Junkyard Treasure: 1976 Chevrolet Cosworth Vega

The Cosworth Twin Cam was the main Vega worth examining, yet this one couldn't discover an eternity home 

The Chevrolet Vega sold like insane, with more than two million constructed (also near another million Monzas and identification designed kin, which depended on the Vega stage), yet GM's lively looking economy auto built up a very much earned notoriety for trashy form quality and issues that included calamitous motor overheating and sugar-3D square in-boiling point water-level body erosion. Still, there was a brilliant spot in the Vega universe: the Cosworth Vega!

The Vega and its relatives used to be found in enormous numbers in each destroying yard in North America, however pretty much every one of them were smashed by the mid 1990s. I invest a great deal of energy in junkyards and nowadays I may see a Vega or Monza/Starfire/Skyhawk/Astre each couple of years at most. That makes this blurred, abundantly weathered '76 Cosworth Vega, which I seen in a San Francisco Straight Region yard a couple days prior, an unbelievably uncommon find—even rarer than a Passage Rhythm AWD or Honda City S. Only 3,508 Cosworth Vegas were worked, for the 1975 and 1976 model years as it were.

The 122-cubic-inch Cosworth Vega motor made 110 drive, versus a hopeless 70 stallions for the 140-cubic-inch SOHC motor in the customary Vega. That gave the Cosworth Vega an energy to-weight proportion of around 23 lb/hp. Contrast this with the 19 lb/hp you get in the not-precisely known-for-pace 2016 Kia Rio and you can see why the Disquietude Time was such a miserable time for auto significant others. As yet, having happened to driving age in the mid 1980s, I drove and took a shot at numerous Vegas (which, alongside the Passage Pinto, were among the most promptly accessible shabby hoopties amid that time), and the Cosworth was the one and only thought to be alluring at the time.

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