Welcome back! For our Wednesday edition of Shitbox Showdown, I’ve got a couple of little cars I just know you’re going to love… to make fun of and complain about. But are they really all that bad? Don’t answer that yet. All I ask is that you keep an open mind.
Yesterday we were traveling internationally to look at Ford pickups, and it seems that the Mazda-built European Ranger is the clear choice. I have to agree. It’s cooler looking, and it’s a 4×4, and it would be endless fun to take it to a car show here and enter it in the “Ford Truck” category.
Several of you also brought up the fact that compressed natural gas is not always easy to find, and called that a strike against the Brazilian Ranger, but I should have mentioned that, yes, a CNG conversion does not preclude the use of good old ordinary gasoline. It’s sort of a dual-fuel situation. But that Bulgarian diesel is definitely the choice here, anyway.
Alrighty then. One of the fun things about this job is finding nice things to say about cars everyone else considers absolute garbage. Personally, I don’t think there is such a thing; it takes so much time and money and commitment to bring a car to market that any car that actually ends up for sale is worthy of at least a little respect. No one sets out to design a crappy car, and whatever compromises end up in the finished product, it’s still an admirable feat.
With that in mind, I give you the finest Detroit had to offer in the mid-to-late 1980s to fight the onslaught of cheap imported cars from Japan, as well as new threats coming from Korea. Were they great cars? No, of course not. Were they good enough? That’s debatable. Did they sell? Boy howdy, did they. The total production of each was more than two and a half million – enough to earn them a place in automotive history. It also means you have a story about one of these or the other. Let’s check them out.
1985 Chevrolet Chevette CS – $5,000
Engine/drivetrain: 1.6-liter overhead valve inline 4, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Bellefontaine, OH
Odometer reading: 62,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives great
In the ’70s, General Motors was striking out when it came to small cars. After the moon-shot Corvair ended up as an evolutionary dead end, the designers of the Vega took a more traditional path, following the tried-and-true “shrink a big car down” method of designing a compact car. They still screwed it up. But the global juggernaut had high hopes for its next small car, the T platform, introduced in 1976 as the Chevrolet Chevette. “It’ll drive you happy,” the ads said. It wasn’t an exciting car, but it didn’t eat head gaskets or disintegrate from rust like the Vega did, which was a vast improvement.
The Chevette is also pretty traditional, with a longitudinal pushrod four-cylinder engine driving a solid rear axle. Rear-wheel-drive small cars weren’t rare in 1976, but by 1985 when this one was built, they were getting scarce. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; I can tell you from personal experience that RWD made a Chevette more fun in a snowy parking lot than any FWD car ever built.
This Chevette has only 62,000 miles on it, and the seller says it runs and drives great. It is, unfortunately, equipped with an automatic transmission, which does its acceleration no favors, I’m sure, but even a stickshift Chevette is pretty damn slow. But going slowly gives passers-by plenty of time to say, “holy crap, is that a Chevette?”
It’s clean, stock, and original except for a set of aftermarket alloy wheels, and seat covers that I would imagine are only there for protection. It’s the nicest Chevette I’ve seen in a while, but the price is steep; you have to really want a Chevette to pay this much for one.
1989 Plymouth Horizon – $2,900
Engine/drivetrain: 2.2-liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Ocala, FL
Odometer reading: 154,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Chrysler also turned to its overseas affiliates to develop a small car, and like GM, also completely reworked the design for America. Unlike GM, Chrysler chose to follow the trail blazed by Fiat and Volkswagen, and made the Horizon and Omni front-wheel-drive. Originally powered by a Volkswagen engine, and later a completely different Simca unit, eventually the Horizon and Omni had settled on Chrysler’s standard corporate 2.2 liter “K car” engine.
This late-production Horizon benefits from the changes and improvements made to the K engine over the years, most notably throttle-body fuel injection, a welcome improvement over the Holley two-barrel carburetor used by earlier models. This one is coupled to a three-speed A413 Torqueflite automatic, a nice reliable unit that somehow manages to suck all the enjoyment out of every vehicle in which it is installed. It was parked for several years, but the seller has done a lot of work to wake it up, and now reports that it runs and drives well.
Horizons and Omnis were not fancy cars, but they also didn’t feel as cheap as some other compacts. The seats are quite comfortable, and the ride is better than you’d expect. This one looks pretty good inside, but you have to drive it when the weather is just-so: the air conditioner doesn’t work, and neither does the heater. A new heater core is included, and if I remember right, it’s not terribly hard to get to on these. The A/C “needs a charge,” a phrase that may or may not be true. Hey, at least it has it.
It’s a little faded and sad-looking outside, but that’s been true of pretty much every remaining Horizon since about 1994. These were cheap cars, and often treated as disposable. The fact that it’s still on the road and hasn’t been crushed and recycled into a washing machine or a bridge girder is impressive.
I fully expect the comments to be full of anecdotes about someone’s brother or girlfriend or aunt who had one of these two cars, and how horrible it was. But that’s the thing – everyone has a story about these things. Cars don’t exist in a vacuum; we use them to go places and do things. So here is my challenge for you today: Choose the car you have a fond memory of – somewhere fun you went in one of them, someone you had a crush on who owned one, whatever – and tell that story in the comments, instead of just talking about how much they suck or how overpriced they may be. I can think of at least a couple of positive associations from my own past for each of these. I’m sure you have those stories too. Let’s hear ’em.
(Image credits: Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace sellers)
These are two remarkably clean survivors. That said, for the requested coin, it’s a hard pass for both of them.
My stepmother had a Chevette of similar vintage, if not slightly earlier (red, with a plaid interior if I remember correctly). I believe that car was described as obsolete the moment the first one rolled off the assembly line. It looked and felt like it was engineered in the 1960’s.
If I had a gun to my head, I guess I’d go for the Horizon. Then again, maybe I’d go with a David Spade reference and say Just Shoot Me.
I went to high school in a Midwestern town where every third person had a family member who worked at the Chrysler plant, so the student parking lot was FULL of Omins/Horizons, which in the mid-90’s were actually pretty decent cars for high school kids. Garbage, but not hot flaming garbage.
Anyhow, me and some of my idiot friends would occasionally pick up a buddy’s Omni and drag it to a different parking spot, or turn it sideways between two other cars so he wasn’t able to get out of the parking spot. This was primarily done when we were supposed to be in our 5th hour English class. Good times. My vote is for the Horizon.
In the 1980’s I and some of my high school friends worked at a local pharmacy. The pharmacy had a stick shift Chevette used to deliver prescriptions to shut-ins. That car took an insane amount of abuse from a bunch of 17 year old kids and kept chugging along. So for nostalgia sake, I go with the Chevette. Never thought I would ever say that…..
Horizon all day. a) those are good solid cars and easy to work on just like all the k-derived cars. b) $5k and Chevette should never be used in the same sentence.
Vauxhall Chevetter HSR for $5k. Needs work.
There you go.
I’d buy a Chev(rolet Corv)ette for $5,000.
I don’t have a Chevette story, but have two Horizon (Omni really) stories.
When my sister was learning to drive, it was time to take Grandma’s keys, so she got Grandma’s 5000 mile 10yo Omni. Soon after that, my dad’s car died and he picked up a used Omni. So we had two Omnis in the driveway.
The Omni was fun to hoon in a ‘slow car fast’ kind of way. It was such a short wheelbase that the it would go wherever the front wheels where pointed, even if the back end was sliding out at 35mph.
Premium Shitboxes in glazed-eye white. This is a hell of a competition!
My ironically happy Chevette story is that I believe my letters to state representatives helped lead to NJ passing a Lemon Law.
I had an 87 Dodge Omni. 2.2L and the 5 speed.
Best thing about it was my girlfriend discovered that the passenger seat folded almost completely flat.
Actually she learned this little fact in my car.
I don’t have a story about the Horizon, but it seems easier to accept at $2900 than the Chevette at $5000.
I delivered pizza at a place that had a fleet of ~20 year old Chevettes. They were terrible, but easy to keep running, fun in snow (like you said), and if nothing else, it was a nice perk to not have to deal with the expenses of running your own car. There was also enough internet at the time I was familiar with the droopsnoot Chevettes, and fantasized about what could be with a cheap shitty T-body.
HSR and Tony Pond!
Man the Dodge looks exactly like my 83 Rabbit diesel just with ever so slightly different front clip.
Interior and everything so similar.
You’re really pushing the envelope here, Mark, but I’m going with the V’Shit on this one. It’s a noteworthily bad car that will get broad recognition as such whereas the Horizon is more anonymously bad. And for these two, irony is about all I got.
To both the sellers: “You’re Dreamin’!”
The first TV station I worked at had four Dodge Omnis as news cars. Presumably a dealership bartered them in exchange for ad time. That was a common practice at that time. They weren’t bad cars for what they were. Two of them were sticks, which was fine until one of the cables let go and I had to drive about 20 miles stuck in second.
At least it was stuck in 2nd!…driving my brother’s Omni 024 (2door), came to a stop at red light and the shifter just flopped over onto the passenger’s side. Oohhh crap! Was stuck in 4th so couldn’t take off no matter how high I revved it. Had to get out pop hood, move trans to different setting while in center lane of busy intersection. Think did get in 2nd and made it home like you slowly with screaming engine. Deteriorated bushing.
That was same car my brother peeled open the oil pan on a raised manhole in an under-construction subdivision late one night. At least he stopped and turned car off. It lived many years past that.
I can vouch for the practice of bartered cars for commercial time. In 1966, KNXT/2 (now KCBS) in Los Angeles had several Ford Mustangs bartered from Frank Taylor Ford (home of “No Sunday Selling” and long since out of business for obvious reasons.) As a 13-year-old, I thought it was really cool to have Mustangs as news runner cars and tried to get my dad to buy one when they were retired. No dice.
The legendary CKLW in Windsor/Detroit used Challengers and Firebirds as news cars — always thought it would be fun to re-create one.
You can find a ratty but serviceable C4 CORvette for that money. I vote neither, but would rather the RWD option if they were both free.
This is another “would you rather burn $3k or $5k” question, unless you have extremely fond memories of either car.
I thought the OmniRizon was pretty sturdy for what it was. Had several friends who drove them. This one looks OK, and who on earth would pay $5K for a Chevette?
I drove a 1983 Horizon through a good portion of undergrad. It had a manual, swapped in from a Daytona. I have no idea if it made a difference.
Here’s a video from 1994 advertising its features:
https://vimeo.com/89759003/29336d546a?share=copy
5k for a Chevette ha ha ha ha. Wait your serious let me laugh harder HA HA HA HA
Some Vauxhall-badged variants may go for a little over that…
I’ve driven both the Horizon and the Chevette. The Horizon is a much better car. The Chevette is a cramped shitbox by comparison.
And in my view, that shitbox Chevette is overpriced by at least $3500. The Horizon is also overpriced, but not as badly.
My grandparents owned a Burgundy 81 Chevette with the 4spd back in the early to mid 90s. That car pretty much pictures the rough financial situation they were facing back in the day.
Eventually my grandpa decided to seek a job opportunity in TX and he didn’t feel like the Chevette would make the >1,000 mile drive there so he left the car with my dad and he sold it for cheap. It might have just been a coincidence but making that move was one of the best decisions my grandpa made in his later years. His new job afforded him a decent pension and he was able to replace the Chevette with a nice pre owned Cutlass Ciera Wagon and then a Caravan which was the last vehicle he ever owned.
Since I can’t associate the Chevette with many positive things (including its own features and powertrain), the newer, more powerful and cheaper Omnirizon gets my vote
The Omni GLH is about the only way you could get me to pick the front driver here over a RWD alternative, which this is not. I’ll take the shockingly clean Chevette.
OHC > OHV in most cases, so I voted Horizon. I’d buy neither, though, because of 3-spd slush boxes.
Digging how they spell out ENGINE OIL FILL in that picture of the Plymouth Horizon’s engine, guess Chrysler had problems with people not knowing what “seven hundred and ten” meant.
I’m pretty sure the Chevette was so underpowered, the two door was noticeably faster than the four door. The only saving grace was that during most of the Chevette’s run, the national speed limit was 55MPH (and strictly enforced, where I lived at the time).
That speed limit wasn’t remotely enforced where I grew up in rural Oklahoma/Kansas, but Texas would get you.
My parents had a Chevette growing up. That thing was afflicted quite badly with tin worm. It got replaced once it turned into a Flintstone car.