When I was a kid, there was a used car dealer in the next town over who habitually bought and sold clean used cars, but with very high mileage at very retail prices. Fast Eddie gravitated toward loaded versions of common cars, and often also had a broad selection of tired (but pretty!) Cadillacs and Lincolns. He was very successful, and the last time I noticed, he was still in operation.
I’d love to know the offer that finally bought this (sharp, low mileage, CD-player-equipped) Cadillac Cimarron, assuming it ever sold. Surely someone snapped up what has to be one of the cleanest non-collector Cimarrons on the planet, right? The double-crested snout alone would be worth the price of entry!
(Thanks to CCer Improbcat for the photo submission!)
[ED: If you’re hankering for a more in-depth CC on GM’s Deadly Sin #10, you’ll find it here]
Update: This fine car’s year was initially reported as 1985. Thanks to Carmine’s input, it has been updated to 1982.
Wow, that would have tempted me. These are on my list, partly as a joke but also because I think they actually have a clean-looking style, if you can overlook the similarity to the other Js (which I also think look good for the era.) ’85 may be my favorite year because I prefer the simpler non-aero headlight, shorter hood look, plus it’s the first year a V6 was offered (I believe.) The hood ornament must be a dealer add-on — I don’t think GM would have done anything so redundant.
The interwebz offer conflicting results re: the hood ornament.
Looks like the grille badge was at least an option on the earlier models. Then there’s a “flat” badge (Cimarron-specific) just above the grille on others (later models?), with “Cadillac” script on the grille. I believe you’re correct in assuming that the three-dimensional crest on the hood was an owner add-on.
As to GM doing something redundant…no comment.
I cannot look at this car without feeling a big old primal scream welling up from somewhere deep within. It is only with the greatest of effort that I can keep from releasing it.
What in the name of all that is Holy was GM thinking when it did this car? Someone once said that ignorance and arrogance is the worst possible combination. I think that this car is what happens when the two cross paths in the auto manufacturing business.
Mr. Tactful, I hereby retract anything bad I ever said about the 1980-89 Town Car. It is a beautiful, elegant, flawless creation next to this rolling turd. But I have to admit that finding one in such nice condition should merit some points for Improbcat.
I must stop thinking about this car right now, for my own emotional health and for the sake of my loved ones who will have to spend the evening around me.
Yeah, I’d drive it just as a conversation starter.
I was just on the phone with my dad and mentioned this car, and he said an old family friend had one and thought it was funny. “Now -you- can own a Cadillac…”
They were thinking: “we’ve captured the core of why all those yuppies are buying 320i’s”. As an illustration of how out of touch GM management was with the realities of the market, it’s epic.
I don’t think thats an 1985, by 1985 the Cimarron had a slighty revamped nose with the headlights sunk in a little more, this is more like an 82-83.
You’re right. I guess I like both earlier versions better than the last, when the front end got a little too long for the rest of the car.
Thanks guys!
I was wondering what Fast Eddie the Piano Player would be doing with a Caddy, then I clicked on the story. I guess I shouldn’t be so nosy…
On the subject of the car, I’d be tempted if I had the available cash. A bit of luxury and ride with decent mileage and fixing it would be dirt cheap compared to what major assembly’s for new cars cost now. A tranny for a Accord is around $4,000 according to some consumer’s magazine I read a little while back, rebuilding your engine isn’t much better.
Plus the uniqueness factor. No one would know what it was. I’m always a sucker for that.
I was think more like Fast Eddie the pool player from 1961’s The Hustler, though Eddie did have a big white Fleetwood Brougham in the 1986 sequel, The Color of Money.
I would like to take the Cimarron front end and interior and put it in a similar vintage Cavalier convertible to create the drop top Cimarron Cadillac never made, actually, you could create and entire Cimarron freak show line up with all the J-car body styles.
That may be the greatest idea I’ve ever heard in regards to a Cimarron!
Cimarron wagon doesn’t sound too bad either.
I would like to make up a Cimarron coupe out of a Cavalier coupe with a thick landau on the rear, and then hire a midget dressed as pimp to drive it.
This comment suits your avatar perfectly.
Serious business decisions!
Hey! That’s unique! Make a Cimmaron J-wagon! Cimmaron leather seats, steering wheels and front end clip! Cimmaron – good concept (sort of); piss poor execution. Hindsight is 20/20 – the ’85 model with V-6 and some “unique” styling touches should’ve been the ’82 model – but – it would’ve been ’57 Packard Clipper redux . . .
I had in mind Fast Eddie Costigan from the Callahan’s Bar science fiction stories by Spider Robinson. Literally anything can happen there. I think Eddie drove a late 60s Dart.
Upon reflection, I’d rather have a Versailles than the Cimmaron. The 302 HAS to be a lot smoother and more reliable, and the Lincoln is probably more reliable overall considering the GM build quality in 1984.
IMO, the Cimarron could have actually been successful if GM had given it its own distinct styling, like they did with the gen 1 Nova-based Seville.
“What in the name of all that is Holy was GM thinking when it did this car?”
It’s 1980, and gas is supposed to go to 5$ a gallon in a few years. Talking heads, car mags, and critics are screaming at Motown, “build more small cars!” Dealers are begging for more small cars with luxury. Caddy dealers start adding import brands.
It’s impossible to see the future, so GM did what was demanded at the time, more small cars.
I’d have bitten, too. My first memory of a Cimarron was our oil well subsidized ranching neighbor (his 10 sections made our 365 acres look like a kitchen garden) driving fast on the caleche road to our gate and stopping to talk. I couldn’t believe this tall rancher even fit in it. Even as a kid I knew it was just a gussied up Cavalier, but Cadillac still held a little mystique for a few more years for me, so I didn’t see it yet as I do now. But I’d still bite, just because it is a scarce and unusual little car.
For $500 or so I’d buy one – no doubt about it. I rather enjoy owning oddballs cars but I strongly suspect I wouldn’t like the asking price on this rather nice looking example. As a novelty beater? Yes! As a keeper classic? No thanks.
As someone else pointed out, Cadillac dealers were crying to GM about their lack of a small car, meanwhile people were freaking out over “the future”, $4.00 a gallon gas was GOING to happend by the end of the decade, no question about it, which also explains the other shrunked WTF was GM thinking downsized cars of 1985-1986.
The 1982 Cimarron and the 1975 Seville are perfect examples of how to do it right and how to do it wrong, Cadillac was seriously worried about the Seville, there were many in management that had an issue with Cadillac using the plebian X-car platform to create a new car, so they spent time and money on the car, they streched the wheelbase and made enough changes to the car that it got its own letter designation, the 1975-79 Sevilles are actually K-bodies not X-bodies, Cadillac combined the Eldorado and standard Cadillac assembly lines at their Detroit Clark St plant so they could add a separate assembly line for the Seville, Cadillac believed that bringing assembly of the Seville “in house” at Cadillacs plant would ensure high levels of fit and finish for their new baby.
The Cimarron was the opposite, it was made in a GMAD assembly plant in South Gate California, it was unwanted by more than a few of Cadillacs managers, it was a forced half assed attempt, it wasn’t that Cadillac should have not done something about concerns about MPG or that they should have turned a deaf ear to dealers that were watching customers defect to imported brands, but if they were going to do it, they should have put the same effort that Cadillac put into the Seville, instead they ended up with their own version of the Versailles, really the Cimarron was approved at the 11th hour in the J-car program, so if they wanted to launch for 1982, they hardly could make any changes, for example Cadillac even modified the cowl of the X-cars while creating the Seville so they could fit a Cadillac style dashboard with automatic climate controls and all the other Cadillac equipment that buyers in that price range expected, the Cimarron got different gauge fonts and fake stiching on the dashboard, that pretty much sums that up, the fact that they didn’t even use one of the more upline J car dashes like the one in theBuick or Oldsmobile is confusing too, they used the dash straight out 2 cheapest J-car variants, the Cavalier and J-2000.
I don’t think we can discuss the Cimmarron without mentioning CAFE rules. I think that GM forgot what Cadillac was – a premium, high-end car. These buyers were not really concerned all that much with gas mileage. They wanted a car that was what a Cadillac had always been – the car that you hoped that someday you could afford, and that would be all you ever expected that it would be. Instead, they cynically bought into the J platform, made too few modifications to it and ended up with (as you pointed out) a Lincoln Versailles. Only they got the benefit of watching the Versailles lay an egg and should have learned from it.
But Cadillac was forced into something to raise the fleet mpg and took the “any port in a storm” approach. It would have been one thing if the J had been a world-class small platform. But it was crude even for a Chevrolet. As a Cadillac, it was a joke.
You could draw a line straight from the original Seville, through the Versailles, to the Cimarron.
The Seville was a good attempt at building a luxury car from a plebian platform, but Ford tried to stretch the concept too far by doing much less to hide the Granada’s roots when it developed the Versailles. Neither customers nor critics were impressed.
Cadillac apparently learned nothing from the flop of the Versailles, and attempted to stretch the concept even more by doing even less when it brought out Cimarron.
I actually saw a Versailles this morning and had my arms full so I couldn’t go for my cell phone. Kids were being dropped off for school and a little girl was let out by her grandfather driving a triple cream colored Versailles (leather interior!) with true dual exhaust sticking about 3 inches past the rear bumper. I swear that car sounded like my Dad’s 289V8 4brl Mustang. God forbid I ever win the lottery, I’ll be following CCs around town and offering to buy them!
I agree. A 351 Windsor or 302, a stout C4 Transmission, combined with Ford’s legendary 9″ rear end with 4 wheel disk brakes has nothing in common with a puny, weak, front wheel drive 4 cylinder J-Car , in my opinion.
I will never understand why people complain that Lincolns are closely related to Fords, to me its a bonus.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Now that I picked up my jaw off the floor, the specimen pictured doesn’t look half bad!
CARMINE wrote: the Cimarron got different gauge fonts and fake stiching on the dashboard, that pretty much sums that up, the fact that they didn’t even use one of the more upline J car dashes like the one in theBuick or Oldsmobile is confusing too, they used the dash straight out 2 cheapest J-car variants, the Cavalier and J-2000.
–I always wondered why they chose that dash, too. All I can think is that they thought the Chevy/Pontiac dash looked more upright, formal and Cadillac-like (but it didn’t. It just looked cheap.) I also wondered why they chose the J-platform for this car and not the X (Skylark, Omega, Phoenix, Citation).
If it were on the X platform we probably wouldn’t have Cadillac here today. After the Chevmobilac affair, the V4-6-8, HT4100 and Olds Diesels Caddy really didn’t need the X body tossed into the salad. They didn’t really need the J body either though I guess..
A well sorted out X-car with unique to Cadillac styling and the 2.8 V6 would have been a better choice, or even the upcomming FWD A-cars.
Most historians agree an “A” body approach much like Caddy did to the ’75 Seville “X” would’ve been better.
Do you mean the A as in Celebrity/Ciera/Century? I think the A was too big and not sporty looking enough for what GM wanted. To the extent there was any rationality behind the Cimarron, the target was the BMW 3-series. The J is about the right size package for that task. And the J platform was new and had no bad reputation (yet). In fact, it was touted as GM finally getting the small car thing right (hmmm, we’re still working on that, how many platforms later?)
They chose that dash because the Chevy and Pontiac versions came out at the same time. The Buick and Oldsmobile versions were a year later, if my memory is still good.
They were all 82MY cars the Pontiac and Chevrolet were out in Summer 1981 with the Olds and Buick versions around Fall 81.
It looks nice but I remember the oilburning Camiras that had very short shelf lives here and the Japanese Isuzu built POS that handled like a dog on lino that my dad end for ended no thanks plenty of classics with cache to buy here.
gotta love “marketing”….that have brought you all sort of crap foisted on the unsuspecting world such as
1) in the world of lawn furniture…it not “plastic” …its “resin”
2) in the world of cosmetics ingredients…its not “water” …its “aqua”
3) in the music world its ANYONE who mentions their own name in the song, while singing ..”uh…uh…yo..yo”
4) this piece of crap car…well, ok, the example shown is in decent shape, but for the love of God, its a bloody Cavalier pimp’d out…and nothing more!
It was a bad idea but not really a bad car. I wouldn’t mind finding one with a 5 speed just for the WTF factor.
The typical GM story, by the time that it was all done, it wasn’t half bad, it still looked like a Cavalier, but at least they gave it composite headlights and a 2.8 MFI V6. They should have held out a year or 2 and worked a little more on th Cimmy before they released it.
My new off the lot 86 Cavalier made 39 weekly trips to the dealer within it’s first year of ownership. It was so bad, I made plans to return to the dealer every Wednesday (my day off as I worked Saturdays).
I can hardly think Kwality was better with different badges.
I would love this for the sheer kitch of it too. Wonder if you could make a supercharged ecotech with a five speed manual work?
There are a few guys that stuffed SRT4 mills into Omnis so anything is possible.
Hmm, a blown Ecotec with a Getrag 5 speed in a Cavalier Type 10 with Cimarron facia and interior?
I remember Motor Trend practically slobbering over this so-called Cadillac when it debuted in mid-1981!
The would have avoided a lot of ridicule if they had waited for the composite headlights and the 2.8. The later Cimmy nose, next to the J2000, is my favorite of the J cars.
You also have to remember the 3-series of the time was the E21, equipped with a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine and not particularly fast even for the time. The hot 3 back then was the six-cylinder 323i which we didn’t see until the latter part of the E30 model cycle as the 325i. The Audi competitor was the 4000, equipped with a 1.8-liter Rabbit engine. No Quattro yet, though it would be fitted later along with the 5-cylinder mill. The BMW hovered around 10 seconds 0-60 on a good day, while the others including the still first-gen Honda Accord (the J’s came out in spring ’81, the gen-2 Accord in the fall) could do it in about 12.
The J-car was anything but crude when introduced. The early J’s were praised for very good finish (especially compared to the crap that came before them) and handling when equipped with sport suspensions, which came standard on the Cimarron. They were knocked because they came in overweight and therefore underpowered with their original 1.8-liter pushrod engine, which was a clean-sheet design, surprisingly enough.
GM addressed the problem quickly, boring and stroking the original 1.8 liter engine to 2.0 liters and adding the overhead-cam Opel Family Two engine from GM Brazil to power Pontiac and Buick models in 1.8-liter and later 2.0-liter displacements. Pontiac soon added a turbo, while Cadillac and Chevy went with the V6 for extra oomph.
Like the diesels and the downsizing, the Cimarron has to be considered within the context of its time. It looks like a huge blunder, but mostly because the bottom fell out of oil prices in the mid-1980’s, dropping gas prices to as low as 65 cents per gallon from a high of $1.20 or more only a year earlier. Looking back, it’s easy to skewer GM and Cadillac but at the time the Cimarron was viewed as a positive, if incomplete, step in the right direction.
Well put, we would probably looking at these differently if gas would have been $4.00 a gallon in 1985 or if there would have been another OPEC embargo, but they were made for a future that never came, cars like these serve as an important lesson to both people in the auto industry and consumers, the auto industry is a unique animal, its one of the few industries where you send millions and sometimes billions gambling on what people will want 4 to 5 years from now.
Between this and Chicagoland’s reply you get a good idea of what was going on at the time. While I’m a fan of the later J-bodies, the early ones were not without their charms. Except for the Cimarron, at least as released in 1982. I know they were aimed at the import crowd, but there was not enough differentiation from other J’s to notice. Truly an opportunity squandered.
I had a 1982 Type 10 Cavalier hatch with the 1.8L engine – had always understood that the 1.8L was an Isuzu-sourced engine for 1982-only. After reading your comment and googling, I really can’t find anything to support that, so whereever I heard it from was wrong.
When the smog pump siezed up, I just bought a shorter belt and removed the whole smog system. It was a happy-revving engine, and after lowering and repainting the car, it was an absolute hoot to drive (I added a second anti-roll bar to the rear beam and the larger front bar from a V-6 Cav which made the thing handle like it was on rails).
I was well on the way to setting the car up for autocross, but then I got married, and life trajectories changed pretty dramatically…
Cadillac needed a different kind of car, but people weren’t buying Benzes and BMWs for fuel economy. Sales of those cars had been increasing since the late 1960s, and the customers were those who could easily afford a Cadillac if they wanted one.
Cadillac management misunderstood WHY buyers were moving to the German makes. They saw cars that were smaller and didn’t have vinyl roofs, tufted velour seats or opera windows, and figured that all Cadillac needed to do was offer a small car without the usual “luxury” touches, and it would sell.
They apparently never drove a BMW 3-Series or Mercedes from that time, as both offered far more refinement and an overall more solid “feel” than a J-car. The J-car was barely competitive with a contemporary Honda Accord, let alone a BMW 3-Series.
Cadillac had plenty of warning that really rich buyers were defecting to the German brands prior to the 1979 gas shortage, but chose to ignore that trend for as long as possible. Having to rush a competitor to market, and one based on a compact Chevrolet, was simply the result of poor planning and complete ignorance of market trends.
The J-car, with some work, made a decent Chevrolet, but attempting to turn it into a Cadillac was a fine display of not only “Grosse Pointe Myopia,” but GM’s “do it on the cheap whenever possible” mentality.
GM management deserves to be taken to the woodshed for this one. Sorry, but good intentions simply weren’t enough at that time – and still aren’t today.
Too much hindsight here. If there’s anything GM cars did well from the second-gen Corvair onward was handle, especially with purpose-tuned suspensions, which again the Cimarron had. Even the interior styling was on-target with understated leather trim. Yes, leather. The Cimarron had the nicest interior of all the J’s by far, maybe even a step above the 3-series and the 4000. More like 5-series. Only problem was that Chevy dash.
I will again submit to you that the BMW 320i and Audi 4000 were OK for their time, but they were not the performance icons their successors became. Not even close. The first or second-gen Accord was much cheaper and a better alternative in many ways to both.
The problem was insufficient differentiation from cheaper GM cars. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, Cadillac made quite a few changes to the X/F-body (yes, the Camaro/Firebird, which made a lot of their performance suspension parts bolt right in) platform to make it a Seville. They had neither the time nor the resources to do this one right, and that’s where the deadly sin lies. It wasn’t a bad car, it just wasn’t a good Cadillac.
It’s the reason the Catera didn’t take but the CTS did. The former was adapted from an Opel, the latter was meant to be a Cadillac from the beginning. It certainly wasn’t a bad Opel and the Aussies made it an even better Holden, but it couldn’t be passed off as a Caddy short of giving it the overhaul the CTS eventually got.
You just can’t badge-engineer a Cadillac.
I’m kinda of a sucker for a J-car, sometimes, I dunno why, there was an extra clean 84 Oldsmobile Firenza GT hatchback on ebay about 4 months ago, it was a clean 50K mile car with California blue plates, my finger was twitching on the bid button for a few days while I watched the auction, in the end that I passed because it was on the other side of the US from me and I am all out of garage space, I should have bought it, its sold for like $2500.
Bummer. I loved the Firenza, and particularly the fastback version.
The Firenza has to be the least seen J-car variant, I have not seen one in person in years, they weren’t even that common when they were new.
I have seen exactally one in my lifetime even being alive the whole time they were on sale. I saw a “grandma blue” sedan in a parking lot back in 2002.
Ooh, tough one there. I’d probably have hit the button if it were a Z24.
My First Convertible was a 5 year old 84 Cavalier Type 10 in Sable Brown 3 way…Convertible 5 Speed Getrag?, 2.0FI , I Kept it up 8 years and let it go the last when it was 15 years old, overheating,radiator needs… It Was a Good car, Which Overcame $2-3K in Repairs over the 9 years easily…Mostly under the hood, head gaskets.
Only later when I Had a LeBaron Mk Cross, and a Mustang GT did i Realize I was Driving crap all those previous years.
The Cavalier 5 Speed was Inferior to Both the Ford & The Chysler models.Both of which were fun as automatics. relatively.
I’ll second you on the Chrysler LeBaron. We owned a 1992 convertible for 8½ years, 1999-2007. Red w/white & charcoal interior. black top. It was a real beauty – and very comfortable. Finally sold it when the engine gave up at 148K.
My LeBaron was a 1986 Turbo that a freind kept offering to me, knowing I was Holding Out for a Car I was Passionate about “Toronado Trofeo” to replace the one I had for 2 short months previously.
I “Got him down” to $450. in 99 and Maybe Spent $1000 fixing her up, Turbo work included.
The Top was Ragged But I was Broke and Managed To Duct Tape A Sturdy Tarp into a Leakproof Top That Still Folded and Opened “Gracefully” with original Electronics never failing me, Thank God!
“MY Lebaron” can be Seen /AS SEEN in the TV Movie about the Menendez Brothers who Murdered their Parents In Beverly Hills 1987, He Drives an 86 “Gunmetal Blue” Le Baron with wire wheels as mine had…”a One Year Only “Taillight as in the 86 Marc Cross Conv…. I touched up the paint, though I played around with a brighter blue due to the Cheap nature of the purchase. I was Proud of the 3 -digit price.
The Hood Ornament, 3 Tone, Mark Cross Leather Grey,Charcoal, Gunmetal Blue … I felt like I was “Styling” in a Comfortable Turbo Whirly Bird “wire Wheeled” survivor of The Original car to Revive American Convertibles.
I Found a Wonder Woman Pez Dispensor in The Trunk wrapped in a Toilet paper roll, that alone was worth $225 – half what I paid for a car, Fully Registered Thru the year 2000. I got two years out of it and Sold it Badly Needing Brakes, Head Gasket blown, for $50. 3 years later.
I Loved The satiny/fk wood Digital Dash… I Put Sparkles on it to add precious bling.. I Had Wanted One so Badly when they were new. I always Knew I would own one someday. Ditto The 89 Mustang GT conv That Came After… Sold that for $1750 in 2007… I TOTALLY WISH I STILL HAD IT
but an Air Conditioned 4 door Sedan is comfortable and Quiet to boot.Dry.
I Do Miss The Convertible, But I feel more In Danger in Them Since the advent of So MANY SUVS That Could Rollright Thru Your compact convertible.
I remember going to a few dealers in 1984, looking for a strip down Camaro to drive for work. One dealer looked at me like I was nuts and said he could sell me a “loaded” Cavalier for a thousand or so less. He said I was foolish to want a strip down car.
I went to a different dealer and he got me what I wanted. A new Camaro, V-6 auto, with radio and rally wheels (whitewalls!!). For $ 9500, I was a happy man. The car reminded me of the Beach Boys song, “No go, showboat.” Gas mileage was about 15 MPG combined. Not great.
That Cimmaron would be a nice car for me today, but I wouldn’t have been caught dead in that car or a Cavalier then. In 86, I bought a mint 75 Eldo to curb my Cadillac desires. That Camaro was a good car, only back to the dealer one time for the shift knob coming off. Just maintenance in the 9 years (75K) I owned it.
The Shift Knob on The Cavalier screwed right on directly like a lightbulb… But What Really Scared Me…
Within 6 months of Driving The Cavalier I realized the Steering Wheel Was Prone To fall out of its TILT Placement Mid TURN into Your Lap, LOOSING STEERING Ability immediately.
This Took Several Visits and Well Over $500 to get Right… and Getting it There- Was Down right Scary.
Having been born in the ’80s I think I only saw one of these as a kid. How many did GM sell over the model run?
About 5500 of the 1984 Cavalier Convertibles IIRC
As others have pointed out, the real problem with the Cimarron wasn’t so much the badge engineering, it was that it was done so poorly, i.e., quick and cheap. The Cimarrons that get all the really bad publicity are only the first ones – the 1982-83 versions (like in the picture). They had just such an ‘in-your-face, this-is-just-a-Cavalier’ look that it was literally insulting. The first Cimarrons were like a dare by GM to see if anyone could possibly be stupid enough to buy one.
Worse, it shattered the facade and revealed in a none too subtle way how GM (and everyone else, for that matter) shares platforms among divisions and that their cheaper car lines weren’t all that different from the more expensive ones. IOW, if the Cimarron is nothing but a Cavalier with a cheap leather interior, what cheap GM car was the basis for the de Ville and why the hell should I pay so much more for it, too?
The later Cimarrons were better (appearance-wise, anyway) but, by then, the damage was done. In one, massively ill-conceived attempt by GM corporate to get into the BMW/Benz Euro market, yet extract as much money from potential luxury car buyers as possible in the process, they left a stain on their premium brand that, to this day, still hasn’t been fully wiped clean.
Glad to see someone corrected the year. When I first saw this I said no way it could be an 85. I also think it would have been to have the Cimarron as a wagon. Probably would have sold well.