Return of an icon: the 2025 Chevy Vega

I had a Vega GT back in the day, the ultimate love-hate relationship. It was nicely styled, handled quite well and was relatively comfortable. Sadly, it was built with a series of questionable choices. Fender liners were omitted as they would have added $19 to the cost of the car, the aluminum block engines should have been sleeved (I blew up two engines), the cooling system was undersized and there was a MAJOR problem with body rust. The car debuted as a '71 model. GM had the engine issues sorted by '75 and the rust problem was resolved by '76. By 1976, the Vega was actually a solid, reliable car. The damage to the nameplate's reputation couldn't be repaired, however, and the car morphed into the Monza.

Come 2025, the Vega returns. The video shows a computer generated car. The actual design has not been finalized. The front end has some styling cues from the 70s car, but I see a significant Z car influence in the 3/4s profile. Pricing starts at $24K up to $35K. I think my Vega was around $2700 new, IIRC.



EDIT: I can't find any official confirmation from Chevrolet, this may just be a styling exercise.

 

I agree. It's odd, though. There are no less 15 YouTube videos from different sources on this car, but nothing from Car & Driver, MotorTrend, etc.

 

I disagree, especially with the Camaro being discontinued. The Vega was named one of the best handling cars in America when they came out. If GM had installed the Iron Duke engine and properly rustproofed them out of the blocks, the car would have had a completely different storyline. It would have been a much better car than the Pinto or Gremlin, the Vega's US made competition.

I have been searching for several years for a decent one to restore. The early years rusted out. That leaves '76 and '77 model year cars. Those two years only represented 250K cars out of a total 2 million production. You normally only see race cars or Cosworths for sale. Cosworth cars didn't have AC, a deal breaker for me.

One cool innovation by GM to hold costs down was to devise special rail cars that allowed the Vegas to be transported vertically. They could ship 30 Vegas on one rail car, instead of 18 cars on a conventional railroad car transporter car.

 

I.C.E.

 

I didn't want to start another thread for this, but another manufacturer is bringing back another iconic nameplate, one with a much more solid history:

The 2025 Honda Prelude. This will be a hybrid only vehicle and has been officially announced.

 

All valid points. The Pontiac engineers had a big problem with GM over the Fiero. GM didn't want another performance sports car to steal sales from the Corvette, so they had to sell it to the brass as an economy car and then improve it's performance over the years. I always liked the styling of the Fiero and a lot of truly advanced engineering went into it.

A Fiero saved my then best friend's car from serious damage. A bank was trying to woo his family business' banking business and offered him two tickets to a skybox in Tallahassee for Spurrier's first game there. I had run out of rum by halftime and my friend was hammered, so I became the designated driver of his brand new Acura Legend coupe...a beautiful car. The Gators lost decisively 45-30 and as we were leaving Tallahassee, the FSU fans were literally kicking in the doors of cars with Gator tags, flags, magnets, etc. When I realized what was going on, they were trying to kick in the doors of the car directly in front of us...a Fiero. The Fiero has plastic door skins and wouldn't dent, but those dimwits couldn't figure out why they weren't denting and kept trying. That gave me enough time to cut through a convenience store parking lot and get on the interstate. I was trying to imagine what those people would have been like if they had lost. (I realize UF has it's share of bad fans, too, but I've never seen that happen in G'ville.)

 

And that was absolutely harmless. During that evening in 1990, the FSU fans caused many thousands of dollars in damages; today someone likely would have been shot.