The blessing of Google Translate notwithstanding, it’s always a bit of a crap-shoot to suss out hard info from Japanese websites. But usually, with a little perseverance, it’s possible to figure out a number of facts and figures about a lot of things. You can find testimonials of present and past owners, the occasional road test, cars for sale – you know, fodder and filler for content. Didn’t get that with this Buick, though. Not even a decent brochure scan. Ominous much?
I take it most of you will be familiar with this generation of Park Avenues. Yes, I know they’re technically called “Electra Park Avenue,” but they sure aren’t badged as such – and in Japan, the Electra bit seems to have been omitted from the majority of the sales literature, as they didn’t bother with plain old Electras here. So I’ll skip to calling it just “Park Avenue,” if that’s OK.
This was Buick’s take on the 1985-91 C-body, the first FWD senior Buick. Irv Rybicki outdid himself, with a vaguely Volvo-esque shape, with an almost vertical backlight for that oh-so-popular (but oh-so-ugly) “formal” roofline. This was garnished with generous amounts of brightwork on the nose – and, for the Park Avenue, on the sides too, as well as the large horizontal taillight clusters that were all the rage at the time.
Not a triumph of modern design, to be sure, but hardly the worst of a rather dismal period in GM’s history, the C-body was also sold as the Oldsmobile 98 Regency and the Cadillac De Ville. The Buick version was perhaps the least offensive of the three, particularly if one omitted to order faux wire wheel covers and the vinyl roof. Perhaps that explains why this was the C-body sedan that GM picked for their Japanese importer, Yanase, to try and sell by the handful.
Yes, I think we’re talking literal handfuls per annum here. Unlike the next generation Park Avenue, which everyone thought looked the part, this one failed to convince more than *wild guesstimate alert* about 50 to 100 people to sign the dotted line at their friendly local Yanase dealership. Trouble was the rest of the floor space would have been littered with Mercedes-Benzes, Audis and, if American metal was really on the shopping list, a good ol’ Fleetwood would have looked a lot more alluring than the Park Avenue.
Not that it didn’t have its charms, mind you. The difference in ambiance and design philosophy between this interior and that of, say, a BMW 5-Series or even a Jaguar XJ6 was pretty stark, but if this particular shade of plastiwood was to your liking and the ultra-soft seats fit your fundamentals, the Buick had you covered (in whipped cream and chocolate syrup). Parfait for a sundae outing.
At the price these were going for, there was some chance that the owner would have been of the chauffeured sort, too. And there again, the Park Avenue had its merits: a buttery-smooth suspension, plenty of headroom thanks to that “formal” roofline and ample legroom thanks to the elimination of the transmission hump.
But it seems there were other factors at play. It was nigh on impossible to find good data and usable Yanase sales brochure scans for this car, but I did find out how much they were going for in 1990. The price may have been a bit different when our feature car was bought in 1985, but it’s the same model and 1990 prices were pretty easy to figure out for contemporary E-segment imports. So let’s do a Japanese comparison table and see the Park Avenue in more context.
At over ¥6m a pop, the Park Avenue was swimming with sharks – most of them imported. The lone domestic car, the Celsior, was a formidable opponent. But so were the BMW, the Alfa and the Mercedes, which all could run circles around the poor Buick, not to mention the Lincoln and the Chrysler. You might wonder why domestic E-segment cars, such as the Nissan Cima, the Mitsubishi Debonair, the Mazda Luce, the Toyota Crown or the Honda Legend, aren’t in here: they were all way cheaper – i.e. under ¥5m, even in their highest trim. Heck, even the (by then ancient, but still super high status) Toyota Century and Nissan President cost less than the Buick.
This was a very, very tough crowd to compete in for any model, but especially for the Park Avenue. To be fair, I’m not sure what the price was in 1985, when this particular car was bought. And it was a new design then, so one assumes it would have been more attractive from that point of view as well. But even in 1985, the Buick’s emphasis on soft seats and leisurely acceleration would have seemed a little off-beat. Japanese carmakers could do that very well too, albeit for a much cheaper price and with better quality.
That’s not to say that the Japanese market had no appetite for US-made vehicles: the Corvette, the Firebird and the Mustang had a dedicated following. Another niche was the last RWD full-sizers, i.e. higher-end Cadillac or Lincoln sedans, but also Chevy or Mercury wagons. Add a strong demand for the Jeep range (especially the Wagoneer), and some vans (Dodge and Chevy only, please), and the picture doesn’t look quite so bleak.
Sure, there was a literal boatload of Nissans, Toyotas and Hondas being sold in North America for every Big Three car that found a home in Japan, but there was always a niche to be catered for, if one looked hard enough. Lower and mid-range four-door American family cars were just no longer a compelling proposition for Japanese customers – or European ones, come to that. They were losing ground even at home.
Buick scored a lot better in the ‘90s with the subsequent Park Avenue, which had a lot more style, and with the “Regal” wagon, which is still (and by far) the most commonly-seen representative of the marque in the Land of the Rising Sun. Even with its fugly mirrors and amber turn signals, this export version of the GM C-body was a non-starter, making this one’s visit to Tokyo’s own CC-filled avenue in the park all the more unexpected.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1985 Buick Electra Park Avenue – Best-Dressed C-Body Of The Year, by Tom Klockau
Curbside Classic: 1989 Buick Electra Limited: Limited’s the Right Word, by Brendan Saur
Curbside Musings: 1990 Buick Park Avenue Ultra – Small Footprint, Big Luxury, by Joseph Dennis
One cannot, when on occasion contemplating the vagaries of automotive history, help but wonder if it is ever widely understood in that landmass, first located so long ago for those across the seas eastward by that restless Genovesian, Columbus, that the diminishment in the of opinion of those east – and south, and north – was so enlarged by the repeated release, over too many years, from the seventh decade of the last century onwards, of an industrial output such as that photographed, as it appears (and it is, and was) no more, surely, than an avocationalist’s finest – but quite failed – best efforts at something to be regarded with respect (as it relates to that of the others tabled here in a chart, which are indeed to be given their proper due)? Thinking thus, one could mourn for the loss, at such speed, of what had so recently as the sixth decade been, arguably, a zenith of, at minimum, style itself.
That pondered, the subject now sits parked in a new role, in a very foreign land, and time has magnanimously blurred away the chintz, and the poverty of stylistic effort, and the cheapness of its making, and the dowdiness of what lies beneath, and left instead an artefact of interest, an artefact so distant from imagination today that it deserves preservation – and an excellent article by Dr T.
A seven-line opening sentence? With so many subordinate clauses that I lost count. Trying to channel the spirit of James Joyce, perchance? Or LJK Setright at his most impermeable?
I shall re-attempt to decipher your mass of verbiage after a (hopefully) good night’s sleep. But provisionally I shall agree with your assessment.
At that price, and against that competition, it’s a wonder they sold any.
We can be reasonably sure, at least, that an AI-powered comment bot didn’t write that!
I think I got the gist. It is certainly true that a car that was once rightly viewed with great skepticism is now 100% charm and charisma sitting on a curb in 2024, especially in Japan.
James Joyce, you say. Ever read Henry James, Mr W? I had to. And by the end of some chapter-defying sentence, I’d have read old Joyce as light relief.
And Jon Stephenson, you have it just so, proving that, in defiance of ordinary maths, when it comes to English, sometimes far too many is just in fact two.
That’s what I get for writing too close to bedtime, Justy. Mea culpa. Indeed it was Henry James I meant. I actually opted to read him instead of what the school mandated. Where James Joyce wrote massive forests of prose too heavy to read in bed, Henry James wrote near-impenetrable thickets which would leave you wide awake and wondering.
I cannot help but like this car. I like it for the immaculate condition. I like it for the velour upholstery you cannot get at any price here anymore. I like it for the way the chrome and white paint and subtle bits of black all work together. I like it for being such a throwback. From ubiquity to exceptional, all it took was 40 years of simply surviving in a changing world.
I cannot believe this was priced in the same ballpark as the domestic Lexus LS400, though, and that a 3.8-liter engine could only muster 125 horsepower in 1990.
The horsepower number is incorrect for the US market. My dad’s ’87 had 150 hp, and it rose to 165 in ’88 with a new generation 3800, and kept rising to about 200 by 2000.
This car is confusing me. I’m quite sure we’re not looking at a 1985 model here – the US Park Avenue interior for 1985 and 1986 (pic below) has a much smaller woodgrained area on the top half of the dash than this car has, just a small section in front of the passenger rather than stretched the entire width. The seat stitching pattern, steering wheel, and species of plastiwood are also different. The dash on the subject Park Avenue wasn’t used until ’87; the steering wheel until ’88, and seats until ’89, suggesting this car is an ’89 or ’90 model. However – and this is why i was confused – US domestic Park Avenues switched to flush composite headlamps in 1987, yet this car still has the old quad sealed beams last used in 1986. My guess is that GM decided not to bother making model-specific RHD-pattern headlamps for such a low-volume car, so stuck with generic sealed beams that were already available in Japanese spec. As for the amber rear turn signal indicators, these actually were used in the US, but only on the Electra T-Type and LeSabre T-Type. (to GM at the time, items like amber rear turn signals and rear-seat head restraints were evidently just styling affectations used to impart a sporty European flavour rather than critical safety features).
I don’t recall any Park Avenues from 1975-1990 having “Electra” badging on the cars either. Apparently in 75-76, Park Avenue was a trim package available on the Electra Limited, as cars from those two years have both Limited identification (chrome badges) and Park Avenue identification (decals in opera windows)
Anyway, getting beyond the minutiae of minor yearly revisions, I regard this Park Avenue to be the best executed of GM’s boxy front-drivers introduced in the ’80s. Its lines are clean, the proportions pleasing. Squared-off door openings make ingress/egress much easier than in most any modern sedan, and the large windows yield excellent outward visibility (both of those aspects remind me of the Volvo 760), The seats are soft yet supportive, and have more lateral support (front and rear) than most Detroit bench seats. The velour is soft and grippy. The fully color-keyed interiors are satisfying, The long, straight armrests on the doors – that’s how armrest should be done. The only low point is the rather cheap-looking dash, especially disappointing given both this generation’s predecessor and successor had gorgeous ergonomically-correct dashboards. And of course, I can’t say enough good things about the Buick 3800 V6 that most of these had. This was the car Buick should have kept making until 1997 instead of the Century (oops, we’re talking Japanese-market cars – “Regal”).
oops, pic of 1985-86 interior:
This is indeed confusing.
I found a few Japanese brochure images online (probably the same low-quality images that Tatra mentioned in the article), which appear to be from 1990, and they show sealed-beam headlights, which leads me to believe that flush-mounted headlights weren’t offered in Japan. However, I also came across a 1990 Yanase brochure which does show flush headlights on a Park Avenue. But then again, maybe that brochure used a North American image?
I also found a few pictures on Japanese enthusiast websites of what appear to be this featured car – and those identify it as a 1985 model too.
So I’m flummoxed. Maybe I’ll just enjoy the car itself, which seems awesome. This car, in this condition, would be a great find in Middle America – let alone Tokyo!
GM used to build RHD versions of some of their big cars, sometimes as CKD kits. When did they stop? They would only use one reversed dashboard for each generation of the car even if it changed partway through in North America, and the dash might be from another brand, like a reversed Chevy dash in a Pontiac. The RHD cars were built in Canada because it’s a Commonwealth country and thus reducing taxes or customs when exporting to the UK, Australia, and several other RHD markets.
I have a hard time believing this car is from before 1989, as Buick wouldn’t offer a new seat/dash/steering wheel design just for a handful of export cars before the US-market cars got them. The only way it could be an ’85 is if the owner found a late-model parts car to replace worn original parts in the ’85.
There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s from 1989 or 1990. RHD and other export cars most definitely did not get dashboard designs that hadn’t even been designed yet! But they could and did get older components like the sealed beams because of certification issues. Why certify special versions of the composite headlights for Japan for a handful of cars when the older ones were already certified?
“Ich habe auch ein paar Bilder auf japanischen Enthusiasten-Websites gefunden, die dieses vorgestellte Auto zu zeigen scheinen – und diese identifizieren es auch als ein Modell von 1985.”
May be that only refers to the year of body type introduction – not the feature car itself .
Buick did use the Electra name still in the U.S. when the car was introduced for 1985. The Park Avenue was still a submodel, in addition to Electra T-Type, and entry-level models called Electra 300 (3.0L V6), Electra 380 (3.8L V6) and Electra 430 (4.3L Diesel V6). Over that generation they de-emphasized the Electra name, though I’m not sure if they completely phased it out prior to the next generation in 1991.
They were not seen often, but I remember seeing a few cars labeled Electra 380. I would guess they only sold the Park Avenue and possibly the T-Type in Japan.
The Park Avenue was *officially* an Electra, but I don’t recall any Park Avenues from this generation having “Electra” badging anywhere on the car, inside or out. The 300/380/430 tags on the base Electra were used in 1985 only; the 3.0L and 4.3L diesel were both discontinued after the first year, so with all cars using the same 3.8L V6 the engine callouts were dropped and it just became “Electra” with no number following. (several other models would soon be pared from the lineup, including coupes and the T-Type, although the Ultra effectively replaced the latter.)
la673: You are spot on with those details you mention. At first I didn’t catch those. However, what did strike me from the very first picture was the BSM’s. On this white car, the bumper moldings are color matched white. Yet between the wheels, they are still black as they would have been all around the car from the factory.
I know this may seem like a petty thing to point out, but I’m one of those who hates the ugly black (non painted) moldings and trim on vehicles. Today, it’s all over the place and screams cheap. But on these cars and my parents 1985 they purchased new, they were all black and it wasn’t terrible since it was just a thin strip going all around the car. So what gives with this one? Did the owner have just the front/rear bumper moldings painted? Or is this entire car a “project” that the owner/s decided to make modifications that would explain all these oddities?
Agree with all of the above. And the wheels …. I’m sure correct but they don’t look period “American” at all to me. The fins have more of a Pontiac 6000 vibe.
The rims are correct Buick PA rims. I’d have to go back and research if they were the correct ones for 1985, but I think they are correct even for that year.
Either way, it’s a nice car.
Correct for 1985
My dad’s ’87 T Type had those wheels with blackwall tires (which cupped badly). Most PAs were sold with fake wire wheel covers and WSW.
I *knew* something was off about the body side moldings and/or bumpers but didn’t quite catch what it was. US Park Avenues used a wide chrome strip that wrapped around the car; base Electras, T-Types, and maybe Ultras had a different treatment. I’m guessing different bumper regulations in Japan prevented use of the standard American-market trim pieces, just as with the outside rearview mirrors.
These were quite popular here in the States, as well as their Oldsmobile counterparts.
This example is in fine nick, as though it rolled off the showroom floor yesterday. I love the fact it has no vinyl top.
I agree that the next generation Park Avenue fit the part better, looking more “Regal” especially in Ultra form, even though some might argue it looked like a fancy Caprice. Maybe I’m thinking of the generation after that one that had the rounded whale look.
My Dad bought one of those newer ones in 1998 or so (in non-Ultra form) and it gave him good service, but it would be his last American car (other than his 2014 Mustang purchased on a 75-year-old, second mid-life-crisis whim), and has bought only Japanese cars ever since.
Like all second downsized (and moved to FWD) GMS are a total disappointment for me. No matter what condition, I would pass!
Why? If one is a true car fan then one can appreciate any kind of car. What car doesn’t have any quirks or questionable design elements? I, frankly, don’t care. All I care about is if the car is in good condition I’ll drive it for what it is and at this point in time, 40 years later, have no problem buying it for my collection.
Different cars are fun just like different roller coasters. So just enjoy the ride and the car for what it is.
From what I understand these had just about the same size interior room and stowage capacity as the previous lead sled it replaced and would be able to climb a snow covered hill with all season tires. I would much rather have this as an everyday car compared to what came before it. What’s your rationale Rick?
Unbelievably mint car! Not only is the condition as-new, it even has perfectly clean period correct whitewalls.
Was the year confirmed? As la673 points out above, the exterior says 1985-86, but the interior says 1988-90. His theory that GM sold the car with sealed beams in Japan (and maybe other foreign markets) for the entire 85-90 generation makes sense. The outside mirrors are different, too. U.S. had body-colored mirrors. These black ones look a little bigger and sit higher, but they are a little unsightly to my eyes. .
I really didn’t like these when new. I felt they lost all the style and charisma that the RWD models had and were overly downsized. In hindsight, I can now appreciate them better for what they were. It’s a very clean design with good proportions and detailing, given the obligatory FWD packaging. The chassis and drivetrain (in 3.8 form) were well designed and the car was much more efficient and practical than its predecessors. And the lost style and charisma? This has it in spades compared to the current crop of SUVs that Buick sells.
That steering wheel first showed up in 1989
It looks like a cheap shrunken Buick. Very disappointing.
Of all the big GM front drivers, I find these the most attractive. Buick gave us the tilt forward hood, and really cleaned up and detailed the under hood compartment.I’m not surprised that they would be rare in Japan, but they were popular at home. Which is what really matters. I liked these even before I became an old man, but I like them even more now!
I’m right there with you, brother. I was a mere lad of 21 in 1986 when these cars came out and I liked them then and now too.
Although the styling was a bit too generic and anodyne, I couldn’t help but be impressed by these when they came out, in terms of their world-class space utilization and efficiency. Those were the key design and engineering goals for the program and GM achieved them, admirably.
The Buick worked by far the best for me, especially the T-Type. The Olds left me cold, and the Cadillac was pathetic, looking way too much like a shrunken head version of a Cadillac.
As to its price and competitiveness in relation to the other cars in its price range in Japan, none of that mattered. The handful of folks who bought these there were confident in their choice, knowing that they would not likely see themselves coming the other direction in Tokyo’s crowded streets, and where its comfort was prized and its performance utterly irrelevant, given the traffic conditions.
Well, that’s a dispensation for an anodyne if not just plain awful exemplar of crap insular GM thinking which might make you worthy of admission as a Jesuit. Space efficiency needn’t have looked like nothing but space efficiency, however it is forgiven.
Actually, forgiveness for just about anything from GM ’80-odd until bankruptcy would qualify you for that, so I guess the field is as wide as that old Order’s embrace for you might be, should you choose.
As for the listed competitors – all of which resemble real cars of actual abilities – I suspect they were charted not for their actual competitiveness against the Electra in Japan in any real sense, but more for their showing how far advanced everyone had become.
My first experience with one of these was when my parents purchased a brand new 1985 P.A. in a light brown with the light brown velour interior. Shortly after buying it, the trans acted up and Buick replaced it under warranty. Seemed to be a common issue on those first ones. After that, they drove the car for 4 years and close to 70,000 miles with zero issues. It was a great car that was so quiet and nice to drive and could get between 28 and 32 mpg if driven nice. They traded that one for a 1989 PA which was fantastic and purchased it from me since I had just stared selling at a Buick dealer in 1988. After that, they seemed to trade about every two years and had a 1991 PA, but then (due to low interest rates offered) ordered a 1992 Lesabre Limited. Then 1994 Lesabre, 1997 Lesabre and then 2000 Lesabre (all limited models). They liked that one so much, they kept it till leasing a 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan that was better for the hauling stuff between IL and FL as they had become snowbirds. When that lease was up, they went back to Buick with a 2007 Lacrosse CXL and the last car ever was the 2010 Lacrosse CXL.
This wasn’t supposed to be a history of my parents cars. My thought was just how many Buick’s they owned and except for the first 1985 PA trans issues, they never had one problem and continued to buy them year after year. I have also owned many Buicks with few to no problems ever. I also sold them for 12 1/2 years. Great cars for sure and in the article above, it’s made to sound as if these cars were not very good and were inferior to most of those other brands. On the contrary, I’d say these were very good cars and were superior to most of the others.
I’m impressed that your parents maintained a traditional new car purchase every 2-4 years, even in retirement. I know that used to be common, but it’s hard to get my head around now in middle age. For our three cars, we’ve owned them 14 years, 11 years and 5 years. At two years of ownership, I’m just starting to feel like I’m getting used to it. I can’t picture trading in a car at that point (unless it was a real problem car).
GM in the 80s was known for spotty quality. I remember Buick in the 80s and 90s promoting their quality and owner satisfaction (usually in the form of initial owner surveys IIRC). Perhaps Buicks were more reliable than average for GM or American in general?
Jon: I think they got into trading every two to four years since I was selling them. wink, wink. haha.
That wasn’t always the case, but they did do that up till around the end.
Yes, Buick has long been a higher quality brand and it showed in JD Powers all the time and even in Consumer Reports who was never friendly towards American brands. All the years I was selling Buick, they certainly stood up to the best out there.
Consumer reports isn’t friendly or unfriendly, it just reports on what owners are saying. You could see that very well in the mid 80’s when the Chevy Nova (the NUMMI factory one) that was a built together with Corollas, that car was a standout in the lack of problems reported compared to other Chevys. The buyers were Chevy buyers it’s just they reported less because less went wrong with these cars.
The Buicks and Oldsmobiles of this type and era were actually very good and reliable cars. Comfortable, good riding vehicles.
It goes without saying that this is another super essay from you, Tatra87 – and it’s the perspective from that area of the world that adds all the extra spice. As for the car itself, it was never my absolute favorite when new, but this one – in this condition, as accessories, and in your great pictures – is very compelling to me. It was a is a tough crowd (Lexus LS400 all day, for me), but I love this Park Avenue in 2024. Aittle bit of Flint nostalgia is probably playing into this, but I’ll own that.
This strikes me as a car that Alec Issigonis would have liked – ‘practicality above all else and it’ll look like whatever it looks like when us engineering types are through with it’. Not that he’d have liked that luxurious interior, or all that applied exterior trim, but the apparent disdain for appearance, somewhat mollified by the application of copious amounts of brightwork to distract the eye from the plain surfaces and contours. Bauhaus this ain’t. More like Lagerhaus.
That C-pillar is just so awkward. And the junction of A-pillar with the bodywork, the visual stop where the side window line is so much lower than the cowl. Following the sweep of the hoodline, one falls off a cliff at the beltline. The black Japanese.market mirror is no help here. It almost appears as though there is no A-pillar (nice), but then you have that thick B-pillar, which makes for a rather visually-unsettling whole. It needs a whole new roof.
But, I find myself drawn to that interior. It looks rich. It looks luxurious, in what I have come to understand as ‘the American way’. I could live with that. If I didn’t have to look at it from the outside.
And if I didn’t have to pay the Japanese price.
Nar Issigonis wouldnt like this car it looks much too comfortable he believed in uncomfortable driving positions that helped with fatigue, he was wrong.
My sister and BIL had a Buick rental in the US in the very early 90s they had nothing nice to say about them.
With more A-Body family clones, I felt GM had completely thrown in the towel, on attempting to maintain any styling/design leadership. Ford’s aero look, dismissing GM, in terms of being a style leader. Though, I was impressed by the ’82 Camaro and Firebird.
Of these lookalike cars, I found the original Pontiac 6000STE and Buick Century T Type, the most appealing.
The CC effect is real, given what I ran across around 1pm this afternoon…
It’s badged as an Electra T-Type, has the FE3 suspension callout badge on the rear, the opera lights say Park Avenue, and has an ’86-and-newer third brake light in the luggage rack with the ’87-and-newer flush lights, it appears they were sold in ever smaller numbers all the way through 1990, amounting to around 3% of the total Electra/Park Avenue take.
Having had a LeSabre T-type coupe, I was surprised (shocked?) to see wire wheel hubcaps (mine had alloys, these here turned out to be Olds items with the rocket logo upon closer inspection), a little research indicates this should have had alloys as well, and the luggage rack is a little offputting but perhaps explains why Buick only sells CUV/SUVs now, they must have thought all their buyers needed more luggage space than their sedans offered….
Otherwise, this was a very Tokyo-ready example, in the correct color to boot.
My dad’s ’87 T Type didn’t have an FE3 badge–I believe that was more an Olds thing–but I imagine you could order the firmer suspension on the other models. Those look like 14″ wheels, also not on the T Type. Someone’s faking it.
I talked him into the firmer suspension because my boss had an ’85 Olds 98 that was sickeningly soft when driven abruptly, as both boss and dad did. Unfortunately, the gas pedal had a hair trigger than snapped everyone’s neck from a stop no matter how gently you pushed it. After several years, he finally had it adjusted. Other than that, fading paint, and noisy cupped tires, it gave him little trouble for 13 years until the headliner collapsed.
Wow! You really don’t see those often anymore. Looks pretty nice apart from the wrong hubcaps.
I would bet some money that not one original owner anywhere ever strapped any luggage on one of those fake luggage racks that regularly sprouted from the trunk lids of 80s cars.
These were excellent cars, but I have never warmed to the styling. It was like they combined the classical/baroque with modern aero, but in a way that didn’t really work that well for either of those styles.
The main issue stylingwise is that tiny C-pillar, I think.
It is hard for Me to understate My disappointment in April of 84′ when My motor trend arrived and I saw My new version of My dream car had Shrunk! No more Body on Frame, only 3 different 6 cylinders available 2.8 ( Electra base model) 3.3 ( very rare) and the now legendary 3.8! I grew up dreaming of large American luxury cars! 1986 Ford vastly improved the 302 by introducing Multi-Port injection! I became a Panther Platform enthusiast and never looked back!
Irv Rybicki should have been hauled out of the GM headquarters and lost his pension for the cars that came out during his tenure in the mid 80s. These particular C-Bodies should have been the new B-Bodies while the larger RWD cars remained as they were. Let’s not mention the hideous E-Bodies that followed in ’86. And now under the current leadership, GM is nothing more than a company that makes overpriced electric trucks.