Was there ever a sadder Buick than the one that rode on the flaccid GM10 platform? Everything GM offered on that platform oozed low expectations. The problem wasn’t that GM downsized and made front drive several formerly proud nameplates. The problem was that this, apparently, was the best GM could do.
These cars all became cheap wheels within five years of rolling off the assembly line. Buy here, pay here.
And then there’s crap like this padded cloth roof panel. I am guessing that some dealer had this done to ordinary Regals to luxe them up a little. Gotta appeal to the traditional geriatric Buick buyer. Those still existed by the score in 1991, but there aren’t enough of them left today for Buick to turn enough of a profit. So Buick has retrenched, and now tries to appeal to someone more my age (I’m pushing 50). It’s working, at least on me; the current Regal’s taut style appeals to me as it evokes a 3-series BMW.
This Regal – well, the nicest thing I can say about it is that it survived somehow.
Hey Sweet, someone who is like a mini-Paul when it comes to GM cars.
These weren’t bad cars guys. Not sure where the hate is coming from.
“rolling torture chambers”
“unreliable”
“no air bag compared to the competition”
“no leg room for drivers”
“badly designed IP”
“bad seat comfort”
“1990-1994 models must be avoided”
“recalled for bad seatbelts”
“recalled for defective transmissions”
“a car designed for rental fleets”
“completely unremarkable”
“a GM failure”
– and this comes from auto reviews during the 1990s when the car was still being built!
It was a rental car fleet queen. I drove quite a few for many years. All of them were awful. The first generation had the stupidest instrument panel designs. I used to request anything, over these cars when I traveled daily. The smallest subcompact cars were more comfortable than these. Truly terrible cars!
Have any sources for these quotes?
I can point to quite a few reviews that contradict everything you just posted.
Maybe because it pales by comparison with the long-lived A bodies…
Exactly. The A body eventually earned the respect of many (including me) by its built-in durability and sheer competence over the long haul. If the right A body came across my path, I would consider it. Not this.
I wouldn’t knock a W-body Regal from this era (at least before the generic interior redesign of 1995), but only as long as it had the 3800. As the Gran Sport, it makes for a decent handling and cheap-to-own car.
So did these, true that the 2.8 and coupe only designs were a stumble at the start, but GM got 26 years and counting out of the W’s, or are all of the multiple generations of W body cars that are still on the road and or still in production, nee Impala Classic, somehow wrong?
Did this regal have the B-pillar door handle a la Beretta? I know that those handles were impractical in snow country, but they looked great- the handleless door look, like the General Lee. Oddly, every driver of a W always has a lighted cigarette while driving, often sans shirt for the men.
Carmine, I agree these cars have some bizarre immortality thing, maintenance just doesn’t happen to them. Yet they’re so many still running, if not that well
I’m starting a collection of photos: ” The Cars of South Florida,” emphasizing dealer fake convertible tops, JC Whitney jobs, and over pimped imports, like Lexus LS’s made to look like Equus’s.
Yes they did have the same type of handles as the Beretta and like the Beretta the handles were impractical anywhere it rained and it got below 32F
when i had my Beretta I used to keep several extra handles in a box in the trunk as spares. I have to say replacing these handles were the easiest handles I ever replaced.
Handles that aren’t hard to replace, imagine that. I had to replace the door handle on my Lincoln Mark VIII and that was a major PITA. Took a couple of hours, not counting that I had to paint the darn thing (pearl white tricoat, time consuming in itself).
The GM10 program was a disaster, one of GM’s worst ever, even if the cars were eventually built for a long time. From my Lumina CC:
GM’s W-Body started out as the GM10, which got off to miserable start with the 1988 Buick Regal, Olds Cutlass Supreme and Pontiac Grand Prix coupes. The whole GM10 program was quite likely the single biggest boondoggle of the Roger Smith era; their development cost a mind-boggling $7 billion ($13 billion adjusted), and the goal was to build these cars in seven plants at 250,000 units per year per plant; in other words, a 21% share of the total US market. What were they smoking? Soon enough, GM would be fighting for a 21% market share for the whole company, never mind mid-sized cars.
The enormous sunk costs and subsequent pathetic sales meant that GM was losing some $2000 per car on these at the time the Lumina made its belated appearance for 1990. The old saw that GM lost money on its small cars because it had to build them to meet CAFE targets isn’t nearly encompassing enough. When asked by Fortune why GM10 was such a catastrophe, Smith replied, “I don’t know. It’s a mysterious thing.”(wikipedia)
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1991-chevrolet-lumina-euro-gms-deadly-sin-18-wheres-the-light/
What we were talking about was the overall longevity and durability of the platform, in spite of it having a difficult start, GM did make do with the GM-10/W and really turned it into something, even the last generation Impalas are solid, if bland, cars.
This is another case of GM’s cars looking very bad in comparison to the competition.
Imagine – you shop around for a intermediate size car that seats five. You can choose an Accord, a Camry, a Taurus or a Dynasty. Except for the Dynasty, all these cars were new and even the Dynasty although a weird old square box, was still as modern as the others. The General had no room for mistakes if it was to survive in those shark filled waters.
The Dynasty survived due to fleet sales and to old people. It appealed to a select cult. It was cheap. I drove enough of them to know that they weren’t bad cars at all.
The Camry, Accord and Taurus were stars. They sucked all the oxygen right out of the mid-sized market. There was no room for a GM car in this market. The old GM front drive mid-size cars were obsolete and has-beens by 1988, let alone 1990. GM had to do something.
It wasted $7,000,000,000. It put out cars that didn’t have the instant comfort of the Camry, Accord or Taurus. GM put goofy cheap interiors in these cars. They cheapened how these cars felt on the road. They put into them the worse silly dashboards found in that class. No front seat leg room! Uncomfortable seats! Where did GM spend that money? Where did all that money go? It sure didn’t end up in the vehicles!
It was pathetic. Consequently in such a hot market – these GM cars looked even worse. They couldn’t have competed with the old Fifth Avenue, or the old LTD II, or the old Camry – let alone the new versions.
Ford did a refresh on the Taurus right after 1991 and kept right on selling these cars as fast as they could make them. So instead of catching up with the market, GM failed with a car too crappy to sell.
These were bad cars!
Hey Vanilla dude
in 1991 Taurus sales were 333000
Lumina sales (only one of the GM-10 cars) was 324000
Camry was 262000
Accord was 399000
So you may have not liked them, but they sold and were pretty popular. So is really fair to say they were “bad cars”? Hardly.
We should not forget that GM had a HUGE built-in buyer base in 1991 that would never consider anything else. Much as Toyota has today. It should come as no surprise that Chevy sold a lot of Luminas in 1991 – Chevy had been selling lots of everything they built for years and years with a dealer network second to none. But out of your top four models, Chevy came in third in sales. And how many were to fleets? I would wager that the 91 Taurus sold more retail and at higher prices than the Lumina (but Ford would later become the fleet king as the Taurus aged).
As I see it, these GM-10 cars sold fine to GM lifers, but failed to catch on with new customers (whether newcomers to the segment, or those willing to consider competitive products). GM didn’t shed massive amounts of market share all at once, but one buyer at a time with vehicles that couldn’t make a compelling case for themselves (or that repelled one GM owner at a time with bad quality). You can do that for awhile (and GM could afford to do it longer than anyone else could have) but not forever. My extended family was FULL of GM buyers in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s (bought almost nothing else) and not ONE of them bought one of these GM-10 cars. G bodies, Tempos, Taurii, Accords, Camrys, LeSabres, Panthers and so on were spread throughout, but none of these.
If you took away the Lumina minivan and fleet from that number I’m guessing the sales would be around 150k? Take away the coupe and it’s under 100k for the sedan? I have a rule about not commenting on cars I haven’t driven except for strategy and styling. But sales are fair game and those were pretty bad. After hearing how quickly the GM10s wore out from people who had them it’s hard to defend the cars. The Tauruses weren’t like that and, oddly, not the GM H-bodies.
GM should have rationalized the lineup in the late 80s. An N-body and Beretta? a W and small H? an E on top of that? Unfortunately that never happens before BK.
Like Old Pete said “I guess GM was locked into the mindset of continuing the old names model for model, even if (as you say) they were being squeezed from above and below.” Much wisdom here from the Aussie.
Another big problem besides the inability to deal with platform proliferation was that top management was unable to correctly judge the competitiveness of its cars. Unless I’m missing something there were no car guys in the ranks with any influence. Maybe they thought their processes were robust enough to make up for that?
Calibrick
That number only included 34K coupes (also part of the GM-10 Chassis, sorry the competitors didn’t have anything to offer). It did not include the APV which was not a GM-10 car.
I’m sure everyone has a story about every car ever made, and everyone has examples of what was junk for one person and good for someone else.
As for fleet numbers…you don’t think Taurus wasn’t a fleet queen at the time too?
She had her facelift around this time and was at most a fleet princess. There can only be one queen.
It has to be telling how few people I knew had a GM-10. We weren’t well off when I was growing up so it wasn’t like most of my friends were the BMW/Mercedes crowd, and it wasn’t the West Coast where Japanese brands were the overwhelming majority. But I can think of a grand total of three. That’s all. A very early (probably ’89) Lumina, a very late Regal GS (after most of the problems are sorted and with the 3800), and a Grand Prix (bought used). Even my high school parking lot, which you’d expect to contain quite a number of these cars in the late 90’s, didn’t feature any that I can remember other than that GP mentioned.
“…in spite of it having a difficult start, GM did make do with the GM-10/W and really turned it into something…”
If that doesn’t pin down GM’s problem all through the 1960’s to the 1990’s I don’t know what does: GM’s repeatedly expecting its full-price buyers to be beta testers. And that from one of our leading GM apologists at that.
In spite of the Prius making a rather lackluster start and being a money loser, Toyota has found the people that now actually want to buy one…
In spite of making a rocky start with the 318ti, BMW has now found a way to make the 228i desireable…
In spite of making a rather lackluster start with the Ford 500, Ford renamed it the Taurus and tweaked it to sell at more reasonable rates.
This is hardly a GM only problem
That’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.
The GM-10s were entering a key market segment for GM. The front-wheel-drive Cutlass Supreme, for example, was slated to replace the car that had been not only the best-selling Oldsmobile, but also the best-selling car in the entire country.
Their initial failure hurt GM seriously. The Toyota Prius and Ford Five Hundred weren’t core products for their respective manufacturer when they debuted. Toyota and Ford weren’t faced with the loss of a big chunk of their market share because the Prius or Five Hundred didn’t immediately catch on with customers.
Geeber, I appreciate your re-emphasis for your own state of mind. I understand what you said, and still very much disagree with you, and others also do.
The Five Hundred was supposed to replace the aging but still popular pather cars. It was so poorly received that we got to live with the very outdated panthers for longer.
Like I have already said, the example of the GM-10 is something that has happened in every company at one point or another.
Did the examples you cited bring Toyota, Ford or Honda to the brink of bankruptcy, or cost them a huge chunk of market share? I don’t believe so.
Ford has been on the brink of bk at other times in its past for similar reasons, as have Chrysler and I’m sure others.
It occurs to me that Ford’s parallel to the GM-10s might have been the 1972-79 Torino/Montego/LTDII/etc. It sold reasonably well, it got improvements as it aged (the 77-79 TBird was a much better car than the 72 Torino) but it was never a great car, certainly nowhere near as good as Ford should have done. I could argue that it was actually fairly appealing when new, as it outsold the Chevelle in 1972. However, after its first year, it never really tempted anyone other than fleet managers and Ford homers. No satisfied GM customer ever had good reason to look at one. It had its good points and certainly could have been worse, but it was a big failure for Ford over the long term and was part of the company’s decline through the 1970s.
Ford wasn’t at the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s because the Five Hundred failed to connect with customers (and note that, in the end, Ford made lemonade out of lemons by basing a revised Explorer on that platform). It was far more complicated than that.
The entire saga of the GM-10s was extensively covered in the business press at that time. Their initial failure was a big story. Again, it’s not as though Paul and Jim Grey are putting a unique spin on the GM-10 saga.
GM was on the verge of bankruptcy in the early 1990s, which resulted in the boardroom coup that ousted Robert Stempel and led the company to seriously consider shuttering Oldsmobile. The failure of these cars to gain traction in the market played a large part in GM reaching that crisis point.
I understand that people like these cars. I liked the Cutlass Supreme – even the four-door sedan.
But GM badly bungled their launch (the decision to go with the coupe version first was a huge mistake – the market was already turning to four-door sedans). Their launch was also delayed, which made them look old hat next to the first-generation Taurus and Sable. Their interiors felt flimsy and cheap (I know, as I car pooled with a lady who owned a brand-new 1990 Cutlass Supreme sedan). The continuation of the old, front-wheel-drive A-bodies left customers confused, particularly at Oldsmobile, where there were two cars in roughly the same segment using the “Cutlass” name.
No matter how you slice it, these cars were a huge failure for GM.
Anyone who has some time ought to read the memo that Elmer Johnson wrote to the GM board around 1988 shortly before he quit. It is widely available online. Pretty much every issue identified by John DeLorean in his 1970s book had continued to fester and had gotten worse by the late 80s. It is a long read, but well worth it, from the perspective of someone who saw problems in the organization and was trying to get people to see and address them. The GM-10 program came out of that environment, that was becoming more and more incapable of competing in the real world.
Geeber
What do you you mean that the Five Hundred wasn’t a big part of Ford’s portfolio?
I know my examples may not have resonated with you, but they are pretty valid. They were quick examples off the top of my head that represents the problems all companies face.
Would the less than great reception the redesigned Civic recently got count? Toyota’s first Tundras? The whole Scion division? The most recent Jetta redesign?
Ford wasn’t depending on the Five Hundred to make up the bulk of its passenger car sales – that job was going to fall to the upcoming Fusion (which was the real replacement for the old Taurus). The first Fusion DID succeed, and helped Ford reestablish itself in the family sedan segment.
The family sedan segment was a very large and important part of GM’s bread-and-butter in the 1980s. At that time, GM was not as dependent on trucks and SUVs as it is today.
The Prius example is not applicable. With the Prius, Toyota was not only introducing new drivetrain technology, but also an entirely new market niche. Toyota realized that it might have to absorb some losses as people got used to the idea of a hybrid car. GM certainly wasn’t expecting to lose money on the GM-10s.
The family sedan segment was hardly a new one in the late 1980s. Both Ford and Honda had been selling family-size, front-wheel-drive family sedans quite successfully before the arrival of the GM-10s.
Scion? GM’s experience with Saturn is more comparable. At any rate, Toyota isn’t going to live or die by the failure or success of Scion – thank goodness.
The 2012 Civic? Honda moved fast to address the failings, making major upgrades during the 2013 model year to the sedan, and the following model year to the coupe. GM didn’t move nearly that fast to address the problems with the GM-10 cars.
I remember the anticipation surrounding the debut of these cars. I was certainly looking forward to the new Cutlass Supreme, and I thought that the coupe was very handsome.
They were a major story, given the huge success of the rear-wheel-drive A- and G-bodies. Their bungled launch and quality problems seriously hurt GM. This saga was covered extensively in the business press at the time. Paul isn’t making up this stuff just to give red meat to the anti-GM crowd.
These cars essentially cost GM the leadership in the family sedan segment that it had held since World War II, and actually solidified in the late 1970s with the downsized full-size and intermediate cars. Their failure was a major reason that GM was on the ropes by the early 1990s (people today forget that GM was allegedly a “fax away” from declaring bankruptcy at one point in 1992-93).
With these cars, GM went from a segment leader to an also-ran. So, yes, they were a catastrophic failure.
These cars have never appealed to me for one, single moment of their lives. It was not appealing to me as a new car, it was not appealing to me as a workaday middle aged car, and it does not appeal to me as either a reliable beater or as a clean old ride. Not that it has to, of course, but there are mighty few cars that fall into this category.
I don’t think anyone here will be surprised by your feelings.
At the same time, I could see myself in an A body Century, or in a fwd LeSabre or Park Avenue. A co-worker bought a nice low mile 95 Park Avenue sedan. She let me drive it, and I could be very happy with one of those (even happier if it were supercharged). GM was capable of building some good cars that appealed to people. This was not one.
What exactly was wrong with these? You could get the same LeSabre/Park Ave engine/trans combo. They rode nice or handled good depending on suspension options. They were quiet and got good mpg. So other than your dislike of the style?
Good (and fair) question. Maybe the style was most of it. It seemed to me that these never knew what they were trying to be. Sporty? Luxurious? Basic transportation? It seemed to me like they tried to be all of the above, and didn’t really succeed at any of those roles. Having lived through the extended hype of these as they were being developed, they were a big disappointment compared to the earlier Taurus and the later Intrepid, which were both game changers in their own way. Those are both examples of cars that appealed to me when new, not so much as they aged.
And if you are going to get a 3.8/4 speed auto, why not get it in the bigger car that will ride better and was more within GM’s home field advantage. Few were so successful over the long haul at the big sedan as GM.
The problem was that they were crudely assembled and wallowy next to the Japanese competition. A bunch of state of the art technology wrapped in marshmallow-y, showy execution.
Perry,
Unlike the Japanese at this time, you had the option of an upgraded “sport” or “touring” suspension on these. That small amount of money changed these cars from wallow to top of the class for ride/handling compromise.
Yeah, but Gran Touring was more “Granny Touring.” Nothing like a Taurus SHO, let alone a Maxima. So even though I like the GM10, I can’t defend it there. Fitting your car with a gigantic front anti-roll bar might suppress roll in slow driving, but you plow right off the road upon encountering anything demanding.
Perry have you driven one of these with the optional suspension?
I have, on an autocross course. A 94 Regal GS, a Turbo Grand Prix, a 92 Maxima SE, a 94 SHO, a 91 Spirit R/T
The GM’s where better than the SHO for ride and balance. The Maxima was just way too soft all the way around, and the Spirit had a habit of just rolling over onto its bump stops and going around corners like that.
These cars were good in the suspension department. Unless you’ve driven one you really have no idea.
Very fair response.
My only reply would be that in this segment (mid size) every participant had the same sort of identity crisis during this time period. Without the aftermarket roof (the real sore thumb here) this wouldn’t be much different than any other mid size offering at the time, with the exception being that most didn’t offer a midsize coupe by the time this car was produced.
I agree completely, very few cars have I felt so little love for. This was the era of exceptional junk all across the board for GM.
I wish, oh how I wish, people would stop bashing these cars. It’s not like the A/G RWD coupes and sedans were all that relevant by 1988, and at least each of the GM-10’s had somewhat less cookie cutter looks than everything else in the GM line-up. I’m pretty sure a 2.8L/4speed auto (or one of the later combinations) outpace that wheezy 3.8L 2bbl V6, and more than likely the lo-po Olds 307 V8 as well, all while turning in better mileage.
They weren’t perfect at all, but judging by how woefully out of touch their 1970’s era design predecessors were, it’s kind of a tired schtick.
I agree fully. And the variants with the 3.8 weren’t exactly dull. Overwrought and gimmicky, sure, but not bad cars. No, they weren’t Maximas or Camry V6s, but would a Vulcan Taurus be any better? I don’t think so. It’s not that the A-bodies were so good which doomed these cars, it’s the the H and C bodies weren’t too much more expensive.
But think about the late, base-level variants of these cars. Say, a ’95 Grand Prix or Cutlass Supreme. Would you rather go out on the town with family and friends with the A/C on in an Accord or the GM10? I’m as big a Honda fan as anyone, but I understand value and capacity when I see it.
I get why people aren’t thrilled with what the GM10 represented within the company’s history, but they were an honest effort in the beginning of course. The much bigger problem was all those stupid brands competing with one another, and an inability to properly pool international engineering know-how (something better represented by the jamboree of cheap captive imports).
I will emphatically agree that Opel should’ve been given more money to function as a center of expertise, giving them the ability to increase quality and adaptability to US market needs, and that the new Regal is a great example of how well this could work. But going back to the mid ’80s and looking at what most mass market VWs and Opels looked like, Americans wanted something a bit more gimmicky.
The problem was that, while the looks weren’t cookie cutter, they weren’t appealing either. I actually liked the GM10 Grand Prix, personally. The Cutlass Supreme looked okay in coupe form by the end of the run, though the 4-door never wore the style particularlly well. The Lumina was so vanilla it’s hard to speak badly or well of it. But these Regals in particular just never worked for me, and very particularly not as a coupe.
They finally got a good engine in GS format, and I remember the interiors as being fairly comfortable (though I’ve no idea how well they held up, last ride I had in one of these was probably 1996 or ’97). But the styling was a swing and a miss. And, based on the rate at which they disappeared from the roads, longevity wasn’t their strong point either. There are probably more G-bodies left than GM10s.
Not GM bashing, but that’s just the way I see it. About the only GM10 I’d actually want to own would be one of the late Grand Prix GTP coupes. A little tacky with the cladding, but has enough merit otherwise. But that’s really it.
These things are still everywhere around here. I would guess at least on par with the A-bodys, and I can’t remember the last time I saw a G-body on the road that wasn’t a Grand National or Monte Carlo SS.
Yeah, come to Oakland, there’s decidedly more GM-10s here on the road than G bodies, which are 30 year old cars (+/-) that people are starting to collect or garage. The bulk GM-10s had the same mechanical bits as the A or C/H bodies in terms of drivetrains (the outliers being the Twin Dual Cam 3.4, The Quad 4, the Grand Prix’s Turbo 3.1) in the terms of the first generation of them.
I’d even go out on a limb and say the 2007/08 refresh of them were actually better cars than the Ovoid Taurus was, even if the real plastic-y quality of the interiors took off at that point, which, in all fairness and reference, a lot of American cars had really cheap plastic-y decontented interiors at that time. It was more the style, aped from the logical Toyota/Honda model of interior design, done on the cheap.
But… Again, I logically get how they were not a good idea; as Perry says, there was really no room in the market for them when you had the A body that provided enough interior room below them for cheaper, and the basic H body sedans were just above them. That was another in a long line of boneheaded decisions made by General Motors. But in some ways they were better than the A-Bodies (by 1990 that chassis was woefully out of date, and didn’t get as much of an update as the K-chassis did over at Chrysler). General Motors does this quite often; Offering something completely new, if half baked and keeping a tired old platform on sale with little to no updates because it’s a cash cow. To me it’s more reflective of false confidence that GM could sell anything in bulk instead of making quality, innovative products that were the signature of their heyday that was 30 years previous.
What it leaves us with is a fleet of 20-25 year old beaters of all stripes and models, from sedans, to coupes, convertibles and wagons (including the A bodies) that have an insane amount of parts interchangeability.
But dear me, let’s let go of the G-body myth that those were some kind of holy grail; General Motors suffered more by not having the confidence to pull the plug on those cars in 1985 when they should have all left.
Laurence, are you sure you aren’t comparing the fuel injected 3800 to the 2 bbl 3.8? The 2.8 in one of these would be about on par with that old 3.8 in a G body. And I could be wrong, but I think the 2.8 and even the 3.1 variant were all working thru the old 3 speed auto. The 2.8 and 3.1 were just ‘ok’ in the Beretta (slightly lighter than this) and pretty zippy in the J-cars. But in the bigger coupes like these, it was overtaxed.
I’ve seen an old Popular Mechanics test where the 3 coupes where compared to a Turbo LeBaron and a Thunderbird Turbo coupe on introduction in 1988. All 3 (The Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme and Regal) cleared the 0-60 run in about 10.5 seconds. If I remember correctly, most of the W-Bodies used 4T40s, until the 4 cylinder variants came along and used the 3 Speed, which did get attached to some of the V6 offerings, but if I remember correctly, only with the Lumina and Grand Prix.
Fat chance the 110 hp 3.8 2bbl came anywhere close to that, and if I’m remembering correctly, only the High-Power 307 in the 4-4-2 was capable of getting to 60 somewhere in an upper 8 to 9 second range. The old Carb 3.8 produced torque really down low, but was pretty breathless above 40 mph; I can remember those being handily dusted by later 2.5 equipped K-Cars…
The Chevy 2.8 at least had the ability to rev, and had a semi-cooperative transmission behind it, that they really didn’t run out of breath until interstate speeds in my experience.
My main experiences with that 60 degree V6 was my sis’ ’94 Grand Prix (scroll down for the details) and I once test drove a ’86 shortbed/reg cab S-10 4×4 5spd. Granted, that was a truck version of the 2.8 but what a total dog. No power anywhere, but at least the torque curve was flat. A H.S. acquaintance had a 2wd ex-cab S-10, 2.8 and slushbox. He said the same thing: no power, lousy mpgs. In a fwd car, Id definitely expect better.
Comparing the carbed 2.8 to the carbed 3.8 and the 3.8 is a vastly superior engine, ditto for the FI to FI versions.
So The Carb’d 2.8 was never available in the G body cars, so, your point? Also an FI version of either the 3.8 or 5.0 Rocket didn’t exist in anything except the GN/GNX, which was a specialty performance vehicle that wasn’t the bulk of G body sales.
If you’re doing a direct comparison of what cars the actual GM-10/W bodies replaced and how they were equipped, sorry to say but the 2.8/3.1L V6 cars equaled their V8 forbearers except for the SS/4-4-2/GN/GNX versions, and handily dusted the malaise era V6 versions.
That’s one of my main grievances with the way this article is pitched: How grand could the G-bodies they replaced “be” when the majority of them couldn’t get out of their own way?
The 60 degree V6 was gruff, much less reliable and durable than the 90 degree V6. Sure things progressed over time, but comparing engine to engine from similar eras and the 3.8 is vastly superior, which was my point.
The GN/GNX was the supercharged 3.8 only, not the 5.0. Perhaps the 2.8/3.1 GM10s were the equal in acceleration to a 307 G-body, but the Monte Carlo had the 305 (a better engine than the 307 at least) as its 5.0 option. At some point in the MC’s lifespan it also got the 4.3 V6 instead of the 3.8, again a much better motor.
The thing about the G-bodies is that they were tough, well-engineered cars. Perhaps not well built (this is 80’s GM) but they were well designed. Subjectively I think a lot of folks like the styling better as well, broughaminess or not, and they’re a great platform for upgrades, which appeals to some. Maybe I was exaggerating a little bit when I say I still see more than I see GM10s (though not by much, most of the 10s are long gone around here) but wait until the newest GM10 cars are 26 years old and I think the number still on the streets will be pretty miniscule.
Double standard much here. There can be no negative Prius talk, but bring on the GM bashing.
No double standard at all. You’re perfectly free to say whatever you want about the Prius. But ugly, sweeping statements about Prius drivers are not welcome. Damn the car, but not its owner. Get the difference?
It’s pretty much the same about commenting in general here: feel free to express your opinions, and even get into debates with other commentators, but when that devolves into attacking the other commentator, the red line has been crossed. Strong opinions and comments about cars are ok, if done without belittling or demeaning other persons.
Ok, very enough. I apologize for my accusation of the double standard.
Give me a break, passive aggressive generalizations are as as bad as a blatant ones. I’ve lost count of the number of times where I’ve heard how ahead of the curve west coasters were for embracing imports before the rest of dumb(implied) flyover country was here. That’s not even to mention the sweeping hateful statements that crop up undeterred when SUVs or big trucks are featured or simply brought up.
People bought a whole bunch of the shat on cars featured here, there’s something to be implied behind their reasoning for buying them and it probably isn’t that they’re brilliant, and considering I often agree and enjoy DS type features(I wouldn’t come here if I didn’t) I’d be the first to form a idea in my head of what the type of buyer for them was probably like. That whole ill fated topic asking about what car a friend would buy that we’d be disappointed by didn’t have half the negative comments compared to the very often occurring GM bash fest. I was shocked and to see that one completely disappear the next day, considering it seemed to disappear primarily because the answers weren’t what were desired(I suspect it would still be up if Tahoe were substituted for Prius).
You obviously didn’t see the Prius owner comments that I deleted that day, withing minutes of them being posted. They were grossly beyond anything I’ve ever seen, real or implied, about any other car owners here. They were blatant, and in very poor taste.
It’s all a matter of degrees. And these were red hot.
Your analogy about Midwest buyers is off base. It’s one thing to factually point out that tastes were (and always are) changing, and there are regional aspect to that. But that does not imply anyone was “dumb” for that. If you chose to read a value judgement into statements of fact like that, it doesn’t mean they were intended as such.
There are references to ‘geriatric’ Buick owners in this very thread. Ive seen the “BMW drivers are all a bunch of dicks” generalization as well in other threads…Im not seeing the same ‘sacred cow’ effect there. If fans of those 2 wanted to have a reason to be all butthurt and offended, they can find it. The difference is the Buick guy can always bring up the GNX if he wants to shut up any haters, the BMW guy has the M3. The P crowd…..umm……yeah.
The whole thing brings me right back to grade school: I tended to ‘play rough’ then as now. Some play rough right back and it balances out, but then there are the wimpy types who go crying to the teacher. I get it, that’s your job here.
At the end of the day, you know the difference between words vs sticks and stones, right?
GM assumed, “We got new style coupes, all the RWD G body owners will come soon” No dice.
Dealers said, “We got to put landau roofs on these cars to sell to old timers”.
Meanwhile the huge Boomer generation moved on.
The only thing that saved GM was full sized trucks.
I have to say that every GM vehicle of that era impressed me with a smooth engine and smooth ride. I once even tried out a Buick Century.
I have to say that every GM vehicle of that era made me gag over the horribly cheap interiors, failed window regulators and plastic body kits, in particular when the cars reached about 100K.
I really liked virtually every Buick in the 80s. Until I got inside one.
IMO they had fairly well-executed simple design elements, in a domestic market that was otherwise tripping to outdo itself with gaudy overstyling. Look at the nose of the subject car: except for the weird (afterthought?) rectangular fog light bumper molding, it’s a nice, clean, uncluttered look.
The only real problem with the landau roof on this car is that its on a Regal. If you want to Broughamify a car, you gotta go big or go home. On a Park Avenue or LeSabre? Sure. On a Regal or a Century? Nope.
Its like the Hyundai Sonata (circa 2004 or so) I saw the other day was a perfect example of the kind of car you shouldn’t waste the money on doing this to.
Buick should always just be Buick, like they were with the generation of Regal before this one and the LeSabre line in ’92. GM made the priority for the GM10s the coupe for Oldsmobile, which left the Regal with that pinched little face. The Park Avenue look was pay dirt for Buick which they didn’t know when they did this nothing Regal.
You see H-body LeSabres all over the place still, they were terrific cars and had the right style door handles. Such a tiny but important thing. These cars were why Buick survived and Olds went under.
I won’t argue that Buick didn’t find its niche with the LeSabre H body. But, the Olds 88 version was actually a decent seller and was Oldsmobile’s most popular car when they killed it.
Brand management like that was what killed Oldsmobile.
I doubt Buick would be alive if it wasn’t for the Chinese and their fond memories of the brand, which translated into major sales potential for GM. After Olds and Pontiac bit the dust, it seemed as though GM was aiming to downsize itself into three brands: Chevy, GMC and Cadillac.
The basic car and the luxury car division make sense. This would leave Buick out of the picture. Ford did drop Mercury. Chrysler is also two basic car divisions, although where Fiat plans to go is not clear. Toyota is two divisions, as is Honda and Nissan.
If Fiat sells cars in their own name, they’d have to slot in below Dodge, surely. On the other hand, judging by some of what I read here, using the name at all might be a huge liability.
How’s the 500 doing?
Toyota is 3 brands in the US though it is easy to forget the dead brand walking that is Scion.
Scion was never a full division with its’ own dealer channel, though. (Thank god…)
Toyota seems to have learned their lesson, with Prius now a de facto sub-brand they still put the Toyota name on them and haven’t done anything like the gimmicky Scion showroom-within-a-showroom.
Fiat/Chrysler plans to make the Dodge brand performance cars only (maybe trucks too, since everyone outside the company still calls Ram trucks Dodges), and Chrysler a mass-market brand which would make Buick and Acura the last “mid-price” brands left standing.
Calibrick, you mention “The right style door handles”? To my Australian eyes, they date the car horribly, and look like a throwback to the sixties. Could you please explain their appeal in an American context. I’m trying to understand, but…..
Take a close look at the LeSabre I posted above. Now take a look at the Oldsmobile version below, called the 88. Compared to the LeSabre there are many design mistakes, I know, but try to focus on the door handles.
They are flat, plastic and hard to use. They gave the impression of having come from a car one or two classes below. The GM10 family shared design language with the smaller Corisca/Beretta range which didn’t help cars like the Regal. Things were really bad at Olds where even the full-sized 98 looked just like their N-body Achieva.
The LeSabre looked like the full-sized Park Avenue which looked like nothing else in the GM lineup. The car had neoclassical lines and the large, metal chrome door handles went perfectly with that. The black button added a touch of modernity. You can tell what the Buick wanted to be and there was a cohesiveness to the design.
The basic shape of that handle was a GM mainstay from their glory years, the Bill Mitchell door handle if you will. Cadillac used them until 1992 on the full-sized box Brougham. In ’93 a whale bodystyle with flat door handles replaced the classic Brougham and lost a lot of fans. When you ask them why things like the door handles always come up.
What to you may look old fashioned to me looks timeless, and from a class above. The more modern flat handle doesn’t look newer it just looks cheap and generic. You can imagine how much I hate the GM10 coupes with their gimmicky hidden door handles in the B-pillar.
The Cadillac handle in use through the 80s was Cadillac-only and dated to 1963. The Buick handle was on almost everything else GM made in the 60s and until revived for these Buicks, had last seen use on the Nova and its clones in the 70s. These had a very nice “quality” feel to them.
Those door handles were thin chrome over plastic with plastic buttons, they lack the feel of the old metal door handles.
I got to compare the ones on mom’s 92 LeSabre with a friends 71 Chevelle. The action on the Buick was smoother than the vintage car but felt decidedly cheaper.
Did not know that. I had firsthand experience with the Cad handles (both early and late) but not with the Buicks. I had assumed from looking at them that they were the old diecast part dusted off and re-used, only with a plastic button. Too bad, those old metal handles were simply luxurious.
Thanks. I’m closer to understanding, now.
Wow, for such dull, flaccid cars, the early GM-10 quartet always garners a whole litany of responses. Some of the criticism is perfectly valid, the cars were inconsistent ranging from downright mediocrity such as Lumina, though the higher priced variants offered by other divisions were better efforts. Some of the cars had some nifty features for the time, though again much of the aura originated from a soon outdated 80’s vision of technological prowess (e.g. digital dashes, the buttons on the steering wheel of the Grand Prix, the list goes on), that dated the early variants of these cars prematurely.
Ironically of the four, I think the Regal was the pick of the litter. The quality of its interior materials were head and shoulders above the Olds and Pontiac, at least until the 1995 refresh, and when equipped with the 3800, Regals were smooth and quick runners.
By now history has spoken, and I think it’s fair to say that the GM-10 failed to meet expectations, and damaged GM’s presence in the pivotal mid-size segment for almost an entire generation. Perversely, though poorly received when new, it appears that they found their niche in the second hand market as good solid set of cheap wheels. So there you have it, the GM-10’s are better at being beaters than they ever were new. Every car has its purpose.
Can’t say I agree with the difference in the quality of materials being better in the the Buick in anything other than the Lumina.
Slightly ironic to make fun of the “80’s tech” when things like steering wheel buttons, HUD, and digital instruments are now available on most cars, or only part of high end packages on more expensive cars these days.
They may not have been received with open arms when new, but they weren’t bad sellers, won some awards, got pretty decent reviews, and are still being made in one instance. People seem to be rewriting history a little on these.
“Failed to meet expectations” is a broad term, the W-body was 3rd best selling vehicle platform in the US through at least 1996, after the C/K GM trucks and the F-series.
And I will point out how are features on these cars “dated” when they have practically become commonplace on every car sold today. So is the current Honda Civic, or Prius, or any other car that still had digital gauges TODAY dated?
The failed launch of the GM10 program was a disaster for GM financially, one of its worst in a decade (80s) that was full of them for GM. Development costs were grossly out of line, and GM insanely expected to be selling 1.75 million per year and spent money on plants accordingly. That sales projection was perhaps the most-off base projection in modern history for a massive new car program.
From my Lumina CC: The enormous sunk costs and subsequent pathetic sales meant that GM was losing some $2000 per car on these at the time the Lumina made its belated appearance for 1990. The old saw that GM lost money on its small cars because it had to build them to meet CAFE targets isn’t nearly encompassing enough. When asked by Fortune why GM10 was such a catastrophe, Smith replied, “I don’t know. It’s a mysterious thing.”(wikipedia)
A mysterious thing indeed. And another mysterious milestone in the disastrous decade of the 80s for GM. (note: I’m not expressing opinion about the actual car; just the facts about the GM10 program).
Not as off base as you would imagine, if these would have replaced the A-body entirely, as was probably intended, I could see them getting close to those numbers, they made close to a million W-body cars per year in the 90’s
The W-bodies own worst enemy was within GM, the A-body, it was crazy that GM even still offered an A-body coupe for a few years after the W-coupes came out in 1988, Buick still offered a Century coupe until 1993.
I can understand the apprehension, after stepping all over their Johnson in the early 80’s. GM finally got the A-bodies right and they were selling, so now what?
I’m not making excuses, but I can sort of understand the process that was going on at the time.
Carmine,
I would take an old- school electro fluorescent digital clock in my car any day, before those el- cheapo analogue clocks, without second hands, that proliferate luxury cars today. I’m looking at you, Infinity, Lexus, Chrysler, et al. What a silly gimmick, my 1982 Honda Accord had an analogue clock with a seconds hand, as did VW and Benz.
Toyota hung on to that same green cheap microwave oven digital clock for years, I swear they used the same one from 1985 until recently, even in a Lexus.
At the time that the W-body was the 3rd most produced platform in the US, GM was making close to 1 million W-bodies in the US, so yes, off from the estimated amount, but still an impressive number of cars, I imagine that they probably could have gotten closer to those estimated numbers if they wouldn’t have kept making the competing A-body Cutlass and Century, but GM was hesitant to drop those, since they were still popular with buyers.
I think we’ve seen that the GM10 platform was a major investment for GM, and not terribly successful considering the shear number of brands, models, body styles and unique sheet metal involved. To its credit, GM was trying to find a new design language, and avoid the out of control look alike car syndrome that it had been suffering, but I think many people found the resulting styling to be just a bit weird. I’ll give the 1st gen Lumina a pass – terrible name for a car, but the styling was inoffensive. The Cutlass Supreme in particular was something that people could not see replacing the long lived G special Cutlass Supreme.
I’ve actually softened a bit on just one of the early “weird” styled GM 10 cars, and it would be the Regal in coupe form. The aftermarket skullcap on the subject is absolutely awful, but without it, it manages to carry some Buick themes with the space age body. I still have little use for the sedan version.
These cars also suffered one of my pet peeves of the era – door mounted seat belts. I know that the stupidity of the Fed’s accepting an inferior seat belt design compared to body mounted belts as passive restraints was the root cause, but introducing new platforms with these when Chrysler was managing to get air bags in all of its K derivative cars was management to low expectations.
“Gotta appeal to the traditional geriatric Buick buyer. Those still existed by the score in 1991, but there aren’t enough of them left today for Buick to turn enough of a profit.” I think many of today’s “new” old people (early Boomers) shy away from Buicks because they don’t want to feel like they have became like the old people of their youth.
Had a Regal GS – maybe an ’89, can’t remember anymore. What I do remember is how much that car pissed me off, how many times I had to work on it, how many times it left my bride stranded because of its ongoing electrical issues, how much I HATED it’s rear disk brake setup. I get the damn thing running again, take it for a test drive before turning it back over to my bride….and the car would remind me of what I enjoyed about it.
I loved driving it. Had a excellent ride, decent handling for what it was, comfortable, one of the few digital clusters that I thought was done right. Pity is had the 3.1 and not the 3800 V6 in it but still felt plenty peppy
Then the electrical gremlins would come back and kill the engine computer again. My wife being an itinerant musician at the time needed more reliable transportation and I was getting tired of dragging the Regal home. I replaced it with a ’94 Bonneville SSE – and damn that was a nice car.
I did not think that the GM10 (or W Bodies) were that bad. My favorite of them was the Pontiac Grand Prix(especially the 91-96 coupes) from 1988-1993 there was a manual transmission available as an option. In fact I feel that Pontiac had the best looking lineup in 1993 of all GM divisions(but I may be biased as I am a big pontiac fan)
That said I do think the first Gen W Body did suffer from a bit of “why bother syndrome” in the Oldsmobile and Buick guises due to the fact that there really was no need for them. The Buick and Oldsmobile clientele that were on a budget, bought a Century or Cutlass Ciera which gave a nice roomy comfy steady ride and those with more money to spend bought a Lesabre, Park Ave, 88 or 98. There was also the Roadmaster sedan from 91-96 and a Riviera coupe for those that wanted a sporty looking coupe with grunt(hello supercharged 3800)
There was simply no need for the W Body in the Buick and Olds divisions as it ether competed with the A Body or the H/C body cars.
Now in the Pontiac and Chevy divisions, there was no cheaper car to steal sales from( a W Body Grand Prix and Lumina were loads better then a Grand Am or Corsica/Beretta) so offering a W body made a lot of sense.
I guess GM was locked into the mindset of continuing the old names model for model, even if (as you say) they were being squeezed from above and below. As their market share dipped (plummeted?), it’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to jettison anything that potentially might make money. Mustn’t kill that golden goose, even if you can’t see which one it is…
Stylistically I have to admit I don’t particularly mind the Regal coupe, or any of the early GM10 coupes for that matter. For the first time in a decade all four divisions shared a platform and didn’t look exactly alike, that alone is a win, the 3800 was another high point. What I don’t like is the platform. Every one of many many Ws I’ve experienced creaked, tweaked, twisted, groaned, flopped and fell apart. They’re also way too tight to do any work on, you often have to remove a dozen braces(which are there since the body structure is so weak) and they don’t even drive all that great. The MN12 is the comparable platform from Ford, and while from a company standpoint it was as bad of an investment as the GM10(probably much worse since it never expanded past personal luxury coupes) it’s lightyears ahead everywhere else, well except the 3.8 vs the 3800 I’ll grant you.
FWIW I’d still rather see Buick selling this than rebadged Opels.
“Every one of many many Ws I’ve experienced creaked, tweaked, twisted, groaned, flopped and fell apart. They’re also way too tight to do any work on, you often have to remove a dozen braces(which are there since the body structure is so weak) and they don’t even drive all that great.”
Mmmmmm I love reading stuff like this. Bullet proof credibility to go along with our fading opinions. FWIW I never see any 10s around town like I do the LeSabres and Gs.
These aren’t all THAT bad. There are some strong arguments both ways here. Im in the camp that the old G body was a far superior platform…but then, Im a fan of rwd and V8 power in my mid/full size 2 doors. A v6 fwd layout is plenty acceptable for a sedan (family car) but then, outside of moving when you turn the key….what else do you really expect? When you look at the Monte SS, GNX, the various 442, W-30 and Hurst/olds variants on the G body these are a huge downgrade.
The GM-10 Cutlass and GP ended up both looking pretty spiffy. The Regal is probably the least attractive variant outside of the first fwd monte carlos which are white bread bland in the looks dept. That sagging beltline just kills it for me. But hey, it IS a 2 door at least. The Gran Sport would probably make for a decent ride with the 3800. Does anyone know if the coupe ever get supercharged? The sedan did, later on as I remember but I never cared. I did drive a few Cutlass and Regal sedans while selling cars and my ex’s parents had a ’95 Bonnie. Mix-up of 3400 and 3800 V6 engines and while the sedans (to me) are butt ugly, they would also HAUL butt.
My baby sis had a ’94 Grand Prix widebody coupe. Looked like a GTP but rather than the 3400, it had the flaccid 3.1 V6. Looked great, handled great, nice comfy car with style and I didn’t mind driving it while selling it for her. But that 3.1 is an absolute turd in a midsize car. Im sure a J-car would scoot if so equipped.
Can’t say the 10’s were ever my favorite cars, but I always found them to be mechanically robust and easy to work on. Interiors were of sub-par quality, and the 3.8L versions did have good power. Knew some folks back in the day that had a ’89 or thereabouts Cutlass International Series Coupe. Car had a certain amount of driveability issues early on, but GM came out witha retrofit kit that eliminated the MAF and converted it to a speed-density system. After that was installed the car ran great for many years and racked up a lot of miles.
You guys are killing me. Back in 2000, I sold my `87 Cutlass Supreme Brougham four door, and, wanting to keep the campy tradition alive, I bought a `95 Cutlass Supreme SL four door in that teal color they offered; it looked pretty sharp with the 16 inch saw blade aluminum wheels. I liked it, at first, but it quickly turned into a relationship I regretted.
First, it was the seats that I found to be rather torturous. I vividly recall my first long road trip with it –Cleveland to Toronto– in which I found myself so uncomfortable that I had to pull over somewhere along the Q.E.W. to stretch. It didn’t work — the discomfort was quickly back — and I found myself driving the car with the seat in what was a surely ill-advised position. To wit: I may have started the whole “gangsta lean” position. After enduring some of the worst seats ever fitted to a car (the leather thrones in my aunt’s `97 LeSabre are a close second,) any love for the car quickly diminished.
My disdain quickly turned to the dash, which, at only five years old, was not aging well, even in the hands of someone with OCD. Buttons started to flake, lights began to burn out, knobs gave up their will to stay attached, and the cacophony of hard plastics tripping the light fantastic grew louder with each passing day. It truly was a miserable place to be, especially when the A/C went, but at least then I didn’t have to worry about it bogging the engine down, which was alarming in its lack of power.
Needless to say, I was happy when I finally replaced it, but looking back, I can’t help but feel that it wasn’t such a bad car. My poor soul is inexplicably being tortured by the scathing outtake these poor cars are getting today.
It certainly handled well enough, but could that just be my (then) lack of experience with regards to racing? And really, couldn’t we agree that the pre 94/95 face lift cars were better made? My mother’s `91 Lumina Eurosport was actually a really nice car, especially compared to my own W-body.
Perhaps then, it can just be said that I root for the underdog, regardless of how well-deserved the criticism leveled at its feet may be.
I would take a clean Regal GS coupe with 3800 power in a heartbeat. There was one here in Gallup, deep red, no funky top, and had a few cheesy flame stickers on it. Some a$$hole quickly drove it into the ground.
I genuinely like a lot of these GM-10 cars!
The Regal, before its horrible “refresh” that got rid of all the brightwork and the nicely styled interior and replaced it with wretched black plastic, was quite nicely styled and I thought the coupe in particular was a nice modern update of G-body styling themes and the GS was cool (my Curbside Classic on that one coming soon!). I also noted a lot of GM-10 Regal coupes in NYC, up there with Cutlass Cieras and 92-95 Tauruses in terms of ubiquity.
The Cutlass Supreme was initially a very good looking car, but the sedan was blah and the subsequent refresh uglied up the coupe (squinty headlights, cladding).
The Grand Prix was just cool, and far more desirable than the stodgy G-Body Grand Prix (lack of V8 and RWD be damned). Plus, there was the turbo coupe, and let’s not forget the STE 3.1 V6 turbo! I don’t think these suffered from Pontiac’s sometimes overwrought styling in this era, either, and the interior was refreshingly different.
Then there’s the Lumina. I’ll go on record as saying I think the interior is kinda cool, and the coupe was sharp although I see why people may have been slightly underwhelmed. Meanwhile, I reviled the cheap, plasticky, dour replacement Lumina.
These GM-10 cars deserve more respect than they get.
I agree that the sedans didn’t come out quite as slick as the coupes did, almost like the stylists didn’t want to design a sedan, but were forced to, I agree with the Grand Prix probably being the best looking of the trio, though to me, they all looked good.
I think the peak Grand Prix was the 1991-1993 GTP coupe versions, I had 2 of them, they were great looking cars.
This is a damn good looking car, I don’t care what anyone says, I had one just like this.
Carmine,
When those came out, I had a ’87 Integra. Those Grand Prix gave me a serious case of torque envy, and many views of their taillights. And yes, they were good looking to boot: classic Pontiac excitement. I quickly learned to never challenge one, they could even out corner my Integra. I could only pick on Fieros, automatic 318i’s and 528e’s, and slower auto zx’s.
Now one of my cars has 330 lbs. torque.
The Pontiac 2-door did look pretty good. That said I didn’t understand why they needed the GM10 platform. The ’92 Bonnneville looked terrific; it was as attractive as the LeSabre but completely different. The H-body Bonneville didn’t look any larger to me than the Grand Prix.
Pontiac should have had an H-body Bonnie and GP and then the N-body sized Grand Am below that, end of story.
Buick didn’t need the 10 Regal and H LeSabre but they could have used a much better Skylark.
The old W Impala was a joke, I still remember how those cheap those rear mufflers looked, hung on underneath like that.
GM didn’t need the Oldsmobile Division at all.
Two different platforms for the large cars and next ones down didn’t make sense after both went FWD.
Im right there with you! my sis’ ’94 was a bluish green with those same wheels but a dark silver at the center with the lip polished. Fantastic looking cars! But I think they should have been built on one of the RWD platforms. With a 350 and 5 spd, theyd have the ballz to back up the looks. The rwd platform with refinements for the coupes, and a better fwd platform for the sedans would have been the perfect 2-pronged approach.
In my opinion, this is typical of how sedans always look clunky compared to coupes though.
Ahh, looks just like my 90 Turbo Grand Prix (except the updated headlights of course) I miss that car!
The Grand Prix in my opinion was the best of the W bodies from beginning to end, I always did have a lust for those early GTPs. They actually wore the cladding and everything Pontiac became notorious for look good. It’s also the only G body successor I find a legitimate improvement, fwd or not.
I would also like to point out that the most popular Buicks today are not Opel based, the Enclave, not Opel based, the Lacrosse, not Opel based, the Regal is, and the Verano is based on the Astra sedan,
I’d say that we are not better off that Buicks are no re-badged Opels, it is a recipe to kill the brand. The Chinese may be fine with German engineering but it will likely turn off traditional Buick buyers when they learn what German engineering really means. The people who are willing to put up with German engineering aren’t going to be seen in a Buick.
My sister bought a rebadged Opel nice car but lots went wrong under warranty at fairly low mileage the last thing was it ate a waterpump at 80,000kms just after she got it fixed she got shunted in traffic and the car was totalled, She then bought a Mazda6 2.5 sport black on black nice car and nothing has gone wrong.. Rebadged Opels are not always a great thing.
I’m not so sure about that Eric. Buick is doing pretty well lately.
My 70 year old parents love their German Regal GS.They were long time Buick and Pontiac owners (with a couple of SHO’s and hot rod Chryslers thrown in), and now a Mustang GT convertible to keep the Regal company.
It is a nice riding, very good handling car that is a little more distinct and elegant than most of the offerings in the segment. A back to back drive with a loaded Lacrosse shows the two cars have a very similar character also.
Yes Buick is doing well now but in the long run the likelihood that the re-badged Opels will do more harm than good to the reputation is very high.
Thing about the “German engineering” in these Buicks (and newer Fords) is that they still mostly don’t have German electronics in their US-market incarnations, and it’s that which seems to cause the most headaches for VW/Audi owners as the car ages (I’m not as sure about BMW and Benz)
I drove my parents’ Regal the other day. I kid you not, it took me MINUTES to figure the damn thing out. Buttons galore. I couldn’t figure out the A/C controls; the on-board computer toggle switch was on the turn-signal stalk?! It was a bitch to see out of, and it sounded like a lawn mower! Keep American cars American!
I love these cars! They’re so funny!
To me, Buick seems to be trying to reinvent itself…as Pontiac.
This marked the end of GM’s car division. This is when they simply gave up. Thankfully they made decent trucks.
I remember Motor Trend ran a spy photo of a 88 Regal a year or two before release and mistook it for a redesigned Riviera!
I’ve never had strong feelings one way or another about these GM10 Regals except that I was sorry to see the RWD version go away, especially the GN. I am not a fan of the current line. They may have kept the division around after bankruptcy, but they are not building real Buicks any more.
I’m surprised everyone is talking about sales, styling, features, etc, etc… when the real problem with the W-body cars is that they simply don’t age well, period. Specifically these first generation examples. The basic engines and transmissions will (usually) keep going for a long time, but literally everything else will break, crack, clunk, rattle, leak, malfunction, or fall off a lot more quickly than it should. A W-body doesn’t die so much as it just becomes really crappy really quickly. The interiors warped and cracked to bits, the cheap suspension and brake components aged like milk and would start to clunk and wear out within a few years, paint flaked off, electronics broke, accessories like water pumps and power steering pumps were so cheap, they were essentially wear items.
By the 2000s, GM started to get their crap together somewhat with this platform, but even now, it’s clear the 2005-2009 LaCrosse, 2004-2008 Grand Prix, and 2006+ Impalas are aging a lot faster than other sedans of that era. You can tell how cheap these cars are just by observing them in traffic and hearing the horrible whining, clunking, rattling noises they make as they go down the road. I’ve seen a number of 2006+ Impalas with rusted out exhaust systems, LaCrosses with rattly clunking suspensions, and the Grand Prix makes just about every noise (power steering pump whine, suspension clunks, exhaust problems). GM at least got the bad paint and horrible interiors under control with the last generation – most of them are still shiny and “look nice”, superficially, but mechanically these cars are so mediocre compared to a 4-cyl Accord or Camry. The 3.5/3.9 is definitely an improvement over the horrible lump that was the 2.8/3.1, though, and it idles extremely smooth. They’re not bad cars like the Gen1 versions, just so mediocre compared to what else is available.
It’s sad because I really want to like them and they are not bad looking cars – especially the Impala – but they are just so cheap under the skin. On the bright side, the Epsilon cars (Malibu, G6, Aura) all seem to be aging far better, which bodes well for GM’s future since that platform essentially replaced this.
I’ve only heard one newer W-clunker drive by me in GM-rust-belt land. 3.9-equipped 2006ish Impala exhaust was horrible, and this was only a few days ago. I’ve never heard any other GM W’s that are too awful. I’ll give you the Grand Prix power-steering whine. I can identify that one behind me, close to the Regal/Century’s. It’s kind of interesting walking in the city and being able to identify vehicles behind you without seeing them… Equinox/Terrain, Blazer, Durango, Windstar, etc.
“It’s kind of interesting walking in the city and being able to identify vehicles behind you without seeing them”
Yes!! Good to know someone else does this. I do it all the time, it’s like a personal game when I’m walking through an urban area or parking lot. After a long enough time I’ve ended up memorizing starter sounds, engine sounds, common malfunctions, everything. Most notable ones are that distinctive Honda start-up sound, the 4.6-liter Ford V8, 3.1 GM V6, Toyota Camry 4-cylinder, whining W-body power steering pumps, and that weird Chrysler ultradrive transmission “crackle” sound as the cars come to a stop (minivans, Stratus/Sebring, Intrepids, etc).
I’ve only noticed the newer W-clunkers in the last year or so as well. Quite a few 2006+ Impalas are reaching beater status in Michigan, and they sold buttloads of them here so there’s a huge sample size. LaCrosses seem to be better cared for, but you’ll encounter the occasional clunker, and the sounds they make are uncannily similar to the sounds of their Century/Regal predecessor. Some things never change….
The GM-10 platform was rather perplexing to me. During University one of my classmates had a nice S-10 with 4.3l, and in 1989 traded it in on a brand new Regal.
This was doubly baffling to me, first of all because I was a starving student who could not conceive of having so much money that you could buy a brand new car. Next because it seemed so fat and wallowy.
Later, a co-worker had an Oldsmobile coupe, I forget what year but it was the top of the line with sport suspension and low profile tires. He was a very agressive driver and it handled like a pig on roller skates. Wallow, wallow, wallow.
I didn’t realize that they’d blown so much money on the development, and that the platform had eventually become palatable, but wow those early ones were terrible..
I’ve had one of these for almost 10 years – also a 1991 (without the hideous carriage top). It’s been nothing but a great, dependable car the entire time. 100x more comfortable than ANYTHING produced today. My previous car was a first year 1988 Regal, it left a good enough impression on me that I wanted another.
How did I develop my love for these things? In 1989, my (at the time) 25-year-old parents bought a brand new, Ruby Red Regal GS (my profile photo). 4-year-old me immediately fell in love with the thing. My parents ran into money problems a year later and this ‘extra’ car became a luxury they could no longer justify, so they sold it & we went back to our ’87 Chevy Z-24 as the ‘family’ car. I credit those two cars for making me the car nut I am today.
This is my 1991, I have no intentions of ever getting rid of it.
Glad to see somebody is a happy owner of these cars! Every car line needs some love. Good job preserving yours!
My thoughts exactly! Good for you for preserving one of these cars. I’m sure many of the comments about the deficiencies of the platform are true, but I think they’re attractive, and I’m sure they’re oozing with character, even if just because so few are left. You don’t see these every day, at least not in Southern California where I live.
This was the car that ended Buick’s long, long reign in my family. A 1988 Regal with the GS package was my mother’s last domestic car. For good reason. The 2.8 was sluggish and coarsely loud, the ride was harsh (terrible wheel/tire/suspension combo with the GS package), the ergonomics were weird, the material quality inside was poor (the fake wood trim on the ’88 was especially appalling), and the build quality was weak, especially the white paint that eventually began flaking off in big chunks.
When the time came to trade in her ’83 Cutlass Supreme sedan (a great car), she gravitated back to Buick after many years with Olds. She always had really liked the Buicks my family had owned through the years, or my Pop had enjoyed as company cars. The last of her children (me) was in college, and she had no need for 4-doors anymore, but liked the idea of a good-sized 2-door. About 10-15 years late to the personal luxury party, but there she was. She crossed the Mercury Sable off her list for its 4 doors, and shopped the new FWD Grand Prix, Cutlass Supreme and Regal. Of the 3 she liked the Regal the best (and I do give GM credit that the styling on each was well differentiated), and felt the brand was appropriately upscale. So the Buick was her pick. I didn’t advocate it one way or the other (road test reviews at the time were OK at best and far from glowing), but I definitely thought it was more contemporary than the old G Body coupes. As noted above, her experience with the GM10 Regal was abysmal, though she did hang onto it for her usual 4 years. It was traded in on a Honda Prelude, that was light years ahead in every way.
The W-body cars were such a low point for GM, and I often ponder why. Was it the confusion stemming from the Roger Smith reorg? If my understanding of GM platform naming is correct, the GM10 platform thinking would have preceded GM20 (N-body), even though the N-body came first. Why so long on the GM10s? They would have been much more cutting-edge and appropriate in the 1984/85 timeframe which I think is when they were originally envisioned to appear. No matter what, corporate malaise/confusion and a low-cost driven mentality really harmed these cars and lost legions of loyal customers, my mom included.
Far from glowing reviews?
The GP was Motor Trends car of the year in 88.
The 1990 Regal GS tested extremely well in the 90 car of the year shootout.
When the 3.4 came out in them every magazine loved the combo, and R&T had a long term GTP that they gave great reviews on.
True, the GP and to a slightly lesser extent, the Cutlass Supreme were well reviewed when they came out. The 1988 Regal, however, did not receive as many accolades from the press. Also, no one was particularly enthusiastic about the 2.8 in the first year cars–apparently including GM, given the arrival of the 3.1 for 1989. The subsequent introduction of larger engines (3.4, 3.8) were definitely an improvement, as was the sedan body style.
I had a 89 GP SE with the 5 speed. It was a “pleasant” combo, but did lack the guts the bodywork suggested it had.
GM only put the 3.1 in one car in 88, so even though it existed, it wasn’t a widely available option until 89.
Your GP had a nice performance look that was in keeping with the brand. The Regal was more schizophrenic, at least depending on how it was equipped. My Mom’s looked exactly like the one in this picture. So quasi-sporty and quasi-luxury, but not quite right on either score. One detail that always really bugged me were the foglight covers, visible in this image. I imagine most owners simply removed them permanently. My Mom kept hers on, but never used the fog lights (why get out of the car in inclement weather to remove covers?), defeating the whole point of having the added lights in the first place.
GM10s were at best glorified x-bodies. Good cars in principle but not outstanding by any means. After their evolution they each became respectable in their intended mission. Cutlass coupes were gorgeous and GPs were exciting. Buicks were competent and capable cruisers. The Chevys…well they were Chevys. Does anyone remember how horrible the Audi 5000 was? GM held their own through this mediocre and trying time for ALL automakers. Oh…the Buick3.8 v6(231ci)…one of the best ever!
Now wait just a minute…Audi 5000? Horrible? Yes, the electrical systems were…frustrating. There was a lot to go wrong, and it did, repeatedly. But that doesn’t completely obscure the fact that the 5000 was a stylish, comfortable, good-looking and good-driving car. Handled well for a vehilce its size, and while the N/A versions weren’t particularly powerful, the turbo fixed that. The quattro versions had an AWD system more advanced than just about anything on the market at the time. Plus, they just didn’t rust.
Compromised by the electrical gremlins? Of course they were. But by the time these GM10 cars hit the scene, the 5000 (100 by that time?) was completely sorted and were it not for the “unintended acceleration” hack job would have been one of the class leaders.
All those positives you pointed out, and it can’t disguise the fact the 5000 was HORRIBLE. Uncle had one, and it was literally the biggest POS on Earth. I don’t care how well a car looks, how stylish it is, comfy, it is if it is unreliable garbage. Incredible how a lot of imports get a pass because of their brand name.