Battle of the Bitty: Six 1971 Small Cars Compared

From the January 1971 issue of Car and Driver.

Small cars are small—you have to give them that—and have lightweight price tags. Other than that they share little. Some are masterfully balanced engineering compromises, some are brilliantly innovative transportation devices­—and some are nothing more than ill-conceived, badly executed plugs for holes in a manufactur­er’s leaky model line-up. We have come to know about these things. The C/D staff has been deep­ly involved with small cars for more than a year, driving and evaluating every model available in this country, and some which are not, and we’ve climaxed this investigation with a C/D compar­ison test of six automobiles which are signifi­cant and representative of the current range.

The subjects of this test were chosen from the ranks of basic transportation cars—the lowest-­priced class of automobiles that can still be con­sidered real cars. This excludes such mini-cars as the Honda 600 and the Subaru 360. Also we wanted to sort out the controversy that has aris­en since Detroit entered the small car business with the Vega, Pinto, and Gremlin. With those two ground rules in mind, the test resolved itself into a situation where the three small Detroit cars faced off against three imports.

As for the imports, Volkswagen, which sells 350,000 copies of the Beetle annually in the U.S., is an obvious choice and since VW has seen fit to introduce a new, larger-trunk, Super Beetle to compete with the Detroit small cars, that model was a required participant in the test. Toyota, the second-largest-selling import in the U.S., offers a wide range of models. The Corolla was finally chosen because it is a complete car at a remarkably low cost and because the next higher Corona series is priced above the Vega which, itself, is nicking the upper edge of econo­my class.

To fill up the final spot we brought in the secret car, the Simca 1204. Volkswagen proba­bly spills more Beetles off the boat than Simca sells in this country but we remember from that last road test of the 1204 (C/D, June 1969) that it offers a high degree of comfort and room for the price. In addition, the Simca, with its van­like body, transverse engine, and front-wheel ­drive, stands as a sharp contrast to the conven­tional car layout to which Detroit has adhered.

In comparing the test cars, we used all of our normal test procedures for measuring accelera­tion, braking, handling, and fuel economy—but we didn’t stop there. Because we wanted an ac­curate picture of each car’s comfort and suitabil­ity to American road conditions, we formed a six-man jury to evaluate subjective qualities like interior noise, directional stability, and seating comfort. Each man drove each car over a pre­determined circuit of public roads, which in­cluded interstate highways, road construction areas, city traffic, and rough rural blacktops, for a total of 185 evaluation miles in each car. At the end of the test, the observations of the jury were distilled off to form the basis for this text and the “Comfort and Convenience Rating.” And since each car was driven by the same driv­ers over the same roads, the fuel-economy data (shown elsewhere in the test) is directly comparable and reasonably typical of what you can expect in normal driving.

Now that you understand our motives and procedures, here is how we ranked the cars.

Unlike the others, a car for all occasions.

The Vega was the most expensive car in the test—by almost $300. In fact, even a naked Vega without a single piece of optional equip­ment goes for a higher dollar than the as-tested price of the other comparison cars. But the Ve­ga’s virtues are nicely in proportion to its price, and it was the unanimous favorite.

The Vega pulled down the number one posi­tion because of its particular suitability to American driving conditions. It was one of two cars in the test (the other being the Gremlin) capable of relatively strain-free cruising at 70 mph or above. This is vitally important in a country laced with freeways and interstate high­ways; and, traditionally, it has been the lack of high-speed cruising ability that has confined the imports to a second-car position in the minds of many Americans. The key to the Vega’s high­-speed capability is its incredibly long 2.53.1 axle ratio which allows the engine to loaf along at only 3000 rpm at 80 mph. This is an essential part of the car’s cruising ability since the Vega’s overhead camshaft four is disturbingly loud when revved. But the axle ratio deserves credit for more than just quiet cruising. In the fuel-economy test, the Vega ranked a strong third with 27.1 mpg. According to Chev­rolet engineers, about 2 mpg of that will disap­pear if you select the optional 2.92 ratio. Still, there is a strong temptation to do so. The stan­dard Vega, with its wide-ratio three-speed transmis­sion and long axle feels more like a six-speed with first, third, and fifth gears missing. It always seems like you are starting in second, and the gaps between gears are not valleys but canyons that would be impossible to bridge except for the engine’s bountiful torque.

Despite the economy-oriented axle ratio, the Vega’s acceleration is strong. Using first and second gears, the standing-quarter mile required 18.6 seconds—with a speed of 72.3 mph. Aside from the Gremlin, the Vega was the only other car in the test to get under the 19- second mark or to exceed 70 mph at the dragstrip.

The Vega’s ability to produce impressive test numbers was also apparent during the evaluation of the brakes. Its consistent 195-foot stops from 70 mph (0.84 g) were the high marks of the test. Even so, stopping the Vega is not the reassuring operation that the numbers suggest. As the rear wheels approach lock-up, the rear axle begins a violent dance which feels like a Force 10 quake on the Richter Scale.

While the axle hop must be blamed on the rear suspension rather than on the braking system, it was the suspension’s only serious weak point. Ride quality is good for a car of this price class: Small bumps are absorbed with ease, al­though the shocks seem severe on patchy black­top roads. Handling is very good with mild un­dersteer and tolerant breakaway characteristics. The biggest surprise is the steering, which is light and accurate and feels far quicker than its 4.5 turns lock-to-lock would suggest. In general, the Vega is quick and nimble without the sports car harshness most American sedan buyers find ob­jectionable.

The Vega’s interior, a stylist’s idea of the American Dream, drew heavy criticism. Its deeply contoured plastic door panels and dash are inordinately complex but short on function. The treatment is too heavy for a car of the Ve­ga’s size. The instrument panel is almost devoid of instruments: only a horizontal speedometer, a fuel gauge, and a clock are offered and the latter two are blocked from sight by the steering wheel—as is the ashtray. There is no glove box as such; only a small open bin in the center of the dash and a narrow pocket in the door have been provided for interior storage. Even though the Vega was the most expensive car in the test, its floors were covered with a rubber mat rather than carpet, a standard item on all of the im­ports. The controls, too, were unlike the im­ports: Every lever, pedal, and crank-shifter, clutch, window winders, etc.—required excep­tionally long travel to do its job. The engineers were obviously obsessed with minimizing driver effort where possible.

In their concern for the driver, the engineers did manage to do a good job in positioning him. You sit low in the Vega with your arms and legs stretched out, more like sitting in a Camaro than a compact sedan. And the seats, while not sensationally comfortable at first sitting, proved to be remarkably livable for long periods. Con­sidering the Vega’s overall size (almost seven inches longer than the Pinto) the interior room is disappointing. The front seat passenger should have no complaints, and the trunk is gen­erous, but knee room in the rear is in tight sup­ply.

Despite its shortcomings, the Vega merits the highest rating in this test because it is the only one of the six cars that the jury would choose for a coast-to-coast trip. It provides an excellent combination of performance and economy, it cruises easily at high speeds and it is relatively comfortable for hours at a stretch. It is unique in this test as it is a car for all occasions.

Plush and efficient as only the French can manage.

The Simca differs from all of the other cars in the test in two important ways: It was designed to be comfortable and efficient transportation rather than simply a car, and it is French. Ex­cept for styling, which shouldn’t be too impor­tant in this class, and high-speed cruising ability, it is superior to the Vega in almost every way.

The French demand comfort in their cars no matter how little the price, and comfort is perhaps the Simca’s most outstanding virtue. The car is tall, so it is easy to get into and out of, and the gentle grip of the seats would be a selling point in a car of twice the price.

But the root of the Simca’s comfort is buried deeply within the car. Like most French automobiles, the Simca’s fully independent torsion bar suspension has an exceptionally long range of travel which allows it to soak up seemingly mountainous bumps with ease. With its steel­-belted Michelin radials (standard equipment), the harshness of tar strips and other small irreg­ularities is more noticeable than in the Vega, but the Simca’s overall ride is more resilient and su­perior to all of the other cars in the test.

The 1204’s French designers abandoned a conventional car silhouette in favor of some­thing far more useful—and homely. The Simca consists of a box-shaped passenger compartment with the entire engine and drivetrain mounted transversely in a small module (also box-shaped) on the front. With an overall length of 155.3 inches, the Simca was the shortest car in the test by a full six inches, and yet its body contained the most usable space. Effectively, it is a station wagon—its accurately counter-balanced rear door hinges upward, and the rear seat folds flat, opening up enough floor space so that a six-foot­er can lie diagonally across the cargo area.

With only 1200cc of engine displacement, the Simca shares the dubious honor of having the smallest engine in the test with the Corolla. It was hardly a disadvantage, however. The Simca scored highest, with 28.3 mpg, in the fuel-econo­my test and ranked third in acceleration with a very slight advantage over the Pinto in the quar­ter-mile. The Simca’s engine is well isolated and generally less noisy than that of the Vega, Pinto, or VW, but because of its high numerical (3.94.1) final-drive ratio it sounds noticeably strained above 70 mph. All of the other aspects of highway cruising are good, however, and the front-wheel-drive and extreme forward weight bias combine to give the Simca the best directional stability of any car in the test.

Almost every aspect of its behavior—soft seats, jolt-absorbing ride, and effective sound deadening—contribute to a feeling of comforta­ble isolation from the road. Unfortunately, this theme is carried to an extreme by the controls. The shifter is vague and rubbery, the steering is­ heavy with excessive friction, and the brakes re­quire high pedal pressure to obtain lock-up. Even the instruments seem remote, and they are—with the dash being so far away. While the dials are well placed, they are so mysteriously labeled that you are never quite sure what it is that seems to be half full at the moment. Some of the small controls—particularly the radio, which is located to the left of the steering col­umn—are so far away as to be nearly unreacha­ble when you are wearing the shoulder belt.

Because so few Simcas are sold in this coun­try, the car has had very little chance to develop a reputation. Partly for that reason, we were not prepared for the high level of quality apparent throughout. Its basic structure was so extremely solid that the car was totally without rattles and squeaks.

In fact, considering the price, the Simca 1204 is a bargain. It is a highly sophisticated machine that offers maximum comfort and utility in its class and it should win favor with all except those who demand conventionality in their small cars. It is a mystery that Chrysler Corpo­ration keeps it a secret.

Economical and roomy but hard pressed at 70 mph.

At $1918, the Corolla was the lowest priced car in the test and yet it ranked third, primarily because of its spacious and attractive interior, good overall quality, and economy. The Corol­la’s biggest shortcoming is that it is poorly suit­ed to the speeds demanded on interstate high­ways. With its 4.22 axle ratio and 12-inch wheels the engine fairly screams at 70 mph, and the car’s low weight (1785 pounds) makes it fair victim for even the mildest of wind gusts. At low speeds and in traffic the car is fun to drive, how­ever, as it feels more like a sports car than the others. The shifter is incredibly light and crisp, there is a hair-trigger clutch, and the steering is very quick if a little imprecise. Even so, the Co­rolla readily lifts its inside rear wheel in tight turns and consequently never achieves very high cornering speeds.

Like the Simca, the Corolla’s engine displaces only 1200cc, and while Toyota rates it at 73 horsepower, 11 hp more than the Simca, it actu­ally provides somewhat less performance. Only the Volkswagen was slower in the quarter-mile. It does do well in fuel economy, however. At 27.9 mpg it ranked second overall.

Considering all aspects of performance, brak­ing is the Corolla’s weak spot. The car stops in a straight line but the wheels lock up arbitrarily, and the distance (230 feet, 0.71 g) required to stop from 70 mph borders on being unaccept­able. As a point of interest, weak brakes have been a chronic problem with the Corolla since its introduction (C/D, December, 1968).

Where the Corolla excels is in interior space. Rear seat knee room, usually in critically short supply in cars of this size, is abundant enough so that most adults can sit in back without their knees pressed sharply into the backs of the front seats. Only the Pinto has more useful rear seat room than the Corolla. And not only is the rear area roomy, but the seat is comfortable as well. Front-seat passengers don’t have it quite so good. The Corolla’s front buckets are well pad­ded but narrow, and the cushions need to be tilt­ed up to offer more support under one’s thighs.

While the Corolla was the lowest-priced car in the test, that fact is not obvious when you look at the interior appointments. Carpeting is stan­dard equipment, high quality vinyl is used to cover the seats and door panels, and the whole package is coordinated in pleasing colors. Interi­or styling is of a high standard also, and the in­strument panel is attractive yet highly function­al.

In the final analysis, the Toyota Corolla is an extremely economical small car best suited to urban commuting and other short trips where high cruising speeds are not required. It offers less performance and comfort than the Vega and the Simca—deficiencies partially offset by its lower initial price.

Big on the inside, needs a dose of VW quality control.

The Pinto could do no better than fourth in the rating and was a clear disappointment to ev­ery member of the staff. We can see it reviving all of those terrible old Ford jokes that haven’t been heard since the Second World War, like “What time is it when one Ford follows another Ford down the road?” (answer: “tin after tin”). Conceptually, the Pinto is a very promising car—short and wide with more usable space for four passengers than any other car in the test. But in practice, the excellent space utilization is overshadowed by a poor sound-absorption pack­age and an inordinately flexible structure. Whenever you hit a bump the steering wheel whips around in your hands and the whole car rattles and rustles like a burlap bag full of tin cups. Self-destruction seems only moments away.

It all goes back to the engineering depart­ment’s efforts to keep the weight down. The Pin­to checks in at only 2065 pounds, 240 pounds less than the Vega. Anyone with an understanding of basic physics knows that less weight means better performance and economy from a given engine, and the engineers were eager not to overburden the 1600cc four that they were bor­rowing from their British subsidiary. In this re­spect, they were successful. The Pinto ends up with better acceleration and fuel mileage than the VW—which all of Detroit has considered to be the chief target. Apparently, Ford didn’t ap­preciate that there is a whole lot more than this to a good economy car.

It turns out that the Pinto is very little more satisfactory for high speed cruising than the Co­rolla. The British engine is one noisy piece, and the weight-saving campaign wouldn’t allow for enough sound-deadener to do an adequate job. Consequently, under hard acceleration or above 70 mph the engine produces a hearty and unwel­come roar. The Pinto has reasonable perform­ance, but you tend to avoid using it because of all the ruckus.

If you can block out the noise and various vibrations, the Pinto can be fun to drive. The rack-and-pinion steering and the shifter for the four-speed transmission are both light and direct, and the whole car bites into corners as though it knew what it was about. Handling is very nearly neutral and would be among the best in the test if the rear axle didn’t do quite so much hopping around. Unlike the Vega, the axle is well con­trolled during braking. The standard drum brakes are very effective, their only prob­lem being oversensitivity which causes them to lock up with very low pedal pressures.

Inside the Pinto, the front buckets are very low and, in this car, the seatbacks were uncomfortably erect. The Pinto’s seating position was the lowest, with regard to the beltline, of any car in the test, like sitting in a very deep bath tub, and the staff couldn’t agree as to whether that was good or bad. Most thought that it was at least partially responsible for the Pinto’s sporty­-like-a-Triumph TR4 feeling. All of the instru­ments are grouped in two dials directly in front of the driver, and the small controls are conve­niently placed as well. The test car’s interior was done up in various shades of blue vinyl “so color coordinated that it looked like a 3-year-old who had been dressed by his grandmother,” accord­ing to one of the testers. Even though the color coordination was spot on, the general level of quality couldn’t match that of the cars ranked ahead of it.

Despite what Ford has led us to believe was its best efforts, the Pinto comes across like a bigger, less disciplined, and less well-made Toyo­ta Corolla, and that is hardly what the market has been waiting for.

You can almost love it for its quality, but not quite.

As a car, the VW has been hopelessly obsolete for at least a dozen years, but that doesn’t seem to matter out there in the world. People have long since stopped considering it a car. It’s a Volkswagen, and each succeeding model is judged not with respect to the current state of automotive art, but by how much better it is than past VWs. On that basis, the new Super Beetle is one helluva VW. It has a brand-new MacPherson front suspension (which only an expert could detect from the driver’s seat); the front trunk has been made larger as a result of moving suspension pieces out of the way, bulg­ing up the lid, and stretching out the nose; and the engine now has three additional horsepower thanks to new cylinder heads, which have two intake ports instead of one as before. Big deal. As a car, the Super Beetle is just as obsolete as all the rest of the regular VWs. It’s still twitchy in crosswinds, engine noise is excessive, and the interior has more the dimensions of a fox hole than a modern passenger car. In acceleration, the Super Beetle was the fastest Bug in C/D his­tory, charging through the quarter in 19.82 sec­onds at 63.9 mph, but it was still the slowest car in the test by almost 2 mph. Along with the engine, the brakes have been improved over the years, and now they are good enough so that the Beetle was second only to the Vega in stopping ability. Naturally, the handling is much better now than it was in the old swing-axle days. Be­cause of the rear weight bias (F/R: 41.1/58.9) the transients are very quick and the tail wags like a loaded station wagon if you crank the steering wheel too sharply, but the Beetle no longer feels like it will roll over and play dead if you corner a bit too hard.

Inside the Beetle you have a choice of a high, erect seating position or walking. There is enough space for four, provided everybody minds their elbows and those in front aren’t too greedy about legroom. For the first time, there is a flow-through ventilation system that can be boosted by a built-in blower. Like the Beetle en­gine, it’s noisy but it works.

Despite the Super Beetle’s 1938 infirmities, it has quality of a kind that none of the competitors can match. The whole car feels as solid as a Supreme Court decision, first-rate materials are used throughout, and it is all fastened together as if it was meant to stay that way for several doz­en years. You can almost like it for that alone. But not quite.

Powerful but sadly short of economy car virtue.

The Gremlin finished the test in a distant sixth place, not because it was completely without vir­tue but because its few strengths are not com­monly sought after in economy cars. Accelera­tion is a prime example. Compared to the oth­ers, the Gremlin feels like a fuel-burning Hemi on the dragstrip, almost a full second and 4 mph faster than the Vega, the second-quickest car. It’s also like a Hemi when it comes to fuel econ­omy, being the only one of the test cars to regis­ter less than 20 mpg during the mileage check. What kind of economy car is this?

To understand the Gremlin better you have to know its heritage. The Gremlin is really a Hor­net—a typical American compact car—made sub-compact by chopping one foot of length out of its wheelbase. The resulting Gremlin is heavy (2640 pounds), it uses the big (232-cubic-inch) 135-hp Hornet engine as standard equipment, and it has no back-seat legroom because that part of the car was removed in the radical sur­gery that transformed the Hornet into a Grem­lin. The result is a wide, two-passenger car with a long nose, slow steering (6.25 turns lock-to-­lock), an incredibly heavy clutch, and none of the nimble feeling that you expect from a small car. Its handling is ponderous and, in braking, the weight transfers to the front wheels to such a degree that the rears lock up and the car yaws sideways. To stop the Gremlin quickly it is abso­lutely necessary to lock all four wheels immedi­ately so that it will maintain a straight path. Otherwise, who knows where you’ll end up?

The Gremlin’s best application is that of a compact, two-passenger station wagon capable of high speeds on interstate highways. The car has good directional stability and with the standard 2.73 axle ratio it will cruise at 70 mph with a minimum of fuss. Since the rear seat (optional at extra cost) is too small for anything but children, it can be folded flat to give a generous cargo space which is also accessible from the rear if you order the optional swing-up rear glass.

But even if the car does make a successful station wagon it will never be a comfortable one. The front bench seat is hard and offers poor sup­port. The driving position places the steering wheel very close to your chest and there is pre­cious little head room as you will discover the first time you lurch over a railroad grade cross­ing. And unfortunately, the Gremlin doesn’t have Volkswagen quality to fall back on. The interior materials appear depressingly cheap and none too well screwed together.

Clearly, the Gremlin would have been far bet­ter off had it stayed a Hornet. As it is, it has a very narrow application compared to the other cars in the test.

At the close of the two-day test, our staff-mem­ber jury was in unanimous agreement on one point: that the Vega offered the best combina­tion of performance, fuel economy, and comfort among the six cars tested. But, giving considera­tion to a price $175–$300 (depending on options) more than the others, none of us are convinced that the Vega represents the best economy car buy. It’s too expensive—not for what you get, but as a true economy car. On the other hand the Simca 1204, which is not so much a creature of blind adherence to convention in design or styling, offers a more comfortable and versatile interior package on a much better suspension system—and all at a friendlier price. Apart from the Vega’s high-speed cruising capability, it has only its GM Tech-Center inspired body styling and a vague, unexplainable sporting flavor to recommend it to the buyer. Considering all that, and the poor showing of the Pinto and Gremlin, it looks like the foreigners still have the edge in building efficient small cars.

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