(first posted 11/28/2016) The year was 1995. Seinfeld was the number one show on Television. “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio was the #1 song of the year, and the highest-grossing film of the year was Toy Story. “The Rachel” was the hottest woman’s hair style, and O.J. Simpson was found not guilty for the double murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. 1995, model-year speaking, was also the year that the second generation Chevrolet Lumina sedan debuted, to very little excitement and expectations.
Up until a few years ago at least, when combined sales of CUVs/SUVs overtook cars in total sales, the mainstream midsize sedan segment was the most important, and the fiercest segment in the automobile industry. Despite its slightly lower volume, this largely holds true today, as really, how hard is it to make a successful crossover? But today, the top three best-selling midsize sedans in the U.S. hail from Japanese brands. Although this wasn’t such the case two decades ago, GM still blew its chances with the 1995 Lumina.
Backtracking a bit, the first generation GM W-bodies/GM10 (whatever you want to call them) that were produced sold for the 1988-1996 model years for most brands, were one of General Motors’ biggest f*ck-ups of all time, and an issue that comprehensively-covered, would result in an article of many thousand words taking 1-2 months to write.
These cars have been covered numerous times on an individual basis before, so I’ll just give you the takeaway: GM smartly sought to introduce modern midsize cars across its non-Cadillac North American brands that were thoroughly different from one another, and ahead of the competition. But of course, in typical GM fashion, the W-bodies were numerous steps behind the competition. Development ran behind schedule and the monetary costs of the project, at some $7 Billion, were astronomical.
Adding insult to injury, only coupes in Pontiac-Oldsmobile-Buick guise arrived for the W-body’s launch in 1987 as 1988 models. Due to the platform’s lengthy gestation period, GM was a few extra years behind the market shift to sedans. Consequently, these brands’ higher-volume sedans and both Chevrolet body styles didn’t appear until the 1990 model year, already feeling dated. Lacking refinement and key features such as a driver’s-side airbag, the first generation Lumina in particular was a big disappointment for GM and Chevy dealers.
By the mid-1990s, it was clear that the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry were steadily building their loyal customer base, and were ever closer to overtaking the top-selling Ford Taurus as best-selling car in America (this would occur in 1997). Having failed so miserably with their first attempt at a car that could honestly compete with the Taurus, Accord, and Camry, you would’ve thought that the largest automaker in the world would have put forth a better effort for the most important car of its highest-volume brand. The answer of course, is sadly another “no”.
Rather than putting a serious effort into making improvements and refinements, GM took the “re-gifter” approach, giving us mostly the same car as before, just wrapped in a new, rounder package. The decision to stick with an update that was almost exclusively cosmetic, was no doubt a result of GM devoting the bulk of its concentration to higher profit big SUVs and pickups. Though styling was new, it was hardly eye-opening or even all that attractive. Ditching the previous generation’s wedged-shaped styling for round, bulbous curves, the Lumina’s visual transformation was akin to someone leaving the old Lumina in the oven a few minutes longer, letting the dough rise up further.
Remaining as sedate-looking as its predecessor, the 1995 Lumina followed in the footsteps of cars such as the 1992 Camry, 1992 Taurus, and 1993 Chrysler LH sedans with very rounded sheetmetal. It likely would’ve made more of a buzz had it hit showrooms in 1992, as originally planned. Either way, any attractiveness in its very forgettable design was marred by its ungainly proportions. With colossal overhangs (46.5% of overall length; its front very massive in particular), the square-shaped wheel arches of its predecessor, large rear doors that awkwardly cut into the roofline and went all the way to the rear wheel well, the Lumina had a rather clumsy, dowdy appearance.
Additionally, its relatively long length (some 12 inches longer than both the ’95 Camry and ’95 Accord V6, and even 9 inches longer than a ’95 Taurus) contributed to a very “pancaked” look, as if it was flattened down by a press at the final stage of production. I know I’m getting nitpicky here, but GM very easily could’ve made a tidier looking midsize sedan. Just look at the Lumina’s platform mate, the Oldsmobile Intrigue. I won’t even touch upon the horrendous looking Lumina Coupe Monte Carlo. Thankfully, Will Stopford already has.
Inside, things were just as disappointing. Much like the exterior, the interior received a visual makeover, replacing the previous Lumina’s straight lines and angularity with scattered curves here and there just for the sake of it. Front seatbacks aimed for a more contoured look, but looked out of place with their standard bench seat bottoms. And yes, in another example of being out of touch with consumers, an old-fashioned front bench seat and column shifter were still standard. Apparently GM though all the cool kids wanted to feel like they were driving Grandma’s car… “Ugh! As If!”
In any event, the Lumina’s interior was hardly an inviting environment, and one that was not easy on the eyes. Unsupportive seats in which one uncomfortably sunk into (from personal experience), flimsy feeling switch gear and controls, dated looking seat fabrics, and a mishmash of hard, hollow, and textured plastic. Apparently there was a shortage of half-acceptable plastic during the mid-1990s and Little Tykes outbid GM for the use of it in their Cozy Coupes. Overall, the Lumina’s interior oozed cheapness, blandness, and despair.
Now it’s not like the Lumina needed an interior for the masses to ooh and aah over as, after all, it was an affordable midsize family sedan. Yet as a midsize family sedan, the Lumina’s interior should have been a noticeable cut above that of penalty box cars like the Cavalier, or a ten-year older Celebrity. Every car it competed against, from the Dodge Intrepid to the Ford Taurus to the Toyota Camry and many more, treated buyers to more inviting interiors in one way or another. Even its older siblings’ interiors were all marginally better.
That’s not to say all competitors’ interiors were perfect, with cheapness and other flaws here and there in many. But the Lumina’s was substandard in every area. The least GM could’ve given it was an interior that didn’t make occupants want to open the door and jump out while the car was in motion.
Underneath it all, the Lumina rode on the same chassis as before. Power now came from V6s only, initially in the form of either a standard pushrod 3.1L or an optional dual-overhead cam 3.4L, the latter producing respectable output of 210 horsepower and 215 lb-ft torque. Of course, the 3.4L was replaced with the ubiquitous pushrod 3.8L V6, which made less horsepower but more torque, and increased fuel economy by a few MPGs.
Now before half of our readers start lashing out at me for “attacking” a car that they believe “succeeded in its intended mission in life”, let me remind you that the GM Deadly Sins are not meant to offend anyone who may ever have owned one of these cars or have had experiences with them. As evidenced by this 19-year old example, many of these Luminas probably gave their owners many years of affordable service, played a memorable role in their lifetime, and some may have even brought these owners a little bit of joy.
What makes this car a Deadly Sin is that it represents the missed opportunity for GM at regaining some control of the midsize class with a strong entry, in turn handing over the market to Honda and Toyota on a silver platter, all a direct result of GM’s sheer negligence and unwillingness to make an effort in this more challenging, but nonetheless important segment. The Lumina was a somewhat outdated, outclassed car when it arrived for 1990. By its second generation, it was a highly outdated, outclassed car.
GM of course, was not alone in ceding the midsize segment to the aforementioned Japanese brands. Ford was guilty too, with its totally botched 1996 Taurus. Yet the difference with the Taurus is that Ford’s investment and effort into the new Taurus yielded a much more competitive car with numerous thoughtful innovations, up-to-date features and decent quality. It was only designers’ fetish for ovals which permanently doomed the Taurus as a midsize car.
As a result, the Lumina never achieved noteworthy sales figures, especially considering Chevrolet’s overall volume. Second generation Lumina sales topped out at just over 264K units for the car’s extended introductory year (going on sale in June 1994) and trailed off at a steady pace. By contrast, the Toyota Camry sold over 326K for 1995 and reached over 445K by 1999.
Now of course the argument can be made that GM also had three more W-body sedans to bolster their total midsize sedan sales. While true, Chevrolet had just as many if not more dealers than Honda, Toyota, and Ford, so really there was no reason the Lumina should have sold in such fewer numbers, other than the fact that it was an inferior car. Furthermore, with the large percentage of Luminas going to fleets and the steep incentives, GM still lost money on each Lumina sold.
Which brings me to the question: Who in fact bought 1995-2001 Chevrolet Luminas? As far as I’m concerned, the Lumina appealed to three types of customers:
- Die-hard brand loyalists who did not cross-shop with other brands and would’ve drove off in a new Lumina even if it was on fire
- The very price-sensitive consumer who cared most about their payment number and would buy one car over another based on an extremely nominal amount, even if it meant they’d be settling
- Fleets, fleets, and more fleets
It appears that Chevy even had a hard time unloading Luminas on the rental companies as, by and large, the majority of Luminas I ever saw were in some type of government or other commercial fleet.
Slacking off and not giving it one’s all is never a smart move, but it is an even greater offense when one does this in the championships when all is at stake versus a pre-season practice. General Motors made a lot of mistakes in the 1990s, and a lot of pretty weak efforts as well. In some cases, GM could afford to cut corners. With its midsize volume sedan, this was not such the case.
Featured car photographed at sunset: Hewitts Cove, Hingham, MA – November 2016
Campus Police Lumina photographed: Georgetown University, Georgetown, D.C. – May 2009
Related Reading:
1991 Chevrolet Lumina Euro (GM Deadly Sin)
I like the earlier generation Lumina more than this generation featured here. However questionable its build quality may have been, at least it was attractive to look at. I find this to be hideous.
I agree, the first gen was young Elvis and the second “fat Elvis”.
My friend, an adjuster for State Farm, drove her Lumina fleet car with deep disgust. Her husband took off a wheelcover, hoping management would see how krappy the car appeared…and would (hopefully) issue her one of the firm’s other fleet sedans. The gambit failed.
“The decision to stick with an update that was almost exclusively cosmetic, was no doubt a result of GM devoting the bulk of its concentration to higher profit big SUVs and pickups.”
Or it could be that they had already spent so much money developing the platform that they didn’t really want to bother spending too much more money on it. That would be more in line with the mentality that GM nickled and dimed itself into bankruptcy with.
The thing that ticked me off the most was the terrible back seats of the W-body in general. Something that was never rectified during the entire run of the platform. Seats too low in the chassis, short cushions, lacking legroom compared to the competition.
IIRC the short and low cushions were to make the head- and legroom numbers look better.
Well of course. Damn the real world but the specs look compatible to the competition…
It’s like a high draft pick in a pro sport; you’re gonna give him a lot more chances before you cut him because you spent so much to get him. They realized it wasn’t what they wanted, but they didn’t didn’t want to abandon it completely, or pour even more resources into it to try to fix it.
I’m no big fan of GM but I give these cars a pass on Deadly Sin status by virtue of:
1) Their cheapness as used cars. These things were everywhere back in their day and GM’s habit of dumping new cars to move metal had the effect of killing resale values in the 3 to 5 year old range.
2) Their basic mechanical soundness. Apart from dodgy brakes – I knew more than a few people with these and it seemed that, more often than not, any brake work involved replacing the calipers – they were reliable and what little needed to be fixed, could be fixed cheaply.
Bad-mouthing these cars always strikes me as the automotive equivalent of virtue-signalling. Yes, the W-Car was in production forever, yes, the pushrod engines were outdated, yes, they probably weren’t class-leading for body rigidity, space efficiency, NVH isolation or other engineering attributes, but they were affordable and reliable rides.
After all, even people whose ‘other car’ is an E30 M3 or vintage GTO need winter-beaters.
Paul F: Somehow your line of thinking does not add up for me.
I don’t think it was GM’s goal to produce a cheaper used car for the legions of Squeeze-Nickel-Eddys that make up the US middle class. I think GM’s goal was to capture a good share of the dollars that go to new mid-size family sedans. GM completely failed at that because for the new car buyer resale value matters immensely.
Point out to me where I said it was “GM’s goal to produce a cheaper used car”.
I’m simply pointing out that, in the context of a site that (ostensibly) presents itself as a place where older, high-mileage cars are discussed, trashing the Lumina is a bit misguided.
Also, your statement regarding the “legions of Squeeze-Nickel-Eddys that make up the US middle class” seems a bit bigoted. And again, out of place on a site where older, high-mileage cars are discussed.
Your point 1). O.k you didn’t say it was their goal but you used it as a reason of forgiveness.
I do think this was a deadly sin because for a corporation to die all it has to do is loose money.
Brendan cautioned not to take his article as an attack on one’s personal experience with a Lumina. Neither am I out to spoil anyone’s enjoyment they they got out of it. To me it is very simple GM lost a pile of money on it and dug itself a few inches deeper into the grave.
The dated platform and power train, as pointed out as the biggest disadvantage, is actually the biggest advantage. Apart from GM A-Body at the time, there isn’t any other FWD thing more reliable and straightforward than this then. Everything is built in the right place with the right engineering philosophy. ( Camry, Accord, Taurus and Intrepid each got some problems in certain given options )
Another thing about Lumina, just like US politics, is the self balance. When Taurus and Intrepid got too cutting edge and radical, Lumina stayed conservative. It’s smart.
I would actually buy off more on characterizing the early W-Car as a Deadly Sin than the late ones.
At the beginning GM already had the A-Car and H-Car, so the massive investment in the W-Car was just the kind of tweener nonsense that you can rightly slam GM for.
Once the car had been in production for a while and the investment was (more or less) amortized, it only made sense to keep it going. Even at the very end, the W-Car Impala was arguably a better buy than it’s ‘newer’ Epsilon Malibu stablemate.
Agreed that the “dated” powertrain was a plus. No one’s slamming Toyota for using “dated” tech-quite the opposite, in fact. Corolla’s platform dates to the 1990s, and as of a year or two ago they were still running the 1990s 4-speed auto, too, yet Toyota gets high marks for “evolving” their gear. Ford or GM “evolves” their platforms or powertrains and it’s them being archaic and behind the times and bla bla blah.
For all the things these Luminas weren’t, they were at least reliable like the sun.
I think Toyota has copped plenty of criticism for using 4-speed autos for so long, when have you read a road test of one in the last 10+ years that didn’t mention it?
It’s not that that wasn’t a worthwhile goal. But here’s the problem.
GM already had the A car for that purpose. If all GM wanted to do was produce a cheap reliable midsized car, they wouldn’t have bothered to spend all that money developing the W platform. The whole point of the W platform was to make a world class car with high transaction prices. Something to appeal to people who demand more from a car than just A to B in comfort and reliability. Something competitive with the Taurus and Accord. They failed. And then this car came out in 1995, seven years after the first Ws, and they still hadn’t done what they needed to do to get the platform where it was supposed to go.
What I’ll never know is why GM didn’t foresee that they were going to have to bring out sedans simultaneously with the coupes in 1988. We all know that the W’s goal was to replace both the wildly popular 1978-vintage RWD G body coupes AND the 1982-vintage FWD As. It would have been one thing to keep the Buick and Olds As around for Ma and Pa from Iowa, as they did, but to not have a 1988 Lumina sedan to replace the Celebrity was a gigantic mistake, and then not have an actual good Lumina in 1995 was just as bad.
Other than it’s pushrod architecture how was this power train so outdated exactly? It has sequential port injection and roller followers. It had a starter interrupt because the 3100 idled so smoothly and quietly. It had a rev limiter when in gear. It’s 4 speed was electronically controlled and one of the smoothest most polished transmissions of the time period. And note that Ford was also offering a base pushrod V6 with an electronically controlled transmission and so was Chrysler for this time period. All three were plenty appropriate for there mission during the 90’s
By this point, the GM four-speed was a nice piece of work in terms of real-world behavior and performance. It was a lot slicker than the four-speed Honda auto, which was a lurch-and-clunk affair a lot of the time, and at least on a par with Toyota’s four-speed auto. So, fair point there.
I think the Deadly Sin label is overused on GM iron around these parts, but the point, with a few exceptions, is that they were “deadly” *to GM*. Being forced to move the metal at heavy discounts to fast-turnover fleets was not a magnanimous effort on GM’s part to provide Americans with good, solid transportation in a newer car than they could otherwise afford; rather, it was a consequence of having nickel-and-dimed themselves out of contention at the intended price point. Add in that they had spent record-busting amounts of money to develop what would become, at best, good used cars and you have the recipe for losing a fortune.
Right, these weren’t Citation-level horrendous. However, when you compare them to their Honda and Toyota sedan classmates, their ‘sins’ become a lot more apparent and consumers voted with their checkbooks.
I agree with Paul F. that the initial W-body was a greater sin, simply due to the cost.
These weren’t necessarily terrible cars, and I don’t remember them as being unreliable.
They were basically the 1990s equivalent of the old Plymouth Valiant or Dodge Dart – cars for people who placed a primary emphasis on low cost, reliability and reasonable comfort.
The problem was that GM didn’t capture 40+ percent of the market during its heyday by largely appealing to that type of customer. GM cars – including Chevrolets – had always been more stylish, better trimmed, and more refined than the competition. With this Lumina, it seemed as though GM was basically “phoning it in” because management had lost the plot.
I think more times than not the Deadly Sin label is accurate, but as I said I think the W platform itself is more deserving of the title and focused squarely on the first generations. I agree with what was said in this tree – The Japanese haven’t been any better when it comes to keeping a platform forever lately, and that isn’t a personal criticism of the practice mind you – the Lumina just wasn’t very appealing to begin with and it didn’t get much better in 1995. The deadly sin branding should be a cumulative form of factors, not just “this car didn’t save GM”, which in essence can effectively make every last GM car made between their peak market share and the bankruptcy a deadly sin
Calling this car a deadly sin is really reaching. If anything the 1995 Lumina fixed what was was wrong with the 1990 Lumina and added quite a bit of refinement to the mix. It’s also interesting to note that it got pretty high marks from Consumer Guide in there 1995 auto edition and they said it was a very big leap over the 1990 car.
. I think this article jumped the shark on the GM deadly sin thing. These were decent reliable and relatively inexpensive cars, just the way Chevies have been for decades. They weren’t world -beaters and weren’t intended to be. They were built and sold to a modest price point and fulfilled that mission reasonably well.
So they were fleet vehicles. So what? Someone has to sell to the fleets. The flert market is competitive. The fact GM could do so is commendable.
Much of this article focuses on a negative subjective analysis of the appearance of a conservative car, perhaps because there is little of substance to criticise. Again, I’m not buying it. The appearance is pleasant and bland. Again, nothing wrong, because Chevies have done this for years. The car is complete, inoffensive, inexpensive and a little boring. And this fine, lots of buyers wanted this.
Speaking as a lifelong GM fan, I expect better from GM. Simple as that.
And fleet sales shouldn’t be a car’s raison d’être, purely because of what they do for resale value and, sometimes, image.
These sold mostly on price. That also explains why fleet sales were as high as they were.
The Big 3 are quite capable of building segment-leading (or near-leading) intermediates that have decent retail sales and critical praise. See: 2008 Malibu, 2010 and 2013 Fusion, 1986 Taurus etc
Of course the car was intended to be a world beater. They dropped $7 BILLION DOLLARS on its design, increased capacity to build it and its siblings, and anticipated taking the lion’s share of the market with it. Not only did they fail in every respect, they lost money on every sale. How do you drop that much coin and not have something even a little bit competitive?
As was said above, a Deadly Sin is less what we think about it (although the public spoke with their money so that aspect can’t be denied, either) and more what it did to GM. This was an unmitigated financial disaster for the corporation.
Airman, I’d assert that that’s not a fair assessment. The W cars cost over $7 Billion in development. That $7 Billion got Lumina, Grand Prix, Regal, and Cutlass Supreme, in coupe and later sedan variants, designed, engineered, and onto North American roadways.
The 1995 Lumina did not cost $7 Billion to develop. The 1990 Lumina didn’t even cost $7 Billion to develop (although to be fair it’s hard to disaggregate how much of the GM-10 money did the Lumina as compared to the rest of the lot, and it’s even more fair to suggest that even if GM hadn’t developed any of the other GM-10s they’d have still dropped at least several billions on the development all the same).
It’s certainly a compelling argument that the W cars broadly were a GM Deadly Sin. It’s fascinating to me how they managed to so wildly botch. But, we’re talking about one specific iteration of the W, and a second-generation version at that. It’s not fair to cast all of the sins of the W cars at the second-gen Lumina’s rubber-clad round feet.
Agree completely on the point about the modest price point. People trashing the interior quality are overlooking the reality that Chevy was the entry-level brand. GM had Buick and Olds for customers looking for a more premium level of trim (The Regals in particular were very nice as far as W-Cars go).
I worked for a supplier to GM during that era and establishing some separation in brand identity was a big concern there.
The W cars cost over $7 Billion in development… But, we’re talking about one specific iteration of the W, and a second-generation version at that. It’s not fair to cast all of the sins of the W cars at the second-gen Lumina’s rubber-clad round feet.
I’d even go so far as to argue that, far from being a Deadly Sin, the Second Gen W-Car represented the kind of Japanese-style continuous improvement that GM really needed more of (Imagine how much better off they’d have been if, instead of throwing ~$10 billion at Saturn, they had simply fixed the J-Car and refined the Quad-Four?).
The real Deadly Sin would have been if in the late-80s/early-90s, they had gone the clean-sheet route yet again and designed yet another ‘new’ platform.
The fact is that the improvements made in the Second Gen W-Car were enough to buy the platform another decade plus life. That’s actually a sound investment (especially compared to other decisions GM made in that same latre-80s/early-90s era).
It was a mediocre offering when the segment was heating up and it couldn’t match the Camcord in sales. That’s why Brendan has labelled it a deadly sin.
Paul has said numerous times the actual purpose of the DS series is to highlight “any car that didn’t specifically counter GM’s downward spiral.” Not every DS is a bad/unreliable car.
“any car that didn’t specifically counter GM’s downward spiral.”
Which, again, means you can throw a dart at any GM car made in the last 30 years and cite that as the reason for it’s DS status. Labeling this as such waters down the truly bad cars that hurt GM. These weren’t any worse than the W-Body Impala that directly replaced it, are they getting a deadly sin article too?
This is a good way to describe some of the ‘lesser’ Deadly Sins. It’s not that the ’95 Lumina was a particularly bad car; it’s just that it did absolutely nothing to forestall GM’s downward spiral. It falls into the same category as the Olds Cutlass Calais DS.
Or, to use the baseball analogy, it was simply a single when GM had been in desperate need of a home run for a long time. In fact, that pretty much sums up GM’s management style entirely for decades. They figured they could win the game by doing nothing more than constantly hitting a few singles here and there to try and offset all of the outs. That, and buying a lot of new uniforms for the same old, tired team.
I think an important corollary of Paul’s basic definition is “characterized by a frustrating unwillingness/refusal to apply itself.”
A lot of DS entries are cases where GM either had a really good idea and then undermined itself with sloppy execution and penny-pinching nonsense, or else saw where it really needed to go and just didn’t follow through. The FWD X-bodies fell into the former category; this car fell into the latter.
Its problem was not that it was a dreadful car, but that everything about it screamed “don’t care.” It’s like having a coworker or collaborator that you know is perfectly competent and can do good work, but has either grown indifferent to the whole thing or is so focused on a side project that they just can’t be bothered, so whatever you get out of them is mostly the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations or avoid getting fired.
In a way, I find this generation Lumina more egregious than the 1990. The 1990 was an ill-considered mess and I think GM had second-guessed themselves in a number of really counterproductive ways, but there was at least some kind of thought process there. The ’95 Lumina just felt like they’d given up, which to me is a lot harder to forgive than trying but miscalculating.
(In some respects, I think the Olds Intrigue was a return to the former issue; it had, I thought, a pretty clear sense of what it needed and wanted to be, it just couldn’t quite get the pieces together.)
“Paul has said numerous times the actual purpose of the DS series is to highlight “any car that didn’t specifically counter GM’s downward spiral.” Not every DS is a bad/unreliable car.”
That means if this Lumina and it’s W stablemates actually made money for GM it would be absolved from the DS label. That’s my opinion anyway.
My only personal experience with W was a rented 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix and I tell you that I truly enjoyed it from the driver’s seat. Neither did I get to hear groans and moans from any other seat, no even the rear. I still cherish the experience.
Funny DOHC engines are even more outdated by that thinking, since gthey came out BEFORE pushrods. I’d take the 3800 in L67 guise over damn near every DOHC
Not a fan, I once had one as a rental in Seattle for a few days and while I can admit it got me where I needed to go and didn’t have any glaring faults, it was simply unattractive both outside and especially inside. That dashboard is just horrific to have to look at on daily basis.
I do distinctly recall that its platform-mate, the Olds Intrigue, was fawned over by the media as if it was the second coming of the lord himself. Rarely have I seen such overwhelmingly positive prose consistently lavished on a car. While I did (and still do) find the Intrigue to be vastly more visually attractive than the Lumina, I’d be surprised if it was that much, if at all, better in any other areas.
I did own a W-body myself, that being a second generation supercharged Buick Regal GS, which turned out to be a superb car while I owned it. Sure, the interior materials were nothing to be excited about but otherwise the car was very, very good. Maybe the Intrigue was much better than the Lumina after all, my Buick was head and shoulders above the Lumina as well, who knows…
I think what the media liked about the Intrigue was the OHC V6 derived from the Northstar V8. I am not sure that it was really a lot better than the 3800 though.
My experience with GM products is with their higher end stuff, so I don’t know much about GM’s midsize cars after 1969. I had one J-car.
No, Jim’s right — the adulation of the Intrigue was before the introduction of the “Shortstar” V6. The Intrigue launched with the 3800, which the automotive press sort of poo-pooed, although they liked the rest of the car.
The Intrigue was definitely a cut above the contemporary Lumina in style and handling. Its interior materials also looked and felt better than those used in the Lumina.
The problems were that those supposedly upscale materials didn’t wear very well (for example, I remember Intrigue owners complaining about warping dashboards on cars with less than 20,000 miles on the odometer), and the overall reliability of the Intrigue was worse than that of the more pedestrian Lumina.
The Intrigue also showed up three years later, in 1998–perhaps other advancements had been made in that time? Or was it just a prettier body on the same, decade-old at that time, underpinnings?
GM’s last gasp at keeping Olds alive involved turning them into an Acura pretender. The styling and trim levels reflected that.
Yuck, I remember the whorehouse red velour that GM used so frequently in that era. The mushy seats and low seating position never impressed me.
As a beater that won’t die, you could do a heck of a lot worse, but it failed from day one as a “nice car” that someone would purposely buy.
These were extremely popular in the Midwest, so I’ve had enough exposure to them that my contempt mirrors this. The interior shot is flattering, that velour GM was using in the 90s is what killed velour, it was like rat fur from a balding rat, and it was usually not red either, it was a grey/dark grey, the color of those beautiful rodents.
Deadly sin? Eh, I feel like the first generation Lumina encoumpases this generation, and while they didn’t fend off the Japanese they did surpass the first generation sedan’s sales. The real sin IMO centers squarely at renaming the coupe version the Monte Carlo.
I don’t know, Matt. Could it have been worse than the cadaver beige leather GM was using across it’s car lines at the time ? They called it “taupe”. It really just looked DOA and not something I’d want to sit on or in.
Currently I tend to think modern times are bad for upholstery, but the 90s seems even worse.
Neon seats looked like they were covered with polyester perma press pant material. New 95 Cavalier looked like burlap.
The Lumina seats do look like they’re already sagging even in the brochure pictures.
The worst part of GM’s leather interiors of this period was the clear contrast with the rubbermaid pieces everywhere else which were presumably supposed to be simulating leather grain with their knobby hard surfaces, which inevitably curl up into U shapes as the actual leather starts to develop horrible Varicose veins.
I think burlap accurately describes most modern cloth interiors so I wouldn’t single out the 90s as being the worst, just a preview of things to come.
I call it “dollar-store backpack” cloth.
LOL. Good observations, Matt.
The velour Ford used in that era was no better.
Fact is that pretty much every entry-level brand back then had a base cloth interior that was pretty nasty.
I’d have to disagree with Ford’s not being better. The velour in my ’97 Crown Vic has held up well over the 20 years of that car’s life and still feels nice to the touch. Call it “mouse fur” if you will but it’s a much more pleasant fabric than that in our much newer Kia, which seems (as do pretty much all “cloth” interiors these days) to be an uncomfortable marriage of nylon and spandex.
Then again maybe the stuff they used in Escorts and Contours wasn’t of the same quality, I’ve never ridden in one of those newer than mid 80’s so I can’t say.
I had a 2000 Contour with the base cloth interior, and the velour-like fabric was horrible.
I think one thing people need to keep in mind is that twenty years ago most cars had clearly delineated base v. premium cloth interiors (unlike now, where ‘leather’ seems to be the near-universal upgrade option).
A good friend of mine in college (circa 2000) had a 1995 version, in that same red as the press photos with a mouse-fur gray interior. I, at the same time, had a 1989 Bonneville. I grew up in a GM-centric family (they’re still driving GMs to this very day), and I’m generally sympathetic to GM for various sentimental and other reasons.
I hated that Lumina.
The only reason I liked when [friend] volunteered to drive was because it meant we weren’t using my gas. The front seats treated me to a view of the blandest, most aggressively-depressing dashboard this side of a 2003 Honda Civic (my standard for terrible interiors). The back seats reminded me of a park bench-meant mostly for decoration or children, not really comfortable or even fit for grown-ups. Even the column shifter looked stupid and cheap with that Rubbermaid hand grip (at least it wouldn’t fall off like the lovely and good-looking chrome ones from the 1980s did), and I’m a huge fan of column shifters.
That car’s interior is what I imagine a child would draw if you asked one to draw a car interior. Here’s a circle that’s the gas gauge, here’s another for speed. The lines are a bit squiggly and don’t quite match up right.
My Bonneville, with 100,000 more miles and six more years to be out of date, was 1000 percent a much more pleasant place to be. The chairs were more comfortable, the layout more attractive, and even the Delco radio looked more at home in my car than it did in his.
What I will say for his Lumina is that, like most GMs, it provided him years of reliable, albeit no-frills, motoring. That car got him through school and several years of the beginning of his career. Truth be told, I lost touch with him before the Lumina did.
But, that Lumina was prima facie evidence that the General was not quite fit to command anymore.
H body > W body by an order of magnitude that I do not have sufficient math skills to calculate. (FYI I mean from the 2nd gen H body forward.)
The H bodies were all fantastic (after the aforementioned 1989 Bonneville I had a 1995 LeSabre. I loved both cars like I presume some people love their children, and I cried when I totaled the LeSabre.), and well should have been given their mission. I’d assert, though, the W’s were not entirely bad, but instead were very hit-and-miss. This Lumina was a miss, but the contemporary Grand Prix was a pretty decent car as my memory goes. Much better styling, and hit that sweet spot of Driving Excitement styling right before they decided Pontiacs should be hidden with half-melted Rubbermaid containers. The Regals at this point were basically baby LeSabres, and I loved the LeSabre (so it follows that I regarded the Regals well).
But to throw a little fuel on this fire, I’d assert that the absolutely terrible interior GM threw into the 1996 Grand Am was even better than what they put into the Luminas. At least the Grand Am’s interior had some personality, and it wasn’t actively and aggressively depressing (at least until the paint wore off the radio buttons, which in my mom’s 1996 GA happened in about 1999).
Like I said, I can think of exactly two cars that had worse interiors than the Luminas: The 2003 Honda Civic and the 2003 Toyota Camry. The Lumina was just depressing. The Civic and Camry of 2003 advocated self-harm.
My mother-in-law had a H-body Lesabre (1992 model IRCC) and when it was totaled at the fault of the driver that hit her. She never really recovered. Still talks about that car.
Her boss had a Cadillac Deville at the same time and even getting to drive the Cadillac she couldn’t figure out why there was any cachet to Cadillac.
xequar I don’t see how an ’03 Camry’s interior would be at all “depressing” relative to a Lumina. They’re definitely well on the road to decontenting, but even a basic “LE” Camry with the knobs for HVAC controls was well put together and competent, if not beautiful and nice to touch like the early 90s cars. In XLE trim with climate control, they were better. Worlds better than a Lumina or the Impala that followed it IMO.
“Well put together and competent” is not, in and of itself, attractive. A friend of mine had a 2003 Camry, probably in LE spec. It was a bunch of dark grey plastic with dark grey cloth seats and dark grey everything else, maybe with a bit of fake wood-I don’t remember anymore as he moved to Hawaii and shipped the car over he loved it that much (what is it with doctors and their med school cars, anyway?). I imagine there were medieval castle dungeons more stimulating and appealing. The pieces may have been competently assembled, but sometimes the end result is just ugly. This is also my complaint about the 2003 Civic-sure, they’ll go forever, but why would you want to spend forever in that interior? Competent spartan austerity is not exactly my aesthetic.
Honestly, I’d rather have slightly larger panel gaps if the overall result is attractive.
“if the overall result is attractive.”
That’s the problem, can you say the Lumina’s dash is in some way more attractive? Within this context, I will take well assembled and decent materials with good ergonomics.
I recently test drove an ’01 Grand Prix. The exposed fasteners and primitive fit and finish was too much to handle. Even the decontented 2000 Maxima I ended up buying instead was a BIG step up, despite being pretty plain to look at.
Not really sure what you’re arguing now, since I spent three entire paragraphs expressing my opinions on the Lumina’s interior. Just because I disliked Camry and Civic interiors does not inherently mean I found the Lumina’s much better. I mean, I used the words “aggressively-depressing.”
As I wrote before:
“I hated that Lumina.
The only reason I liked when [friend] volunteered to drive was because it meant we weren’t using my gas. The front seats treated me to a view of the blandest, most aggressively-depressing dashboard this side of a 2003 Honda Civic (my standard for terrible interiors). The back seats reminded me of a park bench-meant mostly for decoration or children, not really comfortable or even fit for grown-ups. Even the column shifter looked stupid and cheap with that Rubbermaid hand grip (at least it wouldn’t fall off like the lovely and good-looking chrome ones from the 1980s did), and I’m a huge fan of column shifters.
That car’s interior is what I imagine a child would draw if you asked one to draw a car interior. Here’s a circle that’s the gas gauge, here’s another for speed. The lines are a bit squiggly and don’t quite match up right.
My Bonneville, with 100,000 more miles and six more years to be out of date, was 1000 percent a much more pleasant place to be. The chairs were more comfortable, the layout more attractive, and even the Delco radio looked more at home in my car than it did in his.”
“does not inherently mean I found the Lumina’s much better”
Well you seemed to imply as much:
“I can think of exactly two cars that had worse interiors than the Luminas”
What am I missing? By any metric both of those Japanese cars have vastly better interiors in terms of materials/assembly. I’d say the same goes for design although I guess tastes vary. If the two Japanese cars can be written off as “bland,” the best descriptor for the Lumina would be “grotesque.”
Excellent article, with much background and analysis.
I had a cop version: Recaro seats, certified speedo, and an impressive 4 outlet exhaust. Known as the “Lemona”, for reasons that are probably obvious.
In fleet service, the car was a disappointment because it replaced the larger and more powerful rear wheel drive Caprice.
Going from a Caprice to a Lumina took some adjusting.
In taxi service in particular, the Lumina was much derided for its cramped interior.
I recall getting picked up from work in one of these once, it was no more than 5 years old and the paint was already peeling, I recall it needing new shocks as well.
Haha, the Deadly Sin that keeps giving. Completely agree that this was a dreadful car. To me, it looked like a bloated Corsica (with styling details like the deep-cut character line down the body sides–new in 1987, not so much by 1994). Also, there is that awful GM maroon AGAIN. The overly color-keyed interior in all dark red is just overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, I love lots of color choices for cars inside and out, but they need to be done well. This looks like a color palette from 1974…
I drove one of these once as a rental. Awful. As you point out, the quality of the plastics was beneath the grade used on children’s toys or even Tupperware. The whole thing seemed so despicably cheap.
During the heyday of Chevrolet, GM managed to make affordable transportation seem at least decent, all the way up to quite pleasant. They completely lost that quality with both generations of the Lumina, most especially this second one. No one wants to be reminded they are driving a cheap POS every second they are behind the wheel…
Now that is a handsome car. Maybe grey or medium Adriatic blue though.
One thing that the Lumina did well was quiet, that old Ford virtue was lost on the Taurus and even more so on the intrepid. Curious how that went head to head with the Camry that was also good not making itself heard
Ironic how much the all new Seville of the early 90s looked like a bloated up 5 door Corsica.
Given the 87 debut of the Corsica, really not possible. But imagine if it’s exclusive body was used for the 82 Cimarron. Coming out a few months before the Js with a 2.0 Brazillian OHC and the 2.8 V6.
It was a typical GM bland-mobile…does nothing badly, does nothing well, and most often rented at the airport. The 3100 was…well, ok. The 3800 was, of course, superb. The “twin dual cam” 3.4 was a deadly sin of its own.
The mention of Seinfeld and the picture of the Taurus (“fetish for ovals” was a perfect phrase) reminded me of how my brother and I thought that maybe George Costanza could have designed this car like he wrote his TV episodes (“that’s a show!”).
“It’s going to take the automotive world by storm, Jerry. Elliptical design. Everything is an ellipse!”
“Everything, George?”
“Everything! Headlights, door handles, window glass, side mirrors, grille, tail lights, the entire body style, everything is an ellipse!”
“Come on, George, everything can’t be an ellipse. What about the wheels?”
“Ah, therein lies the brilliance.. Those are circles and circles are ellipses. It’s genius!”
This was genius!
Sounds more like something Kramer would say. Googled his “levels” idea from “The Pony Remark”:
KRAMER: I’m completely changing the configuration of the apartment. You’re not gonna believe it when you see it. A whole new lifestyle.
JERRY: What are you doing?
KRAMER: Levels.
JERRY: Levels?
KRAMER: Yeah, I’m getting rid of all my furniture. All of it. And I’m going to build these different levels, with steps, and it’ll all be carpeted with a lot of pillows. You
know, like ancient Egypt.
JERRY: You drew up plans for this?
KRAMER: No, no. It’s all in my head.
I want Kramer’s Impala.
One could do a very nice CurbsideClassic writeup just discussing the various vehicles seen on Seinfeld….
Yes, the stinky SAAB!
This is a pretty good list of the cars that made some memorable appearances.
https://www.thrillist.com/cars/19-of-the-funniest-car-moments-on-seinfeld
My company car from 1998 to 99. Burgundy with what was supposed to gray cloth.
Not too bad of a looker from 10 feet away to me at the time but uncomfortable seats that wore out at 50K miles. The foam vanished and I sat on a steel frame waiting for my new 99 GP to be delivered. All the seat upholstery and carpets took on a brown tinge once I inherited it at 33k. Other driver kept it clean and no amount of detailing would bring it back to gray. Twisted me, I longed for an LTZ. Compared to the guppy look of the Taurus, these were beauty queens.
I went on a date with a guy back, way back in 1997 and he picked me up in his company car. As we were walking towards his Lumina, I first noticed the wheels and then the Monte Carlo rear end. It wasn’t just a Lumina, but an LTZ with the hotter 3.4L engine in it. He let me drive it around to dinner and back, and I remember that it had some fun, punchy power, but it really didn’t handle all that well. I actually liked the way that the Monte Carlo Z34s of this generation looked, but after driving that LTZ I was turned off from ever wanting one.
Fast forward to a few years ago, and my travels to work had me in a rental Impala LTZ with the upgraded 3.9L V6. It actually still had a column shifter on it! While it wasn’t sporty in the least, as a freeway bomber I was actually quite impressed. It held the freeway well with a very smooth and controlled ride, the engine had great power and plenty of pickup and actually delivered exception mileage at 80mph+. For what it was designed to do, it did a very admirable job.
I assert that’s one of the things that’s simultaneously classic GM and part of what led them to the troubles they had. They make great freeway cruisers, but that’s not what the buyers on the coasts and the car rags want. The 3100 and 4-speed auto, at least as installed in my mom’s 1996 Grand Am, was a great engine and transmission combo: silky smooth, good torquey power, great for passing, and returning good mileage besides. The Luminas were comfortable enough (the rear seats weren’t great for long rides, though), and they gave very competent long-trip motoring.
GM designed, and still seems to design, cars for the wide open American roads of the 1950s. Most of the country has long straight roads, and back then most people were just moving to the cities and suburbs in earnest. So, they wanted big comfort for big roads and big road trips. And, in what might be news to people on the coasts, there’s still a huge swath of the country where big comfort is more appropriate and there isn’t a road within 100 miles to test handling upon.
Trouble was, by the 1980s the action was on the West Coast, a land with curvy roads that weren’t perpetually destroyed by winter and road salt. GM to this day designs a car that’s great at soaking up miles comfortably and efficiently. But, Middle America isn’t cool. Middle America is something to be mocked, and its residents are to be decried as ignorant rubes, rednecks, hicks, and otherwise too stupid to know what’s good for them, at least to hear it from the media and people on the coasts, which means GMs were (and to some degree still are) as attractive as toxic waste.
And let me be absolutely clear on this point: Cars meant for good handling are shit in most of Middle America. Here in the Salted North (aka Detroit) in 2.5 years/35,000 miles of driving a Ford Fiesta ST, I’ve had to replace two wheels, and the original set is so severely damaged that I finally just bought new wheels entirely and relegated the originals to winter duty. I’ve had to have a front strut replaced (under warranty, thankfully), and I’ve had to have it aligned at least five different times now. My husband absolutely hates riding in my car even as far as the store because “you feel bumps that won’t be there until next year.”
I mean, I love the thing and hope to have it a long time, but frankly, it’s so poorly suited to the environment here that I’d have to think long and hard about it before buying another one.
In the case of this Lumina, the problem came in with the choices GM made vis-a-vis interior design (the exterior was boring, but then so was everything else in the mid-1990s). It was a downright unpleasant place to spend any time. Thing is, I know GM was capable of more, even with the much-maligned W platform. I mean, the contemporary Regal speaks to that.
Yes, the Lumina was a great freeway cruiser, if one could stand to be in it long enough to cruise the freeways.
After Chevy discontinued the full-sized Caprice and Impala in 1996, the Lumina managed to pick up a few extra sales from buyers who otherwise would have bought a Caprice or Impala.
Then in 2000, the Lumina was restyled again and given the Impala name.
Weren’t these things of the generation where every third two-year-old GM car you saw was sporting two-tone paint? Half the car the original factory color and the other half primer gray where the clear coat and the color coat had peeled off in sheets? We had some Luminas as staff cars for my company and my chief memory was being shocked at how quickly they became old and worn-out looking. The poor quality materiel on the seats wore quickly, the crude plastic dash and control pieces quit fitting together after a year in the Virginia sun, and, of course, the paint just sloughed off in sheets. The engines ran fine and the a/c was good, but the ride matched the rest of the car – felt like the shocks were worn out at 15,000 miles.
After a year you had a beater car; courtesy of the factory. We also had an ovoid Taurus which, while weird and ugly, wasn’t a bad car.
Oh this shot brings back terrible memories of my mother’s 1988 Regal. It was also white and the paint did the same thing within the first two years of ownership. The whole car had to be repainted even though it was nearly new. Seems that GM still hadn’t figured out how to apply paint 10 years later…
I think every car did that in the 1980s. A college buddy had a roughly 1990 Sentra that we all called Claw, because the paint had peeled in such a way it looked like Godzilla raked his claws down the hood. I’ve read in the past that there was something that changed in the formulation of automotive paint that make it prone to peeling, regardless of which company’s car you bought. I don’t recall the details anymore, and my poking at Google has been fruitless, but I recall it being something like a chemical was removed (or changed out for another) to help stop the ozone layer from being destroyed.
And for further context, here’s a 1992 article talking about Ford F-150s having the same problem (which they absolutely did!): http://articles.latimes.com/1992-09-09/news/vw-78_1_trucks-ford
When they changed to water-borne paint there were issues. Still occasionally happens, Ford here had some dud paint in one particular color back around 2005 that saw the supplier pay to repaint a lot of cars.
I think it was the worst on white ones. An acquaintance in college had a Lumina of this generation with worse paint than that, and some rust starting on the upper surfaces where the paint had died. Of course it was white. And this was probably 10 years ago…
He called it “The Lumina with Leprosy.”
GM’s multiple divisions / brands and the increase in brands beginning with Saturn was probably the overlying, or at least mortal sin here. With most brands getting versions of most cars, the differentiation at Chevy was building it to a low price point. As usual, if you picked among the W bodies, you could probably find a version that met your quality, style, and performance criteria.
The challenge for GM was that everybody compared the Bowtie products with Honda and Toyota, when the brand was becoming something of a Nissan. Of course, this really made Chevrolet especially schizophrenic as they were selling volumes of GM’s high priced products in the same showroom – Corvettes, Suburbans, Tahoes and high end pick-ups. Suburban buyers made a habit of pairing them with anything but a Chevy sedan.
I’d posit that the Accord, beginning with the original in 1976, was essentially the Oldsmobile of Japanese cars. The Accord (and later the Camry) didn’t sell to the most price conscious buyer, it sold to a buyer more focused on quality who had no interest in a “stripper.” Twenty years after the original Accord, Oldsmobile’s Intrigue received accolades, while the Lumina was just called a clod. This was a pattern that lasted for almost a quarter century.
Proof though, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder – I thought the first gen Lumina sedan was about as awkward as its name. The second gen was quite an improvement, and was a decent looking car.
GM’s multiple divisions / brands and the increase in brands beginning with Saturn was probably the overlying, or at least mortal sin here.
That and GM’s noncommittal habit and of not axing predecessors of new cars, adding to an even bigger model range from an already brand heavy corporation. They copied Ford’s Maverick-Granada transition with the A-G bodies, the H-A bodies, and W-A bodies. This basically made it impossible to amortize and profit from costly developments like the GM10 program.
I always feel, current Honda attracts the same type of person as Hudson’s customers.
GM’s multiple divisions / brands and the increase in brands beginning with Saturn was probably the overlying, or at least mortal sin here. With most brands getting versions of most cars, the differentiation at Chevy was building it to a low price point. As usual, if you picked among the W bodies, you could probably find a version that met your quality, style, and performance criteria.
Absolutely true. As someone who worked for a supplier to GM at that time, most of the comments about the cheap interior materials are ironic in the extreme – at that time, the big criticism of GM was a lack of brand differentiation, and Chevrolet was the entry level brand, so add two and two together…
I knew tons of people with these, both as company cars and personal vehicles. I had a 95 Gran Prix for a while, the tan interior was nice enough but the Buick Regals were my personal favorites (not the Centurys they introduced after the death of the A-Car, those were pretty thrifted out).
Like I said earlier, much of this “I could never drive in such a cheap outdated car!” posturing is just the automotive equivalent of virtue-signalling. Sure, let’s wag our fingers at a car that was an affordable and reliable choice at the time it was offered because it didn’t have an OHC engine or soft-touch paint on the switches.
It is possible to do an “affordable” interior without resorting to ersatz chimpanzee hide seats. (The Grand Am and most J-bodies had similar fabric.)
Say what you want about style, but I like that front bench and column shifter.
I hate modern interiors, they are almost all cramped and claustrophobic with manumatics to complete the poser look. Pickups are the last bastion of sensible interiors, yet even they are starting to lose that battle.
“Say what you want about style, but I like that front bench and column shifter.”
Agreed, GM, particularly Oldsmobile, began installing its deluxe bench – the 60/40 split seat with fold-down armrest, in a lot of cars around 1976. I had several of them in various Oldsmobiles, and they were quite comfortable and spacious.
An idea whose time should come again?
The move away from column shifters was completely irrational. They don’t take up a lot of space, and they just work. But at some point in the last couple of decades, people decided that floor/console shifters are “sportier.”
I’ve been in late model BMW and Mercedes equipped with automatics. They both seem to have adopted stubby little electronic joysticks located where the column shifter should be. Maybe once you get used to them they’re fine, but they’re far more complicated and fiddly than a simple column shifter.
And mark me down as a fan of the split bench seat and six-passenger sedans. Very versatile, and lets the driver snuggle up to the passenger if they’re feeling amorous.
Based on no evidence, I have come to assume crash standards have given us the confining front seats of today’s cars. A large central tunnel provides stiffness, and keeping bodies confined into a small space probably makes it easier to keep them safe in a crash.
Funny: I remember that one of the selling points of early FWD cars was the flat floor. Now FWD cars have a larger central tunnel than an old RWD sedan ever did.
“Based on no evidence, I have come to assume crash standards have given us the confining front seats of today’s cars. A large central tunnel provides stiffness, and keeping bodies confined into a small space probably makes it easier to keep them safe in a crash.”
I’ve wondered the same thing. The whole point of anti-submarining dash design, seat belts and air bags is to limit travel of the human body within the vehicle. Creating little people pods within high belt-lines, high consoles, and narrow tunnels for your legs seems to be the goal.
“Based on no evidence, I have come to assume crash standards have given us the confining front seats of today’s cars. A large central tunnel provides stiffness, and keeping bodies confined into a small space probably makes it easier to keep them safe in a crash.”
Interesting theory, but I’d have to think somebody would have mentioned it in all the crash testing and subsequent marketing if that were the case. Perhaps it isn’t necessarily safer, but a larger tunnel could make it easier to meet current standards.
Our Mercedes has the electronic column shifter. It’s not bad at all, if you like a traditional column shifter you’d be used to this in a day. Push up for Reverse, Down for Drive, and push the button on the end for Park. The lever returns to center every time. If for whatever reason you want to actually shift yourself or hold a gear you use the paddleshifters behind the wheel. It does a great job of opening up the center console.
“The move away from column shifters was completely irrational. They don’t take up a lot of space, and they just work. But at some point in the last couple of decades, people decided that floor/console shifters are “sportier.”
The 53-54 Corvettes and 55-57 T-Birds introduced the automatic on the floor as a sporty alternative. But truly popularizing floor shifts/consoles as sportier occurred in the early/mid 60’s with the Olds Starfire, Pontiac Grand Prix, Buick Wildcat, Impala SS, and Galaxie 500XL leading the way. Even the little 62 Olds Cutlass coupe could be so equipped – a friend had one. The introduction of the Mustang sealed the deal on the floor shift as the sporty alternative (though the console was optional). In recent years M-B has bucked the trend more than any other manufacturer with Fiat-Chrysler and Ford/Lincoln joining them with their dial and pushbutton selectors. Personally I like being able to change the console shift in my G37 by touch, especially when parking. I think that would be impossible to do with the dial or pushbutton selectors. The M-B wand is in the line of vision and saves space but it just seems a little fragile to the touch.
In the 1990s Ford Australia developed the passenger airbag in the Falcon to protect a front centre passenger as well. I assume they carried this through to the end (earlier this year) because you could still get a ute with a bench seat, although the bench seat was dropped from the sedan/wagon in 2002 or earlier (not sure exactly). The ute had a 3-point seatbelt for the centre seat added around the same time, I assume it was not worth doing for the amount of bench seat sedan/wagons they were selling.
Cadillac did this as well, for the DeVille — Cadillac called theirs the “Airbank” or “Air-bank” (I don’t remember how they styled it, but you get the idea).
I agree. It’s a pleasure for me to drive a car with a front bench & column shift on the rare occasion when I get to do so any more.
I feel about center consoles the way that Frank Lloyd Wright felt about basements — that they just get in the way and add unnecessary clutter and complication. To me, a car’s interior works much better and is more flexible with a bench seat.
Amen, Mr. 703.
Like I said in my Impala review a while back, and a position I will maintain for a mighty long time, is that consoles are the vinyl roofs and wire hubcaps of the oughts and teens.
Sad thing is, I’ll need twenty years to be proven correct.
Thank you for saying that. Interiors are being taken over by increasingly stupid size consoles. I despise them and would gladly pay to be able to delete them.
$100 charge to delete console. Will cash do ?
It’s clearly a black-and-white, love-em-or-hate-em issue, but my argument against the bench and column shifter is that it always reminds me of being in a pickup truck or an elderly person’s big old American sedan. Aesthetically, the awkward empty space underneath the center of the dash with a bench seat never quite looks complete to me, and I just don’t find the column shifter to be a convenient location. I like having something for my hand to rest on while driving.
I’m also slim-build and short so I don’t need wide seats. In fact, one thing I like about my car now is that the side bolsters adjust, so I can make the seats even more coddling – good for quick turns. Furthermore, I don’t think I could live without the storage that a center console offers.
Call me Mr. Grey. Give me buckets, floor shift(manually) and no center console. Comfortable/supportive seats, sporty shifter and a nice open interior. Resting my hand? Well, I’ve only driven RWD cars with this elusive configuration, but the driveshaft hump suffices, and carpet under my hand feels way nicer than plastic/pleather/leather under my elbow, and I actually prefer that position.
The storage aspect of the center console is another thing that drives me nuts. Storage reduction encourages minimalism and better organization, the last place I want my clutter to end up is throughout my car, and nothing makes me roll my eyes more than being in someone elses car, lifting the armrest and thinking they should line the console bucket with a trash bag. Yeesh! I’ve got a charging cord and some change in mine, and if it weren’t for the obtrusiveness of the console I’d lean over and put those in the glove box, which is mostly empty as we speak, just paperwork.
I don’t “need” wide seats either. But I also don’t pretend I’m on a race track in a family sedan. I don’t mind consoles and tight buckets in sports cars. This is not a sports car.
F-150s do it the best these days IMO. A flip down console with some storage which converts into a real seat complete with head restraint and shoulder belt. I haven’t seen many consoles with a whole lot of usable space anyway. I find it far more useful to be able to plop my laptop backpack down in that space between the dash and seat. Or my wife’s rather large purse.
Not really sure how that’s an argument *against* a column shift. I mean, I’d love to see how much room my husband’s 2013 Taurus would have with a column shift instead of the large center console it has (the one that’s decried across most of the automotive world for being too large).
And I’m of the opposite mind on consoles-most of them looked grafted in after the fact until 5-10 years ago. Now they just waste space.
Truth be told, one of my favorite features of the 2006 Honda Element I drove for eight years was the fact that there was no large center console, even in the manual transmission versions (like mine). There was a little plastic dealie on the floor that was good for holding drinks and providing a shroud for the parking brake, and that was about it. I could step over it, pull it out to wash it, and it was otherwise unobtrusive. The shifter itself? Integrated into the dash in a location that was absolutely a delight and fell naturally to hand.
In something like a Fiesta ST, a center console’s fine. In something like a Fusion or a Taurus, I think it’d be just fine without it, especially in this era of knob and button automatics.
Minivan-style. Nothing wrong with that, also much better than a huge console with small storage cubbies. Also love the shelf.
Other than the shifter that’s a similar layout as the last-gen Ridgeline, whose interior I liked but which was derided by the press as looking “outdated”. The new Ridgeline’s interior isn’t nearly as practical.
Agreed…On my B bodies, I regularly used the three across seating for 5-7 passengers depending on whether I was driving my sedan or wagon. It was great to be able to haul the whole family and our guests in one vehicle.
This a capability that I miss today. I guess minivans have taken over this role.
Chevrolet export markets got a different Lumina, Middle eastern buyers have a rebadged Holden to drive until recently that was a 3.8 Buick powered Catera but the newer models are the Australian designed car, some become lost in transit and end up in NZ looking for all the world like a Commodore with a bowtie which is what they are, so how bad was the US model that the General did that?
The other Chevrolet Lumina from the same time, fitted with the 3800 V6 or LS V8 and auto or manual and multi-link rear suspension RWD and quite good build quality. You can see why, when offered a choice, GM divisions overseas in the Middle East, Africa, and South America chose a LHD Holden Commodore rebadged as a Chevrolet Lumina over a ‘real’ Lumina. A vastly superior car in every respect than any W body, and not just because of RWD. The USA got one version of this car as the Pontiac GTO. Imagine four door, wagon, LWB luxury and Ute versions as well. And AWD for snow conditions.
I thought I remember the second generation Lumina dispensing with some of the “progressive” parts the first generation had. The rear suspension lost its transverse leaf spring and resorted to a strut type suspension and the horrendous disc brakes gave way to rear drums. The dash board also went more conventional with Chevy abandoning the horrible two piece system that made it “easier to assemble”
An improvement for sure, no more Luminas with their butts dragging on the ground like a dog with clingers on carpet…
With all the ad dollars GM spent on the Lumina, I’m surprised Motor Trend didn’t make it their Car Of The Year for 1995.
Call me crazy, but I actually liked the styling of these. The car underneath was mediocre, sure, but I find this generation Lumina much easier on the eyes than, say, the riot of bulges and angles on a current Civic or Prius. To each their own, though.
Count me in as someone who also likes the styling of these cars. To me the design is simple and functional and looks good from any angle. You don’t have awkward shapes, bulges, and character lines running all over the place like many newer cars. I also don’t mind the first generation’s styling either. Even the interior design looks okay from the pictures, though given my experience with the contemporary Pontiacs I can imagine the quality of the materials left much to be desired.
I think when it became the 8th generation Impala in 2000 it was pretty good. Most of the problems had been sorted out.
On the subject of column vs. console shifters I am ready for both to go away. Transmission controls are electronic anyway. Why not control the transmission with the simplest, lowest weight, least intrusive device possible. That would be buttons or a dial on the dash.
“On the subject of column vs. console shifters I am ready for both to go away. Transmission controls are electronic anyway. Why not control the transmission with the simplest, lowest weight, least intrusive device possible. That would be buttons or a dial on the dash.”
This depends on the use or application. I have towed, (and backed a lot of trailers in challenging situations), and having either a column or console shift in your hand, where you can easily feel the shift from R – N – D is critical when you are looking backwards, backing and turning on an incline, and holding the brake and gas to increase the engine speed under brakes – all at the same time. Looking and leaning forward to the dash to find some buttons or a dial at such a time would be unimaginably difficult. Even a dial on the console sounds awful in such circumstances.
Depends on how they were implemented. There’s no reason a dial couldn’t have good tactile feedback in a handy location. Buttons may be a bit tougher.
Or, some clever electronics engineer could build a handheld device to control the transmission. The device could be connected via USB or even Bluetooth. I would only be needed in situations like Dave B. describes but it could be very helpful then.
I don’t get all the hate lumped onto this car, for simply being what it is: A bland, boring, frumpy yet reliable basic midsize family car. ANYTHING in that category is going to be pretty much the same. I can see knocking that segment for being a total snoozefest, but to single out one car is a bit ridiculous. Those grannies and cheapskates who just want honest reliable wheels would be equally well served by pretty much anything in the segment. If youre expecting something sexy and exciting then youre in the WRONG place, my friend. There were Camaros, corvettes, Blazer Xtremes, and Z24’s on those same lots for that. Those ‘cool kids’ who turn their nose up at bench seats and column shifters likely wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in ANY family car. Burning the Monte Carlo at the stake for failing at its mission is much more fair game.
What Im seeing here is about as ridiculous as a metalhead buying a Miley Cyrus album and then complaining that its not Metallica, and hating on Miley. Guess what, Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga or Nickelback aren’t going to scratch that itch any better.
I thought Brendan made it pretty clear why he considers this a deadly sin: this was a cheap redesign that gave up at competing with Camry/Accord/Taurus, had a terrible interior and was built to a cost. I completely disagree that everything in that category was the same. If my company had a fleet pool and I kept getting a ’94 Camry every day and then suddenly somebody else took it and gave me a Lumina, I would not have been happy. Two very, very different cars.
Gads, this reminds me of something from long ago, around 2004 or 2005…
When I lived an hour north of Kansas City, my neighbor across the street dumped his mid-90s Camry for a Lumina like our featured car.
Upon talking to him one day, I asked what the story was. He said the Lumina had belonged to his mother and she had quit driving. He hadn’t driven the Lumina prior to then, but quickly found it to be much more comfortable to drive than he did the Camry. So he dumped the Camry.
I usually found GM cars back then to be “comfortable” even when the rest was pretty atrocious.
Ive never been a fan of camrys either. Ill allow they have very good build quality and to question that toyota makes a reliable product is delusional. But that’s really the best that can be said. Every camry or corola ive ever driven/ridden in has felt like it was made out of a big beer can. Lightweight and rattle free but also incredibly fragile. The interiors are generally depressing and dull. The tinniness of the body panels sounds like you’re going down the road in a culvert pipe. And when choosing squirrels for the running wheels under the hood of some of their cars, toyota picks the runt of the litter. My sisters ’85 Supra and the ’04-ish Celica GTS i test drove were the only toyotas ive ever driven that impressed me in any way.
These GM W bodies interior sucks since you can watch them fall apart…par for the GM course. Handling can be decent if spec’d properly and power WAS available. I guess the point is if you want to distill a car down to the lowest denominator and aim it at the buyer who is least enthusiastic about the product, corners will be cut somewhere. And while a dumpy blob like this would NEVER defile my garage, it’s hot sexxy sister (Grand Prix GTP with supercharged 3800) wouldn’t be a bad ride.
” The interiors are generally depressing and dull. The tinniness of the body panels sounds like you’re going down the road in a culvert pipe.”
I don’t see how someone could even dream of dissing a 92-96 gen Camry for a “depressing” interior or bad NVH characteristics relative to anything else in the class, or hell any number of much newer midsize cars. Likewise the engine comments. The build quality and materials on a Camry of that generation surpass not only current midsizers, but a good number of entry level luxury marques IMO. To say nothing of the laughable interior of the Lumina we’re discussing. Same for NVH engineering: Toyota was on another level in this regard relative to the class. The 3.0L V6s are gems that rev willingly and smoothly, and pair very well with the 4spd Aisin autos. I doubt we’ll ever see a mainstream midsize sedan ever engineered and overbuilt to the extent that the 92-96 Camry and sister ES300 were. They were designed/built under some pretty unique circumstances IMO.
Nowhere in this article do I single out just the Lumina a boring and bland car. Bland and boring is certainly the norm in the midsize family sedan class, and I don’t take issue with that. My issue in the Lumina’s styling is that it lacked graceful proportions and was about 3 years or so behind the competition in its exterior design.
My main fault in this car is that it lacked the refinement of the cars it competed against, and was a terrible “I give up” effort from GM, doing essentially a re-skin of an 8-year old car for what was the most important non-truck segment in the industry.
It’s even sadder that it wasn’t all that much cheaper than competitors, and clearly any cost savings didn’t do it much benefit. Consumers gladly opened up their wallets a bit more for something else. Just look at its sales figures.
This segment is not one that often rewards radical ideas, but its demands for competence and polish are pretty exacting. It’s not unlike ordering a hamburger in a regular sit-down restaurant: People don’t generally expect anything especially novel in the conception or presentation of a $10 hamburger, but they damn well expect it to be properly prepared, and if it’s overcooked or obviously under-done, they’re going to be pissed.
I owned two 1996 Lumina’s. They were both the LS models with the floor shifter option and were pretty loaded up examples. The first car was white with the burgundy interior which drew much praise from other owners with there depressing grey interiors. It had the 3100 and pretty much every feature save a moonroof. It was a great car in most every way. A year later it was sadly totaled in a bad accident when a careless drunk ran a stop light and smashed the side of my car into oblivion in 1999. I walked away with a few bruises nothing more! I liked it so much I went out and bought another. this time in black with a grey interior and the much maligned 3.4 twin Cam motor. This car also sported an FE3 suspension and handled better than the 3100 car. It went well over 120 K trouble free miles with but one timing belt replacement, tires and brakes.
Both of these cars were very smooth, quiet and solid feeling and I much preferred them to the fish Taurus of the same year. And while it’s easy to crap on the interior styling nothing ever broke or wore off or went wrong on either car and the seats held up just fine and were comfortable enough for my bad back.
Dad liked my 1996 Lumina’s so well he bought a cleaned used 1999 LS around 2005 with 80K miles. It was that pewter color with tan cloth interior and moonroof. He kept that car until a few years ago when it reached over 200K miles and still ran flawlessly on it’s original engine and transmission with a new intake gasket the only item that needed repaired. A college student had it several more years but then smashed the car during the Winter so it served both us and her quite well until that happened.
While I’m hardly a snob about interiors I have to agree that the Lumina was particularly awful. These also had horrendous panel gaps where the doors met the fenders and you could just tell the engineering tolerances for the body panels and hardware was so subpar. I can still feel those big, clunky flimsy exterior doorhandles and the “mushy” loose feel when you lift up on them to unlatch the door. (They reused those same handles on the Aztek/ Rendezvous a few years later, randomly). The doors of the 1992- 96 Camry, with triple seals and super tight tolerances were night and day compared to this car.
Like other people have already said, the underlying problem with the Lumina was the W platform itself. The bad tolerances, terrible hardware and low squishy seats were present in all 4 generations and didn’t go away when they re named it Impala. It was simply designed in, and no amount of stylistic updates could rectify the issues.
One thing I do like about these cars and this platform is that they are very quiet and smooth on good roads and they cruise the highway pretty well. The 3.1 liter V6 is also very smooth at idle. They’re not so great over really bad roads with big potholes and they handle like a waterbed, but at least they’re reasonably comfy to ride in most of the time. Then again, so is a Camry….
When my Dad was looking at new cars in 1995 we looked at the Lumina, again, after being disappointed by the previous generation Lumina. Dad is a white collar union guy (this used to be a thing) for Southern Bell/AT&T so no foreign cars. He had heard at some point in the ’70’s that Fords had “loose steering” so no Taurus. I also think the Taurus’ Transmission problems were very well documented by then.
The Lumina was awful in that chain restaurant, Golden Corral, mediocre awful way, that well-if-it’s-cheap-enough-and there’s-enough-of-it-they-won’t-really-care kind of awful, that kind of awful that comes with a heaping slice of indifference. I understand a family sedan is generally not going to be a Porsche, but come on- the Grand National just a few years before was a family sedan with a ridiculous engine. All the G bodies were roomy, quiet, had rich, creamy power with the V8, plushy interior materials in Brougham form, and drove really well. GM was capable of better, you knew it, and they knew it. I never cared for the lumpy styling of the Camry, but the Camrys and Accords used beautiful interior materials and felt rich and luxurious. The Taurus was roomy and drove well, although the dash was really ugly.
The Grand Prix, Regal, and Cutlass Supreme offered much better styling inside and out and overall a better feel, although perhaps not quite Taurus/Accord levels. Subsequent Lumina/Impala/Lacrosse generations were no better. The 97-03?4? Grand Prix, Intrigue, and Regal were the nicest of the W Bodies. They addressed all the Luminas interior and exterior styling deficiencies and drove and handled better, and then the subsequent generations got cheaper and worse. The Century was pretty awful as a W body.
Somebody must have liked the styling somewhere because Hyundai copied it for one of the Sonatas.
I have no doubt many people found these to be mechanically sound cars, but no one could conceivably be enthusiastic about these or recommend them to a friend who was considering purchasing a car.
I agree with the DS label. To be clear, this was probably as good of a used American car as a person could find in this segment. Just like a 72 Dart was as good of a used American car as someone could find in the late 70s or early 80s. But GM didn’t become GM by building good cars that didn’t sell that well, had terrible resale and were prized by tightwads who either couldn’t or wouldn’t buy a car new.
The original Lumina was a bit polarizing, but it at least had a style. This one had all of the personality removed.
I worked with a lawyer whose father stopped driving. His second-ever new car had been one of these, loaded up very nicely, including a sunroof. The car was pristine and had very low miles. My friend wouldn’t for a minute consider driving it. He never said so, but I knew him well enough to know that it would kill him to be seen in it. He knew what it was, and even as a longtime GM driver, he sold it cheap to someone.
The DS was that insular GM was too cut off from the outside world to compete by then. Was this to compete with Toyota, Honda and Ford? Or was it to be cheap so as to undercut Olds and Buick for fleet sales? It was like the IU basketball team of around 2005 trying to run the same plays as the national championship team of 1981 or 87, without a clue that they no longer had the talent.
A lot has already been said about the Lumina, so I’ll add just one thing:
Garbage. Utter garbage, and the worst car out of 30 that I’ve owned, by a large margin.
“Die-hard brand loyalists who did not cross-shop with other brands and would’ve drove off in a new Lumina even if it was on fire”
^HAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!^ That line made me laugh my ass off! Gotta be some kind of award!
I have never liked this generation Lumina. Too many horizontal lines. All I see are lines that mean nothing, and a rounded roof dropped on the top of the body, sort of emulating the bubble top look of the 1961 Impala sports coupe (and 1962 Bel Air). The design didn’t work on any level for me, and I sure tried to imagine how it would work, but I could never reconcile it in my mind.
No sale. Ever.
“Die-hard brand loyalists who did not cross-shop with other brands and would’ve drove off in a new Lumina even if it was on fire”
That’s the line of the day, folks! LOVE it.
Count me a die-hard Chevy fanatic from the age of ten. As I’ve confessed multiple times over the years on CC. Next year I’ll turn 60.
I still wouldn’t own a Lumina under ANY circumstances. A N Y. Ever.
During these years I ran an ’85 C-10 with the 4.3/stick and an ’89 Caprice wagon that would be transformed from its 307 Olds-induced stupor in 1996 with a 350 TPI from an ’87 Firebird Formula 350.
Couple years back, I had a chance to drive the final incarnation of the W-body, a 2012 Impala with the final and only V6 they had that year, 300 HP IIRC. I LOVED how it accelerated to 125 MPH in seemingly no time flat! I HATED how it drove with that stupid GM FWD feels-like-the-entire-nose-of-the-car-is-going-to-fall-off-any-minute-now feeling…that falling apart feeling I felt with EVERY SINGLE GM FWD I ever drove – except my ’88 Corsica – until they redesigned the suspension to yield a more premium, solid feeling.
So as I’ve stated in other threads, that’s how a Sonic feels more solid, planted and enjoyable to drive than even a Cadillac DTS of a decade ago.
I SO wanted to like the Nascar edition/Supercharged Montes of the early 2000’s, but I knew in my heart they were total POS’s underneath, having been related to the total POS Luminas.
DEADLY. FREAKING. SIN. Everything wrong with the General in those years, wrapped up in one single car.
Maybe they could cheap out a bit on Beretta/Corsica or Cavalier if they had to, but with no H-body Bowtie and the Bs heading to pasture in an Impala SS blaze of glory…
This. Is. The. One. They. ABSOLUTELY. Needed. To. Get. Right.
I don’t know that I agree with the DS on this particular car. While I come from an environment that still thinks well of GM, these cars were not popular enough to be cherished.
However, what I think we see here is the leftover effluvia of GM’s 1980’s era mistakes. Too many divisions, too many models all fighting and searching for their place on the Sloanian ladder and against other stronger competitors. I think, finally, in the 1990’s that someone at GM got a clue and realized that Chevy was supposed to be the entry to the GM product ladder. The cars reflect that, IMO. There was the whole series of bland-ish sedans, a few that could be optioned up to something more special, but that job was left for the other divisions. But they had to unwind GM from it’s divisional confusion (not completely achieved, but much better after 2009), while trying to find a way to keep all of these divisions alive. Eventually, they would give up on Oldsmobile of their own accord (no pun intended) and the Automotive Task Force would ask for the figurative heads of Pontiac and Saturn on a platter later on.
Like others noted, the car was fairly solid and stolid, fitting within the parameters of “appliance-like” as much as North American GM could muster. I sense the disgust is with the base cars (usually rental ones) here, but the base car Camry or Accord or Taurus could be pretty harsh too. I drove all of them back in the day and only the Taurus was the only one I really wanted to drive more. I will say this, GM was delivering the worst seats back then; I drove a number of rentals and nothing hurt my back more than the standard GM seats. The other back breaker was the Camry, they were hard as rocks when new. My FIL had a series of Camrys, and even after several years the seats never seemed to get any softer. I don’t know which was worse.
I like the previous generation of Lumina better, I’ve spent a lot of seat time in them (painful as it was) and there were facets of them that just appealed to me more. Maybe the Honda Accord-aping seating and window beltlines, maybe the rasp of the Euro 3.1 V6. This version of Lumina did seem like a melted verison of the original, but not out of step with the times, either. I’m in no hurry to find one of these as a collector car, but if I were to come across a nicely preserved LTZ model, I wouldn’t kick it out of the driveway, either.
Not much to add as I’m commenter #90-something, but this car simply can’t be a DS because its development was so cheap and it began from a position of already sub-par sales success. This car was a placeholder which didn’t see any major loss of sales. If this car is a deadly sin, the 2000 and 2006 Impalas are DSs too.
If anything, this car represents some wising up on GM’s part, as expensive or needlessly complex components were jettisoned, cheapening production costs. No more leaf springs, no more rear discs, no more Tech IV (less production complexity).
My experience with these cars shows that they were quieter than the equivalent Taurus and had gutsier engines. Speaking of which, if we did FORD deadly sins, the ’96 Taurus definitely qualifies: it was pricey to develop, saw a loss in marketshare, and was overall a disappointment.
I think a Lumina of this generation with the 3.8 would actually make a pretty satisfying car, if you magically defied gravity and didn’t have to deal with the seats.
Long ago I wrote a Ford Fubar on an ’80 Thunderbird. It might be time to revive that as the ’96 Taurus did just that to the Taurus name.
Makes you wonder if one could expand the DS idea to other automakers, but then Ford never had to accept any funds, so I guess in the most technical sense, per the original DS rules, we can’t really do Ford DSs. But if we could, Ford’s massive investment in an ambitious and flawed ’96 Taurus really should count.
Yes, the Taurus had the potential to rule the American sedan landscape and the ovaltine-Taurus destroyed that overnight. Who designed anyway, and what on earth led to that design?
You should check out “Car: A Drama of the American Workplace” by Mary Walton. She was given incredibly insider access at Ford during the development of the third-gen bubble Taurus, and that insight and development are the focus of the book. And, it’s an easy and surprisingly entertaining read.
Short version: They had two goals: Beat Camry and do what the 1986 Taurus did-revolutionize the automotive landscape. So effectively they swung for the proverbial fences; great if you connect, but much riskier and bigger chance of striking out.
The problem with Ford’s approach regarding the 1996 Taurus was that it failed to realize that the company was not in the same position in the early 1990s that it was in the early 1980s.
In the early 1980s, Ford was so far behind GM in this market, and its cars had such little brand equity, that it didn’t have much to lose by taking a huge gamble on the original Taurus.
By 1994, Ford was one of the major players in this segment (and the major domestic player), and the Taurus nameplate had considerable equity. The mechanical and quality updates were welcome, but Ford didn’t really need to bet on controversial styling to get the car noticed.
The design of the original Taurus was driven by genuine functional goals – better aerodynamics on the outside, and better ergonomics on the inside. The company succeeded in meeting both goals while producing a very appealing vehicle. The interior and exterior design of the 1996 model was more about difference for the sake of being different…and it just didn’t work that well.
I’ve read that book. Excellent.
But I think Ford was as clueless about why the Taurus sold so well as GM was in redesigning the Saturn S Series into the ION.
Ford needed not to build a better Camry, but a better Taurus.
Actually, according to my encyclopedia of American cars, sales increased for this generation of Lumina. Numbers were consistently higher than for the initial generation, and that doesn’t include the Monte Carlo. Given how little it cost to refine and rebody the previous design, one could call the car a mild success (though “success” might be too strong a word).
If we want to discuss the Lumina as a deadly sin, it’s hard to cover exactly what distinguishes it from other GM cars from the same era with similar qualities. I mean, can you do Deadly Sin #29: Passenger Cars from the ’90s? The Lumina’s flaws are: atrocious seats, pathetic fit and finish. Other than some Cadillacs, I think most GM cars of the era are guilty of the same shortcomings. Look at a ’98 Camaro or a ’95 Cavalier or a ’98 Grand Am. Same flaws. Same damage to GM’s reputation and eventual decline.
So yeah, I see what makes the ’95 Lumina somewhat of a DS, but not in any way which distinguishes it from other GM cars of the era. There was no massive investment, and no sudden, massive damage to GM’s image. A GM DS has to be distinguished in some way.
Isn’t it enough, as previously explained, that this was a car launched in the market’s most competitive segment and that still fell well short of Taurus/Camry/Accord in sales? Sure, there was no massive investment and no sudden damage to GM’s image but it certainly didn’t help re-establish GM as a bonafide player in the segment. These sold on price and heavily to fleets. The real deadly sin was sloth: a slapdash revision that didn’t improve the interior and didn’t really move the needle in terms of performance or driveability. It added safety features, cut costs elsewhere and wrapped it in more curvaceous sheetmetal. I think Brendan has presented a fair argument as to why this is deserving of Deadly Sin status, and is perhaps more deserving than something like the Pontiac Grand Am.
You make a good point about cutting cost and complexity, but GM wouldn’t have had to slice and dice so badly to restore profitability if they weren’t already hurting so badly from a series of poor mistakes, including the mismanaged GM-10 program. I don’t think the consumer really benefited from those cost-cutting decisions, and there still would have been plenty of incentives on the hood.
I hear your point about many of the Lumina’s flaws being present in other 1990s GMs, but if you look at other GM mid-sizers they did a better job of tackling those rivals. The ’97 Malibu was better-packaged – the W-Body was always slightly too big for a mid-size, too small for a full-size. The Regal was a more attractive package inside and out with good powertrains. The Grand Prix had plenty of style and was very popular. The Lumina was just a lazy, cheap effort… It’s like they didn’t try too hard because it was a Chevrolet and it was therefore the “budget” mid-size (no pun intended).
As for the Taurus, if it had been released with less polarizing sheetmetal the story would have been very different. The development program for it was excellent with defined goals and lots of effort (and yes, money) invested in making it a legitimate Camry contender.
Important distinction that needs to be sorted: Sure, sales increased. Is that in absolute numbers or is that in terms of share of the market? If absolute numbers increased while share decreased (because of market size changes or whatever), then obviously that’s a different story than “Lumina did better.”
“…but GM wouldn’t have had to slice and dice so badly to restore profitability if they weren’t already hurting so badly from a series of poor mistakes…” But they were, so they did. It’s fun to play “what if,” but looking at gen-2 Lumina, we have to look at what GM had to work with by this point. They were already pretty well hammered, had already nearly gone bankrupt, and had a couple decades of market loss and bad press against them. To my mind, then, the question becomes what could GM have done with what they had where they were. Was GM even capable of making Lumina into a Camry/Accord/Taurus-besting product? Did their brand structure allow them to make Lumina that nice without stepping on the other brands to their detriment? Did they even have the manufacturing and financial resources to pull it off?
And I think one’s hypothesized answer to those questions determines whether one thinks this was a Deadly Sin. In one hypothesis, GM could and should have. In the other, GM did well considering what they had and didn’t make things worse (as was all too often the case after the mid-1970s).
Brendan makes a compelling argument, but I think it’s, at the very least, fairly debatable (which is to say that reasonable people can fairly argue on either side of the question). I’m inclined to agree that the second-gen Lumina is a particularly bad example of GM design, even as the 1990s go. I think GM did not do the legwork they needed, nor did they invest the money they needed, to really make Lumina genuinely better than it had been. This one was newer, but I’d argue it wasn’t notably improved in terms of the state of the art and the state of the market over what the 1990 Lumina was in 1989. It somewhat caught up to the state of the art but absolutely didn’t make it, let alone exceed it in any way meaningful or otherwise.
But, I think Perry’s points are also fair. Not every car can win, and it’s fair to argue that GM had too many headwinds going into the second-gen Lumina for them to be the winner. Said another way, I think it unfair to require that every car GM made be the “silver bullet.” It’s the same thing Detroit faced for years-every new development, new project, new mayor, new anything was going to be the thing that “saved” the city. But that’s impossible. No casino or stadium or single leader could do such a thing. It took enough members of the public realizing the scale of the problem and deciding that Detroit was worth saving, which compelled leadership to take a new look at old problems. And Detroit’s a long way off, but things have demonstrably gotten better.
Same for GM. People realized the enormity of the problem and decided it was worth saving, which meant leadership (federal and at the corporation) have/are taking a new look at old problems and making some real headway. But, it’s not fair to expect that one or two odd cars from the 1980s or 1990s were going to the thing that saved GM. It’s an impossible lift, and suggesting that any GM that couldn’t do that lift was a Deadly Sin isn’t fair.
Could GM have done more with Lumina in a reasonable feasible manner? History tells us yes. We saw from Regal and Grand Prix that GM was capable of a lot more, even with the W’s even at the same time even with the same resources even with the same headwinds as the Lumina had.
But, if we look at a world where GM had the same constraints going into the gen-2 Lumina refresh but luxed it up a bit more, we could very well be having the argument that GM made the Chevy too nice and ate into the sales of the Pontiac and the Oldsmobile and the Buick and hurt the corporation overall. We’ve seen myriad permutations of that same argument on this site time and again.
So aside from a cursory admonition to “do better,” what do we, the commentariat of 20-some years later tell 199x General Motors to do to make Lumina more successful? We agree that Lumina did not set the markets ablaze, even if it was more successful than its predecessor.
I enjoy reading your posts, so please don’t take this as any sort of invective directed at you or anything like that. I”m just bouncing ideas out of genuine curiosity.
Xequar, I didn’t take ANY of that as invective. It was an extremely well thought out post, and it’s another reminder of how great this website is that we have such a diverse, thoughtful and respectful community that we can be having such a thought-provoking and civil conversation in the comments. How many websites can you say that about?
Thank you for the compliment as well. As a quick aside, you haven’t done a COAL series have you? I’m curious what has been (and what is) in you and your husband’s garage.
You’re spot on about every next GM being the next “big” thing that would “save” the company. Having been a regular visitor to GM Inside News until recently, it always felt like whenever a car launched and proved to be disappointing or a slow seller or slightly flawed, the next car was going to show everyone GM was back. I remember the phenomenon when the Pontiac G6 launched, and then the Aura, and then the Malibu. One car won’t change perceptions or fortunes overnight… It takes time. And I think Chevrolet is really turning a corner now with three successive generations of above-average Malibus, two generations of competitive Cruzes etc.
You’re right about the headwinds GM faced in the 1990s. And you’re also right GM did better themselves with the Grand Prix et all. That’s what makes the Lumina even more frustrating. I think a large part of that is the need to shelter the higher-priced brands on the GM ladder. Ford benefited from a weak Mercury because they could reach higher with cars like the Thunderbird and Taurus SHO… and now that Mercury is out of the picture, every Ford has a Limited or Platinum or Titanium and they seem to be selling. Chevrolet has dragged their feet and only now launched the Silverado High Country, is only now rolling out Premier trim level sedans which appear to be a little higher than the LTZ in spec, etc etc
To be honest, the fact that GM not only could have done better, but also did do better with this platform in the form of the Grand Prix, Intrigue, and Regal — and the attendant indication that the Lumina got the short end of the stick in styling, materials, etc., to avoid infringing on its costlier siblings — is itself a pretty strong qualifier for DS status. It makes this a different story than, say, criticizing the ’50s independents for choices they didn’t have the money or resources to have made.
“Isn’t it enough?”
Well, I suppose it could be. You don’t make a bad argument, but what’s true about this car is true for GM across the board at the time. So there’s nothing which makes this car stand out as a DS. Labeling this car a DS really strikes me, as an earlier reader commented, as virtue signaling.
If you want to take a GM car from this era which is a better contender for DS status, there are better options:
-Cavalier… the Lumina could be called better than the Taurus with regard to power trains and overall value. It was very mediocre, yes, but there was nothing breaktakingly bad about it outside of fit and finish.
Now the Cavalier is a different story. Everything wrong with the Malibu was wrong with the Cavalier, AND it had a bad pwoertrain, AND it wasn’t quiet, AND it wasn’t particularly safe in a wreck. It played in JUST as important of a market segment.
-’97 Malibu. Another critically important opportunity to go head to head with imports lost. It’s less deserving than the Cavalier of DS status, because it had some of the Lumina’s virtues, but it was touted as being a new, sophisticated import-fighter in a way Lumina was not when it was just a rehashed X-body. It was flimsy like the Cavalier, where the W-body cars were actually pretty solid.
-’95 Blazer. A car developed on the cheap in a segment with big profits, it was unsafe, of poor quality in terms of assembly, had poor rear seat room and was famously unreliable. And it was meant to compete with the brilliant Grand Cherokee and user-friendly Explorer.
-’97 U-body minivans. Again, it went head to head with the brilliant ’96 Chrysler vans and compelled no one not to buy from the Pentastar. It was unsafe and unreliable. The Chryslers were merely unreliable.
Lumina #2 is far from a DS and does not suffer from the same expectations and poor timing Lumina #1 did.
You make some excellent points, although I loathe the term “virtue signalling”. I would take them all as Deadly Sins. And they’ve all helped fuel the perception of Chevrolet being a budget brand, not on par with Honda and the like. Fortunately, GM started turning that around in the late-2000s with the ’08 Malibu, the Cruze, second-gen Equinox etc.
The Blazer was pretty crappy while Ford was selling Explorers hand over fist. The Venture was a “playing it safe” redesign that was hampered by poor reliability, quality and a Europe-friendly width. The Cavalier was nothing special when launched and nothing good when axed. The Malibu was an okay car but the hype was overblown. Etc etc. I could quite easily see Deadly Sin articles written about all of these.
You’re right that Lumina 2 didn’t suffer from the same expectations as Lumina 1, but I think that Chevrolet didn’t really play the car up to be a world-beater. They didn’t let Mary Walton sit in on the development. It was a cost-conscious redesign. But I still say this was a major concession for GM’s biggest-volume brand in the biggest passenger car market segment and I think it is as worthy of DS status as the Cavalier, Blazer, Venture and Malibu.
Again, this has been a great discussion.
I agree with William here, but I think it’s worth adding here that a significant difference between the Cavalier and Lumina, is that the Lumina represented a mainstream American market segment that GM, and particularly Chevrolet, had once actually cared about.
The ’90s Cavalier had some parallels in that it also showed strong signs of its makers having long since abandoned any thought of making it anything other than a dollar-store value special. However, I think the Cavalier also inherited GM’s longstanding contempt for small cars; there was a pretty sizable contingent who clearly felt that this was never going to be a segment where they could make any real money and that therefore didn’t need to be a No. 1 priority.
The Lumina was a different story. This was a big family sedan, the successor — much more than the final-generation B-body — of the Impala. It was a mass-market entry in a segment where it was possible to make a healthy unit profit, which is the sort of thing Chevrolet used to dominate. And yet it was phoned in. I think that’s pretty shameful.
So, both the Cavalier and the others Perry mentions are certainly sinful, but some sins are deadlier than others. (Which sounds like the tagline for some perfectly awful action movie.)
When comparing sales of the two generations of Luminas, remember that the first Lumina was introduced just as the economy was sinking into a recession. Then gas prices began to spike over fears generated by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the first Gulf War.
The economy began to recover in late 1992, but by that point, the Lumina was old hat.
The second generation was introduced when the economy had fully recovered, and new-car sales were still on the upswing.
I never understood this series and was wondering the same thing. Wasn’t the downsized ’78 G-body also a deadly sin? That would seem so different, and better, than the Lumina. Did the G-body really contribute to GM’s decline? I don’t think so. It was a unique offering. The Lumina was as generic as the rest of the stuff from the 90s. The industry is still affected from the sins of that decade. Wasn’t a problem unique to GM.
How was the G-Body a deadly sin?
You make a good point about everybody making some bland cars in the 1990s, like the ’97 Camry, ’97 Accord etc etc. But as Brendan has stated, he doesn’t deem the Lumina a DS purely because it’s bland or generic.
I thought I saw a ’78 Grand Prix DS fly by the other day so I checked and sure enough it’s there. I guess the point could be that it wasn’t as good as the Colonnade GP but wait I just noticed the ’76 Malibu is a DS too. Interestingly the Malibu is photographed next to the new Accord to make a point about the Malibu’s gluttony. But the new GP was too small and not imposing enough?
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t 😉
I think the Lumina is a proper DS by the way.
Actually, according to my encyclopedia of American cars, sales increased for this generation of Lumina. Numbers were consistently higher than for the initial generation, and that doesn’t include the Monte Carlo. Given how little it cost to refine and rebody the previous design, one could call the car a mild success.
That’s what I recall as well. I certainly recall seeing tons of these on the road in the day (SE-MI).
And I would argue that it was more than just a mild success – W-Car remained in production for over a decade after the Gen 2 redesign. Even at the end, the W-Car Impala was arguably a better buy than the (cramped and overpriced) Epsilon Malibu.
At this point in time GM’s benefits for workers was costing them a significant amount for each car the were making, or, worse, cars that they had expected to be making but were not. Basically, as sales declined, the benefits per car increased. The only way out was bankruptcy. They might have been able to do something sensible in the early 60’s about how to account for benefits, but by the 70’s they were doomed.
These didn’t age so well, particularly in the rust-belt.
Body – The “deadly” failures included the body’s rear strut anchor pockets that rotted away in an impractical-to-repair fashion, killing the car.
Also, sometime in this era GM reintroduced a retro-failure that had been gone for a good 30 years, the rot-A-way rocker panel. What, some penny-pincher tossed the Cliff Note on using coated steel for rockers?
As if not to break with tradition, GM brought on another version of its specialty… the cold morning snap-A-way exterior door handle.
Almost nothing like a snapped-off handle on a cold morning to let customers know in an in-your-face way how little they’re valued.
Well, almost nothing… except maybe for an anti-theft system that would habitually malfunction and keep an owner from starting their car.
Before the workaround hacks became common knowledge the no-starts must have been a bonanza for dealers.
Mechanically – As they aged the 3.1 engines had a healthy appetite for “big job” gaskets and camshafts.
The optional dual-overhead cam 3.4L, along with producing the mentioned “respectable output of 210 horsepower and 215 lb-ft torque” also created respectable amounts of shop-work for major engine repairs. They fell sooner and created plenty of early write-off cars to be cannibalized by the survivors.
Appearance – The cheesy OE “WalMart” wheel covers. Gimme a break, could they be any more chinsy?
Alloy wheels were okay.
Sorry for such a downer as a first post, but I have to put ’em in the Deadly Sin category.
Jim: you forgot GM legacy intermediate steering shaft clunks and problems, ongoing well into the 00s. Even my 99 Cavalier had it.
“The year was 1995…”
FWIW, the ’95 was brought out in spring 1994, early model year intro.
Still, the ‘Lame-ina’ was another “good enough for our employees and their family, friends, etc.” GM car.
I had a friend who rushed out and bought a new Monte Carlo, based on the name alone. He didn’t care that is was FWD and no V8, and wanted “a new one”. I’m sure there were others, since was seen more often then old Lumina 2 door in Chicagoland.
Also, one reason the sales “increased” was that the ’94 MY was shorter, then the 18 month ’95 MY for the Lame-ina.
And all the claims of “it’s a good cheap used car” did nothing for GM’s bottom line. It is a DS since it was a cause of bankruptcy and lost jobs.
Good thing is 20 years later the 2016 Malibu is competitive, no excuses anymore.
I remember seeing a production model of the Lumina for the first time at the 1994 Philadelphia Auto Show, which was held in the middle of January that year. The car was supposed to be at the dealers by that spring.
Per what I stated in the article: “Second generation Lumina sales topped out at just over 264K units for the car’s extended introductory year (going on sale in June 1994)”
Well, at least the subsequent re-stylings and the dumping of the ultra stupid “Lumina” name improved it somewhat when it became the Impala.
Can Lucerne and LaCrosse go next ?
The Lucerne is gone, and I doubt that it will come back. The LaCrosse seems to be here for the time being, Perhaps it will become Roadmaster sometime? More likely a LeSabre though.
Wow, already 150+ comments. This article hit some nerves. It goes to show just how much Chevrolet means to this sampling of car enthusiasts.
I really enjoy reading the articles here at Curbside Classic, as I normally find them pretty relatable in relation to historical prospective of the car’s place in time. However, this one reeks of the author’s negative biased opinions about this car.
First off, the standard bench seat was hardly in indication of being out of touch with consumers. This was still very much a thing for a family sedan in the mid-90s (22 years ago, which is a whole other generation of buyers). As the Lumina’s primary competitor, the Ford Taurus also had a standard bench seat. Over at Dodge, we were only one year removed from the Dynasty which did not even have a bucket seat option. Dodge was still offering up the sportier Intrepid with a no-cost front bench option, of which most base Intrepids I’ve seen have been equipped with. To skip out on it in ’95 would have been unheard of for a domestic midsizer, and would have largely been rejected my middle America. Don’t forget that even Toyota had introduced the bench seat Avalon for 1995. The Lumina did offer bucket seats as an option, but there weren’t many takers.
Secondly, the Camry and Accord were not the intended target market of this car. The Camcords were still largely considered compacts at this time, and the Accord had just begun offering a V6 engine for the 1995 model year. This car was squarely aimed at the Ford Taurus above all else. Chevy had the inadequate Corsica/Beretta, and GM also had the Pontiac Grand Am (and to a lesser extent Achieva and Skylark) aimed at the Camcords. When the Corsica was replaced by the Malibu for 1997, THAT car was aimed at the Camry/Accord. Also, the sales numbers provided don’t paint the whole picture. The Lumina coupe was renamed the Monte Carlo for ’95, and tallied another 100k in sales for a combined tally that outsold the Camry, which was not only available as a coupe, but a wagon as well. Combined Lumina and Monte Carlo sales were still over 200k for the 1999 model year, so they didn’t really tail off that much.
Lastly, styling is subjective, but I remember getting a Lumina brochure somewhere before the car came out, and I thought it was a beautiful sleek, stylish and somewhat futuristic car (I was about 14 at the time). It may have had huge overhangs, but it wasn’t uncommon at the time, and at least the rear overhang was equal to the front avoiding the deadly styling sin of the 86 Toronado and Riviera. Our family ended up renting one for vacation in 1997, and I remember it being reasonably comfortable and providing plenty of legroom for me in the back, and enough cargo space for our luggage.
In the end, this generation of Lumina largely served its purpose in life. It was a car that was designed for people that weren’t car enthusiasts. It was comfort and space, on a budget, and largely appealed to those whose only idea of “car care” is when it didn’t run, they cared. The kind of person that walks into Pep Boys for a part, and can’t answer the “what engine do you have?” question. …V6… – Which one? In some ways quite similar to the Camry/Accord buyers, but people were buying those cars for the quality and reliability reputation, even at the expense of space or comfort.
I have always found these cars to be ugly. I didn’t like them when they were new and I still don’t. Compared to what else was out there at the time, and really based on the overall feelings of the era, with all the new modern tech and new modern aesthetics of things overall in the mid-90’s, GM really phoned it in. I mean, even Chrysler had put major efforts forward with the LH Cars, cloud cars, the Neon twins and of course the vans all during this same time period. The 1995 Lumina is the very embodiment of an “also-ran” in my eyes. It defines the very essence of also ran status to me.
I only had one experience with these cars and it was when I did repo’s for a car dealership. I got the order to go and take possession of the car and went to the woman’s address. When I arrived, she wan’t there. Her upstairs roommate informed me she was at the local LDS Chruch (I lived in Utah at the time) to see if the Bishop would be able to help her pay rent that month. I went to the Church and saw the car there. The woman gave the keys over with no issue and I felt bad for her. I could tell she was going through tough times, but that’s the way that business goes sometimes. Just the nature of the game, especially with BHPH financing.
I had been accompanied by a co-worker who drove me to the car to pick it up. Seeing as how the customer had given me the keys, I proceeded to drive the car back to the dealership. I had never seen a sadder sight. A light blue 1997 Lumina with a dark blue interior. The interior was filthy and overall extremely unappealing. I could tell the customer was a heavy smoker and had somehow broken off the pullout ashtray from under the dash. Her remedy was to simply use the door handle opening in the armrest of the front passenger door as her new ashtray. The door pull was overflowing with old butts and added even more sadness to what would have been a fairly unpleasant cabin to begin with. Interior was fility, trash-filled and stained. I rolled all the windows down and drove the car up I-15 back to the dealership. The handling was sloppy. The engine anemic. I’m sure the neglect from her ownership did this car no favors. And strangely enough, as unappealing as it was to begin with, any car that has nasty filthy owner has my deepest sympathy.
I remember that as being one of the saddest cars I ever spent any time in.
The guys out in the garage had a horrible time trying to recondition it for re-sale as well.
Hopefully that one has been junked and put out of it’s misery.
One area where Luminas excel, FWD mid-size car demo derbies. Though by now, most have been crushed.
The restyled 95’s came out in spring 1994, months before “friends” TV show debuted, and a year before Jen Anniston’s hairdo swept salons. Time in the car market does matter, a year can be a decade difference sometimes.
“… there’s still a huge swath of the country where big comfort is more appropriate and there isn’t a road within 100 miles to test handling upon.”
Fast forward to today, S/CUV’s and 4 door pickups all over. Honda Accord isn’t a big seller, anymore. German brands are pushing UV’s, not “driving machines” aka sport sedans. Sporty wagons are all but dead, even in EU.
The EV push is to have large vehicles without oil use. The days of “a perfect mid-size/compact car as the price of entry” are gone. [maybe?]
God I hope not. Some of us don’t want 3 row SUVs and aren’t sold on the EV trend.
It must’ve been hard for Chevrolet. People’s expectations had changed, and GM management still seemed to be playing catch-up.
They had to produce a bottom-of-the-Sloan-ladder car that people would want to buy – but it couldn’t be so good that the other divisions would complain. Yet it had to be good enough to appeal to Accord-intenders, or face being a marketplace failure. If it sold to fleets in large numbers, this was good for the balance sheet, yet bad for the car’s image with private buyers.
Sounds like being between a rock and a hard place.
Or did we misunderstand its mission? Was Chevrolet deliberately pitching this below the Accord/Camry standard? Was there really a market there? Were the Japanese brands better compared with the Olds or Pontiac, and the Chevrolet regarded as a lesser product, something the Japanese didn’t compete with?
Or maybe GM didn’t really quite know what it was doing.
” Was Chevrolet deliberately pitching this below the Accord/Camry?”
That wouldn’t have even been a question had GM produced a Chevrolet H body. A bit larger than mid size in 1986, by 1990 its dimensions were within inches of the Lumina. A Caprice H body would have had at least as much cache as an Accord. Sort of like the ’59 Impala sedan- which transcended the Sloan-ladder. A car that appealed to upscale “Accord-intenders” before they were even born. Chevrolet already had that car in the H body Caprice, but didn’t even know it.
When these cars debuted, I just assumed GM wasn’t in a financial position to do any better after the losses of the E/K and W body fiascos as well as Saturn. I thought GM had no better option than try to get its money’s worth out of W with the updates for 1995, 1997, 1998, and 2000. The 1997 Malibu seemed to have a lot of J car still in it, despite the independent rear suspension. I don’t think GM had an all new car platform after the Saturn until the Delta and Epsilon platforms debuted in the 2000’s. I know there was the 1995 FWD G body, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that car was mostly the C/H or E/K from the mid 80’s.
One thing that people usually tend to overlook is that everything in this world has it’s time and place, it’s season, if you will. GM ruled in the early to mid-twentieth century and that’s because it was on top of it’s game. But as time goes by, things always change and by the late 20th century, Japanese vehicles were coming into their own and on the ascendency. No one entity can always stay on top all the time. There are cycles to life and this applies to car makers also. Hopefully when one entity is experiencing an off period, they learn to improve and if so, they can then rise again. If not, they will remain on the second string, the “B” team. But time has passed and now the world is truly global with technology so that car makers all over the globe are using parts sourced from their own and other foreign countries. Car makers even build their own cars in foreign countries. Not saying any of this is good or bad, but it is just what it is.
At first glance, the Lumina of this generation looked new – but a closer look revealed a level of cynicism few buyers could have accepted. It looked stunningly cheap, as if it had been extruded from recycled plastics. Nice shape actually, but executed in the cheapest way.
Then the killer was the interior. The cheapest Hyundai or Kia could match the interior look and feel of this Lumina interior. The dashboard knobs were ghastly, made of hollow plastic and seemed right off an old cheap boombox. The shade of gray had the look of dirty toy. The mousefur fabric looked as cheap and thin as it was. The gaps in the seams, the gaps in the panels, and the gaps you saw on the exterior were Saturn-sized.
These were rental vehicles. Big plastic rental cars. Disposable. They were sadness on wheels. The first generation Lumina looked like it tried – this generation looked like it didn’t care one twit what you thought of it. GM extruded this cynical set of wheels into our market and never cared what happened to it.
DRIVER REPORT
Never owned one of these, but did frequently get one as a rental or as a government fleet car.
Once the Army knows you’re retiring, they don’t give you anything important. Pre-retirement assignments are usually pretty mundane jobs that fast trackers planning to continue their career take pains to avoid.
My last duty required me to travel to various western states to evaluate reserve unit training – which usually occurred on weekends. Every Thursday, I’d leave San Francisco, fly to some airport near the unit I was to inspect, then get a rental car and try to find their training location. Predictably eager to be evaluated by some bozo from a distant headquarters, directions to field training sites as provided by units could be remarkably vague. Remember, this was pre-GPS. Finding the units often required exploring some fairly dodgy dirt tracks in a rental or fleet car that was never intended to follow tactical vehicles.
Despite the overhang, the various Luminas I’d drive seemed to have exemplary ground clearance compared to other competing makes. In 3 years of off road use, I never lost an exhaust system, punctured an oil pan or gas tank or otherwise damaged the vehicle. On the occasions I drew something other than a Lumina, I noticed they’d ground themselves more frequently during various weekend off-road adventures.
Was it just dumb luck or did the Lumina really have some hidden off-road chops? I’ll probably never know, but off road ground clearance is the one clear memory I have of driving Luminas. Other than that – a pretty forgettable car.