Value
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Look on Bicycle Blue Book - BicycleBlueBook
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Sounds like the old saw about how filling up a Ford Pinto with gas doubled it's value.
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3,771 Posts
Value? I guess a lot to somebody who likes that sort of thing. Or, do you mean "price"?
FWIW, I refuse to give a price to any first-time poster here, after realizing that half of the time it's an amateur bike thief trying to figure out how much his latest score is worth.
FWIW, I refuse to give a price to any first-time poster here, after realizing that half of the time it's an amateur bike thief trying to figure out how much his latest score is worth.
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16,165 Posts
You should see what people are asking for Fold Pintos now:Sounds like the old saw about how filling up a Ford Pinto with gas doubled it's value.
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3,771 Posts
MOST of those Pintos were modded; the Pinto used to be a dirt-cheap car that modders with less cash used to use a lot. One has a Ford small-block V8, one has a turbo 4 setup from an 80's Thunderbird, and another one has a stock 4, but with racing modifications.
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16,165 Posts
Just don't get hit from behind.
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5,818 Posts
The AMC Gremlin was available with a 304 V8 stock! With the 4 speed manual trans they were fun as hell to drive!
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The Gremlin was AMC"s answer to the Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto which were introduced the same year - 1971. As lousy as the handling was, even with the 232 cu. in. I6, it was way overpowered. And although it was not a trouble free car, it was easy to work on and parts were cheap. And it had way fewer problems than the Vega that had an engine that cooked like a baked potato and the Pinto that exploded upon rear impact. The joke used to be that you never saw a Vega with rust because they didn't last long enough.
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The handling was awful. Plus, the power steering was a crap shoot, it would fail randomly. But OMG, those things were a riot to drive.
Was the Vega the aluminum engine block? 50K and out if you were lucky...
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Yes, 1970. It was Chevy's replacement for the Corvair which was redesigned in 1965 to correct the steering problems in Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at any Speed" book. Unfortunately, it was not enough to save slumping sales of the Corvair.
The Vega's aluminum block and cast iron head were not a good combo!
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1,861 Posts
My BIL & SIL were delighted when they hit a deer that totaled their Vega.
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6,078 Posts
I vaguely remember the Technium as a bonded steel/Aluminum mix. I think its been a lot more than 10 years since these where sold
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3,771 Posts
Ah, yes, the small "pony" cars of the early 1970's. You could get a Gremlin with a small V-8 or a Maverick with a 302, but both cars were so light in the rear that people would resort to carrying 60 lb bags of concrete mix in the back for traction.
As for the Vega, the real problem with that aluminum 4 was that the cylinder bores were un-lined, and they wore out very quickly, especially if you let the coolant leak out (which was a common issue with bad head gaskets). Oh, and they also had special rail cars to ship them basically standing upright on their tails, and a lot of the early cars had fluids leak out of the engines during shipment. Also, the Vega was originally almost devoid of rustproofing, so you could end up rotting your frame out in as little as 4 years here in the snowbelt region.
As for the Vega, the real problem with that aluminum 4 was that the cylinder bores were un-lined, and they wore out very quickly, especially if you let the coolant leak out (which was a common issue with bad head gaskets). Oh, and they also had special rail cars to ship them basically standing upright on their tails, and a lot of the early cars had fluids leak out of the engines during shipment. Also, the Vega was originally almost devoid of rustproofing, so you could end up rotting your frame out in as little as 4 years here in the snowbelt region.
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And head gaskets are prone to failure when you have different types of metals for the block and head.
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I don’t know about the Maverick, I only drove a 4 cyl a handful of times, but the Gremlin, you could control the rear wheel slip pretty easily with a 304 4 speed. The short wheelbase helped. When you had the feel for it down, the thing would go like hell through the gears. You could beat some of the muscle cars of the day off the line pretty handily. Now at high speeds you were taking your chances. Especially with the POS power steering. Amazing... who thought that car up? Such a bad idea, but hey, bad ideas, like bad decisions, make for great stories.
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392 Posts
Now that we're thoroughly off topic, more on Vega. The other thing was, like most US cars, the water pump gave out after 50-60K miles. When it did, you lost your coolant and overheated. That was the end for the engine even if you'd been nice to it up until then. I heard that later years used a cast iron cylinder sleeve that pretty much fixed the oil-burning problem; but by then nobody wanted one. Here in Michigan, most cars in the early 70s would have rust coming through before the 3-year loan was paid off.
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Is it any wonder people wanted Civics, Corollas and 210's instead.
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