They say if you strap a piece of toast, butterside-up, to the back of a cat and drop the assembly, it’ll hover a few feet above the floor, doing lazy barrel rolls as the tendency of a cat to land on its feet is perfectly counterbalanced by the tendency of toast to land butterside-down. (“Don’t or you will regret it” –the cat)
From time to time I take a swim through the local Craigslistings to see what interesting stuff’s around. Here in Vancouver, “Interesting” usually means weird models from another planet Japan or unusually well preserved old Valiants, Volvos, Vanagons, and other suchlike.
Found the usual smattering of those when I went swimming this past Wednesday, inspired by Edward Snitkoff’s pointer at the Ziploc-condition Taurus. And then, all of a sudden: oh, hey, lookit there (archived here): an ’89 Chev Caprice Classic—scuze me, Caprice Classic LS Brougham—with 83,000 klicks (just under 52 kilomiles), for sale by the son-in-law of the original buyer. I’ll bet this car is like the hovering toastcat, a convergence of that perfect Taurus and Pioneer Fox’s ’89 Gran Fury, Helen.
On the one hand, at least from the few views given in the ad, it surely looks clean enough to eat offa. On the other hand, it’s thirty years old. Which is really messing with my head, because American roads were crawling with these boxy Caprices through my entire childhood, so they’re sort of stuck in the late-model file while the phrase “thirty-year-old car” still pulls up images of ’50s and ’60s models. This kind of distorted perception is a common symptom of certain strains of Mad Car Disease.
Power locks (“CLUNKa!”) and windows. Cruise control obnoxiously piled onto the turn signal/wiper/high beam/coffee switch, remember that? Remember the way GM circumcised their tailpipes back then, with the down-angled tailspout cut off horizontally at the bottom and vertically at the end? There it is, all original. “Some kind of a V8” which is probably a 305. All yesterday I resisted the urge to look up whether that motor had TBI in ’89 or was still running a Rochester Quadrajet carburetor (the urge won out: TBI).
How long has it been since I owned and regularly drove a car with a direct-drive starter and a longitudinal engine and a column gearshift and rear-wheel drive? It’s under an hour away from me. It’s done less than half the distance, and is priced at half what I paid for, my ’07 Accord two and a half years ago. And the Accord’s been perfectly dependable, including dependably admitting water into the trunk when parked in heavy rain at an angle that happens to correspond to that of my driveway—I dropped it off Wednesday at the leak whisperers (which is not their actual shop name, but should be; yesterday they rang to say they’d not only found and stopped the water entering via faulty taillight gaskets, but also repaired the backglass defogger everyone else said would require a costly glass replacement). And while reliability isn’t on it, I’ve got a little list of gritchments at the Accord, notably in the controls-and-displays and transmission-behaviour departments.
I caught myself mousing around to see if that pair of NOS ’86-’90 Caprice export taillight lenses with amber turn signal compartments is still on eBay (no). And that really was the snap-a-rubber-band-upside-the-wrist moment: Stop it, stop it, stop it! I really must resist; I’d just be trading one set of gritchments for another. There’d be plenty of room for my tall husband, and a refreshing lack of centre console boxing us in, but there’d also be three decades’ worth of missing safety engineering (and, um, every other kind). I’d miss the Accord’s extremely fast heater, its heated seats, its cupholders, and its (highway) fuel economy. I’d miss its 4-wheel antilock disc brakes, its traction control and seatbelt pretensioners and effective head restraints and sextet of airbags. I’d miss its utter lack of need for any tinkering and fiddlefutzing beyond occasionally checking the oil and windshield washer fluid levels.
Standards and expectations of vehicular dependability have risen quite a whole hell of a lot in the last thirty years, and odds are this Caprice wouldn’t be up to the best of 1989’s standards, even; it would present with a steady trickle—punctuated by unpredictable drenchings—of the usual ailments and needs of an underutilised machine. Mechanical parts will likely be available forever—though perhaps now with some downtime while they come in—but do I really want to go back to snapping up and hoarding (and storing) scarce body, trim, lighting, and interior parts? Back to single-seal doors, back to failmatic tape-drive window lifts? Back to wondering when the A/C compressor will lose its shaft seal again? Back to only-just-better-than-a-carburetor TBI driveability? Back to minimum-legal-size sideview mirrors? Back to loose and sloppy “tug it every so often to eliminate the slack” seatbelts with RCF-67 buckles that unfasten all by themselves? Back to lap belts in the rear so perhaps the bottom half of my passengers will remain in place in a crash? No, I really don’t.
I remind myself that my firsthand Caprice experience has definite downward trend lines for fit/finish, build quality, and ruggedness: the ’91 was worse than the ’84 was worse than the ’78. That’s not entirely fair, for the ’91 was a well-worn ex-police unit, but the chintz quotient really was much higher in the ’84 than the ’78.
Still, this makes my teeth itch. Even though I sold my last-but-one old car in April and have recently worked out an exit strategy for the last one…still, this makes my teeth itch—a symptom of my chronic elevated collecterall.
Not the first time I’ve heard a siren like this, either; about 15 years ago I was driving a beautiful but mechanically persnickety ’85 Volvo 245 Turbo when I saw an ad for a ’79 Caprice Classic, 350/350, black over silver, red interior, a near-Cadillac-spec one loaded with seemingly every possible option including sunroof, Comfortron, and F41 suspension, in similarly perfect condition, with 32k miles, for $3250. Couldn’t move fast enough; it was several borders away and gone by the time I had my act together. Guess it’s a good job this car isn’t that car, but it’s probably still best if I won’t go see and drive it.
Oh baby, come to Papa! By that I mean I like it…
I don’t know Vancouver prices . I do know that here in the GTA… $3500. CAN would be a steal.
Just doing a little calculating/ dreaming here ..Hmmm??? ..A cheap flight out to BC, do a little paperwork . A nice cruise across the prairies, before the Canadian winter grabs a firm grip???.
Just what I was thinking, Mikey!
Leaving aside the costs of the repairs of the maladies brought forth by putting a little-used old car into daily service, the asking price on this one is equally much a steal over here as over there. Maybe even more of a steal over here because there’ll be neither rust nor creeping goo (rustproofing oil) that makes any undercar or underhood repair a goddamn mess.
The out-of-province inspection might also be cause for concern… but then again, maybe not.
In-province or out-of-province, my experience was that Ontario takes delight in screwing you on the safety certificate, unless you happen to know a guy at a shop who’ll issue a clean cert and hey, how’d that small stack of money get on the counter? Oh well, best put it in the cash register for safekeeping.
That was the reason why my native state of Kentucky dropped annual vehicle inspections back in the seventies. The whole process had become a cash cow for less scrupulous repair shops. If the legislature had been able to figure out a way to score part of this cash they might have carried on but, since the money was staying with the shops, they bailed.
A youngish guy down my street (he’s probably 30-35, when you are 67 that is young) has a box Caprice that spends most of its time under a car cover. It looks to be in decent enough shape and it does run as I’ve seen it in motion several times. The worst thing about it (in my eyes, YMMV) is that the Caprice rides on aftermarket 22 inch rims. I wouldn’t afflict that on my car but then again, I remember putting chrome reverse wheels on my car as a teenager.
I once had a girlfriend who owned an ’88 model in black with a red interior. This picture shows what sort of kludge-work went into making the “formal” roofline.
If you think that’s bad, look how ’80s Chrysler created the New Yorker’s landau roof from the E-body Caravelle. It makes the Caprice job look like German-esque engineering precision.
Wow. Those are fascinating pictures. Would that hacking and tinkering have taken place on the assembly line, or did they hack up finished cars later?
Ye gods, awhile since I saw one of those denuded. Yuck. I guess we should add latter-day landaus to the list along with laws and sausages: like ’em or don’t as you will or won’t, but you really shouldn’t ought to see how they’re made.
That dog’s breakfast of thrown-together parts under the vinyl was called the “bonnet”. I think vinyl rooves are dumb, but if there’s going to be one I think it’s best without padding or bonnetry or “formal” lines—the cars looked only minimally dorkier when the vinyl was stretched taut over the actual, metal roofline.
Agreed; glad my 92 Roadmaster was vinyl roof-free.
That looks like quite a mess. A promising home for corrosion to take hold.
I do agree, a vinyl roof has no place atop a car.
I had to comment just to acknowledge the correct (Canadian eh) spelling of the plural of “roof” in your comment.
This was my ’90 Caprice Classic Brougham LS and my photo!!
Nice old Caprice, Daniel. I love the blue color, but the ’79 you describe having not obtained is probably my favorite of all; black over silver with red interior. I always loved that combination. They were beautiful.
I don’t like wholly or partially black cars, even in the shade, so I might’ve moved faster about it in another colour combination; my favourite in the ’77-’79 Caprices was lighter-over-darker metallic red. But those cars looked great in any of the 2-tones offered, in ways not matched by the ’80-up units, IMO.
an ’89 Chevy Caprice Classic—scuze me, Caprice Classic LS Brougham
The LS Brougham almost made the Cadillac Fleetwood redundant – especially with TBI on the Chevy compared to Olds 307 and QuadraJet on the Caddy.
I’d be honored to have the example shown under my ownership.
Still want an ’89 Caprice Classic Brougham [not an LS] with EFI 305 V-8 ?
I might sell mine, which runs fine, no fluid leaks, A/C cold… in Southern N. Eng.
I’m encouraged that people like this car. I have one just like it, (albeit an ’87) in storage as a project . I made the error of buying a nice clean example cheap, but without the time to finish. The front suspension is diassembled for a rebuild and it needs a new exhaust plus a few details. I’ve kinda lost interest, its hard to be enthusiastic about a box that was ubiquitous when I was a kid.
If this blue car was assembled in Canada (I think the Oshawa plant made them) it may have the Olds 307 (like mine) instead of the Chevy. 305.
They stopped making B-bodies in about 1984 in Oshawa. By this time, all B-bodies were assembled in Arlington. For 1987, only Canadian market Caprices got the Olds 307 V8 for some reason, US market cars had 305’s. I never figured out why they did this, other than maybe a surplus of 307’s. The emission laws in Canada were still very lax for 1987, so it would have been easy to offer anther engine without any worries of emission certification.
Thank you for the details, that makes sense. I recall reading only the US wagons got the 307, sedans got the 305. I think all the B body Cadillacs got the 307. It had slightly less power than the 305 but the roller lifters made it more smooth and quiet.
In mid year 1986, all B-body wagons switch to 307 V8’s. I think it was partially for cost reduction and simplification and maybe again due to a surplus of engines. So finding a 1986 Caprice of Parisienne wagon with a Chevrolet V8, is a bit of a unicorn, to tie it to our QOTD post.
I would agree the NVH of the 307 was better than the 305, but despite the power ratings, the 305 was a far better real world performer. The 307 did have better lower end torque, but that was about all it had as it was weak in the mid range and had no upper end power.
the 305 was a far better real world performer
THIS A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!
(Sorry I have lots of experience with box wagons from the late 70s to the end of production and some people fail to understand why I have 0 desire for a 307 equipped model.)
25 years ago I would have laughed… now I want it.
Funny how time does that, isn’t it!
Yep. I remember being in the Chevy dealer back then and my parents almost signing on the dotted line for one of these- I think it might have even been the same color. I thought it was hopelessly dorky.
We ended up with a 1989 H-Body LeSabre, which to my younger eyes was a much better car.
In theory, I have a thing for these old square Caprices, and the TBI overcomes one of my main points of hesitation about them. I never liked the ‘great-slug’ look that followed this style; I always presumed that was a typical GM lazy response to the clean aero look of the Taurus. But these….are a classic example of a late era “typical American Car” with V8, AM/FM, PS, PB, AT, AC, and a trim package. Hell yeah.
But… If I had to drive it every day, and not just go to car shows and Church…well.
And if the alternative for daily driving was an an Accord….well.
It reminds me of the lyrics of an old Grateful Dead Song:
Since it costs a lot to win, and even more to lose,
You and me bound to spend some time wondrin what to choose.
I see whatchya did there.
And yeah, “great slug” is more apt than “bathtub” (which is way too diplomatic) for the ’91-’96s.
That Grateful Dead lyric does seem to nail it, doesn’t it.
Around the office, we call this “car heat.” It usually ends with a much lighter wallet and regrets the morning after.
…is why it’s best I not go see and drive this car.
I spent 8 years in cars of this general age/platform (Olds and Cadillac), concluding my run in late 2005. In addition to the expected maladies, add one more: a leaky trunk. In both of my cars the body sealant got hard and water began to infiltrate the trunk in various places. A tube of body sealant would be a must.
One I would cross off your snit-list would be slow heat. There is a lot about GM cars of that era that I could gripe about, but every one of my experience warmed up as quickly as the laws of physics allow. Mine always blew at least warm heat by the time I hit the first traffic light of my morning commute, say about 3/4 of a mile. Which is about the same time it takes my Hondas.
I will leave this one to you. After an Olds 98 and a Cadillac Brougham, I think I have experienced the best of the B/C body of that era. A Chevy could never satisfy me. And I was never wild about the looks anyway.
I am pretty sure you and I have different tastes when it comes to vehicle appointments, but IMO, the Chevrolet B-bodies were superior to the Olds-Buick-Cadillac models. Chevrolet’s 305 was far better than the 307. The Chevrolets were lighter and significantly more agile, and were also generally more reliable (at least in my experience). Drive a Cadillac Brougham back to back with a nice lightly optioned F41 (or better yet 9C1) Chevrolet Caprice, and the difference is night and day. There is a reason that Car and Driver put a Caprice on the 10 best list in 1983, even though it was arguably dated by then. They were great driving cars – when equipped properly. The big luxo-barge C & D-bodies felt like tanks in comparison, slow and heavy and definitely not too agile.
I do not doubt what you say. But if you want nimble and agile, a box Panther with the right suspension would seem to be the way to go. Or an early aero like my 1993 CV LX. Nobody did “solid and heavy” in the 80s/early 90s better than GM, so I tend to follow their strength and go for maximum solid and heavy in these cars, which is the C/D body. 🙂
The box panther’s weren’t bad, but still the Chevrolet’s were a better driving car IMO. There is a reason they were favoured by cops and cabbies alike. IMO, the Panther’s only really became good driving cars with the 1992 redesign, before that they were just okay. That said, I still preferred the 90’s B-bodies, albeit with the F41 suspension, over the 92-97 Panther’s. Again there is a reason the Caprice was favoured by cops then and they pretty much dominated the MSP tests in the 90’s. However, the stock soft suspension setups on the 90’s B-bodies were terrible, and the Ford definitely was the better driving car compared to these. In 1998 the Panther’s saw a big improvement with the new watt’s link rear suspension, and the 2003 chassis upgrades was by far the best yet. If I had to buy a Panther, I’d take an +03 CVPI, the best driving of the lot.
That is interesting, JPC. I might be wrong—it’s been a fair number of years—but I seem to recall the heaters in the ’78 and ’84 Caprices (and my many A- and AA-body Mopars, even with new cores) being a great deal slower than my present Accord to start putting out. The ’91 Crapiece was super slow, but (1) it was a much-used example, and might well have had a partly clogged heater core, and (2) just as on the first bloatmobile B-bodies in ’71, on the second bloatmobile B-bodies in ’91 GM royally screwed up the HVAC system design in similar ways: cold air sailed in without first crossing the heater core, which made the car very difficult to warm up in the cold Midwest.
The Accord is already putting out warm air by the time I’ve gone two lousy blocks, which impresses me.
Well the aluminum head in the Accord does a better job of getting the heat into the coolant than iron heads.
Also, much(!) shorter hose runs between the engine and the heater core.
And a much lower volume of coolant to put heat into.
Okay, can someone buy me that Caprice? I will name it the USS Toastcat, and sail it around the streets of Texas, taking it to car shows. Please? I’ll trade you a typewriter I fixed in my spare time! My new Mazda is great, but I’m jonesing for a project car and it’s only been a few days! *rocks back and forth in desk chair*
“I can stop looking at Craigslist anytime I want! Nothing wrong with just looking…” *Shifty eyes*
Yup, “just looking” is deadly. 3 days ago I found a lowered 96 Crown Vic with a Mustang drive line and 5 speed I simply must have. Today it’s a pristine 78 Fleetwood. I’m actually grateful these great deals are sold by the time I call.
This is why I spend time on Bring a Trailer instead. The eye-watering prices are so far from my financial reality that there is absolutely no temptation to do anything but look, get sad, shake my head, close the browser. And then open it right back up the next day to see what else has entered the auction pipeline.
A few very nice 1979-1980 Saab 900 Turbos promoted a glimmer of genuine interest, but the prices soon set me straight. I’d love to get one for my father, it was his favorite car as I was growing up, but a 40-year old Swede is probably more a curse for a 70 year old guy who no longer wants to turn wrenches.
An ol’ Saab, eh? Y’mean this kind, like such as?
Lol. Oh my god, there’s only two ways that will end for the buyer: a) it runs nearly forever nearly perfectly, or b) it breaks down IMMEDIATELY in very chronic, cascading, expensive ways.
I’m gonna sayyy…ummmmmmmm…Bbbbbbbbeee. Yes. B. Final answer. B.
…and hug it and squeeze it and call it George?
You know it! (Nice Looney Toons reference!)
Love the Looney Toon ref. I’m kinda partial to USS Toastcat myself, just to see how many folk can figure out what it means. I’m like that.
love, love, love it, Mr. Stern. Now, I’ll have to google the line so I can find the title and, again, watch one of my favourite WB cartoons. Tanks, a lot, Daniel; tanks, a lot!
That’s The Abominable Snow Rabbit (1961), which you can see here.
Great find Daniel. I still cruise the classifieds looking at old Chevrolet and Pontiac B-bodies every now and then, and so I get the temptation every now and then too. I owned several of these over the years and I do miss these cars. I was very tempted by a 1978 Pontiac Parisienne for sale locally early this year. IMO, the best ones were the low optioned Chevrolet powered cars with the F41 suspension. As nice as this example is, these LS Broughams never did it for me, way too much gingerbread – yuck. I almost bought an ’89 Caprice but it was the complete opposite of these, a base model with few options. The seller wouldn’t budge on the price so I walked though.
As for the TBI engine, these were excellent, and a big improvement over the E4ME (Q-Jet electronic feedback) carbs that preceded it. The GM TBI is primitive, but it is generally rock steady reliable, super easy and cheap to fix, and I would say gives up nothing in comparison to Fords 5.0 SEFI offered in the Crown Vic’s at this time (which I have also owned). At least in Canada our pre 1988 models generally have full mechanical Q-jets, making them also pretty bullet proof.
My ’91 Crapiece (COAL eventually) had a TBI 350. It ran okeh, certainly better than a carbureted one, but I wouldn’t put the driveability or economy on par with a good port injection setup. And yes, I’d surely take a nonfeedback carburetor over a feedback type.
While the TBI was primitive, it was a step up from even the best carbs in terms of driveability. I also agree it wasn’t the most fuel efficient though and a good SEFI is without a doubt superior. However, it was hard to beat the simplicity and reliability of GM TBI, which is why I liked it. I owned a Panther Ford with the 5.0 MPFI engine almost back to back to GM TBI engine. IMO, they were very comparable in terms of driveability.
You mentioned the cold weather manners above, and with the cold winters we get around here, TBI was certainly was an improvement over a carb. My 350 TBI engine in my Suburban started and ran fine even at -40. It had better cold weather manners than the much more modern Civic we had at that time. That said, my ‘Burb with it’s dual heaters and massive cabin took FOREVER to heat up in the winter, while the Civic blew heat very quickly. The difference was though that the Civic would struggle to keep the cabin warm at really cold temps, while the ‘Burb had lots of heat once it finally warmed up.
The TBI setup worked dependably, no debate there, definitely better than a carburetor. The crudeness of it kind of offended me, and the ECU connector in my ’91 was inadequately protected against water ingress via the cabin air intake, which caused corrosion problems. I do recall warmup driveability went straight to hell and the car began behaving as though badly carbureted when the “stovepipe” (flex duct from the sheetmetal stove over the exhaust manifold to the air cleaner snorkel) failed and fell away in the middle of a midwest Winter. A few bucks’ worth of new stovepipe immediately fixed it.
The VIN would’ve revealed everything under the hood.
A “Y” in the 8th digit of the VIN means it’s an Olds 307.
My ’89 wagon had 2.93 gears so that probably had something to do with it, but the fact remains that 307 could barely get out of its own way. I talked my wife into letting me pull it off the road for six months and transforming the car with a 350 TPI out of an ’87 Firebird.
100 extra HP plus two extra MPG, that was a win/win. That wagon became FUN to drive. And drive it we did, another 130,000 miles over the next five years. Odometer was showing over 310,000 when the rust monster finally took over and I scrapped the body.
Did I mention the 307 couldn’t get out of its own way?
Postscript: Six years later I picked up a ’91 Caprice wagon for $1000. I never checked the rear axle ratio but it was probably more suited for the hilly terrain around Pittsburgh where I live. That said, that ’91’s 305 could run circles around the original 307 in my old ’89.
I thought about restoring it – the wife absolutely LOVED the car – but having the ’57 in my garage and only so much $$$, I ended up selling the ’91. One of the factors in my decision was the ’91’s sloppy build quality, a definite slip from even two years before. I could sink 500 hours into bodywork and there’d still be the waviness in the panels, enough to make a nice paint job look bad on close examination. Or simply driving the car on any late afternoon when the reflections of the sun tell all. I wonder if maybe GM addressed it later in the model’s run as I recall seeing newer ones looking straighter.
Agree on power of the 307. I have a decent Pontiac 400 sitting on my shop floor that would be an easy swap for my Caprice. Gotta put it on the road first, though.
The oil filler in front, is easy way to tell if an Olds V8 motor. And no, there weren’t “small” and “big block” Olds’s.
It is pretty simple, I want, no, I need that.
Long ago, I bought an ’85 Volvo 245 Turbo from the author, or perhaps it was an ‘84.5. It was a fabulous car, even in the early aughts when I bought it. But would I want to use it as a DD today? No.
It was an ’85—but not the one I mentioned here.
I’d probably start with an engine swap for safety’s sake. I had a ’93 Fleetwood Brougham with a TBI 350 and that car couldn’t punch it’s way through a wet kleenex. I couldn’t imagine how leisurely a 305 car would be; picture if you will merging onto a busy highway with the a/c on and a semi baring down on you. It certainly doesn’t need to be a hot rod, but i’ve had so many vehicles with lo-perf V8s, and there’s really nothing fun about getting horrendous fuel economy while also having no power. Truly the worst of both worlds.
It does look to be in mighty fine shape though.
That’s the rear end, Al.
Oh, now. My ’91 had the TBI 350 and while the driveability was a little crude around the edges, it had a great deal of giddyup even with a pile of miles on it—once I figured out some previous-owner dillweed had severely retarded the ignition timing. Before I figured that out, it ran like its shoelaces were tied together.
As Daniel mentioned, timing was hugely important on these engines. When I was at the GM dealer, Chevy V8’s with TBI were our mainstay. I remember one 1995 Chevy 2500 coming in for complaint of lack of power. I drove it and it felt nearly as gutless as my 307 Olds wagon I had at the time. The timing was way retarded, fixed that, and refreshed the cap rotor and plugs and it felt like it had double the power.
These TBI engines may have been a bit antiquated and definitely not tuned for performance, but they were easy and cheap to fix, very simple and generally reliable. I also remember seeing way more extremely high mileage Chevy TBI V8’s than any other engine. Well, we know one made it 1 million miles:
Don’t let the lack of a gear reduction starter stand in your way. GM switched to gear reduction units on later small blocks so they are an easy swap. Of course since they use precision machined gears you won’t get that Mopar whine. However if you really want a noisy starter you can always disassemble it, roll the gears around in the dirt and gravel before putting it back together.
Eeyeah…that GM gear reduction starter. It sounds okeh on a V8, certainly better than Ford’s starter, but with fewer than 8 cylinders that GM starter screams of cheap trinketry. Besides, no. A Caprice like this is supposed to go “CHENN-CouldaShoulda(ka)VROOM!”, what’ll only happen with the direct-drive starter. Like this. These things matter to me more than they should.
“…’scuse me, a Caprice Classic *LS Brougham*”
I always thought it was odd that the trim level names on these stacked. Why not just Caprice Brougham for this model?
…because this
goes to elevenis a Caprice Classic LS Brougham.Makes sense to me, considering how over the years Impala debased the Bel-Air, then Caprice debased Impala, and then the Caprice name itself became debased by being decontented, and one had to add packages back in, and jump up to a higher trim level to get back to what Caprice once was.
Meanwhile: Civic. Corolla. Accord. Camry. Golf. Jetta. Forester. Outback. Maxima. Altima. Sentra. And otherwise like that.
Those cars have actually become bigger and fancier, not devolved.
I always assumed these high trim Caprices from the late 80’s was GM’s way of making up for dropping the B sedans from the other divisions. What seemed to be a good idea in the early-mid 80’s didn’t work out when gas prices didn’t explode and the sales of the traditional RWD BOF V8 sedans didn’t fall off a cliff like GM expected. So the response was this – a really nice Chevy to keep those people who had been buying the Olds and Buick versions from jumping over to the Panther platform.
It was mostly a way of extracting more money from buyers who’d already decided on a Caprice.
I’ve got myself an ’83 Caprice that’s got a golden over darker brown. Super nice brown interior too. Putting that baby back into shape (little parts here and there) and after that paint job I’m probably $1500 in on the project (including car cost) and it runs like a beauty. I’d still pick it over buying an Accord any day. Classic>Modern Comfort in my opinion.
I’m owning 87 Caprice Brougham for perhaps good 10 years. Originally it was my daily driver first few years and later on become weekend car. Few weeks ago I made a round trip 700 miles in one day into Germany to pick up used Honda Odyssey for my brother in law.
I’m used to travel a lot all over the Europe in modern vehicles so was a bit worried about feeling my back from soft sofa the Caprice have. But I came back fresh relaxed all ok. Last year I switched to 3.08 rear gear ratio from 2.56 and that made the car much more enjoyeble to drive. This update I would recommend to anyone with 80s car and its standard slow gear ratios. Plus a better free flowing exhaust, I have one designed for 94 police 5.7 b-body car, it was direct fit.
One more picture from behind the wheel, it was nice autumn weather.
Those are great pics, Lukas. I don’t imagine there are too many Caprices in Czechia! 🙂
No photo of the front?? Concealing damage or a reworked or swapped grille? How they gonna sell a car without seeing the frontage.
Good Evening to whom this may concern I am interested in the box Chevy I am just trying to see what is the price