I remember renting a Beretta way back in 1993. I don't remember what model/trim it was, but it was actually very fun to drive. That quick engine in such a small car was crazy back then! Punchy, fast, and just plain fun. Good memories. Gosh! That was three decades ago! Wow! Time flies.
I know a relative how bought a 90 GT and like magic by 75K. that dash was a problem with squeaks. The digital read out was always not working right, It said half a tank and went empty a few times, The door chime made its own melodies after the car was turned off and got rid of it by 85k . .
Remember my neighbor had one of these when I was a kid. Brand spankin new. Used to help wash and wax it. Used to give me rides to school in it. Man, good times.
Vws of the era had it as an option. A very expensive option. Last time I saw a complete setup for sale on eBay recently it went for around 1100$. It was called digifiz.
I had an '88 GT (same car minus the body kit), and overall, I liked it. The acceleration was decent enough, and the interior was comfortable. But in the two years I owned the car, there was one thing I never got used to, and that is the steering wheel placement---it's right of center, and it angles in towards the driver.
toyoscio: they are all the same body style, so all beretta's look nearly the same. I would second that its' styling still holds up today...i have a 95 so I may be a little biased...thankfully the interior is much more modern looking than the one in the video
I can name 10 cars that are still great looking. IROC Camaro, Mustang 5.0 , Firebird, Impulse turbo. 300zx , Mitsubishi Station . Dodge stealth twin turbo. Corvette.
Tom Hertz I'll agree on Fox Body Hatchback Stang & Iroc but a Dodge Stealth was the biggest let down taking a real close margin behind the hype of the Geo Storm. I still remember hearing about that car, seen some pics and it wasn't ugly but it sure was not what it was hyped up. I'm friends with a local Dodge Dealer & he like everyone else thought the Stealth was gonna be a rare car. He put roughly 2k on it. He left it in his showroom when he put it for sale as he had no hits on the lot. I went to the auction with him when he took it up to see if he could unload it. He set a reserve of 7800; the highest bid that car got was 4650. A Nitrous Yellow Neon coupe with 1,000 miles on it sold for 4900. You have to find rt. buyer. My Berettas both still smell new but I know if I went to sell either I'd be lucky to get 3500 for GTZ and maybe close to 5 for Indy if that but those cars are worth a fortune to me. I recently bought a '90 Indy in Green, was LF lower prod. Yellow with roof, analog cluster, no power nothing, I think that package w/roof was 182 or something close but found the Teal w/tht package. I called the guy; he said he bought it brand-new as a weekend driver, never has seen rain, etc. As I buy a lot of cars online I've been told that before to go look at a car that wasn't safe to drive a block away. This guy knew what he was talking about, sent pics of every detail. I was especially concerned about the dash & door jambs. I can say without a doubt that the dash in the Indy is one of the last that nice if not the last, not including the offices in Novi Michigan that have brand new cars/trucks that are 50 y.o. GM should open it up to public but unfortunately if you do not work @ GM or are not close to the rt. people you won't. It was Heaven.
This was my first car when I turned 17 back in 1999. Mine had ALL the options and also had dual flowmasters from the cat back...sounded awesome! I miss it!
I had an 89 Beretta in high school. It was a fun car after a minor Ecu tune. I loved it. Sadly a drunk driver decided I was in the way and ran a 4-way stop sign and t-boned me, passenger side first. Broke and cracked most of the ribs on my right side and tweaked my spine sideways. Still deal with the effects 20 years later. Only had the car for a little over 2 weeks. I still hesitate at that intersection to this day....
ohh man back in the days.... I remember when I was little racing a friends Beretta (I think it was base? it was Auto for sure) with my Moms Pontiac 6000 with this exact engine... Needless to say I wiped the floor with it, The big ol Pontiac 6000... I wont miss how you overheated, shut down in traffic because your ignition coils sit below the headers and also overheated so it would not ignite or how it will create numerous vacuum leaks in that throttle body making the idle a total crap..
These cars with 4 cylinder in Corsica line turned out very nice, It's actually the only GM product I ever saw go over 200k miles on the same engine and transmission, with almost zero issues.
I always hated it when a car company would just put a stupid body kit on slow car, do nothing to actually improve the performance, and then jack up the price and try to sell it to people as a performance oriented variant of whatever car they put some side skirts on. We're living in an automotive dream world compared to most of the domestic garbage that populated the entire realistically affordable car segment back in the 80's and 90's.
+Burt Sampson The problem is that we don't have a 'realistically affordable car segment' anymore. Especially 2 door cars. Every car nowadays has: A/C, power W L M s, 10 airbags, fancy radio, and tons of stuff you didn't have to pay for in the 80s if you didn't want to. A stripper with the best engine isn't even possible anymore.
GM is nortorious for this they treated their customer base like shit for years, then they wonder why they needed a bailout in 2008. The Baretta was a short lived production car because it was a peice of shit. Watching this video I can see why this car sucked it was slow as hell
MRT All The LED stuff was because of Star Trek and Star Wars to give cars a HiTech fututristic look ..beleive you me all that infotainement stuff is awesome no one wants a bare dash and radio in their car theyve always wanted cool gadets and entertainement even way before then.
I had an 88 gt. I can concur. I’ve yet to encounter a vehicle with more rattles in the interior. It was maddening. It also seemed to love new MAF sensors. I did manage to get close to 200k on it before the transmission finally died.
Joe Robertson I remember when you couldn’t throw a stone across a parking kit without hitting one of those. Now I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen one. Shit cars for sure.
@ASG66 You just named the un-holy alliance of some of the worst cars GM ever unleashed on the American consumer, right up there with the Vega and Citation. Remember in 88 GM killed the good selling and well built G-body platform and stabbed Pontiac in the heart by killing the Fiero, after spending boxcar loads of cash to design the Fiero's own suspension (That it only got for its final year!) and working out some technical bugs, to pull the plug on it after a 4 year run. Madness; utter madness ruled(rules?) at GM
Ahh the old GM... I loved the 80s and 90s GM cars when I was growing up now the "NEW" GM while quality is much better most of there cars are boring and all look like euro cars.... I don't want a German car with a Buick nameplate like the Regal, etc.. I know its petty but I love American made cars and if I wanted a Toyota I get one.
ScaryGhost1 Hey now, I had a 1992 Chevy Corsica back in 2009. It lasted for three years with just regular maintenance and got me from Philly to DC/VA/MD with no problems. Unfortunately it blew a gasket and it was too much to repair so I had to get a new car. I miss C-Murda.
When i was growing up in the 80s we had alot of GM cars in our family, especially Chevrolets all the way from the Cavalier right up to the Chevrolet Caprice Wagon. Today my parents are still GM people, my dad drives GMC Savanna Cargo Vans and my mom drives Trail Blazers and Impalas.
have your seen a 2000 chevy lately? or Honda? or especially a Chrysler product? clear coat or paint peeling off so bad automakers should be embarrassed. lol
@@mikeluvrs That was the level of feasible chemical technology at that time. Prior to that there was no clear coat, the actual paint deterioration along with the substrate (material) . Its the sun that does the damage, if your car was garaged the damage wold be less severe. The sun damages a lot from the clear-coat, paint, and even the interior, especially vinyl and leather seats just crack even on Porsche, Cadillac and Mercedes or any other make.
Leeroy Jones Yeah, they looked cool. In 1989, that is. Can't say the same in 2018. Digital dashes were complicated and VERY costly to fix if things went wrong (and they often did).
My mom had a bright red 1994 Beretta when I was a teenager but some old fart ran a red light and totaled it and the crash caused my dad to break his neck. Damn that was a beautiful car and I loved driving it.
Can you post a video of the 1988-1990 Cavalier Z24? That was one of my favorite cars back in the late 80's as a kid still riding his bike. I kept saying "I'm going to buy one of those one day!" I bought a 1989 Z24 convertible in 2008, and I love it. Still quick, runs great with 150k on the original motor, and trans. Take care of it, and it'll take care of you (they call it maintenance for a reason)!
I remember going to the chevy dealer with no credit 19 years of age and a fast food job..GMAC approved me in 5 minutes i drove off in a new black one v6 with 500 down. How simple times were back then.
I ordered a Cavalier Z24 new in 1989 v6 5 speed burgundy grey velour interior sunroof no rear spoiler...l.loved that car...drove it for 5 years with over 120000 miles...never did anything to it but gas and oil changes...
I had the cherry red one back in 2001. It went through 2 engines before I had it and 2 from me and finally I sold it and the new guy wrapped it around a tree.
Best way to describe the Lumina and Beretta. We lost the well built G-Bodies for these pieces of shit. Thank Roger Smith and his band of idiots at GM in the 80's for most of these horrible, horrible cars.
I had a 88' GT with digital dash. Nice fun car but! Even with the manual shift it was still 1980's HP emissions restricted. It was not nearly the best GM I ever owned but hot at the time.
Had an 89 v6 auto that was slightly suped up by the previous owner (a GM tech). It moved pretty darn good. It was difficult to keep the front tires from spinning off the line. I loved it, plus it only had 30,000 miles on it at 10 years old( it was their spare car for a few years, rarely got driven which why they sold it) Sadly it never made it to 11 years old, as I was t-boned by a suspected drunk driver who was speeding and ran a stop sign. I was lucky that he hit me right before the gas cap instead of directly in the door. Still ended up with broken ribs. He (other driver in an f250 stake body, I saw the truck as I was spinning) took off and was never caught. Hit me so hard the c pillars were touching. The car spun and hit a telephone pole on the other side of the intersection.The rescue crew said I was lucky that the gas tank didn’t blow up, as it was crushed like soda can and there was fuel everywhere. Miss that car.
@@landonbenford8369 my father saw the truck months later (still damaged) going the opposite direction but the guy was going to fast for him to catch him. I did find the truck years later behind an old abandoned house not far from the accident. My insurance company even refused to pay out because they didn’t catch the the other driver. It’s why I’ll never go back to AIG.
I had one of these. Unfortunately I hit pea gravel on a sharp curve that was before a one lane wood bridge with no gaurd rails and landed upside down in a creek.
Yeah, I Know. I knew people that had these and thought they were sports cars. Of course my cousin thought here 4 cylinder Mustang II was a sports car back in the day too. Perception is everything with car sales, at least with the average buyer.
@@davidp8627 Oh yes indeed. They were made by Panosonic and developed about 100 watts. Coupled to the Delco 6x9 speakers they produced a rich deep sound.
I’m fixing to by a 1988 Beretta GTU with 98k original miles for my wife and it’s a automatic but the transmission I think is bad, what all other GM cars transmissions will fit the GTU Beretta?
I owned two of them back in the day. An 89 2.8 V6. Then in 91, I bought the 3.1 added some aftermarket cpu chips. And crank out almost 195 hp. in that Beretta. She was a little rocket! Both were black and no paint problems at all. I'd buy one now, if I could find one in mint condition. They all mainly went to the scrap heap.
+SerenityNow well it is the successor... and to be honest i drove a friends dads z26 with the getrag 5 speed and it its a really fun car when you push it hard its not spectacular but if you found a nice z26 for under 1500$ it would make a decent budget track car
tbh the car itself wasnt bad, gm was just stupid and didnt load the engine up like the did the grand nat. berettas could have been so much more but again gm is good and just dicking off and going for the basics... thats why most gm cars are better perfomers after a good owner gets them
They do that to everything. Do it better, or just add some stickers, plastic and leave drum brakes or something stupid. They always choose the latter. If it's not v8 there's no aftermarket support either.
PGTMR2 yea but if you're smart you can figure it out out. I've had a few of these and most of em I tore up from being young and stupid but I have a couple of them still and they're great when you build them up. hot rod guys are good to talk to as they teach you how to rat rod which is similar to what you have to do to make things work
Im a physicians assistant ,Its 2020 and loved that car when I was 8 years old...still want one but cannot find one. That car needed a turbo and at least 250hp.
prolly not the coolest, but a Nice retro sports toy. also stick a Turbo on and be ready to replace the Tranny barbecue the power increase is gonna SHRED the Official version.
It was meant to be a competitor to the lebaron convertible. They were going to kill off camaro convertibles, not the camaro itself. In the end, market sales for convertibles plummeted, so they just continued it as a coupe
my good friend bought a 88 GT in silver , the digital dash stopped working, the engine used oil and the 5 speed shifter came off in her hand. The driver door hinges failed and dropped the door down on the ground. later the windows jumped the track and fell down into the door.
At 4:27, I would skip the optional digital gauge cluster because it's difficult to see on bright, sunny days. Plus, I got to agree on John Davis' opinion about sticking with the analog gauges because they are more legible & comprehensive.
I actually had a white one like this back in SC! It actually could hang with a camaro v8 of that same year! Got a lot of looks with that car.Boy have cars come along way! Interior was a let down except on the "Indy" model.
GTZ had the 2.3 quad 4 engine. It was loud and buzzy, but had more punch to it. As for the others, well, in the 80s most cars with "GT" or "sport" in the name gsve you tape stripes, plastic body cladding, and ground effects that must made the cars look faster.
My mom had the corsica with the 2.8 muiltiport v6 it was fast including the beretta gts the styling were ahead of their time back than i remember hearing that a lot of people that had the gtus' have tore them up because of the power they had.
