Curbside Classic: 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier Wagon – The Last One
When I think back on all the years, makes and models of cars that I have found interesting over the course of my life, there's a thread of individuality that runs through many of them. Sure, included in those vehicles are such universally loved machines as the 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle, Fox-platform Ford Mustang, and various GM F-bodies that I have previously written about. But for every Pontiac Grand Prix or Cadillac DeVille that has captured my attention and imagination enough to spur me to put pen to paper, there has also been my long-professed admiration for cars like the 1974 – '78 AMC Matador coupe, Renault Fuego, or even the U.S.-spec Mazda Cosmo in that throwback article that reran just a couple of weeks ago.
By referencing those last three vehicles, I am in no way implying anything about their inferiority. It's just that seeing any of them in the wild with my own two eyes just isn't going to happen, even in a huge metropolis like Chicago. These are vehicles that automatically intrigued me by their relative rarity even thirty years ago. It's not just because I tend to have a flair for the dramatic that I am drawn to stories of tragedy. This goes beyond that. With people, for example, I will always find someone who has suffered and triumphed over unfortunate circumstances inherently more interesting than someone who has simply been just A-OK! for most of his or her entire life.
With cars, I look with fascination at ones that missed some crucial mark, whether in their styling, engineering, target market, price, or some other important criteria. I once spent the bulk of a five-hour Amtrak trip from Chicago to Flint, Michigan reading what seemed to be everything there was to be found online about the Leyland Princess on my smartphone (thank you, fellow CC contributor Roger Carr, for sending me down that path). What was wrong with Harris Mann's styling? I genuinely like the wedge look in its application on the Princess. The Hydrogas suspension leaked? There are only a handful left in the world in running order? How did it all go wrong? Oh, the humanity!
c. 1991 Chevrolet Cavalier RS convertible. (Flint suburb) Burton, Michigan. Friday, August 19, 2011.
On the opposite end of such machines with entertainingly complex workings, history, or failings, there are cars like the white one in the leading photograph: a Chevrolet Cavalier from the final year of the first J-body's thirteen-year production run, which was also the last year the Cav was offered as a wagon. I've stated before and will say again that the Cavalier was omnipresent on the streets of my hometown of Flint in the 1980s when I was growing up. Witness the non-pristine, blue Cavalier RS convertible above, which was spotted in a Meijer parking lot when the car might have been twenty years old at the time.
I recently posed a question to friends and acquaintances on social media requesting a show of hands from any individuals who had never owned or driven a Cavalier, or had known someone who had. Not a single person answered. It's possible that no one cared enough to respond, but I highly doubt it. Don't call it a "Crap-alier", because if you spent any considerable amount of time of driving age in the Midwestern United States in the '80s or '90s, you know you drove one, and whether you enjoyed it or not, you know it did what it was supposed to do. You may have even resented its reliability.
If someone had told me, maybe even five years ago, that in the future I'd be writing about a white Cavalier station wagon (with rust) as a topic of interest, I would have told them to reshuffle the deck. Even when this car was new, I'm hard-pressed to think of any other vehicle of its time that would better encapsulate the utter parental squareness and absence of flavor than this one. It's a white car with black, rubber bumpers. It's a car in a body style that had been in production for over a decade, and which looked the same for most of its life, save for its front clip. And, lastly, it's a wagon.
It's not even the kind of station wagon that's so over-the-top that it's cool, like a big, old Ford Country Squire, or even a K-car based Chrysler Town & Country with simulated wood on the side like Mrs. Bueller's car in that famous John Hughes movie set in Chicago. This is the car in which your mom would pick you up from Science Olympiad after school after she had made the rounds selling her Avon for the afternoon. This is the car in which your family took road trips during summer vacation, with the cargo area piled high with all of your luggage and belongings visible through the ample glass area to every single driver and passenger who passed you on the expressway. (And there were many who did.) This is the car which announced to anyone who saw it that your one working parent didn't make quite enough to afford a Celebrity.
None of this means that I don't respect the Cavalier, or this particular Cavalier, in 2020. I do understand that like many GM products of this era, not enough research and development had been done on the original J-cars prior to them going on sale, with the Cavalier being introduced in May of 1981 as an '82 model. Paul Niedermeyer labeled the original Cavalier a "CC Deadly Sin". I don't dispute Paul's take on the trajectory of the Cavalier in terms of its original mission and release versus what ultimately became the reality of the car falling short of initial expectations. I am here, however, to sing the praises of an uncomplicated, economy-minded small Chevy that had finally gotten it right at the end of its ancient product cycle.
Let's also look at it. Its styling is refreshingly simple, clean, and (to reuse this word) uncomplicated. Its lines seem to make geometric sense, without any embellishments or flourishes put on it seemingly to make it project any sort of attitude or image. It certainly looked passe in 1994, but that was twenty-six years ago. In 2020, I think it looks pretty darned good for the "generic GM" look of the Irv Rybicki era. It was interesting to me that a Honda CR-V was parked in front of it, as the Honda is the modern, upper-scale version of the type of car that replaced the small wagon. The CR-V is taller, has a smaller footprint, and looks at least as usable in terms of cargo capacity.
The Cavalier was redesigned for '95 into a much more slippery, modern shape, but the wagon didn't return. By then, Ford's rival Escort, which made its U.S. debut seven months before the first Cavalier, was already in the fifth year of its second-generation, which also included a wagon through '99. Chrysler never bothered with a subcompact wagon, as they offered the slightly larger K-based Plymouth Reliant / Dodge Aries / Chrysler LeBaron wagons – and had too many minivans to build and sell to keep up with demand. I remember thinking "it's about time", when the new, '95 Cavaliers hit the street, but part of me felt a little bit of nostalgia in saying goodbye to the old model I had basically grown up with.
This model was a '94 as determined by a license plate search, and was one of just over 18,000 wagons made that year, out of a total of about 272,500 Cavaliers which also included 147,500 two-doors, 8,000 convertibles, and 99,000 four doors. Sales actually fell by over 40% for '95 despite prices that were only incrementally higher on the redesigned cars. The Cavalier's impressive sales for '94 reminded me of how the Cavalier's predecessor, the rear-wheel-drive Monza, also went out with a bang, with a solid 169,400 units sold for its extended run of final-year 1980 models, at the end of a decade's worth of H-bodies that began with the pretty-but-problematic Vega.
At the end of the day, specifically the Wednesday a couple of weeks ago on which I spotted and photographed it, this Cavalier earned my respect not only for being in such apparent fine, working condition, but also for its ability to turn my head at all. I have observed many discussions around the future state of everyday cars like this one as potential collectibles, and while I can't fathom right now the idea of a pristine Cavalier wagon fetching five figures in the future, I have seen Ford Pintos recently get there. It only took a few decades. In the meantime, I wish this Cavalier and its owner many safe, happy days of getting things done.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Wednesday, September 2, 2020.
Click here for related reading on this generation of Cavalier.
Brochure pages featuring the 1984 Cavalier wagon are courtesy of www.oldcarbrochures.com.
Corey Behrens
Great post as always, Joseph. I also took a liking to these wagons after they stopped being made, as compact wagons started becoming very thin on the ground in the mid-90's. Albeit crude, it looks like you get a lot of space in a small package, and I've seen these wagons with the 3.1 V6 badging, which would give one some extra oomph to haul whatever fits in the back. Size-wise it's only slightly smaller than my Octavia wagon.
With those roof racks this Cavalier looks like it does more rugged work than most pickups!
Thank you, Corey. Like you, I inferred from the roof rack that this Cavalier wagon was functioning as more than just a grocery getter. I almost went down that path, so to speak, when originally composing this essay. Kudos to this Cavalier for presumably acting as a workhorse.
Jim Grey
I always thought the wagon was the best expression of the Cavalier. It owned the car's basic squareness, and all that glass was so appealing.
I was a fan of the original hatchback design. It thought it was the cleanest, and most modern-looking, of the early Cavaliers. And didn't have the 'Blue Collar BMW' reputation that later coupes and notchbacks acquired. Better proportioned, and more attractive than the Citation X-II, plus it appeared very European. While maintaining a bit of the Monza's styling legacy.
XR7Matt
My favorite too, and rare. I thought those looked like Delorean's
The Pontiac 2000 Sunbird S/E with the 'STE' like nose, and Fiero wheels, was one of my favourite J versions. They looked sharp in red and grey.
3SpeedAutomatic
Several years back on the NY Thruway, I came across a Cavalier like above with the worse case of the tin worm. The door panels were to the point that the window mechanism was in view. I cringed 😬 to think what the underside looked like.
gtemnykh
Never thought much of GM's styling in this era, but with the hindsight of the last decade of over-wrought, flame-surfaced and creased abominations, this very simple but handsome Cavalier is a breath of fresh air. I likewise have a new level of appreciation for cars like the Beretta, Corsica, etc from a styling perspective.
Seventeen Chariots
Well said. GM cars of that era simply look right, relatively clean, tasteful and well proportioned. We're suffering through a second age of crass, tasteless gaudiness but unlike the first one of the late 1950s, this one shows no sign of ending. This Cavalier looks elegant, tasteful and restrained by comparison, something, aside from Tesla, rarely seen today.
Posted September 15, 2020 at 10:02 AM
I had the same thought re: late 50s excess. That lasted what, 2-3 years? Fins grew and then disappeared. We've been subjected to a decade or so of these horrible trends and it only seems to be getting worse.
Jonathan E.
What? You don't like cars that look like angry insects from a sci-fi movie?
CJinSD
It's been 1958 in German styling studios since 2001, and everyone else takes their cues from them. There was a time when West German cars offered a sober, authentic and efficient alternative to cars like the 1978 Oldsmobile Toronado XS, but apparently reunification aligned them with the urge to defecate out hideous, gadget-laden, rolling gin palaces of their own.
I noticed the clever photography on the brochure where they shot at an angle to hide the left wheel well, giving the appearance of more space.
This is the car in which we brought home our first son. This is the car we had our stint in multi level marketing. This is the car we did a family trip to Kingston, ON and another to North Carolina. This is the car that got things done for about 6 years until it looked worse than the one you show us here. It was a blue '86 model that we bought in '89 or '90.
Thanks for bringing back the memories, Joseph.
There's a certain sense of warmth and nostalgia about cars like this, and this piece exudes that. The only people I knew who owned Cavaliers in had opted for the Z-24, which didn't really convey the same simple sense of purpose as the regular variants, but show me a K-Car in similar trim and the warm fuzzies well up. I'd imagine folks 20 years my senior would feel the same about a '62 Bel Air. They were everywhere, doing everything in magnificent mediocrity…and then they weren't.
MTN, I agree with cars like this inspiring a certain kind of throwback, nostalgic charm. I remember feeling that exact way when I wrote about an '85 (or so) Cavalier Type 10 notchback I had seen while traveling on business, five summers ago. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule-1985-chevrolet-cavalier-type-10-notchback-nice-to-see-you-again/
To me, spotting that car was almost like seeing a familiar classmate.
Paul Case
Were the rear panels for this imported from Holden like Vauxhall did for their Cavalier estate?
Just looking at a few pictures, I don't believe they were. There are a lot of similarities, but enough differences between the US Cavalier and Camira to suggest they were produced independently. Namely, the C-pillar is wider on the Holden design, which would've meant smaller rear window glass, and the rear hatch is a different design. The rear doors appear to be identical, though.
No, the US version is quite different at the back and the rear door breaks at normal bumper level. Note also the ribbed pillar on the Holden/Vauxhall/Opel version.
Imported panels? Perish the thought. GM in NA never imported panels for its cars, they had much larger pressing facilities than Vauxhall did, by huge margins.
The J cars were a global car, but there were regional differences, as the other commenters have pointed out. The similarities started with the basic structure and suspension design, and then the various global entities took it from there.
justy baum
It was weird that a comparatively tiny outfit like Holden designed the wagon that Europe got, but it was so. The necessary panels went off as a kit, I believe.
The Holden/Vauxhall unit was quite different to the US one. The middle of the bumper came up with the rear door, ala Citroen GS/CX wagons, which must mean the floor structure too is different to the Cavalier in America: the rear floor there is level with the top of the rear bumper, whereas it would have a lift-over if it was the Aus design. I also suspect the Aus is a tad shorter, and the tail a touch more upright. [Edit: the Chev does indeed have a bit of a lift-over on a closer look at the ad photo]
The end result for the Camira/Vauxhall Cav is rather delicate, more glass than panels, Kamm-tailed, and very chic indeed in the day. It looks noticeably, if subtly, nicer than the Chev.
That tailgate design would never have been possible in the US because of the bumper regulations.
Nice article and observations Joseph. As you described, the Cavalier wagon was one of the most anonymous wagons of the 80s, in the context of so many similarly boxy designs on the market. I never thought I'd appreciate the Cavalier wagon's clean design. It does look very European. I like this owner's blackout treatment and wheel cover choice, gives it a strong Volkswagen quality. Including the nice blackout treatment on the rocker panels, that would help conceal the rust on the subject car.
That looks sharp, but I must say the blackout trim makes the wagon look even longer than it already does today in the current era of stubby, tall CUVs.
Thanks, Daniel. It's funny you mention the blackout trim. When I was looking through pictures online of the 1991 – '94 Cavaliers, one thing I had forgotten was that for the base RS versions, most of those cars had black bumpers! Most of the 1988 – '90 versions all had color-matched bumper covers, IIRC, even the "VL" Value Leader models.
The exceptions on the 1991 – '94 cars were the Z24s and some of the white cars, which also then had white bumpers.
The black rubber bumpers made the RS Cavaliers look especially cheap (versus the 1988 – '90 versions), but I'm sure that was to keep the price down and nudge potential buyers up to the Corsica and Beretta.
Ed Stembridge
I owned an '82 Type 10 hatch for 6+ years, fairly modded out. Was fun to drive (5 speed with the 1.8l engine), and earned me my last speeding ticket (in 1985, doing close to 100 in a rural 35).
Always liked the wagon, and seriously considered that body style before buying the hatch.
Nice homage, Joseph!
5 speed? How did it have a five speed? Swapped in later? Oh, I see you said it was "fairly modded out". That would explain its ability to hit "almost 100 mph".
You are of course correct, Paul – my memory glitched, obviously!
However, even though it took some time to get there, the car would do an indicated (and repeatable) 100.
Ed, I always really liked the overall styling of the original Type 10 hatchbacks, especially the front nose cone. I also liked that the hatchback merited that kind of differentiation from the other models. Yours looks cool with the grille filled in – very European looking.
This IS one of GM's best 90's designs, in my opinion. Well, at least the exterior and in wagon form. Which, if we are being honest, is a sad commentary about GM. Nevertheless, I like the look as it avoids anything that could be even remotely described as gratuitous ornamentation, even the wheel covers have the correct amount of spokes to look just right here. There's even a mini-Volvo 740 vibe going on if you squint just right. Nice to see this one getting its day in the sun, Joseph!
ThresherK
"Its styling is refreshingly simple, clean, and (to reuse this word) uncomplicated. Its lines seem to make geometric sense"
Mini Volvo 740/940 wagon vibe, indeed!
Looking at the first photo I was going to mention a Volvo, and was also reminded of how last week one of the regulars (maybe you?) mentioned the classic Jeep Cherokee XJ profile resembling a Volvo 240 wagon if you squint.
Brad Barratt
GM's interiors in my opinion were cheap and just plain ugly. Definitely a strong bean counter influence there.
nwflvr
The Cavalier was simply a totally mediocre car; when it was introduced it was supposed to send the Japanese packing and in that task it was a total failure. I found the styling bland and inoffensive but what I really hated was the interior-it was totally cheap, cheap, cheap. I occasionally see one running around and they are invariably badly rusted out.
I enjoyed this post, since I have a soft spot for Cavaliers. I joined GM fresh out of college as a young impressionable engineer and my first project was working on continuous improvement of the J-body; by 1990 the Cavalier had already been reworked into the cheap reliable workhorse that it should have been from the beginning. Its best model year was 1992, when the original wheezy 1.8 L pushrod 4 cyl was bumped out to a fuel-injected 2.2L with 120 hp so it could finally get out of its own way (although still a far cry from the silky Honda engines of the time). A slick new dashboard and a handsome semi-aero exterior facelift completed the package and finally made the Cavalier semi-desirable.
The wheezy 1.8 was replaced in 1983, after one (bad) year on the market. It was replaced by the only slightly less wheezy 2.0 with TBI.
The 2.2 was still a pushrod engine and the same basic block, but it had a new head that breathed significantly better.
TheMann
I've owned an '83, an '89 and a '94.
The '83 was a 4 speed stick with manual steering.
It was an odd one in that it was much quicker than it should have been, or that anyone would believe.
It was only a 2.0L with TBI, but it must have been put together when the stars were aligned right or something. I had a lot of fun doing burnouts with it when I had it in 1990-1991.
jerseyfred
Growing up, we had two J body wagons in our family. A 1985 Cavalier wagon and a 1984 Sunbird wagon. We used them both as work trucks. Loaded them up with everything, took them off road, and did little to no routine maintenance.
Both lasted longer than we ever expected them too and always got us home. We also had two Cavalier four door sedans of that generation and a Skyhawk two door sedan that were not quite as reliable as those wagons but I still remember all our J cars fondly. They never left us stranded as badly as some of them ran.
MagnumSRT8 Brian
Yup, even though I was just a child when these things were first on the streets I knew someone who owned one. My babysitter that we stayed with after school owned a 1985 Cavalier wagon, gray metallic with a gray interior. I honestly don't remember much about it, I know I must have ridden in it numerous times. The one thing that I do remember was the picture of it totaled. She was rear ended just before Christmas. The entire rear of the car was destroyed. She survived with some bumps and bruises. Thankfully no one else was in the car, especially the back seat…. they wouldn't have survived that impact.
Even though I've never owned one, I have a bit of a weird fascination with the J-cars. Yup, they were probably the worst of the badge engineered GM cars. But for me, they make for interesting mental exercises. You can mix and match parts to create "What-ifs" that never really came from the factory. I tend to focus on some of the body styles that weren't available across the full J-car lineup.
– Cadillac Cimarron convertible (already been done and talked about here)
– Cadillac Cimarron station wagon (front clip from Caddy on any wagon). Drop in the 3.1V6/5-speed manual to create a what-if precursor to the CTS-V wagon.
– Pontiac Sunbird GT wagon (using the front clip from the aero/partially hidden headlamp Sunbird GT)
Brian, I get what you're saying about the interchangeability of exterior parts on these J-cars. There seem to be so many possible permutations, as you've pointed out. Even the taillamp lenses between some Sunbirds and Skyhawks looked interchangeable, even if they weren't.
The proto-CTSv wagon you described sounds pretty cool.
There have been a couple of "Cimarron convertibles" documented here at CC, with these two that come to mind:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-cadillac-cimarron-doro-convertible-this-little-piggy-went-to-market/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1988-cadillac-cimarron-convertible-so-many-questions/
J P Cavanaugh
It was a Cavalier that brought me the closest to Chevy ownership I ever got. My cousin Dave bought a new 85 Type 10 notchback with a stick, and there was something about it that I liked – as a passenger, at least. But I went to a dealer and they, of course, had nothing even close in stock. As I remember I was just nosing out of the parking lot in a vanilla Cav sedan with an automatic when I asked myself just what the hell I was doing. It may have been the shortest test drive I ever took.
But I have come to respect the cars for a basic durability that seemed to go AWOL at a lot of stuff built by Ford and Chrysler of that era, and I still see them occasionally. FWIW I like the wagons the best too.
Sometimes I wonder about the supposed durability of old GM products and think it's more attributable to just sheer volume, i.e., they built and sold so many more than Ford or Chrysler, there's more of them that survived.
Don't call it a "Crap-alier"
Nossir! Why, I would never…!
I prefer "Cadavalier", please and thanks. I have only scorn for them, and they're on the list of cars I'm very pleased I almost never have to encounter/be reminded of any more.
It's not that I have something against unfancy basic cars—I drove Darts and Valiants and Spirits and Acclaims for decades—but GM never made a Cadavalier I could respect or appreciate.
(Your wit and writing, on the other hand, I like quite a lot.)
Your description of how "this is the car in which your mom would pick you up from Science Olympiad…" definitely hits home, because whenever I see pictures of small white wagons, I think of my own mom's white 1980 Subaru. My folks owned that car during a period when the tried extra hard to be frugal, and they often reminded me how their keeping that awful and beat-up wagon running should let me know that fancy things like new cars aren't important to them.
Yes, they eventually caved in and replaced their Subaru, and ironically enough, in old age they have become rather reckless spenders. But looking at this Cavalier, I can somehow see my own mom picking me up from middle school. No science olympiad for me, though!
Haha! Eric, I did Science Olympiad once, but my middle school preference was this extracurricular math program thing we had in Michigan called "GLAG", or something like that. I tried looking it up just now, but I'm coming up short. I promise I didn't dream it up. The "GL" probably stands for "Great Lakes", but I'm drawing a blank with the rest.
My family looked at a lightly used Cavalier wagon to purchase as our family car. I remember our family friend we were consulting with at that time had mentioned, "That's an awful lot of money for a little car" when we told him the price the dealership was asking. We ended up with an '88 Nova CL with a ton of miles, but that NUMMI-mobile was an excellent car.
Towards the end of its days, Mom's Subaru was beaten-up looking, and horribly embarrassing to a self-conscious 13-year-old. And it broke down all the time.
One time it broke down, in 1986, Mom rented a Cavalier sedan while the Subaru was in the shop. I literally begged her to buy the Cavalier and get rid of the Subaru. I must be the only kid who actually jumped up and down and shouted for his parents to buy a dowdy Cavalier.
I do admire the simple, clean styling of the original Cavalier, but then I'm reminded about what was so frustrating about small cars from General Motors: they almost always look good, but could never deliver on the promise with quality materials, careful assembly, and faultless reliability. So, even though competitors like Toyota, Datsun, Subaru or even Mitsubishi often looked awkward and contrived next to a (relatively) sleek Cavalier, their under-the-skin virtues won them acclaim and buyer loyalty that enabled them to build market share and long-term loyalty at the expense of GM.
One of these was the instrument of a friend's destruction. He had lousy credit already and bought it off a new car dealer's used car lot. He paid way too much, financed it with usury interest, and needed the car to operate his business. The payment fully extended him, meaning he couldn't afford to fix the car when it broke after a few months, and no car meant minimal income. That in turn meant that he missed payments. The car was repossessed and sold at auction with no effort to increase its value. Hell, the dealer was probably the finance company that sold and bought the car for 15% of what my friend owed on it. Then they got a judgement against him for the difference between the roughly ten grand he owed and the twelve hundred the dealer sold the car back to itself for. That was real money for a guy cleaning offices in 1994. It pretty much took him close to a decade to get back on his feet. Having a JMU journalism degree and ethics turned out to be a less than fruitful combination.
The funny thing is that I just saw an auction listing for an Oldsmobile Firenza Wagon with a one-owner history and freakishly low miles. It made me mildly nostalgic for all the fun girls I knew in college with crummy early J-cars that only occasionally overheated or suffered complete brake failure. Seeing this later J-car reminds me of what a dark time they represent for American cars. The Ascona was better on introduction, and it was replaced by the Vectra for the 1989 model year. In the US, once a major focus of GM, the poor-sister J-cars stuck around until at least 1994.
The story about your friend is borderline tragic. This just goes to show how sometimes things can just happen and have a domino effect without any direct fault of a person.
This reminds me a little bit of an '83 (?) Olds Firenza hatchback I had looked at on a buy-here-pay-here lot when I was a teenager. It was exceptionally clean (it looked like a one- or two-owner car), and living in a GM town, I figured it would be easy to have fixed or get parts for – which may or may not have been true. The clincher? The dealer was asking for $4,000 in or around 1991, which translates to about $7,600 today!
That same $4,000 bought me a nicely-used '88 Mustang 2.3L hatchback a couple of years later. I'm guessing now that I would have been paying on that Firenza years after it broke.
Atgmetal
These were everywhere in my part of flyover country (Wichita KS.) when I was growing up in the 90s. I always knew the competition was better, but I had a couple of friends with these that really liked them. I took a 4 hour round trip once to see a concert in a Cavalier sedan and despite being 6'5" and sitting in the back I don't remember being too uncomfortable.
CrystalEyes
I owned a well used Firenza for several years and it never let me down. As already noted the interior was crap, but it took my friends and I on many a camping trip down rough logging roads so had plenty of good memories (and a couple crazy stories) connected with that car. Was almost sad to see it go. Got to thinking about it and I've owned mostly GM vehicles – not because I ever liked GM but because I'm cheap. That said they were consistently reliable, easy to work on, and every one had a really cheap interior. Currently have a '94 S-15 Sonoma and on the drive home after purchasing it the window winder broke off in my hand. I refused to consider it an omen and a few months later the rear view mirror fell off. BUT… It's been totally reliable over the four or five years I've had it (I forget when I got it) and I have fitted it out with a new home made camper concept each summer (I plan changes and improvements while using it to be done over the winter) and all my camping involves un-maintained and de-commissioned logging roads. This truck is the most expensive GM I've had (259 000km, $1500). The cheapest were a Vega I paid $200 for in full knowledge of what it was (I only needed it to last for one year of college and it lasted a full 18 months) and a 1970 Nova with a three-on-the-tree and straight six I paid $350 for. I bought it so I wouldn't have to drive my MG in the winter and kept it for three years. I ended up driving it a lot more than just in winter (go figure) and when I was done with it I stuck a sign in the window that said only $350 with no other info. Later that day someone rang the doorbell, gave me $350 and it was gone.
It's always great to hear of positive ownership stories of GM cars of this era, like this one. I think that part of it might have been that your expectations were managed properly, and as you've pointed out, each vehicle did what it was supposed to do, and affordably.
UPDATE: It was great to catch this Cavalier wagon out and about in neighborhood traffic just this past Sunday. It appeared to run and sound just fine from where I was on the sidewalk.
Where I live in Pueblo, CO, I've seen at least 3 over the last three years out and about in town. They are rare, but indeed they are out there. If I see them again, Ill share pics. Its funny how many obscure and now rare cars that hang around down here. Especially when you are out in the county where it's all farms and rural living.
Good after Joseph, my names Eulises. I was on google looking for some off road wheels because I want to take my car off roading, I then went on google pics and I couldn't help but notice that there was a 94 Chevy cavalier that look just exactly like mine, I was shocked to find out that it actually was, I like how you said this was a car that you'd use to take your family out in long trips with the trunk filled up, I actually take my close friends on long trips when we go camping so it's basically the same thing lol, I like the article tough. I'm honored that someone took the time to write about a car I own, Bless.
(Here's a pic of when I took it to Bena, Minnisota)
Phil on QOTD: What Old Car (Before 1980) Is Easiest To Work On?