re: #204 Shiplord Kirel

Hemmings actually has 6 Pintos listed right now, along with all the hundreds of Rolls-Royces and Ferraris. hemmings.com
2 of these are hot rods of sorts but 4 appear to be fairly stock machines. In contrast, there are only 5 Chevrolet Vegas, all “specials” of one kind or another (V-8 conversions or the rare Cosworth types). There are no Chevrolet Chevettes at all, so that unlamented product may be almost gone as well as forgotten. I had 2 Chevettes. I still think it was a better car than the Vega but that bar could not be any lower.

My dad bought a Chevette, I think to replace his aging VW Microbus. He hated the Chevette. He said it wasn’t much faster than the bus, and my first reaction when I saw it coming home from college was, “Shit, what an ugly car!” He kept it six months and then bought an AMC Hornet with a V8. Substantially quicker, but being an AMC product, somewhat less than reliable and the V8 was crappy on gas. His last car before he passed was a Renault Encore (when AMC and Renault had some kind of partnership). It was actually not bad: 4 cylinders and 5-speed trans.