In hindsight, it was obvious that General Motors put their "A" team on the "B" body... and vice versa. The 1977 full-sizers were astoundingly good in every respect, but the 1978 mid-sizers were damp squibs with unpleasant single-headlight noses, charmless powertrains, poor build quality, and a host of annoying issues ranging from the aforementioned rear windows to the fact that the station wagons (and El Camino) had tiny, hard-to-see tail lights that imploded in the slightest of parking-lot mishaps.
GM Styling also bet too much on Europhilia. By the time the X-cars came out, they had fastbacks on the cheap brands, not the upscale brands, as a direct result of the Aeroback mess. The Malibu and LeMans should have dropped as proper hatches to start, with formal sedans for Buick and Oldsmobile.
The formal A-bodies looked best with quad lamps and vinyl roofs, a combination that was all too rare.
The weird thing was that, by 1980, they went to the four-light front on the notchback coupes (Supreme, GP, Monte, Regal), then the following year, it became a complete mish-mash! The base 1981 Cutlass Sedan was a holdover of the now-defunct base Salon, with combined beams, while the LS (Supreme-level) and Cutlass Brougham sedans got a four-light front! The Malibu and LeMans (four lights on the latter, two on the former) sedans got the notchback roof with the swing-out vent in the door, as the Cutlass and Century had the previous year. I wonder if the various models and trims with two headlights were assembled in one plant or set of them, while the ones with four lights were assembled in another? (Yes, I googled the LeMans, and now I’m curious if the 1981 Malibu sedan kept its two-light grille in 1982, or went to the four-light grille?) (::Googles it!::) Aha! All of the G-Bodies (renamed since the A-Bodies were now the FWD Celebrity/6000/Ciera/Century) had four lights up front; recall that in 1982, Pontiac dropped the full-sized Bonneville/Catalina and rechristened their G-Body the Bonneville G (with the full-sizer resurrected a couple years later, Canadian-style, as a Caprice with a Pontiac grille and taillights, the Parisienne), while over at Buick, the Regal name graced the former Century sedan, with a four-light grille. (The Buick sedan lasted until 1984, so only had one year of the revised dashboard—from the three-pod IP to the sweep speedometer. Probably the hardest of any of these sedans or wagons to find!)
Quality-wise, I think things started off badly in 1978 (my first car, an inherited hooptie of a 1978 Salon base, well-equipped with the 260 Olds V8, and probably the THM-200 transmission (🤮), was a basket case, but the 1980 Cutlass Sedan (base Salon-spec) in the family was better, and by 1983, when my Dad got his Regal Custom sedan company car and bought the Cutlass from the company for my Mom, it was the best of the bunch! Both of the latter two vehicles were equipped with the Buick 3.8 (231 cid) V6 and heavy duty/Gran Touring suspensions, and were the cars I cut my driving teeth on. Agricultural-sounding, but could get out of their own way, and handled reasonably well.
I inherited the 1978 Salon in 1988, and by then, my Dad lost his company car privileges, having moved to the corporate office in Toledo, but he was able to buy the Regal for Mom, and traded the 1980 Cutlass on his 1986 Century, his first off-the-lot car purchase, the car which (along with the problems I had with the 1984 Sunbird hatchback which I bought from another family member) turned my immediate family into Honda lifers, including his five and my four Accords (with my current one probably my last since Honda Camry-fied it and removed any Honda-ness or hint of sporting pretension from it, not to mention XM Radio), plus a few Civics, an Integra, and a couple Odysseys!
I always liked the look of and seeing the wagon and El Camino lights at night though. Less so the ‘78s with the 1 year placement of the backup lamps on the outside edges.
The Pontiac Grand LeMans Safari had a little bright overlay on the taillights, at least early on. And yes, the predecessor wagons did have more taillight arrangements and I sort of liked the ‘73 Chevelle style, which continued on the El Camino through ‘77, probably as the rear bumper there wasn’t required to adopt the ‘74 5-MPH impact standard.
Cadillac probably could have done better had they put the Cimarron on the FWD A platform. Something with the AWD from the 6000 STE combined with a messaged Buick 3.8 V6 or even the 4.1 V8 which came out with the downsized DeVille/Fleetwood might have made for a REALLY INTERESTING piece!
As I’ve posited on here and TTAC, if they could have adapted the 2.8 V6 with an optional 4-speed automatic or 5-speed manual to a J with the Firenza/Skyhawk dash at the outset, that would have done less damage, especially if they could have used the extra development time that the Olds and Buick got! That wheezy 1.8L four they dropped in the 1982 Cimarron was certainly part of the problem, along with the fact that they didn’t probably go far enough to distinguish the interior from a Cavalier or J2000. See Adam Wade’s interview videos with Wayne Kady on the “Rare Classic Cars” YouTube channel for the inside story! (My opinions here are my own; Adam didn’t go into any of the alternatives I mentioned; it’d be an interesting follow up! I think it was mandated, however, that the Cimarron be included in the initial release of the J-cars because the dealer body would have staged an insurrection otherwise!)
The Cimarron was supposed to be an X-Body, but that line was so wildly successful, that they couldn't spare the capacity for a Caddy version. Ed Kennard was a total moron, trying to turn the J Body into a Cadillac so quickly and cheaply. He likely could win the award as worst GM executive of all time.
I wish Toyota kept selling that 20 year old tech forever, charging a premium for something that actually works and lasts makes an increasing amount of sense (4Runner with the 4.0L+5spd comes to mind in particular). I'm already hearing some horror stories about the new twin turbo Hybrid Tundra monstrosity. The previous gen was a legit million mile truck.
Fair point on the 6spd auto. Though if it's like Toyota's newer 6spd transaxles in the FWD cars, it loses its dipstick and easy drain/fill procedure which is needlessly retarded. But aside from that... they can keep the DI, the turbos, the cameras, accident avoidance, etc. in the last few years Toyota has made some of those annoying safety systems standard across their US lineup... terrible.
Honda was doing better with the 9th-Gen Accord in 2013, after the duds like the Acura ZDX and Accord CrossTurd..TOUR!
But their stupidity and bean-counter-itis came to the fore once again when they decontented the Civic Si so as to not step on the toes of the Acura Integra, which name they besmirched by not only bringing it out with the identical powertrain to the Si, but with the CVT as the clutchless option! Basically a Civic Si Hatchback with a better stereo, and no leather seating even as an option! The 2.0T out of the 10th-Gen Accord would have been the better choice for the base model, with the Type-R motor saved for the Type-S ‘Teg!
Then they confirmed the complete loss of plot by neutering the larger of the two Honda sedans, making it an Accord in name only, a greenie-weenie POS which makes less power in top trim, after 25 YEARS of a more powerful option, than a MOTHERFUCKING *** PRIUS!!! ***
Okay, here's the problem with that: Why was Eileen Chang's leased 84 Celebrity allowed to forever poison the well for her entire family regarding domestics?
It's enormously tiresome that whole swaths of American society think that where the Big Three are concerned, it's still 1978.
Side note, I saw something unbelievable yesterday on my way home last night: An Asian guy driving a C6 Grand Sport.
I'l bet his family and friends have refused to speak to him since he brought it home.
It’s a lefty elite American thing, is my theory. Anything made in the USA is immediately considered to be crap. Especially from the rust belt, and particularly if it’s assembled by a basket of deplorables.
I think Orwells quote on the English intelligentsia holds true now for the USA:
“In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.”
"The problem is that those people's decendents think this is what American cars are still like."
For most people, a new car purchase is a significant portion of a year's pay. The monetary repercussions of a bad choice can ripple through the family finances for years. It's a big risk to "give them another chance" when there are known good/safe options. Best case scenario is that you'll be in the same position as the safe option, so why take the risk with half a year's pay?
I watched my dad's Stockholm syndrome with various Chevy products: 78 Impala (excellent), Citation (transmission), Celebrity (steering rack), Lumina (steering), 2006? impala (transmission), and 2012 malibu (meh, but outlived him). One was excellent, four were crap, and the last was an exercise in mediocrity; but he kept going back.
For me, after two decades driving Mercedes, I bought a Prius and immediately got the Toyota religion. Today I'm a Lexus man and when they nail the lid to my coffin shut, the hearse will probably also be a Lexus.
This is mint! Stockholm Syndrome absolutely describes loyalty to GM--and the Big 3 generally. I can still hear my grandfather saying--in the late 80’s!--“When better cars are built, GM will build them.” Risk mitigation is for many the no-brainer reason to buy Honda or Toyota. Excellent comments!
Except, there is something more to all of this. I started my working days in the car rental business, and serviced many different dealerships. If an American made car had an issue, it would often be some variant of “damn American cars. I’ll go Japanese next time.” If, however, a Japanese car had issues, it would be more a matter of “Japanese cars are great. My cars issues are just an outlier. Bad luck.” This was even borne out statistically by the Nummi built Corolla and Nova. The Nova always had notability lower reliability ratings in the Consumer Reports, etc. Even though it was the same damn car, built by the same people.
One of the deals we made having to service multiple dealerships back then as an independent was having some of each of those brands on our fleet. So I got to not only buy literally thousands of cars of different brands and watch them be abused, I got to do my own reliability ratings with them. There really were incredibly few differences in reliability across the fleet. The only standouts were, amazingly enough, the first gen Hyundai Excels, that we never had a mechanical issue with. Other than that, it was all pretty much a tossup.
That's sort of like, "If I'm scowling at someone and being unfriendly, I'm the asshole. If someone is doing that to me, it's only because I haven't earned his respect."
I disagree and admire both Kady and Mitchell for taking a risk on the bustle back Seville. It was, and is, a truly unique design. No, it did nothing for European conquest sales, but I suppose that was the job of the Cimarron. Had the driveline situation not been so screwed up, that run of Sevilles would have been very successful. The chassis was definitely of Cadillac quality. It was a beautiful driving luxury car, and I don't think the move to FWD hurt it in the least. Most people don't drive the way enthusiasts expect them to.
I'm often torn in whether I actually like the styling or not. It works from some angles, and not so much from others. The Eldo i think overall is the better looking car, and maybe one of the best looking personal luxury designs ever.
Can't argue with your ranking. The Riv was a very sweet design. And the convertible worked really well. Amazing how much the design fell from that generation to the next.
#MeToo. The bustle back Seville is the _only_ Cadillac, past or present, that I truly do covet. Especially in that sable/silver two tone paint they had in their brochures.
Even today, I'd love to have one -- but living in San Diego, I know it would be stolen in the first week of ownership using nothing but a paper clip and then spend the rest of it's life as a low-rider or donk.
I wouldn’t throw any clean example of any 1979-1985 Riv, Eldo, Seville, or Toro, out of my garage.
Fun fact, courtesy of the “Rare Classic Cars” channel: the key/seatbelt chime in the Eldorado/Seville of that period was an actual bell, and not a sound from a tone generator.
Entertaining for sure. When I first saw the headline I pictured something more along the H body Monza Town Coupe (or even fastback) sized mockup of a Cimarron for 78. I guess they kinda did have a Cimarron in 78, it was just called Seville (I'm a fan of that gen or Seville so I'm very tongue in cheek with that comment).
I always liked the look of the Seville. Had a muscular hunkered down kinda look with the wheels and tires protruding just a bit from the fenders. One of our neighbours had one and it was pretty sweet in silver with chrome spoke wheels.
I love these and Abimelec's work. Please keep pumping these out. I will say - it would've been even cooler to see a Cimarron out of Cadillac's golden age. I want to see a sporty compact...with fins!
The Saab mention got me thinking as well - how about a What If? featuring the 2023 Saab 9-3? Saab remains successful by being the only European brand to continue producing and selling....sporty European cars.
This is not ALWAYS the case, but I think of What If? as a way to tell stories about a world that is just a little bit better and braver than our own, and this fits well.
Last comment: the EFVS should look functional and tasteful: designed by aeronautical Human Factors engineers working classically-trained artists, none of whom have ever been exposed to a modern video game.
1) On the corporate side, what about: VW's purchase of Scania and Porsche's purchase of VW fall through. Porsche ends up buying a majority of Scania & Saab Automobile and Saab AB buys a small stake.
It's important to give credit where credit is due and Senior did sign off on them, but if I recall correctly, the amount of money allocated to the Grand National and GNX programs was pretty much the GM equivalent to finding loose change under the couch cushions.
I don't have a lot of movies on disc, but Black Air is one of the documentaries that I own. I'd be interested to hear the opinion on that film by someone who isn't a car person. I think it's a great documentary in general.
I just watched it and was fairly disappointed. I was hoping for more in the weeds technical info or inside gossip on how it got greenlit. It was more of a nostalgia piece. "This is my GN and it's awesome and I never/almost never drive it. This is a car show with lots of GNs and fans of it. Here's some guys from Car and Steerer colorfully describing what their test drivers found."
Don't forget that the E30 arrived with an eight-valve 1.8 and didn't even get the eta 2.7 until the middle of the 1984 model year. The 325e wouldn't have been any faster than an injected 3.8 turbo would have been in 1979... and by 1984 they had 210 horsepower. Imagine a stick-shift Grand National in the lighter aeroback body. You'd have needed an M5 to keep pace with the thing.
My god...I never realized how little power the early 318s had until I just checked wikipedia. 103 hp in the early 80s. I'm not sure why my brain figured they always had later 318is levels of power (134hp).
I worked for a BMW dealer when the 318is arrived and you could hear the customers smiling all the way back in parts. That was a hell of a car. But the first Aeroback Turbos had 165 horsepower and still would have given them a run in an alt-universe where BMW and Buick both brought their best to the table.
I've owned 3 318is' - love 'em. Sold my last one because the wife was making noises about how "unsafe" it was. Sold it to a co-worker who did a lot of work on it and it's probably worth about 5X what I sold it to him for in '19.
It's funny looking back, but GM was really on a roll then. The T- Types were really fun cars. The 82 F-Bodies were huge leaps forward. The C4 Corvette. Thr Fiero. The Eldo and Seville. The V8-6-4. The Riv and Toronado. And yes, the X'es, A's and Js. Some great cars and great potential. If only GM had given them 6 months more development each. GM could have single handedly driven back Japanese invasion. Imagine if all 1.1 million 1980 X Body customers had been content with their purchases? The brake recall had never happened. We would have had A very different GM and USA.
I have never had any dealings with Geico whatsoever! Just creating an alternate universe where an insurance company could be stupid enough to do all those things. Couldn't happen in real life!
Lots of acquisitions to cover up weak underlying business. A forward P/E of 168 based off of analyst projections, negative historic EBITDA with a promise of a significant increase in the upcoming year. hmmmmmm.....
If I read that article right, and I believe I did, those things were NOT actually hatchbacks. That is shocking to me that they would inflict that shape upon us all and have no truth to the styling. I wasn't a fan before, I dislike them even more now.
It's understandable in historical context. GM saw that fastbacks were becoming mandatory in Europe, but they thought that customers would balk at the size and NVH issues of a hatchback in a mid-sizer. So they did the look without the function.
My mom had a 403-powered '77 Cutlass Supreme. Dad drove a 1977 LeSabre Custom company car. Then he went to a 1981 Century wagon. That was a bit of a comedown, to be honest.
I was surprised when I realized that the top-dawg Colonnade Cutlass was the Salon! It sure as hell wasn’t after 1978, although you could get a Salon Brougham with the interior of the notchback Supreme coupe, plus the chrome rocker molding outside.
Oldsmobile could have put the Cutlass name on a Kozy Koupe in the 1970s and ’80s, and they wouldn’t have been able to keep them in stock! It really is weird how fast they fell!
I drove a Buick 2-door in that configuration with a 5-speed. I was accustomed to Chrysler products with 4-speeds, and the Buick felt to me like an S-10. In the words of a guy who tried to sell a big Dodge truck to my father many years before, "It don't have any power but it's got lots of gears..." It didn't help that the Buick was very nearly the same pale metallic green that Boeing was using at the time on company cars and trucks.
Man, those fastbacks looked awful. To be honest, if Caddy had done an earlier Cimarron based on that platform, I think they would have done the notchbacks instead.
It's funny. I've always liked pretty well everything better in a fastback. Except for these.
I do wonder what Cadillac could have done with this platform, some time and some money. The J car was just a bad idea, forced on them when X Car sales took off more than expected. An X car based Cimarron would have likely been far better accepted in the market. Not that sales would have necessarily been better, as Cimarron sales were pretty solid anyway. But it likely would not have made Cadillac the laughing stock it became.
Sadly, the X Car doesn't get the credit anymore that it deserves. It was a great platform, perfect for the time it was released. The 2.8 was a great little engine, with the best V6 exhaust note this side of a Busso. Some of the X-11s and T Types actually drove very nicely. The 6000 STE was actually a very nice car. A little more development could have changed automotive history dramatically.
It's amazing what GM managed to do in just a few short years. Every car on a new platform. New engines and transmissions everywhere. Basically, every product completely redesigned. It was an incredible effort, and it came very close to succeeding. But even the General at its peak power didn't have the engineering resources to do all of it.
A lot of well-said points here. I own both a Citation and a FWD Century, having grown up with all these cars around and largely decent experiences with them I figure why not?
How much personal experience do you have with the Citation and it's X platform mates? I drove the Pontiac version for a while and frankly I have fonder memories of the Austin America my dad bought that was a long term loaner (about equal in build quality but the Austin, essentially slightly larger Mini, was at least fun to drive). I'm no fan of cliched 10 Worst Cars lists but the Citation belongs on them. Perhaps the most poorly executed cars GM ever made, maybe the most poorly executed postwar American cars period (though I admittedly wasn't around in the '50s when there was literally tons of dreck). Besides smog-controlled engines that ran like crap, stalling in intersections and dieseling when you tried to shut them off and barely adequate brakes there were all sorts of "engineering by afterthought" touches all over the cars, like having to remove a strut brace (which they shouldn't have needed if they hadn't cheapened out on the unibody) to change a battery. Truly GM's nadir, at least in terms of vehicle quality.
The A-Bodies, descended from the X-es, were better, but it was still feast or famine, with some examples eliciting a fond respect, while others (like my Dad’s 1986 Century) turned lifelong GM buyers to the Japanese competition.
From a cost of operation standpoint, I appreciated the mediocre braking system passed down to my N-body Calais. Stopped just as "adequately" on bespoke $150 Carbotech pads as $7 wholesale Wagners.
All done at roughly the same time that the US had 3 competing commercial airliner companies and a large number of computer companies all making rapid advances. The demand for engineers must have seemed insatiable, but, interestingly enough, the H1-B program was not created until 1990.
I will always have a soft spot for them having been asked to Homecoming junior year by a hopelessly out-of-my-league senior girl that drove a hand-me-down Olds version in dog log brown.
Well, I was going to have GEICO pay big bucks for one of the Fifties "sock hop" car shows that were omnipresent in 1977, but not even in fiction would an insurance company be stupid enough to buy a car show that literally has an expiration date at which point all of its cars will be in "regular" car shows... right? That wood be sad.
How about a car show that features just cars with some kind of fake wood, either exterior or interior? Call it WoodWood. Late '50s Ford and Mercury wagons had really impressive fake wood.
Buying that CD with some friends, taking it home, and listening to it for the first time on the 100-watt Sony system my dad got me remains one of the high points of my life.
Ten years ago I went to see them play through the whole thing. Another greatest night of my life. It's hard to explain how much the band meant to me as a kid.
I had a greatest night of my life 4 years ago when I took my two teenaged boys to see them. They're both huge fans and unlike me, they can fit in the concert shirts I got in the 80s.
I somehow managed to ignore Maiden through high school and most of my life despite one of my buddies being a rabid fanatic. I kind of viewed them as a culty kind of deal, and maybe that turned me off. Not sure.
Then my teenage son convinced me to go see them a few years ago, and their performance blew the top of my head off. It also helped that there was more weed being smoked by that crowd than probably any concert I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been to many. Huge clouds of it that got you ripped whether or not you were partaking.
Walking out of that arena I understood what all the fuss had been about. I’m also pretty impressed by Bruce Dickinson flying modern airliners around this planet. Saw him on an episode of Ice Pilots where he flew one of their ancient DC3s. Such a nice guy and much smarter than the average bear….
I'll listen to an Iron Maiden album if you listen to Cornell 5/8/77 all the way through. It may not be their best of all time but it was a very, very good show.
Good one! I enjoyed many of these entries, particularly the one about the “what if?” ‘69 or so Escalade. Also, nice touch on the added “advertisements.” Side note, those fastback coupes with a trunk were odd but the Century Turbo Sport Coupe is one I’d have.
I feel like Barry needs a Stig like introduction. Some people say he writes a crappy weekly article for an automotive lifestyle brand. Others say his wife wears the pants in the family. All we know is he’s called The Simp
Some say he is not the father of his children, but paternity tests will not be widely available until 1988 so we will have to wait until then to find out. All we know is...
All the cadillac names have been stupid since the turn of the century, but the competition is hardly any better. Lexus, oddly enough, seems to have the best approach.
Lexus is becoming unmoored on model names. The new land cruiser, aka LX600, is really just a twin turbo 3.5L v6. They're having a hard time admitting that it doesn't have a V8 anymore.
And now GM is foisting crappy little 3 cylinder turbos on us.
For decades back to the '70's I never really understood why GM insisted on launching new cars with the smallest crappiest most-underpowered engines possible, and only a few years later adding somewhat better engine options.
But let’s say Mr. Jones, an Oldsmobile man since his first new car, a 1965 F-85, decides to give the 1980 Omega a try. Nice blue Brougham sedan with all boxes checked, including the 2.8L V6, just like in the brochure! Traded in a 1975 Cutlass, which was getting a little spendy with gas prices over a dollar a gallon!
Within a couple months, it’s clear that this one was a Monday or Friday build! All of the X-car maladies come to the forefront! The car spends a lot of time at the dealer for various recalls, plus the scary brakes, where the tail gets VERY squirrelly under even moderate braking! A year goes by, and the dealer STILL can’t figure the brakes out—“working as designed” always the result!
Meanwhile, his wife’s 1978 Cutlass Supreme’s THM-200 (attached to the 260 Rocket) goes out, despite only having 25,000 miles of mostly kid-schlepping and visiting her folks a couple times a year! The dealer laughs in their faces, and the police are called to ensure Mr. Jones doesn’t commit serious bodily harm to the service manager! He escalates to the Zone Office, and right to Lansing, to no avail, so he puts a reman transmission in the car on his dime! Meanwhile, his next door neighbor has something to show him! One of those “furrin’” cars, made in Marysville, OH! Runs like a sewing machine! An “Accord.” Just came out with a new design, and built here! One drive, and his wife was sold, this just after her folks had come to visit, when she was surprised that despite her Dad’s initial objections, her folks had bought a Civic for her Mom to drive, and she had nothing but good things to say; her Dad’s 1976 88 Coupe was the “nice” car anyway! So the Joneses head to the Honda dealer, and don’t get too badly gypped on their trade-ins (even with the leaking main seal on the Omega), and the missus REALLY wanted the burgundy but settled for a silver LX, same as her husband’s, since there were always people who would pay well over sticker! Keeping the keys straight so that they picked the correct car would become a running joke in the family!
The paperwork was signed on Saturday afternoon, and the dealer would prep the cars on Monday, so Mrs. Jones would meet her husband at the dealer around 4:30, which comes and goes, and the rain gets heavier! Finally, a call comes into the dealer! It’s Mr. Jones! “Honey, I’m fine, but I had to hit the brakes on the freeway, and I spun into the median wall! I’m so done with GM!”
Not quite CrabSpirits-level, but close enough for jazz!
In hindsight, it was obvious that General Motors put their "A" team on the "B" body... and vice versa. The 1977 full-sizers were astoundingly good in every respect, but the 1978 mid-sizers were damp squibs with unpleasant single-headlight noses, charmless powertrains, poor build quality, and a host of annoying issues ranging from the aforementioned rear windows to the fact that the station wagons (and El Camino) had tiny, hard-to-see tail lights that imploded in the slightest of parking-lot mishaps.
GM Styling also bet too much on Europhilia. By the time the X-cars came out, they had fastbacks on the cheap brands, not the upscale brands, as a direct result of the Aeroback mess. The Malibu and LeMans should have dropped as proper hatches to start, with formal sedans for Buick and Oldsmobile.
The formal A-bodies looked best with quad lamps and vinyl roofs, a combination that was all too rare.
The weird thing was that, by 1980, they went to the four-light front on the notchback coupes (Supreme, GP, Monte, Regal), then the following year, it became a complete mish-mash! The base 1981 Cutlass Sedan was a holdover of the now-defunct base Salon, with combined beams, while the LS (Supreme-level) and Cutlass Brougham sedans got a four-light front! The Malibu and LeMans (four lights on the latter, two on the former) sedans got the notchback roof with the swing-out vent in the door, as the Cutlass and Century had the previous year. I wonder if the various models and trims with two headlights were assembled in one plant or set of them, while the ones with four lights were assembled in another? (Yes, I googled the LeMans, and now I’m curious if the 1981 Malibu sedan kept its two-light grille in 1982, or went to the four-light grille?) (::Googles it!::) Aha! All of the G-Bodies (renamed since the A-Bodies were now the FWD Celebrity/6000/Ciera/Century) had four lights up front; recall that in 1982, Pontiac dropped the full-sized Bonneville/Catalina and rechristened their G-Body the Bonneville G (with the full-sizer resurrected a couple years later, Canadian-style, as a Caprice with a Pontiac grille and taillights, the Parisienne), while over at Buick, the Regal name graced the former Century sedan, with a four-light grille. (The Buick sedan lasted until 1984, so only had one year of the revised dashboard—from the three-pod IP to the sweep speedometer. Probably the hardest of any of these sedans or wagons to find!)
Quality-wise, I think things started off badly in 1978 (my first car, an inherited hooptie of a 1978 Salon base, well-equipped with the 260 Olds V8, and probably the THM-200 transmission (🤮), was a basket case, but the 1980 Cutlass Sedan (base Salon-spec) in the family was better, and by 1983, when my Dad got his Regal Custom sedan company car and bought the Cutlass from the company for my Mom, it was the best of the bunch! Both of the latter two vehicles were equipped with the Buick 3.8 (231 cid) V6 and heavy duty/Gran Touring suspensions, and were the cars I cut my driving teeth on. Agricultural-sounding, but could get out of their own way, and handled reasonably well.
I inherited the 1978 Salon in 1988, and by then, my Dad lost his company car privileges, having moved to the corporate office in Toledo, but he was able to buy the Regal for Mom, and traded the 1980 Cutlass on his 1986 Century, his first off-the-lot car purchase, the car which (along with the problems I had with the 1984 Sunbird hatchback which I bought from another family member) turned my immediate family into Honda lifers, including his five and my four Accords (with my current one probably my last since Honda Camry-fied it and removed any Honda-ness or hint of sporting pretension from it, not to mention XM Radio), plus a few Civics, an Integra, and a couple Odysseys!
I always liked the look of and seeing the wagon and El Camino lights at night though. Less so the ‘78s with the 1 year placement of the backup lamps on the outside edges.
The Pontiac Grand LeMans Safari had a little bright overlay on the taillights, at least early on. And yes, the predecessor wagons did have more taillight arrangements and I sort of liked the ‘73 Chevelle style, which continued on the El Camino through ‘77, probably as the rear bumper there wasn’t required to adopt the ‘74 5-MPH impact standard.
They turned the J-body into the Caddy, not the X-body.
And yes, the gen 2 Seville was a complete WTF!?! after the gen 1.
Cadillac probably could have done better had they put the Cimarron on the FWD A platform. Something with the AWD from the 6000 STE combined with a messaged Buick 3.8 V6 or even the 4.1 V8 which came out with the downsized DeVille/Fleetwood might have made for a REALLY INTERESTING piece!
As I’ve posited on here and TTAC, if they could have adapted the 2.8 V6 with an optional 4-speed automatic or 5-speed manual to a J with the Firenza/Skyhawk dash at the outset, that would have done less damage, especially if they could have used the extra development time that the Olds and Buick got! That wheezy 1.8L four they dropped in the 1982 Cimarron was certainly part of the problem, along with the fact that they didn’t probably go far enough to distinguish the interior from a Cavalier or J2000. See Adam Wade’s interview videos with Wayne Kady on the “Rare Classic Cars” YouTube channel for the inside story! (My opinions here are my own; Adam didn’t go into any of the alternatives I mentioned; it’d be an interesting follow up! I think it was mandated, however, that the Cimarron be included in the initial release of the J-cars because the dealer body would have staged an insurrection otherwise!)
The Cimarron was supposed to be an X-Body, but that line was so wildly successful, that they couldn't spare the capacity for a Caddy version. Ed Kennard was a total moron, trying to turn the J Body into a Cadillac so quickly and cheaply. He likely could win the award as worst GM executive of all time.
The real-world car this thing is based on is what drove people to Honda and Volkswagen.
The problem is that those people's decendents think this is what American cars are still like.
I wish Toyota kept selling that 20 year old tech forever, charging a premium for something that actually works and lasts makes an increasing amount of sense (4Runner with the 4.0L+5spd comes to mind in particular). I'm already hearing some horror stories about the new twin turbo Hybrid Tundra monstrosity. The previous gen was a legit million mile truck.
Fair point on the 6spd auto. Though if it's like Toyota's newer 6spd transaxles in the FWD cars, it loses its dipstick and easy drain/fill procedure which is needlessly retarded. But aside from that... they can keep the DI, the turbos, the cameras, accident avoidance, etc. in the last few years Toyota has made some of those annoying safety systems standard across their US lineup... terrible.
Honda was doing better with the 9th-Gen Accord in 2013, after the duds like the Acura ZDX and Accord CrossTurd..TOUR!
But their stupidity and bean-counter-itis came to the fore once again when they decontented the Civic Si so as to not step on the toes of the Acura Integra, which name they besmirched by not only bringing it out with the identical powertrain to the Si, but with the CVT as the clutchless option! Basically a Civic Si Hatchback with a better stereo, and no leather seating even as an option! The 2.0T out of the 10th-Gen Accord would have been the better choice for the base model, with the Type-R motor saved for the Type-S ‘Teg!
Then they confirmed the complete loss of plot by neutering the larger of the two Honda sedans, making it an Accord in name only, a greenie-weenie POS which makes less power in top trim, after 25 YEARS of a more powerful option, than a MOTHERFUCKING *** PRIUS!!! ***
Why would you commit to a strategy building money losing vehicles that don't serve the needs of your customer base?
Okay, here's the problem with that: Why was Eileen Chang's leased 84 Celebrity allowed to forever poison the well for her entire family regarding domestics?
It's enormously tiresome that whole swaths of American society think that where the Big Three are concerned, it's still 1978.
Side note, I saw something unbelievable yesterday on my way home last night: An Asian guy driving a C6 Grand Sport.
I'l bet his family and friends have refused to speak to him since he brought it home.
Yeah but his girlfriend loves it!
It’s a lefty elite American thing, is my theory. Anything made in the USA is immediately considered to be crap. Especially from the rust belt, and particularly if it’s assembled by a basket of deplorables.
I think Orwells quote on the English intelligentsia holds true now for the USA:
“In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.”
Well the elite of the UK are being quickly replaced by Indians, who love England the way Henry V loved France: too much to part with any of it.
"The problem is that those people's decendents think this is what American cars are still like."
For most people, a new car purchase is a significant portion of a year's pay. The monetary repercussions of a bad choice can ripple through the family finances for years. It's a big risk to "give them another chance" when there are known good/safe options. Best case scenario is that you'll be in the same position as the safe option, so why take the risk with half a year's pay?
I watched my dad's Stockholm syndrome with various Chevy products: 78 Impala (excellent), Citation (transmission), Celebrity (steering rack), Lumina (steering), 2006? impala (transmission), and 2012 malibu (meh, but outlived him). One was excellent, four were crap, and the last was an exercise in mediocrity; but he kept going back.
For me, after two decades driving Mercedes, I bought a Prius and immediately got the Toyota religion. Today I'm a Lexus man and when they nail the lid to my coffin shut, the hearse will probably also be a Lexus.
This is mint! Stockholm Syndrome absolutely describes loyalty to GM--and the Big 3 generally. I can still hear my grandfather saying--in the late 80’s!--“When better cars are built, GM will build them.” Risk mitigation is for many the no-brainer reason to buy Honda or Toyota. Excellent comments!
Stockholm syndrome is the only thing I can think of when I see some oldy driving one of those little egg-shaped Buick CUV’s that is built in China.
Except, there is something more to all of this. I started my working days in the car rental business, and serviced many different dealerships. If an American made car had an issue, it would often be some variant of “damn American cars. I’ll go Japanese next time.” If, however, a Japanese car had issues, it would be more a matter of “Japanese cars are great. My cars issues are just an outlier. Bad luck.” This was even borne out statistically by the Nummi built Corolla and Nova. The Nova always had notability lower reliability ratings in the Consumer Reports, etc. Even though it was the same damn car, built by the same people.
One of the deals we made having to service multiple dealerships back then as an independent was having some of each of those brands on our fleet. So I got to not only buy literally thousands of cars of different brands and watch them be abused, I got to do my own reliability ratings with them. There really were incredibly few differences in reliability across the fleet. The only standouts were, amazingly enough, the first gen Hyundai Excels, that we never had a mechanical issue with. Other than that, it was all pretty much a tossup.
People will ALWAYS prejudice a popular opinion over their own evidence or experience. When your Toyota breaks you blame yourself.
That's sort of like, "If I'm scowling at someone and being unfriendly, I'm the asshole. If someone is doing that to me, it's only because I haven't earned his respect."
I disagree and admire both Kady and Mitchell for taking a risk on the bustle back Seville. It was, and is, a truly unique design. No, it did nothing for European conquest sales, but I suppose that was the job of the Cimarron. Had the driveline situation not been so screwed up, that run of Sevilles would have been very successful. The chassis was definitely of Cadillac quality. It was a beautiful driving luxury car, and I don't think the move to FWD hurt it in the least. Most people don't drive the way enthusiasts expect them to.
I'm often torn in whether I actually like the styling or not. It works from some angles, and not so much from others. The Eldo i think overall is the better looking car, and maybe one of the best looking personal luxury designs ever.
HERESY!
I rate them Eldo > Riv > Seville > Toro, with the caveat that the Riviera might be the best convertible.
Can't argue with your ranking. The Riv was a very sweet design. And the convertible worked really well. Amazing how much the design fell from that generation to the next.
#MeToo. The bustle back Seville is the _only_ Cadillac, past or present, that I truly do covet. Especially in that sable/silver two tone paint they had in their brochures.
Even today, I'd love to have one -- but living in San Diego, I know it would be stolen in the first week of ownership using nothing but a paper clip and then spend the rest of it's life as a low-rider or donk.
I had to, ummm, look up what a Donk was.
I'm guessing doing a Donk kind of treatment to a Seville would be tough, so the low rider is more likely.
I'm guessing that info doesn't make you any happier....
What would happen is simple: the front end would be removed and put on an Eldorado. The "slab" world loves droptop Eldogs with Seville noses.
I wouldn’t throw any clean example of any 1979-1985 Riv, Eldo, Seville, or Toro, out of my garage.
Fun fact, courtesy of the “Rare Classic Cars” channel: the key/seatbelt chime in the Eldorado/Seville of that period was an actual bell, and not a sound from a tone generator.
That's a really great chanel, Rare classic Cars.
And yes, they are all fun cars. Especially the first model years. And non diesel.
Crap. I just found one for sale for a mere pittance. Probably the nicest one in years. Ooh, those whitewalls.
<https://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/cto/d/hermosa-beach-1981-cadillac-seville/7595807591.html>
Oh my.
I hope you said that like George Takei.
Entertaining for sure. When I first saw the headline I pictured something more along the H body Monza Town Coupe (or even fastback) sized mockup of a Cimarron for 78. I guess they kinda did have a Cimarron in 78, it was just called Seville (I'm a fan of that gen or Seville so I'm very tongue in cheek with that comment).
I always liked the look of the Seville. Had a muscular hunkered down kinda look with the wheels and tires protruding just a bit from the fenders. One of our neighbours had one and it was pretty sweet in silver with chrome spoke wheels.
I love these and Abimelec's work. Please keep pumping these out. I will say - it would've been even cooler to see a Cimarron out of Cadillac's golden age. I want to see a sporty compact...with fins!
The Saab mention got me thinking as well - how about a What If? featuring the 2023 Saab 9-3? Saab remains successful by being the only European brand to continue producing and selling....sporty European cars.
Brilliant idea.
This is not ALWAYS the case, but I think of What If? as a way to tell stories about a world that is just a little bit better and braver than our own, and this fits well.
As long as there is a hatchback option. If there is a 6 cylinder, it needs to be inline or flat, not V.
Also, the instrumentation should be an order of magnitude less distracting and more useful than comparable cars:
* Traditional analog instruments and knobs/buttons; no white LEDs or screens in the main cluster
* World-leading HUD/HGS/EFVS which can be enabled / disabled though a steering wheel switch
* Whatever "infotainment" exists will be based on open standards and fully upgradable
Gratuitous references to the T-7A project would be most welcome.
Last comment: the EFVS should look functional and tasteful: designed by aeronautical Human Factors engineers working classically-trained artists, none of whom have ever been exposed to a modern video game.
1) On the corporate side, what about: VW's purchase of Scania and Porsche's purchase of VW fall through. Porsche ends up buying a majority of Scania & Saab Automobile and Saab AB buys a small stake.
2) If it helps, the Saab typeface is Gill Sans.
Reader feedback: I really enjoy these little detours, Jack. Keep them coming... and please let Arellano know I think he does fantastic work...
I want one?
With the 3.8 Turbo and a five-speed it would have been a 3-series KILLER.
I removed a paragraph to that effect... can't sail too close to the severance wind.
It's important to give credit where credit is due and Senior did sign off on them, but if I recall correctly, the amount of money allocated to the Grand National and GNX programs was pretty much the GM equivalent to finding loose change under the couch cushions.
I don't have a lot of movies on disc, but Black Air is one of the documentaries that I own. I'd be interested to hear the opinion on that film by someone who isn't a car person. I think it's a great documentary in general.
Black Air? What's that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GacP0ap776Y
Thanks for that.
The Buick Grand National. The Jules Winnfield of automobiles.
It's big. It's black. It's a bad motherfucker.
I just watched it and was fairly disappointed. I was hoping for more in the weeds technical info or inside gossip on how it got greenlit. It was more of a nostalgia piece. "This is my GN and it's awesome and I never/almost never drive it. This is a car show with lots of GNs and fans of it. Here's some guys from Car and Steerer colorfully describing what their test drivers found."
Finding out those fun stories takes real, hardcore journalisming. Not something too many want to get into nowadays.
Which is why Collectible Automobile is such a precious resource. They do all the research and get all the stories.
Would get thwopped by the E30 once it comes out but it definitely seems like a good competitor to the E21.
Don't forget that the E30 arrived with an eight-valve 1.8 and didn't even get the eta 2.7 until the middle of the 1984 model year. The 325e wouldn't have been any faster than an injected 3.8 turbo would have been in 1979... and by 1984 they had 210 horsepower. Imagine a stick-shift Grand National in the lighter aeroback body. You'd have needed an M5 to keep pace with the thing.
My god...I never realized how little power the early 318s had until I just checked wikipedia. 103 hp in the early 80s. I'm not sure why my brain figured they always had later 318is levels of power (134hp).
I worked for a BMW dealer when the 318is arrived and you could hear the customers smiling all the way back in parts. That was a hell of a car. But the first Aeroback Turbos had 165 horsepower and still would have given them a run in an alt-universe where BMW and Buick both brought their best to the table.
I've owned 3 318is' - love 'em. Sold my last one because the wife was making noises about how "unsafe" it was. Sold it to a co-worker who did a lot of work on it and it's probably worth about 5X what I sold it to him for in '19.
It's funny looking back, but GM was really on a roll then. The T- Types were really fun cars. The 82 F-Bodies were huge leaps forward. The C4 Corvette. Thr Fiero. The Eldo and Seville. The V8-6-4. The Riv and Toronado. And yes, the X'es, A's and Js. Some great cars and great potential. If only GM had given them 6 months more development each. GM could have single handedly driven back Japanese invasion. Imagine if all 1.1 million 1980 X Body customers had been content with their purchases? The brake recall had never happened. We would have had A very different GM and USA.
Nurse, get this patient to the burn unit, STAT!
Jeez, did Geico deny your claim or something? Harsh. But probably true.
I have never had any dealings with Geico whatsoever! Just creating an alternate universe where an insurance company could be stupid enough to do all those things. Couldn't happen in real life!
Lots of acquisitions to cover up weak underlying business. A forward P/E of 168 based off of analyst projections, negative historic EBITDA with a promise of a significant increase in the upcoming year. hmmmmmm.....
Wink, wink! Nudge, nudge! Mallet to the groin! 😬😂
I hated the way those looked.
If I read that article right, and I believe I did, those things were NOT actually hatchbacks. That is shocking to me that they would inflict that shape upon us all and have no truth to the styling. I wasn't a fan before, I dislike them even more now.
It's understandable in historical context. GM saw that fastbacks were becoming mandatory in Europe, but they thought that customers would balk at the size and NVH issues of a hatchback in a mid-sizer. So they did the look without the function.
My grandmother drove a 1976 Salon coupe in silver with maroon interior. It was simply wonderful.
My mom had a 403-powered '77 Cutlass Supreme. Dad drove a 1977 LeSabre Custom company car. Then he went to a 1981 Century wagon. That was a bit of a comedown, to be honest.
I was surprised when I realized that the top-dawg Colonnade Cutlass was the Salon! It sure as hell wasn’t after 1978, although you could get a Salon Brougham with the interior of the notchback Supreme coupe, plus the chrome rocker molding outside.
Oldsmobile could have put the Cutlass name on a Kozy Koupe in the 1970s and ’80s, and they wouldn’t have been able to keep them in stock! It really is weird how fast they fell!
No they weren't hatchbacks. It's all of the disadvantages with all of the ugly looks.
I know they were aiming for a 'fastback' look, but they should have been looking at Capris' instead of pintos and gremlins.
They have a very British Leyland feel to them, aesthetically. Awkward and half-assed.
I drove a Buick 2-door in that configuration with a 5-speed. I was accustomed to Chrysler products with 4-speeds, and the Buick felt to me like an S-10. In the words of a guy who tried to sell a big Dodge truck to my father many years before, "It don't have any power but it's got lots of gears..." It didn't help that the Buick was very nearly the same pale metallic green that Boeing was using at the time on company cars and trucks.
Man, those fastbacks looked awful. To be honest, if Caddy had done an earlier Cimarron based on that platform, I think they would have done the notchbacks instead.
I always liked them, but I know I'm in the minority.
It's funny. I've always liked pretty well everything better in a fastback. Except for these.
I do wonder what Cadillac could have done with this platform, some time and some money. The J car was just a bad idea, forced on them when X Car sales took off more than expected. An X car based Cimarron would have likely been far better accepted in the market. Not that sales would have necessarily been better, as Cimarron sales were pretty solid anyway. But it likely would not have made Cadillac the laughing stock it became.
Sadly, the X Car doesn't get the credit anymore that it deserves. It was a great platform, perfect for the time it was released. The 2.8 was a great little engine, with the best V6 exhaust note this side of a Busso. Some of the X-11s and T Types actually drove very nicely. The 6000 STE was actually a very nice car. A little more development could have changed automotive history dramatically.
It's amazing what GM managed to do in just a few short years. Every car on a new platform. New engines and transmissions everywhere. Basically, every product completely redesigned. It was an incredible effort, and it came very close to succeeding. But even the General at its peak power didn't have the engineering resources to do all of it.
A lot of well-said points here. I own both a Citation and a FWD Century, having grown up with all these cars around and largely decent experiences with them I figure why not?
I have a genuine and unfeigned love of Citations.
I wrote a sonnet to the Citation (It was a class assignment) and it was printed in my high school literary magazine.
How much personal experience do you have with the Citation and it's X platform mates? I drove the Pontiac version for a while and frankly I have fonder memories of the Austin America my dad bought that was a long term loaner (about equal in build quality but the Austin, essentially slightly larger Mini, was at least fun to drive). I'm no fan of cliched 10 Worst Cars lists but the Citation belongs on them. Perhaps the most poorly executed cars GM ever made, maybe the most poorly executed postwar American cars period (though I admittedly wasn't around in the '50s when there was literally tons of dreck). Besides smog-controlled engines that ran like crap, stalling in intersections and dieseling when you tried to shut them off and barely adequate brakes there were all sorts of "engineering by afterthought" touches all over the cars, like having to remove a strut brace (which they shouldn't have needed if they hadn't cheapened out on the unibody) to change a battery. Truly GM's nadir, at least in terms of vehicle quality.
I haven't driven one in 25 years.
My mother drove an x-body Buick Skylark in the early 80s. If she turned left too hard the engine would stall.
The A-Bodies, descended from the X-es, were better, but it was still feast or famine, with some examples eliciting a fond respect, while others (like my Dad’s 1986 Century) turned lifelong GM buyers to the Japanese competition.
BMW has entered the chat with single use fasteners on the strut braces
From a cost of operation standpoint, I appreciated the mediocre braking system passed down to my N-body Calais. Stopped just as "adequately" on bespoke $150 Carbotech pads as $7 wholesale Wagners.
All done at roughly the same time that the US had 3 competing commercial airliner companies and a large number of computer companies all making rapid advances. The demand for engineers must have seemed insatiable, but, interestingly enough, the H1-B program was not created until 1990.
It was a less enlightened era, where we did not truly understand the necessity of making the bottom 99% eat dogshit at every opportunity.
I will always have a soft spot for them having been asked to Homecoming junior year by a hopelessly out-of-my-league senior girl that drove a hand-me-down Olds version in dog log brown.
Why does none of this seem like fiction?......
Well, I was going to have GEICO pay big bucks for one of the Fifties "sock hop" car shows that were omnipresent in 1977, but not even in fiction would an insurance company be stupid enough to buy a car show that literally has an expiration date at which point all of its cars will be in "regular" car shows... right? That wood be sad.
ChatGPT tells me such a car show would be called "Rockwood" or "Sockwood" - not that anything like this would happen except in an alternate timeline.
I prefer "Cockwood" personally
A lot of the people who create shows like that prefer cockwood, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Cuckwood
How about a car show that features just cars with some kind of fake wood, either exterior or interior? Call it WoodWood. Late '50s Ford and Mercury wagons had really impressive fake wood.
Too funny
Authentic lol at the moonchild reference 🤘🏻
Buying that CD with some friends, taking it home, and listening to it for the first time on the 100-watt Sony system my dad got me remains one of the high points of my life.
I absolutely wore it out on cassette tape in The Great Red Dirt Bike Truck, blissfully unaware it was the last of the Golden Era for Maiden albums.
Ten years ago I went to see them play through the whole thing. Another greatest night of my life. It's hard to explain how much the band meant to me as a kid.
I had a greatest night of my life 4 years ago when I took my two teenaged boys to see them. They're both huge fans and unlike me, they can fit in the concert shirts I got in the 80s.
I somehow managed to ignore Maiden through high school and most of my life despite one of my buddies being a rabid fanatic. I kind of viewed them as a culty kind of deal, and maybe that turned me off. Not sure.
Then my teenage son convinced me to go see them a few years ago, and their performance blew the top of my head off. It also helped that there was more weed being smoked by that crowd than probably any concert I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been to many. Huge clouds of it that got you ripped whether or not you were partaking.
Walking out of that arena I understood what all the fuss had been about. I’m also pretty impressed by Bruce Dickinson flying modern airliners around this planet. Saw him on an episode of Ice Pilots where he flew one of their ancient DC3s. Such a nice guy and much smarter than the average bear….
They are SUCH good people. I mean, they KEPT THE REPLACEMENT GUITARIST. they're like the anti-Eagles.
I'll listen to an Iron Maiden album if you listen to Cornell 5/8/77 all the way through. It may not be their best of all time but it was a very, very good show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4QWv3doDE&list=PLzptvlG1JiNBhiWTS4PZF8u4Uf35nMOno
No.
If you think grown men trying to emulate John Mayer with a Silver Sky is a thing, imagine the folks who just have to have a guitar that looks like one of Jerry's axes? (Even John Mayer: https://www.musicradar.com/news/john-mayer-receives-prototype-replica-of-jerry-garcias-famed-wolf-guitar)
Looks like there's an entire cottage industry. (From ~$700 - $40,000)
https://eastwoodguitars.com/products/eastwood-tiger-guitar
https://www.fendercustomshop.com/guitars/stratocaster/jerry-garcia-alligator-strat-relic-1-piece-rift-sawn-maple-neck-aged-natural/
https://deluisguitars.com/products/the-tiger-tribute
https://asher-guitars-lap-steels-store.myshopify.com/pages/2023-wolf-certified-limited-edition
https://shop.phredinstruments.com/guitars
https://www.lieberguitars.com/shop/
https://reverb.com/item/5383379-cripe-replica-jerry-garcia-guitar-model-bolt-96-rosewood
And then there's Jim Irsay.
So not a King Crimson reference.
Get off my lawn.
Good one! I enjoyed many of these entries, particularly the one about the “what if?” ‘69 or so Escalade. Also, nice touch on the added “advertisements.” Side note, those fastback coupes with a trunk were odd but the Century Turbo Sport Coupe is one I’d have.
I believe there is an ACF reader with a Century Turbo aeroback!
There is one currently on Bring A Trailer!
Currently at $3,600 with 4 hours to go
While I’m not a fan of the Aerobacks in general, the two door Century Turbo actually works aesthetically.
I feel like Barry needs a Stig like introduction. Some people say he writes a crappy weekly article for an automotive lifestyle brand. Others say his wife wears the pants in the family. All we know is he’s called The Simp
His wife wears the pants, so he can wear the shorts!
Got him pegged, so to speak.
Some say he is not the father of his children, but paternity tests will not be widely available until 1988 so we will have to wait until then to find out. All we know is...
Freaking hilarious! Thanks.
But there is a typo in the last all caps section; "CLUB" sb "CLIQUE" :)
HAHA OH BOY
that's fixed now
shouldn't the "Cimarron Touring Six Cylinder - Very Economical" be the CT6-V?
That's the joke -- that GM can't even get shit like THAT correct.
Should've done like the Japanese. Just take some word and add "-a" to the end.
"Just take some word and add "-a" to the end."
Sounds Canadian :)
After the Acura Integra came out, a friend remarked that their next car should be called the Masturba.
All the cadillac names have been stupid since the turn of the century, but the competition is hardly any better. Lexus, oddly enough, seems to have the best approach.
Lexus is becoming unmoored on model names. The new land cruiser, aka LX600, is really just a twin turbo 3.5L v6. They're having a hard time admitting that it doesn't have a V8 anymore.
Alphanumeric designations aren't names.
As I’ve also opined in here, Honda has ruined the Accord!
Ok, yes.
And now GM is foisting crappy little 3 cylinder turbos on us.
For decades back to the '70's I never really understood why GM insisted on launching new cars with the smallest crappiest most-underpowered engines possible, and only a few years later adding somewhat better engine options.
Because short-term profits are rewarded with bonuses and long-term problems are for the next guy to fix.
You can sell people ANYTHING - ONCE - as long as you're on a plane to Argentina with the cash by the time things start falling apart.
And in some cases, once is all it took to ensure that customers wouldn’t return to GM!
This is going to sound strange, but One And Done isn't necessarily GM's fault.
Some people are just picky.
True enough I suppose.
But let’s say Mr. Jones, an Oldsmobile man since his first new car, a 1965 F-85, decides to give the 1980 Omega a try. Nice blue Brougham sedan with all boxes checked, including the 2.8L V6, just like in the brochure! Traded in a 1975 Cutlass, which was getting a little spendy with gas prices over a dollar a gallon!
Within a couple months, it’s clear that this one was a Monday or Friday build! All of the X-car maladies come to the forefront! The car spends a lot of time at the dealer for various recalls, plus the scary brakes, where the tail gets VERY squirrelly under even moderate braking! A year goes by, and the dealer STILL can’t figure the brakes out—“working as designed” always the result!
Meanwhile, his wife’s 1978 Cutlass Supreme’s THM-200 (attached to the 260 Rocket) goes out, despite only having 25,000 miles of mostly kid-schlepping and visiting her folks a couple times a year! The dealer laughs in their faces, and the police are called to ensure Mr. Jones doesn’t commit serious bodily harm to the service manager! He escalates to the Zone Office, and right to Lansing, to no avail, so he puts a reman transmission in the car on his dime! Meanwhile, his next door neighbor has something to show him! One of those “furrin’” cars, made in Marysville, OH! Runs like a sewing machine! An “Accord.” Just came out with a new design, and built here! One drive, and his wife was sold, this just after her folks had come to visit, when she was surprised that despite her Dad’s initial objections, her folks had bought a Civic for her Mom to drive, and she had nothing but good things to say; her Dad’s 1976 88 Coupe was the “nice” car anyway! So the Joneses head to the Honda dealer, and don’t get too badly gypped on their trade-ins (even with the leaking main seal on the Omega), and the missus REALLY wanted the burgundy but settled for a silver LX, same as her husband’s, since there were always people who would pay well over sticker! Keeping the keys straight so that they picked the correct car would become a running joke in the family!
The paperwork was signed on Saturday afternoon, and the dealer would prep the cars on Monday, so Mrs. Jones would meet her husband at the dealer around 4:30, which comes and goes, and the rain gets heavier! Finally, a call comes into the dealer! It’s Mr. Jones! “Honey, I’m fine, but I had to hit the brakes on the freeway, and I spun into the median wall! I’m so done with GM!”
Not quite CrabSpirits-level, but close enough for jazz!