1978 Chevrolet Monza Spyder review from North America

The car performed flawlessly until about 30,000 miles. At that mileage, the car developed a severe front end shimmy at speeds between 65 and 80 mph. Neither the dealer nor independent shops could find the problem. I replaced the rotors, rebalanced the wheels, even replaced wheels, to no avail. After living with this for 60,000 miles, I reluctantly traded it in.

Other than this, it was a terrific little car that gave me few problems. The worst problem was that the transmission went out at about 60K, but it had given me weeks of warning in the form of worsening slippage. I purchased a rebuilt Turbo 350 for a couple hundred dollars, and swapped it over a weekend. No transmission computer chips back then!

One other thing. The car was originally equipped with Firestone 500 radials, which were subject to a recall due to problems with tread separation (sound familiar?) At about 30K miles, the tread was separating on at least two tires, so I replaced them with Goodyears. I always thought that there may have been a connection between this and the shimmy, but as the tires didn't fail catastrophically, there seems to be no causality between the two.

I've always wondered if others had this problem, and if so, if it was solved. I'd love to find out what caused that problem. I hate unsolved mysteries!!

The Monza was a vast improvement over its ancestor, the Vega. I know because I did have a Vega once. Even though they shared the same unibody and most components, the Monza was more comfortable and solid-feeling than the Vega.

I took it on many long road trips, and it never failed me. It never stranded me, and never had to be towed. After 90K miles, it looked as good as ever - I received many compliments on its appearance. Wish I still had it!