(first posted 12/5/2012) Is it the goal of CC to document every make, model and generation of car? I don’t know, but if it is, I’m going to need some help, because there are a whole lot of cars out there that I’m just not qualified to say much about. Unless it’s just some generalized (and possibly inappropriate) slurs, which tend to come easy to me for certain cars, especially of more recent vintage. The odds of that probably go up a bit further if it was made by GM. Yes, there are two other cars in this picture I’d rather be thinking about. But we’ve done them, so now it’s homework assignment time: write an 800 word essay on a purplish 1995 (that’s a wild guess) Pontiac Grand Prix. Uh oh.
If you’ve been around here for a while, and heard about my studious ways in high school, you should already know what I’m going to come up with:
Nothing.
I never did any homework in school. Except about twice, when I actually got genuinely enthused about a particular subject for a paper. In all those years, I can think of just two: “The Life of Henry Ford” (1968), and “Why Marijuana Should Be Legalized” (1967). The second one raised an eyebrow from Sister Dolores, my eight grade teacher.
So you think I can raise any enthusiasm about this so-called Grand Prix?
If this were the assignment, it would be a different story. And if the model behind it wasn’t so…ah…mature, the story might actually be inspired. But I haven’t found one on the street, and you know what a purist I am.
So we’re stuck with this pretender to the that name. OK, I can tell you this much: the 1963 Pontiac had a face that created a design revolution in Detroit, and everyone rushed to copy it. This GP has a face blatantly copied from a Mercury Sable. Does it get any more pathetic than that? Is there more to know about this car worth knowing?
True confession: the dog ate my homework. No, actually, it’s worse than that: I’m pretending to write about a car I’ve never sat in. And that goes for the whole family of GM’s W-Body cars: Regals, Cutlass Supremes, Luminas, Centuries, Intrigues, Impala, Monte Carlos, LaCrosse, (I’m reading this off from my wikipedia crib notes). Never set my butt in any of them, at least not that I have any memory of. There, I feel better for having said that (guess my Catholic upbringing wasn’t a total failure).
It’s not that I actively shunned these cars; well, sort of. But around the time these were really enjoying their golden years, I mostly dropped out of the new car scene, at least for a while, having found other things that held my attention better then cars like this. The very first W-Body coupes that came out in 1988 were such snoozers, I decided to take a hiatus on new GM cars until the the whole W-Body era was finished. That turned out to be a lot longer than I thought. Call me Rip van W-Body. Did I miss anything?
I just remembered: I have done one other W-Body CC. And it turned out even sparser than this one, until I got some help from my friends. So if you’re a fan of Ws, my apologies. Bring on the love in the comments.
Only one possible regret: by not doing my homework, I can’t rightfully argue it’s a GM Deadly Sin. (Update: I did a DS on a Lumina here, and I actually did some homework on that one). But then as far as I know, it might well be a GM’s Greatest Hit. Maybe homework wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Anybody got some W-Body notes I can copy? I hear there’s a test today.
When we moved to the Cincinnati area 20 years ago, my boss had one of these for his company car. Black. Light tan interior. A sedan. HUGE walkie-talkie cell phone…oops…CAR phone, excuse me…
Nothing at all special about the car.
He called it “The Black Bullet”. Sure looked like one – a dud. The coupes were marginally nicer-looking.
The 1992 Taurus was oh, so much nicer in almost all respects, design-wise, that is, at least.
A word of caution for all that post negatively about W bodies…do not go to W-Body.com because you may learn something. Just a friendly piece of advice from a member
I had a W body a 1989 Pontiac Grand Prix se 2 door. I think a wonderful car. Bought it used in Oct 1989 had it for 20 years did 680,000 kms in it. Daily trip for 2 years was 40 mles to and 40 miles back.
Wish I was able to keep it. Last job was replaced the cyl heads, as the holes between head and block were plugged with radseal. Only use that stuff once. Well I changed the heads and started it up, a couple of lifters were noisy, so gave up at that point.
I just loved it, lived in British Columbia and California. Real good performer in the snow too.
Was white, best color, 5 speed manual shift, with leather seats.
The only way to make one of these cars interesting is an engine swap. I did however like the full width light bar and for some reason Pontiac owners seemed to do a better job of replacing the bulbs than Mercury owners. I never could figure that out. Never saw a Sable older than 5 years old that still had a working light bar but just last year I sat in a 1994 Grand Prix that still had a working light bar and the Grand Prix I occasionally see on the road still have a working light bar no matter how crappy the rest of the car is.
Dan, you really need to do an engine swap for yourself and see what it entails. Say goodbye to $10k before you even finish the project.
Canucnucklehead, I’m commenting on GMs engine choices for Grand Prix in those years. 3.1 V6? Yawn… 3.4 DOHC? Head Gasket Eater.
Meanwhile they had the perfectly decent 3800 they could have used. I’m not advocating an engine swap I’m advocating that GM handicapped this car with crappy choices for the engine. I’m anti W-body unless the car has the 3800, 3800 supercharged, 5.3 V8, or 3.6VVT engine. Otherwise I won’t even give it a second glance in a used car ad. That’s what I meant.
You could also get a Quad-4 for like one year in the early W Grand Prix. They weren’t exactly world-class engines, but I prefer them over the 60-degree stuff.
GM also had the 3300 at the time. Which would have been a better choice and is why an A-body of this era is much better option than a W-body. Using the 3300 also would have protected the larger cars using the 3800 in the GM hierarchy.
However, much like the N-body, a Buick V6 wouldn’t be enough to save this half-baked platform.
Amazing that the 3.3-liter was never offered in the W-bodies. Of course, that would have made the 3.1 and 3.4 two answers to questions no one bothered asking.
I don’t even get why the 60-degree V6 ever existed.
The Buick V6 offered FWD applications in 3.0, 3.3 and 3.8 varieties. That matches up good to the 2.8, 3.1, and 3.4. It can’t be the 90-degree thing because just about every platform offered a 60-degree and a 90-degree V6 over its lifetime.
Then, even though no one really liked it, the 60-degree got the major overhaul in 2004 while all the 3800 got was an intake that wouldn’t melt down any more and some nicer connecting rods.
One big reason: production capacity. Don’t forget that well over a million X-Cars were sold in their first year alone. They didn’t all have V6s; maybe half. I strongly suspect the Buick V6 lines were already running close to capacity.
Well, it was sort of the last remains of each divisions engine manufacturing hold outs, Chevrolet, because of its size got large volume V8’s, the 2.8 V6, Chevette 1.6 and later the J-car 2.0. All Pontiac got was the 2.5 Tech IV, Oldsmobile was going to carry the diesel banner (V8/V6 and aborted V5)and the 307 for the upscale big cars, Buick was going to make the higher end V6’s and turbo V6’s, and Cadillac its divisions unique 4.1 V8.
I’d be interested to see what it’s like to drive a Quad4/5-speed Grand Prix or Cutlass Supreme. I’ve never even seen a GP set up like that (have seen an Olds though, once) but I know they were available for a few years… it was the high output (180HP) Quad4 too.
My friend in high school had a red Cutlass Supreme International sedan with the quad 4 and 5spd. With the black leather, it was a pretty sharp car. It felt decently quick when he’d get on it. I never saw another W with the quad 4.
It was an entirely different beast than the base Regal with the 3.1 I spent some time in Colorado with, that was a noisy, ponderous boat.
There also was a turbocharged 3.1 V6 for a short stint.
Ugh, I would probably end up hating the V8 in this car. Too much torque and waaaay too heavy front end. I bet every time you stab the go pedal the steering wheel lurches to the left while you perilously face oncoming traffic and spill your coffee.
Well aware GM began fitting much wider front tires on the few V8s they made. Still…..
BTW this is The First Time I Ever Said Having a V8 Would Be Bad.
I drove the last-gasp V8 Impala SS and Grand Prix GXP a few years back, and while I didn’t much care for the Impala (boaty chassis,Teflon seats), the GXP surprised me–felt smaller than it was, solid-steering, and foursquare on the road. It really was a pretty well-resolved package–as it should be, given two decades’ time to refine it. Didn’t try to provoke the torque steer, though.
Friends and family had various Cutlass Supremes, Regals, and Luminas growing up, and I recall comments about the cars looking nice for the first year or two, then developing the feeling that’s about all they were designed to last for.
That is far from the truth particularly if you are doing it yourself.
I swapped a 302 into a Fox Mustang that including headers, dual exhaust a radiator that would cool a 460 was done in 1 1/2 weekends and only set me back $1500.
I helped with a buddies 302 powered Pinto and it was done for not much more that $1000
A number of guys on the IH forum I frequent have replaced their IH V8s with a number of different engines.
One went with an EFI 350 and did the whole thing for $3500 of course he used a bargain basement 700R4 to save $300 vs the second one he put in. He also chose a engine with 200K which tossed a rod after too long. So if he would have spent a little more in the first place he could have done it for $4500 with a low mile engine or $5000 with a rebuilt. But now he has $6500 into it.
Another did a 6.0 SBC and got it out the door for $4000 since he didn’t go with headers or stick a cam in it.
The guy that did a Chrysler 440 got it on the road for about $4000 with a rebuilt trans that mixed the existing Scout 727 output shaft with the Chrysler 727 so it would bolt to the transfer case.
One guy did a pre-Power Stroke 7.3 and his total was only $3000.
Yet another did a couple of 4BT swaps, the one he did for a customer was out the door for around $5500 including labor.
Eric, your reality is much closer to my reality than the $10K figure shown above.
Yes it’s easy to get expensive with a swap…$10K or much higher if you’re camming and boring and chroming and so on…but if the objective is reliable (but fun) transportation using mostly stock components…it’s probably never been easier to do at an affordable price.
Check the forums for the car you’re swapping the engine into. Chances are someone before you has done the same swap and the basic knowledge is there online.
Above all else, when questions come up about how to wire this or adapt that…make the new engine think it’s in the vehicle it came from. I can’t take credit for that nugget of genius…it came from Mike Knell of JTR in Livermore, CA. BEST advice I received when swapping a 350 TPI in an ’89 Caprice that had previously been hamstrung by the Olds 307.
Cost was $3500 and about six months…got another 136,000 out of the Caprice after that…and with that TPI, it actually became fun to drive.
That, as you MasterCard holders might say…was priceless.
One thing I’ve always wondered about DIY engine swaps, what do you do exactly when the engine mounting bolts don’t match the bell housing? Do you make your own adapter plate? Pretty critical hole locations to get the crank and the tranny lined up on exactly the right centers. Or can you get an adapter off the shelf? Likewise on coupling the crankshaft to the tranny’s input shaft?
Or do you swap engine and transmission as a unit? Same questions on mating to the driveshaft. Gotta kludge up the shift linkage too don’t you?
Well it all depends. In the case of the Mustang it was all done with parts for a V8 car (it started out with a 2.3) so no custom anything. In the case of the Pinto it was Mustang II motor mounts and oil pan and the yoke from the donor car swapped onto the existing driveshaft. Since that car started out as a 4sp an aftermarket shifter was used.
In the case of the 7.3, 4BT and 440 into Scout swaps it was a little mixing and matching. The Ford t-19 input shaft into the Scout t-19 (The 4bt was from a Ford breadvan) For the 440 it was the Scout output shaft into the 440 pattern 727 case. In all cases that allowed the stock transfer case to be used and not move so all driveshafts and shifters were used in their stock location. For the manual trans the Scout through out arm was used with a custom fabricated bracket to hold the engine side bell crank pivot stud. So all that had to be fabricated was the engine mounts.
Now to put a Chevy there are adapters to either adapt to the trans or adapt a GM trans to the Scout transfer case. However in the two I listed above both used a GM transfer case and had driveshafts modified to take the correct front u-joint and be the correct length. In both cases they used an aftermarket shifter.
Advance adapters has 96 different kits for adapting various engines to various transmissions. http://www.advanceadapters.com/categories/adapter-kits/61/ and 236 choices for adapting transmissions to transfer cases if you’re working on a 4wd.
Plus there are lots of complete kits like this one pictured to put a Chevy in your Jeep, includes mounts. adapter bellhousing, radiator and a lot of little pieces to make everything but the exhaust a bolt in affair. $1600 for a kit plus anywhere from $500 for a used engine to a few grand for a “crate motor” and you are out the door for under $5000 and maybe 15 hours of labor.
Fascinating, thanks. Aside from the fact I’ve always been curious about engine swaps, I’ve got an EV conversion planned and EV adapters strike me as surprisingly spendy. Quality EV adapter kits cost around $800 or so.
Advance’s adapters cost about what I expected. They must have at least ten times the production volume as the EV kits, which are practically hand made.
Some EVers make their own adapters, but with the tolerances required to get a smooth coupling, if you’re not an expert machinist you’re asking for trouble.
Always wondered about that, thanks.
Nowadays it’s all about the CNC mill. Our robotics club’s “cheap” IHCNC (Industrial Hobbies, not International Harvester) has a claimed precision of .001″. You are correct that proper alignment is very critical. At the shop I worked at in college we found out the hard way that the old Triumph engines and bellhousings were built as a pair. The car had the engine replaced and they didn’t use the matching bellhousing. It ripped the centers out of the clutch disc in a couple hundred miles. We eventually brought in a guy from a local transmission shop who with much work fitted offset dowels that returned alignment to the assembly and cured the problem. The figure that sticks in my head was that the alignment was off by .006″.
You can swap an S50 or S50 six-cylinder from an M3 into the older E30 3-series for a hell of a lot less than $10k. At least in US dollars. And those are BMWs!
A supercharged 3800 out of a Park Avenue Ultra would probably be an easy swap for way less than 10k. Check out some GM forums.
FWIW, Dan never really specified *what* motor he was talking about.
For me, I would imagine to swap in a later 3.5 or 3.9 60 degree V6, it should be fairly straightforward to do so. Of course, getting all of the computer stuff to talk to one another may be a different story, but I’m sure some one out there on the internets has done this.
I can’t say that my swaps have always done well or gone perfectly easily, but 10K (is that Canadian, maybe? :)) seems a tad bit high…
Having worked as a tech at a Mercury store, I do know the light bar bulbs were obscenely expensive, especially considered they were just there for “ambiance.” Dealer price was over $30 a piece back in the early nineties. As I recall, the bulbs also used a unique base or connector as well.
I don’t know what Pontiac used for a bulb, but a cheaper (and standard) bulb could equal a higher replacement rate.
The later light-bar Mercury Sables used mini-halogen bulbs that were pretty expensive. If you substituted a standard bulb with the same base, it was way too dim. Don’t ask me or my wallet how I know.
I do like how the later version lit up the entire width of the bar; the original Sable had a dark spot in the middle that I always thought looked burnt out even when it wasn’t.
I always thought the 2 doors looked kind of nice – especially in “GT” trim.
Back in the early 90’s my company used the four-door version as cars for sales reps. After the lease was up – they would offer them for sale to non-sales employees – I thought about buying one – same color as the car pictured – it was used by a sales rep who was supposedly very fastidious about keeping it clean, etc.
I drove it around the building and decided it wasn’t for me – just a “car”.
Nothing more – nothing less.
Well, every car is interesting in the right perspective — but maybe most of us don’t have that perspective on these! Of the W-bodies, my hands-down favorite is the Cutlass Supreme. They were pretty cool with their wraparound glass, and I did actually ride in one when it was fairly new, (probably an 88-90 coupe) and remember being impressed by the interior. It was certainly a clean break from the RWD Cutlass Supreme “Classic” that was still being sold alongside it in 1988! I like both for completely different reasons. As for these GPs, they seemed to get less interesting styling cues. I don’t know if GM started with one model (like the Buick in ’59) and everything else followed, but the Pontiac definitely wasn’t the styling concept they started with here. I remember a co-worker having one of these in the mid-90s (probably a hand-me-down from a parent) and replacing it with a new Accord as soon as she could. That about sums it up!
These Pontiac’s did cause more work for the crusher than did a Granada when I was at the Pick n pull one day. So yes, it does have at least one redeeming quality.
I like it, the Pick ‘n pull crusher crash safety standards!
Paul, you haven’t missed much in not driving a W Body. They are typical GM and even at this point they were still trying to make it drive like a 1976 Caprice, meaning soft and isolated. The interior was made by Rubbermaid and Tupperware. The brakes are horrid and don’t last 30,000 km in our area. The strut mounts in front start to bang, bind and clunk at 60,001 km and cost a fortune to fix. The rears aren’t much better. ABS sensors repeatedly fail and the check engine light hard to keep off.
I always got the feeling GM just didn’t care about these cars; only trucks and SUVs mattered at this point.
And don’t forget about the lifeless steering and massive front-end plow when going in anything other than a straight ahead direction.
It does not cost a fortune to replace the strut mounts in one of these unless you think $300 is a fortune.
Yuck, boring, blah and what was GM thinking.. Just my 2 cents. My apologies to those who like them.
“My apologies to those who like them.”
Anyone? Anyone out there?
Nope, didn’t think so.
Every once in awhile I’ve thought about one of the last W-Body Impalas but otherwise…no.
I’d driven a couple W’s, and although a vast improvement over the FWD A’s…the driving experience just wasn’t comparable to the 1st-gen Taurus.
Here’s hoping the new Impala is everything the old car wasn’t.
When I was growing up, our neighbors across the street were the Cahills. Mr. Cahill was retired from GM and they always had Pontiacs in the 80s-90s. He and his wife were the nicest people, like extra grandparents for the kids in the neighborhood. So I see this car and try to think of friendly old folks, not door-mounted seatbelts or that stupid spider-web detail on the taillights. 🙂
True, they might not be the most exiting cars ever produced by GM, but I’ve known several throughout my time at the local Cadillac/Olds dealership that came in with 200-300K miles on them. For all their shortcomings, they did make reliable daily drivers. And hey, can we really call a Camry or Stanza from the same period exciting?
Well – if you are going to expand this conversation to include the W-body Cutlass I had some personal experience with one.
My wife (then girlfriend) bought one new in 88 or 89 I think – a white 2-door. It was an “ad car” you know – one of those “only 1 in stock” come on’s that she and her father got a great deal on.
Anyway – it was, in my opinion, very sleek looking for the time – the door handles were in the b pillar – love it or not – it made the doors look very smooth.
The interior was blue velour – with a digital dash- which I didn’t care much for – but was ok.
The car drove nicely, rode nicely – acceleration was adequate (2.8 v6?) – but it did develop some problems fairly quickly – the worst was the the transmission slipping – the thing would not upshift under hard acceleration – and nobody could figure out why.
Well – after we got married we kept it for awhile and eventually traded it on a 91 Accord Coupe which we kept for 12 years.
My wife’s Cutlass looked very similar to this tired and worn sample:
That’s ok…GM cars look tired and worn when they are new.
I remember when my dad rented one of these (well, a sage-green Regal) when I was a kid. It was even blander than the Dodge Dynasty rental, which at least had some interesting seat cushions. (Yeah, I’m really stretching here.)
I believe it was possible to get the Olds version with a hi-po 3.4, manual transmission, heads-up display, convertible, etc. Sounds interesting… but I wonder what GM would’ve charged for that particular unicorn.
The Convertible Cutlass Supremes were in the $20-$27K Range for their life (1990s dollars). And there’s where I have *Some* lust for them. Those and the original Regal GS Sedans.
The problem was they were too big (the Lumina was as long as any of the H bodies), not particularly space efficient, and had more lingering bugs as most competitors were able to address buggy issues more quickly. Then they kind of died on the vine. A more suitable A body sized replacement would have made more sense than the W body did.
GM didn’t think about how much of the market was gonna shift away from mid sized coupes and bet almost their whole intermediate portfolio on coupes. Whoops.
The funny thing is the original Ws only barely outlasted the A-body. There was some delay with the new Regal/Century and its siblings, so the GP, Regal and CS were continued into early 1997. I have both an early ’97 Buick brochure with the earlier Regal GS, and an updated version with the redesigned one.
“I never did any homework in school.”
Paul, I never cracked a book, either.
A retired designer told us some years ago that the box business is for all those who goofed off in study hall.
I’m proud to say: Guilty as charged!
I have nothing further to add about the Gran Prix, either…
Yeah, me too. Luckily I was smart enough to coast through high school without studying.
I loafed my way into University where I promptly got got slaughtered by calculus and thermodynamics, and narrowly escaped expulsion.
After that I resolved to learn to study, and after 4 years I’d sort of figured it out.
Oh, nothing to say about the Grand Prix either. One of my cousins bought one new I think, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Kind of surprised you don’t have input, this is the spiritual upper level brother to your current Impala…
The only way to make the sedan interesting in any way is to sell it.
If you want interesting grab a GTP with the “Dual Twin” 3.4 or if you’re really lucky you’ll find an early Turbo Coupe.
I agree with some other posters. It may not be a great design, but before calling it bland take a look at the ’91 Camry. This is much better looking inside and out. Reliability and quality may be another thing, but there’s no comparison on style in my opinion. I remember these as one of the better looking options for the day.
I still like some of the styling cues. Hidden wipers, grill below the bumper…that was not common back then.
Perhaps the Camry was flat but the Stanza was at least modern and handsome for the time. These just remind me of an updated trans am with the guts of a snail. The only thing that those interiors ever inspired was depression and alcohol abuse.
Comparing this car to a Camry or Stanza is beside the point. This is a Grand Prix …. a car named after racing’s top tier, and a car that once stood out, had heritage, and whose front-end design influenced Detroit styling for several years. The name should never have been applied to a mid-size, V6 FWD 4 door sedan with a Mercury front-end.
So it’s horrible because of the name? That ’63 pictured above may have more style but it certainly doesn’t resemble a Grand Prix race car. So I don’t think it’s beside the point to compare it to its competition.
Does the downgrading of the name reflect the general public’s disinterest toward Grand Prix racing at the time? Just a thought…..
My carpool driver had one of these, a silver 2-door with a red interior. She drove it for months with the front wheels enough out of round, out of balance, or both, to crack the windshield from top to bottom. The only other thing I remember about it was that a rear tire blew out one afternoon on the way home. I jacked it up, and had trouble getting one of the four lugnuts off. So I reefed really hard on it and the stud broke. I installed the space-saver spare and by the time we’d gone five miles it had gone flat too. At this point there wasn’t much to do but take it really slow and easy the rest of the way home, just a couple of miles. Fine car. Actually if it had had decent tires on it I might have felt differently. Also I don’t know if it was actually a Grand Prix or not – I care little enough about cars like that – but it was a mid-size Pontiac of about that model year.
Back when these were new, I was an avid GM guy. I considered one for my next car but went with a Grand Am instead.
We had Luminas at work, which had the same miserable junk in the interior that my Grand Am had. Also, I knew someone at work that had a W-body Cutlass of this vintage that was bought new; what a heap.
To elevate the reliability to below average (up from X-car levels) the cost had to come from somewhere, and it came from the interior.
Unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about these cars, but strangely I do enjoy reading about them here at CC.
These guys can make just about any car interesting reading!
So true! Which is why I still look in on CC every day, including re-reading this post 4 1/2 years later.
This car and its corporate siblings played a huge part in accelerating GM’s decline in the 1980s. In some ways, they hurt the corporation more than the the X-car debacle, or the far-too-small 1986 E-bodies.
There were high expectations surrounding the arrival of the W-bodies in the mid-1980s. I still remember the spy shots and tidbits in Car and Driver and Motor Trend regarding these cars. GM had dominated the family-sedan market since the 1940s, and these cars were supposed to replace the downsized rear-wheel-drive intermediates that had sold so well in the early 1980s. They were big news at the time.
The first Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable upset the family-sedan market apple cart, and the W-bodies were supposed to restore the natural order of things in that particular segment. Unfortunately for GM, it didn’t work out that way.
I thought that the first coupe versions of the Cutlass Supreme and Pontiac Grand Prix were sharp cars for the time. (If I recall correctly, Motor Trend chose the Grand Prix coupe as its “Car of the Year” for 1989). But, in the end, I never bought one, and only two GM loyalists I knew did (both were Cutlass Supremes, one a coupe, the other a sedan). Somehow, the Fox-based Thunderbird seemed like a more compelling coupe.
The W-bodies never gained much traction in the market. By 1990, they were not only facing stiff competition from the Ford twins, but also an upsized Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. Once the 1992 Camry arrived, these cars were definitely also-rans. Slapping a once-hallowed nameplate on a bland front-wheel-drive sedan certainly didn’t help in Pontiac’s case.
Actually the 1989 Car of the Year was the MN-12 based Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe.
You’re right. The Grand Prix won the award for 1988.
I remember reading in “All Corvette’s are Red” how GM lost more money on the W-cars than any other car (at least until that point). They were a disaster for GM, they spent big bucks developing what turned out to be a big flop. Cars like this lead to GM’s great slide to bankruptcy. There is a reason GM kept so many old designs around for so long during this era – they were the only cars making money. That’s how the A-bodies lasted to the mid 90’s, the RWD B-bodies lived beyond their original 1985 death date, and so forth.
GM was sort of able to make up for the X-cars with the 1982 A-bodies, which were mediocre, but good enough that people still bought them. Even in its last years the Celebrity was still a big seller. But these W-cars were just not good enough to even compete with the superior Japanese sedans, and even by Taurus, which at the time of the W-car launch was starting to get old. The public knew they weren’t any good, so sales took a dump, and people looked elsewhere.
I worked at GM dealer in the 90’s in the service dept, and these cars were no bench mark for reliability. That said, a family member had a 1994 Grand Prix and overall it was okay. Dashboard and interior were a god awful design (as were all the early W-Cars), but the 3.1L was reliable enough (didn’t even eat it’s intake gaskets). The car drove decently for it’s time, not overly soft like a GM A-body Buick.
Hehe, it really is all about perspective. I started poking around for images and discovered that a lot of teens have taken these on, and given them some love, albeit mostly the coupes. It makes sense, since these are old, cheap as they’ll ever be, and have the potential for some power with some mods. Check out this fansite with photos of the button-covered steering wheel and (who knew?) rudimentary nav system/trip computer. Pretty interesting, actually! [Never mind — the system won’t let me post that link for some reason]
Maybe the car isn’t quite as boring as you thought.
Thats the more interesting 1st gen Grand Prix dash that a 1991 would have, the car in the article is a 1994-1996 Grand Prix, with the much lest interesting 2nd gen W-body dash, which grew dual air bags, but lost alot of the interesting although cooky 1st gen W-body touches. These run the range from Alamo Super Saver special to full on semi-techno futurama show car depending on how they were equipped. I am a 3 time Grand Prix W-body owner BTW.
Ah, so this 4-door shown here is a later model. No wonder none of the earlier year model searches I did showed that light bar front end. This is definitely a case where the earlier cars look better (that’s so often true).
The light bar front end was available on the high early sedans only, like the hardly ever seen Grand Prix STE sedan. Later they made the light bar standard across the line.
The first one didn’t scare you off?
I’ve had the “calculator” steering wheel on a few Pontiacs. It’s functional but quite akward to use, you also need a certain kind of radio for it to work.
The buttons are also in a very stupid layout.
They were easy once you learned them, but in order to make it look cooler and more “techy” they had functions on there that you really didn’t need on the wheel, like balance and fade. The car in the photo also has the HUD option, pretty cool, even today.
We only seem to remember the worst about these cars. The Pontiac versions, especially the higher trim levels, were very well equipped. I don’t believe many other popularly priced makes offered a HUD or steering wheel controls or other amenities as Pontiac did.
The W-body STE models were very extensively equipped; remote keyless entry, trip computer, the previously mentioned steering wheel controls, cassette stereo with equalizer and eight speakers (and an optional compact disc player), remote keyless entry, eight-way power driver’s seat with multiple lumbar and sidewing adjustments for both seats.
Much of that stuff has become standard these days, but at the time, it was real gee-whiz stuff.
Was the Heads-Up-Display a Turbo Grand Prix only feature or could you get it on any of them? I thought it was a TGP exclusive, but the one in the picture has a 7000rpm redline on the tach, which would indicate Quad4 under the hood. It’s really cool, in fact I think this was the first car ever available with a HUD, not that it really set a trend.
I came close to buying a really used up TGP when I was 18, glad I didn’t – but I was glad I got to drive it. The interior, for a late 80’s GM car at least, was excellent. They actually had a “2+2” seating arrangement, huge leather buckets in the front and back.
The HUD began as standard on the turbo coupe in 89, then the STE could also get it in 90, and then it became a regular stand alone option in 91 for all Grand Prix’s as long as certain other optiosn were ordered.
The 7000rpm tach means it has the 3.4 twin-dual-cam V6
I was always taught that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything. I have nothing to say.
Yup, drove a couple when I worked at a car lot, nothing memorable except for the Olds versions having issues with radio knobs falling off.
Strangely I’d rather have the older FWD A-bodies over a W body, or even an H body. These never really were on my radar.
A hearty “Thank You” to PN who ate the spinach so that the rest of us don’t have to. 🙂
Like Geeber, I remember the car mags of the time going on and on in every issue for what seemed like years about the “GM-10s”. The program seemed to suffer delay after delay. Then, when the cars finally made it out of the incubator, nobody really wanted them.
They were not traditional enough for GM’s regular customers who were used to buying Cutlass Supremes and Chevy Celebrities. They were not cutting-edge to appeal to trendsetters. They did not drive well enough to appeal to enthusiasts. They were too expensive to appeal to cheapskates, and they were not nice enough to pass as credible upper-end cars. It seems like buyers didn’t so much as pick these, as find that everything else in the showroom of their GM brand of choice was either too small or too expensive. I guess it is not much of an advertising slogan to say “more people settle for one of our cars than for the car of any other brand.” There were just too many appealing choices out there.
There is one marketing-related thing GM got right on the GM-10/W body, and I’m not sure if it was intentional or just a result of unplanned delays. Most previous (and many subsequent) GM launches would occur all at once, with several brands and body styles being dropped at the same time. The ’82 A body for example was like this – the four GM divisions that sold them all introduced their coupes and sedans at the same time, and by now most of the automotive media and an increasing percentage of customers were onto the fact that they were all near-clones of each other, so GM would only make one splash with the new models. The W’s though were all introduced at different times, and the sedan and coupe intros for each brand were also staggered. This resulted in press coverage that focused on each new car individually and assured that it would happen over the course of about two years. None of this was enough to overcome the unimpressiveness of the cars themselves.
Reminds me of the email I sent a while back about my GP! 🙂 It’s a 2000, but I’m seriously convinced that model is a CC. There are odd, subtle styling cues that you just don’t see on the road very often… they’re not exciting, but interesting. There are so many secret compartments, that you’ll be discovering new ones years into owning the car. Also, the heads up display and advanced trip computer were uncommon for its time, as well as the basic trip computer that came standard. I want to write about it so bad, but I want to wait and see how my long journey with this vehicle further unfolds.
“…. on and on in every issue for what seemed like years about the “GM-10s”. The program seemed to suffer delay after delay. Then, when the cars finally made it out of the incubator, nobody really wanted them.”
YEP!
Old timers loved the Cutlass Cieras/Centurys, so that hurt W’s.
Many former youngish RWD Cutlass Supreme/GP/MC owners switched to S-10 Blazers/Jimmys. In my Chicago neighboorhood, by 1990, the 20-somethings who still lived at home made this switch. Eventually to Explorers, Tahoes, etc.
Others that went to college and got careers switched to imports.
I have had two W-bodies as daily drivers in the last 8 years. My first car was a 96 Lumina. A fairly loaded base model with everything but ABS. Whoops! We had it a year and a half without too many problems. Was it perfect? No. But it ran fine. We got rid of it as my mom got her first Volvo and my sister and I got her 96 Concorde LXi.
I now have an 05 LS and have had it since July 2008. Is it perfect? No, but I love this car. I probably won’t replace it with another W but its been a great platform for me so far!
The W-body Coupe’s competition at this time was the MN-12 Thunderbird/Cougar (89 and up). Really which was the better car? Both cost their respective companies lots of money to develop (with the long run of the W-body GM has to have made money off of it). The MN-12 was the better “enthusiasts” car but the W-body wins overall as it spawned quite a few more variants, including family sedans.
I’d take a Fox-body over either any day ;), and I’ve owned a MN-12.
Lackluster sales of both the GM-10 coupes and Cougar, Thunderbird and Mark VIII were driven more by an overall decline in the demand for coupes than the faults of the cars themselves.
Both GM and Ford could survive if the market for personal luxury coupes disappeared (which it basically did in the 1990s). Many of those buyers simply switched to SUVs made by GM and Ford.
The real problem was with the sedans. The W-body sedans failed to reverse GM’s slide in a critical market. The family sedan segment is still an important part of the market – and it was in the 1980s and 1990s. GM could not afford to lose ground in that segment.
There were rumors at the time of their release that the MN12 platform would likely replace the Panther and even the Fox in lieu of the SN95. It’s likely the cost per car put an end to that notion.
Could have made a lovely Lincoln though; cost wouldn’t have been such an issue then.
In a buff book article, maybe C&D, GM publicists bragged that the GM 10 coupes were ‘true mid size cars’ compared to the last Fox based “compact” TBird/Cougars. I.E. the benchmark was the out going Ford coupes.
But, GM ignored not only the MN12, but the whole market. Still, thinking 1987 was still like 1977, when Landau Coupes were the rage. The GM10’s must have been first drawn up that far back.
To that though, Ford responded with an even larger ThunderCougar in 1989, so they were also thinking along the same lines.
I wouldn’t call the Fox T-bird/Cougar “compact”. With a 200 inch length, a 104.3″ wheel base, a 3600lb curb weight (fully loaded V8 car) and the ability to seat 4 adults in comfort they weren’t really “compact”. My Fox T-bird is about the same size interior and exterior wise as a 61-66 T-bird, but in their day those were considered small cars ;).
The problem with the MN-12 vs either a Fox or GM-10 is weight. They were big, heavy cars weighing almost 200-300lbs more than the Fox cars they replaced. The front suspension on the MN-12s was no where near as robust as the Fox or GM-10 chassis. Balljoint and bushing replacement at 70K miles or less is not uncommon on MN-12s. GM-10 coupes, especially if equipped with the Buick 3.8 or 3800 V6 were far and away better than the Essex 3.8 in the MN-12. The only way to get a comparable powertrain was to get either the 5.0 or 4.6 V8. If I was comparison shopping a MN-12 or GM-10 now for a low buck DD the GM-10 would win hands down.
The heaviest MN12 is 300lbs heavier than the lightest Fox Thundercougar. More realistically the difference is ~100lbs between comparable cars. I had my 4.6 94 Cougar tip the scales at 3700lbs at the track with 3/4 tank of fuel.
I won’t argue about the front suspensions robustness but the thing to remember is the Fox and GM10 use struts and A arms in lieu of SLA with tension struts in the MN12. It’s hardly an apples to apples comparison since a MacPherson suspended car is inherently cheaper to own… at a cost.
The Foxes were also saddled with the Essex V6 as the base engines.
To add to your point though, externally the only real difference between the MN12 and the Fox is width. The 87/88 Foxes are actually 1″ longer than the 89 MN12s. MN12s look longer because the body is shorter.
I can show a little love for these cars, and did some time back with the ’96 Regal CC: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1996-buick-regal-olympic-edition-go-for-the-gold-in-your-w-body/
I drove one much like this back in 1998-99. My Volvo 940 overheated, and while Dad was replacing the radiator, he let me drive one of the office’s company cars. White 1995 GP sedan, dark gray cloth, pretty much the same as the one featured except for the color. It had been the marketing manager’s car, but she had departed a few months before and no one was using it. I actually can’t quite understand the hatred for this car. I drove it just short of a week, and while it wasn’t any great shakes, it was an inoffensive car. It did seem rather plain, but back then my black 940SE with saddle tan leather was a pretty spiffy car. I do agree that the 1995-97 GP dash was pretty bad, with its melted-wax design. I also recall that the hood release was broken, even though the car was only a few years old. One of the higher-ups had a ’98 LeSabre Limited with the touring suspension and leather seats; it was a much, much nicer car than the GP.
I do think the coupes looked nicer than the sedans. My cousin got a brand-new GP GTP coupe in 1995. It was a really nice car; loaded to the hilt in medium metallic blue, dark gray leather, moonroof, and sharp 5-spoke alloys. I was in high school when she got it, and remember riding in it. It was too much car for her pocketbook though, and she only had it a year or so.
I still think the Buicks looked the nicest, especially the coupes and GS sedans with their two-tone paint and Sabre-styled alloys. I liked the 1988-94 woodgrained dash they had too. About 20 years ago a friend’s dad had an ’88 GS coupe in white with blue buckets–I think it had the rear bucket seats too. I rode in it at least once and thought it was a really nice car. I’d love a 1991-94 Regal Limited coupe, like this one. It would have to have burgundy leather, though.
My feelings regarding the W-bodies involve more disappointment than hatred.
Through the early 1980s, if you bought a top-of-the-line GM intermediate (particuarly the Oldsmobile and Buick versions), you felt as though you were getting something stylish and cut above “average” for the class. You didn’t feel as though you were driving something designed for purchasing managers at Avis and Hertz. This was especially true with the 1968-72 A-bodies and the Colonnade cars.
I never got that feeling with the sedan versions of the W-bodies. It certainly didn’t help that GM let them rot on the vine in the early 1990s.
The old GM intermediates were rolling proof as to why GM was so dominant in the middle of the market. By the early 1990s, these cars were proof that GM was throwing in the towel in too many critical segments.
“Through the early 1980s, if you bought a top-of-the-line GM intermediate (particuarly the Oldsmobile and Buick versions), you felt as though you were getting something stylish and cut above “average” for the class. ”
Spot-on. My mother bought a 72 Cutlass Supreme and a 74 Luxury LeMans. I was certainly not a great GM fan in those days (mainly because I was sick of seeing so many) but even I felt like the GM cars were the ones that everyone wanted while the others were for people who were already loyal Ford or Mopar people. The GM cars were the ones that exuded an air of success, both the cars themselves and by extension, the people who bought them.
That 72 Cutlass, particularly, was a very well done car. Good looking, smooth, fast, well appointed, and well put together. It might not have been my first pick at that time, but I could certainly understand how most people would have disagreed with me on that.
GM managers in the 80’s, who couldnt care less about real cars, expected all the loyal RWD Cutlass/Regal/MC/GP buyers to ‘come back’ and trade in their coupes. Instead, some bought trucks, but those still wanted a real car went to imports.
Example: Co-worker guy traded a mid 80’s Cutlass Sup 2 door for a ’90 Mitsu Eclipse, then a ’95 Explorer. Got the Olds when in early 20’s, then moved on. By late 80’s Cutlass went out of style, fast, with 30 something buyers.
We’ve had experiences with a few W-bodies, a ’95 Cutlass Supreme sedan, a ’93 Cutlass 3.4l DOHC Convertible, and a 2000 Grand Prix.
These were better cars than they are given credit for! You still see the mid-late 90’s iterations tooling around in large numbers, post-rental car duty.
They do last a long time and inexpensively. Yah, there are intake problems on the 3.1/3400 but once fixed they last a very long time.
People who said they like the 3.4L DOHC engine never had one. It was way too complicated. The alternator was under the engine and required special cooling ducts . . . everything which normally cost $200 on the 3.1 cost 3 times as much.
Also, the door handles on the coupes broke. Often.
The door handles broke because people would pull the whole door open with the little tab handle, my friend replaced like 3 on his Lumina coupe, even after he told his wife several times not to do that, they were tought to find in the junkyard towards the end of that cars run, everyone in the yard had a broken one too!
This would be the ideal car to use in the commission of a crime. The overall design is so bland, it functions as a kind of cloaking device. The eyes just naturally ignore it, and you end up focusing on something more interesting, like the row of small houses in the background and the Oldsmobile parked in front of them. Even people who remember seeing it will see different cars. Someone who sees it from the front will either think that it’s a Mercury Sable, or they will mistake the Pontiac emblem for an Acura caliper. Those who see it from the side will remember a Saturn or a Chevrolet Corsica. Those who just see it from the back will focus on the words “Grand Prix,” and naturally will recall seeing a two-door personal luxury car.
Comment of the Day Award!
This is definitely a 94-96 due to the dash.
Horrendous even by rental car standards.
I had the Lumina version of this as a Driver’s Ed car. You’re right, there was absolutely nothing memorable about it except for the noises coming from the front suspension.
Then again, at least GM tried to do something with the platform later on with the supercharged variants, though I’m not going to think too hard about how much money GM had lost on the project by that time.
According to Wikipedia, Roger Smith aimed to take 21% of the American car market with the W-Bodies…that’s just sad.
Here is a picture of my 90 Turbo Coupe. 3.1 turbo never gave any problems. Purchased with 27K miles in 1996, died an untimely death in 2002 with 130K miles on it.
Red, camel interior, HUD, power moonroof and leather.
Faster than an automatic SHO, handled better than an SHO (went around an auto-x track faster), and was more reliable and solid than the SHO
I miss it alot
No where close to the reliability of the SHO bro.Sorry to burst your rose-colored bubble.
actually my parents had a 94 SHO at the time and the only good part of it was the engine…the Taurus around it was less than steller…
At the time I also belonged to the Northeast Taurus SHO club and did alot of auto-x with them. I can say from experience that the Grand Prix was more reliable than the SHO’s from 95% of the club members cars.
No rose bubble here, just plain experience.
to be honest though, I did have a 89 SE coupe 5-speed before the turbo coupe that was a steaming pile of crap…I never figured out if it was a lemon or just poor treatment by the original owner…I suspect a little of both.
Wife drives a 3008 Grand Prix too…not my favorite car in the world,but at least she bought a Pontiac
“At least she bought a Pontiac” is supposed to mean something?
To you, no. I was pleased at the time. I would have been dissapointed if she went with the typical 20something year old woman purchasing a Civic or Corolla….yuck.
Is that a Turbo 3.1 Grand Prix?
I had one. And a cutlass international and a 3.4dohc Grand Prix
They were all pieces of crap. The turbo car sounded good, looked good in an 80’s sort of way, and had a boatload of grunt off the line once I was done cranking up the boost. Outside of that, it was junk.
I hate w-bod. Used to be on wbod boards back in the day when Shaun ran it. I remember all the LT5 gues. Waskie, Jeff m, etc etc.
We had a total of 10 of these crappers in my family. I drive acuras. Trading in for a Lexus soon. Parents now drive camrys.
These on-the-road W-body cars were snoozers, but they did look pretty good in NASCAR trim. This is “Days of Thunder” era stuff, boys.
So sad. My MIL had one of these IIRC. The light bar across the front was lifted from the 2nd generation STE sedan, and the wheels on this one are from the STE also, but it seems to me there was a trim level that was just underneath the STE that looks like this car. I think this might be a Grand Prix LE? A quick Google search returns that label.
Lots of folks dump on the W-body, but it has lasted the longest in recent GM history. I’d agree that the original versions were undercooked; but these come closest to the X cars and J cars as true Cockroaches of the Road (© me!) (ha!). Upon release, I was a fan of the Oldsmobile styling, and had driven a few back in my car selling days. My favorite was a DOHC equipped Cutlass Supreme sedan. I drove it from one of our dealerships to another, after having driven dozens of Corollas on demo drives, to get into a Cutty with a honking motor (at least by early 90’s standards), crank up the air and plant my foot on the gas and GO!, it was marvelous.
At least with the final W’s, they got the V6 motor they always deserved. The 3.6 is a beast and should be well suited to the car. Now we have the EpII stretch replacing the W-bodies, I hope they have as long a run, but with a better reputation.
I love these cars so much. But I can honestly say I have never been in any of these But I still love them….. Why you ask. Well back in 04-08 I was a scrap hauler and these and the celebrity cousins made me a fortune. I bet We scrapped 5 or 6 thousand of these things.
Also lots of caviliers, sunbirds, shadows and their K framed counterparts. Topaz,tepoes, audi 4 and 5000s. Also a massive amount of intrepids and concords for how new they where.Eastern canada is a massive rust belt and many cars from the sixtys and seventys are long gone unless they where garaged and very well cared for their whole life time. Anything salvageable from a classic would be sold via the regular channels we all use.
The Intrepid/Concordes likely got scrapped because of the infamous 2.7L engine’s sludge problems, which a Google search reveals could occur in as little as 40,000 miles and essentially destroyed the entire engine. Timing chain defects were also apparently common.
The “Sludge” problem is just the MFG dodging the truth that they did not properly design their engine.
In the case of the 2.7l it is all about the timing chain problems. The tensioner was simply not designed to take up the slack that occurs from the normal stretching of the timing chain. To get more than 60K out of the engine you just need to install a small spacer in the bore that the tensioner sits in. Then instead of the tensioner being over 80% of the way extended with a new chain you can set it up so it is about 50% extended.
If you dive further into the 2.7l complaint you’ll find that many people who had the engine failure noticed a noise on start up or at idle. That noise was the timing chain dragging on things. Dealers typically used the “can not replicate the concern” on in-warranty vehicles. (This was partially due to the fact that if the warranty claims were too high Chrysler would lock the dealer out of their remarketing sales) The owner would then drive it and shortly after the warranty ran out the chain fatigued from flopping around and dragging on the valve covers and other parts would fail. When that happened valves would hit pistons and the chain would often damage things on the front of the block. I’ve seen and repaired or replaced a number of the engines and in all cases the owner had been very diligent at changing the oil and the engines were very clean internally.
In the case of the Toyota engines that have the so called sludge problem it was not sludge but coking of the oil due to insufficient oil flow. That caused the oil to to run too hot which causes it to coke in localized locations further reducing the flow, The bearing surface for the cam in the head eventually is starved for oil and then the cam seizes. Note Toyota after years of maintaining that the engine failures were due to sludging caused by a lack of oil changes eventually stated that the engines were redesigned to increase the flow to the heads. Hmmm…….. certainly sounds like the engine was not designed properly in the first place.
Paul, after Lincoln Elementary did you go to the Catholic middle school in Iowa City, Regina?
The summer after sixth grade we moved to Towson, MD. Immaculate Conception (7-8th) was a very rude adjustment from Lincoln. Then two years at Loyola High, followed by one and a half at Towson Sr. Then freedom…which was mostly based out of Iowa City, where I hitchhiked too after I turned 18.
I have very unpleasant memories of having to attend Catechism “summer school” for a week or two, held at Regina High, which was fairly new then. The brutality….summer time…cooped up with nuns….
The only positive thing about my experience in catholic school is that it turned me into an atheist!
Lots of innovation in the front lighting design on these W-cars:
1) Pontiac rescued the light bar after Mercury foolishly ditched it for a fish face.
2) And the Olds version looks like triple headlights!
I was going to reply saying that everybody is being far too harsh on the poor, misguided W-Body Pontiacs and extoll the virtues of the (IMO) at least somewhat interesting early (’88-’92ish) models…
But then I remembered: I actually owned one of these and haven’t thought about it in over ten years! It had been completely erased from my memory, even after reading this article and 80+ comments. If that’s not a testament to blandness I don’t know what is!
In fairness, I only actually “owned” it for a few weeks and never put the title in my name. It was a ’90 LE coupe – 3.1l V6/automatic… really boring but in all honesty a pretty nice car that drove well. I bought it for $100 from someone I went to school with, solely for the purpose of fixing it’s “blown transmission” (aka something completely trivial, TPS sensor I think) and selling it for a profit. Before I unloaded it on eBay I tried trading it in at an Alfa repair shop on a beat-to-shit GTV6. When I told the little old Italian man in the garage I wanted to give him my nice, big, shiny Pontiac outside for essentially nothing his eyes lit up. He drove it around the block a few times and looked confused – “I can’t tell what, but I know something wrong with it” – nothing’s wrong with it, amico, that’s the way it’s supposed to be!
Anyway, I still do think the early W-Body coupes are pretty interesting/good looking, the Cutlass Supreme especially. By the time they grew 150lbs of plastic body cladding and ridiculous lightbars (like the CC example), GM was mailing it in hardcore – and while the build quality was never outstanding to begin with, it really fell off a cliff the deeper into the 90’s they got.
Here’s the GP I completely forgot I ever had. It was super clean and I liked that black/silver two tone paint, but hated the wheels. Wonder if it’s still kicking around…
For a car Paul couldn’t conjure up many words about, it sure garnered a lot of comments!
You guys are way too critical of GM sometimes, I swear. I grew up thinking American cars were garbage, but even then I knew they had some advantages.
Pretend, if you will, that it’s 1990-ish. You want a mid-sized family sedan and you it sometimes snows where you are. No one at the time wanted RWD, not in large enough numbers, anyway. V8s were considered excessive, even with gas being cheap (SUVs somehow weren’t yet seen as irresponsible but that’s another story). Here are your options:
-Accord: excellent car, harsh automatic, harsh dealer prices, cramped rear seat.
-Camry: dorky looks, not big enough inside, slightly expensive, thirsty and pointless V6 option.
-Stanza: Gutsy 2.4, well prices, cramped, no one’s paying attention.
-626: Again, no one’s paying attention.
-K-car derivatives: Bolt upright rear seat, narrow body, unconvincing as a 6-passenger mid-size, time-bomb Ultradrive, harsh Mitsu V6, harsher 2.5 liter 4-cyl.
-GM A-body: Bolt upright rear seat, very old fashioned.
-Passat: not at all what US buyers wanted.
-Maxima: Excellent, expensive, small in the back.
-Chrysler LH cars: very cheaply executed and practically disposable, same awful seats and ergonomics as Taurus and W-bodies.
That leaves GM’s W-bodies and the Ford Taurus. And as lovely as the Taurus/Sable are, they weren’t anymore convincingly built than the GM competition, didn’t have the best automatic transmissions and the Vulcan V6 wasn’t any better than the 60 degree Chevy V6 and the 3.8 Essex V6 was much worse than the Vulcan or anything GM offered in the same price-range. They also had unsupportive seats and questionable ergonomics. Was the SHO awesome? Yes. Was the Taurus great for 1986? Yes. Was it evidence Detroit could build competitive cars? Yes. Was the non-SHO version anything to write home about in 1990? Er….
It’s hard not to see the W-body 4-door as a viable competitor to the Taurus. You had, either in 3 or 4 speed form, excellent automatic transmissions, compared with the Ford’s lazy shifting and delicate AXOD. The 60 degree V6s were torquey, efficient and reliable in either 2.8 or 3.1 form. There was a lot of glass area and genuinely interesting greenhouse treatments in the Buick, Pontiac and Olds offerings. There was effectively competitive pricing once the cars got to the dealers. There was excellent GM a/c, something buyers couldn’t take for granted with some imports.
Were they anywhere as satisfying as the G-body coupes they replaced? No.
Did they offer much the FWD A-bodies did not? No.
Did they offer a compelling reason not to spend a few hundred extra on the larger and excellent H-body (Bonneville, 88/98, LeSabre/Park Ave)? No.
Were they profitable for GM? Apparently not.
Were they a good choice for the average family sedan buyer? Heck yeah. They were roomy, a good value, gutsy, quiet, had a lot of variety and flashy options and they looked a lot more interesting than the competition.
They were eventually rather heavily discounted and offered solid value in base-level 3.1 trim as the ’90s wore on and were eventually offered with the very excellent 3800 V6, which made for a very satisfying large sedan in higher trim level Regals. If it were 1994, and I had two kids and a wife to haul around, I would have no trouble buying a Grand Prix SE 3.1 as a cheap family hauler over a Taurus, or Camry 4-cyl. If I were feeling a bit indulgent, I might get a Regal GS with the 3.8, complete with whore-red leather interior and microwave-oven green digital climate control, likely with a discount. Good taste is overrated, especially if it would’ve cost as much as a Taurus SHO or Maxima SE, likely sans incentives.
Fault these cars for questionable fit and finish, bad ergonomics and unprofitability all you like, but they definitely had their virtues:
http://testdrivejunkie.com/1991-buick-regal-gran-sport-sedan-test-drive/
Very well said, and I 100% agree.
At the time my parents had an awd A-body, an SHO and I had the turbo W-body. All were fairly upscale for the time, all much flashier than the competition and all pretty fun to drive.
The only thing I diagree with is the lack of incentives for the SHO….Ford almost couldn’t give SHO’s away. I remember my father getting lots, and I mean lots of money off of sticker…He was also cross shopping Maxmia SE’s at the time and couldn’t touch one of those for below sticker..and some had the dealer markup at the time.
I agree as well, hindsight is always 20/20 with some people. It’s easy to pick out the faults of unsuccessful cars 20 years later if you ignore the faults of the competition.
For their merits circa 1990, they weren’t bad cars on the face of things, true. Until you take a moment and realize these were the final product of a $7 billion dollar project. Nothing was world class about them. Where did all that money evaporate is my question? I think that is where a lot of vitriol stems from; both Ford with the Taurus and Chrysler with the LH cars were able to pull off arguably more convincing products for much less investment.
Perry, I missed your comment first time around but I think you’ve convincingly made a case for the GM-10 cars. They were flawed but had some redeeming qualities. It’s also worth noting how much smaller and pricier Japanese rivals were when the GM-10 cars launched in 1990, and how few Japanese family sedans offered a V6.
I think the GM-10 cars may be an example of a mediocre and disappointing offering, really no worse than a lot of domestic cars of the time, but one that has left such feelings in people of disappointment, resentment and disgust. Yes, build quality was subpar, yes these were a huge financial loss for GM. But they addressed almost all criticisms of 1980s GM cars: more differentiated styling, more powerful engines, better differentiation between brands.
Ignore the fact that projected sales were way off base, and how bungled the development process was – and I covered that in detail in my GM-10 Buick Regal article – and these really aren’t as horrible as people say. Yes, I realize I have the handicap of not spending time in these and no I’m not saying these are amazing cars. But I feel people may be looking at these through whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses are.
These cars were so smoking hot when they first came out. Solid chassis, handled very well especially in comparision to what they replaced (G-bodies) and the space utilization was good too. Underpowered? Yup. But then again, what back then wasn’t?
It would be nice when someone writes something negative, or positive for that matter, about a certain make or model that they actually produce some numbers to back up their claims. I’m speculating that if one was to add up the total number of W-Cars made by the four divisions that they would be surprised at how successful the “W” was. I wonder what had happened if GM treated the W-Body like the A/G-Body it replaced. There was a coupe,sedan,wagon and truck where as only a coupe and sedan for the W-Body. Well there was a wagon if you count the U-Van since the front half was W-Car based. And than that in turn spawned the B-Car Aztek and Rendezvous with available AWD. What I liked about the “W” was that IMO it was the last platform that used the old GM philosophy as far as powertrain options go. One of my self made “car myhts” was that you never bought a GM car that was 100 percent original to the division it was sold under. In other words it was wrong to buy that 78 LeSabre with the Olds 403 or Pontiac 301 when a Buick 350 could be had or a 81 MonteCarlo with the turbo’d Buick in it instead of the SBC. The 4 divisions still had a little engineering indentity left by the late 80’s. I’ve always considered the 60 degree V-6 to be a Chevy design. The 2.5 IronDuke was Pontiac and the new Quad4 was Oldsmobile. And Buick had the wonderfull 3800 V-6. If you had a hissy fit because that 77 Cutlass you bought had a SBC than shame on you for not looking under the hood before signing on the dotted line. No need to repeat that mistake as you could order up a Cutlass with a Q4. Or a Lumina with a 2.8/3.1. Pontiac had a 2.5 GP. No wait, they didn’t. Damn that blew a hole in my philosophy. Why was it that you could only get a crappy motor in the Chevy? And no, I don’t think any 2.8/3.1 is the crappy motor. GM later toned down the available engines but at least they were just as diverse as the A/G-Body that preceded them.
If I had to write an essay about about our friend the “W” all I would write would be the endless options and weird combinations you could have. Like 4 bucket seats in the GP and Cutlass. Recaros in the Lumina 9C1. HUD and 3 pedals. I would have a top 10 list that would mention a 92 Lumina Z34/M5,90 Cutlass Q4/5M,92 Lumina M85 Varable Fuel,91 Turbo GP STE. I don’t know where I’d place a 93 Lumina with the 2.2 four cylinder as I don’t think there was even any sold. The only one I’ve seen was in the sales brochure. I’m sure for the Bottom 10 list, that it would have the 2.5 Lumina and maybe the drop head Cutlass only because of it’s standard ABS brakes that nobody seems to know how to fix and they end up scrapped 15 years later because the owners don’t know that you can swap in a cheap brake booster from a lesser Chevy.
These cars, particularly in their 2nd generation, represent one of the General’s more baffling habits: truly high-tech vehicles (for the upper trim levels) combined with truly crappy interiors. Can you imagine if GM cars didn’t feel like junk? Even if they couldn’t reach Toyota-levels of reliability, they had a lot to offer. If you could get a Buick Regal GS (though I prefer the look of the Cutlass myself) that had Passat-like interior quailty, you’d have a car that made a lot of Americans very happy.
I was so disappointed when these came out — mainly due to the fact that GM justified putting the GP moniker on a four-door sedan. I’m surprised GM didn’t slap “Monte Carlo” on their version. The non-Lumina versions never really did anything for me anyway, although the 2.8 versions did seem to run quite a long time.
These Pontiac versions didn’t even serve as good Fiero Delco Stereo donors until the uglified dash restyle occurred in 1990-something.
I do find the the original Lumina coupe a very sharp vehicle & would like to own a non-3.4 Euro version though.
To be honest. I was the dumbass who allowed someone to title loan scam me on an ’01 Mitsubishi Mirage. (victim sounds so final) and I almost was given a 1994 Grand Prix Coupe in an awful teal green color. I don’t inherently hate GM, after all my grandparents and parents had several GM cars during my life so far, my favorite being a 1987 Olds Delta 88 FE3 Coupe. She had punch, as well as class. But 90’s GM cars, ESPECIALLY the W-Bodies just seemed so generic and cookie cutter. Bland and uninspired. I am picky when it comes to my cars, I just cant help it. I have had 3 Tauruses, ’92 , ’93, ’97 (if I gotta do Detroit, Ford is the way I like to go), A ’95 Toyota Tercel, ’95 Mitsubishi Galant, and an ’01 Mits Mirage (title loan scam repo took her from me just after I restored her apperance) and I had a 1993 Toyota Camry XLE 4 cyl. I currently drive a 1992 Camry V6 LE. Not to mention I have always enjoyed the sophistication of Volvo’s good looks.
Gm’s designs of this era were adequate. Adequate enough to inspire a majority of people who dont care about cars to buy them, adequate enough to fulfill rental lot demands. Hell, all of my Tauruses were at least a little more mature looking in terms of their design, in a way that does not offend, but inspired me. I really get the 1986-95 Taurus design. Still one of my fav’s. Even my 1997 Taurus with its somewhat polarizing styling, made good on it’s “Camry Fighter” aspirations. It truly posessed on of the better interiors that I have had to experience on a daily basis.
But GM has never appealed to me as something I want to drive. I think GM, I think mediocre. Don’t get me wrong. I admire a lot of their reliability strides, but frankly, I always found cars like this to be extremely bargain basement with no real direction or personality of their own. And it certainly didn’t help that GM was worse at doing “cookie cutter cars” in the 80’s and 90’s than anyone else in detroit. Yes Ford had Mercury clones, but it was sometimes a slight bit harder to distinguish any similarities in a Lincoln product (Save for 1990 Continental) against a Ford or a Mercury.
Meanwhile at over at the general, Cutlass Supreme, Lumina, Regal, Grand Prix, in addition the the ugly Astros, strange Dustbuster vans and bizarre products like Buick’s Reatta, all leave an underwhelming taste in my mouth. GM’s excitement factor in those days was nill for me. So generic. At least Chrysler had the fore-thought and good sense to offer rebadged Mitsubishi’s to spice up it’s offerings (Although that may be a miss, rather than a hit in hindsight 20 years later)…..love the article
Oh and in case you are wondering, my stepbrother drives the Grand Prix. I spent $1,500 on my 1992 Camry LE V6 with 152k. And I don’t have a single regret….she’s worth every damn penny! I can see the major differences, especially in the interior when he visits and parks next to mine. I find it strange that the very lexus like Camry was on the market at the same time as the Grand Prix, but are worlds apart in most everything. Someone wanted it more I guess….
What Evan said. Except, insert ‘Ford’ where he writes ‘GM’ and vice-versa. The two-door versions of these cars weren’t supposed to play in the litter box with the four-door Taurus and Sable, or their less-than-breathtaking Vulcan V-6s.
Where’s the ballyhoo for the Thunderbird, Cougar, (and Mark VIII), Evan? That’s exactly what I thought.
The Ws are great. I have a soft spot for them. They have both interesting and odd features:
Interesting/Odd
-4 wheel disc brakes – in a sea of disc/drum set ups, this stands out
-The Digital Dashes – standard on Regal and Cutlasses (albiet in a basic form, but with upgraded full gauge packages) quite futuristic for the time
-Single Leaf Spring independent rear suspension – space saving but flattened out the back end when you put a bigger friend in the back seat
-Lack of airbags – sort of missed the boat on that one but they eventually caught up
-The structure was pretty stout – they were solid cars, the plastic bits on the inside did the creaking
– Head Up Displays – late season 1989 Cutlass and Grand Prix coupes recieved this as an option. Pretty high tech for the times
– wet arm wipers with a ‘folding hands’ pattern – something fun and different – and sure made it easy to change the passenger side wiper blade
– prestigious rear mounted antenna – just throwing that in there because I like them on the back fender
And, up to 1995
An amazing array of GM engines
2.5L and 2.2 L 4 cylinders in Luminas
2.3 Quad 4 with 5 speed manuals in Grand Prix and Cutlass Supreme – an oddball for Car Magazine testers
2.8/3.1 V6 for everyone!
3.1L V6 Turbo for Grand Prix and STE
3.4 DOHC for Lumina, Grand Prix and Cutlass Supreme
3.8L for Regals and Regals only
Lots of different engines and there was a concerted effort to make them look different from one another – 2 windows per side on the Lumina and Oldsmobile (GM 69 body) and 3 side window on Grand Prix and Buick Regal (GM 19 body)
I would love to find an STE with a 3.4L and a 5 speed manual. Or a Quad 4 5 speed. Just for kicks and giggles. Light bar, rear seat headrests, buttons galore, 42 way adjustable seats with no memory. Bring it!
So for all the supposed SHO lovers, try this one out: 217WHP. MGillis, this lighbar’s for you. (Nope, not Bud.) Original 5 speed car, 187,000 miles, second owner, original engine (including the supposedly crap head gaskets, original trans (M284), 3rd clutch replaced 3 weeks ago). 16 way power seats, sunroof, upgraded stereo with subwoofer and steering wheel controls, every available option except HUD.
https://foreverpontiac.com/gallery/album/38-1992-pontiac-grand-prix-ste-dohc-5-speed-1-of-57/
Any SHOs out there that are feeling lucky, you’re welcome to line up, drag or x-cross, we’ll go head to head. Ive already taken down 5.0s so I dont think a crappy Jap 3.0 engine’s gonna give me much trouble.
Zzzzzzzzzz.?
That whole Car looks licensed upon the the Aerodynamic Mercury Sable, but with Separate from the headlight Turn Signals and No Strecthy two-piece stop-lights. The Interior is a whole different story for a Messy one.
I have a lot of experience with W-bodies. My wife had several Cutlass Supremes as a company car (also was the family car) from a 1991 through 1997. We bought the 91 and 97 off lease and they each went well over 200,000 miles. My in-laws had a 2001 Buick Century and my sons each had a 2002 Grand Prix. All of these had the 3100 cc V6 which gave good service, good mileage and good power. The main issue with the engine was the intake manifold gasket, which guaranteed a $900 repair somewhere between 50000 and 100000 miles. At least the intake gasket failure on the 3100 didn’t lead to engine failure like it often did on the 3.5 or 3.8 GM V6’s.
I also had a 1998 Olds 88 and a 2006 Impala with the 3800/3900 V6s. Al these cars gave good service.
Various models did have some distinct weakness – the early 90s Cutlass Supremes had problems with the rear brake calipers, that was fixed on the later versions. The Grand Prixs were always eating up front wheel bearings. The 06 Impala had software that featured “low power mode”. Other than intake manifold gaskets, the only major repair I had on any of these was a transmission rebuild on the Impala at just under 200000 miles.
The W-bodies were on the top of my list throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s.
I think this entry finally has me on Paul’s page about what the Deadly Sin series is about. GM made some whopper errors over the decades that really stand out, and those are obvious wiffs (Vega, X Cars), but perhaps the W really symbolizes the deep mediocrity of so many of GM’s efforts after the utter disasters of the early / mid ’80s.
While other companies had bad stumbles, they frequently had some real highlights. GM struggled with some sort of criticism and shrinking market share with just about every major new passenger car introduction from 1978 through the early 2000s. The only real highlights of the W were the two generations of Impala that were on it. Much like the A Cars before it, some W’s finally got generally consistent respect when they were in their second decade. That’s a terrible way to develop a platform.
I had a 1995 4 door Oldsmobile cutless supreme with the 3.1 v6 I got in 1999. It had 85 k miles on it i drove it till i purchased. my first new truck. Later in 2007 I purchased my 1997 4 door Oldsmobile cutless supreme with only 8k miles. Yes that is correct only 8k miles never driven in snow or rain. I kept that car for 8 yrs and 112k miles.
I always liked these in “performance” coupe form, at least visually. Thought the coupe design lent itself well to the more aggressive styling cues and the BBS-style wheels that were all the rage back then. With the Twin Dual Cam 3.4 under the hood, they actually had performance to back up the looks. Until the head gaskets went, anyway. Never did drive one, or any W-body variant, just some passenger time in a Regal GS sedan which seemed nice enough to my 14 year old self.
Half-baked about sums it up. The coupe GP was an attractive pastry but the insides just weren’t fully done.
The main problem I see with these is that they weren’t distinctive. Although the original GP was based on common architecture, the clean sides and different-but-still-attractive roofline made it stand apart from the herd. Once all cars went to sides free of excessive ornamentation, it would have been harder to make this one stand out.
Generally, car manufacturers often seem to have this problem when replacing a distinctive but popular design. There must be awful pressure on the have an equivalent in next year’s range, and the new model often comes out lacking the visual snap and flair that made the old one a hit. First example that comes to mind is the Toyota RAV4 – everyone knows what the original looked like, but could you pick the new one in a pack of similar-sized SUVs? Yeah, I always wanted to be a car designer. Nowadays, I’m glad I’m not.
And I won’t get started on the concept of having the name of a once-halo model apply to a whole range.
What’s truly HEARTBREAKING is how the company who once turned out such timeless classics at the ’63 shown above…could, just 25 years later, turn out the Grand Prix seen above.
The two subsequent redesigns – 1997 and 2004 – show more of what could’ve been – should’ve been all along. I think they actually made 4-door cars cool.
Sadly, they were still W-cars, or GM-10 if you prefer, underneath.
Can you imagine the General building such mediocrity in, say, 1938? Or 1950? Neither can I.
What year was this photo taken in because I see a 1976-77 Oldsmobile Cutlass 4 door in the background?
I’ve thought the 1988-96 Pontiac Grand Prix’s were alright, I wish they were offered with the durable Buick 3.8 Liter V6 instead of the 3.4 Liter V6 as the optional engine like the Buick Regal did I also liked the 1997+ Grand Prix’s better than this generation.
TBH, I preferred the H Body cars over the W body cars by a lot
+1
I liked these cars as a kid, and they still look pretty decent today compared to some other GM offerings of the era. I didn’t realize they were made until 1996…the lightbar was pretty passe by then. It is funny someone above likened this to the Mercury Sable, because among the original drawings for the Taurus / Sable twins was an almost perfect clone of the Grand Prix front end. Someone at Pontiac must have made a few visits to Ford…
Ponticrap was so doomed by then. The awful plastic era was in full swing laughingly trying to be a BMW competitor! What sane individual would even consider a Ponticrap over a faultless Bimmer?! Those Grand Prix’ and most other GM vehicles of that era disappeared off the roads in short order. Well, it’s junk like that that got more and more people into high quality, ultra reliable, Asian and German cars.
Faultless? Ultra reliable? German? Oh, that’s a good one. Really, give me a minute to compose myself.
I like German cars. I really do. However just about everyone who has owned one in my family or circle of friends has had nothing but trouble, and ended up wiser, lighter of wallet, and driving something Asian or even in a few cases American. I’m sure they’re incredible when new, but out of the price range of us commoners, and used ones don’t know the word reliable.
I happened to read this while visiting my son at Tripler Army Medical Center where he is doing an internship. While he was working, I borrowed his car to do a bit of sightseeing. It’s a closely related model to the Grand Prix. These things really are pathetic cars. I tried to make myself useful doing a couple minor repairs on the car while I was here. Thought I could fix the window regulators for example. No dice. The interior of the doors had rusted enough there was no metal left for the window guides to attach to. Best to drive the car with the windows up. Luckily one thing GM did right was air conditioning. This one will still freeze you out of the car – that is if it doesn’t overheat. My son’s car has the dreaded lower intake gasket leak that plagued the GM 3.1, 3.4 & 3.8 engines used in various versions of this car. My son is one of the lucky ones. He has to keep adding water, but doesn’t need to buy antifreeze due to the climate. He also has to keep adding oil. Why is he lucky? At least the coolant is not mixing with the oil as it did on so many of these engines. A darn shame really. These were fairly stout & reliable engines until GM redesigned the intake gaskets and started using Dexcool. In a place like Hawai’i where performance really doesn’t matter, this old car still has that comfortable GM dramamine ride. Another nice feature of the car is that it is pretty well theft proof no matter where you park it. You can even leave the keys in it with the engine running. It will still be there when you get back. Hopefully this car will last my son through his internship – but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Pontiac became GM’s, we build excrement division, when they built the craptastic Fiero ending with the stinking Aztec.
For 1959, BOP shared the same windshield and greenhouses across their car lines- along with the Buick front door. The W bodies might have done the same for a better effect. Pontiac I believe had the best looking coupe roof, Buick the best looking sedan roof. Sharing these two greenhouses across the line might have caused some of the brands to rethink their front ends, among other trickle down effects.
Over ten years later, this GP is still sitting there. I shot it a few weeks back; might post an update.
To me this thing screams “committee car”, I can see elements from the Grand Am, the Mercury Sable, I think some elements from the Sunbird in the front end. Overall it’s about as exciting as the Chevrolet Malibu which was so bland it was generic. And don’t get me started on the interior-the dash board with those horrible looking air vents, the bloated steering wheel-it’s awful. I’ve heard the old line that committees never do anything really terrible or really exciting; it’s almost as if they were trying to create a vehicle that would have something have broad appeal and totally dropped the ball.
Light-bar grilles making a comeback thanks to cheap LEDs.
Paul: So if you hated school, didn’t pay attention, and never did your homework–how did you ever learn to be a writer? (And a builder, and all the other things you’ve done?) To me this suggests that school as it is traditionally conducted is a waste of time. Perhaps you learned on your own–which is easier for kids now because of the internet.
Or maybe school and those teachers were more beneficial to you than you realize?
I mostly learned (and still do) on my own, once past elementary school. There were some classes I liked in HS, but not many.
I read a lot…and did back then too. I’d hook school, take the bus to the giant main Pratt library in downtown Baltimore, and read…old magazines, mostly. Popular Mechanix; that sort of thing. Old cars and other things fascinated me.
I’ve always liked the full size GP, to a point. Some, like the ’68, looked too much like the other full size Ponchos. Earlier ones had that certain “less is more” look. Stylish without being overbearing.
The ’70 SJ was the one I have always wanted but so far has always gotten away. When you pulled up in one, you arrived.
To me had the ’95 and its siblings not looked like the other GM vehicle of the era, it might have had the slightest glimmer of hope.
To each his own
If that’s your photo, it is very nicely composed and shot at an interesting angle.
I was never a Pontiac fan, never will be. My disdain of the mid seventies’ Le Mans has been written of on these pages before. The huge largesse of the 76 Grand Prix. Is it Grand Prix or Gran Prix? I never knew. Then there was the Grand Am, another GM branding exercise. The Bonneville my buddy had which rusted out prematurely on his beloved Gun Metal gray paint. The next door neighbour who had one of these 1990s and it was in the shop more than in his driveway, all the while when he could get around in his Civic every day. The Bonneville another neighbour had and the spring sticking out of the passenger seat. Another time when a chap drove through a cemetery in his Catalina knocking down gravestones while the car careened out of control.
They just never clicked with me to say the least.
I have a 95 grand prix sedan in white, and can confirm it is a forgettable vehicle. The red lights are cool at night, and it handles decent for a sedan but other than that its just a cheap steamer to get you from A to B. nothing to write home about