1978 Chevrolet Monza Wagon
At the end of the 1977 model year, GM discontinued the Chevrolet Vega. For 1978, the General would depend on the Vega-derived Monza to occupy the "compact" spot in the Chevy lineup. Needing a station wagon version to have a complete line, GM fitted leftover Vega wagon bodies with the "Monza S" front clip to produce the Monza Wagon.
I had one, and it was the worst car anyone in my family ever owned.
My father acquired it in 1980 from someone who worked at the Lordstown Assembly plant where it was built. The day Dad brought it home, we found an ice scraper in the glove box, an artifact of the previous owner. It was red, with a GM Assembly Division logo, and had a mysterious inscription: "GM LORDSTOWN MANAGEMENT TEAM - LET'S GET 150!"
It looked harmless enough. As late-1970s domestic cars go, the Monza Wagon was actually rather attractive.
Ours was a pleasant shade of dark brown with a beige interior, a
combination that came off better than it sounds. There was chrome
around the windows, but not too much. It had managed to escape the
factory without being subjected to the indignity of optional vinyl
woodgrain side trim.
The front buckets were pretty good for OEM seats. The rear seat was
small, but livable. The cargo area was big relative to the car's
overall size. If you folded the rear seat down it was positively
enormous--and anything that still didn't fit in there could be lashed
to the handy roof rack.
To point out these virtues is not to damn the Monza Wagon with faint praise. That would be letting it off easy. The Monza Wagon deserves nothing less than full-throated condemnation--or perhaps excommunication would be more appropriate. The car was a gasoline-powered mortal sin.
Let's start with build quality. Well, actually, it would have been nice if someone at GM had
started with build quality. Rather early on, I noticed that every time
the car hit a pothole or rough patch of pavement the dashboard rattled
and shuddered like it was falling off. This was Northeast Ohio, circa 1980-81, and rough pavement was the only kind we had. This made for a lot of rattles.
The panel covering the Monza's wide-screen horizontal speedometer was held on with either six or eight small screws, I forget the exact number. To be more precise, it was supposed to be held on with six or eight screws. This one was held on with two; the holes for the others still had some plastic "flash" which gave mute testimony that the screws had never been installed.
A trip to the hardware store and quick work with a screwdriver solved the immediate problem. Over the course of my relationship with this car, it developed many other squeaks and rattles and odd noises in the interior as things worked loose. In every instance, the problem could be traced to fasteners that had never been fastened.
I knew dozens of people who worked at GM's Lordstown assembly plant.
They were friends of my father, neighbors, the parents and older
siblings of my schoolmates, some of the non-college-track kids from my
high school. They were good and decent people. It distressed me to see
just how poorly they'd done their jobs, at least on the interior of
this one little station wagon. Would it have killed you to put all the screws in?
The Monza's problems went beyond a few dozen missing screws. There were two major weak spots in the powertrain design, the engine and the transmission.
The engine was a 3.2-liter pushrod V-6, an optional upgrade from the base model four-cylinder 2.5-liter Iron Duke. History records that the V-6 produced 90 horsepower. The Iron Duke produced 85 horsepower. That is to say, increasing the engine displacement by 28%, and adding the complexity of two more cylinders, resulted in a whopping 5-horsepower gain. The V-6 did, however, use a lot more gas!
The V-6 produced more torque than the Iron Duke, 165 foot-pounds versus 123. You might reckon that the increase in torque would make some difference in performance. Ah, but you would have reckoned without the transmission, one of GM's ubiquitous 3-speed Turbo-Hydramatics. Whatever additional twist the V-6 may have generated compared to an Iron Duke was soaked up by the slushbox and never got to the rear wheels.
As a result, on level ground, with the horsepower-sapping air
conditioner shut off, using brake-torque launch technique (in which you
hold the brakes on while revving the engine to get the torque converter
spun up), the Monza Wagon could be made to do a frenzied 0-60 dash in ... wait ... here it comes ... almost there ... about 14 or 15 seconds.
Yes, my friends, the six-cylinder Monza Wagon combined the raw
pavement-burning muscle of the four-cylinder Iron Duke with the frugal fuel economy of
a small-block V-8! There were VW Super Beetles that could've smoked it.
It may have been slow off the line, but at least the handling was ... almost adequate. Being young and foolish and a sports-car wannabee, I tossed it down twisty back roads at speeds that would have deeply concerned both my Dad's insurance agent and the local constabulary, had either of them caught me doing it. The Monza's road-holding was probably competitive with other 1978-vintage compacts, but it was a bit tail-happy, and the power steering insured that none of that annoying "road feel" made it to the cockpit. Like most any rear-wheel-drive Detroit car made in that decade, it was extremely skittish in snow.
Had it merely been an underpowered compact with indifferent build quality and middling driving dynamics, it wouldn't have been such a bad little car. Where the Monza Wagon truly failed was in the area of durability. Not to put too fine a point on it, it had none.
In the two years in which I was the primary driver of this vehicle, it suffered a series of breakdowns that would have made a Fiat or Triumph hang its head in shame. I got to know my father's favorite mechanic, a man named Lenny, quite well. There is not space enough to list all the troubles this car gave me, so I'll confine myself to the more "exciting" incidents:
- The V-6's oil pump suffered a sudden "epic fail" mere days after its last oil change. One minute, all was normal. In the space of three or four seconds, there came a series of unpleasant thumps from the engine bay, followed by a very loud bang as the engine threw a rod. At that point, the "OIL PRESSURE" light came on, in case I hadn't gotten the hint. Lenny found a replacement 3.2 V-6 in a salvage yard, dashing my hopes of an engine upgrade.
- The replacement engine's water pump had a pinhole leak in the main casting. Not enough coolant ever escaped at any one time to leave a puddle, but over a period of a few days, the losses added up. You'd be zinging along the highway without a care in the world and suddenly the car was overheating and the radiator and surge tank were bone dry. Let it cool down, re-fill the radiator, toss in some Stop-Leak, wait a few days, repeat. Lenny replaced hoses and gaskets and such several times before he was finally able to isolate the problem.
- While the cooling system had problems with dehydration, the unibody suffered from fluid retention. One Sunday I discovered that the left-rear quarter panel was half full of rainwater that had leaked in around the window seals. Some clever person in GM's engineering department had designed drain holes into the bottom of the body panels to let wayward rainwater out. Unfortunately, some other clever person in GM's engineering department had specified that the inside of the quarter panel be stuffed with a horsehair insulation that deteriorated in water. The soggy insulation had sagged down and plugged the drain holes. It took a half-hour's thrashing with a screwdriver and other long pointy implements to clear the clog.
- The last straw came in the spring of 1983. I noticed a nasty grinding sound when the car was started. By now I was fully sensitized to the Monza's self-destructive tendencies, so I went directly to Lenny's garage. "Sounds like the flywheel," Lenny opined. He put it up on the rack and set his crew to pulling the transmission. They loosened the bolts on the flywheel, and the flywheel came apart in their hands. It had cracked into three pieces from metal fatigue, and the bolts were all that were holding it together.
At this point, we had lost all confidence in the car. It wasn't rusting yet, but that was only a matter of time. I was about to move out of town to start a new job, and the last thing I needed was a car that was always a heartbeat away from a call to Triple-A.
We put an ad in the paper. Someone showed up and offered me something less than the asking price. I took it, grateful to be rid of the beast. Lenny was the only one sorry to see it go--the repair work he'd done on that car had provided his kids with three years of private school tuition and new bicycles at Christmas.
The saddest thing about the Monza Wagon was its wasted potential.
The basic design wasn't bad. Had it been screwed together properly, had
it had a better engine and a five-speed, had someone drained the
Novocain out of the steering gear, had it been able to go for more than
a week without a breakdown, it could've been one hot little sleeper.
When I cleaned it out before turning over the key to the buyer, I left the red ice scraper in the glove box, the one that urged Lordstown managers to "GET 150!" It had come with the car; it seemed only proper that it should go with the car. I never found out what metric "150" was the target for, but unless it was something like "missing screws per vehicle," I suspect they didn't achieve it.
The top and bottom photos are from the GM H-Body Registry, which is maintained by the Monza Homestead. The brown '79 wagon is owned by David Trott, and the bottom wagon with the slick wheels is owned by Bill McClaskey. The catalog illustrations came from the website of the H-Body Organization, another group of owners and fans of the Vega, Monza, and their badge-engineered siblings. They seem like nice people in spite of their irrational affection for Vegas and Monzas, and they've compiled a lot of good historical and technical information. H-body Organization member "Monzawagon1320" is restoring a beige '78 Monza Wagon, and the photo comes from his project journal. I can't understand why anyone would want to restore a '78 Monza Wagon, but he's doing a good job and seems to be enjoying himself, so who am I to judge? Best of luck to him.
--Cookie the Dog's Owner
Chris Hafner on July 30, 2008 at 09:36 AM
Oh, my. This car hits me right where it hurts. First, I'm a complete sucker for Monzas and Vegas (anybody who doubts me, check out the links in the first paragraph). Second, it's a wagon. Third, these cars have that woebegone appeal that makes me want to step in, buy them, and preserve them forever from the rust and crushing that inexorably approaches.
The thing is, in the early 1970s, Vegas were considered the sports cars of their class, with the sharpest, most responsive handling. They were also gorgeous, in my eyes at least--3/5-scale Camaros, sleek and purposeful. Of course, their engines were woeful, and they have the rigidity and permanence of damp Kleenex.
Mochi, you're a fellow Squareback devotee - does something about this wagon say Squareback to you? The curious rear-mounted air vent, for example? I'm not entirely sure what purpose that vent is supposed to serve on a front-engined car.
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on July 30, 2008 at 09:38 AM
The missed opportunity with the Monza Wagon is truly tragic, because it is a cute little car.
Being that it sucks so bad, I'll probably have difficulty finding a scale model of it, but that's probably the best way to enjoy its appearance without subjecting myself to its problems.
...although on a side note, assuming I find a scale model, letting my 6-year-old daughter put it together might be the best way to approximate the build quality of the original, eh?
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on July 30, 2008 at 09:42 AM
@Chris,
I'm not a squareback devotee, but my first thought on seeing the last picture in the post was, "Hey, that looks a little bit like VW Wagon...did the VW have 2 doors or 4?"
Chris Hafner on July 30, 2008 at 09:47 AM
Nathan: "did the VW have 2 doors or 4?"
Two - http://www.carlustblog.com/2007/08/volkswagen-squa.html
"assuming I find a scale model, letting my 6-year-old daughter put it together might be the best way to approximate the build quality of the original, eh?"
Heh! Either her or me. I somehow always get glue smeared on the windshields of my car models. Not sure the Lordstown folks did that to the Monzas, but I suppose you never know.
Chris Hafner on July 30, 2008 at 09:48 AM
Quick addendum - two-door wagons weren't rare at the time. For example, the Pinto was available in a two-door wagon as well.
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on July 30, 2008 at 09:55 AM
@Chris,
Speaking of the Pinto wagon, did the Plunger Detonator Switch-equipped rear bumper come standard, or optional?
(I realize that was a cheap shot, but I couldn't resist)
David Drucker on July 30, 2008 at 12:17 PM
Soon after the Vega was introduced the manager of the hifi store I worked at bought a 4-speed GT. It was quickly relegated to delivery/installation detail, so I got to drive it quite a bit. I have only the vaguest recollection of its dynamics -- not all that bad, within the context of the times -- but remember quite vividly how quickly the exciting new-car smell of outgassing plastics was replaced with the sour stench of defeat.
Over the course of just a year the car self-destructed, turning into a sad, sorry jalopy. Of course, unlike Cookie's Vega-based Monza, this Vega had Chevy's nikasil-coated aluminum cylinder bores, so it was running on borrowed time before the odometer hit triple digits.
It sure was cute, though.
Big Chris on July 30, 2008 at 12:49 PM
While the Monzas (and Vegas) left something to be desired, they are only a roll cage, tub job, and power plant transplant away from being killer drag racers. There is something special about seeing a Monza Wagon wheelie the length of a quarter mile...
Big Chris
Mochi Mochi on July 30, 2008 at 01:10 PM
I liked the Vega's lines. And Chris you are dead on with regard to the Squareback reference! What were those vents for on the Monza?!? I preferred the Vega to the Monza for some reason I can't remember anymore - does it really matter? It seemed to me it did at the time.
I like the idea of a mid-engine dragster version of a Monza wagon. Put a nice airbrush paint job on it with some sparkles and a flame throwing exhaust and you've got a crowd pleaser.
I had a pinto wagon. I drove it across the country - the worst thing about it were the seats - very uncomfortable. The worst thing about driving it were the bias-ply tires which caused the car to wonder all over the road. What was good about driving a pinto wagon with bias ply tires? You could easily simulate the experience of driving in the dirt or snow, but at only slightly higher speeds. While the throttle was practically useless the car was easy to drift. I assume that with some $25 bias plys the same would be true for the Monza.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on July 30, 2008 at 01:17 PM
About the vents on the rear quarter panels: I always thought they had something to do with the cabin ventilation system, as there seemed to be a duct behind them. The more I think of it, I begin to wonder if maybe they were there to let the rainwater in!
Mochi Mochi on July 30, 2008 at 02:30 PM
Of course! Rain gathering devices! The perfect thing for a car that rusts while you watch.
David Colborne on July 30, 2008 at 04:04 PM
Wow... it's hard to believe how far reliability and build quality has come from those dark, depressing days in the '70s. I mean, I complained about my significant other's Malibu here because it had the "audacity" to suffer a defect that rendered the engine useless after 75,000-100,000 miles. Back then, though, people would have killed - yes, KILLED - for that kind of "reliability" from a Monza.
Thank goodness the Japanese showed us it's possible to have reliable transportation, eh?
Cookie the Dog's Owner on July 31, 2008 at 09:03 AM
Truth be told, this car put me off General Motors for a couple of decades. When I was shopping for a new ride last summer, one of the cars that fit my price range and desired performance specs was the Chevy Cobalt SS Supercharged--built at Lordstown Assembly. It took a serious effort of will to get past the fact that it was a Chevrolet built at Lordstown Assembly and consider it on the merits.
emdfl on July 31, 2008 at 03:29 PM
Oh, yes. the Vega station wagon. Had one. Friend of mine had a Cosworth Vega which was pretty sharp. He also rebuilt the engines by using epoxy steel to glue the replacement cylinder liners into the blocks. (Let it be said he rebuilt them to be used in flat-track racers). These blocks were damn near bullet proof. We bored my motor 0.080" over and decked the block as close to zero clearance as possible. Then we stuck balanced piston and rods, a four barrel manifold, a set of headers and a five-speed Cos tranny in it.
Down-shifting to second gear at 50mph would let you break the rear 10" tires loose. The only real problem was that the sheet metal on the damn thing was about as thick as a piece of poster-board and about as well rust-proofed as a coat-hanger - that is to say it started rusting the moment it moved from the factory floor. We were thinking about pulling the engine and stuffing a small block in it but I got distracted by the demands of my job and then was moved to another state. But it was a lot of fun while I had it.
on August 01, 2008 at 11:37 AM
"Thank goodness the Japanese showed us it's possible to have reliable transportation, eh?"
When was the last time you saw a reliable Datsun B210 driving down the road?
That Car Guy on October 22, 2008 at 02:52 PM
Early Chevy Vegas were the worst car ever built in America... I had one less than a year old in 1973. Later ones had sheet metal more resistant to rust, better engines (Yes, the first all-aluminum 2.3-litres melted by 40,000 miles, if the timing belts didn't break by then), and newer ones didn't rattle as much, believe it or not. The wagons, also known as Kammbacks, were my favorite of the group for their practicality, but they were still all-Vega underneath, and they were doomed as well.
Way back in the alphabetical index of the owner's manual, they listed "Vega" as the brightest star in out constellation. Hopefully, GM's brightest minds did not execute this dreadful car.
That Car Guy on October 22, 2008 at 03:02 PM
The vents in the quarter panels were part of GM's effort, at the time, to provide fresh air into the car while driving. I believe the system was called "Flow-Through Ventilation", but please don't hold me to that. The intake was part of the interior door handle pull assembly, and there were vents in the doors near the latch. The air entered the quarter panels there, and exited thru the aforementioned quarter panel vents. It really wasn't a bad idea, and rust below the vents was not a common problem, but the bottoms of the front fenders were. And around the windows. And under the hood. And around the taillights. And... well, you get the idea.
That Car Guy on October 22, 2008 at 06:53 PM
Pontiac also had a version of this car called the Astra. Other than name badges and a grille, it was a Vega. Now Saturn has resurrected the "Astra" name for its car. Is GM so cheap they won't pay the rights for or come up with another name than this loser?
John B on November 17, 2008 at 04:15 PM
In the mid-80s I had a girlfriend with a late 70s-early 80s Monza fastback. A very nicely styled car...I think it was the first U.S.car with rectangular headlamps...but I digress.
Her's was lime green with matching interior. It had the appearance of a college-kids car...but it may have beeen too new for that, in any event, it was far from pristene.
What I remember most about it was the fun had faded the passenger armrest.
Not pale green.
Not white.
But blue. A very odd blue.
Couldn't GM do any better than that?
In high school my mom bought my sisters and I a new 73 Pinto.
White with blue interior.
Say what you will about Pintos...but its interior never turned green.
S. Johnson on February 10, 2009 at 03:07 PM
The Pontiac version of the Vega was the Astre, not Astra. Saturn is not naming their car after that bucket of bolts, Vega replicant.
S. Johnson on February 10, 2009 at 03:09 PM
The Pontiac version of the Vega was the Astre, not Astra. Saturn is not naming their car after that bucket of bolts, Vega replicant.
T Jess on March 15, 2009 at 11:58 AM
We owned a Red 1978 Chevy Monza wagon bought it new... 3.8 V-6 4 spd. limited slip rear end stock. On a good day we could grab rubber in all 4 gearson a bad day only 3 but it was always fun. Replaced clutch twice due to our driving habits. As well as tires and normal maintenace. It was one of the best cars we have driven.... Had it for 10 years and 167,000 miles wish I kept it......
Adrian_in_Phoenix on August 07, 2009 at 01:55 AM
After I got out of the service in 1978 I went looking for a new car. It turned out I was too tall to sit comfortably in a Camaro or a Monza Coupe, but I fit into the Monza Station Wagon perfectly. I ordered a '79 model with the small (Buick?) V6 and a 5-speed manual transmission. The car was Bright Blue with a Camel interior, and I ordered every heavy duty or sport item available (towing package, handling package, heavy duty battery, sport shocks, limited-slip differential, etc.). The car handled very well for 1979, and had enough power to be enjoyable. I generally drove around with the rear seat folded flat listening to the Kenwood stereo I installed. Friday the first week I had it, I heard some weird clunks while driving through downtown Denver. Saturday morning, I walked into the dealer's showroom holding the rear sway bar. They got the car fixed very quickly, even though the service bays were normally closed on weekends. After that, I went over and under the car a few times tightening everything in sight. I only kept the car 9 months until I had to sell it in order to convince the bank I could afford a mortgage for a house. I was sad to see it go, but reading through these comments, it was probably for the best. I had a lot of fun with it and let it go before it started falling apart.
RichardS on November 19, 2009 at 06:00 PM
"I knew dozens of people who worked at GM's Lordstown assembly plant. They were friends of my father, neighbors, the parents and older siblings of my schoolmates, some of the non-college-track kids from my high school. They were good and decent people."
Where are you from, Cookie? Must not be too far from my hometown (and current residence) of Youngstown. Growing up in the Mahoning Valley in the 1980s, I could have written the above quote myself. And while my personal experience is nowhere near as bad as the one you describe, the 2006 Cobalt that I drove for four years shows that the "good and decent people" who work at Lordstown still haven't learned how to build a car that's up to snuff.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on November 20, 2009 at 04:43 PM
To answer your question, I grew up on he west side of Youngstown.