The 1973 to 1977 Pontiac Astre had Vega bodies (and Vega engines through 1976). The 1978 to 1979 Chevrolet Monza and Pontiac Sunbird wagons used the Vega Kammback wagon body with engines by Pontiac and Buick. The Monza S used the Vega hatchback body. XP-898 concept In 1973, Chevrolet presented the XP-898 concept car using many Vega components, including the engine, and using a construction method intended to explore vehicle crashworthiness at high speed: a fiberglass foam sandwich body and chassis in four sections with rigid urethane foam infill. Motorsport Car and Driver's showroom stock No. 0 In the early 1970s Car and Driver magazine challenged its readers to a series of Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) races for showroom stock sedans at Lime Rock Park, Connecticut – "The Car and Driver SS/Sedan Challenge". Bruce Cargill (representing the readers) won "Challenge I" in 1972 in a Dodge Colt, and Patrick Bedard, C&D's executive writer, won "Challenge II" in 1973 in an Opel 1900, "Challenge III" was the tie-breaker in 1974. On October 12, 1974 C&D's 1973 Vega GT No. 0, driven by Bedard, "outran every single Opel, Colt, Pinto, Datsun, Toyota and Subaru on the starting grid [...] It had done the job – this Vega GT faced off against 31 other well-driven showroom stocks and it had finished first. After Bedard purchased the year-old Vega in California for $1,900, former Chevrolet engineer Doug Roe – a Vega specialist – told him to "overfill it about a quart. "When you run them over 5,000 rpm, all the oil stays up in the head and you'll wipe the bearings. And something has to be done with the crankcase vents. If you don't it'll pump all that oil into the intake." Roe added that 215 degrees was normal and only above 230 degrees would the engine probably" detonate. Bedard said, "Five laps from the end I discovered that once the tank drops below a quarter full, the fuel wouldn't pick up in the right turns. Twice per lap the carburetor would momentarily run dry. And if that wasn't bad enough, the temperature gauge read exactly 230 degrees and a white Opel was on my tail as unshakably as a heat-seeking missile. But it was also clear that no matter how good a driver Don Knowles was and no matter how quick his Opel, he wasn't going to get by if the