The Chevrolet Citation was supposed to be a good move to counter the fuel crisis: GM’s solid attempt at a small front-driver looked promising when they hit the market in 1979, and it’s arrival couldn’t have been timed with the second gas crisis any better, but it quickly turned into a basket case of recalls soon after it’s release, and even though a decent number of the small cars were sold, their reputation as a problematic and cheap econobox that was only worthy of being a throwaway car, which is kind of a sad fate for what was a decent looking (if nothing else) attempt by the Big Three. Well, a man in Florida saw the diamond in the rough and did something to help improve his Citation X-11’s performance out.

The stock 1981 Citation X-11 was the most powerful version you could buy during the model’s run, with a 135 horsepower 2.8L V6 motivating the little coupe. That was canned in favor of a crate motor 4.9L Cadillac V8, which bolts up to the metric bell housing of the Citation’s four-speed. The X-11 was a handling package, so other than a good checkover and a rebuild of the X-11’s steering rack, the suspension was left alone. Inside, the gauge cluster was converted to VDO gauges.

Now, as a Rough Start car, if you purchased it, you have $2500 left over. With that money you could find a cleaner X-11 and swap everything over, or just do some patching and painting and drive the living hell out of this one. A V8, four-speed Chevy Citation…who would’ve thought that would sound pretty cool? Hit play below to hear this little beast rev!

Craigslist Link: 1981 Chevrolet Citation X-11 4.9L

(Thanks to Charles Wickam for the tip!)