Diesels that were built during the 1980s are almost single-handedly responsible for the public's general perception of diesel cars as slow-moving, smoke-belching horrors of the road. It also didn't help that most diesel cars, fullsize or not, had roughly 12 horsepower. OK, so some had more like 100 hp, but none were turbocharged or direct injected, and some were really heavy. Can you imagine trying to get a 5,000-pound diesel Lincoln moving with less than 100 horsepower? You'd have better luck parking it in Neutral during a strong storm. To find out if our perception of these vehicles was accurate, we decided to buy an '82 diesel Chevette five-speed and give you a full report on our findings.
Call Ripley's, we can do burnouts!...
Call Ripley's, we can do burnouts! Sort of. The tires will spin for a few seconds before the brakes and friction slow them to a stop.
Mentioning the word "Chevette" to automotive enthusiasts often elicits uncontrollable laughter-add the word "diesel" and people start rolling around on the ground in hysterics. Rated at a dyno-melting 51 horsepower from the factory, it's one of the few cars that wasn't offered with air conditioning because the engine couldn't maintain the car's road speed and spin the A/C compressor.
We found this rare diesel Chevette in Wichita, Kansas, and decided it was in good enough shape to make it all the way back to California where it would become the official "parts-runner" of Diesel Power magazine. Actually, saying it was in "good" shape is a little misleading, as the previous owner practically restored the thing. Since we average about 18 miles per hour on our drive to work, and spend most of our time either driving or sitting about 6 inches from the car in front of us, we figured a diesel Chevette would be the perfect car to drive here in L.A. So, we flew out to Kansas and packed up the car with supplies and parts donated from its previous loving owners and headed out with our foot to the floor, and our naturally aspirated 1.8L diesel causing us to...well, sort of accelerate. We only made it about 70 miles out of Wichita before the transmission gave up. After a spare was installed, we decided not to give it a second shot, and instead elected to have it shipped out to California.
 The little watch motor that...  The little watch motor that powers our '82 Chevette is a naturally aspirated 1.8L Isuzu diesel engine that was rated at a furious 51 horsepower. |  Yes, we had it dyno'd. For...  Yes, we had it dyno'd. For a shop that normally works on supercharged Vipers, we're surprised the DC Performance guys even let us through the door. |  The fuzzy seat covers are...  The fuzzy seat covers are by far the best interior feature. Rockin' tunes are provided by a Sony CD player (no eight-tracks for us!). |
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