Young and older me has mixed emotions about General Motors new-for-1975 "H-bodies" because I felt they all looked like the Camaro and Firebird's homely half-siblings. Those new "H's" being the Chevrolet Monza 2+2, Oldsmobile Starfire and Buick Skyhawk whom all shared the same chassis, wheelbase and much DNA with, of all things, the Chevrolet Vega.
I'm fairly alone with that sentiment given they were lauded for their styling by the press and even the late, great, John DeLorean whom was such a fan of the Monza 2+2 in particular that he called it an "Italian Vega"; he believed it resembled the lines of a Ferrari GTC\4. Err, if you say so, JD.
Chevrolet also peddled a Monza formal roofed Monza "Town Coupe" that was little more than it was - a portly Vega. Curiously, for 1975, Pontiac didn't get one of the new "H's" but got a Vega clone they called "Astre". More GM oddness, Chevrolet continued to sell the Vega along side the Monza through 1977. Come 1978 the Pontiac Astre was replaced by one of these fastbacks they called "Sunbird".
I can't for the life of me recall why it was I test drove a 1976 Chevrolet Monza "2+2" in the summer of 1983 but I did and I'm half-embarrassed to say that I loved it. Seriously. The handling, the braking, the maneuverability, the power of its factory V-8 engine. Crazy, I know. But understand that I was coming out of a shot-to-death 1974 Mercury Comet and my father's oafish '72 Cadillac so, by comparison, that little Monza was a world class athlete.
Despite everything it had to offer, even if I liked it's styling it was was just too damn small for the macho-man-boy I pretended to be who was dead set on getting a "man's car"; that meaning big. No sub-compact for me, please. Give me beef. And a big, fatty slab of it too. By the way, that big car I eventually got was the automobile love of my life, a...drumroll, please...1975 Chrysler Cordoba. Funny, the older I get, the more youthful my taste in cars has become. Call me Benjamin Button.
If I had to do it all over again, would I have gotten the Monza instead of the Cordoba? Oh, hell no. But I think I'd be far more discriminatory with regards to overall vehicle performance than I was. Thing is, back in the early '80's, cars that could handle, stop and really go were few and far between. Throw in a car that had to be "cool" and that narrowed choices more so. Today it's a beautiful thing that performance is a commodity but back in the early '80's, the only things that a kid could afford that could do anything where small cars that were, for the most part, under powered and Ford Pinto dowdy. Say what you will, my Cordoba guzzled cool as much as it guzzled gas. If you found a Chevrolet Monza cool you'd have to explain why it was to someone. And once you start explaining you're losing.
To this day I've never warmed to these cars although I do recall fondly the seat-of-the-pants thrill of that little Monza stuffed with a V-8. Imagine if it had the Wankel. I'm a little dismayed to read contemporary road test reviews of the Monza V-8 and find it did zero to sixty in almost thirteen and half seconds. I guess I had an even more impoverished childhood than I thought possible.
GM ditched the Vega after 1977 and they built these through 1980. There was no 1981 model as GM cleared showroom space for a spring 1981 introduction of the 1982 front-wheel-drive "J-bodies" flag-shipped by the Chevrolet Cavalier and of course, the Cadillac Cimarron.
Whomever it was who first said that things get worse before they get better really knew what they were talking about.
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