This car could be viewed in two ways. Was it a comically tarted-up version of an outdated economy car? Or was it an optimistic statement that the malaise era was drawing to a close? Both statements are probably true, which illustrates why the late 1980s car market is so interesting to examine in retrospect. And this car’s vanity license plate suits it perfectly – this car embodies the Spirit of ’89.
General Motors’ J-car lineup needs little introduction. Launched for 1982 as subcompact import-fighters, the cars quickly earned a reputation for being crudely built, slow, noisy and uncomfortable… not quite the Honda fighters that GM had hoped for. Pontiac’s version (initially called the J2000 and later Sunbird) differed from Chevy’s Cavalier by… um… mostly badges and a unique beak. So much for the Sloanian Ladder.
Being slow and uncomfortable didn’t stop the J-cars from selling by the zillion, because they were cheap to buy, and there was still considerable resistance to Japanese cars among North American consumers. Regardless, the fact that by the late 1980s, these cars remained largely unaltered, was surprising. Even more surprising was the emergence of upmarket, sporty variants offered by Pontiac and Chevrolet.
Convertible versions of the Sunbird and Chevy Cavalier debuted in 1983, priced at roughly 60 percent more than equivalently-equipped coupes.
A year later, Sunbird received an optional turbocharged engine – a whopping $1,500 option in 1984… that’s $3,800 in 2020 dollars (Cavalier’s sport model, the V-6 Z24, debuted until 1985). Sunbird’s 1.8L 4-cyl. powerplant was typical of 1980s turbocharged engines, developing decent amounts of power, but in a limited and high RPM range (150 hp @ 5,600 rpm at first, increasing to 165 hp @ 5,500 rpm with later models). Unusually for the era, the engine made do without an intercooler.
Naturally, the Sunbird’s turbo and convertible offerings jelled together to form a new top-of-the-line offering, the turbo convertible. And what could be more ’80s than that? Just a few years earlier, convertibles were nearly extinct, and turbos seemed exotic – but both made significant inroads throughout the car market during the decade. When the J-cars launched in late 1981, whoever would have thought that such a car would soon be offered as a turbo (like a Saab!) and a convertible (like a Mercedes!)? Yet it happened.
Yes, the Sunbird turbo convertible was a somewhat crude application of each of those concepts. The turbocharged engine was great for horsepower enthusiasts (165 hp was quite a lot in 1989), though one had to push it hard to get meaningful performance, and when that performance arrived it was chaperoned by its buddy, torque steer. The Sunbird GT’s “Level III” performance suspension cornered well, but was stiff enough to remind drivers of its presence even on smooth pavement. Meanwhile, the convertible’s structure was predictably squirmy. However, did any of that matter? This was a fun car, bought by people who remembered the not-so-distant past when it seemed that cars like these would never be made again.
By 1989 when our featured car was produced, the J-cars (those that remained, as the Cimarron and Firenza bowed out early) were largely archaic, but GM still sold more than 400,000 of them – mostly bargain-oriented Cavalier sedans or coupes. Our featured car was born an outlier within the J-car world. Not only was this a Sunbird, but this was one of the most expensive Sunbirds imaginable. In a year when the base Sunbird LE listed for $8,849, a GT convertible like this started at $16,899. Add some choice options like air conditioning, cassette (or CD player!), and cruise control, and one ended up with a sticker price exceeding $18,000. That’s in the ballpark of the much more refined Toyota Celica GT convertible, or the roomier Chrysler LeBaron. Whoever bought one of these really wanted a Sunbird… or received a hefty discount.
Spending $16,000+ on J-car may seem illogical, but this car wasn’t about quantitative measurements or ratings or a perfect balance of performance metrics – this car was about optimism. Everyone who bought one of these recalled the then-recent past when complaints about too much power or too-stiff performance suspensions were never heard. This car embodied the optimism of its era; despite some rather flawed products, things were getting better, little by little.
Happily making the best of what you had… that was the Spirit of ’89.
So shine on, Sunbird, and forget all of that pesky criticism. We need some more optimism around here, after all!
Photographed in Springfield, Virginia in July 2020.
Chalk up cheap convertibles as one more victim of the carpocalypse. Everyone apparently wants a crossover SUV now.
On the other hand the “SUV” is the savior of the convertible.
While there are many reasons people buy Wranglers high on the list is the removable top. That of course is why Ford made sure the Bronco has a removable top and why they made sure that it would provide a great open air experience.
I guess Nissan could learn a lot from Ford and Jeep and not repeating the mistakes they did with the Murano convertible.
That Sunbird cost $16k in 1989; that’s $35k in today’s dollars. Hardly “cheap”.
The 2020 Mustang convertible starts at $32k.
I guess there are still a few inexpensive convertibles left for sale, but my lamentation was as much on the demand side as on the supply side.
With the departure of the Buick Cascada and Chrysler Sebring/200, there are no more regular cars that just happen to be convertibles. Yes, there are still specialty convertibles: You can get a sporty convertible (Miata, Mustang), an offroad convertibles (Wrangler, Bronco) or a luxury convertibles (Mercedes, BMW) but there are no more regular car convertibles anymore.
While we can blame manufacturers, they are simply responding to market conditions.
Did someone say cheap?
Eric703 – thanks always for the great writeups and cool to see local stuff, I’m in Manassas VA. 🙂
You’re welcome! And it’s great to see another Northern Virginian here too!
https://www.k-bid.com/auction/34075
Here I am! Come buy me!
Absolutely loved this writeup. I still remember when these were hot cars. My perspective is skewed, coming from a largely GM-centric place, I remember these Sunbird Turbo convertibles being desirable.
I remember much copy being written about them being crudely built and overpriced. The ’88 Sunbird restyle did wonders for their looks.
Looking at the picture of the ’82s, I’m trying to remember the last time I saw any of the early cars, specifically the two-door notchback.
I owned an ’82! Actually it was an ’81 in all but name – these went into production in the spring of 1981 as early ’82 models. Those built before MY82 proper, like mine, had a console (with cup holders!) bisecting the rear seat because GM wanted to save money by not providing a third rear seatbelt, and even slower acceleration than later-’82 models, some of which got the Brazilian OHC engine rather than the Chevy pushrod 1.8L used in the first year.
Anyway, I think this car was born with an attractive look, as seen in the J2000 advert shown here. I had the LE sedan, though the hatchback coupe made only for the first few years was even nicer. Every time Pontiac mucked with the styling, they made it worse.
I mentioned to Eric above that it’s always cool to see local sightings as we’re in the same area – but I forgot my own J-body, which was a nearly showroom new 1984 Olds Firenza with literally every option on the book save power windows and locks yet with the factory sunroof. 4-dr sedan, 5-spd manual, 1.8 OHC. Loved that thing, I was in high school. I broke a shift fork being a jackass one day – my fault, not the car’s. 😁
“Torque steer is my Wing Man!” That one you found is well-loved, likely the original owner’s, and looks far better now as a preserved car than it did when new. It’s a bit shocking how people were so resistant back then to products from elsewhere (without supporting data I mean) but I guess most places have similar scenarios playing out.
The white convertible in the ad picture at that particular angle looks immensely like the Celica GT-S Convertible at first glance with the fender flares and black gasket around them, the body side boldings and the top stack.
In the areas where the Big 3 had a Big Footprint back then, don’t forget the employee plans that were available to not just current employees, but to retirees and their families too. Back then GM had a really wide reach with assembly plants, component plants, and related entities like Delco, Guide, Allison (both transmission and gas turbine) – and that was just central Indiana. It was not uncommon for employees to buy their max of 2 or 3 cars a year to re-sell to friends and neighbors. For all of those people it absolutely, positively had to be a GM car.
That’s true but an amazing way to run a business. Hopefully there’s some profit left for the manufacturer after all that. Lose a little on every car but make it (not) up on volume… 🙂 At some point everybody knows somebody who can get a deal and I guess that’s how you end up with grossly inflated sticker prices so that it can be heavily discounted to the employee and still not be a loser. But the rest of the public ends up the “sucker”.
Ha! My dad always used to make the same business joke: “Well yeah, we’re losing our shirt on this deal, but we’ll make it up in volume!” 😄🙃
Eventually, profits and revenues…
I never noticed before, but yes, the Sunbird in that ad resembles a Celica. Particularly, the right-hand side of the ad… the wheel arch flares with a black seal along the edge of the flare… the convertible top is stored in exactly the same manner as the Celica… the same overall shape. Oh, and I think that a lot of Celicas came equipped with blonde women wearing white sunglasses, too.
Below is a white Celica I saw at a cars & coffee event last year. Even though this pic is from a different angle, we can see the similarities:
According to my source, a 1989 Mustang LX 5.0 convertible had an MSRP of $17,001. (a GT convertible was $500 more.)
Aside from a (slightly) more usable back seat, why the heck would you buy this to save $102??
a) Generous GM discounts
b) Fox-body Mustangs have atrocious traction in the wet, never mind the snow. In certain regions this made them deeply compromised as daily drivers. A J-body convertible would be far easier to manage in challenging weather.
I’m right in that age range where 1989-92 or so were the years when all my friends bought their first new cars. This was still a right of passage in those days. You’d graduate from college and get the first “real job”, then immediately saddle yourself with a car payment, because conventional wisdom dictated that you’d have one for the rest of your life anyway, so you might as well start the new-every-4-year cycle right from jump.
I knew quite a few people who bought J cars in both coupe and convertible variants. One of these and at least two Z-24’s come to mind. It always boggled my mind. $10,000 was a fair price for a decent car in those days. $14,000 was a “Nice Car”. $18,000 put you in the price range of a Celica GT convertible. My mind is still boggled.
In 1989 I was a technician at a Pontiac Buick dealership. I liked working on the J cars, they were simple and straightforward. Test drives were enlightening. The standard J cars were total dogs, I was disappointed that GM let them go with wheezing slow, rough 4 cyl engines, especially when the smooth 2.8 V6 was widely available.
But the Pontiac and Buick J car turbo fours were a hoot. Massive turbo lag and all-or -nothing power was entertaining in an unintended way. Front and center in the dash was a vacuum-boost gauge. When there’s no boost the engine was plain slow. Stomp on the gas and its still slow for up to 2 seconds (an eternity for throttle response), then the gauge needle swung right to show boost and the car took off in a completely non – linear application of power. The game was to keep the boost up and that needle pointing right as you powered over hills and around corners. Fall off the boost and its all lame soggy throttle response again.
I have a feeling the typical Buick J car driver did not drive like this. I’m sure only the technicians knew. I kinda feel sorry for any Turbo I fixed and test -drove.
I remember kind of liking these, at least from a distance and for what they were. No mistake, I would have chosen a Mustang any day, but these were at least nicely styled cars at a minimum.
I always kind of liked that Pontiac styling trick of the semi-hidden headlights where the door left a slit at the bottom. The cars looked like they were squinting at you in a menacing kind of way. It might have been scary coming from something other than a Sunbird.
To me, the Sunbird’s semi-hidden headlights made it look like Garfield:
Our rental fleets in Hawaii were filled with them. I got stuck with a few on some visits because the better cars were all out on the roads, which I preferred anyway.
The Sunbird was cheap. It was jazzy looking and more attractive than the rental Cavaliers which also filled rental lots. Those sales figures you had were attractive, because hundreds of thousands of these cars were rentals to National, Budget, Enterprise, and Alamo. They were kept as cheap wheels for young drivers.
So anyway, I was on one of the Hawaiian islands with a red convertible Sunbird and it was still new. But it was a buzzkill kind of car too. The dash shook like it wasn’t attached to the car when it was on the go. It did have a bright yellow power button on the radio, and that permitted a driver to drown out the creaking, pops and snaps coming from the plastic Pontiac.
It looked like a nice car until you drove one. My wife has fond memories of high school in her best friend’s Sunbird and I can understand how a teen high school girl would think this car was awesome! It looked sporty, had heavy-lidded head covers, had round gauges and goo-gaws for vents, had “sporty” looking handles and grab thingies, and was painted bright blue, red, and white. But, like a lot of “sporty” cars of that era, it was cosmetic, not actual.
I doubt that the J-body was the beginning of the shift to fleet sales to keep GM afloat, but it sure seemed to accelerate with these cars. GM execs must have begun figuring out that it was a whole lot easier to leave the civilian market to the Asians and concentrate on big, discounted volume sales to the fleets, resulting in bottom-of-the-barrel, ultra-cheap cars that no one wanted and would only drive if it was the last thing available at the rental counter.
I agree with the above two posters as to the looks. When the J2000 or 2000 or whatever it was when first introduced in convertible form, I too liked the way it looked. This must have been in around 1983 or ’84.
During that time I worked in Los Angeles frequently and rented cars sometimes for a week or ten days, as needed. And I also had a desire to own some kind of small convertible for a 2nd car. For LA rentals, I do remember once having a satisfactory Mustang convertible and another time a nice VW Cabrio. Somewhere else I rented a J-car of some type (but not a convertible). That was all I needed to know. I bought an ’85 VW Cabrio new and kept it just for a couple of years.
I should have known better when I first noticed GM’s J-car convertible and I’m glad I learned more before ever going into a Pontiac showroom.
This is an 80’s summer holiday on four wheels, I love it! Back then the VW Golf cabrio was in a style league all of its own, inhabiting many upmarket driveways. The Fiat 500 cabriolet seems to be the modern equivalent here, seen in all the right parts of town. Customers have never shied away from paying extra for the roof to disappear..
I remember these as “chic cars.”More so years after they were new driven by high school or post-high school girls headed to their part-time job or to the mall.
My wife and I had a 82 Cavalier sedan demo with the 1.8 litre engine. Oh that engine, always pinging! It stayed with us for a year. No fond J Car memories from me.
My son owned a Z24 convert, V6 auto trans, came with the locked up torque converter feature, luckily being a GM tech I told him the fix was simple, pull the fuse and drive it. Later on the drivers power window quit working, thats when you see the real engineering from GM, plasma cut inner door sheet metal to make a hole big enough to fit the regulator thru. This was also the start of riveting in components in the door, couldn’t reliably tighten bolts so lets rivet it, a rivet is cheaper than nuts and bolts, one part rather than two and the installer only needs to pull a trigger or push a button so maybe faster too. As to being repairable later, F you we’re building cars.
Yeah! I remember doing a power window regulator on a friend’s Z24 convertible. Not fun, but I had enough experience that I didn’t look like the loser of a knife fight when the job was over. I used to keep a bunch of 1/4-20X1/2 screws and nylock nuts around to replace the rivets. Those were the days. The car was kind of a blast, plenty of power, handled O.K. but was indeed squirmy. Were the coupes any better? Aside from the window regulator it didn’t give much trouble.
These Sunbird GT’s, as well as the somewhat corresponding Z24 Cavaliers, were most definitely the ish when they were current. Somehow they had a very defined distinct image to most people then, opposed to the humdrum sedans and lesser coupes. Why? I can’t say. Nobody made fun of the chick driving this, circa 1994, I can tell you that.
My daughter turned 16 in 1998. My wife’s boss sold us her meticulously maintained ’90 Sunbird convertible for $1500.
We had to put a new head gasket on it, but other than that it was relatively trouble-free.
It’s the only convertible I’ve ever owned. Made me want another convert!
Nice essay. Thanks. Nice comments for fellow participants.
Ah yes, 1989. I had paid my brand new 86 El Camino off early as I had my first well paying job. I never gave The J cars a second look until the. 88 restyle. The Cavalier Z24 caught my eye. It was transformed into a mini muscle car. A zippy v6, ground effects, cowl induction hood, and the convertible looked so sleek with the top lowered. I considered buying the coupe but my Dad said, “Everytime you see a convertible you’re going to wish you’d gotten what you really wanted. You’re making some real money now, never know what the future holds, so do it while you can.” So I bought a triple black 89 Z24 convertible with every option but the digital dash. It was over $18k. Unfortunately the night I drove it home from the dealership the problems began. It quit running less than five miles from the dealership and had to be towed back. Within the first month, the A/C compressor bit the dust and the electric trunk release either didn’t work or decided to pop the trunk while you were driving along on its own. The car would randomly stop running and each time I brought it in, they couldn’t find anything wrong. The other unsettling thing was the severe amount of cowl shake. I was no stranger to owning a convertible as at the time I owned a 65,68 and 69 Impala convertibles, still own the 68 and 69. There was no noticeable shake in those cars but the Z24 shook and the top latches rattled. During the first year, the alternator quit, leaving me outside Columbus, Ohio on I 71. I had it towed to my Dad’s house and he replaced the alternator. It was one electrical glitch after another with this car. In 1992 I parked it in the garage with just over 9000 miles on it. I barely drove it after that because I couldn’t trust it wouldn’t leave me stranded. By 2009 I got the bug for the new 2010 Camaro that was coming out and ordered one, trading the Z24 in on it. It had barely over 10,000 miles on it. It was a shame really. It was a fun car to drive when it wasn’t succumbing to electrical maladies. oh and that 86 El Camino? Still have i. Just over 6,600 miles to date.
My Sister bought an ’84 Sunbird (2 door, non-convertible) new (their only new car, to my recollection) and then my Dad bought a 4 door later that year.
My Sister’s car (up in rust country) did alright, before it rusted and was junked, but my Dad’s ended up the worst car he ever owned. It was dealer maintained but the engine was replaced at less than 50k miles by the dealer….and then at less than 80k miles the replacement engine threw a rod…in between, it suffered numerous other maladies, like power steering leak that had my other sister adding fluid before each drive (should have been repaired, but by then the car was already a bit of a heap). By 1988 the car was only 4 years old but was junked…my sister started buying Japanese cars, which lasted the rest of her life (which unfortunately was short, she passed away of Ovarian Cancer at age 37 (She would have been 50 years old on Aug 12 of this year).
My Dad did return to GM, his last 2 cars were Chevy Impalas (one of which is still owned by my Mother).
Our first new car as a married couple was a new 85 Sunbird Wagon with the peppy 1.8 and 5 speed trans. 38 mpg, room for 5 adults, functioning roof rack, and nice looking. Drove that through 12 Michigan winters with only 2 problems; timing belt went prematurely at 60K, head gasket went at 80K. Sold with 129K and it still looked and ran like new. My second Sunbird which I still have is an 89 Sunbird GT Turbo convert. Turbo was upgraded and NO MORE LAG! Torquey Steering, you get use to it. FE3 Suspension, and the car rides like a muscle car, BECAUSE IT IS! Same horsepower to weight ratio as a firebird. At the Woodward Dream Cruise, I had a chance to talk with a guy that worked for the company that converted these cars to GT’s, which only increased my appreciation of my car. 101,000 miles on mine, and it STILL looks and drives BETTER than new. And YES, I can STILL blow the doors off quite a few cars. You take care of them, they take care of you. I still get thumbs up when I drive it in the Dream Cruise, or the Grand Rapids Metro Cruise. Chalk me up as a satisfied customer.
You know I met the lady who drives this thing, the sweetest little woman you’d ever met, and she was surprised to find out her car comes up in the top 5 with her in it when you look up a sunbird convertible!