Automotive Blog Project Help - X-Body retrospective

[RidinAndRollin]

Hello all,

My name is Chris and I run and post on a new automotive blog called Ridin and Rollin (ridinandrollin.wordpress.com) and I'd love to have some help with a project I'm working on for the spring and summer months.

The Front-Wheel Drive X-Body was introduced 35 years ago in this April starting with the Chevrolet Citation and I'd like to commemorate that with a post/oral history of sorts on my site complete with comments/interviews/thoughts and pictures from FWD X-Body owners. The post with all the actual info is here:

http://ridinandrollin.wordpress.com/...photos-needed/

If you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at ridinandrollin@gmail.com and we're also on Twitter @RidinAndRollin and Facebook at facebook.com/ridinandrollin

Thank you for your time and I look forward to speaking with you all.

[lemons bob]

I can try and pass it along to someone who has a funny and horrible story, although not sure it is what you are looking for, and as good funny stories there may be some exaguration, as in there were probably atleast one remaing set of front brake pads somewhere in the carolinas after the second weekend.

[85_Ciera_Rebuild]

new automotive blog

One might scratch around here

[RidinAndRollin]

I can try and pass it along to someone who has a funny and horrible story, although not sure it is what you are looking for, and as good funny stories there may be some exaguration, as in there were probably atleast one remaing set of front brake pads somewhere in the carolinas after the second weekend.

Any X-Car story is welcome. ANY.

Thanks for your help!

[kalbert]

Just please please please don't rag on and on about how crummy they were. The Internet is littered with blog posts and magazine articles about how crummy they were. In reality they are no more or less crummy than any other car of the era, or any other car who's design and engineering was revolutionary and set the tone for the next 35 years. All GM engineered front wheel drive vehicles to this day can trace their evolution back to this gamble. The good ideas are still there, the bad ideas were lessons learned and evolved into good ones. None would have come to fruition without starting somewhere, and they all started with the X. We had a Chevy Citation 2dr hatch in posh CL trim from 1983-1995. That car was the family car. It was our daily transportation, took us 300mi round trip to Grandma's house 5-8 times/year. We took it on 1500mi family vacations. It was always clean, washed, waxed, vacuumed, Armor All'd every other Sunday afternoon all summer and got a rinse once a month all winter as weather allowed. We folded the seat down and camped out in the driveway, baked gunk off the carburetor in Mom's oven, and played "road trip" with the neighbor kids. We gave it everything you could give and it gave us everything we could want in return. I never drove it from the drivers seat, we traded it off just before I was driving age. I steered and worked the pedals from the passengers seat plenty though!

[RidinAndRollin]

Just please please please don't rag on and on about how crummy they were. The Internet is littered with blog posts and magazine articles about how crummy they were. In reality they are no more or less crummy than any other car of the era, or any other car who's design and engineering was revolutionary and set the tone for the next 35 years. All GM engineered front wheel drive vehicles to this day can trace their evolution back to this gamble. The good ideas are still there, the bad ideas were lessons learned and evolved into good ones. None would have come to fruition without starting somewhere, and they all started with the X. We had a Chevy Citation 2dr hatch in posh CL trim from 1983-1995. That car was the family car. It was our daily transportation, took us 300mi round trip to Grandma's house 5-8 times/year. We took it on 1500mi family vacations. It was always clean, washed, waxed, vacuumed, Armor All'd every other Sunday afternoon all summer and got a rinse once a month all winter as weather allowed. We folded the seat down and camped out in the driveway, baked gunk off the carburetor in Mom's oven, and played "road trip" with the neighbor kids. We gave it everything you could give and it gave us everything we could want in return. I never drove it from the drivers seat, we traded it off just before I was driving age. I steered and worked the pedals from the passengers seat plenty though!

That's my intent, to show all sides to the X-Car story and this is actually a great story that I would like to use for the retrospective. Can you inbox me your permission?

[thesam1984]

My father purchased a Pontiac Phoenix for my grandmother when she came to live in a cottage on our property. .. it was her last car as she began forgetting things and one of them was that her car was a stick... I remember watching my dad chase her down our long driveway with the clutch screaming... and that was the last time she drove but the car sat there for her until she passed... it was a gold 4-door hatch, and no ones idea of a dream car, but it never broke down and wasnt available to become mine as I was only 5 at the time. In my yunkyard post (38 A-bodys) I found the exact car, still bright and still pristine but no one wanted... if I could I'd have dragged it home just because she needed someone to love it... Like my grandmother loved hers and how I loved her.

[Century7667]

My father rented one for business back in the early 80's. It had a 4 speed stick (imagine that in a rental), and he was really impressed with how far you could take it in 3rd, IIRC. It had the Iron Duke under the hood. I never saw it myself.

It's been said that the a-body was the do-over for the x-body, or the a-body was the x-body done right, although it's a larger platform.

Always wanted an X-11, but never found one locally to really look at, and I haven't seen one in the last few years with a stick. That's the only way I'd have is with a stick. I really liked the interior treatments from the early 80's GMs, especially the instrumentation.

I did have a J-body, an '84 Buick Skyhawk back in the 90's. It had a 1.8 OHC (Opel Engine, not the pushrod 1.8 that was in the Cavi) mated to a TH-125C. I really liked that thing, wish I still had it. It was replaced by my first S10, a 1997, then a 2001 that I still have.

Ken T.


Ken T.

[Tyson]

Just now seeing this thread, and wanted to say that I think your blog is cool. I have a Wordpress site of my own, and I'm 'following' you now. Good luck with the X-body project.