@@will7its the ford had the Edsel that was a flop. Chrysler had the exner era low quality late fifties and the radical downsizing debacles. Beyond that I don’t think they took as big a risk with such disastrous results as Vega, citation
As a past owner owner of a 1980 Citation, I think the video missed the mark of how poorly this car was executed. This car was indeed a packaging marvel, well ahead of its contemporaries. I was forced to make a panic stop due a road obstruction, the rear wheels locked and the car went sideways off the road. I was able to replicate this trait to the service manager at the dealership. 5hey kept the car for a month and when I got it back, nothing was resolved. Following this, interior trim pieces star5ed falling off and then large pieces of paint started to release from the car. GM refused to paint the whole car attributing it to my lack of care. The sunroof leaked and the hatch pistons failed. When tried complaining GM Customer Service, I was told they had millions of satisfied customers, they could afford to lose one. I never bought another GM, no one in my family ever bought one and I have influenced many others not to. The stain of poor quality outlasts the sweetness of a goodprice everytime.
I own a 2017 jeep Wrangler. The poor build quality and list of major repairs is appalling in this day and age! It is amazing how these companies seem to repeat history! This has led myself and many others to swear to never buy another Chrysler product as long as I shall live!
Customer service at GM dealerships in the 1980s was non-existent after the car was purchased. I had similar experience to yours with my 1984 Buick Century (ugh) which was my first car I ever purchased (used) in 1988. That car has so many issues. I would take it to different GM dealers hoping I'd find a compassionate service manager, but nope. They all blamed me for the car's issue. Kept the car until 1993 when I bought a Honda Civic and never looked back. That Civic lasted me until 2013 with barely any issues in those 20 years.
The was another nail in GM’s coffin. These were the poorest executed and built vehicles in GM’s history, up to that point. I was in the automotive collision industry when these were on the road. Repairing these presented new challenges due to their construction. At least it wasn’t difficult make these vehicles appear like new! The shoddy body and paint work was appalling. Talk about a vehicle that should have never released to the public. I remember seeing X cars with mileage as low as 5,000 with morning sickness in the steering. How GM ever got away without issuing a recall for that, I’ll never know. This car could have been a world beater. Unfortunately the bean counters had the upper hand.
I owned two in the early 1908s. First one was manual, 2.5 Iron Duke. After... 25,000 miles, the manual transmission broke! I have driven manuals for 50 years, and never had any problem with them. The fork controlling the even gears broke; only 1st and third remained available! Managed to get it fixed under warranty. When it broke for the second time (same problem), I sold the car. In the meantime, my wife had a 1980 2.5 automatic. Transmission gave up after about 40,000 miles. Had to fork out a lot of money to get it fixed. When it broke for the second time after about 2 years, I sold the car. Only other in the family ever having a transmission problem was a 1992 Mazda Protege at... 135,000 miles (understandable at that age, especially given that my daughter was working for the Park Service, and had taken it off road in the back country for quite a time). Also had the rear brakes lock when exiting a freeway; very scary; had not even braked very hard, since i also used downshift to ease on the brakes... Yes, it was roomy; yes it got through snowdrifts seamlessly, but nope.... never again !
@@emileokal7752 Our dejected commentator, “emileokal7752,” suffered through Armageddon with his family’s two ill-fated, ill-farted Citation automobiles. “emileo’s” sad description of repeated service trips for the same problem begs the question of whether he took his tribulations up with the regional man at GM. Undoubtedly, many of our UA-cam commentators would like to know the answer.
My financial contribution is more about the overall greatness of your videos, and not specifically about this particular car, which I also enjoyed nonetheless. I wish that I had more to give right now. I am a true gear head, and have been since my earliest memories. Please keep your videos coming. I love the style, execution, and content of your work. Truly brilliant! Thanks! Rob
I had my 1982 X-11 out this weekend. Unlike when I bought it from it's original owners 9 years ago, it gets a lot of attention now, and mostly from 20-somethings who have never seen or heard of one. Besides the obvious attention getters like the spoiler and hood scoop, what seems to amaze them is the amount of interior space in what appears to be a small car.
Because it's mostly hidden, I don't think people realize the amount of space given up in modern cars to mandatory safety features (to say nothing of the added weight).
@@seed_drill7135 ... my 2021 Hyundai Sonata weighs 3200 lbs had a 191 HP engine and gets 40+ mpg. It does 0-60 in just over 8 seconds. Its super safe in crash tests. It still has plenty of room. I like modern cars.
@@dougn2350 I feel my 2010 Mazda 3 is very small and flimsy, but I spent the last 13 years in a '08 Charger. That said, your car is certainly safer and faster than the X-11, but it also outweighs it by around 700 pounds.
I remember seeing a Citation coming to a panic stop at a traffic light one evening. The car did a 180 and amazingly didn’t hit anything. The stunned driver got out, surveyed the car in disbelief. We all watched as he turned it around then drove away.
I did that in a 91 Buick Century on ice. I was in the center lane and spun between cars on both sides of me as well as a car sitting at the light in front of me. Came to a halt facing forward in my lane, didn't hit anyone. Drove away when the light turned green.
They used a dual diagonal circuit braking system (left front and right rear / right front and left rear paired, instead of fronts on one circuit and rears on another).
The saddest part of the citation is the body shell really is an engineering masterpiece, giving far more cargo and passenger room than the rwd nova it replaced. Its everything else, (suspension, brakes, engines, transmissions) that was rubbish. The A bodies that came soon after was basically a streched citation with the bugs worked out and those would go to live on till 1996 and be regarded as very reliable for their time.
The A's weren't even stretched. The wheelbase for the X's and A's are identical and the cars share the same floorpan stampings. Any added length was ahead of the front wheels or behind the back wheels
@@mph5896 The A body _overhangs_ were lengthened, yes. When I say "stretched" i usually think of added length between the axles. I agree with Steve's comment. And I will add that the X and A bodies we're so similar that they even shared the same factory service manuals.
I would agree with your analysis. Another case of GM snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Starting with the model name "Citation" which means speeding ticket. Followed up by cost driven decisions for poor materials, reliability and fit/finish. The basic design, engineering and performance were what people wanted to buy - witness that first year demand. But the disappointment of the buyers not only killed sales but also killed brand loyalty of many first year buyers.
Citation was also a famous race horse from the late '40s as well as an Edsel model name [along with Pacer]. A citation can also be made for a great performance or contribution to something.
i had one of these cars years ago. it was old then. i bought it for 50 bucks, it needed a choke pull-off. it had an iron duke. the body was decent but the floor was the worst i have ever had in a car. the drivers floor was stop sign style. it was a decent running car and i really didnt have much trouble with it. especially for $50. we drove it for 2 years and sold it running for $75. it was a hatchback. we were newly married and in our first apartment. i brought home a used wash and drier with the car, one at a time. took one unit home and went back for the other unit. the fact i could actually do that with a fairly small car was impressive. my mother drove it an entire summer on year when the crappy P-metric transmission in her 96 taurus took a crap and had to be rebuilt. we owned this car in the early 2000's i really cant say much bad about it, except for the lack of a good floor. at what i paid for it, it was an exceptional deal and i never regretted buying it. it was a relatively trouble free car for us. i still love the iron duke, if i stumbled upon a clean iron duke car today i will still be tempted to buy it. reliable, cheap to maintain, fairly decent fuel economy. they weren't the most refined engine but certainly are a long life engine. i also had a 6000 with that engine.
I awaited the 1980 X-cars with great anticipation, and placed an early order for a Skylark Limited coupe with the V6 and 4-speed manual transmission. After waiting impatiently for six months, my dealer notified me that it had received a Skylark Sport Coupe in the same color I had ordered, also equipped with the V6, 4-speed, A/C, and other goodies I had ordered. The Skylark Sport Coupe was Buick's equivalent to the Citation X-11, and had a specific grille, black-out trim, leather-wrapped steering wheel and full instrumentation, smoked glass taillamps, larger tires, performance suspension, etc. I accepted the car rather than continue to wait. The little Buick was gorgeous, and friends initially thought that it was a new compact from Mercedes-Benz. As Adam has noted, the packaging was remarkable, and I found the car to be very comfortable and spacious. The car's flat cornering was really quite astonishing for its time. I drove the car 97,000-miles over the next six years, and, for the most part, found the car enjoyable. But it was not without its aggravating issues, and I was fortunate that the service manager at the local dealership really went to bat for me. The manual transmission shifter operation was notchy and rough, which was repaired under warranty. I experienced the "morning sickness" with the power steering, which proved attributable to a leaky power steering pump. The passenger side door never fit quite right, and driving rain would force water into the passenger seating area. Sunlight caused the interior door panels to fade to an unattractive flesh color. But the biggest problem was an electrical gremlin that forced me to replace the alternator every year or so. My conclusions are similar to Adam's. From a packaging standpoint, the design was a triumph, but the engineering and execution were sadly lacking. . . . Early on, I persuaded a number of friends to purchase new X-Body cars, but I don't believe that any ever purchased an American brand automobile again following their X-Body frustrations. I recall saying to my parents, "GM is just handing market share to the imports on a platter."
I had a friend that bought one shortly after launch. Like many buyers, her Citation was riddled with issues. It was her last Chevrolet or GM vehicle of any kind. She liked the car but not the constant issues AND terrible way her dealer and GM treated her. Instead of trying to make happy customers they sent them to their competitors.
@@Bdub1952 I owned an 88 Corsica with 2.8 v6. I put 238k on it. I bought it used and it started out as a lemon. Thankfully I had the extended warranty and found a good dealer. It was the first year of fuel injection. Eventually it became a reliable car. The coil packs and long plug wires caused me a ton of grief when they would fail.
@@Bdub1952 My first car was a 1990 Beretta GT. Same car as the Corsica but with 2 doors. Had the same exact interior. 3.1 V6, 5 speed, fully loaded. Dark blue with red and black pin stripes with light blue interior. 15” honey comb alloy wheels on Goodyear Eagle tires. It was a seriously cool car, I bought it with 53,000 miles. But soon after I had the infamous peeling paint. And locked up seat belts. GM did fix my seatbelts for free but they would not take care of my paint issue even though it was a super common issue on almost all Berettas and Corsicas of that era.
@@joe6096 Our car was a nightmare. My wife traveled for a living, and the first time it happened she was about 200 miles away. "It" was the transmission dropping to low gear while rolling down the highway. Luckily she was near a Chevy dealer (the car was a year old) and they replaced the ECU. We drove back down to pick it up, then two months later it happened again. Engine screaming, she called me again, and off to another dealer. This happened once again, and the last dealer told us that the previous replacements were with the exact same version of firmware. Apparently, there was a recall, but the first two dealers replaced the part with a non-upgraded part. We said goodbye to Chevy and bought a Mazda 626GT. Now that was a fun car. Reliable too.
@@joe6096 No Beretta was a popular detective show on ABC television in the late ‘70’s starring Bob Blake. Blake is infamous for his paying out big civil suit money for the shooting death of his second of three wives.
I bought two of them, one for my wife and one for me. We put over a hundred fifty thousand miles on both of them with no real problems except the cold steering problem which was remedied by thinning the fluid a little bit. What really was amazing is that the ac in both cars blew 35-degree air even on the hottest summer day.
When I was a teen my dad bought a used 1980 Citation. 4dr hatch. Iron duke 4 banger and 4 speed manual. Had a feature I had never seen before. Right above the B pillars on the headliner was a lever to open the far back quarter windows. I only saw that in his and never again. I've seen hundreds of Citations pass through the wrecking yards I had worked at. Must have been a relatively rare option or something. His looked exactly like the car pictured at 4:56 in the video. Other than the right (or was it left?) rear tire locking up under anything but light braking it was a decent car for us. I blew a few transaxles (I drove it HARD as a teen) but other than that it was pretty reliable. We never had the steering rack rip off the firewall like other early Citations did. When I got my first car it was an 82' Cavalier. 1.8L HORRIBLE 4 banger + a tall geared 4 speed manual. Manual steering, manual everything, no ac. That car got great mpg but I preferred the Citation over it by far.
I wonder if GM was toying with an encore of their no-rolldown-rear-windows trick from the A-cars, then got cold feet and shipped a few cars with both roll-down windows and rear vents. The A-cars were not exactly beloved for that "feature". And I had thought my '68 Fleetwood was the last car GM made with both roll-down and vent windows in the rear.
@@pcno2832 No. Windows in the standard Citation two doors were fixed. This was a flipper window option. Ford Maverick two doors had the same thing, a feature picked up from European and Japanese cars. But those were popped open from the back seat.
I worked at a dealer when these came out. We inspected for ripped tie down holes and drilled and bolted in reinforcing plates. A list of checks and mods were done. Then we soon had the plastic tape used for window lift strip. GM was trying a lot of new and very cheap ways of making some things work or as it turned out, not work.
Very few of these cars are left today. They were rust buckets and the interior materials all disintegrated into dust. The only ones not sent to the crusher by 1990 were garage queens.
Also, it depended on where you lived, if in the PNW, these could last a good while as they don't rust much and aren't as baked by the hot sun as much either if not in say, the Rogue Valley or in Eastern Oregon/Washington, but yeah, I think I have seen the occasional one around here as many cars here can last 20 or more years if kept up reasonably well.
My father had two Citations and a Pontiac Phoenix and honestly he had great luck with them.... Those brand new little cars hauled a lot of firewood home from the woods, traversed woods roads to get to fishing holes etc etc. My father always had big block luxo yacht cars and always a full size 4wd truck too but this was always our utility vehicle... I have fond memories of the Citations as does my father. The only gripe he had which I don't think you commented on was the early onset of aggressive body corrosion. He used to grease and graphite everything and yet the Citations still managed to return from whence they came, back to iron ore dust.
I was an auto mechanic working on the 1980 Chevy Citation back when they were new. These cars were an absolute pile of junk. Words can not describe how bad they were. All the years that they made them were the same. Nothing but problem after problem. Good riddance that I have not seen one of these in years. This car is the reason why GM lost so many customers who went over to foreign cars. The best I can say about Citation is R.I.P.(Rust in Peace).
I was in college when this car came out. I looked at buying one and an uncle did buy one, a blue two-tone four door. That man, a retired truck driver, maintained his cars physically and mechanically better than anyone I've known. I can remember his countless troubles with the crappy construction, the mechanical failures, and the despicable build quality. Broke his heart 'cause he thought he knew how to pick cars. It was around this time, around 1980, that so many friends and acquaintances of mine, of all ages, finally turned away from lousy-made American cars and converted to the Euro luxury brands or the big Japanese brands. GM certainly appeared to care more about making money than making good cars; my last GM car was a 1972 Buick convertible in the seventies, and never again. My money is too dear to me to throw it away on junk cars.
The statement about GM caring more about money than good cars seems to be very true. at least since the Vega. During the 1970s, I heard horror story after horror story about American(mostly GM) car quality. Two of my co-workers then bought Celicas and had no problems. GM still seems to have quality issues, but so do Chrysler and Ford.
I had an 82 Citation that I bought new in 1985. Yeah the car was never sold in 3 years! It was also a 4 speed manual, no A/C, no cruise, and no cassette stereo which is probably why no one wanted it. Not a great car, but it never failed me. I had it for only a couple years, but I still remember it because it was my first car.
This was my first car in high school. My mother bought it for me new (1980 model, 4 door hatchback, cream/red two tone exterior, black cloth interior) from a friend of hers who worked for GM and got the employee discount. I needed a car that my very long legs could manage and the interior packaging with the bench seat and column shifter 3-speed automatic worked for me. It was a good car for a teenager and it was passed down to my brother 2 years later when I went off to college. So the good news was that I got a new car at 16. But the car was riddled with problems. Most notably for me was that the entire front of the vehicle shook when the car exceeded 72 MPH. This was something the dealer could not fix, saying it was baked into the design. Maybe they didn't try hard enough but it was truly awful and never felt safe. The radio was annoying in that i couldn't replace it with a better aftermarket one easily (Clarion eventually made parts for it but I was in college by then). GM may have been studying Lancia for the overall packaging design but they should have been studying Honda for engine design. The 2.5L I4 "Iron Duke" ran rough pretty much all the time....but at least in its defense it ran. But by the time my mother sold it in 1986, the car was already beginning to rust in spots, which even though the car lived outside all its life, this was inexcusable. GM knew how to build a car that didn't rust back then. My mother replaced the car with a used 1980 Caddy Coupe Deville with very low miles that my brother and I shared in college and he drove it through law school in the early 90s. The Caddy was a far better put together vehicle and the 6.0L big block was problem free.
The Cadillac was better built. This is another reason I lean towards luxury cars, they're typically always built better, with better materials and craftsmanship and usually last longer than the lower priced cars. Plus you're usually far more comfortable and safer in them. 👍
I never understood the vertical radio thing. Couldn't you just put any radio in there and live with the numbers on the display being 90 degrees off? Otherwise, it looked like any other radio of that time. It's certainly harder to fit an aftermarket radio in just about any car built since the 1980s than in a Citation.
@@pcno2832 That's what my Dad and I did, unfortunately, the Panasonic tape deck got to where it would only play in one direction, and it was autoreverse, but other than that, it did the job.
@@chriscadillac8448 I agree with you one hundred percent. And IF you ever have occasion to buy a used car - really ANY car that is EXPENSIVE more or less - they usually LOOK better because they've normally been in a garage 😉
@@wilsixoneHi William, YES. Not only are they usually garage kept; they're typically better maintained because they are purchased by people who can afford to... and want to... protect their investment. I've always bought upper echelon cars.... nothing lower than a Buick Park Avenue... usually Lincoln's or Cadillacs... and they usually served me well for 10-15 years, (and were usually 2/3 years old when I bought them). I've never bought a new car in my life. You're just throwing your money away... money that can be put in far better investments. 👍 I've also bought my fair share of vintage cars... and aside from their more complicated electrical systems, they're not that much more difficult to work on than any other old car. And when you do work on them, you can really see the better materials and craftsmanship that did go into them compared to the low price field marques.
My family had a Citation when they were new. All I remember about the car was the story of the time my mother braked gently while traveling down the road (not a panic stop) which caused a lockup and spun the car across a 4 lane highway and into a parking lot on the opposite side. Luckily no other cars were involved. Great design, perhaps, but not a good impression.
My brother's first new car was a 1983 Citation 2.8 V-6 and he loved it. Even I, who always favored land yachts... and still do... was impressed with it at the time, given it's small size.
It was not a failure for GM. They took the car, including wheelbase and doors, extended the trunk and hood, and sold over a million a year for most of 15 years as midsized car. Plus all of the money spent was used on technology shared with hundreds of millions of cars over the next 30 years.
Amen. Thank you for making the point. I don't think the sales figures Adam used for Citation included Mexico, where it was quite popular and was manufactured for the 1986 model year, as well. Citation sales were chewed up by the 3-box Celebrity and by the slightly smaller Cavalier, which debuted in 1982 and which also went on to be manufactured for quite a long time before a total redesign.
It was a HUGE failure. They had massive public (and media) support - rooting for GM to have a winner. It was a disaster - awful engineering quality and materials quality. Thus while many were sold it cost GM at least an order of magnitude more in lost future sales. Let’s not forget this was yet another miserable failure among many - the biggest since the Vega. Serial failures - arguably still happening - have soured literally billions worldwide on GM. The citation was one of the bigger ones.
I agree it was a HUGE failure. I special ordered a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix with the V-6 and 4-speed. With all the initial hype, the car was difficult to get as it was so popular. It had all the virtues and vices that Adam described. I sold the car in disgust two years later and it would be almost 25 years before I would even CONSIDER a GM vehicle. That car sold a lot of Japanese (or at least Japanese branded) cars to disgruntled ex-owners.
@@gordtulk you must be a loyal Scotty Kilmer following. He hates GM, Ford, and Chrysler. But loyal to Toyota. And where is Toyota's, Hondas, and the rest of the foreign markets headquarters are.? That's right. Not in this country. Where does the profit go. Not in this country. Back to Japan or China.! And yes, I know Chrysler is now owned by a foreign company. But the headquarters are still in Auburn, MI. So, I'll cut a little slack there. Very little. They have made huge strides in what the American people migrate to. Performance.! It's the 60's all over again, just 10 fold.!
@@daleliske9757 so you oppose free trade. You of course realize the greatest beneficiary of trade in the last 150 years has been America. It has more multi-national companies than any other country on earth. GM being one of them. Competition is what makes us better.
The 2.8 Litre was awful. EVERYONE I knew who bought one so equipped had significant oil leak problems. That engine was the upgrade in the first Jeep Cherokees. In 1985 we ordered a new Jeep Cherokee Chief 4Door 4WD. I was set to order the 2.8 Litre (the Chevy V6) but the salesman said NO...Live with the 2.5 Litre Jeep-built cast iron 4 even though it's leisurely at best. that was great advice. THe four never gave us a single problem in over 200K miles of driving. All our friends who got the Cherokee/Wagoneer bug at the time and ordered the V6 sorely regretted it.
I remember a German test of this car. They drove a new car almost 4000 miles with it. It was praised for roominess, quietness, comfort and the standard equipment. But unfortunately the car already desintegrated. Body panels falling off, and I think an alternator broke, wheel trims falling off, among other things. I also remember it whamming the underbelly on the tarmac in fast corners with a depression in it and that even with only 1 person in the car....
I have seen that video, along with others in the series. I don’t speak German but it’s still damned entertaining. I don’t recall any other car tested leaving part of it’s undercarriage laying on the test track during the undulating section like the Citation! Though one of the Peugeots stalling out during the water test, because.....French!
My dad had gotten a white 1980 Craptation brand new, with the V6 and butt-roasting vinyl seats. In addition to stalling issues, like after a hard turn or in the middle of an intersection, he also had issues with the steering. Dealer service never really fixed anything. It was traded about 80k miles and oil pressure light coming on when hot for a new ‘86 Accord. (PS That Accord is currently hibernating in my backyard as part of the mothball fleet)
GM did that a lot what you stated. They would finally get a car right and then stop producing the car. Toyota keeps going back at it until they get it right. It will be interesting to see what the 2023 Toyota Crown does in the market. Thank you for another informative video.
I have a 1980 buick skylark x car and am still impressed by how roomy and quiet it is for the exterior size. It also rides and handles nice and is pretty quiet. Had the x car program been executed with very high quality control I think the auto market today would look different. The x car not meeting expectations sent many many people to competitive brands. It seems to me that the x cars were released with about 90 percent of the engineering done at assembled at about 60 percent quality. Sad really. Gm management from this era should have been held to account
U cant forget insubordinate & disgruntled workers. That just happen to be in the union. Coming to work drooling from opiates or High on crack! The mgmt cant assemble 800,000 cars by themselves!
Sadly, in addition having to comply with Federal mandates, it was a time corporate belt tightening due to a recession. In short, 1980 to 1982 were not good years to purchase a Chrysler, Ford or GM car that wasn't a full sizer. The added bonus to the Citation and its siblings is that GM introduced an all new platform whose development was probably rushed. The competition from overseas was not perfect. With regards to the crude engines of the era, my beloved 1980 Toyota Corona Wagon equipped with a bullet proof 20R, 2.2. liter truck engine was noisy and vibey when rev'd. It also only produced 95 horsepower - which was about what Ford was eeking out of its 200 cubic inch 6 cylinder in the Ford Fairmonts of the era.
I bought a 1982 Tercel as a used car. It had I believe 52 horsepower and used them all. My father was a union man his whole life and had plenty to say when I drove it into his driveway. All I can say is that it was a hell of a lot better than the competition from America. A 1982 Escort, Chevette or Horizon was just garbage. I drove the Tercel until it was 14 years old and actually had a lump in my throat as it was hauled away. The tinworm had struck again.
My late father bought a 1980 Citation new. I can remember, as I had just gotten my drivers license in January of 1980,. It was a 4-door, with a V6, with a 4-speed. He got the special gauge package with a tachometer instead of the clock. Of course it had many problems, including it would pop out of low gear when you let the clutch out. He wrote the company many times. He did however keep it until 1998, with 198,000 miles on it.
I think these were a good looking car. I did not know about the Lancia influence. Maybe that also influenced the quality control issues 😩. Some of those issues though were really unforgivable and likely helped push a lot of small car customers to the imports.
My brother had a used 1980 Citation that he bought for about $100. It had that horrible steering rack: Turning the steering wheel felt like the power steering belt broke... then the power steering would kick in halfway through the turn. I learned to anticipate the sudden lack of steering effort. The other funny thing was that the bench seat was falling through the floor, thus supported by a 2x4. When you stepped on the accelerator, the seat would rock backward, giving you the illusion of acceleration.
I can admit that in 1980 I wanted a Citation X-11, I thought it was awesome and it was getting a lot of good press. I bought a house instead, and it was another five years before I started looking at new cars again. I bought a beautiful 1985 Olds Cutlass Ciera Brougham because I liked the styling and the acceleration of the 3.8 V6 over the 2.8 V6 in the Chevy Celebrity.
Early eighties cars have a charm to them that can't be replicated. They drive like a relatively modern car, feel like a 60's-70's car, are lighter weight than older cars, but keep those great thin steering wheels, comfy seats and large interior space. Plus they're usually very easy to work on, being quite simple.
There's someone a few blocks south of me who has an X-11. I don't know them, but I've seen the vehicle numerous times. Looks to be in very nice condition.
Sadly the Citation's problems meant that for a lot of people, this was their last American car. Maybe it would have been better in the long run if it started out as a sales flop? The general design wasn't bad though. The A-platform was derived from the Citation's X-platform. GM sold the A-platform until 1996. I seem to recall Consumer Reports giving later A-body Buick Centuries pretty high marks for reliability; although by 1996 the car was laughably obsolete.
Great video. I never really understood why there's so much negativity in the Citation. My dad worked for the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan. He tagged a 1982 Citation from the engineer company car list. It was a 4 door hatch with the 4 cylinder engine. It was great in the winter, and he sold it to a family member with 100,000 miles on it. They in turn drove it to 252,000 until it was totaled in an accident. But no complaints about the car, from when we had it to my cousin. My sister also had one new in 1984, there too, no complaints until she was involved in a hit and run accident. Where a guy hit her in the rear with a pickup and sped off. Got, 2 letters, and 3 numbers off the plate. And a description of the truck, But police said they couldn't do anything.!
An ‘81 Citation was my second car after totaling my ‘76 Monza. I was going to college in Michigan at the time, and in my 40+ years of driving, to this day it is still the best car in the snow outside of an AWD vehicle that I have ever owned. On top of that, it was a 2 door hatchback and if you folded down the backseat, it moved all of needs for a college at the time (including huge stereo speakers). I had to have the steering rack replaced, but other than that it was a great car and served my younger sister well after I was done with it.
Now I remember why I bought my first foreign car, a 1985 Toyota Corolla. I hope GM can instill some resemblance of reliability in their electric cars. I’d love to see them be world leaders again.
Unfortunately GM is destined to repeat the past again . They have had many years to develop hybrids and electric platforms. But they seem to try something and discontinue whole platforms and then try something new . Wash rinse repeat 🙃
I bought a 1983 manual 4-door in 1989 for $200, iirc. The driver's door window stuck and I called a local auto glass company and described the problem. He asked "Is it a Citation?" Despite issues, I liked it and put a lot of miles on it. I told myself "Hey, at least it's not a Chevette."
My Dad must have gotten one of the good ones. I grew up riding in his 1980 Citation with the lowly 2.4L 4. He bought it new and kept it until 1989. It never broke down, and he put around 165K on it. But NO ONE in our family appreciated the ergonomics. My sister called it "the egg". It had fugly tan vinyl seats- but honestly- it was a solid, reliable car. I remember taking trips in it to Florida, visiting my late grandparents on Long Island, NY driving from Georgia. As a kid, it was Dad's car that only he appreciated. My Mom wanted a new car and the poor Citation was so unloved, despite it being in perfect working condition and pretty good physical shape, we listed it in a newspaper (yeah, back in the day) and NO ONE wanted it. My Dad almost cried when he donated it to our church and it was gifted to a young mother who needed a car. This maybe GM's epic failure, but I still have a soft spot for it. Many of the best years of my life were in that red "egg".
My older brother bought a new Citation in 1981. I remember by 1984 or 85 rust bubbles appeared through the paint. Typical problem of GM cars of that era.
I remember an engineer at a church I attended telling me that his team was given one of these cars and told to install the engine for pre-production support. I think the motor was a v6. They used hammers an pry bars to rework the fit. The production teams of that era weren't involved in the design process - to any significant extent.
My high school student parking lot should have been full of Citations in 1984-1988...but there were none. None of these cars lasted more than a couple years in New England. They just dissolved into rust after the first snow. Guess they copied that from Lancia too.
I inherited my father's blue 1985 Citation when he went into a nursing home. I quite enjoyed the utility of the car. I recall hauling a washer and dryer in it as part of my kitchen remodel.
they were constantly claiming that they were paying their blue collar workers too much.so what's the answer? they go cheap on materials and wind up with junk.
I bought a new 1980 Citation Coupe 2.8 v6 and it was a great car . Never had any issues with it. Had it for 5 years. The FWD was a godsend in snow country after dealing with a 1975 Camaro in the winter. Basically the camaro was worthless in snow.
2.8 v6 had a long life. 2.8l turned into canted valve 2.8l, then 3.1, 3.4, 3.5, 3.9. The worst of them had to be the early 90's DOHC 3.4L. A pushrod engine turned into a timing belt driven Dohc over-engineered nightmare to fix . That only gained 10 horsepower compared to its baseline turbocharged model. Do we learn from history? No, Ford did the same stupid idea only worse in most ways. The 4.0l v6 from the 90's started its life as a 2.8l, then 2.9l and 4.0 pushrod engine. Then made it SOHC, but only produced one cylinder head. So on passenger side of engine the timing chain was on the back , guess which chain would have issues? This was all around dumb because they didn't add 4 valves per cylinder, they kept it 2. No advantage was gained by doing this.
@@johneckert1365 Easy? Depends on what it was needing. Valve cover gaskets being a pain but yeah, it was a very good engine. The 2.9 wasn't terrible, besides sounding like a sewing machine it wasn't bad.
I purchased one, brand new. Plain Jane model, V6, auto transmission, radio and nothing more. I sold it at nearly 280K miles. As I know the new owner was pretty happy with it. It would be dishonesty to say one bad word about the car. Never I had any problems with engine or transmission, engine always started at first try, gas millage was good. At nearly 280K miles the timing chain was making a little noise at higher speed. Yes, there were some issues with suspension and brakes. Headlights were poor quality, had to be replaced (often), because it was a sealed unit a bulb only change was not possible. In my opinion it was a good car that never surprised me on the road.
My first dealership job was in 1980. I was hired by a family that owned a used car dealership and was moving into a former Chevy site. We were a new Buick/Pontiac dealer with no cars except 3 gold Citations. The Citations sold in days and then had no cars except the cars we brought from the used lot.
I had an '84 II. Notchback two-door, mags, two-tone champagne and brown. It was as you described: roomy, quiet, nicely trimmed, comfortable ride. Having driven my Father's Olds Ciera triggered my interest. And later prompted the purchase of a 99 Cavalier two-door as my first new car. The Xs were the right size as well and the Cavalier by that time was in the same size, though not as roomy in the back seat. To this day I still regret trading the Cavalier in on an '86 N Body Calais, though I still have this car. An important point that you did not mention was the X Car was the basis for the A car and the Xs shared many of the improvements made to the new A platform for 1982. The As even shared the same wheelbase. A Body production went on for many years after the X Body left production, so eventually GM got it right.
My first car was a Citation. Overall it was an odd duck, but as my first car, I loved it. Our time together only lasted through about two-thirds of my college years when eventually the tie-rod rotted out and put an end to our time together. My sentimental side wishes that I could drive that car one more time...
A great summary of the life of this car, Adam. Citations were very popular here in California when new, and it's yet another car that one never sees on the road today.
Was born in 78, and the first car I remember riding in was my mom's 80 Citation X-11. My parents bought the car from a now-defunct Chevrolet dealer in the Cleveland area (Bass Chevrolet in North Randall, Ohio) The owner was going to give it to his wife, before my mother decided to buy it...and I wish he had.
My parents bought a new 80 Buick model of this car I was a young mechanic we had tons of problems with that car I remember the left rear tire and brake assembly just falling off seems like I was working on that car all the time plus it had the 4 cylinder engine and it was a real dog they traded it off for a 86 Buick leSabre it was a great car
I owned a 1985 citation. All the bugs were worked out and the radio and hvac controls were finally horizontal. The truth was tthat when the A-body cars came out in 1982, those were on the same chassis as the X-body cars. The A-body car really cut into X-Body car sales. For those people who think the 1980 X-body cars were junk, most cars in 1980 were just throw away cars.
A 1980 Chevrolet Citation X-11 was one of the worst cars I ever owned. I purchased it new, it was the third vehicle I owned (first was a "72 Chevy Vega, then a 1977 VW Rabbit), and I also drove it over 130k miles, and was holding my breath throughout most of them. Such a great concept, and the styling was near perfection. But when it wouldn't start, literally, or had trouble going where you tried to steer it or trying to stop, the looks didn't matter. Dealership support was near nothing within the first year, as if they knew what was coming and just didn't want to deal with it. Thank you, Adam, for another great look at a moment of automotive history. We share the same love for for similar vehicles and eras.
My first car was a 1982 Citation bought when I was 17 on 1991. It was a 2.5 fuel injection first year for it and had done 55,000 miles. Paid 1200 for it. Dad and I gave her a good tune up never had any other issues with it. A/c worked great was noisy but reliable .
my mother had a 1981 x11 .when i was in highschool it was a fun cheap car to run . and being from ontario it was great in the snow . never had any issues with that car . fond memories love your vids very interesting
At age 18 in 79 I ordered a Citation Coupe w the V6 Traction in the Snow was incredible and yes it was roomy and comfortable. I could move apts w it including couches. Never mind the known problems....The worst part was the Rust. Brand New waxed undercoated regularly but after 7 yrs the unibody rails holding the seats rusted through. The driver's seat was actually sinking through the floor as the cross rail had rusted so bad. In comparison my 12 yr old car now, without undercoating is virtually Rust free ( Same Country, lots of Salt on the roads)
Appreciate the nuanced discussion and deep dive into the citation. It was a mix of great ideas, some poor ideas, a rush to production, some corner cutting for the sake of profits. A factory fresh, ac equipped, v6 citation (particularly from the later end of the run) would probably be a decent car today. I do wonder if the high first year production didn't factor into some of the early issues, with a rush to production causing problems just like the rushed development.
Piggybacking on the iconic high finned automobile of Ike’s heady ‘50’s, our fine UA-cam commentator, indeed one “Sedan57Chevy,” lets loose with trenchant analyses of the problematic Citation. “It’s the first Chevy of the ‘80’s, the first Chevy of it’s kind,” the jingle championed. “Sedan” tries hard to charitably allow for the automobile’s newness but he might have added that the car was toilet stink.
The X cars also had a reputation for CV joint failure. Fortunately for Chrysler their K cars introduced the following year were much better engineered , exhibiting relatively few problems. Perhaps the transverse engine - front wheel drive experience Chrysler had with the earlier Horizon and Omni helped them avoid some of GM’s issues.
All the domestics had the same problem during and leading up to this era… using their customers to do reliability testing and fit and finish evaluation with respect to quality control. I was a pre-teen then and this is the era that ruined my generation from consideration of purchasing domestics. I tried my first domestic in 1995, special ordered the vehicle to get the engine and options I wanted. It was a turd and BROKE on the way home, the electric seat lumbar inop. Several other bugs to be resolved for the next two years. None of the foreign cars I had purchased new had issues like this. Fast forward to 2017, finally tried a 2017 F150 with a 2.7L Ecoboost - I am impressed, only a small handful of things I could nit pick the design engineers about - like why a fixed standing radio antenna when you build a jillion of these and some so optioned up to cost almost $75k! It’s more reliable and gets almost the same gas mileage as my wife’s Honda Pilot. I have 160k miles on the Ford and the Honda routinely has more issues with only 70k on it’s clock. I know, I’ve always been a foreign car biggot, until this truck has changed my mind - and I’m not a “truck guy” either! 🤣
Great assessment of the Chevy Citation. I own both a 1980 Coupe and a 1980 hatchback. As you indicated the rack and pinion went bad on both cars as well as the rear brakes. Always had to check over the CV joints and make sure the boots weren't ripped. Overall the car drove exceptionally well for what it was at the time. But unfortunately like most General Motors cars from the era when the clock hit 100,000 the car was relatively useless.
Great Video! I would comment that one of the reasons for it's high 1980 sales numbers would be it's April 1979 release date. (Like the 1965 Mustang). I would also think that it's lack of sales from 1982-on would be due to the release of the j-body Cavalier and a-body Celebrity. (If the customer base were still willing to stay with Chevy at all). The Olds and Buick versions remained fairly popular in the later model years. I good friend had an '81 Citation X-11 4spd. in 1983 or so... I remember the being a pretty fun car for the period. Thanks again for the interesting videos.
One of my HS friend's mom traded a really nice low mileage '69 Caprice Coupe for one of these back in 1980. I think my friend is still mad at her for doing that. I agree that it probably wasn't the smartest move. That Caprice was sweet!
Someone is spouting bullshit. I bought a 1980 Citation new, 2.8L V6, standard shift. I drove this car 183,000 miles. The only thing I did was replace brake pads, an exhaust pipe and muffler, oil changes and a trip to the body shop to fix some rust spots. The car was amazing, in town and on the highway, very comfortable.
My sister inherited a pristine looking 1981 Chevy Mutation. It was good when it was good but when it wasn’t no one would work on that car. It was mercifully hit by a bus.
Back in 79, before these cars even were sold, a friend (who was a higher-up at GM) brought a preproduction Citation over for several of us to drive. We piled 5 people into it, and took turns driving it around. The car had about 900 miles on it. When one of us tried to back up, there was no reverse gear. We all laughed as we got out to push. Since we were all Corvair people, we all (except for the GM guy) got a kick to see how much GM had gone downhill since the 60s. To this day, I don't trust TH125 transmissions.
At the time it was introduced, with all the press, it seemed really appealing (I actually liked how the Citation four-door looked best out of all the GM divisions). I mean, even Car and Driver (already high on anything imported by 1979) touted its features. But ya know, Dad always said you should avoid the first year of any new model. Maybe this could have been stretched to first three years of any new model of automobile.
GM has always killed vehicles off as soon as they got them right. My favorite one being the Fiero. Just imagine if they had continued building that one
Pontiac was edging into Corvette territory and Chevy did not want to have another Grand National on its hands. A two seat mid-engine sports car with a 190HP Quad Four or 205 HP turbo 3.1 for 1/2 the price of an L98 C4 with all or more of the performance?
Although quality issues undoubtedly hurt sales of these cars, it's also worth mentioning that the new front wheel drive J-body and A-body cars introduced for the 1982 model year likely cannibalized sales as well.
The J cars were a hell of a lot cheaper and the A cars just looked right for what a car was supposed to look like. People still wanted properly proportioned three box styling. Also the N car was coming out in 85 and Pontiac, Buick, and Oldsmobile would jump ship. IIRC Chevy would be completely out of the compact range until the Corsica came along in 1988.
@@calvinnickel9995 Chevy had a few compact cars between the Citation and Corsica. The Cavalier and Celebrity came out in 1982, the Sprint came out in 1985, and the Chevette was finally discontinued in 1987.
We had a Pontiac Phoenix. Pretty car with a v6 and a nice interior. The engine overheated, the body panels rusted from underneath the paint, plastic interior parts fell off the interior on a frequent basis, and the antifreeze turned to rust.....all in the first 6 months! Not to mention the car wanted to do a 180 when you hit the brakes hard. We took another car if it was raining. This was on the heels of a Cadillac with a V8-6-4. What a disaster! Might have been the last GM products we ever bought. So sad, they both looked great on paper. Oh, I did buy one more GM product. A Oldsmobile with a Quad 4 engine, again looked nice on paper....the check ball that kept oil in the top part of the engine when you shut it off got stuck. No oil to the head on start up. Bye bye engine...with less than 9,000 miles on the car. Lessons learned.
I bought one of the 6 cylinder hatchbacks for 200$ back in the day. The guy thought it needed a transmission. Needed a solonoid. Drove it for a year. Nice car
My family had one, new… 1981? White, 4 speed manual, 4 door hatchback, red interior. 11 year-old me thought it was cute. (I still think they’re good-looking cars.) My mother wasn’t a fan-it had an episode of rear wheel lock-up as she was turning a corner. She wound up in a snowbank. “I barely touched the brakes!” she repeated to my dad and her coworkers. History vindicated her driving skills.
I read an article quoting an Olds powertrain engineer saying the 2.8L engine started development around 1959 in the Olds division as a 60 degree V6 for transverse placement in a front drive Olds F85. Buick was to have their aluminum V8, dual path Dynaflow and rear drive, Pontiac would have half of its V8, torque tube and modified Corvair transaxle in rear, and Olds had prototypes of a front drive F85 with that V6 - around 210 cubic inches at the time - and a Roto Hydramatic transaxle that had three chains to route the power from engine to drive wheels. I guess the budget ran out and they adapted Buick's V8, shrunk the Roto Hydro and sold the rear drive version. Looking at the details of the 2.8, it looks a lot more like it borrowed ideas from the small block Olds than from the equivalent Chevrolet designs.
I had a two door V6 with 4 on the floor that I bought from my father for practically nothing. It felt pretty quick for 1980. I dont remember any reliability issues except for one big one -- it just about rusted in half by the time it was 8 or 9 years old. Ran fine, but you could see the road under the passenger floor mat. I sold it for a couple hundred bucks with only about 110,000 miles on the clock.
I earned my drivers license in a 1980 Chevy Citation. Drove it for about a year. For the most part it was reliable cheap transportation until one day my Citation's throttle got stuck open coming home from work and stopping it was almost impossible. Pulled it into the driveway and the motor was revving so high I thought the motor was was gonna blow up. Threw it into park, turned it off, jumped out and ran. It kept running, clugging and coughing for a good minute until the motor died. One of the scariest moments of my life. Towed it away the next day. For me the Chevy Citation was an ok car until that fateful day. Then I bought a Toyota Corolla.
Any time something like that happens, throw it into neutral. That physically disconnects the engine from the transmission, letting the engine rev as fast as it wants while you have complete control to safely slow the car down to a complete stop using normal braking effort.
@@joe6096 This was like in 1989 and had no idea of what to do. I threw it into park like an idiot. Now I know I should have should have put it into neutral. Just young an dumb.
My dads first car was the Buick version of the ole Citation in the form of an ‘81 Skylark with the 2.8. Outside of him having to replace the CV boots, it was a fairly good car for the few years he had it, even getting compliments from his friends that it was one of the quicker V6 cars they’d ever ran against or rode in
Hey Adam, I drove a brand new Chevrolet Citation 2.5L in 1980 in driver's ed class and the car was a complete dog! I'd floor it from a stop and the gym teacher driving instructor didn't even notice. The car was extremely rough at idle and the overall driving experience of the Citation was so very awful compared to my parent's 1972 Matador 304 and 1977 Impala 305, both purchased new. There were a few 1980 Citations for driver's ed cars. Fortunately, one driver's ed car was a 302 Granada which was far better to drive than the Citation. Why anyone would want this car is beyond me!
My aunt had a beige 1980 2-door notchback with the 2.8 engine. Note: She had a dark green '71 Monte that was traded in for that car - it was a nice/clean car... I remember that car very well and it makes me wish I could go back in time to take it. she said there was nothing wrong with that car -- it was just old and gas prices climbed to unprecedented levels so she needed a fuel-efficient car to drive to work. Her Citation had an "expiration" date starting with the interior, especially the door panels -- they dried out even with armor that was used to protect them. The exterior was ok and the car ran well with a 10-minute drive to work and back until the catalytic converter failed or the indicator showed up in the odometer sometime around 1987/88 yet it still ran fine while the interior deteriorated further. She traded it for an "almost plain jane" 1989 Buick Century with the 3.3 engine that I had the pleasure of driving on multiple occasions. (Buick-sourced engine I believe and it was a wise purchase that served her and the next owner very well - needed almost nothing except for normal wear/tear items like brakes and tires. That Century outlasted the '97 Grand Prix my aunt purchased as its replacement, but another story for another time).
My father bought an '87 Century. That was a solid car. Only memorable flaw of those cars was the leaky valve cover seals on that very, very common (by then) 2.8 V6. Dad retired and he replaced it a few years with another solid Buick - a '96 Regal. By that '87 model year Buicks were really gaining a respectable reputation for quality but the younger U.S. buyers were by then comfortable with the imports.
What GM car in that era (even since then) didn't have major flaws? This was the problem with the "big three". It was considered normal, and anything better was considered unobtainable for American automakers. AMC didn't have this problem, but it was so important to deride them as "ugly" and made of parts from different manufacturers.
@@calvinnickel9995 AMC shut down December 1987. The last model year of AMC cars was 1988, 22 years before the last GM vehicles. (Anything newer than that which says GM isn't any different than Chrysler-produced Jeeps.) I have two 1988s that are still on the road. One of them I have all the service records for, and it's just piddly warranty stuff mostly I assume because the owner (an AMC employee) was trying to stick it to Chrysler. AMC famously brought the 1987 XJ to market with a brand new drivetrain with zero serious problems, something unheard of from the "big 3". Just look at the contemporary reviews. Your 1986 Jeep did not have inherent engineering problems, the kind that always took GM 5-7 years to iron out. In 1986 it probably did have a GM engine.
GM seems to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
That's why I would NEVER buy a car from GM.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The right comment at the right time. I would not buy an EV now but GM has botched the rollout of the Bolt.
Yeah go buy a fud or mopower junk wagon lol.....
@@will7its the ford had the Edsel that was a flop. Chrysler had the exner era low quality late fifties and the radical downsizing debacles. Beyond that I don’t think they took as big a risk with such disastrous results as Vega, citation
As a past owner owner of a 1980 Citation, I think the video missed the mark of how poorly this car was executed. This car was indeed a packaging marvel, well ahead of its contemporaries. I was forced to make a panic stop due a road obstruction, the rear wheels locked and the car went sideways off the road. I was able to replicate this trait to the service manager at the dealership. 5hey kept the car for a month and when I got it back, nothing was resolved. Following this, interior trim pieces star5ed falling off and then large pieces of paint started to release from the car. GM refused to paint the whole car attributing it to my lack of care. The sunroof leaked and the hatch pistons failed. When tried complaining GM Customer Service, I was told they had millions of satisfied customers, they could afford to lose one.
I never bought another GM, no one in my family ever bought one and I have influenced many others not to. The stain of poor quality outlasts the sweetness of a goodprice everytime.
Yep. A lot of these people went to Honda and never looked back. Cant blame them either, Honda's were light years ahead.
I own a 2017 jeep Wrangler. The poor build quality and list of major repairs is appalling in this day and age! It is amazing how these companies seem to repeat history! This has led myself and many others to swear to never buy another Chrysler product as long as I shall live!
Customer service at GM dealerships in the 1980s was non-existent after the car was purchased. I had similar experience to yours with my 1984 Buick Century (ugh) which was my first car I ever purchased (used) in 1988. That car has so many issues. I would take it to different GM dealers hoping I'd find a compassionate service manager, but nope. They all blamed me for the car's issue. Kept the car until 1993 when I bought a Honda Civic and never looked back. That Civic lasted me until 2013 with barely any issues in those 20 years.
The was another nail in GM’s coffin. These were the poorest executed and built vehicles in GM’s history, up to that point. I was in the automotive collision industry when these were on the road. Repairing these presented new challenges due to their construction. At least it wasn’t difficult make these vehicles appear like new! The shoddy body and paint work was appalling. Talk about a vehicle that should have never released to the public. I remember seeing X cars with mileage as low as 5,000 with morning sickness in the steering. How GM ever got away without issuing a recall for that, I’ll never know. This car could have been a world beater. Unfortunately the bean counters had the upper hand.
I owned two in the early 1908s. First one was manual, 2.5 Iron Duke. After... 25,000 miles, the manual transmission broke!
I have driven manuals for 50 years, and never had any problem with them. The fork controlling the even gears broke; only 1st and third remained available! Managed to get it fixed under warranty. When it broke for the second time (same problem), I sold the car.
In the meantime, my wife had a 1980 2.5 automatic. Transmission gave up after about 40,000 miles. Had to fork out a lot of money to get it fixed. When it broke for the second time after about 2 years, I sold the car. Only other in the family ever having
a transmission problem was a 1992 Mazda Protege at... 135,000 miles (understandable at that age, especially given that my daughter was working for the Park Service, and had taken it off road in the back country for quite a time).
Also had the rear brakes lock when exiting a freeway; very scary; had not even braked very hard, since i also used downshift to
ease on the brakes...
Yes, it was roomy; yes it got through snowdrifts seamlessly, but nope.... never again !
@@emileokal7752 Our dejected commentator, “emileokal7752,” suffered through Armageddon with his family’s two ill-fated, ill-farted Citation automobiles. “emileo’s” sad description of repeated service trips for the same problem begs the question of whether he took his tribulations up with the regional man at GM. Undoubtedly, many of our UA-cam commentators would like to know the answer.
My financial contribution is more about the overall greatness of your videos, and not specifically about this particular car, which I also enjoyed nonetheless. I wish that I had more to give right now. I am a true gear head, and have been since my earliest memories. Please keep your videos coming. I love the style, execution, and content of your work. Truly brilliant!
Thanks!
Rob
I had my 1982 X-11 out this weekend. Unlike when I bought it from it's original owners 9 years ago, it gets a lot of attention now, and mostly from 20-somethings who have never seen or heard of one. Besides the obvious attention getters like the spoiler and hood scoop, what seems to amaze them is the amount of interior space in what appears to be a small car.
awesome 🏆
Because it's mostly hidden, I don't think people realize the amount of space given up in modern cars to mandatory safety features (to say nothing of the added weight).
@@seed_drill7135 ... my 2021 Hyundai Sonata weighs 3200 lbs had a 191 HP engine and gets 40+ mpg. It does 0-60 in just over 8 seconds. Its super safe in crash tests.
It still has plenty of room. I like modern cars.
@@dougn2350 I feel my 2010 Mazda 3 is very small and flimsy, but I spent the last 13 years in a '08 Charger.
That said, your car is certainly safer and faster than the X-11, but it also outweighs it by around 700 pounds.
I remember seeing a Citation coming to a panic stop at a traffic light one evening. The car did a 180 and amazingly didn’t hit anything. The stunned driver got out, surveyed the car in disbelief. We all watched as he turned it around then drove away.
My jeep did that once on salt. I wasn't going fast at all maybe 30 at most. Dry road just salt
I did that in a 91 Buick Century on ice. I was in the center lane and spun between cars on both sides of me as well as a car sitting at the light in front of me. Came to a halt facing forward in my lane, didn't hit anyone. Drove away when the light turned green.
Abs and skid control systems are two things in engineering development couldn't have been smarter for the average driver.
They used a dual diagonal circuit braking system (left front and right rear / right front and left rear paired, instead of fronts on one circuit and rears on another).
The saddest part of the citation is the body shell really is an engineering masterpiece, giving far more cargo and passenger room than the rwd nova it replaced. Its everything else, (suspension, brakes, engines, transmissions) that was rubbish. The A bodies that came soon after was basically a streched citation with the bugs worked out and those would go to live on till 1996 and be regarded as very reliable for their time.
The A's weren't even stretched. The wheelbase for the X's and A's are identical and the cars share the same floorpan stampings. Any added length was ahead of the front wheels or behind the back wheels
@@stevevarholy2011 The definition of stretched is longer. You even said the front and rear are "added length" which means stretched. 🤣
The 2.8 was a great engine and the car wasn't bad either. And they were great in the snow and pretty fast.
@@mph5896 The A body _overhangs_ were lengthened, yes. When I say "stretched" i usually think of added length between the axles. I agree with Steve's comment. And I will add that the X and A bodies we're so similar that they even shared the same factory service manuals.
As James May once said of the Jaguar XJS, "They had the recipe for a perfect shepherd's pie, and then made it with dog meat."
I had the "pleasure" of owning 3 Citations, including an X11, a notchback 2dr, and a 4dr manual 4spd. No complaints, they all got the job done!
I would agree with your analysis. Another case of GM snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Starting with the model name "Citation" which means speeding ticket. Followed up by cost driven decisions for poor materials, reliability and fit/finish. The basic design, engineering and performance were what people wanted to buy - witness that first year demand. But the disappointment of the buyers not only killed sales but also killed brand loyalty of many first year buyers.
Citation was also a famous race horse from the late '40s as well as an Edsel model name [along with Pacer].
A citation can also be made for a great performance or contribution to something.
i had one of these cars years ago. it was old then. i bought it for 50 bucks, it needed a choke pull-off. it had an iron duke. the body was decent but the floor was the worst i have ever had in a car. the drivers floor was stop sign style. it was a decent running car and i really didnt have much trouble with it. especially for $50. we drove it for 2 years and sold it running for $75. it was a hatchback. we were newly married and in our first apartment. i brought home a used wash and drier with the car, one at a time. took one unit home and went back for the other unit. the fact i could actually do that with a fairly small car was impressive. my mother drove it an entire summer on year when the crappy P-metric transmission in her 96 taurus took a crap and had to be rebuilt. we owned this car in the early 2000's
i really cant say much bad about it, except for the lack of a good floor. at what i paid for it, it was an exceptional deal and i never regretted buying it. it was a relatively trouble free car for us. i still love the iron duke, if i stumbled upon a clean iron duke car today i will still be tempted to buy it. reliable, cheap to maintain, fairly decent fuel economy. they weren't the most refined engine but certainly are a long life engine. i also had a 6000 with that engine.
I awaited the 1980 X-cars with great anticipation, and placed an early order for a Skylark Limited coupe with the V6 and 4-speed manual transmission. After waiting impatiently for six months, my dealer notified me that it had received a Skylark Sport Coupe in the same color I had ordered, also equipped with the V6, 4-speed, A/C, and other goodies I had ordered. The Skylark Sport Coupe was Buick's equivalent to the Citation X-11, and had a specific grille, black-out trim, leather-wrapped steering wheel and full instrumentation, smoked glass taillamps, larger tires, performance suspension, etc. I accepted the car rather than continue to wait. The little Buick was gorgeous, and friends initially thought that it was a new compact from Mercedes-Benz. As Adam has noted, the packaging was remarkable, and I found the car to be very comfortable and spacious. The car's flat cornering was really quite astonishing for its time. I drove the car 97,000-miles over the next six years, and, for the most part, found the car enjoyable. But it was not without its aggravating issues, and I was fortunate that the service manager at the local dealership really went to bat for me. The manual transmission shifter operation was notchy and rough, which was repaired under warranty. I experienced the "morning sickness" with the power steering, which proved attributable to a leaky power steering pump. The passenger side door never fit quite right, and driving rain would force water into the passenger seating area. Sunlight caused the interior door panels to fade to an unattractive flesh color. But the biggest problem was an electrical gremlin that forced me to replace the alternator every year or so. My conclusions are similar to Adam's. From a packaging standpoint, the design was a triumph, but the engineering and execution were sadly lacking. . . . Early on, I persuaded a number of friends to purchase new X-Body cars, but I don't believe that any ever purchased an American brand automobile again following their X-Body frustrations. I recall saying to my parents, "GM is just handing market share to the imports on a platter."
I had a friend that bought one shortly after launch. Like many buyers, her Citation was riddled with issues. It was her last Chevrolet or GM vehicle of any kind. She liked the car but not the constant issues AND terrible way her dealer and GM treated her. Instead of trying to make happy customers they sent them to their competitors.
That happened to us with a Chevy Corsica. Oh, the nightmare car that was. Hopefully, we'll learn more about the Corsica here.
@@Bdub1952 I owned an 88 Corsica with 2.8 v6. I put 238k on it. I bought it used and it started out as a lemon. Thankfully I had the extended warranty and found a good dealer. It was the first year of fuel injection. Eventually it became a reliable car. The coil packs and long plug wires caused me a ton of grief when they would fail.
@@Bdub1952 My first car was a 1990 Beretta GT. Same car as the Corsica but with 2 doors. Had the same exact interior. 3.1 V6, 5 speed, fully loaded. Dark blue with red and black pin stripes with light blue interior. 15” honey comb alloy wheels on Goodyear Eagle tires. It was a seriously cool car, I bought it with 53,000 miles. But soon after I had the infamous peeling paint. And locked up seat belts. GM did fix my seatbelts for free but they would not take care of my paint issue even though it was a super common issue on almost all Berettas and Corsicas of that era.
@@joe6096 Our car was a nightmare. My wife traveled for a living, and the first time it happened she was about 200 miles away. "It" was the transmission dropping to low gear while rolling down the highway. Luckily she was near a Chevy dealer (the car was a year old) and they replaced the ECU. We drove back down to pick it up, then two months later it happened again. Engine screaming, she called me again, and off to another dealer. This happened once again, and the last dealer told us that the previous replacements were with the exact same version of firmware. Apparently, there was a recall, but the first two dealers replaced the part with a non-upgraded part.
We said goodbye to Chevy and bought a Mazda 626GT. Now that was a fun car. Reliable too.
@@joe6096 No Beretta was a popular detective show on ABC television in the late ‘70’s starring Bob Blake. Blake is infamous for his paying out big civil suit money for the shooting death of his second of three wives.
I bought two of them, one for my wife and one for me. We put over a hundred fifty thousand miles on both of them with no real problems except the cold steering problem which was remedied by thinning the fluid a little bit. What really was amazing is that the ac in both cars blew 35-degree air even on the hottest summer day.
When I was a teen my dad bought a used 1980 Citation. 4dr hatch. Iron duke 4 banger and 4 speed manual. Had a feature I had never seen before. Right above the B pillars on the headliner was a lever to open the far back quarter windows. I only saw that in his and never again. I've seen hundreds of Citations pass through the wrecking yards I had worked at. Must have been a relatively rare option or something.
His looked exactly like the car pictured at 4:56 in the video.
Other than the right (or was it left?) rear tire locking up under anything but light braking it was a decent car for us.
I blew a few transaxles (I drove it HARD as a teen) but other than that it was pretty reliable.
We never had the steering rack rip off the firewall like other early Citations did.
When I got my first car it was an 82' Cavalier. 1.8L HORRIBLE 4 banger + a tall geared 4 speed manual. Manual steering, manual everything, no ac. That car got great mpg but I preferred the Citation over it by far.
I had never heard of rear quarter windows that open on this.
I wonder if GM was toying with an encore of their no-rolldown-rear-windows trick from the A-cars, then got cold feet and shipped a few cars with both roll-down windows and rear vents. The A-cars were not exactly beloved for that "feature". And I had thought my '68 Fleetwood was the last car GM made with both roll-down and vent windows in the rear.
@@pcno2832 Wow I didn't know about the opening rear door vent windows on the 1968 Fleetwood. That's cool! 🆗🆒✅
@@pcno2832 No. Windows in the standard Citation two doors were fixed. This was a flipper window option.
Ford Maverick two doors had the same thing, a feature picked up from European and Japanese cars. But those were popped open from the back seat.
I worked at a dealer when these came out. We inspected for ripped tie down holes and drilled and bolted in reinforcing plates. A list of checks and mods were done. Then we soon had the plastic tape used for window lift strip. GM was trying a lot of new and very cheap ways of making some things work or as it turned out, not work.
Very few of these cars are left today. They were rust buckets and the interior materials all disintegrated into dust. The only ones not sent to the crusher by 1990 were garage queens.
Also, it depended on where you lived, if in the PNW, these could last a good while as they don't rust much and aren't as baked by the hot sun as much either if not in say, the Rogue Valley or in Eastern Oregon/Washington, but yeah, I think I have seen the occasional one around here as many cars here can last 20 or more years if kept up reasonably well.
My father had two Citations and a Pontiac Phoenix and honestly he had great luck with them.... Those brand new little cars hauled a lot of firewood home from the woods, traversed woods roads to get to fishing holes etc etc. My father always had big block luxo yacht cars and always a full size 4wd truck too but this was always our utility vehicle... I have fond memories of the Citations as does my father. The only gripe he had which I don't think you commented on was the early onset of aggressive body corrosion. He used to grease and graphite everything and yet the Citations still managed to return from whence they came, back to iron ore dust.
I was an auto mechanic working on the 1980 Chevy Citation back when they were new. These cars were an absolute pile of junk. Words can not describe how bad they were. All the years that they made them were the same. Nothing but problem after problem. Good riddance that I have not seen one of these in years. This car is the reason why GM lost so many customers who went over to foreign cars. The best I can say about Citation is R.I.P.(Rust in Peace).
I was in college when this car came out. I looked at buying one and an uncle did buy one, a blue two-tone four door. That man, a retired truck driver, maintained his cars physically and mechanically better than anyone I've known. I can remember his countless troubles with the crappy construction, the mechanical failures, and the despicable build quality. Broke his heart 'cause he thought he knew how to pick cars. It was around this time, around 1980, that so many friends and acquaintances of mine, of all ages, finally turned away from lousy-made American cars and converted to the Euro luxury brands or the big Japanese brands. GM certainly appeared to care more about making money than making good cars; my last GM car was a 1972 Buick convertible in the seventies, and never again. My money is too dear to me to throw it away on junk cars.
The statement about GM caring more about money than good cars seems to be very true. at least since the Vega. During the 1970s, I heard horror story after horror story about American(mostly GM) car quality. Two of my co-workers then bought Celicas and had no problems. GM still seems to have quality issues, but so do Chrysler and Ford.
I had an 82 Citation that I bought new in 1985. Yeah the car was never sold in 3 years! It was also a 4 speed manual, no A/C, no cruise, and no cassette stereo which is probably why no one wanted it. Not a great car, but it never failed me. I had it for only a couple years, but I still remember it because it was my first car.
This was my first car in high school. My mother bought it for me new (1980 model, 4 door hatchback, cream/red two tone exterior, black cloth interior) from a friend of hers who worked for GM and got the employee discount. I needed a car that my very long legs could manage and the interior packaging with the bench seat and column shifter 3-speed automatic worked for me. It was a good car for a teenager and it was passed down to my brother 2 years later when I went off to college. So the good news was that I got a new car at 16. But the car was riddled with problems. Most notably for me was that the entire front of the vehicle shook when the car exceeded 72 MPH. This was something the dealer could not fix, saying it was baked into the design. Maybe they didn't try hard enough but it was truly awful and never felt safe. The radio was annoying in that i couldn't replace it with a better aftermarket one easily (Clarion eventually made parts for it but I was in college by then). GM may have been studying Lancia for the overall packaging design but they should have been studying Honda for engine design. The 2.5L I4 "Iron Duke" ran rough pretty much all the time....but at least in its defense it ran. But by the time my mother sold it in 1986, the car was already beginning to rust in spots, which even though the car lived outside all its life, this was inexcusable. GM knew how to build a car that didn't rust back then. My mother replaced the car with a used 1980 Caddy Coupe Deville with very low miles that my brother and I shared in college and he drove it through law school in the early 90s. The Caddy was a far better put together vehicle and the 6.0L big block was problem free.
The Cadillac was better built. This is another reason I lean towards luxury cars, they're typically always built better, with better materials and craftsmanship and usually last longer than the lower priced cars. Plus you're usually far more comfortable and safer in them. 👍
I never understood the vertical radio thing. Couldn't you just put any radio in there and live with the numbers on the display being 90 degrees off? Otherwise, it looked like any other radio of that time. It's certainly harder to fit an aftermarket radio in just about any car built since the 1980s than in a Citation.
@@pcno2832 That's what my Dad and I did, unfortunately, the Panasonic tape deck got to where it would only play in one direction, and it was autoreverse, but other than that, it did the job.
@@chriscadillac8448 I agree with you one hundred percent. And IF you ever have occasion to buy a used car - really ANY car that is EXPENSIVE more or less - they usually LOOK better because they've normally been in a garage 😉
@@wilsixoneHi William, YES. Not only are they usually garage kept; they're typically better maintained because they are purchased by people who can afford to... and want to... protect their investment.
I've always bought upper echelon cars.... nothing lower than a Buick Park Avenue... usually Lincoln's or Cadillacs... and they usually served me well for 10-15 years, (and were usually 2/3 years old when I bought them). I've never bought a new car in my life. You're just throwing your money away... money that can be put in far better investments. 👍
I've also bought my fair share of vintage cars... and aside from their more complicated electrical systems, they're not that much more difficult to work on than any other old car. And when you do work on them, you can really see the better materials and craftsmanship that did go into them compared to the low price field marques.
My family had a Citation when they were new. All I remember about the car was the story of the time my mother braked gently while traveling down the road (not a panic stop) which caused a lockup and spun the car across a 4 lane highway and into a parking lot on the opposite side. Luckily no other cars were involved. Great design, perhaps, but not a good impression.
My brother's first new car was a 1983 Citation 2.8 V-6 and he loved it. Even I, who always favored land yachts... and still do... was impressed with it at the time, given it's small size.
It was not a failure for GM. They took the car, including wheelbase and doors, extended the trunk and hood, and sold over a million a year for most of 15 years as midsized car.
Plus all of the money spent was used on technology shared with hundreds of millions of cars over the next 30 years.
Amen. Thank you for making the point. I don't think the sales figures Adam used for Citation included Mexico, where it was quite popular and was manufactured for the 1986 model year, as well.
Citation sales were chewed up by the 3-box Celebrity and by the slightly smaller Cavalier, which debuted in 1982 and which also went on to be manufactured for quite a long time before a total redesign.
It was a HUGE failure. They had massive public (and media) support - rooting for GM to have a winner. It was a disaster - awful engineering quality and materials quality. Thus while many were sold it cost GM at least an order of magnitude more in lost future sales. Let’s not forget this was yet another miserable failure among many - the biggest since the Vega. Serial failures - arguably still happening - have soured literally billions worldwide on GM. The citation was one of the bigger ones.
I agree it was a HUGE failure. I special ordered a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix with the V-6 and 4-speed. With all the initial hype, the car was difficult to get as it was so popular. It had all the virtues and vices that Adam described. I sold the car in disgust two years later and it would be almost 25 years before I would even CONSIDER a GM vehicle. That car sold a lot of Japanese (or at least Japanese branded) cars to disgruntled ex-owners.
@@gordtulk you must be a loyal Scotty Kilmer following. He hates GM, Ford, and Chrysler. But loyal to Toyota. And where is Toyota's, Hondas, and the rest of the foreign markets headquarters are.? That's right. Not in this country. Where does the profit go. Not in this country. Back to Japan or China.! And yes, I know Chrysler is now owned by a foreign company. But the headquarters are still in Auburn, MI. So, I'll cut a little slack there. Very little. They have made huge strides in what the American people migrate to. Performance.! It's the 60's all over again, just 10 fold.!
@@daleliske9757 so you oppose free trade. You of course realize the greatest beneficiary of trade in the last 150 years has been America. It has more multi-national companies than any other country on earth. GM being one of them. Competition is what makes us better.
The 2.8 Litre was awful. EVERYONE I knew who bought one so equipped had significant oil leak problems. That engine was the upgrade in the first Jeep Cherokees. In 1985 we ordered a new Jeep Cherokee Chief 4Door 4WD. I was set to order the 2.8 Litre (the Chevy V6) but the salesman said NO...Live with the 2.5 Litre Jeep-built cast iron 4 even though it's leisurely at best. that was great advice. THe four never gave us a single problem in over 200K miles of driving. All our friends who got the Cherokee/Wagoneer bug at the time and ordered the V6 sorely regretted it.
I remember a German test of this car. They drove a new car almost 4000 miles with it. It was praised for roominess, quietness, comfort and the standard equipment. But unfortunately the car already desintegrated. Body panels falling off, and I think an alternator broke, wheel trims falling off, among other things. I also remember it whamming the underbelly on the tarmac in fast corners with a depression in it and that even with only 1 person in the car....
I have seen that video, along with others in the series. I don’t speak German but it’s still damned entertaining. I don’t recall any other car tested leaving part of it’s undercarriage laying on the test track during the undulating section like the Citation! Though one of the Peugeots stalling out during the water test, because.....French!
@@jefferysmith3930I too watched that video... albeit with captions, of course.
'Five full size adults could fit in comfort' - 5 full size American adults? Not today!
Five could fit in comfort but the suspension (especially the rear) would collapse
@@eduardojimenez2044 - Five of 1980s sized people. Have you seen 5 full size American adults?
My dad had gotten a white 1980 Craptation brand new, with the V6 and butt-roasting vinyl seats. In addition to stalling issues, like after a hard turn or in the middle of an intersection, he also had issues with the steering. Dealer service never really fixed anything. It was traded about 80k miles and oil pressure light coming on when hot for a new ‘86 Accord. (PS That Accord is currently hibernating in my backyard as part of the mothball fleet)
GM did that a lot what you stated. They would finally get a car right and then stop producing the car. Toyota keeps going back at it until they get it right. It will be interesting to see what the 2023 Toyota Crown does in the market. Thank you for another informative video.
I have a 1980 buick skylark x car and am still impressed by how roomy and quiet it is for the exterior size. It also rides and handles nice and is pretty quiet. Had the x car program been executed with very high quality control I think the auto market today would look different. The x car not meeting expectations sent many many people to competitive brands.
It seems to me that the x cars were released with about 90 percent of the engineering done at assembled at about 60 percent quality. Sad really. Gm management from this era should have been held to account
U cant forget insubordinate & disgruntled workers. That just happen to be in the union. Coming to work drooling from opiates or High on crack! The mgmt cant assemble 800,000 cars by themselves!
Sadly, in addition having to comply with Federal mandates, it was a time corporate belt tightening due to a recession. In short, 1980 to 1982 were not good years to purchase a Chrysler, Ford or GM car that wasn't a full sizer. The added bonus to the Citation and its siblings is that GM introduced an all new platform whose development was probably rushed.
The competition from overseas was not perfect. With regards to the crude engines of the era, my beloved 1980 Toyota Corona Wagon equipped with a bullet proof 20R, 2.2. liter truck engine was noisy and vibey when rev'd. It also only produced 95 horsepower - which was about what Ford was eeking out of its 200 cubic inch 6 cylinder in the Ford Fairmonts of the era.
I bought a 1982 Tercel as a used car. It had I believe 52 horsepower and used them all. My father was a union man his whole life and had plenty to say when I drove it into his driveway. All I can say is that it was a hell of a lot better than the competition from America. A 1982 Escort, Chevette or Horizon was just garbage. I drove the Tercel until it was 14 years old and actually had a lump in my throat as it was hauled away. The tinworm had struck again.
My late father bought a 1980 Citation new. I can remember, as I had just gotten my drivers license in January of 1980,. It was a 4-door, with a V6, with a 4-speed. He got the special gauge package with a tachometer instead of the clock. Of course it had many problems, including it would pop out of low gear when you let the clutch out. He wrote the company many times. He did however keep it until 1998, with 198,000 miles on it.
I think these were a good looking car. I did not know about the Lancia influence. Maybe that also influenced the quality control issues 😩. Some of those issues though were really unforgivable and likely helped push a lot of small car customers to the imports.
My brother had a used 1980 Citation that he bought for about $100. It had that horrible steering rack: Turning the steering wheel felt like the power steering belt broke... then the power steering would kick in halfway through the turn. I learned to anticipate the sudden lack of steering effort. The other funny thing was that the bench seat was falling through the floor, thus supported by a 2x4. When you stepped on the accelerator, the seat would rock backward, giving you the illusion of acceleration.
Driveable car for a hundred? Sounds good to me!
These were junk, another example of why foreign automakers gained such a strong foothold in the US.
I can admit that in 1980 I wanted a Citation X-11, I thought it was awesome and it was getting a lot of good press. I bought a house instead, and it was another five years before I started looking at new cars again. I bought a beautiful 1985 Olds Cutlass Ciera Brougham because I liked the styling and the acceleration of the 3.8 V6 over the 2.8 V6 in the Chevy Celebrity.
Sounds like you did it right, them Ciera Broughams were pretty nice and you got the house!
Early eighties cars have a charm to them that can't be replicated. They drive like a relatively modern car, feel like a 60's-70's car, are lighter weight than older cars, but keep those great thin steering wheels, comfy seats and large interior space. Plus they're usually very easy to work on, being quite simple.
I'm surprised by the sales figures reported. I remember seeing a small # of them around for 1-2 years, then it's like they all just disappeared.
That 2.5 liter 151 cubic inch engine is still in production today; The truck that delivers your mail is powered by this engine.
There's someone a few blocks south of me who has an X-11. I don't know them, but I've seen the vehicle numerous times.
Looks to be in very nice condition.
Sadly the Citation's problems meant that for a lot of people, this was their last American car. Maybe it would have been better in the long run if it started out as a sales flop? The general design wasn't bad though. The A-platform was derived from the Citation's X-platform. GM sold the A-platform until 1996. I seem to recall Consumer Reports giving later A-body Buick Centuries pretty high marks for reliability; although by 1996 the car was laughably obsolete.
Other than my current 1982 X-11, I swore off domestic cars because of a lemon of a 1988 Beretta.
Great video. I never really understood why there's so much negativity in the Citation. My dad worked for the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan. He tagged a 1982 Citation from the engineer company car list. It was a 4 door hatch with the 4 cylinder engine. It was great in the winter, and he sold it to a family member with 100,000 miles on it. They in turn drove it to 252,000 until it was totaled in an accident. But no complaints about the car, from when we had it to my cousin. My sister also had one new in 1984, there too, no complaints until she was involved in a hit and run accident. Where a guy hit her in the rear with a pickup and sped off. Got, 2 letters, and 3 numbers off the plate. And a description of the truck, But police said they couldn't do anything.!
My buddy had a new Citation X11 in orange. Sharp looking car.
An ‘81 Citation was my second car after totaling my ‘76 Monza. I was going to college in Michigan at the time, and in my 40+ years of driving, to this day it is still the best car in the snow outside of an AWD vehicle that I have ever owned. On top of that, it was a 2 door hatchback and if you folded down the backseat, it moved all of needs for a college at the time (including huge stereo speakers). I had to have the steering rack replaced, but other than that it was a great car and served my younger sister well after I was done with it.
Now I remember why I bought my first foreign car, a 1985 Toyota Corolla. I hope GM can instill some resemblance of reliability in their electric cars. I’d love to see them be world leaders again.
Unfortunately GM is destined to repeat the past again . They have had many years to develop hybrids and electric platforms. But they seem to try something and discontinue whole platforms and then try something new . Wash rinse repeat 🙃
I bought a 1983 manual 4-door in 1989 for $200, iirc. The driver's door window stuck and I called a local auto glass company and described the problem. He asked "Is it a Citation?"
Despite issues, I liked it and put a lot of miles on it. I told myself "Hey, at least it's not a Chevette."
My Dad must have gotten one of the good ones. I grew up riding in his 1980 Citation with the lowly 2.4L 4. He bought it new and kept it until 1989. It never broke down, and he put around 165K on it. But NO ONE in our family appreciated the ergonomics. My sister called it "the egg". It had fugly tan vinyl seats- but honestly- it was a solid, reliable car. I remember taking trips in it to Florida, visiting my late grandparents on Long Island, NY driving from Georgia.
As a kid, it was Dad's car that only he appreciated. My Mom wanted a new car and the poor Citation was so unloved, despite it being in perfect working condition and pretty good physical shape, we listed it in a newspaper (yeah, back in the day) and NO ONE wanted it. My Dad almost cried when he donated it to our church and it was gifted to a young mother who needed a car.
This maybe GM's epic failure, but I still have a soft spot for it. Many of the best years of my life were in that red "egg".
My older brother bought a new Citation in 1981. I remember by 1984 or 85 rust bubbles appeared through the paint. Typical problem of GM cars of that era.
I remember an engineer at a church I attended telling me that his team was given one of these cars and told to install the engine for pre-production support. I think the motor was a v6. They used hammers an pry bars to rework the fit. The production teams of that era weren't involved in the design process - to any significant extent.
My high school student parking lot should have been full of Citations in 1984-1988...but there were none. None of these cars lasted more than a couple years in New England. They just dissolved into rust after the first snow. Guess they copied that from Lancia too.
I still remember the commercials for these. Very catchy! "Chevy CiTATION".
I inherited my father's blue 1985 Citation when he went into a nursing home. I quite enjoyed the utility of the car. I recall hauling a washer and dryer in it as part of my kitchen remodel.
Ahhh, but that doesn't count since you were remodeling the kitchen. The real test would've been say a dishwasher and oven! 😂
The only new car mom ever bought.
The car was recalled, like, 9 times, within the first 1 1/2 years. We taped them all on the refrigerator.
📻😱
GM's worst enemy is its cheapness. ALWAYS trying to cheap out.. and they KNEW what it would do, they just didnt care.
they were constantly claiming that they were paying their blue collar workers too much.so what's the answer? they go cheap on materials and wind up with junk.
I bought a new 1980 Citation Coupe 2.8 v6 and it was a great car . Never had any issues with it. Had it for 5 years. The FWD was a godsend in snow country after dealing with a 1975 Camaro in the winter. Basically the camaro was worthless in snow.
2.8 v6 had a long life. 2.8l turned into canted valve 2.8l, then 3.1, 3.4, 3.5, 3.9. The worst of them had to be the early 90's DOHC 3.4L. A pushrod engine turned into a timing belt driven Dohc over-engineered nightmare to fix . That only gained 10 horsepower compared to its baseline turbocharged model. Do we learn from history? No, Ford did the same stupid idea only worse in most ways. The 4.0l v6 from the 90's started its life as a 2.8l, then 2.9l and 4.0 pushrod engine. Then made it SOHC, but only produced one cylinder head. So on passenger side of engine the timing chain was on the back , guess which chain would have issues? This was all around dumb because they didn't add 4 valves per cylinder, they kept it 2. No advantage was gained by doing this.
Totally agree 👍 Those stupid OHC 4.0 are just a mess. What was wrong with the pushrod 4.0? They were reliable and easy to work on.
@@johneckert1365 Easy? Depends on what it was needing. Valve cover gaskets being a pain but yeah, it was a very good engine. The 2.9 wasn't terrible, besides sounding like a sewing machine it wasn't bad.
@@The_Future_isnt_so_Bright I liked the 2.9 as well. The 2.8 were a pile of shit though. Same with Chevy's early 2.8.
I purchased one, brand new. Plain Jane model, V6, auto transmission, radio
and nothing more. I sold it at nearly 280K miles. As I know the new owner was pretty happy with it. It would be dishonesty to say one bad word about the car. Never I had any problems with engine or transmission, engine always started at first try, gas millage was good. At nearly 280K miles the timing chain was making a little noise at higher speed. Yes, there were some issues with suspension and brakes. Headlights were poor quality, had to be replaced (often), because it was a sealed unit a bulb only change was not possible. In my opinion it was a good car that never surprised me on the road.
My first dealership job was in 1980. I was hired by a family that owned a used car dealership and was moving into a former Chevy site. We were a new Buick/Pontiac dealer with no cars except 3 gold Citations. The Citations sold in days and then had no cars except the cars we brought from the used lot.
I had an '84 II. Notchback two-door, mags, two-tone champagne and brown. It was as you described: roomy, quiet, nicely trimmed, comfortable ride.
Having driven my Father's Olds Ciera triggered my interest. And later prompted the purchase of a 99 Cavalier two-door as my first new car. The Xs were the right size as well and the Cavalier by that time was in the same size, though not as roomy in the back seat.
To this day I still regret trading the Cavalier in on an '86 N Body Calais, though I still have this car.
An important point that you did not mention was the X Car was the basis for the A car and the Xs shared many of the improvements made to the new A platform for 1982. The As even shared the same wheelbase.
A Body production went on for many years after the X Body left production, so eventually GM got it right.
My first car was a Citation. Overall it was an odd duck, but as my first car, I loved it. Our time together only lasted through about two-thirds of my college years when eventually the tie-rod rotted out and put an end to our time together.
My sentimental side wishes that I could drive that car one more time...
A great summary of the life of this car, Adam. Citations were very popular here in California when new, and it's yet another car that one never sees on the road today.
They came and went in a flash here on the East Coast.
Was born in 78, and the first car I remember riding in was my mom's 80 Citation X-11. My parents bought the car from a now-defunct Chevrolet dealer in the Cleveland area (Bass Chevrolet in North Randall, Ohio) The owner was going to give it to his wife, before my mother decided to buy it...and I wish he had.
I think the only reason my parents didn't buy one of these was because a few years before, they bought a Vega and learned a lesson. :)
My parents bought a new 80 Buick model of this car I was a young mechanic we had tons of problems with that car I remember the left rear tire and brake assembly just falling off seems like I was working on that car all the time plus it had the 4 cylinder engine and it was a real dog they traded it off for a 86 Buick leSabre it was a great car
I owned a 1985 citation. All the bugs were worked out and the radio and hvac controls were finally horizontal. The truth was tthat when the A-body cars came out in 1982, those were on the same chassis as the X-body cars. The A-body car really cut into X-Body car sales. For those people who think the 1980 X-body cars were junk, most cars in 1980 were just throw away cars.
A 1980 Chevrolet Citation X-11 was one of the worst cars I ever owned. I purchased it new, it was the third vehicle I owned (first was a "72 Chevy Vega, then a 1977 VW Rabbit), and I also drove it over 130k miles, and was holding my breath throughout most of them. Such a great concept, and the styling was near perfection. But when it wouldn't start, literally, or had trouble going where you tried to steer it or trying to stop, the looks didn't matter. Dealership support was near nothing within the first year, as if they knew what was coming and just didn't want to deal with it. Thank you, Adam, for another great look at a moment of automotive history. We share the same love for for similar vehicles and eras.
No dealer want to be 'the end of the assembly line' that the mfrs were doing to save money.
My first car was a 1982 Citation bought when I was 17 on 1991. It was a 2.5 fuel injection first year for it and had done 55,000 miles. Paid 1200 for it. Dad and I gave her a good tune up never had any other issues with it. A/c worked great was noisy but reliable .
my mother had a 1981 x11 .when i was in highschool it was a fun cheap car to run . and being from ontario it was great in the snow . never had any issues with that car . fond memories love your vids very interesting
My grandfather rented one for a trip from indiana to boston ! he could not stop bragging how well the citation was !
At age 18 in 79 I ordered a Citation Coupe w the V6
Traction in the Snow was incredible and yes it was roomy and comfortable. I could move apts w it including couches.
Never mind the known problems....The worst part was the Rust. Brand New waxed undercoated regularly but after 7 yrs the unibody rails holding the seats rusted through. The driver's seat was actually sinking through the floor as the cross rail had rusted so bad.
In comparison my 12 yr old car now, without undercoating is virtually Rust free ( Same Country, lots of Salt on the roads)
People may say it's ugly. But I'd take a Citation over a modern car any day
What lesson did GM learn from the Citation? Never name a car after a traffic ticket.
Unless you're in the military. There a citation is a formal honorary mention.
Also reused name from an Edsel, as did AMC Pacer and Ford Ranger and much later the Lincoln Corsair.
Appreciate the nuanced discussion and deep dive into the citation. It was a mix of great ideas, some poor ideas, a rush to production, some corner cutting for the sake of profits. A factory fresh, ac equipped, v6 citation (particularly from the later end of the run) would probably be a decent car today. I do wonder if the high first year production didn't factor into some of the early issues, with a rush to production causing problems just like the rushed development.
Sounds like you weren't around when this car came out. Can't project to today on specs. Read some of the comments here and learn.
Piggybacking on the iconic high finned automobile of Ike’s heady ‘50’s, our fine UA-cam commentator, indeed one “Sedan57Chevy,” lets loose with trenchant analyses of the problematic Citation. “It’s the first Chevy of the ‘80’s, the first Chevy of it’s kind,” the jingle championed. “Sedan” tries hard to charitably allow for the automobile’s newness but he might have added that the car was toilet stink.
The X cars also had a reputation for CV joint failure. Fortunately for Chrysler their K cars introduced the following year were much better engineered , exhibiting relatively few problems. Perhaps the transverse engine - front wheel drive experience Chrysler had with the earlier Horizon and Omni helped them avoid some of GM’s issues.
All the domestics had the same problem during and leading up to this era… using their customers to do reliability testing and fit and finish evaluation with respect to quality control. I was a pre-teen then and this is the era that ruined my generation from consideration of purchasing domestics. I tried my first domestic in 1995, special ordered the vehicle to get the engine and options I wanted. It was a turd and BROKE on the way home, the electric seat lumbar inop. Several other bugs to be resolved for the next two years. None of the foreign cars I had purchased new had issues like this. Fast forward to 2017, finally tried a 2017 F150 with a 2.7L Ecoboost - I am impressed, only a small handful of things I could nit pick the design engineers about - like why a fixed standing radio antenna when you build a jillion of these and some so optioned up to cost almost $75k! It’s more reliable and gets almost the same gas mileage as my wife’s Honda Pilot. I have 160k miles on the Ford and the Honda routinely has more issues with only 70k on it’s clock. I know, I’ve always been a foreign car biggot, until this truck has changed my mind - and I’m not a “truck guy” either! 🤣
Great assessment of the Chevy Citation. I own both a 1980 Coupe and a 1980 hatchback. As you indicated the rack and pinion went bad on both cars as well as the rear brakes. Always had to check over the CV joints and make sure the boots weren't ripped. Overall the car drove exceptionally well for what it was at the time. But unfortunately like most General Motors cars from the era when the clock hit 100,000 the car was relatively useless.
I'm old enough to remember when these came out
Great Video! I would comment that one of the reasons for it's high 1980 sales numbers would be it's April 1979 release date. (Like the 1965 Mustang). I would also think that it's lack of sales from 1982-on would be due to the release of the j-body Cavalier and a-body Celebrity. (If the customer base were still willing to stay with Chevy at all). The Olds and Buick versions remained fairly popular in the later model years. I good friend had an '81 Citation X-11 4spd. in 1983 or so... I remember the being a pretty fun car for the period.
Thanks again for the interesting videos.
One of my HS friend's mom traded a really nice low mileage '69 Caprice Coupe for one of these back in 1980. I think my friend is still mad at her for doing that. I agree that it probably wasn't the smartest move. That Caprice was sweet!
Wish I still had our 69 Caprice coupe also
Someone is spouting bullshit. I bought a 1980 Citation new, 2.8L V6, standard shift. I drove this car 183,000 miles. The only thing I did was replace brake pads, an exhaust pipe and muffler, oil changes and a trip to the body shop to fix some rust spots. The car was amazing, in town and on the highway, very comfortable.
You got lucky. The sales numbers dont lie.
Had a 86 Eurosport Celebrity in the early 90s. Loved it!
4 vids in 1 day! Thanks Adam!
My sister inherited a pristine looking 1981 Chevy Mutation. It was good when it was good but when it wasn’t no one would work on that car. It was mercifully hit by a bus.
I love your videos so much! Just brilliant. Please don't stop.
Back in 79, before these cars even were sold, a friend (who was a higher-up at GM) brought a preproduction Citation over for several of us to drive. We piled 5 people into it, and took turns driving it around. The car had about 900 miles on it. When one of us tried to back up, there was no reverse gear. We all laughed as we got out to push. Since we were all Corvair people, we all (except for the GM guy) got a kick to see how much GM had gone downhill since the 60s. To this day, I don't trust TH125 transmissions.
At the time it was introduced, with all the press, it seemed really appealing (I actually liked how the Citation four-door looked best out of all the GM divisions). I mean, even Car and Driver (already high on anything imported by 1979) touted its features. But ya know, Dad always said you should avoid the first year of any new model. Maybe this could have been stretched to first three years of any new model of automobile.
GM has always killed vehicles off as soon as they got them right. My favorite one being the Fiero. Just imagine if they had continued building that one
Pontiac was edging into Corvette territory and Chevy did not want to have another Grand National on its hands. A two seat mid-engine sports car with a 190HP Quad Four or 205 HP turbo 3.1 for 1/2 the price of an L98 C4 with all or more of the performance?
Toyota might not have built the MR2.
Although quality issues undoubtedly hurt sales of these cars, it's also worth mentioning that the new front wheel drive J-body and A-body cars introduced for the 1982 model year likely cannibalized sales as well.
The J cars were a hell of a lot cheaper and the A cars just looked right for what a car was supposed to look like.
People still wanted properly proportioned three box styling.
Also the N car was coming out in 85 and Pontiac, Buick, and Oldsmobile would jump ship. IIRC Chevy would be completely out of the compact range until the Corsica came along in 1988.
@@calvinnickel9995 Chevy had a few compact cars between the Citation and Corsica.
The Cavalier and Celebrity came out in 1982, the Sprint came out in 1985, and the Chevette was finally discontinued in 1987.
We had a Pontiac Phoenix. Pretty car with a v6 and a nice interior. The engine overheated, the body panels rusted from underneath the paint, plastic interior parts fell off the interior on a frequent basis, and the antifreeze turned to rust.....all in the first 6 months! Not to mention the car wanted to do a 180 when you hit the brakes hard. We took another car if it was raining. This was on the heels of a Cadillac with a V8-6-4. What a disaster! Might have been the last GM products we ever bought. So sad, they both looked great on paper. Oh, I did buy one more GM product. A Oldsmobile with a Quad 4 engine, again looked nice on paper....the check ball that kept oil in the top part of the engine when you shut it off got stuck. No oil to the head on start up. Bye bye engine...with less than 9,000 miles on the car. Lessons learned.
Spacious and the one I was in when new was actually not slow with the 2.8. It was the beginning of power coming back to regular cars.
I bought one of the 6 cylinder hatchbacks for 200$ back in the day. The guy thought it needed a transmission. Needed a solonoid. Drove it for a year. Nice car
My family had one, new… 1981? White, 4 speed manual, 4 door hatchback, red interior. 11 year-old me thought it was cute. (I still think they’re good-looking cars.) My mother wasn’t a fan-it had an episode of rear wheel lock-up as she was turning a corner. She wound up in a snowbank. “I barely touched the brakes!” she repeated to my dad and her coworkers. History vindicated her driving skills.
I read an article quoting an Olds powertrain engineer saying the 2.8L engine started development around 1959 in the Olds division as a 60 degree V6 for transverse placement in a front drive Olds F85. Buick was to have their aluminum V8, dual path Dynaflow and rear drive, Pontiac would have half of its V8, torque tube and modified Corvair transaxle in rear, and Olds had prototypes of a front drive F85 with that V6 - around 210 cubic inches at the time - and a Roto Hydramatic transaxle that had three chains to route the power from engine to drive wheels. I guess the budget ran out and they adapted Buick's V8, shrunk the Roto Hydro and sold the rear drive version. Looking at the details of the 2.8, it looks a lot more like it borrowed ideas from the small block Olds than from the equivalent Chevrolet designs.
I had a two door V6 with 4 on the floor that I bought from my father for practically nothing. It felt pretty quick for 1980. I dont remember any reliability issues except for one big one -- it just about rusted in half by the time it was 8 or 9 years old. Ran fine, but you could see the road under the passenger floor mat. I sold it for a couple hundred bucks with only about 110,000 miles on the clock.
The problems with the Citation were a walk in the park compared to today's cars. I'd take a new one now in a heartbeat.
I earned my drivers license in a 1980 Chevy Citation.
Drove it for about a year. For the most part it was reliable cheap transportation until one day my Citation's throttle got stuck open coming home from work and stopping it was almost impossible. Pulled it into the driveway and the motor was revving so high I thought the motor was was gonna blow up. Threw it into park, turned it off, jumped out and ran. It kept running, clugging and coughing for a good minute until the motor died. One of the scariest moments of my life. Towed it away the next day. For me the Chevy Citation was an ok car until that fateful day. Then I bought a Toyota Corolla.
Any time something like that happens, throw it into neutral. That physically disconnects the engine from the transmission, letting the engine rev as fast as it wants while you have complete control to safely slow the car down to a complete stop using normal braking effort.
@@joe6096 No, 'Joe': any time something like that happens, ditch it and get a better car...
At the time, did anyone tell you why the throttle got stuck open?
Did that happen to other X car owners?
@@joe6096 This was like in 1989 and had no idea of what to do. I threw it into park like an idiot. Now I know I should have should have put it into neutral. Just young an dumb.
@@robertdragoff6909 Probably a stuck throttle cable or throttle linkage return spring.
My dads first car was the Buick version of the ole Citation in the form of an ‘81 Skylark with the 2.8. Outside of him having to replace the CV boots, it was a fairly good car for the few years he had it, even getting compliments from his friends that it was one of the quicker V6 cars they’d ever ran against or rode in
Hey Adam, I drove a brand new Chevrolet Citation 2.5L in 1980 in driver's ed class and the car was a complete dog! I'd floor it from a stop and the gym teacher driving instructor didn't even notice. The car was extremely rough at idle and the overall driving experience of the Citation was so very awful compared to my parent's 1972 Matador 304 and 1977 Impala 305, both purchased new. There were a few 1980 Citations for driver's ed cars. Fortunately, one driver's ed car was a 302 Granada which was far better to drive than the Citation. Why anyone would want this car is beyond me!
My aunt had a beige 1980 2-door notchback with the 2.8 engine. Note: She had a dark green '71 Monte that was traded in for that car - it was a nice/clean car... I remember that car very well and it makes me wish I could go back in time to take it. she said there was nothing wrong with that car -- it was just old and gas prices climbed to unprecedented levels so she needed a fuel-efficient car to drive to work. Her Citation had an "expiration" date starting with the interior, especially the door panels -- they dried out even with armor that was used to protect them. The exterior was ok and the car ran well with a 10-minute drive to work and back until the catalytic converter failed or the indicator showed up in the odometer sometime around 1987/88 yet it still ran fine while the interior deteriorated further. She traded it for an "almost plain jane" 1989 Buick Century with the 3.3 engine that I had the pleasure of driving on multiple occasions. (Buick-sourced engine I believe and it was a wise purchase that served her and the next owner very well - needed almost nothing except for normal wear/tear items like brakes and tires. That Century outlasted the '97 Grand Prix my aunt purchased as its replacement, but another story for another time).
My father bought an '87 Century. That was a solid car. Only memorable flaw of those cars was the leaky valve cover seals on that very, very common (by then) 2.8 V6. Dad retired and he replaced it a few years with another solid Buick - a '96 Regal. By that '87 model year Buicks were really gaining a respectable reputation for quality but the younger U.S. buyers were by then comfortable with the imports.
What GM car in that era (even since then) didn't have major flaws? This was the problem with the "big three". It was considered normal, and anything better was considered unobtainable for American automakers. AMC didn't have this problem, but it was so important to deride them as "ugly" and made of parts from different manufacturers.
We had a Jeep Cherokee.. 86, last year of AMC production.. and it had lots of problems.
@@calvinnickel9995 AMC shut down December 1987. The last model year of AMC cars was 1988, 22 years before the last GM vehicles. (Anything newer than that which says GM isn't any different than Chrysler-produced Jeeps.)
I have two 1988s that are still on the road. One of them I have all the service records for, and it's just piddly warranty stuff mostly I assume because the owner (an AMC employee) was trying to stick it to Chrysler.
AMC famously brought the 1987 XJ to market with a brand new drivetrain with zero serious problems, something unheard of from the "big 3". Just look at the contemporary reviews.
Your 1986 Jeep did not have inherent engineering problems, the kind that always took GM 5-7 years to iron out. In 1986 it probably did have a GM engine.