How did it all start?

[jking18]

I was just looking around the forum (as i usually do) and a question popped into my head. What started your (everyones) love for the Chevy Beretta. Was it the looks? The handling? How fun they are to drive? My story starts with my dad's Blue 1989 GT 5 speed. I think I was around 8 or so and I absolutely loved the looks. I really wanted one badly. It was so fun when he would go and find a curvy road and go through the corners one after another. I also used to help him work on it (I would just hold the wrenches and sockets). When my dad had shoulder surgery, he had me shift for him which was great. When he sold it, I had almost forgotten about the Beretta until I was looking to buy a car last year. I was on craigslist and he called and said he found a car for me. When we pulled in the the driveway, I saw the clean body lines and it just reminded me of being a kid again. The owner wanted 2000 for it but my dad talked her down to 1500 and as you may know, I bought it. My dream as a kid had become reality. I now owned a Chevy Beretta, the only downside was no 5 Speed. I can wait to read some of your stories.

[Barry]

Mine started when I was like 15. I bought one for 250 bucks. I soon found out that you can whoop a lot of other cars with a few hundred dollars for a junkyard motor and trans. Then I started liking the looks

[Money pit Beretta]

Looks for me was the first thing. Then the nice amount of power my factory freak 3.1L had. That thing ran better than my 83 Z28 and it had more miles. LOL that 90GT was almost as fast as the Z28. 1/4 times were bad for a 83 Z28 with Cross Fire injection. Or for those that owned one: Crap fire injection. Worst intake that GM ever made.
The best part is that the paint was falling off the GT and everyone thought it was junk. Had a few people read the filler just to see what he hell had made their car look bad.
Also having a car that few people had was a plus. All the other car I've had were common.

[DTMAce]

Bought mine back when the Z24 stopped coming with V6's. I used to own an 89 Cavalier 4 door RS 2.0 back in the day. It got totaled by a drunk while it was parked back on April 1st of 1994.

Went shopping and bought the Z26 brand new off a dealer lot. At that time, no one had a Z26 anywhere. I had seen Beretta's three times before, all were black funny enough, and all were GTZs.. One was majorly custom (no door handles, cell phone linked alarm, serious sound), the second was owned by a guy that worked at a downtown high rise in Dayton where I parked cars while going to school, and the third was owned by a fellow classmate in High School.

When I bought mine, there were 2, one in Purple (BRM) and the other was Aqua. They had no 4 cylinder models on the lot at that time. But I was sick of 4 cylinders, having had a 2.0 previously. I had not known about the power of the 2.3 at that time.

Anyways, I have been the only owner of my Z26. 235 thousand miles now and still kicking it. It suffered its worst catastrophe in 2008, as you can see with the project thread below. Since then, I have bought 2 other Beretta's, a 94 red base and the 95 black base I still have. The red one was only good for parts, and the black one is currently being repaired from deer damage, and some other things. Then it goes up for sale after that.

But I love driving these cars, always have. I was 23 when I bought mine. Now I'm 40. LOL

[themixer]

mine was a first car, i had a choice of a beretta or a honda civic both in my budget. glad i made the right choice

[heavywoody]

I had always liked the looks of them; growing up I would design "hover" cars when I was 10, started learning HP figures for just about any GM car in the mid 90's as I was coming of driving age. I was obsessed with GM, mainly Chevrolet, because of growing up around Lansing, MI where the N-bodies were made. My dad had a 94 Z28 which made my Chevy love even worse lol. I was able to tour the N-body plants when the Achieva, Skylark, and Grand Am were made in the Lansing area. I preferred the looks of the Beretta over all of them, and tried to get one for my first car.

Since the 2.0 was too slow to get out of its own way (1988), and the 89 GT I looked at was trashed, and the 92 GT was too expensive for my budget, I had to settle on the station wagon (hence the screen name today). Then the 95 Z26 came into my life in April of 1999, and I've been hooked since.

[berettaboi]

i had one as my second car... although it cost me the most of all my cars at 2200 i think i paid... and never made it more than 1000 km (was never fully on the road! bottom end went in my quad after a top end swap), i still loved the plain and simple, yet slick body lines, mainly of the GTZ/Z26, but the gt's as well. the factory body kits just hit it right on the nose for my liking... simple, and not too square, but also not too round... almost timeless you might say?

the sound of the MPFI motors is great stock... poke some holes in your muffler and it was even better! my third car was an 88 z24, 5 spd, which gave me lots of experience with the engine, and torque-iness!!! and superb reliability and resistance to numerous beatings... the manual tranny mated to them is straight forward, nothing special, but can handle the beating of a teen (near stock engine hp), with out blowing out a diff pin as mazda/fords of the era commonly accomplished... or otherwise self destructing. even the auto trannies were much better quality than ford or chrysler...

their cost and general upkeep cost as well. if you know your way around a vehicle slightly, have a bit of mechanical aptitude, they are very forgiving and easy to learn/teach on (aside from quads in most cases)

[#1 stunna]

Had a girlfriend with a gt beretta when i was about 16 , feel in love with it after riding/driving it ... bought mine when i was 17/18ish and i still have it today , was my first car ... im 34 now .
Almost bought a iroc camaro instead . I love my retta

[BerettaLove32]

Got mine from my Dad when I was 16. He bought it new back in the day and I got it with 100k on the clock years later.

[Gtzman]

I never knew too much about them until I put my 1964 Chevy Nova 4 door up for sale/trade. One day a guy with a 93 gtz quasar quad came by to trade. I test drove it and fell in love. Unfortunately he backed out. But I was hooked and hunted down one every chance I got until last year when I found my 92 GTZ quad

[Berettas#1]

The beretta was my first car and the only reason I ever found it was because of ebay. I saw it was listed for sale in my city, an I bought it for $400 95 z26. I dumped a bunch of money into it making it mine, I had it for a year and then sold it when the transmisson started slipping.

After that I bought a pickup and drove it for a year and needed something for better mpgs. thats when I found my current car, 93 GT 5 speed sitting on a car lot with a new engine in it. It was in awsome shape, I drove it and bought it the first day it was on the lot.

[1988GTU]

Liked the complete look of the tail lights and the uber long/heavy doors coupled with the factory shaved door handles. Can't beat what you get for an 80's design that looks futuristic to the late 90's.

[GTZfan]

http://www.rockauto.com/Newsletter/index.html

Full text:
When these cars hit the road, I was a little boy. It happened to be the very first car I would recognise on the street. As time passed by most of these cars disappeared and I lost sight of them. After many years, having the drivers license in my hands, I bumped into a Beretta again and remembered my childhood dreams. Long story short, I bought a black 1991 GTZ in great condition and was really satisfied with it. It was too nice to work on, so I got ahold of a project car as well. And here it was, in the colour of choice, Medium Quasar Blue Metallic. The paint however, was bad and the engine had spun rod bearings. The deeper I got into it the more issues were discovered. Nonetheless, a 1,5 year project had just begun.
At the stage of ordering parts, the project was in a difficult phase. [...].
The goal was to keep the car in stock condition with few modifications only. It does have an overbored block and a compression ratio of 11.5:1 and a few visible changes.

I totally agree with "1988GTU". Our cars really dont look very old yet. You cant find many cars like that from the 80s.

[LX9Power]

I got into the beretta by pure luck. I had a cavalier with a v6 that I bought for 200$ then swapped it 2.8-3.1 ( at that time the 3400 swap was not yet there.) My friend told me about a GTZ for sale in my neighborhood. I still had my car so i was not interested, until 2 days later when I got into an accident that totaled my car. I bought the GTZ and well you know how the story goes...

[speedy]

mine started in 2005, i bought a 1992 red v6 gtz for a whooping $200.00, car sat for 5 years and i about rivived it to near mint again when i got rear ended, totalled the car...