Junkyard Find: 1986 Chevrolet Sprint
Yesterday, we admired this El Camino-ized Geo Metro, which probably got all of you wondering about the badge-engineered Suzuki Cultus that The General sold before the Geo marque existed. Wonder no more— here’s a genuine Chevy Sprint awaiting consumption by The Crusher!
Three cylinders, unapologetically cheap interior, sticker price even lower than that of the wretched Hyundai Excel.
In accordance with General Motors tradition (which persisted well into the 1990s in some models), the odometer in this car shows only five digits. Is it possible that this car has just 32,561 miles on the clock? 132,561 is a lot more likely, but you never know.
The “hood ornament” is actually a hood release button.
Remember Chevrolet’s short-lived infatuation with this blue color for emblems?
Carburetion and one liter of displacement. Not a lot of power, but not much to go wrong.
Gets better fuel economy than any other four-passenger car in America (the Honda CRX HF was a two-passenger car), and it loves to run!
Translation: if you’re ready to take a (short) step up from your moped, this is the car for you!
Of course, the Japanese-market ad for the same car is just… classier.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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I'm surprised they bothered to put a rear window defrost in it. I'm also pretty sure I saw a newer Tahoe the other day with a blue outline bowtie on it.
In the late 80s and very early 90s, there was a local pizza establishment (I believe it was Pizza Pit) in Madison, WI that had a substantial fleet of bright red Chevy Sprints and Geo Metros for their delivery drivers. There probably wasn't a higher concentration of Sprints and Metros in the US at the time than in Madison.