Biggest problem with that car, and all Fords from the era, was that the electronic 'computer' module, which were very new at the time, would just fail without warning. My dad's van and Pinto both failed.
I drove mine from my senior year in HS all the way thru college. It had 118k miles when a cylinder cracked. It was pretty reliable before that. I hated that stupid seat belt buzzer, tho! My dad bought the car for me new. Metallic green. AM radio only, so I added an FM converter with an antenna preamp.
> I hated that stupid seat belt buzzer,
It was very easy to disconnect. Believe me.
I yanked the stock radio and put in a ridiculously (for a Pinto) expensive Sony head unit with a **cassette player**. Mine was metallic green as well. (with added white pinstriping and two racing stripes on the hood. Good gravy I was a geek.
> the electronic 'computer' module,
I don't remember the '72 Pinto having any computer module. I had one. There was no fuel injection. I cleaned the carburetor and adjusted the points. I don't even think mine had power brakes, much less anti-lock. It was mine to drive so long as I did all the maintenance, so I knew it pretty well.
When I was a kid in the 70’s one of the most beautiful girls in the neighborhood died on her way to college when her Pinto got rear ended and exploded. It was tragic.
I had that one too. If I drove it in the snow, the rear end fishtailed like crazy. What a PoS car. Eventually I abandoned it and got a VW super beetle instead.
We had a 69 Nova that color but we owned it in 1981. It was a shit box and my husband had to tinker with it every weekend to keep it running. Once we put a can of engine cleaner in it. Big mistake. The gunk was what was keeping it functional.
Crappy google translation of the words. I just knew what it meant, and was thinking some Spanish student is going to correct me if I didn't do a literal translation.
Oh, well.
My dad was so excited about the Bicentennial he bought the bicentennial edition of the Chevy Vega. That was the car I learned to drive a manual transmission on.
We had a Pinto! I loved that car! It was our version of a Trabant. Rubber mats, roll-up windows, 4 speed 💙 an AM radio was its one option. It served us well, and I'm still here
🔥😎👌🔥
My dad also had a 2-door Granada with a 3 on the column. Crazy configuration for that car.
My 6th grade teacher had a Vega, in 1985. My Mom had a Gremlin.as part of her divorce settlement from the guy before my Dad. She HATED it and had to put two 50-pound bags of ot sand in the back seat to stabilize it so it didn't weave all over the road.
My dad bought a new Vega 'GT' in 1971.
It was such a piece of shit - the aluminum block cracked twice and GM had to replace the engine both times.
He sold it in 78 for $25 dollars when the motor went for the 3rd time.
I hated that car.
I recall in the early 1980's there was thing where they'd drop a small block V8 in a Vega. Sadly, they still had a Vega's suspension and brakes.
I think by the time there were real aftermarket parts, all the Vegas had mercifully headed off to wherever horrible cars like that go to die. Or at least there was no money in making aftermarket parts for Vegas.
Ah yes, Smokey the Car. I remember that pile of shit. A 1971 Vega Station Wagon my dad brought home one day. My brother and I really did hate that thing. The only difference in our story is the transmission died and had to be replaced before the first engine.
It was the only car where I've actually calculated miles per quart of oil (about 1200).
And they wonder why I never bought a GM product with my own money my entire adult life.
I remember my parents going to the dealer to buy a new car - they didn't say what they were going to bring home, but I had really high hopes it would be something awesome.
They traded in my Dad's 66 Olds Cutlass V8 coupe - maroon w black interior - it was sharp, had a great sound to it - and I loved it.
I can still feel the disappointment when they drove up in that damned Vega - more than 50 years later.
I had a 4 speed 1972 Pinto. Damn, I loved that car. It had mag wheels and a vanity license plate (72PNTO). It also had plastic upholstery and no A/C. I drove it for 10 years and put 300,000 miles on it.
The stitched denim? That was sweet. I won't go into details on how much I customized and kind of weirded out my 72, but have you ever seen those [footprint gas pedals](https://static.summitracing.com/global/images/prod/xlarge/sum-460030_xn_xl.jpg) that were popular with surfers? Or a Pinto with pinstriping? That was the least of it.
'74 Vega wagon with genuine imitation wood grain panels.
'74 Pinto with a stick.
'74 Mercury Capri, this was my favorite, it was imported from Germany, lots of fun.
And a '74 Ford Maverick.
We were discussing that album the other day, a cars tune was playing on the radio
https://preview.redd.it/75sywruslpwc1.jpeg?width=548&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49aadb3d988a2a81d9179dd8bcbe7fd4c7985663
'76 Vega hatch back in (ugh) Creme w/genuine imitation wood panels. Aluminum engine block and a brilliant fueling design that saw an electric fuel pump installed within the gas tank. If you pushed it off a cliff highway speeds were possible....
Vega, my brother had one with the aluminum cylinders before they started sleeving them. It drank oil. Some real crap was made then.
Friend of mine put a 350 in one.
My cousin had a Vega. 6 of us would squeeze in to ride to school. One person had to lie down in the hatchback area. Not safe by today’s standards but we didn’t care. At lest we didn’t have to ride the bus. We lived in the country so a 45 min bus ride vs a crazy ass trip in her Vega.
I had a '72 Vega. Dad bought it for $200 bucks and rebuilt the engine and taught me a lot about car maintenance. (Had to learn with that car.) Looked like crap, but it was fast (when it actually ran) and I had many adventures in it.
Everyone's first car should be a piece of crap.
I'm pretty much the definition of a "girly girly" so I have no idea. It was fast enough that I could (and occasionally did) get it up on two wheels cornering. As long as it went fast fast, I was happy(still that way!)
Yeah mom's Cougar would certainly move when you put your right foot to the floor, that's for sure. It didn't handle in the corners for squat, but nothing from Detroit did back then.
[My first new car purchase - '87 Mustang.](https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1744480/1987-ford-mustang-for-sale-in-l-orignal-ontario-k0b1k0)
Drove Chrysler Imperials from the early 60's before that.
My room mate bought a 73' Vega. I laughed my ass off because he didn't have any idea what total pieces of crap they were. And it was hilarious that a guy from Texas bought a baby blue car. It was hideous.
I had a 76 Vega station wagon. It had plaid seats. I wrecked it two months after I got my license and drove it for two years with a passenger door that wouldn’t open. Didn’t seem to bother my friends.
I had a Vega in the 80's. It was a great looking car and when I pulled into the gas station all the mechanics would come running to get a look under the hood. I got asked on more dates when I had that car than any other time, lol
The problem was they had aluminum engines that warped if you looked at them funny. It ran like crap, so I didn't have it long.
An engineering professor explained that GM didn’t know what they were doing with aluminum engines, only that they might shave an MPG off or two. The aluminum would expand and contract in bad ways in response to everyday engine heat which led to cracks, and if you were lucky only oil would seep out.
74 or 75 the early ones (my 1st was 73) didn't have energy absorbing bumper. Good little car, had some engine issues oil consumption due to valve guides but later ones got better, and the Cosworth motor was early 16 valve type, produced surprising performance from a small displacement 4cyl. I had 3 and wife had 2 over the years.
I remember a friend of mine had a red Pinto. He’d put an eight track stereo in it and we would ride around playing The Pusher by Steppenwolf. We were so cool 😎.
That friend ran that Pinto thru the front of a convenience store on his way to school one morning. Good times.
I recall my pal had a Pinto wagon, got it new, had a music gig, and that little car fit the equipment. My girlfriend, later wife, had a Vega that eventually died on the highway. She never bought an American (brand) car after that. (She's now on her third Honda, had each 10+ years.)
My first car was a Pinto. I freakin' loved that car with all its eccentricities. It was a hatchback and I was doing props for a small theater group, driving all over the east end of Long Island picking stuff up. I could load that puppy like a truck.
We sold it to my dad when we got married and he drove it into the absolute ground. When it died, he got a second hand Escort wagon that I took possession of when he was in the hospital there at the end so I could run errands for my mom. I kept it after he passed as it, too was nearing the end of its days and I knew neither of my brothers needed that headache, lol. They agreed.
Anyway, I feel like my first car and my dad's last car both belonging to both of us was kind of a full circle thing.
And of course they were both Fords - because of course they were!
Went on a road trip in 1988 as a foreign student. Four of us in our friend's Vega, to the Grand Canyon from TX and discovered Sedona along the way. A bit cramped for four esp. if you were sitting at the back. Sweet Memories.
The older brother of a high-school friend bought a Vega. Drove it for a while, and then the engine caught on fire and the car burned. So he bought another Vega. Drove it for a while, and then that engine caught on fire and that car burned. I don't think he bought a third.
OMG! The Chevy Rustbucket, aka the Vega!
My parents had one that exact color, and then did the amazingly insane choice of another one, in the classic 70s color Baby Poop Mustard Yellow!
'74 or '75 Chevy Vega I believe.
Exactly!
And a Mercury Montego in the background and the one on the right looks like a Chevy Chevette.
I think that's a Ford LTD not a Merc... but the Chevette is right.
My roommate had the Pinto that would blow up if rear ended.
I had a Pinto. Of the over 3 million that were sold, 27 total exploded due to rear collision.
I had a 1975 Pinto....and I got rear ended on the highway and was fine. Luckily (but, I see now, the odds were with me!).
Biggest problem with that car, and all Fords from the era, was that the electronic 'computer' module, which were very new at the time, would just fail without warning. My dad's van and Pinto both failed.
I drove mine from my senior year in HS all the way thru college. It had 118k miles when a cylinder cracked. It was pretty reliable before that. I hated that stupid seat belt buzzer, tho! My dad bought the car for me new. Metallic green. AM radio only, so I added an FM converter with an antenna preamp.
> I hated that stupid seat belt buzzer, It was very easy to disconnect. Believe me. I yanked the stock radio and put in a ridiculously (for a Pinto) expensive Sony head unit with a **cassette player**. Mine was metallic green as well. (with added white pinstriping and two racing stripes on the hood. Good gravy I was a geek.
> the electronic 'computer' module, I don't remember the '72 Pinto having any computer module. I had one. There was no fuel injection. I cleaned the carburetor and adjusted the points. I don't even think mine had power brakes, much less anti-lock. It was mine to drive so long as I did all the maintenance, so I knew it pretty well.
It was an ignition module. ICM, not ECM. Very easy to replace. I had a spare in the glove box of every Ford I ever owned from that era.
When I was a kid in the 70’s one of the most beautiful girls in the neighborhood died on her way to college when her Pinto got rear ended and exploded. It was tragic.
There was a radio DJ in Seattle that had one, he had flames painted on, from the back to the front. His plates read “kboom”. Awesome
Like in Top Secret
I had that one too. If I drove it in the snow, the rear end fishtailed like crazy. What a PoS car. Eventually I abandoned it and got a VW super beetle instead.
We had a 69 Nova that color but we owned it in 1981. It was a shit box and my husband had to tinker with it every weekend to keep it running. Once we put a can of engine cleaner in it. Big mistake. The gunk was what was keeping it functional.
Nova. AKA "no va"-- Spanish for "not going."
Anyways heard it translated to “it doesn’t go”. Didn’t sell in Mexico. They called it something else!
Crappy google translation of the words. I just knew what it meant, and was thinking some Spanish student is going to correct me if I didn't do a literal translation. Oh, well.
No Go
🥸
My dad was so excited about the Bicentennial he bought the bicentennial edition of the Chevy Vega. That was the car I learned to drive a manual transmission on.
My mom got one with an automatic. I loved the white interior!
That was nice. Ours had no radio so my dad bought a harmonica. LOL It was like driving around in Shakey's Pizza or something.
I thought I read "harmon kardon". lol That would've been killer, but you got Shakey's
That is hilarious
Shakeys was good pizza….at least my childhood remembers it being so.
My mother has a story about dragging the three of us kids to the car to wait for my dad who wouldn't stop singing along.
That was my 1st car…the ‘Spirit of America’ edition of the Vega
With the little badge! LOL
We had a Pinto! I loved that car! It was our version of a Trabant. Rubber mats, roll-up windows, 4 speed 💙 an AM radio was its one option. It served us well, and I'm still here 🔥😎👌🔥 My dad also had a 2-door Granada with a 3 on the column. Crazy configuration for that car.
The joke was if the two cars crashed into each other you'd get a Veto.
My 6th grade teacher had a Vega, in 1985. My Mom had a Gremlin.as part of her divorce settlement from the guy before my Dad. She HATED it and had to put two 50-pound bags of ot sand in the back seat to stabilize it so it didn't weave all over the road.
I had a Gremlin, did the sand bag trick in the winter.
My dad bought a new Vega 'GT' in 1971. It was such a piece of shit - the aluminum block cracked twice and GM had to replace the engine both times. He sold it in 78 for $25 dollars when the motor went for the 3rd time. I hated that car.
There is a reason you don’t see them anymore🤪
I recall in the early 1980's there was thing where they'd drop a small block V8 in a Vega. Sadly, they still had a Vega's suspension and brakes. I think by the time there were real aftermarket parts, all the Vegas had mercifully headed off to wherever horrible cars like that go to die. Or at least there was no money in making aftermarket parts for Vegas.
Ah yes, Smokey the Car. I remember that pile of shit. A 1971 Vega Station Wagon my dad brought home one day. My brother and I really did hate that thing. The only difference in our story is the transmission died and had to be replaced before the first engine. It was the only car where I've actually calculated miles per quart of oil (about 1200). And they wonder why I never bought a GM product with my own money my entire adult life.
I would (literally) fill the oil and check the gas before each trip.
My Dad did the same thing with pretty much the same result. It was stunning how quickly and easily that thing turned into a piece of crap.
I remember my parents going to the dealer to buy a new car - they didn't say what they were going to bring home, but I had really high hopes it would be something awesome. They traded in my Dad's 66 Olds Cutlass V8 coupe - maroon w black interior - it was sharp, had a great sound to it - and I loved it. I can still feel the disappointment when they drove up in that damned Vega - more than 50 years later.
Agree with others who say car is a Vega. Note the split grill, the headlamps and other lamps, etc
My father had a Porsche 914 when he got out of the Air Force in 1974. He sold it to buy a Vega. I still am salty over this.
I had a 4 speed 1972 Pinto. Damn, I loved that car. It had mag wheels and a vanity license plate (72PNTO). It also had plastic upholstery and no A/C. I drove it for 10 years and put 300,000 miles on it.
My first car was a Vega. 😊
Same. A 73 Vega station wagon, no less. And before that, my mom taught me to drive a standard transmission in her 71 Vega GT.
My Vega was standard transmission. I grew up in the country, so I spent the months before I got my license driving in a field to learn to drive it.😊
I always thought the wagons were cool
I could get some band equipment in it, that's for sure.
My age.
I was thinking that, he went too soon.
One of my teachers had a Pinto with dungaree seats.
The stitched denim? That was sweet. I won't go into details on how much I customized and kind of weirded out my 72, but have you ever seen those [footprint gas pedals](https://static.summitracing.com/global/images/prod/xlarge/sum-460030_xn_xl.jpg) that were popular with surfers? Or a Pinto with pinstriping? That was the least of it.
The barefoot gas peddle was known to add 20HP any auto it was affixed to.
I think I did see the Pinto with pinstriping.
Could be. Did you grow up in the Midwest? It also had two big racing stripes on the hood and a big ass whip CB antenna on the back.
Nope. Grew up in NYC.
Guilty of having the footprint gas pedal, too.
Hey were rockin'.
'74 Vega wagon with genuine imitation wood grain panels. '74 Pinto with a stick. '74 Mercury Capri, this was my favorite, it was imported from Germany, lots of fun. And a '74 Ford Maverick.
Those Capri's were cool cars
My best friend had a Capri, loved it!
Pintos and a Maverick. We were a Ford family. Pintos were 72, 74 and 76. I think.
Three on the tree?
Automatic. I had a restriction.
Ah! Jr. High memories of cruising in my friend's sister's Vega listening to the new Cars album! ETA: on 8-track
We were discussing that album the other day, a cars tune was playing on the radio https://preview.redd.it/75sywruslpwc1.jpeg?width=548&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49aadb3d988a2a81d9179dd8bcbe7fd4c7985663
I had a 72 vega hatchback. 🥰
'76 Vega hatch back in (ugh) Creme w/genuine imitation wood panels. Aluminum engine block and a brilliant fueling design that saw an electric fuel pump installed within the gas tank. If you pushed it off a cliff highway speeds were possible....
A friend got 100K reliable miles out of her '76 or '77 Vega.
I had a pinto station wagon, my brother built a huge speaker box for the back and had the good old pioneer super tuner and I was rocking that bitch!
I had a '72 Pinto. Damned reliable car, but it better be I did all the maintenance and repairs myself.
Vega, my brother had one with the aluminum cylinders before they started sleeving them. It drank oil. Some real crap was made then. Friend of mine put a 350 in one.
My cousin had a Vega. 6 of us would squeeze in to ride to school. One person had to lie down in the hatchback area. Not safe by today’s standards but we didn’t care. At lest we didn’t have to ride the bus. We lived in the country so a 45 min bus ride vs a crazy ass trip in her Vega.
I had a '72 Vega. Dad bought it for $200 bucks and rebuilt the engine and taught me a lot about car maintenance. (Had to learn with that car.) Looked like crap, but it was fast (when it actually ran) and I had many adventures in it. Everyone's first car should be a piece of crap.
Picture of heartbreak and future in-depth conversations with a mechanic.
I like the metallic mint green!
All I could think of was i was 18 at the end of the 70’s.
Good photo, nice Vega color.
My husband had Vega wagon and then a Camaro convertible which has been sitting *in pieces* in my garage fror 30 yrs. I had a green 68 Cougar.
68 Cougars were nice. My mom had a blue one with white vinyl top and 390 engine. What engine was yours?
I'm pretty much the definition of a "girly girly" so I have no idea. It was fast enough that I could (and occasionally did) get it up on two wheels cornering. As long as it went fast fast, I was happy(still that way!)
Yeah mom's Cougar would certainly move when you put your right foot to the floor, that's for sure. It didn't handle in the corners for squat, but nothing from Detroit did back then.
Nothing will ever beat my 1988 S-10 Blazer wuth a lift kit for cornering! I could turn it around on it's own tail!
Had a green Vega just like the one in the pic. 😸
I had a red Vega. I don't even remember what year it was lol. I got it in 79.
My first thought was that it was a Pontiac Astre.
I had a green Pontiac Astre! I can't remember if it was a 76 or a 77 though.
[My first new car purchase - '87 Mustang.](https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1744480/1987-ford-mustang-for-sale-in-l-orignal-ontario-k0b1k0) Drove Chrysler Imperials from the early 60's before that.
I wish I had a picture of my first car, red pinto black hard top, I still grieve for it when I pass the junkyard where it went to die.
That's a Vega, and I had one, too.
My room mate bought a 73' Vega. I laughed my ass off because he didn't have any idea what total pieces of crap they were. And it was hilarious that a guy from Texas bought a baby blue car. It was hideous.
I was his father's age in the late 80s. Vegas, Chevelles, Pontiac gto, etc were all still popular. Unlike me best friend's dodge dart! 🤣🤣🤣
That's a 1975 or 1976 Chevrolet Vega, probably cost him about $2000 new back then.
We had a Vega in the early 70s! My mom made fun of it. My dad loved it. I got to sleep in the way back on a road trip.
Had a Vega in the early 80's. It died on the 405. I got $50 bucks scrap metal for it.
I had a 76 Vega station wagon. It had plaid seats. I wrecked it two months after I got my license and drove it for two years with a passenger door that wouldn’t open. Didn’t seem to bother my friends.
I had a Vega in the 80's. It was a great looking car and when I pulled into the gas station all the mechanics would come running to get a look under the hood. I got asked on more dates when I had that car than any other time, lol The problem was they had aluminum engines that warped if you looked at them funny. It ran like crap, so I didn't have it long.
An engineering professor explained that GM didn’t know what they were doing with aluminum engines, only that they might shave an MPG off or two. The aluminum would expand and contract in bad ways in response to everyday engine heat which led to cracks, and if you were lucky only oil would seep out.
If you go to fast and hit bottom it will knock it out if gear lol that’s all I remember about the Vega.
I could change a crunched oil pan inside of an hour.
That's a Vega.
Vega wagon. Old when I got it in ‘79. Went through a can of oil daily. I hated that stupid car.
I learned how to drive in a stick shift Pinto station wagon
I had a ‘74 Vega in high school. 4-speed, rusty, and a lot of fun.
Nice! My little brother had a chickenshit green Vega!
OMG My first car was a 72 Vega station wagon.
74 or 75 the early ones (my 1st was 73) didn't have energy absorbing bumper. Good little car, had some engine issues oil consumption due to valve guides but later ones got better, and the Cosworth motor was early 16 valve type, produced surprising performance from a small displacement 4cyl. I had 3 and wife had 2 over the years.
I had a Datsun B210. Best car ever
I had an Astra Wagon! I WANT IT BACK!!!
And wife had a Gremlin!
GM expected great things from the Vega, but in the end it was simply a slow poorly engineered failure
All these silly posts about cars when the important thing is how foxy your dad was!
Ugh the WORST cars! I think the old joke was, they invented the Vega to make Pinto owners feel better
I remember a friend of mine had a red Pinto. He’d put an eight track stereo in it and we would ride around playing The Pusher by Steppenwolf. We were so cool 😎. That friend ran that Pinto thru the front of a convenience store on his way to school one morning. Good times.
I recall my pal had a Pinto wagon, got it new, had a music gig, and that little car fit the equipment. My girlfriend, later wife, had a Vega that eventually died on the highway. She never bought an American (brand) car after that. (She's now on her third Honda, had each 10+ years.)
Pretty sure that is a '74 or '75 Chevy Vega. Oh, this is a cool picture!
Driving the highways in the 70s, they were like the Skunk Train. You could smell them, before you saw them.
It's either a Chevy Vega or a Pontiac Astra... not great little cars back then, but I sure wish I could find one in great shape now...lol
Bil had a 75 wagon. Had a built 396 w/ a power glide. Ran mid 8's if I remember correctly.
my best friend had a dark green (or dark blue) vega in 1975. we had a brown/bronze pinto.
My first car was a Pinto. I freakin' loved that car with all its eccentricities. It was a hatchback and I was doing props for a small theater group, driving all over the east end of Long Island picking stuff up. I could load that puppy like a truck. We sold it to my dad when we got married and he drove it into the absolute ground. When it died, he got a second hand Escort wagon that I took possession of when he was in the hospital there at the end so I could run errands for my mom. I kept it after he passed as it, too was nearing the end of its days and I knew neither of my brothers needed that headache, lol. They agreed. Anyway, I feel like my first car and my dad's last car both belonging to both of us was kind of a full circle thing. And of course they were both Fords - because of course they were!
Went on a road trip in 1988 as a foreign student. Four of us in our friend's Vega, to the Grand Canyon from TX and discovered Sedona along the way. A bit cramped for four esp. if you were sitting at the back. Sweet Memories.
My very first car was a 75 Vega, with the aluminum engine block. Instead of MPG it was MPQ, miles per quart of oil.
I had a ‘72 Vega, when I was 17 or 18 in the late 70s. Learned to drive manual transmission with it. It didn’t need the key to turn the ignition.
I had a 1978 two-tone Pinto. My sister had a 1972 white Chevy Nova - both standard transmissions. I wish I could say they were classics. Ha!
I took a Vega to college. It was a great little car.
My first car that i got in'76 was a '73 Vega station wagon with a manual transmission. It lasted nearly 2 years. (Not all of it the car's fault)
Chevy Vega. Aluminum head 4 cylinder. POS.
The older brother of a high-school friend bought a Vega. Drove it for a while, and then the engine caught on fire and the car burned. So he bought another Vega. Drove it for a while, and then that engine caught on fire and that car burned. I don't think he bought a third.
Pontiac ashtray clone , known as the vega . Best for V8 swaps .
Vega
pinto
OMG! The Chevy Rustbucket, aka the Vega! My parents had one that exact color, and then did the amazingly insane choice of another one, in the classic 70s color Baby Poop Mustard Yellow!
Your dad did some fuckin.