Welcome to another exciting week here on Shitbox Showdown! This week, we’re going to limit the purchase prices to three digits, and try our damnedest to find something cool that’s worth having. Will we succeed? You’ll just have to read on to find out.
Last Friday, we didn’t have a poll, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have results. The general consensus seems to be that the Grand Am would make the best daily driver out of the bunch, and I’m inclined to agree. But a lot of you want to attempt to track that Infinit convertible and set the Pinto ablaze, and to me that seems backwards. The Pinto is a blank slate, and there are just so many things you can turn it into. The Infiniti, while a fine second choice as daily driver, would be useless on the track, slow on a dragstrip, and probably too bendy for off-roading.
Anyway, let’s take a look at today’s competitors. I make no secret of my fondness for GM’s J-body cars, even though I’ve had mixed luck with them: I have a tale of woe and misadventure that I may tell someday involving two Cavaliers that rivals some of David’s exploits, but I’ve had plenty of good experiences with them as well. What’s less well-known is my love of history. The name “Cavalier” was first applied to mounted soldiers in support of King Charles I of England, who had a bit of trouble during his reign. (His son, Charles II, did a bit better after some trouble early on.) I have no idea why GM chose to name a compact car after these guys, but as the UK welcomes King Charles III, we here at Shitbox Showdown felt it was only fitting to honor him with a pair of Cavaliers.
Or maybe I just really like these crappy little things. Either way, here they are.
1985 Chevrolet Cavalier convertible – $800
Engine/drivetrain: 2.0 liter inline 4, 3 speed automatic, FWD
Location: Portland, OR
Odometer reading: 98,000 miles
Runs/drives? Unclear
The first generation of Chevy’s Cavalier was available in four bodystyles: a four-door sedan, a four-door wagon, a two-door fastback hatchback, and a two-door coupe, which was really more of a two-door sedan, sharing the same squared-off roofline as the four-door. Starting in 1983, ASC beheaded a few two-door Cavaliers (and Pontiac Sunbirds) every year and turned them into convertibles, as a response to the newly-introduced Chrysler LeBaron and Dodge 400 convertibles. They were never as popular as Chrysler’s ragtops; this 1985 model is one of only 4,108 produced that year.
This Cavalier appears to be a Type 10 model, an appearance and option package available for a couple of years in the mid-1980s. Type 10 Cavaliers had a few more standard goodies and red side trim instead of chrome. Under the hood, it’s standard-issue J-car, with Chevrolet’s “122” overhead-valve four-cylinder, equipped with throttle-body fuel injection, sending power to the front wheels through a three-speed automatic. It’s nothing ground-breaking, but it gets the job done.
The seller doesn’t give us much to go on; all they say is that it has been sitting a while and has “issues.” It appears to have 2021 registration, so it hasn’t been sitting for too terribly long. They also only give us three lousy photos, but what they show is encouraging. Mechanically, these are simple and durable cars, and the top is shown both up and down, so evidently it works. For eight hundred bones, it seems worth a look, at least.
1990 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 coupe – $995
Engine/drivetrain: 3.1 liter V6, 5 speed manual, FWD
Location: Portland, OR
Odometer reading: 251,000 miles
Runs/drives? Well, according to the seller
In 1988, Chevy redesigned the Cavalier and in the process dropped the hatchback. The 2 door received a new sleeker roofline, while the sedan and wagon carried over the square look. The top of the line was the “Z24” package, which included a V6 engine, some suspension tuning, a front spoiler and ground effects, and couple of “power bulges” in the hood. This one sends the V6’s power through a five-speed manual to the front pair of those wonderful checkerboard-looking alloy wheels.
This car has a ton of miles on it, a little over a quarter million, but the seller says it still runs and drives well. I have seen this car for sale on Craigslist for a long time, years maybe, so it may have some issues now from sitting. The ad does say its registration is two years out of date, so we know it has been sitting at least that long. I believe the two reasons it has been for sale so long are the mileage, and this:
Ouch. I’m certain that trunk lid doesn’t seal properly any more, and it may not even open. At least it didn’t break the rear window. Someone stuck a replacement taillight in place of what I’m sure was a smashed one and taped it in place. It works, but it ain’t pretty. And it’s not really fixable either.
It’s a shame, because the rest of the car looks passable, especially for less than a grand. It still might make someone a good beater, but it’ll never be “nice.” It’s just not worth the effort and cost to make it so. But since it has been available for so long, if you’re willing to put up with the damage, you could probably show them $500 cash and drive off with it.
Love ’em or hate ’em, GM’s J-cars are likely to be a fixture in the cheap used car market for quite some time to come, despite having been out of production for seventeen years now. They make good beaters, and the end of their useful lives has a long tail. These two are at the bottom end of the price spectrum, and neither is perfect, but both are at least interesting. Which one is more your speed?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
The joys of a beater convertible are many and unpredictable. Freeway speeds with the top down in the rain in Kansas driving cross country…. The time I parked with the top down in LA and someone threw an electric guitar in the back seat…
About that name:
I’d really like to know who Chevrolet picked out the model names Cavalier and Caprice.
From: https://wikidiff.com/capricious/cavalier
As adjectives the difference between cavalier and capricious is that cavalier is not caring enough about something important while capricious is impulsive and unpredictable; determined by chance, impulse, or whim.
Hard to tell if that Chevrolet product manager was apathetic or indifferent.
‘Yes’
Damn shame about the dent in the Z24.
I had a 1992 Z24 with the manual V6 for a while. My dad bought it used in..I dunno 1998 or 1999 for my older sister, who never learned how to drive it, so in….2001 or 2002, I bought it for the cost of all the title and registration fees. It had most of the options except for the CD player… *sad face*
Anyway, I moved to San Diego with that in 2003. Say what you will about the J-bodies….that thing drove through winter weather in Erie, PA, (with winter tires, of course) and then handled a cross country drive with zero issues, and was great for about a year in SoCal.
When kid #1 came in 2004, I tried for a while, but while coupe was mildly inconvenient, the new leak in the manual sunroof was not worth repairing to me. I sold it to a co-workers kid, and got a 2001 Cavalier manual, not because I loved the Cavaliers, but because it was selling for like $2000 and had like 20,000 miles on it. It was literally some old lady’s car, or rather, her dead husband’s car, and she couldn’t drive manual. And it was garage kept.
Not great cars, but cockroach-like durability for buyers on a budget. I put 161,000 miles on that in about 6.5 years, and the only thing I had to get fixed outside of routine maintenance was replace the slave cylinder for the clutch, and both headlight/DRL arrays when they got too yellow (and I didn’t know how to fix it at that time.)
My point is that if this Z24 didn’t have a dent, and it actually ran, the cost is a steal. But repairing the body damage isn’t worth it, unless you had some drug induced vision of Radwood or something……..or more money and time and less common sense than us working plebes.
So, I’m pretty much forced to pick the older convertible here.
My first car was a 91 z24 with the 3.1 and 5 speed. That thing was a blast. I would hot lap it at the strip, best I ever ran was 15.6. I built my own catback and put a Magnaflow on it, and it sounded great. Back in the day people would 3.1T swap them with the motor out of a Gran Prix GTP. The forums are still up! https://www.v6z24.com/
Hard pass on both.
See that fold in the Z24’s upper fender? The unibody is bent. It’s uninsurable. The entire rear crash structure is fatally compromised and would require time on a frame jig. It got nailed HARD; the rearmost structural reinforcement, rear frame rail/sidemember, and structural extension are all on the menu. That’s also the rear suspension tower so the suspension geometry’s also screwed. Even getting a rebuilt title for that thing is a $10,000+ proposition.
We have a super low mile J-body convertible around here. (We also have a lot of PT Cruisers, Crossfires, and absolutely fucking mint Sebring convertibles.) Pontiac Sunfire, to be specific. And with just 45,000 miles on it, the paint is absolutely mint, not even a hint of rust, and literally everything else is just falling apart. Last I saw the owner, he said the top no longer went up due to a broken hinge. Before that, the transmission quit. You get the idea.
Feel bad about voting down a V6/stick combo, but I’ll take a convertible without damage vs something with damage.
Had to vote for the convertible after seeing the damage on the 1990. That looks like a hard enough knock that it runs way deeper than a busted taillight. I don’t think there’s any straightening that car. Two of my best friends in high school had Cavaliers and both were in wrecks (not their fault, either) and both of them still deal with lingering pain a full 30 years later.
The bizarre parts – One friend had an early 90’s Cavalier convertible and the insurance company insisted on rebuilding it after the wreck. It had even worse panel gaps after that and the area behind the top would collect and store a few toilet tanks worth of water, which we enjoyed listening to sloshing around any time he drove it.
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I’d take the simple 4-cylinder and the cool red interior of the convertible
Never convertible.
I like the Vert better, but I acknowledge the lack of OD, but at least it has FI in the form of Throttle body injection. it also looks better and has a lesser chance of the intake gaskets failing with coolant dropping into the oil. Also fewer miles.
You can keep your cowl-shaky non-running convertible. Gimme the beater with a 5-speed, and I’ll rallycross the balls off of it.
You had me at “cheap J-Body”. Both are killer!
Z24. My second car was a blue 1998, same generation as this one. Bought it from a guy close to home who flipped cars. Less than 500 miles later it spun a rod bearing on the expressway. That’s a sound you won’t forget.
I paid $1800 installed for a new short block because what are you going to do when you’re 19 and just spent what was to you a lot of money on a now worthless car, and drove it for 4 years.
Good times.
If the cars were were nearer to me and didn’t have a dozen projects already in the pipeline, I’d suggest buying both and moving the Z-24 goodies to the convertible. You’d have enough time left over to make a bitchin’ mix tape for a topless summer of ‘23.
I had a similar thought, but the “tale of woe” I mentioned involved trying to make one good Cavalier from two. With the benefit of 25 years of wrenching experience, I could probably pull it off now, but I’m also wise enough not to try.
The labor you propose will never be worth investing, because there’s a finite limit to the appeal of the end product.
The Z24 convertible my then-girlfriend’s mom owned in the early 1990s wasn’t really a bad car. It was a lot of fun for its day. But today, with so many other options, it just isn’t worth building one out of two
scrappy old Cavaliers. Because once you add a V6 to an already spongy convertible, it gets even more flexy. And you end up with a low performance, front wheel drive car, built to pass 30 year old safety standards.
Of these two, I’d take the convertible and just enjoy it as a slow roller for trips to the grocery store.
Z24. I wouldn’t bother saving the rear end. But, if I could get it cheap enough, turn it into a little flatbed UTE. Would I lose all torsional rigidity? Yes, most certainly. Would I care? No. Some scrap steel, sawzall blades, handful of 7018 rods and a set of harbor freight trailer lights would be all this thing needs.
I guess I have to go with the Z24 since the drop top has undefined issues. That’s a shame because the convertible would be the more interesting car to own, but who knows how much time and money will be needed to sort out the issues?
It’s hard to tell, but it does look like the top on the Type 10 is pretty new.
But can’t say no to a Z24 with a manual. I so wanted one back in the day. Those wheels are just wonderfully of the time period.
And for that money, I’d do my best to reasonably pound out the dents and crappily repaint things myself. For me, a more or less everyday domestic car of this vintage is really only about the driving experience at this point and for that, the manual wins.
Admittedly, I’m not an internet expert on either vehicle. But I do have personal experience with the Z24. Sort of, I mean a friend’s experience. When I was in school, a buddy bought one of these Z24s in blue and gray – it might’ve been the same year as this one. Anyway, he did a lot of side work and used a lot of his savings to buy this car, I think over $2,000 in 1999 or 2000. And based on what he told me, it was always in need of some repair. It ate up a lot of his savings during his ownership. That was enough to taint these for me forever. That’s a big thumbs down on the Z24.
From what I do know about the regular-ass Cavaliers, the old trope of “runs like crap longer than anything else runs because GM cockroach” is more or less the case. At least you get a low price of entry and a drop top to go with your shitty 3 speed and definitely-less-than-90 horsepower sled.
Cavalier ‘vert wins.
That J-body vert has the torsional rigidity of fettuccine Alfredo, but the lack of obvious bodywork makes it the winner over the Z24.
I would pick the convertible and turn it into the Cimmaron Cadillac was too cowardly to build!
I had to vote for the octagram wheels over the checkerboards. Definitely more useful if you have to perform a ritual each day in order to get one to start.
My own opinion on these is that the checkerboards were nasty when new, and even worse now. The ones on the red car are far less unique, but actually rather nice.
I was going to comment that I voted for the Z24—but that I wanted the ‘Atom’ wheels from the ragtop. That’s what I always thought of them as: the ubiquitous atom symbol from the ‘50s/‘60s mostly because of the incredibly tacky-cool Atomic Clock in my Grandmother’s kitchen( it was clearly capitalized when any of her offspring referred to it )
I had an ’85 Type 10 (great car). Folks used to ask me “what’s a Type 10?” I would tell them, “I dunno – a Type 9 that runs?” In ’86 they changed the designation from Type 10 to RS.
“Type 10” was originally the code for the hatchback coupe in ’82-3. In ’84-85 it became the black grille/red accents package and the brochures seem to imply that the hatch and 2-door sedans all had this trim while the convertible was in between. The ’86-up RS package was available on 4-door sedans and wagons as well.
Didn’t the Type 10 basically become the Z24, I mean after the hatchback model was dropped?
Even with the body work, for under a grand it is use until it breaks car the z24 is what I would select. If you good with a hammer and boneyard searching you can correct it.
Paint? Rattle can or if you want to go upscale MACCO special.
Nice. I’m with you too – the engine plus manual is what make the package, everything else is cosmetic and (at least for my tastes) can be corrected to a place where I’d be happy.
While I’m sure there are some people (here, I’m hoping) who would want a radwood trophy for a pristine Cavalier convertible, for me, it’s the driving experience that would draw me.
Then again for under 1 grand if you are expecting a perfect show car…I have some news for you 🙂
I drive a convertible version of the z24 and it was blast. As long you are not stuck on the back seat during a cold day.
Hammer, Bondo, sanding block, rattle can. About all it’s worth, but it would be An Experience! David would be proud!
The rest of it looks like it might clean up. Sorta. The Cavalier convertibles are, in a word, awful. The one I drove was virtually new (maybe 5,000 miles on the clock) but acted ready to shake itself to pieces.
I dunno how much lower Mark can go, but I’m sure he’ll find now Shitbox Worlds to conquer!
it actually would be a good FWD Demo Car. Those weirdos are blocking off the intakes, and drilling holes for top mount carbs on these things.
I had a 1991 lumina with the 3.1 and a 4-seep auto. It moved the car adequately. In the smaller cavalier with a 5-speed it might even be entertaining.
Not sure if that was a typo or intended to be “4-sleep” but I think either is correct over “speed” which is a term at odds with these cars.
Typo found.
However, it did leak ATF like crazy, so maybe it was subconsciously on purpose.
4-seep seems appropriate in that case.
Bodywork kills it for me… lack of a sealing trunk makes winter duty difficult, or even a daily that leaks in rainstorms? If I’m going to get wet, just give me a drop top.
For 500 buckaroos, just drill a couple holes in the trunk so the water leaks out.
If not get Jeremy Clarkson’s favorite tool and make it work.