A whole bunch of Chevy Vegas locked and loaded, posed nose-down like they’re imitating the Thunderbird at the end of Thelma and Louise
Both those examples are biased, however, as the big and small of both share only a name. Take the Firebird, and the little one, the Fiero as a better example. Both have many similarities, but the Firebird always wore the look better than the ill-proportioned Fiero. Probably my favourite of all time, however, has to be the Chevy Vega, the little Camaro. They were smaller, lighter, cheaper, and looked great (in my personal opinion). Sure, the engines sucked, but the Chevy small block V8 that you can find literally everywhere installs easily. So easily, in fact, that I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find a nice Vega with the leaky aluminum original engine not swapped out to the much better small block. The Vega steering box is of such good design and compact size, that many companies are still producing them for custom chassis applications today, not unlike the Mustang II rack and pinion setup. The coolest part of the Vega, however, isn’t part of the Vega at all, but rather an iconic part of Vega history.
Nowadays, it isn’t uncommon to see a Vega doing a wheel-stand down a race track. They’re lightweight and reasonably affordable, so they’re a pretty good platform for a performance car. Wheel-stands aren’t uncommon to see on a race track, but nose stands are very uncommon to see when freighting an automobile. The Vega was a cheap car, and rail freight was an expensive way to ship things when you consider only so many cars can fit in a railcar, and you pay per railcar, not per piece or pound. To help cut costs, General Motors teamed up with Southern Pacific Railroad and created the “Vert-a-Pac” railcar. Rather than fitting fifteen, or eighteen cars inside, the Vert-a-Pac cars could hold a whopping thirty Chevy Vegas or Pontiac Astres. How did they work? Well, each car was driven onto a rack, locked in place, then a big fork loader would lift up the rear, standing fifteen cars on end on each side of the railcar. This was planned either during or before actual production, as the cars were designed around travelling this way. The battery was vented at the top rear, the carburetor was vented into a canister, and the oil pan was baffled accordingly. Even the washer fluid bottle was designed not to spill. As far as I know, the Vert-a-Pac system was a success, and it was used until the Vega and Astre were discontinued, at which time the railcars were scrapped. I’m not sure why they never continued to use it with newer models, as it supposedly cut freight bills by forty percent. Regardless, it’s nice to see the Vega make the history books for more than just leaky engines, rusty fenders, and the odd successful drag car.
Have a question or comment for Kelly? Post it at lmtimes.ca/kirk