shipping Chevy Vegas, 1971
@LordJohnWhorfin sad to say, the Vega was legendarily bad. Iron engine block, aluminum head, which meant they wore out like a bum's cardboard shoes in no time and started leaking oil, while the bodies - poorly painted - rusted like a time-lapse video of a rotting apple. My first car was a used Vega from the university fleet where my parents worked. The decayed quarter panels were duct-taped over and the whole thing shot with baby-aspirin orange, and it changed its own oil - I had to pour in a quart at every fill-up due to leakage. But man, on an icy parking lot it did some sick donuts.
@wjcstp I'm guessing whatever efficiency they gained in packing density they probably lost in packing time. This has to have taken a whole lot longer than driving the cars on/off loading ramps.
@MackReed Never a Vega or other Chevy, but we suffered through many a '70s GM P.O.S.: '70 Buick Skylark (cream w/cream vinyl roof), '72 Olds Cutlass (blue w/white vinyl), '78 Old Cutlass (silver, no vinyl, but ridiculous trunk that looked like a hatchback and inoperable rear side windows). The (Hydramatic?) on the '78 couldn't even stay in one of its three gears by year two. And trust me, @eternalrevolver , that baby was ugly as balls.
@czelticgirl So I have to ask, was that both a Zorro reference *and* one to the creepy, black-eyed comic strip kid? Just the one is great, but bonus Old Person points for the two-fer if so.
@eternalrevolver Don't get me wrong, I see the beauty in lots and lots of old mainstream American iron, especially the '70s and '80s stuff I grew up with. Luxuriously long hoods! Chrome for days! Wrap-around backlights on Toronados! But the droopy ass on our '78 (sedan) made for a depressing visual conclusion to that car, certainly relative to our sweet, hulking '72, and even its contemporary brand-mates. (I *begged* my dad to choose the Delta 88 instead, to no avail.) In this particular case, I probably also unfairly lump in the terrible performance of its mid-Gas Crisis V-8 wheezing out 130 hp in thinking of it as unappealing.
@eternalrevolver Don't get me wrong, I see the beauty in lots and lots of old mainstream American iron, especially the '70s and '80s stuff I grew up with. Luxuriously long hoods! Chrome for days! Wrap-around backlights on Toronados! But the droopy ass on our '78 (sedan) made for a depressing visual conclusion to that car, certainly relative to our sweet, hulking '72, and even its contemporary brand-mates. (I *begged* my dad to choose the Delta 88 instead, to no avail.) In this particular case, I probably also unfairly lump in the terrible performance of its mid-Gas Crisis V-8 wheezing out 130 hp in thinking of it as unappealing.
@czelticgirl @LordJohnWhorfin I was thinking the blank-eyed adventure waif from the funny papers. You have ONE-UPPED ME, SIR.
When you make a product that good, though, you want to get as many as you can out to your customers as quickly as possible, I guess.