FUD Wrote:
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> Having had some experience with the Vega (in motor
> pools and family), the failure was not the
> Vert-a-Pac. It was the car. The Vega, frankly,
> made the xplody-gas-tank Pinto feel like a real,
> reliable alternative. GM did too many strange
> things with that car. And they would rust out in
> SF - literally, rust through at the base of the
> windshield and let the glass fall out - in 1 year
> (no rust-through warranties back then).

I ran Vert-a-Pacs to Valla, and later they had a double decked modular "container" to move Cadillacs that were the "then" also the "latest thing"... They actually ended up being a pain in the ass, and more time consuming to load and unload, compared to tri-levels, as well.

As to the Vega? I was tuning up my type II VW bus one day when I was living out in Riverside and working out of West Colton in the mid 70's, and a neighbor with a Vega asked me to look at his car, because it was "missing", when he opened the hood all I saw was about ten miles of rubber vacuum hoses, running in all directions (purportedly to recirculate the fugitive hydrocarbon emissions back into the engine to be burned). You could have a vacuum leak in just one of them, and the car ran like crap. So I got some soapy water, and sure enough, in all that rubber he had a vacuum leak. Just to get to the spark plugs to change them, or replace a belt, you had to disconnect half or more of those hoses for access.

The Vega was intentionally built to be the first "cheap" "disposable" "single use" vehicle, like the Bic lighter of automobiles... Today it is an extremely "rare" and collectible car, like it's Ford variant, the "burn after driving" Pinto, because so few were not "disposed of" after one "user".

The big "Cadillac" boxes (also a pain to load and unload) were later used by SP for storage, and IIRC, there is still one in use at the DASH yard next to the old mill, by the Chinatown LRT station, which is left over from when this was SP's signal shops in the 80's at the old "Links".