appetite for shoddy craftsmanship, and the X platform cars played a large role in why the imports grew so dramatically in the 80s.
I always tell the tale of my grandparents 1980 Citation which decided to spontaneously combust in a Taco Bell drive thru in 1997 (with me in the back seat). We borrowed it from the barn my grandparents kept it in because our Cherokee was getting worked on and they no longer drove it much. We went to a Taco Bell in El Cajon and my mom turned on the heater when out of nowhere flames erupted from under the dash and a minute later the car was fully engulfed, one of my funniest childhood memories lol
YEAAAH... I'm ok with 0-60 in 15 sec or so, maybe a little more... But with an automatic and such a small car, it's really annoying driving such a slow car. Looks like the owner has some even slower cars though...
@@bldontmatter5319 it does 0-60 in under 20 and maybe even under 15 if I stomp on it. The real issue where speed comes into play is trying to pass someone on the highway. That's when it's just miserable.
@@UraniumBullets it's not too surprising I'd drive this around town only, personally. Without an overdrive, I'm sure it's pretty annoying, and the engine probably can't do much on the highway. I don't think it was built for that.
@@bldontmatter5319 the way it's geared it makes for a great highway cruiser. Without the louvers I get a solid 35mpg doing 65mph. I've driven it all over the PNW and as far easy as Salt Lake. Sure there are better highway cruisers but this certainly does the job.
It had a slightly lower stance when I still had the factory wheels on it. Had to upgrade from the 13s to 15s simply because 15 inch tires are so much easier to find.
5:05 Fun Fact: that fabric is available because that seat design was also found in the same-era Firebirds... I'm begging Dan to contact one of the manufacturers and just get a bolt or two of the stuff to reupholster that themthar hobnail!
I had the misfortune of owning a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix in college in 1986. The Iron Duke 4 banger was rough as a cob and didn't provide much power through the 3-speed automatic. It would stall at red lights and had trouble starting back up. The starter finally went out and had to be replaced. I drove it for less than a month when the starter went out again. I couldn't get rid of that Phoenix fast enough. I traded it in on a 1980 Honda Accord which proved to be an excellent vehicle. The quality difference between the Pontiac and the Honda was considerable.
It's a forgotten car for a very good reason! I remember these POS models as a kid in the early 80's! A step up from a Vette, a Chevette! But not much!!
@@UraniumBullets Children are smarter than you'd think. I had pretty accurate opinions of all of my family's cars. My dad's Grand Cherokee WJ was pretty all right. My grandfather's Mazda Tribute was a piece of crap. My grandmother's Buick Regal GS was very nice. My other grandmother's Chrysler Town & Country was a good people-hauler but otherwise unremarkable.
@@bwofficial1776 lol have you heard what comes out of children's mouths most of the time? Unless it looks sporty and fast, most children couldn't give a damn. And hey, some people haven't grown out of that mentality in their adulthood 🤷
I watched a RU-vidr talking about this particular model . Can't remember the plate number though but somehow it's the same colour and coincidentally that RU-vidr is based in Oregon..
The GM X-cars will always be one of those car lines that REALLY frustrates me. They had all of the ingredients to be the best cars ever built, & that is exactly what they could & should have been. Ultimately, I feel that the X-cars' undoing was not really the cars THEMSELVES, but the company who built them, late-'70's/early '80's GM. As was the case with Ford & Chrysler, they became too focused on beating the European & Japanese competition at their own game & not focused ENOUGH on providing the American car-buying public with viable alternatives to the imports. As a result, quality & reliability were allowed t
GM is constantly penny wise and pound foolish. They know how to build a car as good as any but they let the bean counters and internal politics hold their cars back. They're content to get 85% of the way there and call it good enough. If the engineers ever get permission to take a car to 100%, the car will be canceled the next year.
It was part of the original X car. The carburetor was really fussy. The pontiac was more 'Upscale" version. For a car in 1980 it was very well optioned. It was originally a great design until the "Bean counters" got involved. It was considered a midsized car. These cars were MUCH bigger than anything the Japanese brought in. The X car had more interior room than the cars it replaced. All of GM imports were smaller than the X cars.
11:20 Also, this car was the basis for EVERY front-wheel-drive car to come out of GM for the next 30 years. Cavalier? Shortened X-body. Buick Park Avenue? Extended X-body. Your grandma's Buick Century/Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera? The same platform, repackaged because hatred. The transmission in this car was in production until 2002... unchanged. The engine delivers your mail every day. GM had great success with this experiment... the trouble is, they made a ton of mistakes later (fiddling with Overhead camshafts and, more alarmingly, aluminum to create the Northstar and the Quad-4.... which were decidedly less reliable than an Iron Duke). ...I'm sorry, Zack, I'm bracing myself for all the X-Body hate this video's gonna get.
I was 13 when the X cars arrived. I thought the Phoenix was the best looking of the lot. I rode in a number of X cars over the years and found them to be remarkably spacious for their small external dimensions. I was under the impression that the J car is an entirely separate platform from the X car, and the J spawned the L and N platforms. But the later A car (Chevy Celebrity, Olds Cutlass Ciera) is heavily based on the X car.
This reminds me of my A body 95 buick century I use to have. Wasn't the A body just an updated more modern version of the X platform?? I know they shared a lot of the drivetrains and electronics.
Definitely don’t see these on the road anymore! My great grandmother had one from this generation but I don’t remember the year. It was a blue coupe with blue vinyl interior and bucket seats. It was her last car. I remember it well. Thanks for sharing!
I went to Oswego High School Oswego Illinois back in the early 80s for Drivers education we had Pontiacs courtesy of the local dealership that was the Famous time magazine man of the year James K Detzler The Phoenix got the job done but the class I was in we just missed the use of a TransAm by one semester
You bet! I actually bought a Citation because it had the window louvers you see on this Phoenix. As soon as I took the louvers off I sold the Citation for what I paid lol.
These cars WERE a recipe for success on the surface, but they literally blew the greatest opportunity GM might have ever had at further cementing their hold on the domestic market, because of awful quality. Everyone I’ve known who owned one said it was an unfortunately sorry car overall. As others have said, Detroit makes excuses for Americans “not wanting” what they obviously just don’t *want* to build. Today it’s sedans. Where they’ve discontinued all of their sedans, I notice Asian and European automakers are still selling proper cars in droves, while domestics just want to sell bloated and overpriced trucks and SUVs.
I drove a silver/white buckets 1980 phoenix coupe, iron duke, auto for four trouble free years. It was a late production build. Was great in snow got good mileage but sounded like a tractor. The brakes were no more squirrelly than many other pre abs cars. Mom had ‘81 Omega same story.
We had an '82 Phoenix when I was a kid. It was a zero option car, so no a/c. The round "vents" next to the doors were fake, they didn't do anything. The center stack also had idiot lights, so none of those gauges shown here.
back in those days in New York, if you had a hatchback with a "privacy cover" you'd come back to the car the next day with a big broken window. so around here it was smarter not to use the cover to show everyone that your car was empty.
The iconic days of N.Y. where stolen car shells were left along the side of the Cross Bronx Expressway on cinder block with Mayor Ed Koch riding subways asking ""How am I doing?"
What would YOU have done? They made what the people demanded. Something roomy, cheap, and economical. GM did their best but could've done better with more time and less bean counters.
I do own one of them Japanese competition vehicles: a 1980 Mazda 626. It's blown up on me three times in 7 years. Meanwhile, Dan's Phoenix has just.... worked.
People shouldn't rip down falling headliners, and they definitely shouldn't use glue on them as it will wreck the fiberglass insulation pad. You need to use these corkscrew pins called "twist pins" that you can get at Hobby Lobby or JoAnne's Fabrics that screw into the fiberglass insulation pad.
35 mpg that's 6.7 l/100km? it's excellent for a petrol car even today, even if it's only easy freeway driving. I struggle to beat 5 l/100 km (47 mpg) average in a diesel car built thirty years later (roughly same weight).
The X bodies were much closer to the GM "L body" Then it was to the N bodies. The x platform was so poorly engineered and desiand and quickly quickly heard a terrible reputation among buyers so the El body a.k.a. Chevrolet Corsica and Beretta we're prematurely launched in order to Replace the worst than mediocre x.
I had a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix in 1983 and it was by far the worst car I have ever owned. The rubber boots around the CV joints were constantly splitting and allowing dirt and road debris up into the joints. The CV joints would grind up that dirt and debris and get destroyed, causing me to constantly having to replace them, and that was not cheap. I simply could not afford to keep the car; it was killing me financially. It drove great but man alive, what a money pit.
The Sprint, Spectrum, and Nova all had major sales jumps when they were rebadged Geo Metro, Storm, Prizm and the new Geo Tracker. Geo did quite well during its first four or five years. Then GM focused on Saturn and the little Geo brand was absorbed back into Chevrolet where all the models were quickly discontinued one after the other.
The gm x cars were a huge design change for gm and the industry. I personally feel that they were the perfect size. Small car but with tolerable interior dimensions and very good space utilization. Due to the impending massive increase in federal cafe standards they were rushed into production before some of the final engineering and proving steps were fully done. The result was quality control issues, etc. As a design though I think they hit the mark. Just wish the actual execution would have been more complete. As to quality, find me a 1980 honda or Toyota that still has its factory upholstery and plastics intact. The imports were very well assembled but material quality such as fabrics, plastics, and the steel itself was very subpar compared to the americans. The americans did have drivability issues though as they hadnt yet perfected the smaller engines. People bought a lot of x body and a body cars innthe early 80s, but by mid decade honda and Toyota had again upped their game. Also in 1980, the only fwd car offered by Toyota was the tercel. Corolla and corona were still rwd. Datsun was rwd as well except for the 310. Honda has always primarily been fwd. I own a 80 buick x car and its way more luxurious and substantial than my early accords and Toyotas.
Crazy to see an '80 model X body that still runs and looks decent. Their first year of 1980 was the biggest sales year for the X body but it was probably the worst model year for the X body, GM was notorious for rushing things through and then gradually improving them each model year until they kill it. That was the case for these cars, by '82/'83 these were actually solid little cars but by then the damage had been done and sales of the X body plummeted and they met their end. Sweet review and sweet car! I would totally own this.
That was the most reliable car? What did he own mostly Fiats before? I had the Buick version (Skylark) with the 2.5 and that engine is gutless. They did offer that car with 2.8 liter.
Had a neighbor who had a think for the worst Gm 80s cars he had one of these , a citation x11 coupe , celeb Eurosport wagon and a white 6000 awd which I thought was cool but think was none of this guys cars moved actually . He daily drove a metro and had these in his yard rotting away .
That design of cloth seats are cool looking when they're new, but they're pretty uncomfortable. I once sat in a 3rd gen 4runner with similar cloth seat design and I really disliked it.
THANX BUT NO THANX FOR THE JOB UAW GM POWERTRAIN WARREN MI LASTED 6N DAYS POWERTRAIN WALKED HOME TO ORCHARD LAKE ROAD LONE PINE ROAD WEST BLOOMFIELD SAW WOODWARD BUS KEPT WALKIN
