The most epic race I've ever had involved me in a Chevette and some random person on the highway in a Pontiac T1000. We hit speeds of nearly 65mph, both cars shaking violently, but I pulled out the victory in the end. A few decades later I watched an old Motorweek review of the T1000 and found out the key to my victory - apparently Pontiac just took a Chevette and made it heavier - and even less powerful.
That's not how it works. You know that peak power output of a horse is about 20HP or more? But because you have to let it rest, it's 1HP on average. While you could make a single strong fart, you can't just keep farting all day long like a car engine can.
My first car was a vette. A Chevy chevette. I remember being pulled over for doing 62 mph in a 45. I laughed at the police officer and informed him the car wouldn't go over 53. Without a word he turned around, got in his car and drove away... Great review. Took me back.
53 really??? i can finally feel fast! as a teen i reached 85 with my red 5 speed festiva! ...savage torque of the 1.3 was amazing =D haha 60 hp at 5000 and 74 lbs of torque. half or full throttle didint make any difference
Around 1978 when I was a kid, Grandpa ( having grown up during the depression and raised seven kids ) drove one, it was maroon. I remember him doing a valve job on it and me as a kid thinking why?what a piece of crap car. After driving it for some time, traded up for the speedy blue diesel version. Couldn't pealout on the gravel driveway. Did not matter to Gramps, he was in to it for the mileage and to ask the ladies if they like to "take a ride in his vett". Miss you Gramps!
No, that is when a reviewer uses second hand information about someone who supposedly tested a car with a 40 year old engine. I'm guessing he didn't ask if they did a compression check either. I've driven the car and it reaches highway speeds and has decent acceleration for a small car. Of course, it was manual transmission.
Ah, the Shitvette. A friend of mine had an '84 'vette in high school... Diarrhea brown with poop brown interior. We beat the hell out of that thing. I remember he had to start it in the morning before school about 15 minutes before he left and put a brick on thce gas pedal to get it to idle down. And yes, slow and weak as hell. I lived at the top of a big hill, and it could not make it up the hill with 5 passengers. He would have to drop a couple of them off at the bottom, bring me up the hill, and go back and pick them up. Fun times.
Hm... ...seems like they DO still make them like they used to. After 2 years of ownership, my fathers 2002 GMC Yukon (which he bought new, so it was only 2 years old) had its transmission go out too. He had to drive home in reverse for about 2 miles. Not exactly 3 hours though, that’s impressive. Your mom had mad skills! I remember asking my father if it was covered under warranty. I believe he claimed it wasn’t. 🤷♀️
An old lady in a wheelchair with one good arm, holding a small lap dog wearing broken flip-flops chewing taffy daydreaming about Regis Philbin could beat this car in the quarter mile
I fucking love the randomly thrown-in segments that make you sit back and go "...what the fuck did I just watch?" before it resumes like nothing happened. Classic RCR right there.
There's a local legend of somebody wedging a 454 into a Chevette. (It was probably a 307 or 350: these stories have a habit of growing!). -the moral of the story is the light turned green, he stomped on it and broke his windshield!
My 61 Corvair took 34 seconds, maybe even longer if the speedo was reading fast like most cars did back then. But that was with 2 people aboard and about a million miles on the engine. It still got me between Virginia Beach and Philly every weekend for 2 years. Got a ticket once for doing 78 in a 60 zone in MD.
I had forgotten the Diesel!! My nephew had one that we put a gas engine in. I had a 79 Cutlass diesel that I put a 70 350 Rocket in. Good times!!! I blew many 3rd gen base Camaros and Mustangs off the road with that Cutlass ( and more than a few IROCS and GTs)
My mother drove one of these things for years. Eventually the hood popped open going down the highway and then the engine(probably from the filter) set fire. Teenage me said "when was the last time you changed the oil on this thing?" noting the flashing oil indicator. And she looked at me deadpan "change?" We made it home that day, driving 4 miles with the front end of this fucking car ON FIRE. I never got back in that deathtrap and mom drove it for a few more months until the floorboards started to rot away and you could literally flintstone the fucking thing up the street.
@@wildman510 The sad part is all her brothers(my uncles) her dad and her Grandpa were all greasemonkies to some degree or another. There was no excuse for any of what happened to occur , other than just laziness.
Of course not all BL stuff was bad. Some of it dated from WWII or shortly thereafter. You could say they got the bugs out of it. But the Morris Marina? Garbage. Funny thing was it didn’t end there. We never had the Marina or any BL stuff in Canada but we had the Hyundai Pony which was based on it. It was banned in the States because it didn’t meet safety regulations but became the cheapest and best selling car for a year or so. And like the Marina... almost every one was scrapped. You can’t find them even in junkyards.
Rated 53-60hp when new, depending on model. Top end models were eventually rated at 70hp. All those figures were undoubtedly at the crank, not the wheels.
Not just at crank, but with no accessories and with cold water pumped by an external pump. It's an industrial application way of measuring power figures, like that engine would be powering a pressure washer or a cement mixer...
I had one in the eighties with a cranking sound system. It ran great. I took great strides in maintaining it, because I really liked it. Always changed the oil and kept the coolant topped. NEVER overheated it. And yet still blew the head gasket and cracked the head. Really a wonderful car.
In Brazil, it existed as a station wagon, sedan, and pickup, and was sold (restyled) until 1992. It was a bestseller, and even co-existed with Kadett (his successor)
It's not that bad. Well i'm not gonna say what i allegedly did or didn't do, but it's really synaesthetic, not hallucinogenic, like you'll have larger issues before you really start seeing things.
We don't wonder. A Motor Trend columnist wrote in 2008, when it looked like the Big 3 might all go bankrupt, that if this is finally the end we can't say the companies hadn't heard and ignored repeated warnings since the late 1960s.
In the UK, we also had the Chevette, which had a slightly restyled front and rear. My grandfather had one in this exact colour. Memories of it include rust, clattery motor, and more rust..
I was starting to loose faith in RCR. They just weren't the same as they used to be. But now... Thank you Mr. Regular for returning to form. This sort of stuff is why we subscribed to you.
My grandfather had an early 80’s Pontiac version with optional anti sway bar. He loved to show off how well it took corners much to the fear of everyone else in the car.
@@NickyvMLP yes but the model T doesn't have all the newer parts like better diffs, and gearbox, etc. so all these things add up to make it better then say a lawn more with 30 hp or a model T, consider all this and the chevette is way faster then the model T
holy fucking shit kill me, that pice of piano with the voice was not good. it was AWESOME BRILLIANT. please consider making a longer one pleeeeasee please please
23 HP!? That makes my 2010 Chevrolet Aveo (the chevette's great grandson) with its 1.6L Gen III Ecotec DOHC four cylinder engine (108 HP and 105 ft lbs of torque) look like an ABSOLUTE HOTROD!!
@@cobra29935 nothing wrong with that, I remember all those old Snap On calandars my dad had from the early 80's, with the big teased out hair. Also on their head, and that awkward smile as they laid over a fender holding a tool the wrong way.
i dont think the intermission was vaporwave. it felt like this creepy ghostly rustbelt post-manufacturing almost apocalyptic vibe where death of an economy left towns abandoned, video game consoles and family photo albums in attics. it's a sterile and anachronistic representation of the past - a lost nostalgia where the tapes been recorded over by the ghosts of memories that capitalism killed.
I owned 3 chevettes back in the day all dedicated to hard daily use as field service cars. I never had any problems with any of them that couldn't be solved in my own driveway. They would hit a hard 100k in a few years and still be a great used car for someone with limited funds. While all my co workers lost money driving more expensive cars I made good money on my expense reports to provide for the kids or get something for myself without hurting the family budget.
Id honestly rather drive a trabant. 3 more horsepower and easier to fix and if you had that "kombi" version there'd be much more interior room RCR should review a trabant. If you think of it the trabant is the ultimate regular car a car that was literally the only car for an entire country
I took my driving license test with this car, borrowed it because my car was a 1978 Pontiac Grand Safari wagon, 6.6 Liter. I used it because I was concerned that the immense wagon would challenge me in the parallel parking test. The Chevette did not disappoint. The unpowered brakes and steering gave me a good workout on the emergency stop and 3 point turn, but I nailed the parking.
This is pushing so many buttons for me. My maternal grandmother had one of these when I was nine years old, also in yellow, and it made our '73 Vega look like a Ferrari Daytona. It could barely make it up a hill. A Model T had better performance. I knew better. When I was nine. And the vaporwave middle - you've actually touched on the one "new" AESTHETIC I actually care about, as a forever teenaged electronic musician. Nicely done. Really. Really, really nicely done...
I loved my Chevette. I remember getting stuck in the snow, putting it in gear and with the rear wheel spinning getting out and pushing, then jumping back in as it started to go. I had the High Output engine, Bigger Carb and dual takedown headers. It was in the family for about 15 years and over 200k miles. I had way too much fun with mine.
I'm surprised the Chevette lasted so long. I read about one with a 500ci Cadillac engine in it. My mom had one for her first car in 1980. She said it would shake when she hit 80kp/h on the highway and my grandad said the drum brakes weren't very responsive and the automatic hampered it. I read somewhere it was supposed to come with a manual. She told me she paid $6,000 new and that's just over 12k in 2020.
gonnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa(A e s t h e t i c references)aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa(pianomusic)aaaaaaaaaaaaaa(drugrefrences)aaaaaaaaaa(poopjokesreferences)aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa(sezualloolrefereces)aaa find a way around their limitations. This 1976 Chevetteeeeeeeeeeeeeeee(drugs)(swirls)(DrugAftermath)ee
My parents' Chevette totaled itself in repairs before they could finish paying itself off. I remember my mother sitting at the kitchen table, in tears, trying to figure out how they were going to pay for it all. That is one of my formative memories of American automobiles.
Some lasted a long time like a tough little truck. Others snapped the front pulley bolt (torqued too tight at the factory) or it fell out (...too loose...) causing mayhem under the hood
@@sammolloy1 Most died of boomerism, like most cars. Just feed it gas until it stops or too many people comment about the smoke, the noise, the permanently on dash light or the tape over the dash light.
Good Lord! You are insane, dude! I've rarely laughed so hard in my life! I drove one of these things in 1979. Mom and dad in the back seat, salesman next to me. I left the dealership lot with my foot crunched to the floor. Went about half a mile, jammed on what was considered at the time as brakes, hit the shoulder and spun it around to head back to the dealership. Salesman grasping anything he could to survive (he even grasped my shirt at some point) eyes bugging out. Sorry dude. Didn't make the sale. My story and I'm sticking to it.
I bought a used 1981 Chevrette in the mid 80's. I thought it was a fun little beater car. I found a header for it and an adapter for a bigger carburetor in a JC Whitney catalog, it helped a lot with performance. It had no A/C (living in Florida, ugh), no power steering and it was noisy and crude, but I loved that damn thing.
Both my parents had one of these. My dad hated his primarily because he was essentially forced to buy it from his parents when what he really wanted to buy was his grandparents' Plymouth. He admitted that despite being really basic it was pretty reliable. It got him from A to B. Though it only had an AM radio, no AC, and the heater sucked. Sold it the first chance he got and bought a TC3
There were 3 of these things in my driveway in the way back. Mine, my sisters and our lady roommate. All did fine for what they were. I commuted from Columbia SC to Augusta GA in mine for two.5 years. No problem. But when my yard boy pulled it in the back yard to mow the grass the gear shift came off in his hands. Not just the knob but the whole stem. LOL. So glad it didn't happen on the interstate at 95 mph. Yes they could go that fast and a bit more with a tail wind. Love your work. Keep it up!
naw man gremlins are great and so are chevette's, and the best thing about chevette's is they're cheap and easy to work on and engine swap them. I had like ten in my backyard just waiting to be used for parts or driven
+Nabeel Rahimpour I re-watched that part a bunch of times because it was actually kinda cool. Then I decided to watch it at half speed. OH GOD WAS THAT CREEPY!!! Def. recommend!
That StarTropics shot hit me. I have so many memories of playing it and StarTropics 2 at my grandparents house in the early 90s. Man I got some nostalgia hard, I miss my grandparents
Finally my car is mentioned on Regular Car Reviews! I drive a 1978 Opel Kadett Coupe. It is indeed my first car, and I am still a teenager, as in 19 years old. But I love the thing, prefer to drive it over anything else. But this review is spot on. However, my air filter is serviceable. I guess the Opel Kadett is a little better than the chevette :P
best friend in high school had an early 80s version with an automatic and it was so underpowered that we refused to ride with him if he wanted to use the interstate to get wherever - it was so scary slow trying to merge that it posed a serious safety risk for us and everyone around us. I can recall merging one time at around 25 mph and it took nearly 2.5 miles to get up to 60ish
How dare you! How dare you! The Chevrolet Chevette is one of the finest cars ever made. It imbued quality inside and out and it was one of the most Innovative designs ever.
You know, the funny thing about the Chevette is that GM was so unbelievably proud of it. I remember the summer of 1976 and seeing mysterious ads from Chevy about their "new small car" that was going to revolutionize... something or other. They literally broke the bank trying to build up buzz about...this thing. Now, in truth, it wasn't a great deal worse than many of it's counterparts. And unlike some of the larger 'small' cars of the 70s that topped out around 25mpg, the Chevette could get a real world 30++. Think of the Dodge Omni, or the Toyota Corona, the Datsun 510 or the earliest of the Honda Civics. They were all extremely basic transport, though I would not rank the Chevette (I owned an '84) anywhere near the top of the list. They were all cramped, noisy, underpowered and uncomfortable. For my money, the first gen Golf was the best of them, followed by the Civic. But they were all pretty bad cars.
Love the baby talk at the beginning of the video. lol. My grandpa had a chevette when my mother was growing up, and he called it a Shoveit, because you had to shove it to get it going. He hated it.
