William Rubano has found and posted an increasingly rare sight: a Celebrity two door. It’s called “coupe”, but is of course a two-door sedan, in reality, as it has the same roof line as the four door sedan. The Buick and Olds A-Bodies got genuine coupe roofs part way through their (long) run, but not the Celebrity and Pontiac 6000.
But then their run wasn’t as long; in fact this ’88 is a last-year Celebrity, to be replaced by the Corsica and Beretta in 1989. And the two-door was by far the rarest of the line-up, representing only 5% of the production.
It’s powered by the venerable FI 2.8 V6, rated at 120 hp. Or is it 135? The Encyclopedia lists both. Does it make a difference?
A bit boxy, eh? The Taurus made these cars look obsolete the day it arrived. Back to the drawing board…
It’s a wonder they bothered at all. The 2-door Malibu was a handsome car but always handily outsold by the Monte Carlo, and Buick-Olds had dropped their non-“G Special” 2 door models after the Aeroback fiasco.
For decades, two door sedans were fashionable, and probably less expensive to manufacture than a 4 door sedan. I think it was relatively cheap to engineer and set up mass production of a 2-door varient for a 4 door bread-and-butter model. I suspect GM felt if they didn’t offer it, some sales would bleed off to competing brands.
My dad liked 2 door sedans and bought them for the style. His excuse was the children in the back seat were safer, there were no doors for little hands to open accidentally as he drove.
That was one of the 2-door sedan’s main selling points in the years before rear child locks.
Corsica and Beretta debuted in 1987 and replaced Citation. Lumina replaced Celebrity in 1989.
IINM, the Lumina actually went on sale in the spring of 1989 as an early 1990 model. The Celebrity continued to be available for the 1989 model year, although the two-door was dropped.
The Celebrity wagon actually continued for the 1990 model year, but only the wagon; I guess GM wanted to hedge against the possibility of customers who hadn’t gotten the minivan memo (or who didn’t like the radically styled FWD minivans that GM introduced that year) still wanting wagons.
In this era, the traditional North American size classes were in the process of shifting, and it wasn’t always crystal clear which previous models were intended to be replaced by which new models, but I would agree that the Corsica and Beretta were intended mainly to fill the slot previously occupied by the Citation (what had traditionally been labelled a “compact”), and the Lumina was intended to mainly replace the Celebrity.
Yes, GM’s product planning was a mess during these years – holding on to the A and B bodies long after their replacements, the W and H bodies, debuted. And the W body wasn’t much smaller than the H body.
That’s in great shape for a 33 year old car. The lines on this car are clean and shapely. Look at the sight lines and vast glass area! Despite the fact that the windows don’t open in the back, there’s still plenty of light and visibility for back seat passengers.
The Taurus got all the love, but plenty of people didn’t like the melted bar of soap styling and the Celebrity sold well all the way up until the end. It’s still a better looking car inside and out than the woeful Monte Carlo/Lumina coupe featured the other day.
If I hadn’t soured on GM due to parents’ experience with multiple GM cars (including an Olds Diesel-equipped Chevy), I might have looked at one of these. Unpretentious, functional, a dash of style.
It’s like if you took a G-body and trimmed away even more of the gingerbread.
I wonder if anyone ever felt compelled to mate the longer coupe/2-door sedan doors to a wagon body and make a 2-door A-body wagon. I’ve certainly drawn that more than once.
And GM saw the Taurus making a splash on Celebrity as they already had the Senator ready and running?!
GM Europe saw Audi coming. GM Detroit saud, “Not Invented Here.”
GM Europe saw Audi coming. GM Detroit said, “Not Invented Here.”
Plus a healthy dose of “ “Our” buyers wouldn’t want a car that looks like that!”
CC effect! Just this morning I photographed a cherry Celebrity sedan. Looked like it was maybe 5 years used.
Instantly outdated by the Taurus, yes. Still better than the Lumina. Be careful what you wish for!
It seems like the death of the hardtop blurred the line between two door sedan and coupe for many people where for 20 years it was easy to tell – “coupes don’t have a pillars and fixed rear Windows” – and the willy nilly application of “coupe” to basically anything with two doors became common. Actually in the inverse I’ve occasionally heard genuine coupes like Tbirds and G bodies referred to as sedans based on the same reasoning.
I will always remember the unique drone that came from the exhaust of the 60 degree 2.8 litre V-6. Plenty of moan but not plenty of power.
I had a classmate at my tech school who had a 2.8 celebrity beater with no muffler, and know the unique sound well. I wouldn’t say it was the most amazing engine note in the world but it was as close I have ever heard from a V6 that passably sounds a small block V8. Could beat the thing with a moped in a drag race, but GM certainly did something remarkable getting that exhaust note
I remember that sound vividly…especially on the H.O. version offered on the Pontiac 6000 STE in the early 80’s. The 2.8 was a relatively peppy engine especially compared the the Japanese who didn’t offer a 6 cylinder initially in the early Camrys and Accords
My mother had an 84 Celebrity wagon with the 2.8….112 hp
I hated that Pontiac, especially, put loud ‘non’-mufflers on those cars. And they were common, always disturbing the peace while just driving by at a normal speed. A pox on those of us who can’t afford to live far away from roads and highways.
Looks wise I’d take this over the Taurus any day.
I have mentioned this before, one of the companies I worked for back in the 80’s had a pool of cars we could access when traveling for company purposes. Since our biggest OEM customer was GM, we had a fleet of Chevys at any given time. Occasionally I would end up with one of the Celebritys on my trips. I was a huge Ford fan back at that time, but eventually the Celebrity grew on me. I really liked later the fuel injected 2.8L V6 versions, as they were actually pretty snappy while cruising through the hills of Western Pennsylvania.
One of my former co-workers bought a new (87 or 88?) Celebrity Eurosport two-door. I was prepared to dismiss it immediately as it was really just a 4 cylinder Celebrity with the Eurosport appearance package applied to it. While it did come with the nice 10-spoke alloys, though, it didn’t have any of the other nicer options on it. Kind of a tease, really.
With the V6 and the rest of the Eurosport package, the subject would be a nice daily driver.
Just, wow. I can’t remember seeing one of these latter-day Celebrity Eurosport two-doors *new*, but it’s entirely possible that none of them grabbed my attention.
One question, though: were those wheels factory?
I ordered an ’84 Celebrity Eurosport 2 door. White with Sand grey interior, 2.8, automatic, tinted glass, power windows, front seat recliners, intermittent windshield wipers, rear defroster, A/C, floor console with shifter, power brakes, cruise control,
tilt steering, aluminum wheels, interior lamp group, Custom Luxury option, AM/FM cassette with 4 speakers and a dealer installed GM accessory trunk lid luggage rack. It was $4323.00 in options which made for a pretty hefty for those times $14,219.00 MSRP. I loved that car, kept it for 11 years at which time it had 321,000 km on the odometer. Never had to do anything but routine maintenance…no major mechanical failures of any sort.
There’s a black 86 Eurosport 2.8 coupe near me. Grey interior, floor console. It’s got around 85,000 kms. Not officially for sale but Unfortunately he wants something like $5000 (cdn) which I find is just too much for a Celebrity, as rare as clean coupe is nowadays.
which one holds up now. This car looks so much better than that ugly Taures. This car handled at 0.79 g. read the C&D road terst online. The engineer thar did the Eurosport car was assigned to the Corvette next