Was Service Manager at the local Pontiac dealership when GM introduced the X bodies which included the Pontiac Phoenix. We couldn't deliver them until we completed 13 recalls. They ended up being a kinda of decent car after several years but not the kind of product GM had built in years prior to the 1980's. It was a challenging time to work in a GM service department!
As a Millenial I am totally fascinated by cars of this era... My first car was a 99 Taurus 24v... pretty far advanced from this but the beginnings of transverse really intrigue me. I'm pretty sure that Taurus is still driving around somewhere if they're going easy on the trans... There is a 78 Granada sitting in my neighbor's yard that I so badly want to buy and enter into the Gambler 500 here in Oregon...
This is an interesting comment to me because I had a friend who attended a vocational school. They brought in some X cars before they were introduced to show them to the students. He told me a very similar story to what you mentioned here - there were several fixes to be made before delivery.
My mother's elderly brother bought one of these when they first came out--a two tone blue four door. It thanked him for his meticulous care by being the most unreliable, worst-assembled car he'd owned in his life. Last GM he ever bought. Great idea, underdeveloped.
yeah i often think fondly about the 80s GM cars i grew up with and later owned, but in reality most were horrible. My last GM was an 89 S15 GMC Jimmy i owned back in the early 2000s. I miss it now, but when i owned it, it left me stranded a few times, and had its fair share of issues.
The hatchback made for great rear access & with the seat down a lot of cargo room! I had a 1980 V6, deluxe interior w/power locks & gauges. Kinda wish I had kept it!
Something younger viewers will have never seen. "Compact Parking Only" zones in parking lots. Or grandma trying to squeeze her Electra 225 into one and ending up taking up three spaces because no one could park on either side.
In the winter of ‘79/80 my dad purchased a new 5 door Citation off the showroom floor of Ruby Chevrolet in Downtown Milwaukee Wi. By sheer luck it was a V6 automatic, which proved to be a very reliable, fast and great car. People would ask questions about the car everywhere my dad stopped. I took my drivers test in it in ‘84 and passed. Huge interior space always made me think of it as an American Saab 900. His next car was one of the first ‘86 Ford Taurus’s in town. That car also caused a stir everywhere we drove.
My Dad got his a in April if 1979. So it was the first one I saw on the road. I don’t remember anyone giving a shit, and it was embarrassing to be seen in.
Man, that must've been fun, having a dad that hadn't lost the excitement of being one of the first to have the latest cool car beaten out of him by dad stuff. Everything both my parents drove was dull, dull, dull.
@@drippinglassfunny you should say that, my grandma owned a citation in the mid 90’s, in Milwaukee, and my mom has the exact same to say regarding the car. Drove like shit, but offered an otherwise unforgettable name.
I was a salaried technician for GM for 5 years, in the 80s... They always had great designs, with good, innovative ideas, that in their rush to be the first in the showroom, would release them with poor quality control, and under developed mechanicals, resulting in junk on the hiway. They wanted the public to be their laboratory, and by the time the car was debugged, its reputation was shot! They never figured this out... This was the 1980 version of the 1972 Vega. This is what happens when you have bean counters running a car company, instead of car guys...😏
A friend of mine had a J body car…. to replace the oil filter, the motor mounts had to be unbolted, and the engine moved with a lift…. of course could be done only at the dealer…. This cars all died at 60-70000 miles…. there’s nothing good you can say about them…
We had a 1980 Oldsmobile Omega Brougham dark blue, V6, with cushy pillow seats. Very comfortable ride and roomy. I think the radio was mounted conventionally. No problems during the three year lease other than replacing the steering rack. Wish we still had that car.
This video brought back many memories. I was a new mechanic at a dealer in Canada back in 1980. If I'm remembering correctly there was a campaign out on these vehicles while they were in storage waiting for delivery. They were quite the vehicle.
So the Citation's hood could be put into a "service position"? Neat. And I remember that advertisement with the Citation towing the boat with its rear wheels removed!
One of the first cars I drove as a kid was a 1980 Citation. 2.5L 4 speed manual that looked exactly like the one at the beginning of the video. One cool feature it had that I didn't discover for months is on the roof right above the B pillar on each side was a lever you could rotate to open the rear quarter windows. The car came factory equipped with the right rear wheel locking up under anything more than slow braking and a rack and pinion that didn't like to power assist much when cold.
The first car I purchased immediately after my 16th birthday was a used 1980 Chevy Citation 2 door hatchback with the 4 speed manual transmission. The car had obviously been in a previous accident and had several issues I discovered after buying. It was that popular gold color and the paint was completely mismatched. It backfired after each gear shift because of a leak in the exhaust system. You had to leave the gas cap loose after filling it up or it would vapor lock and stall. It had the amber turn signals in the rear and they lit up when you stepped on the brake. It was still a car I remember fondly and learned a lot from.
Back in the mid eighties my neighbor bought a Citation, she was a glutton for punishment because she helped her daughter buy one a year later!!! About 2 years later she traded it in for a Toyota!!! Thanks for sharing another fun video!!! 🎄⛄🤶
Thank you Adam for a trip back to 1979. I had just started in parts at a Chevy store when the Citation came out. At that time manual transmission models were rare. The model I test drove shifted hard. Turns out there was no fluid in the transaxle. Between Citation issues and the Diesel engines in pickups they kept us busy during the downturn.
Oh!, yes the infamous 5.7 N Olds engine! Ours blew 3 head gaskets! Finally the dealer where my poor mother had bought it new put me to work in the parts dept. as I was able to find parts for it they could not! They had several others that needed repairs under warranty.
I loved to find them blown up for cheap and swap in a 350 rocket from an old cutlass or something what a major upgrade and it was a fun vehicle to drive then
If these would have been better built they would have been more popular. I knew two people that bought them new and both had stories that left me thinking " but isn't it a new car?"
My sister was "gifted" one of these around 1990. It was in showroom condition...but it was still a Chevy "Mutation" One day she was rear-ended by a city bus in Los Angeles, and it was destroyed. We still talk about it being the luckiest day of her life getting far too much settlement money for that awful car.
I learned to drive on one of these, 4 speed manual, along with a red Dodge K-car wagon, also 4-speed manual. Those were our family cars back in the early 80s.
A guy I knew that I used to carpool to work with had one of these. His was a 1980 with a four cylinder with a four speed. Could not get over how much leg room that car had especially in the front passenger seat.
"Chevy Citaaaation!" I remember those TV ads well when I was in high school. That outro has a similar memorable ring to it as the ad outro "Byyyy Mennen!" Seinfeld reminded us of the latter line.
The 1981 Citation was my driver’s Ed car. I remember all the students spreading fearful stories about the engines and transaxles falling out of these cars during the first model year. Honestly, this happened to one of my family members so the fear was very real for me! After driving the car twice a week for my class, I found the 1981 to be a comfortable and economical car with reasonable performance. My teacher was a WW II vet and I remember we students felt like we were driving “the future.”
Yep, we also had Citations for Driver's Ed in 1980. I recall everyone thought they were rather hideous, and figured we would hate them. But actually they drove surprisingly decent and worked well for this function... I was surprised. I do know they didn't keep them around more than a couple years, however... Reliability issues, as I recall.
Thanks for the final commercial, I remember that Chevy CITATION sing at the end, but have not heard in so many years! They would never show an ad like that boat towing today, but dont try that yourself! Of course, I got to chime in and say we had one. We had a 77 Nova (which I still have!), and told the salesman. He said if you like that car, you will reallly like this Citation. Yes, it was better, but guess what? The Citation transmission went out,and my dad didnt want to pay to repair, and sold it. We still kept driving that Nova with the 350 trans, which was why that car lasted and the first model year car did not. Neverbuy first model car, it's so true, let them get the bugs out.
My first official car was the Citation II. 4 door hatchback and never really had any issues with it and it did get great mileage. Wish I still had it. Thanks for the video!
My 1985 Citation 2 has been in my family since the day it was purchased off the lot. It’s my daily driver. The mileage counter has rolled over 2 times. I LOVE MY IRON DUKE!!! Ride on :D
I had a 1980 with the four cylinder 4 speed and loved it. I drove it 60 miles in a snowstorm with questionable tires and the only issue is that snow would build up on the alternator. I actually pulled another Citation (same color and body style) :D home with it to some amused looks from the people that saw it happen. When I let it go, my brother's father in law bought it and pulled his boat to the river several times a week. I actually moved in it once, and while I didn't have a lot of furniture it did only take one trip.
There was the urban legend going around about the lawsuit some owner filed after they wrecked their Citation while towing their boat with the rear wheels removed as in the final Advert!
You brought back memories! I bought one of the 1980 models, used in '85. It was the two-tone gold and brown. Fully loaded ( I'm surprised someone optioned the car out so fully and paid so much for it new. It even had CB radio phone& moonroof) I paid only $2,200 for it. We had an expensive English and German car at the time (S- class & Rolls) and wanted a non-assuming cheap car that could be used for grocery getting, and parking in more dangerous lots w/out worry. This poor Citation was disintegrating before our eyes! While the V6 engine gave hot performance,, the torque steer was tremendous. The power steering when cold had all these dead spots& stops in it, hard to tell what you were doing! The door panels on the inside were disintegrating and rubbed off in your hands. The car rattled like a tin can. It then kept breaking down so much, I just had it towed to the junk yard. I had to pay them as they had so many of them that it had no junk value.... But it serve the purpose that I wanted it for..for about 3 years. Then I bought a Mercury Topaz, which was a very good car. Anyway, sorry I dragged you all down memory lane, but thanks for the memories! -Greg in California
A friend’s girlfriend had a 1982 Citation. It needed a water plump replacement. We did it on curbside. It took 7 hours because of the lack of clearance between the suspension tower and the pulley bolts. An open end wrench, a quarter-turn at a time, for each bolt on the pulley. It was even more fun putting the pulley back on. . . Memories 🤪
we had an 82-auto trans, real bucket seats, center console w/ shifter, a/c, auto door locks 2.8 v6. drove the heck out of it very nice Chevy. The back was incredible. Pull the rear cover put it behind the front seats. flip up fold down the rear seats. we had a large flat. Rear cargo space the v6 had plenty. Of power to go, and we did. actually, one of the few chevys I liked to drive. Very few problems carb, air pump, front seal, rack and pinion made a crunching noise tightened the holding bolts. Hushed it right up. All in all, a good car until a drunk rounded a corner. Hit it caved in the side and deposit it on the curb. Sad day couldn't find another that nice. Ended up with a Mercury Sable LS all the bells an whistles
My parents had one. They got a base model with an automatic. That was about all it had in the way of extras. Was a ok reliable car. I was rooming and the folding back seats was excellent. Lots of space. I call it a GM 95% car. If GM had only put in the last 5% it would have been a great car.
My grandfather rented a 1982 citation for a trip to boston from chicago and back and for weeks never stopped bragging how well the car rode and drived !
I had a Citation X for a short while, about 20 years ago. I called it a 4-4-2 due to it having four cylinders, four gears (a manual) and two doors. The 4th gear was really tall, almost comically so.
Almost forgot about the hood. Made getting at the Iron Duke's distributor much easier and we even pulled the engines without removing the hood. Split cradle for pulling the 125 out quick. Ha. Nice selling feature.
The Citation pictured here is the same color combo my parents had picked out when they decided to purchase one in 1980? Then they seen a Citation in a color called Claret, if I remember correctly? And that’s what they got. Their Citation was a 4-door, V6 4speed, with the optional gauge cluster with a tachometer. It was fun to drive. Unfortunately, as we all know, it had many problems. They did however keep it until 1998, and almost 200,000 miles.
I distinctly remember GM actually had a commerical where a folding garage for the car was carried in the hatch area. Citation drove up - man got out - assembled the stored folded garage and then park it that garage! I think the may have had plans available to make one! All this to demonstrate the storage capacity of the Citation. Some feature.
Very familiar with these cars haven driven the Olds variant when new. I recall the cruise control was on a separate stalk that all it had was a button on the end to activate the actual speed holding, thing. The controls for the cruise were on the dash. Never saw any car with that button on the gear selector. Memory fuzzy but I am pretty sure. Love the channel Adam!
I owned one. Got great milage. Great service, especially compared to any foreign imports, Japanese or otherwise. I became tired of people complementing me on the beautiful color scheme and quiet roominess. I feel sorry for those who somehow brought a lemon(every company has them). I had offers to buy my 1980 Citation a few times. I even used it as a cab in Chicago for a while! What a magnificent automobile - I loved it!
Wow! I totally missed the split subframe! And I would have liked to have had that prop rod. What I do remember was that initially the water pump needed the pulley removed with a special tool (power steering pulley puller) to gain access to all of its mounting bolts. Eventually the aftermarket (Napa) started selling replacement pumps with the pulley preinstalled with the one bolt that couldn't be removed with the pulley in place. Also the struts couldn't be rebuilt using the most commonly available spring compressor tools. Both of these are examples of taking relatively simple repairs out of the hands of us shade tree mechanics. Don't even get me started on the GM J car platform.
The water pump was fairly simple to replace on the V6 but some of the bolts also went through the timing chain cover,unless you put a special clamp on before taking out those bolts you would probably end up with a leaking timing chain cover.
I had a 81 Citation with the 4 cylinder / automatic. Overall a good car, but had trouble with the throttle body injection initially. It would vapor lock when sitting in traffic on a hot day. The dealer ended up replacing it (basically a carburator with an injector on top). That and the chrome on the grill peeled off after one winter in the road salty PA weather. The dealer replaced that out of good will. It gave 30+ mpg on the highway, and had loads of room for a growing family.
My dad had a '81 Citation for about nine years.... No major problems, just the usual crack on the dashboard where the sun would heat it and dry it out. They drove it to Florida several times when my brother lived down there, and he also used it to deliver newspapers for a couple years. Not a bad car really; maybe the 81s were improved over the 1980 models. It was a 4-cylinder, and believe it or not it actually seemed fast; fast that is compared to the car I had at the time, a six-cylinder Nova.
What I liked about the citations and x cars in general is they really did try some unique features and new ways of doing things, such as the dash layout, radio placement, etc. Really was a major change in the way gm laid out cars. It was the perfect idea, just not fully sorted thru before production Just look how roomy, open, and airy that interior feels compared to today's cars with their huge dashes, and coffin sized consoles, with the driver down in a little hole. If they still made a car like this, assuming the engineering gremlins were fixed, I would buy one
Knew a guy who had a 1980 coupe version with the V6 and automatic. He inherited it from his mom when she passed on. It seemed like an ok car for back then. I don't recall he had any problems with it.
My wife and I had the Pontiac Phoenix version with the 2.8 and loved it. Our first FWD, economical, ran good, drove fine and no major repairs. I'd buy another if I could find one.
Old friend of mine was a sales manager at a Chevy dealer back then, he told me that people would chase the transport trucks and want buy them right then. He also told there was at least a 6 month waiting list to get one and the base price was just over $3K. People could afford them. I've driven ones with the V6 and manual trans, they ran good. The one's with the 4cyl and auto were to say the least "gutless wonders" but still got fair mileage. I call them one the first of the "bic cars" just throw them away when your done with them. They were cheap and abundant. Kinda like modern Kia Rio's.
I had a 1980, V6 4 speed. It was a wonderful car for its time, roomy and peppy, far and above other cars when it came to driving in New England winters. Unfortunately by 1985 both front floors had rusted away to the point "borrowed" No Parking signs slipped beneath the carpets were a necessity, also both the A pillars and windshield header became perforated with rust.
My dad had an '80 Citation way back when. Silver 2-door, V6, red plastic interior, patterns in the seats that would leave patterns in one's shorts-adorned legs in the summertime.
My grandmother traded in her '72 Torino for an '80 Citation. She liked it so much that she traded the Citation in for an '87 Cavalier when the Citation got to be a little long in the tooth. She had the Cavalier all the way into the mid '00's, it was her last car
This was one of my drivers Ed cars. They replaced the Impala wagons with the all new citation. I was excited to be one of the first drive a front wheel drive, transverse mounted engine car in the summer of 1979. The one quirky feature on the interior you forgot to mention that I remember was the inability of the rear windows to roll down on four door models, the first car I had ever seen that done.
The best part of that last commercial is when they pull a boat without the rear wheels on the car. Did they think that people wouldn't really believe it was front wheel drive without showing that? Lol
The '80 Citation was my first ever new car. I had the X-11 with the 4 cylinder and 4 speed. It was fun and had loads of room for my family of four. Not perfect but not bad either.
My sister had a blue 5-door 1980 like the first blue one in the video. Her's had the 2.5 automatic. Great car, only trouble was in the winter when very cold, that E2SE carburetor choke could be very finicky and temperamental. A few times I had to drive 14 miles to her apartment to get it started. I later had an '80, 3-door coupe with the 273 V6, 4 speed and F41 suspension with the wider 13" wheels. Mine was essentially an X-11 model, without the X-11 decal package. Great car, that wound up being driven to the scrap yard at 260,000 original miles, body shot, engine still running on all 6, but burning oil by then.
Two of my friends bought Citations the year they came out. Nothing but headaches. I would smile and wave as I drove by in my newly introduced Accord 4 dr.
The major concerns that i experienced with the 1980 Chevy Citation were as follows: [This is a long exposé so skip if you're not interested.] People often do not get specific enough regarding these cars and their concerns, especially when first introduced, so I will, since I purchased one new (a hatchback) for the 1980 model year which was extended for the 1980 Citation and started far before the typical late Summer-Early Fall September introductions. I ordered it and received the vehicle in December 1980 from a metro-Detroit Chevy dealer. these were the concerns as i experienced them firsthand: It had white exterior with a black interior in the velour type upholstery which was the upgrade for that car. It also had an attractive striping on the seats and most people thought it was attractive. On the outside of the 1980 X11 was a very wide black exterior tape stripe on the side which was part of the X11 performance handling package. The X11 package came with wider tires (P207/70 Raised White letter tires), & sporty painted medium grey wheels with a plastic "chrome" trim ring which was an inexpensive way to offer a good looking wheel for very little $$. The X11 also had sporty shocks and an all around firmer suspension which included stiffer stabilizer bars as I recall. However the X11 could be ordered with the basic Iron Duke 4 cylinder engine so I instead ordered the 2.8 liter V6 which was rated at 110hp. Although it states here in the video that it was not especially sporty, what was in 1980?--In fact that V6 was quite smooth, & for the time reasonably powerful & did in fact allow this hatchback to walk quite a few hatchback econo-boxes when equipped like I had it, with the 4 speed manual with the standard overdrive & no air conditioning. (For 1981 in fact, the 135 hp V6 HO came out in the X11 package, and really made it accelerate well for the time) I ordered the instrument package but I did not order the tachometer and instead installed an Autometer tach on the steering column. Here are the concerns: Poor Workmanship & parts quality. These cars were assembled & finished poorly even by the standards of the day. Since they were so popular it resulted in GM moving the vehicles down the line even with obvious final assembly flaws. The worst I experienced was really poor paint with a lot of orange peel on the rear quarter panels. The dealer agreed and solved this by painting directly over the orange peel without any preparation at all resulting in paint quickly flaking off the vehicle. Within one year I was sanding & shooting the car with spray paint trying to resolve these issues. It really should have been professionally repainted... Thankfully I had the vehicle Ziebarted so it held off the rust at least from the inside (these are days before most cars had any significant amounts of galvanized metal so in the northern snow and salt on the roads it was necessary if you wanted to keep your car decent). Besides the paint, the car had a really chap plastic plastic surround around the radio. This quickly cracked when I went to replace the radio with a better unit (this is the days when upgrading car radios was common since the standard stereos were pretty poor). I then noticed that the front center vent in the dash which worked great for cool air, could be simply pulled out with your fingers! Then one day when driving to work the valance panel closest to your knees simply fell down while I was driving! This sounds bad enough but it pinned the gas pedal to the floor about as perfectly as you could imagine causing the engine to rev to red line as I pushed in the clutch and turned off the engine and coasted into a close by gas station. Now the stereo man might have not reattached the panel properly when he installed the new stereo, but if you saw the plastic attachment push in plugs used to hold it up, you could see that this component & its attachment plugs were flimsy! This brings up the radio. I liked the look of the sideways radio head, BUT this location caused problems with the cassette tape player which was designed for a horizontal environment! I even recall seeing ads for new stereo units which would play tapes when located in a vertical position! Next the rear hatch struts that hold it open, failed. They failed so much that a hidden recall was launched (where the dealer would replace them only if the owner made noise about it!!). I did make noise and the Chevy dealer replaced them! Then after about 20,000 miles the pulse air emission control units attached to the exhaust, started to rot out. The dealer replaced these under warranty as i recall. And then they went out again within two years & the dealer wanted hundreds to replace these units! I thought this was ridiculous so I tried to cap off the units. Guess what?--The threads GM used for these units were not SAE nor were they metric!! I went to pipe fitters and they said they never saw such threads! So I jammed in the closest fitting SAE nuts with broken off bolts in them to stop the leaking exhaust! Then the oil pump failed and seized up so badly that it broke the distributor gear! And this took place after Mr Fanatical Oil Changer man had changed the oil/filter at regular intervals using appropriate oil, far exceeding the manufacturer's standards. But there were other concerns. As ordered it with the best seats I could I was surprised that my young body was getting back aches with short drives or long drives! So I had to buy a lot of washers to lift up tilt the front of the driver's bucket seat so it could tilt back a lot more, and I am only 5'9!" this simple adjustment fixed the problem but GM had to know about these seats!! I never experienced anything like that before. Then I began to experience torn and leaking constant velocity joints which were located in the front suspension. They started leaking twice within 70,000 miles making that clicking sound that some of you have experienced before on front drive cars when the boots start to fail. I believe that in the early 80s GM was at its worst...But this wasn't my worst car owned. (The worst of all was a 1987 Plymouth Horizon (which made this Citation look like a dream) that was awful even after the Horizon was on the market for years proving that the Chrysler corporation refused to resolve quality issues years after they had emerged!)
I wonder if you experienced that famous steering wheel lock on hard acceleration in turn in your X11. I know mine could scare the heck out of me. I quickly learned to have a heavy foot while turning. I replace the X11 with a much better used Porsche 924. Only to wish I had waited for the 944 model.
I have a few more comments regarding what I previously wrote about my 1980 Chevy Citation X11 below. One involved the very wide side tape stripe that came with the package. Within a year or so the tape stripe was getting dinged up and looking poor so I removed it and thought I would purchase another one. Since it was made of sticky black tape i foolishly thought it would cost perhaps $25 in 1982. But the dealer said the charge was $595 not including application which was another $60. Using an inflation calculator this would be $2,392.50 in 2022! This was GM! A company that worked to pee off owners of their vehicles. Regarding the valance panel under the knees that fell of and pinned the gas pedal to the floor, I want to impart to you how dangerous this was with the engine revving to red line! Without quick thinking and a clutch, and shutting off the engine (without turning it all the way off so i could still steer!), the average driver would be in shock. As i said originally I pushed in the clutch pedal to release first gear (I was in first gear pulling out of the drive at work), when the panel fell down. You might think --"How could it pin the gas pedal to the floor?!". What occurred was that the panel push pin supports fell off all at the edge near the gas pedal while the supports near my knee still held, causing it to act like a large stiff plastic panel hinging downward while still being partly in place, and pin the pedal perfectly! It was so shocking that i called NHTSA and made out a report. They politely said they would look into it but nothing occurred that I know of. I also recall, if my memory is serving me, that there were six hidden recalls on the vehicle in its first year. Again, those are recalls where the dealer will resolve the issue ONLY if the customer complains. The dealer knew about this but refused to replace my rear hatch supports that were on recall until I flat out told the service manager about this, and he agreed to replace them.
Reminds me of a '92 Mercury Topaz I rented. The power seat controls were literally right under the driver's right knee, something I've never seen on any other car. If you sunk far enough into the seat, it started moving forward and started to crush you the way a trash compactor would . I wonder how many drivers were caught by surprise with that "feature" and how many crashed.
Still waiting for the "cool" part... My Dad briefly owned an '83 V6 four door sedan. It was bought used at only two years old for dirt cheap, because it was a industrial salesman's car, and was high mileage and absolutely filthy. We tore apart the interior, steam-cleaned everything, Dad resprayed the lower body making it a two tone car, silver and charcoal with a red pinstripe, added fresh thin line whitewall tires with cheesy parts store fake wire wheel covers. He sold it shortly thereafter and made an almost $6,000 profit, big money at the time. The next owner drove it for at least the next 15 years and apparently liked it enough to replace the engine when it eventually died...
I’ve done multiple repairs on the more than 10 X-cars i’ve owned and the split cradle/subframe stand out, no need to disassemble any suspension parts to remove the transmission. The feature was continued on other GM platform such as the H-body..
I worked at Potamkin Chevrolet in philly when these cars came out.they were ahead of their time.when they were new they were very nice you have to consider the time
In 1980 my grandfather purchased a1980 model used. The original owner had it just a few months. It was a 6 cyl 4 spd. One day my grandfather told me is selling it. The car turned around on him while braking . Scared him pretty bad . Sold or traded it for a 81 Accord.
Rear drum brakes were awful, would lock up if you sneezed. Several reasons recalls on them with only marginal improvement . Early models were just plain dangerous when it came to braking in wet conditions.
6:24 I wonder if this description was followed up with a warning against using the Dealer-issue prop-rod outdoors. Prop-rods were always a bit nerve wracking in the wind, but that little thing looks as if it would pop right out if a gust of wind blew the hood further back.
My dad had a 1981 Citation. It had army green paint on the outside and beige colored interior. The problem with it was one of the windows broke and you can't roll it up and down. The AC went out on it. There was no problem with the engine, transmission and brakes. It did get good gas mileage and it was roomy.
When I was in high school (1990) we had three Ford Crown Victoria's and one 1979 Chevrolet Citation, in the driver's education program. The six girls in the class drove the automatic Fords and me and my friend James drove the 4 speed 💩tation....which was missing 1st and 3rd gears....needless to say, we had a great time driving that thing 😂🤣
When I was younger my Mom and Dad had the Pontiac version. Very nice car with hatchback. Very good gas mileage and nice ride. When they bought a new car I got this car. Lasted forever. I should have put knew engine in it. Probably still have it
We had one, white with red interior. 79 or 80 right off the lot. My pops traded in my mom's 76 Buick LeSabre. Let's just say the scar tissue on this has never healed. It has the distinction of being absolutely hated by every one of us to include the dog. Last GM ever purchased by our family.
I bought a 1981 or 82 (don't remember for sure) for my first brand new car. I didn't have high expectations which may be why I liked it so well. Given the times with high inflation, gas prices and interest rates, it was obvious that this was the new direction for automobiles. The car was very comfortable, reliable and got very good gas mileage. I never had any mechanical issues but I did trade it in with fairly low mileage. Besides, what was l supposed to do, buy one of those cheep looking and unproven foreign jobs like Toyota or Honda...Yeah, those were sure to be a flash-in-the-pan!!!
I had a 1980 2 door hatchback with v6 and 4 speed. (I got it for Free) the power steering had been disconnected, the water pump was held together by JB weld, half the fins were corroded off the radiator and the overheat light was on most of the time, but it lasted for years like that and got good mileage.
Imagine what the automotive landscape looks like today had these been built with just average reliability for the times. 800k relatively satisfied customers, GM might still have serious market share.
My friend in high school in the early mid '80s, his family had a brown four door with an automatic, but I don't remember if it was a 2.8 or not. Anyway, he hooked an FM converter up to the sideways AM radio in the dash. A good thing to do. But that wasn't enough, so he went ahead and connected an 80 watt power booster up to the AM radio's single channel, and put speakers in the rear, and it sounded like crap!
Having watched the video, I now understand why I was not able to order cruise control on my 1980 Skylark with the 4-speed manual transmission. Fortunately, my dealership fitted cruise control to the car before I took delivery, and it always worked perfectly. . . . And, yes, I pulled the parking brake handle right through the plastic dashboard, necessitating replacement.
In that era, the vast majority of cars required an automatic transmission in order to install cruise control. It wasn’t just an X-body thing. I think it was mostly that the manufacturers considered manual-transmission customers to be too cheap to want cruise; also it might have been assumed that people wouldn’t know if it needed downshifting due to a hill climb. My first new car was in 1985, and the concept of the factory putting cruise control on a manual-trans car was just getting started then, on the more “sporty” cars of the time.
@@kc9scott I still think the idea of cruise control with a manual transmission is weird. With an automatic, you often feel it shifting up and down on either side of a hill; with a manual, wouldn't you have to reset the cruise control with each shift?
@@pcno2832 Yes, you would. The “resume” button works great for that. Needing to shift for hills is a pretty rare occurrence if your engine has adequate power (i.e. post-malaise era). All of my “good” cars have been manual with cruise.
That boat towing video (minus rear tires) was very memorable 👌.
We need more euphoric singing in today's ads!
I’m wondering if anyone actually noticed the Citation towing the boat with NO REAR WHEELS! Neat parlor trick!
I remember going to the Detroit Auto show as a kid to see it in 1980. It looked so futuristic! Damn, I'm old, LOL!
Was Service Manager at the local Pontiac dealership when GM introduced the X bodies which included the Pontiac Phoenix. We couldn't deliver them until we completed 13 recalls. They ended up being a kinda of decent car after several years but not the kind of product GM had built in years prior to the 1980's. It was a challenging time to work in a GM service department!
I believe whole heartedly…Had one of these with only 40,000 miles on it and it was a major 🍋!
As a Millenial I am totally fascinated by cars of this era... My first car was a 99 Taurus 24v... pretty far advanced from this but the beginnings of transverse really intrigue me. I'm pretty sure that Taurus is still driving around somewhere if they're going easy on the trans... There is a 78 Granada sitting in my neighbor's yard that I so badly want to buy and enter into the Gambler 500 here in Oregon...
Too much too fast. They clattered and clanked with all that plastic Revell model interior. The drivetrain made noises not found in nature.
This is an interesting comment to me because I had a friend who attended a vocational school. They brought in some X cars before they were introduced to show them to the students. He told me a very similar story to what you mentioned here - there were several fixes to be made before delivery.
The Chevy Vegas of the 1970s were a nightmare. Something about the quality of the metal that was used in the engines.
My mother's elderly brother bought one of these when they first came out--a two tone blue four door. It thanked him for his meticulous care by being the most unreliable, worst-assembled car he'd owned in his life. Last GM he ever bought. Great idea, underdeveloped.
‘My mother’s elderly brother’, most of us would just say ‘my uncle’
yeah i often think fondly about the 80s GM cars i grew up with and later owned, but in reality most were horrible. My last GM was an 89 S15 GMC Jimmy i owned back in the early 2000s. I miss it now, but when i owned it, it left me stranded a few times, and had its fair share of issues.
I think he would be your uncle
GM's slogan for the '80s could have easily been "Great Ideas, Poorly Executed".
I've heard of similar experiences with these Citations.
That split cradle is pretty clever.
The hatchback made for great rear access & with the seat down a lot of cargo room! I had a 1980 V6, deluxe interior w/power locks & gauges. Kinda wish I had kept it!
The X11 version was fun to drive, my girlfriend had one. I also replaced the clutch on it without the special tools.
"...fits into 3/4 of a parking space." Then they shrank the size of parking spaces.
Something younger viewers will have never seen. "Compact Parking Only" zones in parking lots. Or grandma trying to squeeze her Electra 225 into one and ending up taking up three spaces because no one could park on either side.
@@christopherconard2831 I had a 65 Electra 225 and that was sooo true.
Another wonderful example of "social engineering".
In the winter of ‘79/80 my dad purchased a new 5 door Citation off the showroom floor of Ruby Chevrolet in Downtown Milwaukee Wi. By sheer luck it was a V6 automatic, which proved to be a very reliable, fast and great car. People would ask questions about the car everywhere my dad stopped. I took my drivers test in it in ‘84 and passed. Huge interior space always made me think of it as an American Saab 900. His next car was one of the first ‘86 Ford Taurus’s in town. That car also caused a stir everywhere we drove.
My Dad got his a in April if 1979. So it was the first one I saw on the road. I don’t remember anyone giving a shit, and it was embarrassing to be seen in.
Man, that must've been fun, having a dad that hadn't lost the excitement of being one of the first to have the latest cool car beaten out of him by dad stuff. Everything both my parents drove was dull, dull, dull.
@@drippinglassfunny you should say that, my grandma owned a citation in the mid 90’s, in Milwaukee, and my mom has the exact same to say regarding the car. Drove like shit, but offered an otherwise unforgettable name.
I had that exact white and red car and I loved it it was one of the best cars I ever had.
I was a salaried technician for GM for 5 years, in the 80s... They always had great designs, with good, innovative ideas, that in their rush to be the first in the showroom, would release them with poor quality control, and under developed mechanicals, resulting in junk on the hiway. They wanted the public to be their laboratory, and by the time the car was debugged, its reputation was shot! They never figured this out... This was the 1980 version of the 1972 Vega. This is what happens when you have bean counters running a car company, instead of car guys...😏
A friend of mine had a J body car…. to replace the oil filter, the motor mounts had to be unbolted, and the engine moved with a lift…. of course could be done only at the dealer…. This cars all died at 60-70000 miles…. there’s nothing good you can say about them…
We had a 1980 Oldsmobile Omega Brougham dark blue, V6, with cushy pillow seats. Very comfortable ride and roomy. I think the radio was mounted conventionally. No problems during the three year lease other than replacing the steering rack. Wish we still had that car.
This video brought back many memories. I was a new mechanic at a dealer in Canada back in 1980. If I'm remembering correctly there was a campaign out on these vehicles while they were in storage waiting for delivery. They were quite the vehicle.
So the Citation's hood could be put into a "service position"? Neat.
And I remember that advertisement with the Citation towing the boat with its rear wheels removed!
One of the first cars I drove as a kid was a 1980 Citation. 2.5L 4 speed manual that looked exactly like the one at the beginning of the video. One cool feature it had that I didn't discover for months is on the roof right above the B pillar on each side was a lever you could rotate to open the rear quarter windows.
The car came factory equipped with the right rear wheel locking up under anything more than slow braking and a rack and pinion that didn't like to power assist much when cold.
I had one in high school and constantly had to replace the front tires
The first car I purchased immediately after my 16th birthday was a used 1980 Chevy Citation 2 door hatchback with the 4 speed manual transmission. The car had obviously been in a previous accident and had several issues I discovered after buying. It was that popular gold color and the paint was completely mismatched. It backfired after each gear shift because of a leak in the exhaust system. You had to leave the gas cap loose after filling it up or it would vapor lock and stall. It had the amber turn signals in the rear and they lit up when you stepped on the brake. It was still a car I remember fondly and learned a lot from.
Back in the mid eighties my neighbor bought a Citation, she was a glutton for punishment because she helped her daughter buy one a year later!!! About 2 years later she traded it in for a Toyota!!! Thanks for sharing another fun video!!! 🎄⛄🤶
Thank you Adam for a trip back to 1979. I had just started in parts at a Chevy store when the Citation came out. At that time manual transmission models were rare. The model I test drove shifted hard. Turns out there was no fluid in the transaxle. Between Citation issues
and the Diesel engines in pickups they kept us busy during the downturn.
Oh!, yes the infamous 5.7 N Olds engine! Ours blew 3 head gaskets! Finally the dealer where my poor mother had bought it new put me to work in the parts dept. as I was able to find parts for it they could not! They had several others that needed repairs under warranty.
I loved to find them blown up for cheap and swap in a 350 rocket from an old cutlass or something what a major upgrade and it was a fun vehicle to drive then
If these would have been better built they would have been more popular. I knew two people that bought them new and both had stories that left me thinking " but isn't it a new car?"
My sister was "gifted" one of these around 1990. It was in showroom condition...but it was still a Chevy "Mutation" One day she was rear-ended by a city bus in Los Angeles, and it was destroyed. We still talk about it being the luckiest day of her life getting far too much settlement money for that awful car.
*given
I learned to drive on one of these, 4 speed manual, along with a red Dodge K-car wagon, also 4-speed manual. Those were our family cars back in the early 80s.
A guy I knew that I used to carpool to work with had one of these. His was a 1980 with a four cylinder with a four speed. Could not get over how much leg room that car had especially in the front passenger seat.
"Chevy Citaaaation!" I remember those TV ads well when I was in high school. That outro has a similar memorable ring to it as the ad outro "Byyyy Mennen!" Seinfeld reminded us of the latter line.
Interesting vehicle, I had a 1982 model, it was my first car in America and I loved it.
The 1981 Citation was my driver’s Ed car. I remember all the students spreading fearful stories about the engines and transaxles falling out of these cars during the first model year. Honestly, this happened to one of my family members so the fear was very real for me! After driving the car twice a week for my class, I found the 1981 to be a comfortable and economical car with reasonable performance. My teacher was a WW II vet and I remember we students felt like we were driving “the future.”
Yep, we also had Citations for Driver's Ed in 1980. I recall everyone thought they were rather hideous, and figured we would hate them. But actually they drove surprisingly decent and worked well for this function... I was surprised. I do know they didn't keep them around more than a couple years, however... Reliability issues, as I recall.
Split cradle was a great idea!
Thanks for the final commercial, I remember that Chevy CITATION sing at the end, but have not heard in so many years! They would never show an ad like that boat towing today, but dont try that yourself! Of course, I got to chime in and say we had one. We had a 77 Nova (which I still have!), and told the salesman. He said if you like that car, you will reallly like this Citation. Yes, it was better, but guess what? The Citation transmission went out,and my dad didnt want to pay to repair, and sold it. We still kept driving that Nova with the 350 trans, which was why that car lasted and the first model year car did not. Neverbuy first model car, it's so true, let them get the bugs out.
The split cradle is wild. 😲
My first official car was the Citation II. 4 door hatchback and never really had any issues with it and it did get great mileage. Wish I still had it. Thanks for the video!
$11.99 a month for UA-cam Premium and Adam has me watching commercials again.....Lol.
Another great video on oftentimes forgotten subject matter.
My first new car was a 1980 Chevy Citation. I loved it.
My 1985 Citation 2 has been in my family since the day it was purchased off the lot. It’s my daily driver. The mileage counter has rolled over 2 times.
I LOVE MY IRON DUKE!!!
Ride on :D
That's impressive. Your family sure has gotten its money's worth out of that car!
I had a 1980 with the four cylinder 4 speed and loved it. I drove it 60 miles in a snowstorm with questionable tires and the only issue is that snow would build up on the alternator. I actually pulled another Citation (same color and body style) :D home with it to some amused looks from the people that saw it happen. When I let it go, my brother's father in law bought it and pulled his boat to the river several times a week. I actually moved in it once, and while I didn't have a lot of furniture it did only take one trip.
There was the urban legend going around about the lawsuit some owner filed after they wrecked their Citation while towing their boat with the rear wheels removed as in the final Advert!
You brought back memories! I bought one of the 1980 models, used in '85. It was the two-tone gold and brown. Fully loaded ( I'm surprised someone optioned the car out so fully and paid so much for it new. It even had CB radio phone& moonroof) I paid only $2,200 for it. We had an expensive English and German car at the time (S- class & Rolls) and wanted a non-assuming cheap car that could be used for grocery getting, and parking in more dangerous lots w/out worry.
This poor Citation was disintegrating before our eyes!
While the V6 engine gave hot performance,, the torque steer was tremendous. The power steering when cold had all these dead spots& stops in it, hard to tell what you were doing! The door panels on the inside were disintegrating and rubbed off in your hands. The car rattled like a tin can.
It then kept breaking down so much, I just had it towed to the junk yard. I had to pay them as they had so many of them that it had no junk value.... But it serve the purpose that I wanted it for..for about 3 years. Then I bought a Mercury Topaz, which was a very good car. Anyway, sorry I dragged you all down memory lane, but thanks for the memories! -Greg in California
A friend’s girlfriend had a 1982 Citation. It needed a water plump replacement. We did it on curbside. It took 7 hours because of the lack of clearance between the suspension tower and the pulley bolts. An open end wrench, a quarter-turn at a time, for each bolt on the pulley. It was even more fun putting the pulley back on. . .
Memories 🤪
Wonderful ad song for the Chevy Cita---tion!
we had an 82-auto trans, real bucket seats, center console w/ shifter, a/c, auto door locks 2.8 v6. drove the heck out of it very nice Chevy. The back was incredible. Pull the rear cover put it behind the front seats. flip up fold down the rear seats. we had a large flat. Rear cargo space the v6 had plenty. Of power to go, and we did. actually, one of the few chevys I liked to drive. Very few problems carb, air pump, front seal, rack and pinion made a crunching noise tightened the holding bolts. Hushed it right up. All in all, a good car until a drunk rounded a corner. Hit it caved in the side and deposit it on the curb. Sad day couldn't find another that nice. Ended up with a Mercury Sable LS all the bells an whistles
My parents had one. They got a base model with an automatic. That was about all it had in the way of extras. Was a ok reliable car. I was rooming and the folding back seats was excellent. Lots of space. I call it a GM 95% car. If GM had only put in the last 5% it would have been a great car.
My grandfather rented a 1982 citation for a trip to boston from chicago and back and for weeks never stopped bragging how well the car rode and drived !
I had a Citation X for a short while, about 20 years ago. I called it a 4-4-2 due to it having four cylinders, four gears (a manual) and two doors. The 4th gear was really tall, almost comically so.
Almost forgot about the hood. Made getting at the Iron Duke's distributor much easier and we even pulled the engines without removing the hood.
Split cradle for pulling the 125 out quick. Ha. Nice selling feature.
The Citation pictured here is the same color combo my parents had picked out when they decided to purchase one in 1980? Then they seen a Citation in a color called Claret, if I remember correctly? And that’s what they got. Their Citation was a 4-door, V6 4speed, with the optional gauge cluster with a tachometer. It was fun to drive. Unfortunately, as we all know, it had many problems. They did however keep it until 1998, and almost 200,000 miles.
That V6 could really move too!
I distinctly remember GM actually had a commerical where a folding garage for the car was carried in the hatch area. Citation drove up - man got out - assembled the stored folded garage and then park it that garage! I think the may have had plans available to make one!
All this to demonstrate the storage capacity of the Citation. Some feature.
Very familiar with these cars haven driven the Olds variant when new. I recall the cruise control was on a separate stalk that all it had was a button on the end to activate the actual speed holding, thing. The controls for the cruise were on the dash. Never saw any car with that button on the gear selector. Memory fuzzy but I am pretty sure. Love the channel Adam!
I owned one. Got great milage. Great service, especially compared to any foreign imports, Japanese or otherwise. I became tired of people complementing me on the beautiful color scheme and quiet roominess. I feel sorry for those who somehow brought a lemon(every company has them). I had offers to buy my 1980 Citation a few times. I even used it as a cab in Chicago for a while! What a magnificent automobile - I loved it!
A gift to the Japanese auto makers.
Agreed…. My dad bought a 1980…it was the last American made car he ever bought. What a POS!
Wow! I totally missed the split subframe! And I would have liked to have had that prop rod. What I do remember was that initially the water pump needed the pulley removed with a special tool (power steering pulley puller) to gain access to all of its mounting bolts. Eventually the aftermarket (Napa) started selling replacement pumps with the pulley preinstalled with the one bolt that couldn't be removed with the pulley in place. Also the struts couldn't be rebuilt using the most commonly available spring compressor tools. Both of these are examples of taking relatively simple repairs out of the hands of us shade tree mechanics. Don't even get me started on the GM J car platform.
The water pump was fairly simple to replace on the V6 but some of the bolts also went through the timing chain cover,unless you put a special clamp on before taking out those bolts you would probably end up with a leaking timing chain cover.
I had a 81 Citation with the 4 cylinder / automatic. Overall a good car, but had trouble with the throttle body injection initially. It would vapor lock when sitting in traffic on a hot day. The dealer ended up replacing it (basically a carburator with an injector on top). That and the chrome on the grill peeled off after one winter in the road salty PA weather. The dealer replaced that out of good will. It gave 30+ mpg on the highway, and had loads of room for a growing family.
My dad had a '81 Citation for about nine years.... No major problems, just the usual crack on the dashboard where the sun would heat it and dry it out. They drove it to Florida several times when my brother lived down there, and he also used it to deliver newspapers for a couple years. Not a bad car really; maybe the 81s were improved over the 1980 models. It was a 4-cylinder, and believe it or not it actually seemed fast; fast that is compared to the car I had at the time, a six-cylinder Nova.
Oldsmobile had a washer button built into the column shifter on some early 70's cars, Buick might have had it too.
What I liked about the citations and x cars in general is they really did try some unique features and new ways of doing things, such as the dash layout, radio placement, etc. Really was a major change in the way gm laid out cars. It was the perfect idea, just not fully sorted thru before production
Just look how roomy, open, and airy that interior feels compared to today's cars with their huge dashes, and coffin sized consoles, with the driver down in a little hole.
If they still made a car like this, assuming the engineering gremlins were fixed, I would buy one
Knew a guy who had a 1980 coupe version with the V6 and automatic. He inherited it from his mom when she passed on. It seemed like an ok car for back then. I don't recall he had any problems with it.
My wife and I had the Pontiac Phoenix version with the 2.8 and loved it. Our first FWD, economical, ran good, drove fine and no major repairs. I'd buy another if I could find one.
Those vehicles bodies had major rust issues though in just a few years.
One of these restored - fixing some issues would probably be better than it was new.
Know anyone who could restore one?
Old friend of mine was a sales manager at a Chevy dealer back then, he told me that people would chase the transport trucks and want buy them right then. He also told there was at least a 6 month waiting list to get one and the base price was just over $3K. People could afford them. I've driven ones with the V6 and manual trans, they ran good. The one's with the 4cyl and auto were to say the least "gutless wonders" but still got fair mileage. I call them one the first of the "bic cars" just throw them away when your done with them. They were cheap and abundant. Kinda like modern Kia Rio's.
I had a 1980, V6 4 speed. It was a wonderful car for its time, roomy and peppy, far and above other cars when it came to driving in New England winters. Unfortunately by 1985 both front floors had rusted away to the point "borrowed" No Parking signs slipped beneath the carpets were a necessity, also both the A pillars and windshield header became perforated with rust.
My dad had an '80 Citation way back when. Silver 2-door, V6, red plastic interior, patterns in the seats that would leave patterns in one's shorts-adorned legs in the summertime.
My grandmother traded in her '72 Torino for an '80 Citation. She liked it so much that she traded the Citation in for an '87 Cavalier when the Citation got to be a little long in the tooth. She had the Cavalier all the way into the mid '00's, it was her last car
This was one of my drivers Ed cars. They replaced the Impala wagons with the all new citation. I was excited to be one of the first drive a front wheel drive, transverse mounted engine car in the summer of 1979. The one quirky feature on the interior you forgot to mention that I remember was the inability of the rear windows to roll down on four door models, the first car I had ever seen that done.
In fact, one Chevy Citation commercial featured the car connected to the front bumper, holding it in place.
My 2019 Ford Fiesta has rear windows that cannot roll down all the way.
@@1L6E6VHF the citation rear windows didn't roll down at all...no crank on the door panel
There is a guy in the town I live in that still daily drives his white citation. It's like watching a unicorn.
Prob me 😂
The best part of that last commercial is when they pull a boat without the rear wheels on the car. Did they think that people wouldn't really believe it was front wheel drive without showing that? Lol
The '80 Citation was my first ever new car. I had the X-11 with the 4 cylinder and 4 speed. It was fun and had loads of room for my family of four. Not perfect but not bad either.
Driving the Citation without back wheels is a compelling reason to own a boat! 😆
My sister had a blue 5-door 1980 like the first blue one in the video. Her's had the 2.5 automatic. Great car, only trouble was in the winter when very cold, that E2SE carburetor choke could be very finicky and temperamental. A few times I had to drive 14 miles to her apartment to get it started. I later had an '80, 3-door coupe with the 273 V6, 4 speed and F41 suspension with the wider 13" wheels. Mine was essentially an X-11 model, without the X-11 decal package. Great car, that wound up being driven to the scrap yard at 260,000 original miles, body shot, engine still running on all 6, but burning oil by then.
Two of my friends bought Citations the year they came out. Nothing but headaches. I would smile and wave as I drove by in my newly introduced Accord 4 dr.
Had a 81. Loved it needed clutch and brakes at 90,000 miles. Not bad for a mountain car.
The major concerns that i experienced with the 1980 Chevy Citation were as follows: [This is a long exposé so skip if you're not interested.] People often do not get specific enough regarding these cars and their concerns, especially when first introduced, so I will, since I purchased one new (a hatchback) for the 1980 model year which was extended for the 1980 Citation and started far before the typical late Summer-Early Fall September introductions. I ordered it and received the vehicle in December 1980 from a metro-Detroit Chevy dealer. these were the concerns as i experienced them firsthand: It had white exterior with a black interior in the velour type upholstery which was the upgrade for that car. It also had an attractive striping on the seats and most people thought it was attractive. On the outside of the 1980 X11 was a very wide black exterior tape stripe on the side which was part of the X11 performance handling package. The X11 package came with wider tires (P207/70 Raised White letter tires), & sporty painted medium grey wheels with a plastic "chrome" trim ring which was an inexpensive way to offer a good looking wheel for very little $$. The X11 also had sporty shocks and an all around firmer suspension which included stiffer stabilizer bars as I recall. However the X11 could be ordered with the basic Iron Duke 4 cylinder engine so I instead ordered the 2.8 liter V6 which was rated at 110hp. Although it states here in the video that it was not especially sporty, what was in 1980?--In fact that V6 was quite smooth, & for the time reasonably powerful & did in fact allow this hatchback to walk quite a few hatchback econo-boxes when equipped like I had it, with the 4 speed manual with the standard overdrive & no air conditioning. (For 1981 in fact, the 135 hp V6 HO came out in the X11 package, and really made it accelerate well for the time) I ordered the instrument package but I did not order the tachometer and instead installed an Autometer tach on the steering column. Here are the concerns: Poor Workmanship & parts quality. These cars were assembled & finished poorly even by the standards of the day. Since they were so popular it resulted in GM moving the vehicles down the line even with obvious final assembly flaws. The worst I experienced was really poor paint with a lot of orange peel on the rear quarter panels. The dealer agreed and solved this by painting directly over the orange peel without any preparation at all resulting in paint quickly flaking off the vehicle. Within one year I was sanding & shooting the car with spray paint trying to resolve these issues. It really should have been professionally repainted... Thankfully I had the vehicle Ziebarted so it held off the rust at least from the inside (these are days before most cars had any significant amounts of galvanized metal so in the northern snow and salt on the roads it was necessary if you wanted to keep your car decent). Besides the paint, the car had a really chap plastic plastic surround around the radio. This quickly cracked when I went to replace the radio with a better unit (this is the days when upgrading car radios was common since the standard stereos were pretty poor). I then noticed that the front center vent in the dash which worked great for cool air, could be simply pulled out with your fingers! Then one day when driving to work the valance panel closest to your knees simply fell down while I was driving! This sounds bad enough but it pinned the gas pedal to the floor about as perfectly as you could imagine causing the engine to rev to red line as I pushed in the clutch and turned off the engine and coasted into a close by gas station. Now the stereo man might have not reattached the panel properly when he installed the new stereo, but if you saw the plastic attachment push in plugs used to hold it up, you could see that this component & its attachment plugs were flimsy! This brings up the radio. I liked the look of the sideways radio head, BUT this location caused problems with the cassette tape player which was designed for a horizontal environment! I even recall seeing ads for new stereo units which would play tapes when located in a vertical position! Next the rear hatch struts that hold it open, failed. They failed so much that a hidden recall was launched (where the dealer would replace them only if the owner made noise about it!!). I did make noise and the Chevy dealer replaced them! Then after about 20,000 miles the pulse air emission control units attached to the exhaust, started to rot out. The dealer replaced these under warranty as i recall. And then they went out again within two years & the dealer wanted hundreds to replace these units! I thought this was ridiculous so I tried to cap off the units. Guess what?--The threads GM used for these units were not SAE nor were they metric!! I went to pipe fitters and they said they never saw such threads! So I jammed in the closest fitting SAE nuts with broken off bolts in them to stop the leaking exhaust! Then the oil pump failed and seized up so badly that it broke the distributor gear! And this took place after Mr Fanatical Oil Changer man had changed the oil/filter at regular intervals using appropriate oil, far exceeding the manufacturer's standards. But there were other concerns. As ordered it with the best seats I could I was surprised that my young body was getting back aches with short drives or long drives! So I had to buy a lot of washers to lift up tilt the front of the driver's bucket seat so it could tilt back a lot more, and I am only 5'9!" this simple adjustment fixed the problem but GM had to know about these seats!! I never experienced anything like that before. Then I began to experience torn and leaking constant velocity joints which were located in the front suspension. They started leaking twice within 70,000 miles making that clicking sound that some of you have experienced before on front drive cars when the boots start to fail. I believe that in the early 80s GM was at its worst...But this wasn't my worst car owned. (The worst of all was a 1987 Plymouth Horizon (which made this Citation look like a dream) that was awful even after the Horizon was on the market for years proving that the Chrysler corporation refused to resolve quality issues years after they had emerged!)
I wonder if you experienced that famous steering wheel lock on hard acceleration in turn in your X11. I know mine could scare the heck out of me. I quickly learned to have a heavy foot while turning. I replace the X11 with a much better used Porsche 924. Only to wish I had waited for the 944 model.
I have a few more comments regarding what I previously wrote about my 1980 Chevy Citation X11 below. One involved the very wide side tape stripe that came with the package. Within a year or so the tape stripe was getting dinged up and looking poor so I removed it and thought I would purchase another one. Since it was made of sticky black tape i foolishly thought it would cost perhaps $25 in 1982. But the dealer said the charge was $595 not including application which was another $60. Using an inflation calculator this would be $2,392.50 in 2022! This was GM! A company that worked to pee off owners of their vehicles. Regarding the valance panel under the knees that fell of and pinned the gas pedal to the floor, I want to impart to you how dangerous this was with the engine revving to red line! Without quick thinking and a clutch, and shutting off the engine (without turning it all the way off so i could still steer!), the average driver would be in shock. As i said originally I pushed in the clutch pedal to release first gear (I was in first gear pulling out of the drive at work), when the panel fell down. You might think --"How could it pin the gas pedal to the floor?!". What occurred was that the panel push pin supports fell off all at the edge near the gas pedal while the supports near my knee still held, causing it to act like a large stiff plastic panel hinging downward while still being partly in place, and pin the pedal perfectly! It was so shocking that i called NHTSA and made out a report. They politely said they would look into it but nothing occurred that I know of. I also recall, if my memory is serving me, that there were six hidden recalls on the vehicle in its first year. Again, those are recalls where the dealer will resolve the issue ONLY if the customer complains. The dealer knew about this but refused to replace my rear hatch supports that were on recall until I flat out told the service manager about this, and he agreed to replace them.
Reminds me of a '92 Mercury Topaz I rented. The power seat controls were literally right under the driver's right knee, something I've never seen on any other car. If you sunk far enough into the seat, it started moving forward and started to crush you the way a trash compactor would . I wonder how many drivers were caught by surprise with that "feature" and how many crashed.
Most of those special tools made by Kent-Moore company.
Gotta luv those 80's commercials 😁
Half the size and quality of the 1970 Chevy models, for only twice the price, what a deal!
Still waiting for the "cool" part... My Dad briefly owned an '83 V6 four door sedan. It was bought used at only two years old for dirt cheap, because it was a industrial salesman's car, and was high mileage and absolutely filthy. We tore apart the interior, steam-cleaned everything, Dad resprayed the lower body making it a two tone car, silver and charcoal with a red pinstripe, added fresh thin line whitewall tires with cheesy parts store fake wire wheel covers. He sold it shortly thereafter and made an almost $6,000 profit, big money at the time. The next owner drove it for at least the next 15 years and apparently liked it enough to replace the engine when it eventually died...
I’ve done multiple repairs on the more than 10 X-cars i’ve owned and the split cradle/subframe stand out, no need to disassemble any suspension parts to remove the transmission. The feature was continued on other GM platform such as the H-body..
This car and the UK Austin Princess are my 2 favorite quirky/crappy cars of all time. I love the beige/maroon 2 tone paint scheme
I worked at Potamkin Chevrolet in philly when these cars came out.they were ahead of their time.when they were new they were very nice you have to consider the time
In 1980 my grandfather purchased a1980 model used. The original owner had it just a few months. It was a 6 cyl 4 spd. One day my grandfather told me is selling it. The car turned around on him while braking . Scared him pretty bad . Sold or traded it for a 81 Accord.
Rear drum brakes were awful, would lock up if you sneezed. Several reasons recalls on them with only marginal improvement . Early models were just plain dangerous when it came to braking in wet conditions.
@@michaelkehm3663 Yes, he said to me it was raining and he was not braking hard at all. Car was on its 3rd owner in less than a year.
Rear brake lockup was an issue, I never experienced it, but had the power steering unit lock at times in mid steer when I had to fight it.
@@Rick-S-6063 Love the variation on "Mr Sandman". Truly hilarious to imagine them actually singing that!
6:24 I wonder if this description was followed up with a warning against using the Dealer-issue prop-rod outdoors. Prop-rods were always a bit nerve wracking in the wind, but that little thing looks as if it would pop right out if a gust of wind blew the hood further back.
My Great Aunt Arlene had a gold 4 door citation...they traded in the 1975 Ford Granada
I had a 1984 as a company car . It wasn’t a bad riding car.
Thank you for your video series. Well done and always informative. If you'll excuse me now, I have to go grocery shopping for 100 people.
Adam, I can't believe how entitled car shoppers were at this time. They actually had the temerity to demand steering and braking from the same car!
Good steering and braking are just minor nitpicking in the overall car ownership experience 😂
My dad had a 1981 Citation. It had army green paint on the outside and beige colored interior. The problem with it was one of the windows broke and you can't roll it up and down. The AC went out on it. There was no problem with the engine, transmission and brakes. It did get good gas mileage and it was roomy.
Thanks for bringing back that Chevy Citaaaaaaaaa-shun! earworm.
When I was in high school (1990) we had three Ford Crown Victoria's and one 1979 Chevrolet Citation, in the driver's education program.
The six girls in the class drove the automatic Fords and me and my friend James drove the 4 speed 💩tation....which was missing 1st and 3rd gears....needless to say, we had a great time driving that thing 😂🤣
When I was younger my Mom and Dad had the Pontiac version. Very nice car with hatchback. Very good gas mileage and nice ride. When they bought a new car I got this car. Lasted forever. I should have put knew engine in it. Probably still have it
These were such trendsetters, changed the whole market ,unbelievable reliable and safe, with a ton of luxury, big sellers for gm!
I spent 2 summers building it a the Tarrytown plant.
And...?
Beginning of the end of a once great passenger car company, IMHO. Nothing about this car to celebrate. Thank you Roger Smith.
The Phoenix's dash was just downright cool.
We had one, white with red interior. 79 or 80 right off the lot. My pops traded in my mom's 76 Buick LeSabre. Let's just say the scar tissue on this has never healed. It has the distinction of being absolutely hated by every one of us to include the dog. Last GM ever purchased by our family.
I bought a 1981 or 82 (don't remember for sure) for my first brand new car. I didn't have high expectations which may be why I liked it so well. Given the times with high inflation, gas prices and interest rates, it was obvious that this was the new direction for automobiles. The car was very comfortable, reliable and got very good gas mileage. I never had any mechanical issues but I did trade it in with fairly low mileage. Besides, what was l supposed to do, buy one of those cheep looking and unproven foreign jobs like Toyota or Honda...Yeah, those were sure to be a flash-in-the-pan!!!
Honda and Toyota have been sales successes.
My dad's neighbor had one of these when they first came out.
I know the VW Rabbit 4 Speed was a fourth gear Overdrive and Dodge Plymouth had a fourth gear Overdrive for both cars and trucks of that era.
I had a 1980 2 door hatchback with v6 and 4 speed. (I got it for Free) the power steering had been disconnected, the water pump was held together by JB weld, half the fins were corroded off the radiator and the overheat light was on most of the time, but it lasted for years like that and got good mileage.
Imagine what the automotive landscape looks like today had these been built with just average reliability for the times. 800k relatively satisfied customers, GM might still have serious market share.
My friend in high school in the early mid '80s, his family had a brown four door with an automatic, but I don't remember if it was a 2.8 or not.
Anyway, he hooked an FM converter up to the sideways AM radio in the dash. A good thing to do. But that wasn't enough, so he went ahead and connected an 80 watt power booster up to the AM radio's single channel, and put speakers in the rear, and it sounded like crap!
You forgot to mention the manual window cranks that operated oppositely from every other car on the planet.
Having watched the video, I now understand why I was not able to order cruise control on my 1980 Skylark with the 4-speed manual transmission. Fortunately, my dealership fitted cruise control to the car before I took delivery, and it always worked perfectly. . . . And, yes, I pulled the parking brake handle right through the plastic dashboard, necessitating replacement.
In that era, the vast majority of cars required an automatic transmission in order to install cruise control. It wasn’t just an X-body thing. I think it was mostly that the manufacturers considered manual-transmission customers to be too cheap to want cruise; also it might have been assumed that people wouldn’t know if it needed downshifting due to a hill climb. My first new car was in 1985, and the concept of the factory putting cruise control on a manual-trans car was just getting started then, on the more “sporty” cars of the time.
@@kc9scott I still think the idea of cruise control with a manual transmission is weird. With an automatic, you often feel it shifting up and down on either side of a hill; with a manual, wouldn't you have to reset the cruise control with each shift?
@@pcno2832 Yes, you would. The “resume” button works great for that. Needing to shift for hills is a pretty rare occurrence if your engine has adequate power (i.e. post-malaise era). All of my “good” cars have been manual with cruise.