Welcome back to the only place you can get two mediocre cars delivered hot and fresh to your browser every morning. Today we’re continuing our march through the alphabet, celebrating the letter P with two remarkably clean yet highly undesirable cars.
Friday was all about General Motors, with an Opel and an Oldsmobile. From the comments, I expected that nicely-restored Olds Cutlass to run away with the vote; a lot of you felt like the Manta wasn’t nice enough to justify its price, and shied away from its tainted title – though, to reiterate, that is only because some idiot sent it to a junkyard and it had to be rescued.
But as it turns out, the Manta won! I was pulling for it. The Cutlass is a beautiful example of a car I have no desire to own. I’d love to see it in person, and I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to drive it, but I don’t care enough about it to be responsible for keeping it that nice. The Manta is exactly how I like my cars: mechanically tip-top, but a little scruffy around the edges.
All right. We took a look at both Plymouth and Pontiac a couple weeks ago when we were doing dead brands, but I thought these two were worth our time. They’re both very clean, low-mileage cars, probably because nobody really wanted to drive them much. But what the hell; let’s give them a shot.
1976 Pontiac Astre – $4,500
Engine/drivetrain: 2.3 liter overhead cam inline 4, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Rocky Mount, VA
Odometer reading: 62,000 miles
Operational status: Starts and runs, but needs fuel system cleaned out
Raise your hand if you never knew, or completely forgot, that this car existed. Yeah, me too. This badge-engineered version of the Chevy Vega was sold in Canada for two years before it appeared in the US. Apparently, Pontiac was developing its own small car before the GM brass axed the idea and gave it the Vega instead. The good news is that, like a lot of GM corporate cars, Pontiac took the base material and made it cooler than the original.
The Vega’s engine is infamous; it’s a classic case of GM making things far more complicated than they needed to be. It has a cast aluminum block, a bare wisp of a thing that’s too clever for its own good and is absolutely intolerant of overheating or low oil levels. This 1976 model is supposed to have been greatly improved, but the real improvement came a year later in 1977, when the Astre ditched the Vega engine for Pontiac’s then-new Iron Duke four-cylinder. This one starts and runs, but it has been sitting a while, and the fuel tank is full of rust. The seller says it also needs a new fuel pump, which means someone probably tried to revive it without cleaning out the tank.
Inside, it’s in near-miraculous condition. GM economy car interiors have never been known for their durability, and in the 70s they were especially flimsy. Even with only 62,000 miles on the odometer, I would expect at least some wear and damage. Someone took good care of this car.
Part of the 1976 update to the Vega and Astre was greatly improved rustproofing, and on this car it seems to have worked. Even the undercarriage photos in the ad don’t show anything concerning. The paint is original, and it looks like it could benefit from a good waxing.
1981 Plymouth Horizon TC3 – $6,000
Engine/drivetrain: 2.2 liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: White Stone, VA
Odometer reading: 26,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives fine
Let’s get it out of the way right up front: yes, the asking price is six grand. Yes, it seems high to me too. Especially since I once got this car’s sister model, the Dodge Omni 024, for free. Well, almost anyway; it belonged to a friend of mine in college, who told me that it kept stalling, and if I thought I could get it to run, I could have it. I installed a manual choke cable to replace the defective automatic choke, the car ran like a top, and she demanded it back. At least she paid me back for the choke cable.
The TC3 is the Plymouth Horizon’s sleeker, cooler cousin. It’s a good-looking two-door coupe, though it never had the power to back up its looks until Carroll Shelby got his hands on it. This one at least has Chrysler’s 2.2 liter four; the 024 that I almost owned was powered by a 1.7 liter Volkswagen engine and couldn’t get out of its own way. From what I’ve seen, these early Omnis and Horizons are about a 50:50 split between manuals and automatics; this one has an automatic. It has only 26,000 miles on it, and has had a bunch of recent service work done.
It’s at least as clean inside as the Astre is, and completely stock and original. You don’t see many cars like this that still have their original AM/FM radio. Too bad radio stations are all crap these days. It has air conditioning, but the seller says it needs to be “serviced.”
It’s almost spotless outside as well, with only a couple of bad spots in the paint on the back bumper. I could do without the tinted windows, but that’s easy enough to undo. It’s weird to see one of these early L-body coupes without all the added-on stuff they accumulated over the years: no block-out panels over the quarter windows, no lower skirts like the Shelby Chargers had, not even a rear spoiler. It’s about as close to the body in white (or in this case, body in off-white) as you can get.
I can already tell, as I write this, that a lot of you are going to complain ahout these. They’re too expensive, they’re too boring, they’re crap, blah blah blah. But just try to appreciate them for a second; they’re both very rare cars these days, and they’re a fascinating look at how things used to be. And, personally, I think they’re kinda cool. Which one strikes your fancy?
Both massively overpriced and not desirable. Not classics, just survivors that escaped the crusher, and undeservedly so. Both say “I make crack in my mom’s basement”. They’re worth whatever the scrap yard will give you and then they’ll get shredded.
Would you like me to hook you up?
LOL both are crap and at crackhead prices
Okay, so these cars are both crap. Crap when new, crap now. And when we look at them, we see them for that because it’s our experience. As an 80s kid I don’t have any Vega stories because they’d mostly returned to the Earth by that point but I have plenty of traumatic memories of Omni/Horizons and their variants. They’re just not good cars. At all. And as far as my vote goes it would be a hard “neither” if that was an option. Since it isn’t, though, I’d probably have to pick the Astre for the ability to drop an SBC into it.
That being said, if you try to look at both of these… things without the filter of experience, they’re actually both rather handsome little beasties. Both are cleanly styled coupes with nice proportions and clever touches. The interior on that Astre… if a manufacturer released a compact car today with a red interior with houndstooth seat inserts it would be a bold move.The TC3 has an incredibly open and airy cabin even if everything in it sucks.
I don’t love them, and I don’t want either of them, but I can’t hate on them too much either.
I am a bit older so I have both vega and omni/horizon bad memories.
P is for pee-yooo! Hard to stand up and shout approval for either of these overpriced lumps, but at least you can jump in the Horizon and drive it. I have a feeling the Astre will need a lot of work before it’s back on the road. Does anyone want to put a lot of work into an Astre?
I like the tone of the Pontiac ad a little more but think I’m going Plymouth. My mother had a ’84 Omni (blue/blue to this beige/beige) that she still raves about to to this day, that moved to being dad’s commuter after they they met and had me. But she only mentioned a few years ago, unprompted, she really wanted the Charger but couldn’t see out of it. So not for my sense of nostalgia, then for hers.
She always says it had “great heat and A/C” but the latter we can’t really vet on this TC3 yet. Odds seem high it would still be set up for R12, can you even still find that?
R12 is illegal. You would convert it to R134. Not a big job. But probably has leaks in the system. Any rubber parts have degraded. After you get the AC fixed , when you turn it on the car would slow down by 10-15 mph!
Main point of this pair is, you could buy something way nicer and new for what the asking prices are on these two P for Putrid cars. I had. Vega ( not for long), also an Omni, and a Rampage pickup. All three were poor examples of each brand.
Now on to Q ??? That should be fun!,
Thank you for the flashback/physical memory of cars slowing down when you turned on the AC.
Pontiac, even though I totally wanted a TC3 when I was almost 16 and pretty much wanted any car. Another deciding factor is I always remember seeing TC3s and 024s with louvers. Just looks wrong not to have the louvers.
Coming of driving age when crap cars were what was available sucks. I almost bought an Oldsmobile Omega 2 door, the X-body one. Thankfully Dad talked me out of that one. Another friend had a Chevy Monza Spyder, so crap cars filled the parking lot of my high school. Of course I really wanted a CR-X, but couldn’t pass up the $400 VW Beetle.
Pontiac reminds me of the crap cars I almost bought, but strangely in 2005 that particular Pontiac is in better shape than the ones I saw around in 1984.
A good looking turd is always better than an ugly, ugly turd. And today, it’s even cheaper. Pontiac, please.
They’re both terrible cars, but at least one of them isn’t Dodgey. Pontiac gets my reluctant vote.
It’s a minor miracle that auto enthusiasm in the US survived an era when crapcans like these were the first cars for so many new drivers. The 1994 Villager that served as my first car was boring and slow, but it was at least a competent vehicle that was pleasant to drive.
I guess I’ll go with the Horizon for my fake internet bucks. Boring but inoffensive wins over a vehicle that will constantly find new ways to offend you in the Ponti-Vega. Both of them should be listed for half of what the sellers want, however.
Gimme the Pontiac!
I only voted for the Plymouth because it’s not a Vega.
If it rolls like a Vega and honks like a Vega, it’s a Vega – and no thanks. Dad had a four-door Horizon and I had the ute version of the TC3. No complaints. Not excited about the auto shifter in the Plymouth, but the rest works for me. Afterthought: Lee Iacocca should’ve called the Scamp ute the Loadrunner, instead. Plymouth Loadrunner has a nice ring to it.
Both these are pretty crappy hooptie but I am a Pontiac man so I voted that. I guess at least it is a stick shift? Wouldn’t be a bad car to teach a kid/non-stick shift driver in if you can get it up and running on the cheap.
Parents both had Vegas when they came out. There was never a time when both were running. So many blown headgaskets.
Voted Plymouth for worry-free driving.
LOL – Worry free driving in an 80s Dodge 2.2? If you say so.
My 1980 Omni would eat head gaskets like candy.
These would run hot constantly.
I know I told this story before, but in 1981, my sister turned 16. Coca Cola had a promotion in the Detroit Area, where you could peel back the plastic lining of a bottle top, and win one of 6 K cars. My parents weren’t going to let my sister get a car, but we just knew that we were going to win one anyway, and sure enough, my sister won one of the K cars (FYI, a bottle of Tab was the winner).
We go to the dealership, and it was the most stripped thing you could get. Other than an automatic, AM radio, and full width hubcaps, that was it. Possibly power steering, but I can’t recall. White with a Red interior.
My sister really wanted to swap it out for the Dodge Omni 024. They would only give wholesale price on the trade on the K car, and we’d have to pay extra, and my dad wasn’t about to do that – looking a gift horse in the mouth.
My sister was SOOOOO upset.
Anyway, that’s why the Horizon gets my vote…
I would have voted for the Plymouth, but there is NO way my cheap self would pay SIX GRAND for it. Just couldn’t push the button, even in imaginary dollars.
RWD+manual>AC, I guess.
Tough call this morning. I’ll take the Astre with the manual. I can hadle a fuel system cleaning without setting myself on fire…probably.
Red > off-white.
Otherwise, they’re all yours, Mark.
A 3-speed auto FWD? No thanks, I’d rather walk.
Poncho today!
Walking would be faster.
Well, I don’t want to get to work faster. I guess I’ll have to drive the Plymouth off into the Horizon.
While I would never pay anywhere near that kind of money for one, I gave my vote to the Plymouth because that was the first car that was ever “mine”.
My dad traded one of his tenants (who worked at an impound lot) a month’s rent for our pick of the lot. It was down to this or a velour-laden Thunderbird, I think, and since had to buy my own gas I took the Plymouth (manual). We actually ended up with two of them – enough to make one functional car.
I did end up with rear window louvers and replaced the mono-speaker AM-only radio with something….better, even is the installation involved plywood, wood screws and window screen.
Hopefully the car gods will forgive me. I went with the Plymouth. That red-on-red pseudo Vega was just too much red.
The red hides the blood stains from trying to fix it.
More neither than anything in recent memory, not even for half the price. Not even for free. I grew up in an era when there were cheap cars that 16-year-olds would get for their first car, and they were too bad for even that duty. Hell, I ended up with a Chevette because it was far better than either of these.
Well said.
That Astre is giving me flashbacks of the 71 Vega I had as a family hand-me-down. Actually good flashbacks. Never had any engine trouble (maybe because my Dad was anal about maintenance) and it went 14 years and 125k miles before the clutch wore out and the body rusted out. And the Astre has a 4 speed vs. the Vega 3 speed. Woohoo!
PS – Mark, there are still good FM radio out there. I can pull in 2 all music NPR stations and there are plenty of college stations
Yes! Commercial radio absolutely sucks in every way. College and community radio stations are great, though, and deserve our support. We have a couple here that are the only over-the-air stations I’ve listened to in twenty years. That’s twenty years of never hearing ten minutes of awful commercials for five minutes of music or (even worse) some loudmouth blabbering about sports or politics.
I only listen to commercial radio these days for Red Sox games and the commercials are painful.
Oh god both of these send shivers up my spine because they both remind me of the horrid cars of my youth growing up in the 70s-80s. This is a neither for 1/8 of the asking prices for me. If I had to pick one, the TC3 for $1000. We have come so far. I remember that cars like these were often broken down garbage within 5 years.
One is gonna run forever, like a cockroach. The other is going to fail repeatedly.