48 Comments

I'm a Mercury Lynx fan myself but Lincoln coulda Cygnetted that bitch.

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My inner hipster would rock a Cygnett un-ironically.

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Lincoln version of a Mercury Bobcat. The Mark 0.5.

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I'll say it, I'd rock one everyday. Fuck the haters of GM. I may be biased but GM use to try and hit the mark more often than not.

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The difference between the ES250 and Cimarron was that the ES started with an already incredibly well built and smooth Camry and packaged it with the excellent optional V6, the Cimarron felt and looked every bit of its econobox J-body bones, particularly with that Tech 4 motor at the outset. Yes the ES was a money grab, but atleast you ended up with a good car with characteristics befitting the segment at the time (quality/NVH engineering).

Sorry, I think that bleating "but Toyota did it too!" fails when they actually managed to offer a fundamentally good (if overpriced) car. It took until the following generation (92+) for them to really find their feet with the ES with its well differentiated styling. But in that generation too, an ES300 didn't drive or feel radically different than a Camry XLE V6, but that didn't seem to bother folks. My '96 ES300 with 209k miles on all original suspension (to say nothing of drivetrain) compared favorably to new 2016s in terms of overall smoothness and refinement, old shrunken pillarless door seals notwithstanding.

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Yeah, lost in the whataboutism is that the first-gen ES used the JDM hardtop body which shared no sheetmetal with the regular Camry, and that it was only offered for two years. Nevermind that it was a much more refined product than the J-car to begin with.

Every other badge-engineered nameplate mentioned was also not sold in the U.S. in its plebeian form. I'm quite fond of Cadillac and am willing to defend the Cimarron to a point, but come on, it was a pretty pathetic 11th hour effort that they did the bare minimum to improve upon over seven model years.

If only the initial Cimarron came with the Tech 4 rather than the GM 122. Or literally anything else. At least the BOP cars got the (Brazilian-built) SOHC Opel engine as an option, Cadillac had to wait until '85 to get the 2.8.

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"At least the BOP cars got the (Brazilian-built) SOHC Opel engine as an option"

To my considerable embarrassment, I'm in a J-car contemporaneous-media deep dive at the moment... and I'm not sure the SOHC engine was any better in practice. It doesn't seem to have been any faster. Maybe a bit less thrashy.

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Oh I'm sure they weren't. But at least it look liked they tried. Unlike the carb'ed Chevy 1.8 in the '82 Cimarron.

And there was briefly a turbo version.

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Great read. To me, if Cadillac had launched with the 87, no one would have complained. But the first one was a very minor redo of the very coarse Cavalier. Maybe if they would gave added a euro quality engine from the get go? Of course, a bit more time for development would have helped too. Unlike the other cars mentioned, the Cimarrons greatest early failing was that it just looked too much like the car it was based on. And the car it shared showroom floor space with.

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If they could have used the Firenz/Hawk dash as a starter, with a bit better interior trimmings, and the 1987 underpinnings (but with a five-speed stick or four-speed AOD), it would have been fine.

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It is strange to me how many "badge engineered" cars I would love to own. It was between a xr4ti, rx7 and an e30 for a first car. I WILL own the two I passed on.

In hindsight the Cimmeron seems better than a lot of other crap available.

My mom loves, and did until she bought a v6 mustang, her Scion TC. Yes she was a professional secretary.

Was the Acura CL 3.2-S an Accord? They were awesome.

Additionally I lust after both a 318ti, the ultimate e30, fight me on that, AND the weird super charged manual MB hatch that was its near contemporary.

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I like the XR4Tis too. Saw a pretty nice one in Nauvoo, IL a few years ago. With the "Swiss cheese" alloys.

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I rented an XR4Ti in Arizona when they came out and took it on dirt roads for quite a ways. It’s the only time I ever washed a rental car before I brought it back because it was caked with red dirt.

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I don't wanna fight, but the 318ti wasn't an E30....

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Under that truncated rear was the rear suspension of an e30, which is what made it fun. The z3 was similar in that regard. I don't think the interior styling of the z3 has held up.

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it was a weirdly truncated thing

not a fan personally

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One of our greatest achievements back in the day was stuffing an entire 5.0 Explorer engine the rear hatch of my buddy’s 318ti at the local yonke.

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Going from the sample size of 2 that I got to know, the main problem with the w203 MB "sports coupes" was that it was an entry-level MB with S-class repair costs and crap-class interior fittings.

That said, it was around $27k new, which is about $47k now and puts you in a well-equipped 230i. We dump on the modern state of cars, but this particular comparison is a great improvement. I'm no beemer-lover, but looked at a new 230i - VERY - hard this past spring.

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I had a very brief stint working in a Chevy dealership as a service advisor in the early 90s, about the time the Cimarron came out. I remember talking to a parts guy and he told me the hood for the Cimarron was (don’t remember exact numbers) $400 and the same hood for the Chevy equivalent was $125. The only difference was the Cadillac hood had two holes stamped in it for the hood ornament.

Around 1999 a girl I worked with at a manufacturing company got an inheritance of around $20-25k and immediately went out and bought the I think was the Lexus ES200. The tarted up Camry that was so obviously a Camry with a bit of leather and body kit. She was so proud of her Lexus she could not stop mentioning it in conversations.

She was about a 2 a best and boring as hell to boot, so her “Lexus” did not gain her much traction with the guys.

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I’d rather have anything in the R&T comparison from last week than this.

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My college roommate graduated a year behind me, just in time to get a great deal on an '82 Cimarron Convertible. New car interest rates were stratospheric at the time, well over 15% and his 10.3% new college graduate financing package was a steal. This ad shows a bit of the early 80's captive auto finance wars, without the "special incentives" like the new graduate rate. https://www.ebay.com/itm/304008710690

I had moved to Denver from Tennessee and his first engineering job was in San Diego so he stopped by for a week or two on the way to the left coast. Without any experience driving brand new cars at the time, it seemed nice enough for a tarted up Cavalier. He said there was also a bunch of money on the hood with his deal and he was happy with his new car. I have no idea how long he owned it.

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I actually liked the Cimmarrons. Yeah, they weren't exactly anything special, but it was a nice upgrade on a lower end car. I don't know if I would have spent the extra cash for a new one, but a slightly used older one would have been fine.

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I kinda did too - especially the latter years.

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I was pretty young when the Cimarron came out so I missed the trashing that went on in the "enthusiast" mags of the day. But having been a hard core GM lover, I reflexively liked the Cimarron. I might be a little rusty here but the 1982 Cimarron was more different than the Cavalier than is commonly thought. The Cavalier had the dual square headlight setup while the Cimarron had the quad headlights. It didn't take long for Chevy to ape that look so it brought the Cimarron down.

I agree the engine should have been better from the get go and the interior could have used a different dash like the later Skyhawk and Firenzas. But I won't expend too much ammo fighting the battle of who could care less so I'll stop here. Except to say I'd love to have an 87 or 88 five speed Cimarron right about now

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I had a P11 Infiniti G20 and - to this day - curse Nissan for not giving us the SR20DET. Probably would've made around 190HP and it would've slapped around A4's with ease.

Still, it had one of the best combinations of ride, handling and steering I've experienced. And it was screwed together like it cost 3x as much.

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an sr20det would have turned those things into missiles

assuming silvia numbers it would have started at 200hp and bolt ons would have pushed it past 250 easily

also it would have made the sr20dets cheaper which is the real reason i wish they made them like that

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I think they would've needed a beefier transmission as well. But ultimately, they just didn't want the G20 to compete with the I30/35.

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The G20 was the toughest car to sell you could possibly imagine. I think I sold four of them in a whole summer.

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I bought mine as a CPO, after I got fed up with the $1k repairs on my '94 Grand Cherokee. The final straw was the $1100 bill (in 2002 dollars, mind you) to fix the A/C.

The WHOLE DASH had to come out, piece by piece, to get to the compressor.

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GM should have got a Rolls grill from the swap meet to class it up. You have to love the old greenhouse. Assuming passenger vehicles still exist in the future it would be nice if they either solved fitting airbags in skinny pillars or allowed consumers to sign a waiver accepting the risk

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I miss large windows in cars. My '91 940 had such great visibility.

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Thick A and C pillars suck.

I also miss convertibles where the doors don’t come up higher than your shoulders like modern convertibles.

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Sign me up for that waiver.

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I didn’t hate these when they first came out, I think that it would have failed just on marketing alone, there was always a push for people to go to larger offerings, people buying Cadillac were not into smaller, I think just the nature of people, I have always liked the idea of a more premium small car, Mini comes to mind.

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Some fancy Opel Ascona you got there... tell ya what I'll take it off your hands for $700 if it starts ;)

It's not unheard of to tart up a lower-category vehicle to ridiculous levels (the price of the Cimarron made it the failure everyone talks about), the Cygnet was mentioned already in the comments, there was the lowest-of-the-low Austin Metro that got the same leather-clad treatment as the iQ, it was called a "Frazer-Tickford Metro" and on market for more money than a 944. Since Tickford was already at it, later they manufactured the MG Maestro Turbo, a supposed GTi-killer, sadly only built 500 times, and costing almost 5/3 of the Volkswagen, another halo model that mainly occupies 100.000-subscriber Youtube channels nowadays.

The Ford "Heritage Edition" Ranchero for $12.000 in 1979, as I understand it this was a standard Ranchero with vinyl stripes and the seats out of the Heritage Edition Thunderbird.

A bit closer to (my) home was the Škoda Octavia "Laurin & Klement", named after the founders of Škoda. This was the highest option you could get in this VW Golf with a trunk; you got leather seats, charcoal black carpet and headliner, big engines (well...) but since it was 'just' a Škoda, the doorcards were still vinyl, some equipment was not available that you could get in an A3, but it cost more than an A4 Audi. I've seen more press demonstrators than privately owned Octavia L&Ks.

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not saying this because the people who hate them told me to but these are pretty ugly

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It's a freaking Duesenberg compared to a CR-V or, ye gods, a Dodge Hornet. :D

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I had a CR-V, and...I'd rather drive this.

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Not hyperbole. Truth

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In the UK the Mk2 Cavalier, which looks a lot like this, was a superb car. Not sure of the differences.

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