Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in
:

More expensive vehicles based on the entry level. I had both a Chevy
Vega and an Olds Starfire. The Starfire looked different from the
Vega and had one hell of a more reliable V6 engine but looked
different in many respects, but handles, knobs, steering wheel
positions, pillars, pedals were all exactly in the same place.

Early 70's is when GM really started "platform" engineering,
building many models which only differed in small ways on
the same basic car. It reached it's peak in the following
generation, when the same platform was used for everything
from the Chevy Cavalier to the Cadillac Cimarron.

Apropos of engines, some of the Vega derived models had either
305 or 350 small-blocks wedged in them, somehow. In that era
I think it was a rule at GM that everything got a small-block
V8 engine.

John