Introduced as a 1992 model, Oldsmobile’s intermediate-sized Achieva was part of the brand’s attempt to modernize and cleanse itself of its much-overused Cutlass name. The Achieva was also part of Oldsmobile’s attempt to broaden its import-buyer appeal with simpler equipment groups, no-haggle pricing, and allegedly more import-like vehicles.
Oldsmobile heavily benchmarked the Honda Accord in advertisements and press material for the Achieva, though it’s unlikely the Achieva did much to help Olds achieve many Honda conquests. Essentially a cosmetic re-skin of the vintage-1985 N-body Cutlass Calais, the Achieva indeed sported more rounded, aero sheetmetal. Unfortunately, the Achieva’s styling wasn’t so easy on the eyes as its predecessor.
Echoing the styling of the very subjective 1991 Ninety-Eight, the larger sedan’s styling translated even worse to the compact N-body. With its overly angular nose and split vertical bar grille, overextended underbite front bumper, rear doors that excessively protruded at the beltline, skirted rear wheels, and uninspired rear end, the Achieva came across as horribly frumpy. Honda buyers stayed on their side of the fence, and after a few years, Oldsmobile stopped targeting import buyers and accepted that most buyers were probably rental fleets. In fact, for its final year of 1998, all Achieva sales were limited to fleet customers, meaning that this car was likely once a rental. The fact that its still on the roads after years of abuse and reuse is quite an achivea-ment.
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1993 Oldsmobile Achieva SC coupe
1991 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight (GM Deadly Sin)
I was High School senior when these came out.
I had liked the Calais when it arrived for ’85, but the Achievas seemed like a “push” – a step neither forward or backward, which was a shame – given how the N-bodies now looked even more different from each other with this generation. It was like, this is the *best* Olds could do?
I did kind of like that these resembled 5:8 scale Ninety-Eights – which I thought were good-looking large cars.
I’ve always found the Olds Achieva more attractive than either the Buick Skylark or the Pontiac Grand Am.
The Olds version may be a little more attractive than the hideous Skylark, but I don’t think either are better looking than the Grand Am. Sadly aside from the Cadillac line most of the GM offerings in the 90’s were strange. These cars in particular always looked cheap and weirdly proportioned to me.
I agree, this is/was better looking (IMHO) than the overly sculpted Skylark and the “lumpy-bumpy” Grand Am. The instrument panel/interior shows the same restraint as the exterior in comparison to it’s corporate sisters
This example appears to be missing the “mini-skirts” over the rear wheels….or it may be the way it’s sitting?
A lady at my church has 1 of these Achieva sedans, a maroon color, that is in very good condition. I’m not sure which engine it has as I’ve never given it a really close look.
In my area, Grand Ams are fairly common, Skylarks are less common, and Achievas are extremely rare….but then, so are Corsicas and Berettas.
I personally like the way it looks, that weird mid 90’s future-jellybean look topped off in some odd teal color. I don’t know too much about their dependability but if it was at least as good as a cavalier I’d maybe drive one as a commuter.
What I missed here at CC is an article about Oldsmobile Achieva! Now here IT is! Thanks for posting Brendan…
I’m not thrilled with the profile, but at the time I actually thought the front end was a really nice update of the split-grille theme.
I agree on the front of the car. I think these were well styled for the time. But I even like the Skylark with the pointy beak.
I feel the same way. The coupe is a bit better as well
By the time this car came out, it was like ‘who cares?’. It overlapped the Grand Am and Skylark. Most were older ladies, or rental firms. Then after fleet duty, BHPH lots and destruction.
Olds died with the last RWD Cutlass Supreme.
Shouldn’t it be “the grass is greena” to rhyme with Achieva?
NO, and please don’t mock us Massachusetts folk, we hate it…It’s WICKED annoying.
I never particularly cared for these–“frumpy” seemed to be just the right word. The shrunken Ninety-Eight styling didn’t, to me, work particularly well, and “Achieva” was just a goofy name. As dull as they were, I’m actually kind of amazed they stuck around for a full 7 model years. Then, they suffered the indignity of being replaced by the Cutlass, which was just a Chevy Malibu with a halfhearted split grille. Olds in the 90’s was clearly lost.
Then, in 1999, it was replaced by the Alero. A car that looked legitimately good, drove well, but started to fall apart after 5 years. Is heartbreaking better than dull?
Supposedly, the ‘Cut-la-bu’ replaced the Cutlass Ciera line. Seemed like it was was just a “give the seniors something to buy until they get used to the new styled cars”.
But it overlapped with Alero, and was dead after 2 [3?] model years. Why even bother? Well, to placate dealers until the supposed “Olds turn-around” that never came.
“Oldsmobile heavily benchmarked the Honda Accord.”
So did Ford at 1st, though they later decided the XV10 Camry was the target for the 3rd-gen Taurus. My general impression has been, Detroit was totally on the defensive, desperately trying to stem the flood of mid-sized sedan customers going Japanese instead of offering anything obviously superior in quality or execution. They were simply incapable of it.
Once you drink the Kaizen Kool-Aid, it’s really hard to go back to the Detroit quality crap-shoot. This may be why Toyota survived their recalls; it wasn’t bad enough to torpedo customer trust.
Face the music: America is not really a culture where Quality is Job One, except in isolated instances. We’re too impatient; Getting Things Done is Job One, it’s always been this way, and it likely always will be.
It wasn’t that Detroit was completely incapable of matching the Japanese. What they couldn’t do was match the quality that Toyota and Honda were putting into their cars at that time, price their entries competitively, and still make money.
Ford gave up trying to match that generation of Camry with the 1996 Taurus/Sable because it could not put that level of quality into the Taurus and still make money at the prices customers were willing to pay.
Toyota “de-contented” the next-generation Camry, so apparently it couldn’t maintain that level of quality at that price level, either.
Toyota is better at squeezing money.
Detroit wise, it’s just impossible for everyone in the industry to make it that efficient, otherwise all we get is Chrysler K-car. ( even more roomier and efficient in design than most Toyota, but ) neither company, customer, UAW can endure K-car all the time, despite the efficiency. Company wanted more image, customer wanted more luxury, and UAW couldn’t live in survival mode all the time.
Funny you should mention the K-Car, whenever I see pics of the first Camry generation I cant help but think that Toyota used the K-Car for inspiration, only adding a neat hatchback-style to compete with the Chevy Citation.
Unfortunately they didn’t copy the K-Cars corrosion protection.
Toyota can de-content all they want, so long as reliability isn’t compromised. That’s enough for most customers who want a wheeled appliance.
Besides, to keep this in perspective, this is not about regressing back to 1970 levels of std. equipment. Even entry-level models today have more stuff than most drivers ever use, I daresay.
If it is Ford, we will get endless Tempo.
The other major shortfall of these cars relative to the Japanese was the engines. The Quad 4 never lacked for power, but it was a buzzy, peaky thing. The Honda F22A was less powerful, but vastly more pleasant. (And the H22A was both.)
I won’t delve into the larger issue you present, but in terms of GM and Ford benchmarking Honda and Toyota, the problem was that they were using then-current production Hondas and Toyotas as their benchmark. By the time GM or Ford released their own product meant to compete with these cars, the Accord and Camry were already deep into next generations.
Neil, it used to be like that. I grew up in a country where US made vehicles were expensive and yet purchase price could always be justified by the fact you got quality far higher than in cars coming from other countries. Sometime in the 70s this changed and to me this is the main reason for what happened next. I am convinced that had the X bodies possessed the same quality as mid-60 Novas, they would have been remembered as good cars and the inroads the Japanese and the Koreans made would have not been as great as they were and are.
America is about MORE.
More for less! Supersize!
It’s hard to get away from.
BTW, the Olds was almost aptly named…underAchieva, lol
One thing that really hurt Olds sales is that the style was ape the imports and they were trying to go to a Saturn like no negotiation sticker. That is why the Grand Am cousin did so much better. The dealers were dealing and the style was totally American. I think it would have been better to keep the Corsica going for fleets and bargain hunters and kill off this failure. With the Quad 4 and a newer body, it must have had a higher unit cost.
I liked the styling of these cars when they debuted. Even the shrunken Ninety-Eight look worked on the sedans. They were definitely more attractive than their Pontiac Grand Am and Buick Skylark siblings, although the public preferred the Grand Am.
A big problem (aside from their overall lack of refinement, particularly with the powertrains) was that Oldsmobile initially pushed the specially trimmed, high-performance coupes. When the car really didn’t catch on with customers, Oldsmobile trimmed the more interesting variants, and turned it into rental-car fodder. Within three years, most Achievas were painted bland colors and featured small wheels and plastic wheel covers. That wasn’t going to get anyone out of a contemporary Honda, or do much to improve the image of Oldsmobile.
I thought the styling of the Achieva coupe much better than this 4-door. I’m sure this car is hobbled with the same rubbish interior components/body hardware that plagued my ’95 Grand Am. Too bad, with some more effort and less cost cutting, these could have been a decent car. I don’t know that I’d ever have cross shopped them with an Accord, though.
I see a lot of these around here, always dark green! I even looked at one years ago to replace my Taurus but was less than impressed by the fit and finish and the safety ratings.
Why are they all green?
’90s.
I remember looking at one at the Toronto Auto Show in 1993 and the salesman was quite proud to show just how easy it was to twist the plastic housing containing one of two licence plates bulbs to replace a bulb when necessary.
My mother bought one of these as her last car. Used rental car with 4 cylinder. Dark Green! What a POS!
Mercury Colony Park: See Griswold, Clark 🙂
With the exception of the overbaked 1958, Oldsmobile was such a stylish – even glamorous (think the original Starfire) – car in the 50’s and 60’s when I was growing up. Later the Cutlass became a very nice, up-to-date (and hugely popular) model for Oldsmobile and continued as such right through the 80’s. It was hard to accept what happened to the make when cars such as this one debuted. Stubby, ugly little thing, with little to distinguish it from Buick or Pontiac, low quality and none of the performance or Olds engineering advances that the they were known for over such a long time. Definitely not your father’s Oldsmobile – and another long, sad decade before it was over.
Well at least the Quad4 was engineered by Olds…..
I had no idea they were still making these in ’98. I figured they had been replaced by the (also N-Body) Malibu clone Cutlass, which in turn overlapped with another N-Body, the Alero, for 1999!
I get the impression that fleets were major buyers of all three, unfortunately. It is sad to think about what was happening to Oldsmobile in this era – as another CC poster put it, it was like seeing a loved one developing dementia.
Yes, this was an opportunity lost. Of course this was released during GM’s time in the wilderness in the early 90’s, too much overcorrection for the downsizing sins of the 80’s, so the car along with the corporation was muddled.
Potentially, this car could have been styled quite nicely. Some of the original sketches are on the web at deansgarage.com, and some of the models are quite handsome. Kind of like the whole Aztek story, the concept was great, the production car was less than.
The Achieva had a pretty decent racing career in IMSA at the time, the race cars inspired a street version called the SCX. The car originally only came as a coupe and it’s technological trick feature was 14″ wheels and tires that allegedly gave better traction than the recently popular 16″ wheels that were showing up on cars. The Quad 4 was pumped up to 190 HP, backed up by a Getrag 5 speed. Pretty neat for a domestic car, but it never broke through the white noise.
Like Geeber said, after a certain point, Oldsmobile gave up and just made rental models.
I would have liked to driven an SCX, I thought the Quad 4 was a hoot. With a little more development and an easier to service water pump, the Quad 4 could have been great.
The Q4 was updated several times during it’s lifespan. The original 1988-1994 models were the really rough ones, but in 1995 they got balance shafts and a different head, cam, intake and exhaust. There were the W-41 and the HO variants that would crank out 185-190, but that was still the first gen motor. By the release of the third generation of Q4 in 1996, it got a bump in displacement to 2.4L and a couple of other refinements that I’m forgetting right at the moment.
I had the 1995 version in my Sunfire GT, during my 7 year ownership period, the engine never gave me a moment’s trouble; the Isuzu sourced five speed was no picnic and I had to replace it. Even with balance shafts, it wasn’t all that smooth and even though it was down on power from the lofty W41s, it was still a great little performer.
We had the final evolution of the Quad 4, aka the LD9 Twin Cam, in my wife’s ’00 Alero. And that engine surprised me–for an I4, albeit a fairly large displacement one, it had a good amount of power, and wasn’t anywhere near as rough as earlier ones due to dual balance shafts.. Especially given that the first time I drove the car it was 9 years old and had something like 140K on it. It wasn’t trouble-free; among other things, the lower intake manifold had a persistent leak the entire time I was acquainted with that car. But, all in all, not a bad engine in its final form.
I had a look at those sketchs and you are absolutely correct.
These were better than the Skylark but that’s not much of a compliment. I’d take an even more ancient A body Cutlass Ciera over one of these any day…..especially a woodgrain A body Cutlass Cruiser wagon.
I remember Consumer Report warning that the center “hook” of the Achieva’s open hood (bonnet) could be a head-banging hazard.
So CR feared that it would be popular among the inattentive heavy death metal crowd? Interesting.
I spent an entire weekend in a rental coupe from 1997 with the 3100 V6 and 4 speed automatic and didn’t really mind the car at all. It was more pleasant looking than the sedan and had sporty looking alloy wheels, gauge cluster and a decent sounding radio. The 3100 transformed the driving experience and was as smooth as silk and provided a lot of kick in this light body and returned nearly 36 MPG on one long distance road trip which I thought was amazing considering that many 4 cylinder mid size cars today including a rental 2014.5 Camry SE 2.5, a 2013 Mazda 6 and a 2015 Sonata 2.4 couldn’t manage on the same basic highway trip going around 74 MPH. The 4 speed electronic trans axle was also seamless and shifted far better than what Chrysler or Ford were putting out at the time too. Other than that it was a rather unremarkable car that rode, drove, steered and handled reasonably well.
I got a Quad4 Achieva 2 door as an insurance loaner when our Corolla wagon was rear-ended (no, I have no idea why the rental company would think a 2 door coupe was equivalent to our wagon, but we also had an SUV by then so it didn’t really affect us). Anyway, I thought it was an adequately good car. In particular, I thought the Quad4 to be much smoother than its car magazine reputation. Power was adequate, and torque steer was less than what I recall from various V6 X-body and later GrandAm and Malibu rentals. And compared with the all-clad Pontiac and just plain weird Buick versions, the Achieva, at least in 2 door guise, was inoffensive.
LMAO I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. Yesterday I was riding with my wife and we somehow got on the topic of 90’s GM vehicles. I mentioned this blog with the Olds Achieva and she commented that she didn’t remember what they looked like. I kid you not, a minute later a purple (yes purple) Achieva pulled out right next to us and we both started laughing hysterically! Weird how that stuff happens, huh? She even said what are the odds of that happening!!??