I love birds. There’s something about hearing their songs in the morning during this time of year that makes me thankful to live in this forest-like neighborhood on Chicago’s north side. I’ll admit that there have been times when a robin’s call (and there is a loud robin that lives not far from me) around 4:30 AM makes me wonder if that bird is a little overzealous to get that worm. I’ll bet it succeeds, though. There are a couple of other birdcalls I recognize in general, including that of a cardinal, which will usually have me craning my neck to look into overhead tree branches to see if I can spot it. My favorite bird would have to be any of the seventeen species of penguin. I have even gotten to pet a Magellanic penguin once, during a Penguin Encounter at the Shedd Aquarium, downtown.
I’ve put serious thought into trying to understand why I love birds so much. I’ve decided that part of the draw might be that they seem to represent freedom. Almost all North American birds have the ability to fly away, unbothered and at will, from any situation they please. Their coordination and eyesight are mindblowing, not to mention their endurance, as many migrate vast numbers of miles as the seasons change. And then, there are penguins, none of which can fly, but all of which can swim as if flying through the water. The Gentoo is the fastest species, capable of moving underwater at up to 22 miles per hour. Emperor penguins are truly fascinating, enduring harsh, Antarctic weather conditions, sharing parental and “grocery getting” duties, and recognizing each other by their calls, since they are indistinguishable amongst themselves by sight.
General Motors seemed to have the corner on naming automotive products after birds in the U.S., which they did in many instances. The only other “birds” from domestic makes that I can think of at this writing are Ford’s venerated Thunderbird and the AMC Eagle. Buick had used the Skylark name going back to 1953, on an expensive, specialty convertible. Gradually, the name would become the name of their large compact, which would grow into an intermediate. This name was then applied to another compact for ’75, where it would remain for the rest of its life. Pontiac had introduced the Firebird in mid-year ’67 as the division’s entry into the specialized sporty compact market. For three years starting in ’78, there were even one-year-only, color-coordinated versions of Firebird’s Esprit submodel called the Sky Bird (’78), the Red Bird (’79), and the Yellow Bird (1980). These three were openly marketed as “chick cars”, but I’d drive any of them today and wouldn’t care for a minute what anyone thinks.
The Sunbird was originally introduced for ’76 as Pontiac’s variant of the rear-drive, H-body Chevrolet Monza, which was itself based on the Vega. The Sunbird name would disappear when this car’s front-drive, J-platform replacement would appear as the “J2000” in mid-1981 as an ’82 model. I do remember “J2000” sounding really high-tech when I was a kid and these cars were new, but then I was confused when they were renamed the “2000” the next year. Nineteen Eighty-Four would see these cars renamed the “2000 Sunbird”, so after a four model year absence, the “Sunbird” name was back on a small Pontiac before being replaced with “Sunfire” for ’95. I prefer “Sunbird” to “Sunfire”, for the record. A bird just seems more tangible than a flame as a name for a car, even if both could mess you up.
I was in high school when our featured ’90 model was manufactured. The LE four-door was the most popular of the five Sunbird variants offered that year, with almost 58,000 of them made against 56,000 LE coupes, 13,000 SE coupes, about 5,000 turbocharged GT coupes, and 13,000 wagons. The Sunbird sales tally for 1990 was just shy of 145,000 cars. Its Chevrolet cousin, the Cavalier, would sell 311,000 copies, while Ford’s Escort would move 196,000 units. Over at Plymouth, which was continuing its slide into irrelevancy, 80,000 Sundances were sold, while Dodge moved 94,000 Shadows.
There were two variations of 2.0L four-cylinder engine available in the Sunbird for ’90, with 96 horsepower on the base engine, and a whopping 165 hp for the turbo, the latter of which was standard on the GT and optional for the convertible. The turbo’s torque steer has been brought up here at CC before, but I’ve never experienced it firsthand. The closest I would ever come would be as riding as a passenger in my friend Anne’s mom’s Sunbird Turbo sedan, a car for which she had traded a nice, third-generation (GC) Mazda 626. As I recall, Anne’s mom loved the 626. She grew to loathe the Sunbird, eventually dubbing it the “S***bird”, which made us kids giggle. Things just kept breaking on it. To be clear, I don’t remember Anne’s mom ever mashing the accelerator in that car and watching her struggle to keep the Sunbird in her lane, but I’ve read plenty of others’ stories about doing just that.
I’m sure that Turbo ‘Bird might have made all kinds of squawks and squeaks if pressed, and I’m also positive that it was a predator to my friend’s mother’s checkbook before that Sunbird was finally set free (or euthanized, as I seem to recall it ended up being subject to Michigan’s “Lemon Law”, though I can’t say for sure). The normally aspirated mill in our featured car probably protested much less audibly, though probably not as smoothly or quietly as any number of Japanese cars available for purchase in 1990. This car’s basic design had been for sale for close to a decade by the time this one left the factory.
Going back to the Sunbird’s name as it relates to its substance, I suppose one could say that, like a bird, it is little and cute. It also went “cheap, cheap” out of Pontiac dealerships for the lesser versions of it, like this LE. In terms of the solar connotations of its name, one could say it appeared to have a sunny disposition, which fewer could probably say about its more aggressively-styled Sunfire successor. The only real application of the “Sunbird” name on these cars that ever really made sense to me was either on yellow examples, as a metaphor for the sun (or a canary), or on the convertibles, which let the sun in. Or maybe at least with a sunroof? Its 2.0L four-cylinder engine for 1990 had a combined EPA rating of 24 mpg (21 city / 29 hwy) on regular gas with a three-speed automatic, so it ate like a bird. Sort of. It’s a moot point in 2021, as Pontiac has been defunct since the end of 2010. Perhaps this bird’s status as extinct made it that much more of a special discovery on this particular Saturday afternoon.
Edgewater Glen, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, April 17, 2021.
Click here, here, and here for related reading on the J-body Pontiac Sunbird.
These are the kind of cars I do not miss at all. No style, no substance, not very economic, not very fast, etc. Cannot imagine it would be attractive to anyone now. New, maybe but probably there would have been better buys.
Even so, I applaud the owner for keeping one alive. There have to be ugly cars in order to distinguish more loveable ones.
I theorize that this one must have been passed down from a relative or older owner who simply didn’t use it that much. I don’t think of these Sunbirds so much as being ugly, but just being there in the background. Removed from the days when they were all over, it was neat to see this one, and in such great condition.
To your point, though, cars like this one do serve as a nice counterpoint to other, more desirable cars of the time.
The Sunbird name was also used in Australia/New Zealand on a four cylinder version of the Holden Torana.
In later guises, it had GM’s Starfire engine (essentially a Holden six with two cylinders lobbed off), which was a GM Deadly Sin as it proved gutless, rough and unreliable. Not to mention drinking gas like it was going out of style.
To make matters worse, GM actually convinced Toyota Australia to use this boat anchor of an engine in their locally assembled Coronas!
Wow! I thought this sounded a little bit familiar. William Stopford had written up the Torana / Sunbird about four years ago: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-australian-brands/curbside-classic-1978-80-holden-uc-toranasunbird-think-of-it-as-australias-chevy-nova/
I think it’s funny that both the Starfire and Sunbird names used in Australia and New Zealand were both applied here in the U.S. to the same H-body platform cars (by Pontiac and Oldsmobile, respectively).
I had an 82 J2000, a liftback model. Mine had the OHV engine, manual transmission, power steering and brakes, and A/C. One of my bosses would buy a later Sunbird sedan, I am guessing for the same reason that I bought my car: it was reasonably good looking and thought it would be reliable.
Mine was fairly reliable but things did break on it. The shift knob broke into about 4 big chunks. It turned out the knob was a sort of covering for a much smaller ball shape on the end of the shifter. The speedometer rattled (actually, the cable) at speeds over 45 MPH. The knobs on the ends of the window winding cranks fell off. The first flat tire that I got I was unable to get a matching tire to replace it from the same manufacturer as, apparently, all production of that size tire was sent to GM. At some point around the 60K mark, the exhaust manifold split into 2 pieces literally over night And even before the car was paid off, the dark blue interior turned about 6 different shades of blue.
Oh, and the kicker: the sound the engine made when it was idling reminded me of some kind of threshing machine…very electrical.
So yeah, I bought it because I liked the junior Firebird looks, but under the nice ” skin ” it was a bit of a pile.
This sounds like something of a nightmare of a new car ownership experience, but then again, the things you describe might have been much more common when your ’82 J2000 was a new car.
I remember liking the full-width, smoke-effect taillamps on the J2000 hatchback and thinking it looked particularly nice, especially with those aero-disc looking wheel covers with the five holes in them.
I watched a pristine-looking ’85 or so Sunbird sedan basically disintegrate before my very eyes in the span of maybe three years at an apartment complex where I used to live.
For those of us in the Midwest, these and countless other GM models shaped quite a lot like them made up the background scenes of life. I can’t say that I miss them. A background of Honda and Toyota crossovers is less irritating to me.
I still remember the feelings of disappointment I felt when the mother of some friends bought a new Sunbird in maybe 1978 or 79. Their family had been served by a series of Mopars over the decades, with the 63 Newport still serving as the “kids car” in our high school years. I acknowledge now that they made a good choice – nothing Chrysler offered at that time was a very good bet – the TC-3/024 being a little glimmer of light.
As for other bird names, don’t forget the Hawk and the Lark!
Count Roadrunner as a birdname?
This absolutely counts. Who knew the cartoon character actually resembles the real bird? I didn’t.
They not only look somewhat alike, but they are kinda mean in real life, and large. The first one I ever saw when I moved to AZ not only mocked me vocally, but chased me across the street! Nest maybe? Not sure but they are very interesting birds, no doubt.
I knew something was fishy. I no longer feel terrible for rooting for Wile E. Coyote.
It’s funny you should mention the Plymouth Horizon TC3 / Dodge Omni O24, as I just took notice of one in an old episode of the TV show “Vega$”. Those were really nice looking cars, and I remember thinking so when I was kid when they were new.
When Chrysler started mucking around with the different sail panel, front nose cap, and taillight designs, those cars lost a little something for me, though there’s no question that I like the latter day Shelby Chargers.
I always liked the looks of the Sunbird versus the Cavalier, especially in the two door version. Regarding the other types of birds, have you ever seen a Pileated Woodpecker. We have a couple of them that visit our yard on a regular basis. They are almost as big as a crow.
I have, and when they whack away at the bark, it’s loud! Amazing you see them on a regular basis.
I think Pontiac did a fine job of giving the Sunbird just a bit of extra differentiation to make it special and kind of go with their “Excitement Division” theme.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a Pileated Woodpecker, but if it’s as big as a crow, I’d be a little scared of what it could do with that beak.
“Jack up the antenna and put a new car underneath.”
When confronted with a car that was obviously beyond economic repair, this often was our service manager’s response to an unfortunate owner’s question “Can it be fixed?”
Cutesy bird moniker aside, this little soliloquy seems so apropos to just about any J-car ever made.
Haha! Rob, your first sentence reminded me of those old AMC Pacer ads.
To SavageATL’s point below, my impression of the J-Body Sunbird was that it finally improved to where it was a good car maybe two-thirds into its production run. Same with the Cavalier. It’s only in recent years that I’ve pretty much stopped seeing any of them out and about in traffic. I did see latter-day Cavaliers and a few Sunbirds in active use long after production ended.
My older sister was of driving age in early 1990 and we went car shopping for her first car. I only remember going to 2 places, the local Honda dealer and the Pontiac, GMC, Oldsmobile dealer that my parents exclusively bought cars from for for almost 20 years (spoiler alert).
In 1990, Honda was still #1 and they were not interested in negotiating with my mother to lower the price of the blue Civic hatchback to get it under the price threshold we had. I felt like it was $10,000 but details have faded for me and I was still young and not actually part of the decision process. My mother was so offended by their unwillingness to negotiate that she still refuses to consider Hondas. She claims the Honda sales guy called a few days later and she told them we bought a car from someone interested in selling to us. I doubt they had that Civic growing cobwebs despite our getting another car.
So what did she get? A bright blue 1990 Pontiac Sunbird LE. She had it and drove it without incident until 1996 when she bought her first car herself. What did she get? A 1996 Honda Civic.
I took over the Sunbird from then until 2001 when the headgasket blew. My parents took it over at that point, put a junkyard engine in it, and drove it sparingly for a few years until that motor went too. Finally, in 2006, after no one wanted to take it on as a project, it was sent to the scrap yard.
I created a rather massive Car Domain page and documented all the “modifications” I made to it. The site is a total mess now but here it is: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/192176/1990-pontiac-sunbird/
It was a good car, it took abuse and really had no issues for the first 120k miles. I replaced an alternator and that was it.
Customer service is such an important thing, and people will remember how they felt during a process like the one you described about your mom at the Honda dealer. I’m glad to know your sister’s (eventually your) 1990 Sunbird was a good car. I’d say that 16 years of good use out of a GM small car of this era was very good. And you still have the pictures, website, and positive memories.
The J cars were better than the Vega/Astra, better than the Monza/what-evers, better than the X-cars, better than the Chevette, and for GM, that ain’t bad.
We used them exclusively for rental vehicles, especially the convertibles in our Florida and Hawaiian markets.
I never cared for them beyond their looks and they rusted quickly, shook a lot, made a lot of noise, and generally held together until the car payments were met. Back then, that was considered a win for a GM car in that size class.
Since no one has said Falcon yet, I guess I will.
Just gone morning in Australia here. Give us time…..! 🙂
I owned a 1985 Sunbird coupe as my first car from 1989 to 1991! Great car for a new driver. 5 spd stick, AM radio with 2 speakers, 1.8 OHC FI Opel designed engine.
It came to me with 72,000 miles – which seemed like HIGH mileage in the 80s and I sold it with 84,000. I frequently saw the new owner with the car who had kept it nearly 10 more years and was approaching 300,000 miles at last report. The body was pitted and tired but boy that Opel motor built in Brazil if I recall was a keeper. Of all the J cars – I think I liked the J2000/Sunbird about equally as much as the Buick Skyhawk. In those early 90s, I knew people who owned one of each J variant including the Olds Firenza, Chevy Cavalier and Cadillac Cimmeron! Same and also quite different. I was allowed to drive one of each.
We had 2 Sunbirds, both ’84’s and both bought new in my immediate family…my sister bought hers first and had better luck with it despite it being up in Vermont, where I think it more or less followed the normal pattern of use until getting consumed by rust. I think my Dad more or less copied her purchase, but with much worse results, it was the worst car he ever bought. With less than 1000 miles on it it broke the timing belt (on a trip to Dallas…my sisters and I got dropped off at 6 flags in the Sunbird, and my Dad picked us up several hours later in a strange to us rental car). The car was serviced regularly by the local Pontiac dealer, but the engine was replaced under warranty at about 48k miles. Eventually my (now deceased) youngest sister took over the car when starting college, and it gave her more minor issues like leaking power steering hoses and deteriorating switchgear (maybe due to us living in the sunbelt) when it threw a rod at something like 81k miles (total on the car, only about 33 k miles on the replaced engine). The car was about 5 years old, had gone through 2 new engines, and cutting our losses, the car was scrapped.
It took a lot, but my Dad did (eventually) return to GM for his last 2 cars, a 2001 then a 2006 Chevy Impala. I think some GM models were best avoided, this was one for us, though I don’t know why my sister had better luck with her car, at least the engine never went on hers before she junked it due to other reasons.
My first new car was an ’84 Turbo 4 dr, 4 spd. I didn’t push it very hard (partly because of the scary torque steer) and still went through 2 clutches in 4 years. The A/C moaned softly and the belt squealed, but I can’t remember other problems other than it was small after my ’74 Fleetwood. I moved up to an ’88 Bonneville SE and sold it to my brother, who burned out the turbo within a year. The Honda dealer gave him their best radio on a new Civic in trade.
My Mom had a 1994 Sunbird SE coupe in dark purple with the 3.1L V6, that car could move. It was fully loaded including sunroof and a cassette & CD player. She loved that car and other than a water leak into the interior she had it until 2007 with no issues. The Sunbird was a much more attractive looking vehicle inside and out instead of the Sunfire that looked like any other 90`s jelly bean blob with an interior made by fisher price or rubbermade.
I also prefer the looks of the Sunbird to the Sunfire, though I realize this is subjective. I thought the revised roofline that arrived for ’88 did a lot to prolong the appeal of the two-doors. I know that plum purple color you’re talking about, and I like it.
We live in a lovely birdscaped half-acre. We’ve planted trees and shrubs that will attract the native birds, and when the hakea hedge is blooming, the New Holland Honeyeaters in the front yard are almost deafening. They also adore the callistemons, banksias and grevilleas – I see these little guys hopping from limb to limb outside my kitchen window almost daily. I can’t find a pic of one; you’ll have to be content with this guy. He was almost tame, but then he started inviting his mates. Although one is fun, thirty of them can be quite destructive.
It’s interesting to consider what bird names are judged appropriate for a car. They’re generally birds of prey; probably for the connotations of strength, speed, power, agility, and endurance. I couldn’t imagine a car called a Penguin, could you? Or Cockatoo. And yet Reliant made a Robin; but then Humber made a Super Snipe. Corella is a possibility, but it sounds too much like a Toyota, so I’ll let that stay in the tree.
I had to Google Sunbird to see whether there was such a creature. Interestingly Google came up with the car first. That kind of says something; it’s a sort of anony-bird. Generic. I trust that wasn’t what GM had in mind for the car.
I did have to google the New Holland Honeyeater after reading your comment, and they do look cute, though to your point, a large number of anything could probably do some damage.
GM may not have thought of the Sunbird bird when originally naming the car, but referencing the purple Sunbird someone else had referenced above, I wonder if GM found inspiration from the actual Purple Sunbird…
These things got a LOT better as the ’80’s progressed. The early models were incredibly slow and the parts weren’t great; by the mid ’80’s you had a good chance of getting a good one and a good chance of getting a bad one; by the 1990, they were pretty solid for a domestic car, but not as solid as the A car was. Then of course GM let the poor thing drag on and on into 1994 and 2005 depending on how much you think the 2005 version was different from the 1982 version was.
We had a 1985 bought used in 1988ish? I suppose all we need to know about it is that it was the last used car my Dad bought. It had a chronic check engine light which no one was able to fix and turned into a chronic overheating problem and ended with a blown head gasket and the Plymouth dealer offering $400 as a generous trade in on a new 1989 Sundance. The Sunbird was a nicely trimmed car and much more nicely finished than the base Cavalier with nicer materials. They were roomy and practical for the size and didn’t seem cheap inside. The Firenza and Skyhawk had even nicer materials and dashboards. Yah, they were all the same under the skin, but how many different kinds of toothpaste can you buy? There was some effort put into differentiation, certainly better than Chrysler did with the Omnirizon or K car. I know that everyone goes on about how wonderful the Accord was, but the Accord didn’t offer the horsepower or the sporty looks that the Sunbird did. We had a 1985 Accord at the same time and it didn’t impress me as being better than the Sunbird, at least not in materials and trim, and it died an early death too and got traded in on a 1991 Calais. The Sundance turned out to be a much more reliable car.
These have looonnnngg ago vanished in Atlanta. Do y’all have emissions in Chicago? How do cars last so long?
I had to look up your last question, as I’m not a car owner here in Chicago! Apparently, “Illinois laws require emissions testing for gasoline powered passenger vehicles, trucks and buses older than 4 years, but not older than 1996”. This car would have been exempt.
The Sunbirds did seem (in my mind, anyway – maybe this was the Pontiac marketers working their magic on me) to be more nicely trimmed than comparable Cavaliers. That was also my impression. Pontiac always had those nicer seats and more switchgear.
Love the wheels! Rest of the car is more on the Meh side, but bonus points for getting the Pontiac version.
Avian car names: I nominate the Riley Kestrel.
A kestrel – wow. Just like many of the cars you write about, I had never heard of this kind of bird before! And now I’m on YouTube to check it out. Cool.
Getting to this a bit late, but we’re bird big fans too.Not hard core birders, with their binoculars always at hand. But since we hike a lot, especially near the river, we’re always noticing them. Lots of bald eagles, some golden eagles and ospreys hang out near the river for obvious reasons. King fishers are one of our favorites. Lots of waterfowl, that are now raising their new offspring. Gobs of turkey vultures. Ravens, hawks. I love watching the swallows endlessly diving and swirling around over the water where the bugs hang out.
And then there’s the ever-changing cast of characters in our back yard: two kinds of jays, doves, and hummingbirds, including some that are here year-round. And the little songbirds and such that come seasonally.
But my favorites are the owls we hear when we’re hiking near sunset. Their hooting is delightful.
I also love owls! Maybe a few months ago, I stumbled on a YouTube channel where a guy in Japan chronicles his adventures with his pet owl named Garu. Reading the comments under those posts are also great, with many likening owls to flying cats. I didn’t really think so at first, but watching Garu in action makes a convincing argument.
It sounds like Eugene and that part of the NW US is a bird-friendly area!
Somehow I never noticed how much of a long hood/short deck profile the J cars had, in my head I always pictured a more centered passenger compartment. GM really cheaped out on the styling on these as the years progressed, the original 82 design had the distinctive 77 Firebird like nose, then later pop up headlights and by this point simply went with a grillless version of the existing Cavalier front end. I know the earlier J bodies weren’t particularly good but they had some of the better styling across divisions in their early years(except maybe the Cimarron)
I do also remember thinking the ’89 Sunbird frontal restyle on the base models seeming slightly retrograde, but the hidden-headlamp variants were still around, so I was okay with it. I don’t think the front of this ’90 looks bad. To your point, it just looks like it has a grille-less front panel compared to the Cavalier’s front end, with a few other minor, almost indistinguishable changes.
Joseph,
Pontiac used another bird name on a car during the 1970’s. Well actually it was the name of a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore which is associated with the sun. Back in 1976, the excitement division morphed their Nova based compact Ventura into the 1977 Pontiac Phoenix.
I remember seeing a big ad for the new Pontiac Phoenix in the New York Daily News. It featured a photo showing the front of the car. All I can remember is wondering why does the front bumper have a weird piece of body color metal in the center of it, a strange rubber bumper guard placed horizontally on the passenger side, and the license plate mounted on the drivers side.
So I’m not sure if the Phoenix actually counts as another bird named car. What do you think ?
“Phoenix” absolutely counts, even if it is mythological. It makes sense that Pontiac would choose that name, given that there was already a Sunbird and a Firebird. Phoenix completes that bird-themed trifecta.
I would always confuse the front end of the first, RWD Phoenix with that of the downsized ’78 LeMans.
Come to think of it Joseph, I believe the 1977 Pontiac Phoenix was the first GM car to feature 2 square headlights. And yes, you are so right that the front of the Phoenix was easy to confuse with the downsized ’78 LeMans. The only major different that I remember was the LeMans did not have the chrome bumper with those weird horizonal bumper guards
My Mom also had a 1979 Phoenix 2 door coupe with the Buick V6 – It was a nice looking car, but I remember as a kid riding in it that it had trouble climbing steep hills. My Mom loved her Pontiacs. Always went back to the same dealer when it was time to upgrade to a new one. I agree with a previous poster that the front end on the early models with the Firebird style was very attractive. Also the dashboard redesign in 1990 with the airplane style parking brake was pretty attractive in my opinion. The J car was typical GM in the 80`s rushed to market flaws and all and then left to wither on the vine. Usually by this point all the bugs are worked out and it turned out to be a decent vehicle that could be had at a bargain price.