Thank you for this great post. Very informative. I always loved the Avanti. It broke 170 mph back in the early 1960s... incredible for its day.

I got to tour both the Youngstown Avanti plant and the Georgia plant.

“I still think it is one of the best-looking cars in the world,” Blake said in a Forbes interview in 1989....

Someone should ask them if they’re sick of winning yet.

the fact that you mentioned Packard as well as Studebaker makes me realize that there was a time when car manufacturers were more than the big three.

Early Avanti II’s weren’t bad. They were about as close as you could get to the originals and at least still used the Studebaker chassis. When they became Monte Carlos, that was when the trouble started.

A character on the TV show Dallas drove an Avanti, and one of the cars would be given away on Wheel of Fortune.

Agree re: originals, but I don’t even mind **early** Avanti IIs...they’re essentially continuation cars, not the rebodied Chevys they eventually morphed into. Wouldn’t mind one with a 327 and a four-speed; would actually make for a decent grand touring car.

When I lived in Philly someone in my neighborhood had just purchased one of the 90's F body based “avantis”.

“We had a lot of cons come through,” Ungaro said. “People like to take advantage of you when you’re down and out.”

Yeah that sedan is deeply unfortunate, and don’t even get me started on the wheels 

I did a photography project with Avanti in the Stephen Blake era, and it was interesting to see how inefficient the processes were. They were pushing cars on carts down the line. My father in-law owned a ‘73, it was interesting, but not very fun to drive.

South Bend in the 80's was an odd place, you’d go to the…

It’s really surprising to see some of the most interesting new design from Hyundai and Kia but I’m definitely here for it. They’re working their way up my list for my next car.

As a lifelong German sedan devotee, I have to admit: I find the current mid-sized crop from Hyundai/Kia and Honda to be awfully compelling.

I was a young Chevy-Olds salesman when the Quad 4 came out, and couldn’t wait to get my hands on one. Grabbed a “Calais 442" for a demo, had it for a few months. I don’t recall it shaking or vibrating any more than most other 4-cylinders of that era, but it was LOUD, and not in a good way. Of course, to get any scoot…

Amen. This is the type of stuff that made this place awesome in years past. 

Thank you for the story. Though I wonder that given that the Quad-4 was bench marked to other engines, why didn’t they put in balancing shafts to begin with? Does the penny saved really costs a pound? Consider that Porsche licensed the counterbalancing shaft in their 4 cylinder engines form Mitsubishi (if I correctly…

My high school girlfriend’s mom worked at the Ft Worth GM plant and had a Calais when they 1st came out with this engine, and in college I dated a girl with the often forgotten Buick Skylark with the later version. Personally I really like the Calais styling-wise, better than its Grand Am cousin, and like most folks I…

I remember the excitement about the Quad 4. I have a special fondness for the Cutlass Supreme with the HO Quad 4. The testers complained that you had to thrash the engine to get any power but I kept thinking that was a positive, not a negative.

Privacy is dead. Why would I want my car to always know where I am?