Here’s how the Chevy Citation went from best seller to miserable failure in just 5 years 

Just that name, Citation in itself makes me scratch my head. That's essentially what a speeding or parking ticket is.

1:36 "an embarrassment for GM" For that to happen GM would have to have a sense of shame, which it clearly does not. Thank you so much for carving out time to continue to make these when possible! So great with all those clips! Excellent.🏅

My neighbors bought a new Citation in 82 & quickly became disappointed in it. A year later they traded it in for a new Honda Accord & were once again very happy!!! Thanks for sharing this fun video!!! 👍👍🙂

Had an 81 citation 4 door, iron duke/manual 4 speed overdrive… silver and RUST. Mine was a decent running and driving car. I beat on it… I mean I beat on it like it owed me money. Redline shifts, spinning the tire from every stop, always trying to get a chirp into second… Ended up breaking it in half. It honestly put up with a lot more of my shenanigans than it ever should have. Great to see another episode.

The saddest part of the citation is the body shell really is an engineering masterpiece, giving far more cargo and passenger room than the rwd nova it replaced. Its everything else, (suspension, brakes, engines, transmissions) that was rubbish.

I had the Buick version of the X cars, only problem I had was with radiator failure and over heating. It got to the point that I could not go out anywhere w/o fearing that it would leave us stranded. So I traded it in for a 86 Camry and been Toyota ever since.

I had a 1980 Citation X11, which I bought new. Oddly enough, I never had the problems mentioned here. The transmission failed at about 2000 miles, but was replaced under warranty.

I was just about old enough to drive when the Citation came out. I wanted one at the time. I had no idea they were such horrible cars. Nice to see another upload. Hope you're doing well.

Initially it had so much promise. I worked with a guy who drove 40 miles each way to work and got great mileage on his family friendly Citation. GM really built some really poor quality cars! It’s great to see your presentations!

Thank you for the video. I liked you featured other GM cars and told the story of the car. Excellent footage and information. It is sad how GM had to learn a lesson the hard way from this experience. I liked the facts you shared as well. All the best to you in your new career and thank you again.

The Citation & the other 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 to fall by the wayside.

I loved my 81 fre engine red X 11. I installed a Pioneer 100 watt stereo. Fit right in. Never had a brake problem.

Even though most of the cars you do videos on are not that great…at all, I sure do miss seeing them on the streets. Thanks very much for making these videos! Keep it up! 👍🏼❤️🤘🏼

We owned the next worst GM car, the Chevy Celebrity, with four cylinder engine- We had constant mechanical problems with that car. Kept stalling when going uphill, mechanic thought it was the fuel pump, finally figured out it was the ignition module.

My 1981 Citation was the second worst car I've owned after my 1982 Cavalier. Let me know if you want the full (long) list of craptastic quality issues.

I’m glad you’re still making videos.

Liked the video. I had a Chevy II , a Pinto that I paid $100 for because the oil light was on and it was only the sender bad and drove it for 5 year with it needing only an water pump. Then I had an Omga for a while and 2 Citations. My mom got a new 1980 4 and it was quick and used very little fuel. She drove it 20 years and gave it to me to sell. I bought an 81 Citation with the 2.8 engine at an auction for a thousand bucks and it had 100,000 miles. We lived in the country with bad and muddy roads and it served well. Suppose the be the worse car but we drove it for 70K mile till a city truck hit it. They paid us $600 for it and we kept it. Bought an 81 Iron Duke from a little old lady that died and was in very nice condition and made may thousand mile trips in it. I use to race my son with it and he drove the 2.8 and he won every time. We had a lot of fun with them. My wife spun out with the 2.8 one because yes, the rear brakes were too powerful. I took off the auto adjusters and set them more loose and it solved most of the problem. I am now through with them.

My parents had one of these, an '84 Citation II! Light blue on top, dark blue trim below. Ours had the iron Duke and was dam reliable, we had that car with original motor/trans up until like 98 or 99. Lots of memories and trips in that old car!

The poor quality engineering at GM kept us in a job at GM dealerships repairing the X car and 350 Diesel engines of that era. This is when the Japanese took advantage of the situation. We all know what the end result was. Thank you for reminding me of the way that period.

I had no idea the Celebrity, the Pontiac 6000 (my first car), and others were based on a stretched Citation platform. It explains a lot, though, including why mine had the same gutless Iron Duke engine.

Growing up in the Detroit area during the late ‘70s, I thought the X car and K car were the future! Especially the vertical radio placement.

I LOVED how these cars looked, especially the X-11

The first car I can remember from my childhood was my mom's 1984 Citation II. It had an aftermarket stereo mounted vertically, which she hated. We eventually replaced it with an 1988 Subaru GL wagon. The Subaru was slower, but we all thought it was a much nicer and better built car.

I drove a gold 5 door Citation in High School and most of College. It had the 2.8 V6. LOVED the versatility of the hatch back. We had to replace the cam shaft around 50-60K miles. We drilled a hole through the wheel well instead of taking the whole engine out. It soldered on until ~ 1987 or '88 with eventually ~124k miles. Afterwards, I had an '86 Cutlass Ciera with the 2.5 L4. It died in 1996 @ 196k. First 15 years of driving were GM X and A bodies. Glad to be back in a 5 door hatch again (2012 Lexus CT200h, purchased in 2022 @ 125K miles)

As an auto mechanic in addition to the problems you noted, many citations had sticking rack and pinion steering gears and slipping drive chains in the transmission. In North Florida rust wasn't a huge problem. But I did notice many still had small rust spots.

Great channel! @6:34 you mention the vertical radio. At that time, Sanyo actually made an aftermarket that had an interchangeable "face" that would allow it to be mounted vertically. That's my memory of this car, installing a bunch of aftermarket radios.

The 1980 Citation was my first car in high school. I got it new for my 16th birthday in early 1981. Like the narrator, my mother had a source at GM (a friend) who could get the employee discount. Since I am very tall, it was one of the few inexpensive cars that I could comfortably drive (since it didn't have a center console). Like the advertisements, my car was the cream over red two tone but it was unusual in that it had a black cloth interior with bench front seats. As a kid, I was happy that I got a new car and my mother was happy that she didn't have to shuttle myself or my younger brother around anymore. But like most other owners, the problems reared their ugly head. The Iron Duke 4-banger was literally a banger....if you were used to Honda engines, this wasn't anywhere close to that in terms of smoothness. In my car's case, the biggest annoying thing was the tendency for the entire front end of the car to shake once you passed 72 MPH. I thought it was an alignment issue but the dealership said it was built into the design and couldn't be fixed. Yes, it was the 55 MPH speed limit malaise era days but still, it was awful at high speeds. I drove the car until I graduated high school and my brother drove the car until he graduated in 1985. And by then in just four short years, the car was already showing signs of rust, which was an unforgivable quality control problem for a company that had been building cars for decades. My mother disposed of the car in 1986 and I wasn't sorry to see it go. My mother then purchased a used very low mileage 1980 Caddy Coupe De Ville for my brother and I to use at college and that was a far better vehicle.

I had a 1983 X-11 for my first car, it was fast for that era and very reliable. Loved that 4 speed, she'd rip the tires easily. Suprised a few people that rode in it.

Do a video on the Ford Explorer sport trac pickup

My dad had two of these wonders. One of them actually lasted until 1995, when he "inherited" my mom's 88 Taurus.

My earliest memories involving a car in any way was my dads 85 Citation II. He got it in about 88 from his grandmother because she hardly drove it and he needed it for college. He was constantly having to fix it. Spent more time under the hood than behind the wheel. Eventually replaced it with a used Cavalier wagon then that got replaced with a Ford Escort wagon which itself got replaced with an Aerostar. In hindsight it’s a miracle I survived childhood with all the awful cars we had. Even my mothers car in those days was one of the early 80s Hyundai deathtraps.

Unfortunately the rear drum brake design (and proportioning valve) from these cars was carried over to other models throughout the 80s with little improvement. My '90 celebrity wagon was downright scary in the snow when those rears would lock up. A couple times I purposely drove close to the curb so the rear end would hit that instead of swinging around

Your use of footage is amazing,,great video, a friend had a x11 back in the 90s, it was 500 dollars and surprisingly reliable but certainly rusted out ,homade black paint job and 2 pioneer 12s that would rattle the hatch louder than the bass

My friends parents bought her one for her first car in 1999, trying to cheap out. One month later, after a ton of repairs and her barely being able to use it, she came home from school and found a brand new Pontiac Sunfire in the driveway. They literally bought a brand new car after ONE MONTH of owning a Citation.

Interesting. We had a 81 and only fixed two things. Front shoes and a clutch at 98,000 miles. It was in the so cal mountains and those things were considered normal.

I liked my Citation back in the 80's....I had no rust issues. got well over 100K miles out of it. It was roomy and had plenty of cargo area. It just lacked power.

Instead of using traditional linkage on the shifter, the Citation utilized cables that had a tendency to stretch over time and made shifting less precise to impossible. My German professor’s daughter had one, and he didn’t believe the problem until he drove it and found out for himself.

Great review and video ! I remember these back in the day my parents almost bought a Citation back in 84 but I convinced them to buy a 1984 Pontiac Parisienne wagon instead to replace their old 76 Dodge Aspen .

So glad to have another great vid! Thanks for not ditching making these completely!!!

My first car was 84 Citation. I liked it so much I replaced it with 81 Omega. I liked them both except for really lousy transmission and rust. Both handled Ontario winters just fine.

Thanks for the post! You always apply so many memories!

I just want to let you know your channel is one of my favorites for it being a new channel. The videos are really well done and I look forward to all your new uploads. I’m upset you won’t be able to post as much from here on out but I’m glad you’re at least sticking with it! Thanks for the videos!

Glad to have a new video, hope everything is going well for ya!

In 1985 my Dad purchsed a used 1981 Chevrolet Citation for me as my first car for $500 from a rental car agency. It was the V6 4 door hatchbacl version. $10 of gas (.86 cents per gallon at that time) would give me two full weeks of driving. Eventually the CV joints on the front started to make noise and I sold it. Selling that car for such a dumb reason has been my biggest regret when it comes to cars.

Glad to see you're able to do uploads still. All of your releases are appreciated. I hope your new job is working out. Thanks.

I'm glad you did this video. I've been waiting impatiently for it for a while for some reason.

We had an '81. It broke down on its way home from the dealership... brand new. The radiator blew, and steam was blowing out like crazy. Had to wait for help at the side of the highway. Even though the Iron Duke was supposed to be a good engine, ours always knocked, and had this 'wouldn't always start' issue, where there'd randomly be no electrical power to anything... at random. It always leaked oil. The engine vibration was horrible. We kind of had that brake issue, but not as bad as it was described. Ours tended to have a lot of brake fade, and pedal pulsation... even after the brakes had been replaced. We had the classic rear suspension separation (a rusted-out bolt), which the dealership and GM refused to pay for. And yes... this thing was made out of compressed rust. The floor, and one shock tower rusted out in its 7th year, and it went to the junkyard.

Glad to see your posting and creating!

As some one who was a kid in the 70s and 80s, and into cars, those were my formative years in sussing out what cars I'd like to own when I got older. Between my parents crappy Chrysler cars we owned and the horrendous GM quality of the cars made then, it forever soured me on the domestic brands. They were their own worst enemies in a changing car market bu cheaping out so badly, they ceded so much to the Japanese brands, while slightly more, more than made up the difference in fuel economy, and less $ outlaw in repairs due to their much better reliability. My first car at 19? A used 89 Honda Civic Si bought in 93. My parents had bought 2 years before, a 1991 a brand NEW Dodge Spirit. Wanna guess which car lasted longer? Let's just say, after my mother saw my Honda experience, she's never owned a domestic brand since and currently is STILL driving a 20 year old Honda Civic!.

Thank you for another awesome video. I had a brief encounter with the dreaded Citation. I was driving a Marine Corps recruiter's Chevy Citation back to his office. The thing was a huge POS. Every time I came to a stop, the POS would stall and I would have to restart the thing. This was early in my driving career as I was 19. I just remember holding up traffic at stop lights. I totally get why it was an embarrassment for Chevy. It seems that anytime a manufacturer tries to rush out a new vehicle to market, you get a crappy-built car. This is a great example of that. Anyway, thank you for getting this video out.

When we were young and not so heavy we visited our friends in Morgantown , WV. They took us out to eat at the local country club and when we returned home there Chevy Citation didn't have enough power to go up their steep driveway with four slim adults int the car. Three of us got out and then the car made it into the garage. It was a very steep driveway. Good luck on your new job Pat.

I'm so glad you are uploading, my friend. Missed your stuff.

My first new car purchase was a 1980 Buick Skylark Sport Coupe model of the X-body cars with the V-6 engine. I was a big GM fan at the time and ate up the hype of the new X-body cars. Plus I special ordered it, which was something I always wanted to do. Overall it really was a good car and not a lemon for me. In retrospect I should have brought a Toyota Celica hatchback which I also really liked at the time 😅.

the grandma chasing the guy in her half destroyed citation was funny

I saw a citation last fall & it was in mint condition, it must had only 20 thousand miles on it , some old lady had it lol

Thank you for the great work Sir

I was a teenager when the Citation came out. At least three of our neighbors as I recall owned them. All three were V6. They also, all three, started to rust in just a couple years from new. I also remember all three leaking fluids like a sieve. My Dad had a shop and I remember these cars being regulars in the shop. Two of them got rid of their cars within 5 years of ownership. The third car (which seemed to be the best one) was passed to their daughter who drove it a few more years until she was able to trade it in on something else.

My family own a brand ,new 1980 Pontiac Phenix 2 door in Fremont Gold and the 2.8 V6. Styling wise it was the best looking of the X-Body group. That said, the only thing good about it was the 2.8 V6 engine. The rest of the car, well, let's just say that it was an interesting car to live with. It lasted with our family for 2 years before dad had enough. Traded it in for a Honda 3 door Accord 5-speed.

My Mom had a 1980 Citation 4 door with the V6. She had it for 9 years and I don’t recall any rust issues and we lived in the Midwest. Only problem I recall is that the engine used to stall when it was cold. My Dad eventually fixed that by adding a large resistor to the electric choke wire on the carburetor. The choke was opening too fast. That was the last Chevy my parents ever bought though, so yeah it mustn’t have been very good.

Summer 1981....completed my drivers ed class room training, now on to behind the wheel...in a new Chevy Citation 4 door hatch...with the white over cinnabar two tone combination. This car was well optioned and our Jr. High School Science teacher was our behind the wheel instructor and would have us try the resume feature on the cruise control. Spent 5 days that summer driving around town in that car. I was envious of the classmates who drover the Caprice. Apparently, our local Chevy dealer provided dealer demos to the public school system and the cars were sold at a discount at the end of the year. A few years later, the Chevy dealer was sold to a new owner who had a son in my class....and every couple of weeks, he had a new demo to try out...my favorite being a 1984 Camaro Z28. Was a ton of fun cruising around town in that car. Though, later in the school year, he ended up with a Chevy Celebrity diesel station wagon...I think he may have upset his parents and that was their way of grounding him.

Are you kidding me? I had an 81 4 door hatch, that thing was sweet as hell! Plenty of room with the back seats foldded down for me and my girl to......MMMMM, you know.... Besides that, I drove it all over the midwest for years and that car looked and drove fantastic for the 10 years I had it!

Glad to see you’re back. I know you had some personal business that had your focus. I hope everything turned out ok!

Congrats on the new employment opportunity! And I'm an X-Car apologist, so this episode is perfect. GM needed to probably wait until '81 or '82 to put these out to refine everything, but rushing it out just made it terrible as is. At least there's not a Cadillac X-Body.

Glad to see you still uploading!

An uncle of mine had one. I honestly don’t know why that caught my attention since I was likely only 6 or 7 when I saw it. Thanks for another great episode. Looking forward to your next one. Be well.

When I was a kid in the early '80's, my Dad helped me build a model train layout in our basement. As my Dad was a grade-A bargain hunter, he bought a bunch of model train stuff at some overstock/clearance sale, which led to some odd choices. Among the things that he bought were three or four "car carrier" train cars, all loaded with 4-door hatchback Chevy Citation models. As a result, every parking spot and driveway in my model town sported a Chevy Citation. To this day, I can't see a Citation without thinking of that model dystopia that we created in our basement.

Good to see you back at it sir. I'll be waiting patiently for a Dodge Dakota video. Cheers.

Great to see another video. Hope you are doing well.

Car and Driver said the Citation "was the BEST small car GM has ever produced", their X-11 had a 0-60 time of 9.2 seconds. So, I ordered one with the 2.8L V6 and 4-speed manual transmission. After I picked up the car, I read "Consumer Reports' test of a V6 4-speed citation. But, CR's version did 0-60 in 12.3 seconds, BIG DIFFERENCE! The one I had performed like the CR sample! Found out later the FACTORY SUPPLIED vehicles for the motoring press have 'massaged motors' (blue printed). Hence from then on, I would NEVER buy a vehicle because of the rave reviews from a car 'rag'! Besides the performance issue, the list of quality control (lack of) issues is too long to go into here. Traded the Citation on a Toyota Celica GTS, NEVER LOOKED BACK!!

I learned to drive on a 1981 Citation and I loved the car! Great car to learn on. I guess we got a lucky hand, but our Citation went 90,000 miles without significant problems before we traded it.

In ‘92 my mom had one of these. It was an ‘84 model that had loads of issues. It leaked coolant all the time (despite fixing it). Considering she lived in Ohio I’m surprised it wasn’t rusted away by then. Later on when she was pregnant with me she could no longer fit behind the steering wheel as the seat adjuster broke 🤣. She decided to sell it and bought a Corolla instead!

Man, i had a friend that had one handed down from his dad...and it was HORRIBLE!!!! Thanks for the great content and i wish you all the success in your new job🙏🏾.

1980-1984 Subaru Go Wagon 4wd Had several dozen of these cars- I'd buy them for $250-$500 drive them a year or so and sell them for $750-$1,000

As a 5 year old, my mom first car was a citation tan I had fun memories of that car we use to take the bus b4 that car great memories the other cars were on the block skylard and Phoenix regal......YOU DA MAN ! SUPER EPISODE LIKE ALWAYS

Very informative video as always. Citations always looked odd to me. A neighbor had the 4 door hatchback back in the late 80s it already seemed weird and outdated then.

Citations were the cars we used in driver's ed. By the 4 week all the parking break releases had failed and the handle was hanging from the dash by its cable. We called them "Shitations"

I had an 82 Buick Skylark and I had a love hate relationship with it and it made into a mechanic.

I had a 1980 2 door citation with the iron duke. I think I bought it around 1986/87. I loved it. The engine was totally reliable. It was great until my gf ditched it. The front end folded pretty badly. We got it home and I hooked it up to an oak tree with a logging chain and hit reverse hard. It straightened the front end enough that I could drive it once I put a wrecking yard windshield in it. It was scary to drive mind you. It felt like the fro t was doing circles as you drove down the road. Oh the 80’s 😂

My parents owned a couple Citations in the 80s. I’ll ask them later if they remember the overall quality. The first one my mom first started driving before she met my Dad, who drove a 76 Chevette when they met, and lived in Southern California. Around 1986, they sold both of those cars and bought a Toyota Tercel wagon, which they moved to Michigan with. Then not long after, they were given another Citation, which my Mom’s sister drove in Buffalo before getting a Beretta. In 1990, my parents traded in both the Tercel and 2nd Citation for a Geo Prizm hatchback. And at some point, my aunt’s Beretta was so rusted from being in Buffalo, the door fell off!

My dad was a carpenter, he worked on one new house for a GM manager/executive that moved to Oklahoma for the X-Body plant. We got a tour when it opened. In high school my activities director bought a new black/silver 4-door hatchback Citation, around 82. Good memories.

JUST LOVE YOUR CHANNEL, KEEP'EM COMING....

I learned how to drive at my high school's drivers ed class in 1981 with an 81 Skylark. Later I owned an 85 Citation 2 door hatch. It wasn't that terrible and didn't rust by 1993 when it was wrecked/totaled.

My dad bought a Pontiac Phoenix coupe new in 1981 to support the US auto industry. Needless to say he has only bought Hondas and Toyotas ever since.

I had a 1980 X-11 2-door hatch in the red/black color. The same as the one at 6:01 in the video, except mine being the hatch version. It was a hand-me-down from my grandfather who had passed away. Both my grandfather and my dad worked for GM as well. My family also had a 2nd Citation in the fleet. The second being a burgundy 84' 4-door hatch base model. Unfortunately I wrecked the X-11 as a newly licensed driver. The engine had been replaced, and it wanted to stall when the tank was full of gas. I tried to get through an intersection quickly to avoid a stall, when a pickup I hadn't seen killed the car. I liked the X-11, but despised the 84 hatch. My dad had sold his beautiful 1979 Buick Park Avenue Electra to buy the Citation. What a downgrade! Oh, and those stupid vertical radios! My dad had an aftermarket unit crudely installed at the end of the console to address that issue. Looked dumb, but it worked. Thanks for the video. Lots of memories there for me as well.

I loved both (all three?) of my Citations. The first was a two door that actually outran a poorly tuned 340 Duster. :D The second was a workaday hauler that lasted through me and my brother's alcoholic father in law pulling his boat with it. Both of these were 4 cylinder 4 speed cars. The third one (V6 auto) I didn't keep, but I pulled it on a tow dolly with the first car for 40 miles after purchase and the two cars were identical from the outside. I got some interesting looks that day... :) Poor braking my arse.

Great vid... My first car was 1980 Olds Omega. Not exactly my choice, but I grew to like it and it treated me about as well as it could. Kept it a long time so I've a weak spot for them. Probably the best thing about it was how much it taught me about car repair. 😄

A buddy's father bought an Olds Omega in 1980 with the 4 cyl. Was recalled several times, but he never had a problem with it. He let us drive it and we thought it was pretty nice.

Michigan native. Outside of Flint. Left years ago. However, hard to not buy GM as I grew up with them, wrenching on old classics, military tech, etc. Never had a bad GM truck (owned plenty), two Ford trucks.....no problems. One Dodge, not so much. We must be close the same age given the domestics commentary. Dig your channel brother! Thank you for your efforts!

I have a friend who had an 80 citation, his dad also worked for GM and got a discount. My family had a phoenix SJ 4 door V6 4 speed and the brakes were never right. My grandparents had an 84 Skylark and it was a good car.

I always loved the basic design of the Citation, maybe looked a little forward thinking then for GM, it kind of reminded me of an AMC sportabout, but with more modern lines. The 2.5 liter Iron duke aka tech4 was anything but technical, it was however fairly reliable and easy to service even if low powered. I had this engine in my 86' Old Cutless wagon and I modified the throttle body and that helped in the power department a little, but still being a wagon it was also a little underpowered. I was reminded of this with my Saturn Relay, a rebadged Chevy Uplander with heated leather seats. It has the 3500 v6, a bored out 3400 v6 based off the sams 2.8 v6 that came in that car. Ironically the transmission too wasn't too far away in it's design and unfortunately function. It's just as underpowered and squashy too. Even more Ironically the Saturn Relay and it's Uplander cousin helped GM sink in to bankruptcy, it's litterally the X body of minivans. Of course it wasn't the only issue that aided that but GM's decision to just update the Chevy Venture along with it's shortcomings haunted them until it's demise essentially. Its not a bad vehicle, it's just not a good one and buyers at the time could see it. Even fully loaded as mine is it hardly had the features of a minivan from the early 2000's let alone a mid 2000's minivan. Even the Ford Freestar was a better upgrade over the Windstar, yet GM missed the boat by miles with the Uplander. The Chevy X cars might have been GM's teething problems, the Uplander represented a continuation of the same problems. Chintzy plastics, faulty wiring, rust. Underpowered. Crash worthiness was so bad on the Chevy Venture that upon redesigning it and call it Uplander they extended the front end. Pop the hood, it's completely hollow ahead of the radiator. They mearly grafted and extended the front end to improve it's crash rating. This extention added weight helps the van ride like a drunken horse. Definitely not GM at it's best.

Yeah you could still put a aftermarket stereo in those, pioneer and other companies made models that actually were made for vertical stereos…. Even though horizontal ones words just as good but the words on the stereo were the wrong way lol

I bought an '80 Citation used in 1986. I got a couple of years out of it before the engine went caput! Amazingly, it didn't rust out, but the low quality materials showed their age.

Keep up the great videos!

They were just releasing them when I was in driver's Ed...my school switched from Impala's to Citations. At the time I thought it was cool I got to drive a front wheel drive car ....rare for the summer of 1979. I do remember thing it strange the rear window on the four door didn't roll down.

While the Pontiac Phoenix was not available in a two-door hatchback it was available in a 4-door hatchback. My aunt bought one and I could not understand why she would buy the worst GM had to offer and pay an extra $700 just for the Pontiac logo. I remember asking what the big advantage to a front-wheel drive was when these things came out and I was told "they are great in the snow". Yea, it snows all the time here in Phoenix. but they did last a little longer here because cars don't rust as easily here.

I'm one of the people who put down a deposit for the first year 1980 Citation. I got the 2 door hatchback with V6 manual trans. It was an incredibly roomy interior compared to the mid-size rear wheel drive GM cars and was AWESOME in the snowy Colorado mountains. It suffered badly with the hard braking shenanigans, and the first recall changed the rear drum brake shoe material, didn't help! It got good fuel mileage and was a nice driver, but so unreliable mechanically I traded it for a Mercury Lynx in 1983. Citation was also the name of the Cessna bizjet and the winning race horse!!

Great video it brought back some old memories. Any chance there's a CRX video down the pipe line ?

We had a first model year. Bottle green not two tone. I was 6 or 7 years old when we got it. I remember going to the dealer and the salesman telling dad, if you get hit in a rabbit that's it, you need a new car. The citation is bigger and tougher. (bigger maybe not tougher). It was a 4 cylinder POS. When we brought it home we couldn't turn the am radio off. no matter how far away the key was. We lived in CT and ours never had rust issues. Luckily for me it died when was I was 14 so I didn't inherit it. It was the last American branded car either of my parents ever bought. Mazda's. Toyotas, Acuras, Lexus, Mini's. I can't really imagine buying an GM or Ford or Stalantis. I know most are much better and even more or less as good as everyone other, but the Citation is a lousy memory, and I always thought the name was a huge mistak e as well.

Welcome back! I missed you and your videos. The Citation and its siblings were done badly. That's why they were only the second worst recalled set of cars ever(after the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare).

I can still remember the jingle, “it’s the first Chevy of the 80s! Chevy Citaaaaaaaaa-TION!” Now it’s in my head, thanks