For General Motors, the transverse front-drive configuration had represented uncharted engineering territory, at a time when the company had begun reorganizing and begun using a new engineering approach, with its divisions responsible for a single aspect of the design rather than an integrated whole. After a significantly compressed design development, the X-bodies entered production and sales—and the design's most prominent engineering deficiency, the rear brakes, became obvious. In 1979, during even the first months of manufacture, GM made a number of revisions to the car's braking system. Automotive journalists and reviewers noted in the autumn of 1979 rear wheels' tendency to lock upon heavy braking, including in emergency situations, a potentially dangerous behavior compromising vehicle control. In the first year of manufacture, hundreds of complaints noted rear brake locking, with dozens of related accidents and injuries including one death—the latter triggering a lawsuit. The
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) pressured General Motors for remedial action. GM issued a voluntary, though unpublicized,
recall to modify the brake
proportioning valve of only the earliest
manual transmission models: less than 50,000 of the already more than one million X cars on the road. While remaining publicly silent on the safety implications of the brake design, leaked internal documents demonstrated that GM's engineering staff were dubious that the valve modification would suffice, even for the cars subject to the recall, recommending further changes to the
brake linings and
brake drums that could raise the cost per vehicle by $70–150, while applying to a far greater number of vehicles. the presiding judge dismissed the suit in 1987, ruling that NHTSA had filed the suit prematurely, and had relied mainly on anecdotal evidence, without properly developing conclusive evidence or holding investigative hearings. The openly contentious back and forth not only damaged the reputation of the X cars, but the reputation of General Motors itself—with one report noting that the X-car was "one of the malaziest cars" of the
Malaise era, doing enormous damage to GM's reputation and playing a role in "the sharpest decrease in American market share" General Motors would experience in the 1980s. The intermediate FWD
GM A-body, heavily derived from the X platform, did not suffer the same reputation, and GM would significantly delay the introduction of its subsequent full size transverse engine FWD
C and
H platform vehicles, in the face of engineering issues. ==See also==