Santa Marta, Colombia — Cars are pretty expensive to buy in Colombia, so a lot of people take cabs and buses. As a friend of mine always told me, wheels beats heels, and by that logic catching a ride in someone else's car works for me.

After the semi-high-tech Vega turned out to be such a headache for The General, the Chevette was just the ticket: crude, simple, and cheap to build. Already obsolete when it debuted in 1975, the Chevette was a fossil by 1986.

Was the new-for-1976 Chevette really a "new kind of American car," as claimed in this ad? With rear-wheel drive, anemic pushrod engine, and abysmal build quality, it was more like a new kind of unconditional surrender to the Honda Civic.

That's sort of how the mid-Malaise Era went; you could opt to swap your rapidly-eroding dollars for the already obsolete Chevrolet Chevette, or for a much larger car made by an obviously doomed manufacturer.