I attended one of Flint, Michigan’s elementary schools for the academically gifted, starting in the second grade. Lest anyone take that as a humble-brag, I want to be clear that it’s debatable as to whether or not I was innately scholastically inclined. I’m plenty smart, creative, and in touch with what I want to say most of the time, but how much of my demonstrable intelligence was natural, and how much was fostered? Many of us from our old school still get together, decades after childhood, and different theories always come back to the surface for discussion. I’m still waiting for the book to come out in which a former member of the Flint Board Of Education writes about how our school was a pilot program intended to prove the measurable benefits of smaller class sizes, challenging curriculum, and increased individual attention.
At least two of my friends have spoken of this hypothesis like fact, or like they know a person who knew a guy who revealed some bombshell about how our gifted program came to get funding from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, or something like that. Regardless of how it all happened, the experience of attending our elementary school ended up bonding many of us all the way into middle age by that shared and wholly unique experience. In addition to advanced in-classroom learning, we did things like dissecting giant owl pellets and assembling and gluing the skeletons inside of them on posterboard. We built miniature rockets with precision and had to fire them upward in the playground, graded on things like construction, trajectory, and artistry. We learned about constellations at the local Longway Planetarium. We learned to dodge giant red, rubber balls that left welts on our developing bodies when we were targeted. It provided my first experiences with shutter speed and aperture of a camera lens.
It was kid-stuff, but elevated, and it gave our parents bragging rights. “Joe is in the gifted program.” I got decent grades, but I’m no Einstein. What’s interesting is that not only were we set apart from kids in the general Flint public school system, but starting in the fifth grade, our classrooms were even further stratified into the “Independent Group”, for self-starters who showed more potential, and the rest of us, promptly named the “Dependent Group” by us “losers”, probably to the chagrin of our teachers. (Guess which group I was in?) It’s hilarious to think about now. When some of us get together for a meal downtown at the White Horse Tavern, I can barely get in two sips of Coke before someone else’s memory of something that happened back then threatens to make it come out of my nostrils.
Maybe the thought process was to get us kids to set our sights so high that the trajectory would land us somewhere above the average in terms of job satisfaction and earning power. Some former alumni did go on to do broadly, positively impactful things in adulthood: screenwriters, diplomats, educators, politicians, professional singers and entertainers, and artists. Others of us ended up as insurance underwriters who take pictures and write about cars on a weekly basis. There’s no shortage of self-deprecating humor among us gifted kids, who use our supposedly high IQs to do menial tasks and scrub our own toilets like the rest of the population. Seriously, though, that great, old, long-closed elementary school had ingrained in us the idea to be achievers and not to be afraid of success. That seems to have been the basic idea.
1992 Oldsmobile Achieva print ad, as sourced from the internet.
Fast-forwarding to my senior year of high school in the early ’90s, I was working at a co-op job at GM’s AC Rochester Division in lieu of a sixth period when the new N-Body compacts were being introduced. That job provided my first experience with working with spreadsheets. I was tasked with populating some of them with certain information taken from dot-matrix printouts on green and white striped computer paper. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got to the section with the new Oldsmobile compact, which led me to fact-check its name with my supervisor. “Ummm, Keith? Is this a typo?” “No, that’s correct. ‘Achieva’ is the name of the new Calais replacement.” I just sat there trying not to crack up. Flint was a majority Black city with a rich history of all kinds of diversity and valuable contributions from everyone. Naming that car “Achieva”, which sounds like Ebonics, seemed like low-hanging fruit.
GM was probably going after something that sounded high-tech, and “Oldsmobile Achiever” sounds even worse in a “look at me, Mommy!” kind of way. Weren’t there any other names in the running? Granted, it might have been called the “Cutlass Achieva” in the era when the once-proud Cutlass name was tacked onto like half of Olds’ product line at one point (Cutlass Calais, Cutlass Ciera, Cutlass Supreme, etc.). Let’s reestablish that the Calais, the compact that had preceded the Achieva, was a nice-enough little Olds that didn’t set the world on fire. If you were a GM N-body not named Pontiac Grand Am, you might as well have not existed. That may sound harsh, but the G/A was one of the few, small, GM passenger cars of that era that had a distinctive personality, whether it was for you or not.
The Achieva came along for model year ’92 with a lot of carryover technology, being based to a significant degree on the L-body platform that dated back to spring ’87 with the introduction of the Chevrolet Corsica and Beretta. It had a 2.3 liter Quad-4 engine with 120 horsepower in single-cam form, or 160 hp with the DOCH unit. One strength of GM cars of this era was that the models on the same platform offered by its different divisions no longer looked exactly like each other. I see nothing wrong with this car’s styling and find a lot to like, even if the flat-topped rear wheel-arches aren’t necessarily my favorite. First year sales of around 80,000 weren’t exceptional, but this was due in part to Achieva’s delayed, January ’92 introduction due to a last-minute styling change on the coupes (rounded rear wheel arches).
By ’97, the year of our featured car, the Achieva was in its penultimate year and sold about 52,600 copies, most of them SL sedans (47,600 vs. 5,000 SC coupes). This example has the smoother, 150-horse 2.4L Quad-4 with twin balance shafts, which was introduced for ’95. The ’97 Achieva could also be had with a 3.3L V6 with just five more horses. By ’98, the line had been pared down to just one SL sedan, of which just 26,900 were sold. It seemed like such a quiet, subdued end to a model which Olds had seemed confident, at least as demonstrated in its advertising, would be a viable competitor to the class benchmarks Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.
The Achieva had held promise that just wasn’t realized (as I’ve done everything I can to delay typing the words “it was an underachieva”). Total production over seven model years came to between 350,000 and 360,000 cars, depending on the source. Could it be considered “gifted”? It wasn’t bad. It was definitely in the “Dependent Group” as cars go, and clearly not first-tier material in terms of popularity. Yet, maybe this is why the Achieva still tugs on my heartstrings all these years later. It didn’t rock the domestic small-car market, but the Achieva appeals to my sense of being lost in a sea of high-achieving kids in the classroom, the Accords and Camrys, and just quietly and competently going about the business to little or no fanfare.
Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.
Sunday, February 4, 2024.
Flint’s education for the “academically gifted” produced at least one Wordsmith Par Excellence. I always greet a Joseph Dennis essay with eager anticipation.
+1 !!!
“Lest anyone take that as a humble-brag….”
Joseph, your opening paragraph alone shows “gifted and intelligent” are not a humble-brag in your case. The eloquence with which you write your essays is unsurpassed.
As to the Oldsmobile? Meh… I think I’d rather have the Grand Am. They don’t even look like platform mates, a fact I just learned by reading your essay.
+ another. Always looking forward to a JD post.
Thank you so much, all of you. Means a lot. I’m connected with a handful of my former teachers on social media, and I like to think they read my CC entries from time to time.
I got a great education through the Flint Public Schools system.
Now, that we don’t see them around, anymore. I wouldn’t mind having an Achieva. They looked good in both forms…Coupe and sedan. Although, with the rear fender skirts, it looked like a mini Olds 98.
I prefer the sportier coupe, though. Especially, the sporty SCX model.
I thought the coupe – and especially the SCX – was a great, domestic alternative to the Chevrolet Beretta GT. I love the Beretta, but they were everywhere. The Achieva SCX was just as sporty and a bit more understated.
Joe, I am impressed how you are still in contact with your classmates from elementary school.
Two things always bugged me about these…first, the name. It’s a pseudo-word, it sounds terrible for a car, and it doesn’t present well. It comes across like the Ford Ka sold in Europe (and elsewhere, I presume). Second, the Achieva looks like an Olds 98 of the same period that had been left in the dryer too long. Surely somebody at Olds had some inkling of a however weak concept that perhaps the target demographic might differ somewhat between the two.
For whatever reason, I find myself drawn to the Mercury Marauder sitting in front of this Olds. That said, I’d love to see the color of the Olds offered on something contemporary. Perhaps there is something reasonably close but, if so, it certainly isn’t coming to mind.
+1 on the Marauder. Joseph, I trust you photographed that one, too, and put it away for future use.
Your wish is my command! Nod, blink, presto:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/editorial/curbside-musings-2003-mercury-marauder-delayed-reaction/
Sorry, I forgot that article! Same car, same location from the looks of it.
Good essay! Sounds kind of like the TV show Malcolm In The Middle (one of the funniest shows ever, IMO). Malcolm was in the gifted program at school, though his character was portrayed as a bonified prodigy. Many laughs were mined from the Krelboyns.
I think the name Achieva is a big indicator that Olds imagined itself competing with Japanese models. Japanese car names tend to be non-words (e.g. Camry, Corolla, Maxima) or seldom used words that don’t have strong associations (e.g. Civic, Accord, Prelude). American brands have tended to be more concrete nouns, like animals or places (e.g. Impala, Malibu, Mustang). The Achieva was a combination of a strong, real word “achiever”, modified into something not quite English in the Japanese style=Achieva. With a lab-tested name like that, success was practically guarranteed!
Jon, that’s a great observation about some of the coined model names of the period ending with the soft “-a” sound, and the tendency for U.S. names to be after actual things and places that exist.
Loved “Malcolm In The Middle” when it first came out. Hadn’t seen a show that captured the angst of family life like that since the original “Wonder Years”. And, of course, because I’m in the middle, myself.
Joe, you definitely have a gift – and I look forward to reading the results of it for a long time to come.
I couldn’t stand the Achieva (Underachieva?) when it came out, but this example looks rather nice in that color. The front end works rather well in fact, and the unadorned sides are quite refreshing when compared to todays often overcomplicated designs.
Thanks, Huey. And I agree that there’s a cleanliness to this design that especially appeals amid today’s aesthetic extremes
One year at the annual Monterey Historic Car Races I saw one of those cars were somebody had enhanced the GM factory badging on the car by renaming it the Olds Under Achieva.
I’m sure it can be done. Straightforward helvetica font, and there’s no shortage of stick-on chrome at aftermarket auto parts stores!
I still have my 93 Achieva S sedan. Though it’s just been taking up a spot in my garage for the last 12 years. Just need to evict the mice and throw some brakes and tires on it.
I hope it’s not too hard to clean up! I’m like you – if it was worth more to me than I could sell it for, and if I had space to store it, why wouldn’t I keep it?
Good gracious ! So glad that we were not “pleased” with this, here in good old Europe.
None of the lovers of US sheet metal – and there’s lots here, believe me – would have accepted T H I S as an American car.
The Big Power Meet of US vintage cars in Vasteras Sweden is one of, if not THE, biggest in the world. My former black ’58 NYer convert has been there, and perhaps my ’58 DeSoto and ’58 Windsor that also went to Sweden have as well.
I always liked these Olds. One of the car mag test used the “under-Acheiva” label as well, not being overwhelmed with it’s performance… just too tempting to avoid that one I guess. Fun piece as always Joe, thanks!
It’s interesting that you mention the lack of traditional, American flavor, as I’m sure Olds was all-in on trying to emulate European and Japanese cars with the Achieva in certain aspects of its design. (Though that front fascia is pure Oldsmobile.)
Joe, well done again. I loved the look of my 93 SC in red (just like the print ad) and still think it looks fresh. Mechanical nightmare though. I was lucky enough to have my thoughts posted in a March 2014 CC -can’t seem to find it here anymore. Clearly Oldsmobile could have done much better on the name but it did have a nice ring to it! I seem to recall that product groups at the GM Tech Center each had a in-house inspirational superhero character during the time these N bodies where being styled. Maybe it was Achieva Guy for Olds. Better name might have been Starfire or Jetstar as owning one of these was not an achievement.
Thanks, Cang! And I’m sorry to read about your ownership experience. Yours wasn’t even a first year car. I’d be curious to know how these Achievas rated in general in terms of reliability.
I would like a big car Post 1980 or 90’s.
It’s always great to see one out and about. They’re only getting thinner on the ground.
Thanks again for a good Tuesday read. I’m not in touch with anyone from my grade school days, but I did go to an informal 50th high school reunion last summer as part of an alumni event. Four of us showed up and at least three of us had been part of the same “crowd” – of kids who didn’t fit in that well with the majority. As for the Achieva, I had a red two-door as a loaner when our manual trans Corolla wagon was rear ended. A diverting change from the Corolla but not a great car.
I think it’s great that not only did you go to said informal reunion, but also could identify with others who showed. And you mention a manual Corolla wagon… I had forgotten to check stats on whether the Achieva was available with a manual, and what the take rate was. And thank you.
Thanks for a truly great article, Joe.
Maybe, but based on your description of the curriculum at your elementary school, I’d have to say that there was probably less explicit intentionality around setting of sights and the possible outcomes related to that then there was more basically a desire to provide the students with a meaningful, relevant, set of hands-on learning experiences. Back in those days, the term used for that was “Constructivist”. The more modern – yet decidedly more limited in my opinion – term is “STEM”. Regardless, all things being equal (which they usually aren’t), one natural outcome of that approach to learning is greater skills in critical thinking, increased job satisfaction, and ultimately higher earning potential.
Somewhere here there’s a connection to whoever or whatever process was behind coming up the absolutely uninspiring “Achieva” as a product name. Personally, I think that process could have used a bit more input from folks who benefited from an education such as what you and your friends received in that gifted and talented magnet program.
Too bad that all the kids weren’t being offered the same program. It sounds a lot more engaging and challenging than doing workbooks and such.
As a 42-years running professional educator, I approve of this message.
My local school district has a number of “boutique” schools that operate on that sort of model. They’re extremely popular, and there’s always way more families that apply than can get in (and the inevitable nasty accusations of favoritism and corruption that go along with that process).
Parents like those schools because it’s pretty clear the kids learn more and are happier doing it too. So I’m baffled why they don’t take that model (which is actually rather common-sensical) and make all of our schools like that – and do away with the snooty boutique school options?
That’s the question that generations of those of us who work in this field (both practitioners and researchers) have asked. This was being asked 50 years ago and I’m sure will still be asked 50 years from now.
So, there’s obviously no one answer or any easy answer; but something close, and it’s the answer that I tend to favor is “Change is hard.” And hard things are hard to do. Hard to motivate society around. Hard to allocate funding for. And so year over year it’s easier to stick with that which doesn’t work versus taking the leap to doing something different. And that’s just the reason why the average person doesn’t embrace change…it doesn’t even try to account for all of the people (for entirely different motivations) who actively fight against innovation.
Jeff, thank you so much. I think you’re right – we were kids, and our teachers weren’t projecting us into adulthood. We were *learning how to learn* and (to your point) to be critical thinkers, both of which will always be valuable.
The magnet program, and especially the gifted programs at both Doyle-Ryder and Walker elementary schools, had limited availability (as part of the Flint public school system) due to, let’s face it, money. With unlimited funds, I’m sure the magnet programs and busing and all of that had demonstrated what could actually be done in K through 12 in a public school system.
I’m not the expert, but a diminishing tax base with a slowly dwindling population led to less funds and less opportunities to go around. I do struggle sometimes with the idea that, “Why did I get my spot at my elementary school over someone else?” But I also worked reasonably hard, even if I wasn’t a straight-A student. (More like a “straight-B student, with some As thrown in.)
And then, there’s that whole “chicken or the egg” thing – would anyone with that slot at my school automatically get better grades which led to more opportunity, etc.? I don’t lose sleep over it, but I recognize that I got a benefit that many kids in Flint didn’t.
I assume the name Achieva was created by the same GM folks who brought us Lumina – thinking that attaching an “-a” to the end of an English word with positive connotations will make the car seem both sophisticated and International. Instead, both wound up being irritating names. But maybe I wouldn’t have minded had the cars themselves been better.
Incidentally, according to my dictionary, the English word “achieve” is derived from Old French, and uses the same root word that brought us “chief“. I never thought about that before.
Achievas (and all these GM N-bodies) have all but disappeared from around here. About 5 years ago I used to see an Achieva being driven fairly regularly. I’ve posted the picture below here before, but a few years ago, I saw two Achievas on successive days during a trip out west – I’ll probably never have that luck again.
Being a fan of conservatively-styled sedans, I actually had a warm spot for the styling, and thought that a V-6 with manual transmission might be a car I’d like. But at the time I was nowhere near buying a new car.
Eric, I agree that a V-6 manual would be an appealing combo in one of these. Being Oldsmobiles, though, I wonder just what percentage of Achievas were sold with manuals. I’m sure that like most GM cars of this era, very few weren’t automatics. And yes, “Lumina” wasn’t a luminous model name, but doesn’t compare to “Achieva” on the “please play again”-scale.
Joseph – Great article! For whatever reason, my observances of G/T kids’ later journeys are similar to your – keeping in touch, etc. In fact my daughter (now 23 and ‘adulting’) is taking a week-long cruise with her middle school G/T squad next week. They still get together monthly for game night etc, often weaving in their various boyfriends/girlfriends into the pack. It’s hilarious to watch from afar.
I could see how the Grand Am was the best seller; it was cohesive visually and definitely had a Pontiac theme. The Achieva (stupid name) was ok; just not as cohesive as the Pontiac. But it was nowhere as bad as the Buick monstrosity!
Thank you, Dave! I think that there must be some extra bonding that happens with going through something like a gifted program – working together on things that are harder. Being pushed. Achieving things above the average (or what a kid perceives they are normally capable of). I’m sure that was part of it. Good for your daughter and the friend group she has maintained, and that they all continue to grow and expand.
I’ll say this about the ’92 Skylark and its beak. I’ve softened to them now out of nostalgia, but I think I remember referring to it as “hideous” at the time.
I hear you Joseph…I too went to a private grade school. Got a great education, despite the fact I spent most of my time reading publications like Car Craft and Popular Hot Rodding. After I got paroled from there, went to public high school, where I learned nothing I didn’t already know. Spent most of my time as a teachers assistant in auto shop (remember those?) teaching my classmates how to rebuild things from carburetors to automatic transmissions. 17 years old, and I could rebuild a Turbo-Hydramatic 350 and 400 quicker and better than the local Ammco. Yes I was gifted. And we won’t talk about my 28 years as a marine tech, where reps from Mercury Marine would come to the shop and we would talk about how to improve their product.
I used to joke with people that I had spent almost as much time playing cards (right before class, during lunch in the cafeteria) as studying, though that probably wasn’t true. Our gifted program in Flint wasn’t private (like Powers Catholic high school), or even a charter school. It was part of the Flint public school system, which made it all the more awesome – if you could win the “lottery” or however that worked.
I always admired that the guys and gals in shop class at Flint Central High School had those real life mechanical skills that I knew never would.
Did you routinely win the award for “Best Behaved”? (I was never in the running myself.)
Olds and GM would have had much more success if there cars routinely won awards for Best Behaved.
I’m trying to remember if I was best behaved. I was too afraid of punishment to do anything radical, but yeah – I got sent to the corner a handful of times, and it was mortifying each time. I wanted to be liked, by my teachers and classmates, alike, so I was never going to act out a whole lot.
The flat rear wheel opening was also used on the Buick Skylark which had a weird drooping side line on the body. The flat wheel opening was also used on Honda’s hybrid Clarity, I always saw it as an allusion to the “car of the future” vibe.
Olds had a couple of odd names: Achievea, and Alero, with a couple of pretty good names with the Intrigue and the Aurora. I think that the Achieva was a fairly nice looking car, better than the Skylark, but still kind of bland, the coupe was a better effort.
Programs for “gifted” students can be a good idea, but they often end up helping kids that really don’t need the extra attention. Middle class families have more intellectual “culture” and achievement built into their family, educated family members that are often in the professions. High levels of expectation that the kids are held to. Their kids will be exposed to a wide range of interests and their parents will generally be supportive of their kid’s possibilities for achievement.
The challenge is for working class and low income families. There are lot’s intelligent and talented kids in these families that may never be exposed to areas that will allow them to prosper and reach their potential. Even if the parents are generally supportive of the idea, they don’t have a familiarity and comfort with the idea of higher education. Not to mention real handicaps of not being proficient in English, or housing and family instability.
In my case, it was the Catholic school system that provided an enriched educational environment and the demands for higher standards of individual achievement. It provided the exposure and encouragement that the parents couldn’t. My parents wanted more for their kids, even though they didn’t really understand exactly what that entailed. The Nuns took care of that. They were tough on me, I was a rebellious student up to a point, but never crossed any lines of consequence. My folks scrimped to pay for the tuition for their three kid’s 12 year Catholic school educations. I remember when I was in fourth grade and my teacher Sister Adelaide, told the class that she expected all of us to go to college. My two brothers and I all graduated from college, thanks in part to those Nuns and of course, my parents efforts.
Jose, I think you’re 100% correct in your assessment of modern-day gifted, magnet, “exam school” programs. But it does bear mentioning that the program that Joe mentions was in fact the product of 1970s efforts related to civil rights and desegregation. These programs – and there were many across the nation – tended to promote Great Society ideas/ideals that were based in learning science and (given their place in history) were possible in a society that was willing to try things. Unfortunately, as we have moved to the present-day, our 21st century popular notions of competition and letting “the market dictate” what will or will not succeed has resulted in the inequitable situation that you accurately describe.
/rant
(sorry)
Jeff, more excellent points. You mention efforts related to civil rights and desegregation as they relate to these programs. I just returned from an extended weekend in Flint, where I watched a screening of “Remembering Flint Central” about my high school. I’m convinced that all of those efforts related to the magnet / gifted programs, the busing, and everything else contributed very meaningfully and tangibly to all of racial harmony we generally all experienced, which brought us all together. White, Black, Latinx, etc. It was culture shock after I moved away and learned the rest of the U.S. wasn’t exactly like that.
Now that you mention the drooping side character line on the ’92 Skylark, I wonder if it wasn’t intended to give a little throwback to the ’68 and ’69 Skylarks (and Specials) with the same. Somehow, I doubt it, though, because those “sweep-spear” Skylarks don’t tend to be on people’s list of favorites.
The magnet and gifted program in the Flint public schools had a whole socio-economic mixture of kids from all over the city. It wasn’t just kids from the more affluent parts of the city, and it was also ethnically diverse. We had this whole system of buses that went all over, and by high school, from school to school for specialties offered at one school over another. Senior year, I rode the bus to take advanced chemistry and calculus at one school, and back to my own high school for humanities and English.
To your point, though, I believe it’s 100% accurate to say that there’s so much untapped and unrealized potential among the below-middle-class, and those learning environments (at home or otherwise) tend to be not the same. Just having someone believe in you and say, “Why not you? Why couldn’t you do or be this?” and plant that seed can make such a big difference.
My story was also different because my dad was a college professor who knew the value of applying oneself and getting a good education. He didn’t play. I didn’t have an option to get anything below a B average.
It sounds like you hold a warm place for the nuns who gave you that tough love, along with your parents. Sister Adelaide’s belief in the individuals in your class undoubtedly made a difference.
My school had barely anything to offer, and that was back before you could attend a school outside of your home district if you wanted. And before you could leave early for work or take early college classes with the time you spent twiddling your thumbs. Not surprising that everyone who wasn’t planning to drop out was an honor roll student. Meanwhile they forced all us “overachievers” onto a college path and said the trades were for dropouts. The school probably got kickbacks for every student they put in college.
Anyway, I thought the Achieva was a good looking car, aside from the rear wheel arches (or lack of). However they’re not as polarizing as they used to be. I especially liked the nose. Similar to the early 90s 98, but better. Because IMO the finely slatted chrome grille is part of the true Oldsmobile image.
Troy, I think the delay in introducing the ’92 Achieva to correct the rear wheel arches on the coupes (to make them fully round) was definitely worth it. These do definitely have “small Ninety-Eight” angles on them, but filtered through GM’s interpretation of what Europe and Asia were doing.
I’m glad there’s focus these days on not necessarily forcing a young adult to go into college, versus learning a valuable and useful trade.
Ah, been looking forward to this. I have a creative writing project of my own due in tomorrow, but I’ll put that on hold – it’s Joseph Dennis time!
Oh how I wish – but no, we won’t go there. Suffice to say that during my schooldays I repeatedly got dragged back from realizing my potential by a succession of (shall we politely say) ‘dull’ desk-mates who either physically attacked me (grade five) or just plain distracted me and kept me back from following what was happening up front in the classroom (form two/year eight). Now that I look back on it I think the intention was that the brighter student would help the dull ones – and I would have, willingly! – but in practice the dullards dragged me down. Which just goes to show that the older folk, and the ones with letters after their names, don’t always get it right.
Which brings us nicely to this – “Achieva”.
Oh dear. Who thought THAT was a good name for a car? It’s embarrassing. It practically begs you not to take it seriously. It must have led to hundreds of over-achiever/under-achiever jokes.
I didn’t know how it sounded to American ears, but to this Aussie it was thoroughly cringe-worthy. You could just imagine this dopey guy in an American sitcom saying “Duh – I drive an Achieva.” It’s one of those things that makes you realize Americans must be different, maybe. Nowadays I realize it wasn’t so much that, as a symbol of dysfunctional GM management; they actually thought this was a good name, not a laughable one.
Was somebody deliberately trying to kill Oldsmobile???
Okay, on to the car itself. I’d better be brief, or this will rival Joe’s essay for length. It looks like what I see first thing in the morning when I rise bleary-eyed, before I was my face. Things are there, in place but out of focus and out of proportion until I wash that sleep out of my eyes and can see things clearly. LIke I just did before reading this, hence the analogy. You have the high body sides, the over-prominent shoulder line, the resultant narrow greenhouse – which makes it look cramped and kayak-like before you even try it on for size.
That’s two strikes guys – the name and the look. Things aren’t looking good around here….
Thank you, Peter! I hope your own writing project has gone well, as I realize there’s quite a time change between where I sit and where you are.
Bullying is never okay, and I have also witnessed the “crabs in a bucket” phenomenon time and again. It’s always sad to see. I think it can have a galvanizing effect and help one develop the inner “fight”, or it can lead down a different path of becoming just like the others who want to take your something special away from you.
It’s great (and entertaining) to read a perspective on the model name from someone from another part of the world. “Duh – I drive an Achieva…” I almost read that in an Al Bundy-voice in a modern-day “Married With Children”. Entertaining stuff.
It went very well, thank you. Knocked it out in an hour. It’s just going mid-day here, and I’ve done the writing, shopping and had a haircut.
Still shaking my head over that name….
Concur on the styling, Pete. Politest that could be said is “Perhaps the committee met rarely”.
As to names, I remember when the Holden Commodore came out. Aussies being Aussies, plenty of folk thought it a bit of a, er, self-pleasurement, to name a car after the head of a yacht club, so in true form, it was often as not called the commode (for US interpretation, that’s the potty that used go under the bed for night duties in the old days).
Oh boy, what a blast from the past. I too was a beta tester in my school’s Gifted and Talented program as I entered the third grade. Sadly, I remember little from the experience. In second grade, a lady came to my (then) school and drove me to some other building in a wood-sided Fairmont wagon. She then gave me an IQ test, and all I remember about THAT is being apologetic when I reached a point where I “ran out of talent.” Regardless, she told my mom (who also worked in the district) what my score was, and that set me up for some fairly unrealistic expectations from that point on. Because I’ve never been very motivated by success/expectations.
Anyway, I was in the program for a year before my mom pulled me out because she thought I was getting a big head, an action that I wholeheartedly approve of. We never fired off rockets or studied photography, although I do remember studying contemporary Japanese culture, a program I was enrolled in by default because I didn’t choose a topic on my own, thinking I could get out of “specials” time by simply abstaining. Nope. There was some good food involved, anyway. 🙂 There was plenty of multiplication table practice from what I remember. I did get to write an essay about a car, a 1956 Chevy. I remember asking if I could change the subject car to a Mustang, to no avail.
The rest of the school didn’t like us, which bothered my cousin (who was also in the program), so I think my aunt pulled him out of it at the end of the year as well. For 4th grade, I went back to my normal school where I got a few questions I didn’t know how to answer about where I had been. My head couldn’t have been too big, because I didn’t want to tell anyone. It was for the best, because I was in class with Mrs. Baker, a woman whom to this day I respect more than almost anyone I have ever met (she has since passed, sadly).
Other than seeing my cousin once in a while, I don’t have any contact with my classmates from back then, although I do remember having a crush on a brunette named Natascha. Nothing came of it. 🙂
Aaron, thank you for sharing this. The “big head” thing was something that many of us at our elementary school came to understand was how we were perceived by the rest of the kids in the Flint public school system. Some different schools would be bused in for one day during the week for participation in the “ATP” (Academically Talented Program / part-time) program. My friends today that had to do that talk about how much they hated coming to our school for one day, and how they felt they were treated at our school. I wish I could apologize. I almost always do.
And then we laugh and talk about something else. There were downsides. The system wasn’t perfect and it didn’t benefit everyone. They did the best they could.
I always liked the styling of Oldsmobile’s compact cars better than that of their sister divisions starting with the front-wheel drive Omega of 1980, the Calais (later sold as the “Cutlass Calais”), the Achieva and the Alero. The full open rear wheel well of the Achieva coupe was always sportier and more attractive than the sedan. I wanted to love these cars, but sadly the engines let these cars down and they just weren’t in the same league as the Camcords.
I also thought the FWD Omega was one of the better-looking X-cars. The rounded wheel arches were the only way to go on the Achieva coupe. I’d be curious to see what one would look like with the flat-topped rear quarter wheel arches. Whoever made that last-minute decision made the correct one.
The original concept coupe- called the “red car”- had the flat-topped wheel arches. I’m not sure how last minute the decision was to go with rounded wheel arches since the concept was penned in 1986. The design had a big effect on the Olds 98 and 88, both of which came out before the Achieva. Olds apparently lost the roof wars. The coupe had the Grand Am upper, while the sedan carried the Buick upper. The “red car” coupe sketch had a more fast back roof while the sedan mockup was a sloping six window design. I personally like the closed “Buick” c pillar on the sedan. The car itself should have been called Cutlass.
Al, thank you for this. I often forget just how far in advance of a model’s introduction that its design was locked in. I’m going to try to find some of these examples you mentioned online.
Also a gifted kid here. I’m smart in some ways, not in others. It DID teach me a lot though and we got to do fun activities, like making our own Greek myth monsters in paper mache. As for the Acheiva, I always thought it looked a little off, like a 98 they shrunk in a dryer. The Grand Am was the clear winner and the only one I remember seeing in huge numbers, and I grew up in the Midwest.
I was not great at the papier maché. My balloon always popped, and I didn’t like the way the glue smelled. I was the king of dioramas, though.
I am still having a hard time squaring gifted-and-talented educational programs with cars like the Achieva. It reminds me more of the big city public school systems we keep reading about that throw great gobs of money into an ossified system and get a bunch of graduates who cannot do math or read at anywhere near grade level. It was the Accord and Camry in the G&T programs.
Really, I am amazed that with all of the money and talent thrown at education over the last 2 or 3 generations that we’re still seeking a solution for the problem identified several decades ago: Why Johnny Can’t Read. Maybe it was the same problem with GM, on why they couldn’t build competitive cars after the early 80s.
Almost exactly what I was going to say, all of this.
Haha! JP, I guess my counterpoint was that, from everything I’ve read, the Achieva was basically a good car, if not up to the levels of refinement of the class benchmarks. Again, I was in the “Dependent Group” in the gifted program, and there were other kids like me who weren’t the creme de la creme of students, so to speak. Didn’t mean we were dumb. Just not the leaders.
Excellent piece, as per always, Mr D. “Ebonics” is a new word to me.
I was an irritating combination of moderately gifted at some things and yet immoderately thick-headed at certain others, in a pattern still extant to this day. (“For god’s sake, Justy, how can you still NOT operate that program, it’s literally for kids?!”) I did well enough out of a most ordinary school to land like a rocket way above the station I was used to, in a university (and course) where I felt permanently foreign. The moneyed rest, for they were by-and-large the products of mega-dollar private schools, were at home, and I wonder about gifted programs sometimes: hopefully, these days, they do better to equip the whole person for their elevation, should it happen.
My youngest goes to a gifted public school (he is actually gifted), but the education seems little different. Just a much smarter cohort surrounding him, I guess (albeit, not the most characterful crowd!). He’s a type who’ll make his way well in the world regardless, which I suspect most properly gifted folk generally do.
Good parenting, though, is the only real answer to good education outcomes in 90% of cases, whether in marks or the whole person. It’s so obvious. Schools CANNOT raise your kid for you – they can at most help you to do some of the heavy lifting.
As JPC said, the Camry and Accord were the achievers. It’s incredible to an outsider to see that GM seriously thought this rather awkwardly-styled, not-so-great engined, averagely-built pile was a competitor for the (’93) Camry, which was a professionally-styled near-Lexus.
If they had faced reality, it would have been named the Olds Ordinaire.
Thanks, Justy, and you make a great point about cohort having a big impact on the learning experience. I’m sure there are tons of kids who are intelligent and would otherwise apply themselves if they weren’t also battling demons in their families of origin or other kids who, for whatever reason, don’t want them to succeed. I don’t have the answers, but just hope that people keep asking the questions.
And “Olds Ordinaire” – hahaha!!