My first car was a ‘72 Chevy Vega. What a POS! I had to put a quart of oil in it everytime I filled the gas tank.
My first car was a 1973 Vega. Install a relief tube under the drivers seat while stationed in Texas. This piss-mobile was perfect for a dumb beer drinking fool . Shipped it to the Philippines where I had the alum. motor cylinders bored and steel sleaves installed. Ran HOT! .. Sank the car in a river and shipped it back to USA .. Finally gave the pissmobile away in 1990 ..
Funny, I had a 1978 Honda Civic that I had to do the very same thing. And the 1991 Toyota Camry that I gave away to my neice also needed a quart per fillup by the time it died.
My wife had a ‘72 Vega when she was in college. I remember having to check the oil at every fillup because it seemed to burn almost as much oil as gasoline. Finally got rid of the thing when the timing chain broke — just wasn’t worth the hassle.
Me too. What a mistake.
I had a vega too. I still remember my last drive.
Having just graduated school I bought a new recliner. The recliner was in back and the steam billowed as the engine overheated (AGAIN). The steam subsided I kept going. You could hear the knocking a mile away as I pulled in the driveway. It was never to start again.
The Toyota dealer hauled it away after I bought my new Celica the next weekend.
In the days of full service you’d pull up to the pump and say “Fill ‘er up with oil and check the gas.”
One other thing...had a friend years ago who’s ‘57 Chevy blew so much smoke it looked like a fog machine. One day another friend pulled up beside him and said, “Jim, your car’s not smoking.”
He said, “Oh, sh$t! I’m out of oil!”
I recall driving a new ‘73 or ‘74 Vega up the 57 Freeway in Orange Co. CA. The car was owned by my employer. The Vega was tooling down the road nicely. Then all of a sudden, white smoke began billowing out from beneath the hood and I had to pull off the road.
I later read that cooling system failures were a big problem with the Vegas, as they didn’t design the cooling systems with a large enough capacity to handle the engine thermal properties.
I had a 1978 Pontiac Phoenix that was a quart of oil per tank of gas. I kept a case of oil in the trunk and as I filled up at least once a week. I’d tell my brother that it was a Phoenix and you couldn’t have a phoenix rise without stoking the (oil)fire!