On a recent Sunday outing, I saw this tormented snout from afar and exclaimed: “Ooh look! It’s a Ponti-yuck!” I’m clearly not a fan, but at least this car elicits reactions – and not just from me, but many others (and perchance you too). Goes to show that “Put your best foot forward” is not a motto GM always lived by. The author of the 1992-96 Pontiac Grand Am’s lines certainly seems to have used a lower appendage of some sort to design the thing. Perhaps this was not the most obvious candidate for a place on GM’s cross-Pacific export roster, but here we are.
I realize that, for many of you reading this, seeing a mid-‘90s Grand Am is the equivalent of a Monday afternoon in February. Pontiac sold over a million of these in North America, so they’re just an unfortunate part of the scenery, like incinerators, power lines or billboards. But for those of us who are located on other continents, the full ungainliness of this car is a starker shock to the system.
Most of you will doubtless know a hell of a lot more about these 2nd-generation N-Body abominations than I do. Basic recap for those who were lucky enough to escape prolonged exposure: on a dark day in the autumn of 1991, the Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac divisions respectively unleashed their new Skylark, Achieva and Grand Am sedans and coupes upon an unsuspecting public.
N-Body sandwich: Buicks up above, Pontiacs down below, Olds in the middle
Here they all are, as they came out for MY 1992. They did try to give these cars different personalities, compared to the cookie-cutter stuff from the ‘70s/‘80s. The Skylark was the glamour model, I guess. The Olds was the blander safe choice – the one your grandfather might have bought, as per the marque’s rapidly deteriorating image and self-conscious tagline highlighted. So what was the Pontiac’s deal exactly?
The new body didn’t hide anything revolutionary – it had all been seen in the previous Skylark/Achieva/Grand Am, though the dimensions were changed to match the Chevy Corsica more, to cut costs even further. Oh, and they reverted to drum brakes for the rear wheels for the same reason. Engine options were initially limited to a 2.3 litre 4-cyl. (either SOHC or DOHC “quad 4” variants) and a 3.3 litre V6, with either a 3-speed auto or, for the 4-cyl. SE model only, a 5-speed manual.
In 1994, the 3.3 6-cyl. was replaced by a more modern 3.1 litre V6 and the slushbox was granted an extra gear; the Quad 4’s displacement was upped to 2.4 litre in 1996. Aside from that, the N-Body generally remained as was until it was given a facelift for MY 1996, during which the Pontiac version’s design was scaled back a bit. A completely new N-Body took over in late 1998.
Now that we got the potted history out of the way, let us ponder on this car’s presence near Nihonbashi in central Tokyo. Because I can tell you that these cars are very rarely seen outside of their continent of birth: I have never seen one in Europe and this is the first one I’ve seen in Asia.
In the US, these were known to be cheap and many were sold by the dozen to fleet operators, where the Grand Am’s uninspiring engine, dodgy fit and finish, slap-dash interior and ungainly esthetics mattered comparatively less than in other markets. But out in the cut-throat wider world, the odds were stacked against GM on this one.
1994 GM / Yanase Pontiac Grand Am SE Special Edition brochure excerpt
Did that stop them from including the Grand Am in their Japanese range? Sold by importer Yanase’s showrooms next to the C4 Corvette, the Fleetwood and the “Regal” – all of which are still seen fairly regularly here, the Grand Am claimed its place as the reasonably-sized American exotic. Initially, both the four-door and the coupe were on offer, but only with the 4-cyl. engine. The V6 was only made available for MY 1996 in the Japanese range, one year after the coupe disappeared. Yanase gave up on the Pontiac by early 1997, as far as I can tell – well before production stopped in Lansing.
Boy, did they try to look proud of that Grand Am. That GM emblem can often be seen on Buick “Regals,” as well. This one seems to have aged a lot worse than the car. What does that imply about GM? Draw your own conclusions.
An awed hush, please, for the absolute time capsule that this Pontiac is on the inside. There are a few scuff marks on some of the Rubbermaid bits tacked on to the lower half of the exterior, but that cabin is miraculously preserved in its original state.
I mean, it’s one thing to find mint condition Toyotas, Alfas or Mercedes-Benzes, but this is a Pontiac Grand Am. Folks who still drive these in the US usually do so because they cannot drive anything else. Here, it’s someone’s pride and joy.
Which is strange, because the Grand Am was apparently (and somewhat predictably) a complete failure in Japan. Whereas the Fleetwood offered opulence and space, or the Regal Estate had woodgrain on the side and decent forward momentum, the Grand Am’s only weapon was its price, which kept going down year after year. Another red flag…
I cannot read or speak Japanese, so I usually like to use Google Translate to get a sense of what the Japanese web has to day about things. Automatic translations can produce highly dubious results, so one must read between the lines and the nonsensical grammar, but let me just end this post by quoting a few Japanese reactions to the Pontiac Grand Am (also spelled “Grandum,” “Grand Dam” or even “Grandom” by the software, for some reason…), just for a giggle.
“The Grandum has an impressive insect-like front mask that extrudes strongly.”… “The unique exterior will have different tastes. In particular, the front mask is unique at best, and creepy at worst.”… “the car itself had a lot of engine vibration, unnatural handling, and the quality was not as good as the three [Toyota] Mark II brothers and the [Mitsubishi] Diamante.” … “Maybe because I used it too much, it started to break down after 70,000km.” … “It was natural for Grandum to come to the conclusion that “Japanese cars are much better for this amount of money,” and this also ended in failure.” Totally Grandom, dude! Sounds like Pontiac didn’t make many converts across the Pacific. Can’t win ‘em all.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1995 Pontiac Grand Am – American Graffiti, by T87
CC Capsule: 1994 Pontiac Grand Am SE – All In The Eye Of The Beholder, by Brendan Saur
CC Outtake: 1996 Pontiac Grand Am – Busted, by Joseph Dennis
“Grand Am” was a name that negatively impressed me. Moosh together “Grand Prix” and “Trans Am” and you get… something a committee would have dashed off in the ten minutes before going out to an all-afternoon lunch. But isn’t that what GM was, by then?
The name made sense when it was first introduced in 1973. You got the luxury of the Grand Prix, and the sportiness of the Trans Am in one package… the Grand Am.
By the time the name was used for the 3rd generation on the N-body, it didn’t make sense and was just another name from the past recycled. And it did at least sound like a Pontiac name with the Grand Prix and the Trans Am still in production.
It’s funny, the styling was controversial years ago for all of the reasons you mention, but now…it’s rather restrained. Multiple manufacturers have taken Pontiac-like approaches of adding creases and cladding and folds in order to stand out, and done so on vehicles with far greater surface areas and with reckless abandon. Every time I seen an Audi A4 I appreciate its clean lines more and more.
Just a few weeks ago I spotted one of these Grand Ams parked on the road, also in well-preserved condition. I honestly thought to myself, “I don’t remember those Grand Ams looking so good” and almost had to slap myself. But that’s how ugly the automotive peer group has become.
Thanks for finding the Grand Am in Tokyo. Pontiyuk made me smile.
I do enjoy when the import snobs let the mask down. They are not trying to put you in a better car, they just want to sneer at you. Some might look fondly on a time long ago when the big three could pay a living wage in a place like Lansing while providing a young family a car with a little youthful style to go with the big helping of durability and velour even on the doors.
I’m sorry, is there a car here? From my central Indiana vantage point, only now are these ceasing to be an ever-present item of background scenery. I go through life without closely examining maple trees, 3 bedroom ranch houses and Pontiac Grand Ams because they all fill the landscape with a kind of scenic beige that allows things that are actually interesting to stand out.
It is interesting that while the Olds and Buick versions stood out for their odd styling, the Grand Am had a decently-done shape that was only let down by its trim details. It is easy to understand why every extended family member of every current or retired GM employee (and there were a lot of them around here) would have chosen this as the version to buy with their generous discount. I think this may be the nicest thing I have ever said about one of these.
To this day, I still see at least one Grand Am every day running around Fishers/Noblesville.
The nicest thing I can say is: the newest ones are what? 17 years old? So many just refuse to die – no matter how much we might want them to!
Oh, wow. Contrary to what you may believe, the 90s N Bodies are all but extinct here in eastern PA. This has to be the nicest one left in the world. Even post-2000 Aleros driven 40,000 easy miles by elderly ladies in their pampered 15 year first owner lifespans had their cheap-o GM interiors delaminate, warp, curl and generally disintegrate due to materials quality and in complete spite of their near non-use. How do the Japanese do it? Simply amazing.
This is just neat. Nothing particularly great about the car, but its condition and location in the world are fascinating. And I guess we know how Bob Lutz came up with the silly mid-00s chiclet idea.
Can something really be called a failure when there was no chance of success to begin with? I ask this partially out of sarcasm and partially with a real question, namely what was Yanase’s motives and expectations for importing these cars? The Corvette, Regal and others had appeal… but this? I wonder what their sales forecasts were.
In the late 1990s I had Japanese neighbors – a couple and their toddler who were living temporarily in the US while he attended graduate school. And they loved everything American – from our plain 2-bedroom garden-style apartments to fast food, to ordinary American cars. They bought a Neon and loved the American-ness of it. Maybe there were enough folks like them to create a niche market for inexpensive and otherwise undistinguished American cars. I’d love to know.
Regardless, this is a great find. It looks in better condition than the Grand Ams I rented in the mid 1990s. And I guess it’s a function of familiarity, but I never thought these were unattractive. Certainly overdone a bit, with all that plastic cladding, but for me, the N-body Ugly Award goes to the Skylark.
Not quite the concourse condition that many of the cars in Japan are, but exceptional condition for a 93 Grand Am. This one has the much maligned Quad 4, which isn’t an ideal match to an automatic and still likely to snack on head gaskets in 1993. Even so, we’re talking about a 30 year old car that’s still rolling and shining and sporting a clean interior, so I’ll play devil’s advocate and stick up for it. In 1993, neither ABS nor airbags were something to assume in this class.
You can still tell that this is someone’s baby. It still has the factory cassette stereo, which was actually especially rich sounding for the vehicle class and era. It’s wearing an expensive set of Michelin tires, not normally the brand when a car is on its last new set. The front hood gap suggests a light tap at some point, but may this unlikely diplomat keep rolling for the future.
Some owners are meticulous, and accepting, and can make any car last for decades. The longevity of their cars, more a reflection of the owner’s care, than the car’s durability.
Not necessarily either, that they think the car is particularly special. Their patience and attention to maintenance, and lack of abuse, being interchangeable with any car.
I find the styling on the Grand Am restrained and tasteful compared to modern Toyota and BMW cars, Lexus CUVs and GM trucks.
The car actually has a normal sized grille and tastefully sized Pontiac badge. The side cladding is restrained compared to many modern cars as well. How many new cars can that be said about?
Don. I agree. But it seems most on here (don’t like GM) wouldn’t agree.
Now picture a 1993 BMW grille, you’ll likely find this 1993 Pontiac’s far less “restrained and tasteful” in comparison. Then imagine what a Pontiac might look like today. It might be 100% grille.
Well, this is where they left off, so…
I had no idea BMW cribbed so much from the Pontiac G6. They really were ahead of their time styling wise.
When the G6 came out I thought it was a silly looking design, now that KalapanaBlack compared it to the BMW M4, it suddenly doesn’t look that silly. It was actually foreshadowing design trends that would come more than a decade later.
To be fair that was a special edition G6. The normal one looks pretty good for its time.
Lexus laughs at the puny grilled BMW
I stopped paying close attention to anything BMW was doing 10 or so years ago so it’s always a real surprise whenever I’m exposed to one I haven’t seen before like this, like a weird concoction my mind dreamt up in a fever dream. So thank’s for that, I’m going to hurl!
A six cylinder Grand Am with overhead camshafts? This wasn’t the GM of the new millennium yet. *checks notes* Hold that thought…
I wonder how large the wanna-be BMW grille of the GrandAm would be today had it been allowed to morph even more over the last 30 years. It might have ended up just swallowing itself entirely…Still overwrought and tacky-looking while at the same time somehow managing to be unremarkable, the best thing I can say about this one is the gray paint makes it blend in more rather than stand out. The successor G6,while no paragon of greatness itself, at least started to clean up the styling excesses, alas, the great Pontiac name had fallen so far it wasn’t able to get back up.
Some here will undoubtedly have pangs of nostalgia and there’ll be a few defenders of the good old days, but this car is precisely the the type of vehicle that led to GM’s eventual bankruptcy and permanent loss of market share. Weird styling affectations, odd proportions, ladled on trim, cheap materials, poor feeling switchgear and all other touchpoints, misplaced budgetary priorities emphasizing dubious “style” over substance, ho-hum driving experience, and more (or rather, less. Much less.). Oh, one more positive – at least this generation lost the formal roofline of the first generation.
Overall though, “Extruding strongly” might be better as “Excreting mightily”.
Did somebody say “Weird styling affectations, odd proportions”?
Huh? One brand is still around and like or dislike the styling, seems to sell just fine and keeps folks (mainly Americans) coming back over and over again. The other took a rich legacy and squandered it until it was closed down. Apparently substance matters.
Huh? Crack is still around and like or dislike the tooth loss, seems to sell just fine and keeps folks (mainly Americans) coming back over and over again. Apparently Crack is a substance that matters.
Just because something is popular and keeps people coming back over and over again, does not always make it a good thing.
“Popular” and “addictive” are two unrelated concepts. If you really believe people smoke crack due to it being “popular” you need a reality check.
But yeah, despite not having any skin in the game one way or another, I’ll go out on a limb and say that Lexus branded vehicles are quite good vehicles when measured by most objective metrics that consumers seem to care about. You appear to disagree which is fine as well, no difference to me. Enjoy your evening.
Looks are subjective, not objective.
Huh? Tide Pods are still around and like or dislike the CDC’s warning not to eat them, seems to sell just fine and keeps folks (mainly Americans) coming back over and over again. Apparently the stain fighting power matters.
Just because something is popular and keeps people coming back over and over again, does not always make it a good thing.
Is this one better?
These Grand Ams sold fine too, I remember far too many growing up, and quite frankly Lexus’s rich legacy is just as defined by its own past as Pontiac’s was, Lexus today sells today because of that inertia and top notch Toyota quality. The predator styling is exactly as stupid looking as anything Pontiac ever did, and if the quality wasn’t there the styling would be rightfully lambasted for what it is.
I think the Grand Am was Pontiac’s best selling model until it was replaced by the G6
They were everywhere, with the cheesy stock muffler making loud gargling sounds that annoyed me day & night when they passed by. Another ‘GM Deadly Sin’ in my opinion, those stupid noisemaking mufflers.
I had a good experience with a rental GrandAm. Good at least by comparison with the Lumina I had originally, which broke down pulling into the hotel parking lot. Though as others have noted, it’s once-flamboyant cladding and proboscis look pretty discreet by modern standards. And these did seem to hold up pretty well to abuse; I still see quite a few out West, especially on my recent vacation in interior BC. Which in general was Pontiac country. Solstice, Montana, G3 and G5, Torrent, even an Aztek pulling a trailer … I saw them all.
I still see N-bodies of this generation occasionally here in the Dallas suburbs, though none of them are in the fine condition of this one. These really were bottom-of-the-barrel cars when new and the only people aspiring to own them had few other choices and so they remain. Nowadays, Grand Ams have been replaced by W-body Impalas and tatty Altimas as the beaters of choice around here.
I had forgotten that the Corsica/Beretta were N-bodies as well. Their lines were much cleaner and more attractive; however, the interiors were made of the absolute worst quality plastic and vinyl. N-body nirvana would have been a Beretta or Corsica with a Buick interior.
For a long stretch of the Nineties, N-bodies, and the Grand Am in particular, populated the rental car lots and inevitably one was assigned to me when traveling for business. They were among my least favorite rentals, owing to the odd steering wheel placement (off-center and skewed to the left) and tacky upholstery that seemed to attract lint, hair and greasy substances that threatened my wardrobe.
This is a Chevy Corsica, dressed for Halloween by a five year old, driven by people with homemade tattoos.
If this was food, it would be a canned green bean casserole with mushroom soup and Spam, topped with spicy nacho Doritos.
If this was music, it would be a gospel rap song performed by Marilyn Manson.
I grew up working class, surrounded by steel mills and chemical plants, with toxic air and mystery flavored well water. So I admire, respect and love the people who bought and loved these cars. When they showed these Grand Ams off with excitement and pride, I tried to appreciate what these cars offered to my family and friends. Yet, the Grand Ams these muffin top, whale-tailed overly plump young ladies with nose rings spending hours working at the salons to pay too much, with too high an interest rate – just galled the hell out of me. Their front brakes squealed and welded themselves into unfixable shapes, their mousefur interiors pilled when their owner’s pit bulls were taken for rides, and they leaked – while still being paid off. Life is hard, especially for people who bought these Pontiacs.
The gray oval blob just above the car in the 1994 Yanase ad:
“Limited to 390 units nationwide”
Priced at 2.75 million yen.
Thanks – I was hoping to find out some of the text there, and was also curious what Yanase had in mind in terms of sales.
That number is just for the “Special Edition” with the leather seats though.
Ah – I see. The number though seemed reasonable to me for total Grand Am sales. I surprised they sold enough to even offer a Special Edition!
One error in this article is that the 3.1L V6 was OHV, not OHC. It was an enlarged version of the 2.8L V6 that debuted on the X cars. Not until the Epsilon platform debuted did GM use a DOHC V6 on these cars. My understanding is that the 1992 N body was based on the 1987 L body but kept the N designation for some reason. All that overspending on the X/A, J/N/L, C/H, E/K, W, and Saturn platforms prevented GM from developing a new platform that would be competitive with the Camry and Accord.
Thanks for pointing that out — fixed it.
So I’ll give a slightly different angle to these cars. My nephew had several GA’s and like them as he also drove the h**l out of them. My niece had an Olds Alero and loved it. Me personally, I owned a 1994 and then again a 1996 Skylark’s and they were both great cars. My wife at the time decided to total the 1994 however. But the bigger picture for me was that I was selling the Buick’s at that time. I sold a lot of the Skylark’s, but I also feel the quality of the Buick was a little better and the magazine/JDPower reports would back that up. The one most memorable to me was a guy who purchased a new 1992 Skylark GS from me and traded in his 1988 BMW 3 series. Although he loved his BMW, he hated the constant costs and upkeep that it required. He happened to know a buddy of mine who worked with him and my buddy just got a new Regal GS. This lead to the BMW owner reaching out to me and we struck a deal. He drove from Chicago area to where I worked, picked up his new GS and was a very happy owner for many years. One of the things I recall him saying to me on a follow up call was that he didn’t realize that American brands made such good cars.
The Grand Am had a little too much busy work for my liking, but it worked for the people who got them. As for that little “GM” badge? That one doesn’t look like the ones that came from the factory. Personally I didn’t like them and found them to be stupid, but the factory ones were a solid silver with no film covering to peal off. That one looks to be aftermarket and gold to boot.
Lastly, I’ve found a excellent example of a 1992 Skylark GS in bright red with the gray bottom. Very low miles car and it has the fantastic 3.3 V6. I really want to buy it, but it’s about 1500 miles away and they want about a grand too much. But boy would I love that car.
Am…amber rear turn signals? Side turn signal repeaters? SORCERY! HERESY! BURN THE WITCH!
…oh, wait, no, never mind. It’s still got the pretend-seatbelts mounted on the door. Whew. Had me going, for a minute there!
Other fun factlets: those turn signal repeaters are Finnish-made Saab items, installed wrong way round (rotated 180° from where they should be). GM did the same on the Chevrolet Alero, and randomly on some domestic-market Oldsmobile Aleros.
The headlamps are same as US, except with horizontally-mirrored low beam lens optics for left-shift instead of right-shift. Japan allowed left-traffic US-type headlamps at that time.
You are the lighting encyclopedia so I’m hesitant to doubt you on this, but I’ve never even seen a picture of a USDM Alero with side signal repeaters.
I don’t see pics either, in an image search. And most of them didn’t have repeaters; the first time I saw one, I guessed someone had added them, even though this repeater is tricky and difficult to add cleanly, for it requires a complex-shape hole easy to punch in a fender stamping plant, but hard to create after the fender’s been made, painted, and installed; I speak from experience. The second time on a different car made it harder for that guess. By time number four (another different car—all with the same repeaters, the same wrong-way-round), that guess was mouldering into compost, six feet underground. I never went reading VINs, but I think they were installed on some of the last Aleros. No idea why; repeaters hadn’t yet caught on as a styling gimmick on American-spec vehicles.
But this is the same company who put TH-200 transmissions made of wet newspaper in ’78 Caprice Estate wagons with the 350-4bbl and everything, but randomly put a much sturdier TH-350 in my folks’ ’78 Caprice sedan with 305-2bbl and not a whole lot of equipment. It didn’t have to make sense; they’re GM.
Welp, I guess this is gonna have to remain a mystery. I have seen lots of Aleros and am fairly certain I would have noticed a side signal repeater on one if I had ever seen it, but maybe not. I can’t find a single promo shot from Olds with one. Zero pictures on Google or DuckDuckGo image sesrches, aside from the random overseas spec one. The Final 500 had its special badge mounted in a spot on the fender higher up, but they were all the same color (thus indistinguisable as different units), rare enough that seeing 4 would be unlikely for any single person, and it doesn’t look like an amber indicator. The one-off Alero OSV concept, now in private hands after a GM collection liquidation, also had a special OSV badge mounted in the same higher spot as the Final 500. Then, I thought maybe Mexico or Canadian spec cars, but searches of insurance auction websites based in those two countries shows only indicator-free US spec fenders.
So, well, I’m Intrigued. Har.
Well, I did find this complete randomness.
https://m.kmart.com/blinglights-oldsmobile-alero-led-turnsignals-turn-signalers-lamps/p-A033996759
I can’t imagine the number of Alero owners wanting this specific aftermarket mod being that high, though, since the owner demo probably never was aware there was an overseas spec version available and aftermarket side signal repeaters never became a popular mod overall. Plus you’re pretty positive of the lens design and mounting. We aren’t dealing with a popular JDM-spec mod for a car sold in both markets here. Puzzling.
That’s definitely nothing like ’em. They are as described: the oblong Talmu repeaters used on Saabs through whatever late-’90s or early-’00s year it was they switched to a clear-lens version of the same repeater. They’re in the GM Alero parts cattledog, not called out as “Export”, but neither are they called out as “Export” in the Grand Am cattledog, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve seen them in the US and in Canada, even though neither country requires repeaters (nor does Mexico). Perhaps eventually I’ll see another and be able to snap a pic.
Crazy! I love a good mystery. In looking at lots and lots of export Chevrolet Aleros, I noticed some odd things. The headlights are rather different, with the main turn signals moved inboard compared to the Olds version. The emblem situation was even odder, with some having the Olds logo front and rear plus a Chevrolet script on the trunklid. Some had a really awkward blue bowtie logo mounted in the circular spot in front meant for the Olds logo with no rear Olds logo, but the Chevrolet script. And the oddest was a couple that had the N-Body 97 Malibu logo in place of the front Olds logo, with the wave graphic and small blue bowtie inside a circle. The other odd thing I saw was several with very factory-looking paint-matched rear sonic parking sensors in the bumper, which I’m certain was never offered in the US. Maybe they were dealer/importer/owner installed, but they were all body color and matched well. I suppose some markets would consider the Alero a large enough car that it wasn’t easy to park. Plus there were lots of loaded manuals, with leather, power seats, sunroofs, and the 5 speed transmission that Olds offered here initially but dropped. Again, that makes some sense because I think all exports were 4 cylinder models and many markets preferred manuals, at least back then.
I knew about the export Alero, but never got intimate with the details. Pretty neat.
Yup, different headlamps. The domestic lamp wasn’t bad, but the export lamp had low beam bulbs making 40% more light and with much tighter filament position (H7 instead of 9006), and they made good use of it. The export lamp had the turn signal in the same place, but the section outboard of it is a white front position (“parking”) light rather than an amber side marker light with reflector as on the domestic lamp. The turn signal has an amber plastic balloon over the bulb hole because it was only in 1997 that an amber turn signal bulb was approved for Europe, and many Europe/rest-of-world headlamp requisitions still specified the long-available clear bulbs.
The export headlamp also does not have the domestic lamp’s VHAD (“vehicle headlamp aiming device”—a fiddly, unreliable, expensive add-on to a U.S. headlamp which nominally allows the lamp to be aimed correctly with the lamp switched off). The export lamps have levelling motors, which would’ve been operated either by the driver using a thumbwheel (“With the weight I’ve just placed in the back, I should dial the headlamps down from 0 to…1, no…2!”, goes the theory. Uh-huh…) or by a brain box in response to undercar level sensors (better).
The “Chevrolet” Alero also had folding sideview mirrors rather than the US vehicles’ fixed ones, and one or two red rear fog lamps
All the Alero outboard taillamps are alike; you can see the E-marks right next to the SAE-marks.
And yeah, the pick-a-mix badges and emblems, eh!
I wonder if the manual transmission was any good. I surely hope it was better than the godawful one in a Cavalier I borrowed, yikes.
I remember reading reviews at the launch time that it was at least decent. But you know buff books treated almost any car at launch, and this was replacing the Achieva, so… simply having a manual available had them drooling. Even if it didn’t last long. I assume they used the same manual for export models. I wasn’t aware of the fog lights but that makes sense. I was somewhat surprised the housings looked the same. I never fiddled with them, but remember that aiming device nonsense on the W Body. Kind of surprised they bothered with motorized leveling on the Alero. I know lots of European and Japanese cars had aiming systems in the 90s and early 00s. I guess there were regulations relating to loading the rear suspension mis-aiming the light beam. Interesting about the clear bulb situation. Oddest bulb I ever encountered was on the last couple years of Saab 9-3 production, where they used a widely available bulb but with red tint applied to the bulb. Saab dealers (well, ex-Saab dealers, this was 3 or 4 years after they exited the market) were the only provider, and each bulb was something like $40. Compared to $3 for a 10-pack of the clear version. Since then, as the cars have depreciated to nearly $0, I have started to see many with clear bulbs substituted, meaning the tail lights and brake lights are simply clear. The housing has no color, all the red was in the OE bulb.
Pshaw, that’s just people being lazy. It’s a PR21/5W bulb, readily available for a few bucks apiece.
My first brand new car out of college was a 1994 Pontiac Grand Am SE V6 2dr in dark green. I ordered it from the factory to get the light gray interior. Loved that car. It did have some squeaks and rattles in the 4 years I had it. Traded it in on a 1998 Grand Prix GT 2dr in Silvermist.
Here’s a pic of it. Picked it up in January 1994 after it snowed the day before.
That’s a really nice picture! haha. ; )
Related to this topic, a 1994 Chevrolet Lumina sedan drove into the side of a local blood lab, here in Ottawa. Happened same day this article was posted, Oct. 20, a couple hours ago. It looks in fantastic shape. I haven’t seen a first gen Lumina here, in years. I hope the owner is okay, and decides to repair it. I’m afraid it will be written off. Appears great in bright red.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/car-dynacare-crash-3-injured-1.6623869
Ironically enough, just last Wednesday I saw this ’93 Lumina on the road – in beautiful condition. When I saw it, I thought “I haven’t seen a first Gen Lumina in years…”
Very impressive. Original wheel covers as well. And the central rear backup lens is not that discoloured, for its age.
It’s funny, as I thought the first gen Lumina was better looking than the ’95 follow up. Chevrolet trying to adopt Taurus-like styling, a decade late, appeared too generic to my eyes.
I remember when this generation of the N-bodies came out. As a teenager on the cusp of getting his license, I liked the Achieva SC 2-door way more than the Pontiac Grand Am GT. The lower ribbing just didn’t call to me, the Achieva being smoother and (to my young eyes) better looking.
I remember reading in an Autoweek article when the Acheiva SC coupe came out, which was a few months later than the rest of the N-bodies. This was due to Oldsmobile reworking the quarter panels to use the rounded wheel house of the Grand Am 2-door and not the semi-skirted quarter of the sedan.
Looking at the images of all the N-bodies, you can see that both Buicks have the skirted rear wheel house, the Achieva has the skirted on the 4-door and the rounded on the 2-door, and the Grand Am has the rounded wheel house on both.
What an unusual find, in Tokyo!
Seriously, I have to wonder what GM were thinking, offering these in Japan. Not knocking the Grand Am as such, just considering what it was up against. There were so many Japanese cars of this size available; I immediately thought of the Nissan Skyline. You would have to be a real lover of things American to pass up all the Japanese offerings in favour of buying this.
Amazing condition, though.
Every single bad styling affectation that plagues so many modern cars is here on these Grand Ams. Except the matte black plastic cladding. That came later with the Aztek. Truly pioneers, GM was.
Any relation to Peter Egan of Road and Track fame. Have to agree about the dubious styling and quality of most GM and American vehicles of that era.
All things considered that vehicle is in astounding shape for it’s age, I hope no one paid to restore it.
From my California and Hawaii perspective, the million sold must have all gone to rental fleets.
I read your review with some amusement. I bought a low mileage ’93 in March 2015 for next to nothing. I still drive it for basic transportation because it just won’t die. I sometimes get stopped and told, “I used to own one of those and thought it was a great car…. 20 years ago.” LOL.