(first posted 11/26/2016) The introduction of an all-new car typically elicits a reasonable degree of praise from the press. Even if reviews aren’t completely glowing, writers usually try to serve up at least a small dose of compliments, simply to keep advertisers happy if nothing else. But a GM Deadly Sin rightfully earns a deadly write-up, as was the case with the 1985 Oldsmobile Calais Supreme. In the November 1984 issue of Car and Driver, Jean Lindamood ended her Calais review as follows: “…won’t it be embarrassing if, twenty years hence, the division goes under because all its customers have died?” Little did Lindamood know how prophetic her words would turn out to be, or how much damage the Calais would do to the Oldsmobile brand.
Of course, when Car and Driver published the review, no one would have dreamed that Oldsmobile was actually already in deep trouble. For starters, the division typically earned the number three spot for U.S. car sales just behind Chevrolet and Ford, and had been routinely selling 1 million+ units most years since the late-1970s. The Cutlass Supreme in particular was America’s sweetheart, happily residing in the top-ten sellers annually. Olds models also sold at a premium price relative to Chevrolets, so the high volume had the added advantage of spinning lots of cash for General Motors. Surely the corporation would invest to keep that Cutlass cash cow going strong…
After all, Oldsmobile had perfected the formula to appeal to aspirational Americans seeking a solid all-around performer with upscale flair. While the Supreme name had first graced the Cutlass/F-85 mid-size line in 1966 as a top trim level, it wasn’t until the introduction of the Cutlass Supreme hardtop coupe with the new, more formal roofline that the magic Cutlass spell was cast on countless Americans.
The 1970 Cutlass Supreme hardtop coupe married the roofline from the GM G-Body (Pontiac Grand Prix and Chevrolet Monte Carlo) with the regular Cutlass A-Body front- and rear-ends. The resulting car was a “just right” blend of attributes: the handsome styling was slightly sporty and slightly formal, the interior and ride were very comfortable, the standard Olds-built 350 V8 was smooth and powerful. The Cutlass Supreme was pitched to upwardly-mobile Americans seeking an “Escape Machine.” These buyers took the bait in droves: the two-door Supreme sold hundreds of thousands of units annually throughout the 1970s.
In fact, after the Arab Oil Embargo sales for the Cutlass Supreme climbed higher than ever, as buyers found the comfort of a full-size Oldsmobile in a more convenient, mid-size package. For 1976, the Oldsmobile Cutlass was the best selling car in America. For 1977, 424,343 Cutlass Supreme Coupes were sold, quite a feat given that the newly downsized full-sized B-Body Delta 88 models matched the Cutlass on exterior dimensions while being substantially roomier inside. But of course the Delta 88 was just a “nice” big car, while the Cutlass Supreme was a “looker” by the standards of the 1970s—perfect for image conscious buyers seeking to make a bit of a style statement.
Typically, Olds fashioned one of the best looking packages on the market for its mid-sized personal luxury coupes. For the 1978 downsized A-Special coupes, Oldsmobile offered a handsome “waterfall” grille, nicely contoured flanks and a rakish rear-end. Styling continuity was good, as looks were always fresh but still recognizably Oldsmobile. Resulting resale values were also strong, as used car buyers happily snapped up attractive late model Cutlass Supremes.
The GM A-Specials got an “aerodynamic” freshening for 1981, making the cars a bit sleeker and smoother with a slightly improved coefficient-of-drag. Per usual, Olds made the most of the new design direction, with a well-designed “shovel nose” that looked contemporary but still very Oldsmobile. Per the typical GM schedule of the day, this refresh was expected to be good for 2 to 3 years until an all-new successor could appear. Buff books and car preview guides were anticipating new front-wheel-drive replacements for the A-Specials would arrive for 1984.
And that all-new Cutlass Supreme was originally going to have been this car, part of the GM20 N-Body program.
That’s right, when conceived in the late 1970s, the N-body was envisioned to be the replacement for the A-Special personal luxury coupes. Given the mandates for higher fuel efficiency dictated by the U.S. government’s CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards, the N-Bodies would be FWD compacts. Dropping down a size class and targeting buyers seeking stylish, efficient coupes was actually a smart move, given that younger buyers were flocking to the compact size segment in droves. A big key to success for these image-conscious small car buyers was contemporary style. Surely GM’s industry leading Design Studios would crank out a masterpiece for the new N-Bodies…
For decades, much of GM’s success could be attributed to excellent styling. While all talented designers have their highs and lows, legendary design bosses Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell were masters of automotive sculpture and most of the work they oversaw was good to great. Both men also had the bravado to fight hard for strong designs, aggressively pushing back against timid divisional bosses, grumpy manufacturing chiefs and flinty finance executives in order to sell their vision.
That design leadership came to a screeching halt when Mitchell retired in 1977. His legitimate successor, in both taste and temperament, should have been Chuck Jordan. But GM, seeking manufacturing efficiency and perpetual cost cutting, decreed that design no longer mattered. Thus Jordan was passed over for Irv Rybicki, a “go-along to get-along” studio head whose main qualification was that he wouldn’t make waves in the GM executive suite. Rybicki kept the manufacturing and finance teams happy with uninspired, easy-to-build, low cost designs. Who cared if they were ugly and undifferentiated? It was GM, after all, the world’s automotive leader. They could sell anything to anyone, right? You, know, with that famous “Mark of Excellence.”
Rybicki’s ascension ushered in a disastrous era for GM design, as the once-wondrous styling studios were only permitted to send forth boxy, cookie-cutter cars. The J-cars were bland and undifferentiated. The front-wheel-drive A-Bodies were sleep-inducing, with rigidly square greenhouses and minimal divisional identities. Awkward proportions were the hallmark of the front-wheel-drive C-Bodies, making the GM flagships look small and cheap. But the winner of the ugly pageant for GM’s 1985 line-up was the stumpy N-Body.
Looking as though they were drawn by a five-year-old, the N-bodies featured “old-school” formal styling cues forced onto a small platform. The resulting malformed runts were sexy and stylish to basically no one. Arguably, the ugliest of the bunch was from Oldsmobile, the former leader of GM’s mid-sized glamour coupes.
Such a styling disaster would have been bad for any car targeting any segment, but the frumpy Calais was particularly lethal since it was aimed at the enormous Baby Boomer market. Prime years for consumers to buy new cars—and more expensive cars—are when the buyers reach their 30s and 40s. Earlier generations of buyers in this age range had gleefully snapped-up Cutlass Supremes, since they were stylish and functional for the times. But now things were different.
The 1980s were the decade when the leading-edge of the Baby Boom Generation, with people born in 1946 through the 1950s, were “growing up.” Jobs, families and responsibilities took center stage, and Baby Boomers—like every generation of car buyers before (and after)—were looking for relevant, up-to-date products that reflected their style and values.
Detroit lore has it that Baby Boomers rejected American cars to “rebel” against their parent’s choices, deliberately picking imports just to spite patriotic older generations. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, domestics also made the list, if they were innovative and well designed. Boomers happily bought anything that represented a smart solution to meet their needs—for example, the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager were enormously popular with young families, as the Chrysler minivans were a great combination of efficiency and practicality that were far more useful for many buyers than full-size wagons.
The Jeep Cherokee was another example of an innovative domestic that had huge appeal to boomers, and largely paved the way for the SUV boom to fallow.
For rolling image statements in the 1980s, however, many of the best choices did in fact come from overseas. Well-packaged compact cars with refined, fuel-efficient engines and tasteful, subdued international styling were all the rage. The BMW 3 Series was the favorite of “Yuppies” (young, upwardly mobile professionals) who had the means to indulge in a more expensive car.
Japanese sports coupes and compact sedans were also very popular with Baby Boomers. And these cars hit the demographic sweet spot for a huge cohort of buyers: the average age of a BMW 3 Series buyers was 38, a Toyota Supra buyer was 35. GM was swimming into some fiercely competitive waters in the quest for the Boomer buyers. Or any buyers, for that matter—most Cutlass Supreme buyers, regardless of their generation, would have been turned off by a new car that looked like an unattractive, shrunken version of an 8-year-old design…
Perhaps sensing that the GM20 N-Bodies might be a styling bust, GM got cold feet and decided not to make the new N-bodies the replacements for the still strong selling G-Special (né A-Special) coupes. So in a marketing twist that would do Houdini proud, the N-bodies were squeezed in between the compact FWD J-Body and midsize FWD A-Body, roughly in the market segment previously occupied by the much maligned FWD X-Body cars. So the N-Bodies that were meant to be the Buick Regal, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Pontiac Grand Prix needed new names, since their RWD G-Special forbears would remain on the market a bit longer. (Note: Chevrolet opted out of the GM20 N-Body program, which was a smart move–the idea of shrunken Monte Carlo styling cues on an N-Body is nightmare-inducing. However, Chevrolet did ultimately offer an N-Body derived car: the L-Body Beretta/Corsica (aka GM25) that arrived in 1987 was basically a better looking GM20 with a far more attractive roofline.)
What to call the cars, then, since the originally planned names couldn’t be used? Well, Buick simply grabbed the “Somerset” moniker from an old Regal trim package and slapped that in front of the Regal name to create the “new” Somerset Regal.
Over at Pontiac, the division scrambled to replace the name Grand Prix with Grand “something.” How about Grand 3000? Grand Ventura? No, no… got it! Grand Am! Cars with that name had only failed miserably twice, maybe the third time would be the charm (actually, it was—the Grand Am soon became the best selling Pontiac model and the best selling N-body by far).
Olds clearly wanted the linkage with the best selling Cutlass name. For 1982, the division had modified the Cutlass name by adding the nonsensical “Ciera” tag (did they mean Sierra as in the mountains, just with an alliterative twist?) to the FWD A-Body. For the 1985 N-Body, Olds adopted the Calais name from the “sporty” G-Special Cutlass coupe (which once again became the Cutlass Salon for 1985). The Calais was also offered with the more upscale Supreme trim, once again furthering the Cutlass connection. Note: in later years, when it was clear that the N-Body Calais was a bust, Oldsmobile became more overt with the Cutlass name in the hopes of rekindling some magic—the Calais became the Cutlass Calais from 1988 through 1991.
But no matter the name, there was nothing magical about the car. It was the same tired Olds formula made smaller and less appealing. The style, engineering competence and thoughtful features needed to endear the Calais to new generations of buyers were botched. The Car and Driver road test in November 1984 laid out the extent of the damage.
For a car targeting younger Baby Boomer buyers who were increasingly shopping imports, getting the little details right was critically important—but Olds flubbed the assignment. An old-school Detroit strip-style speedometer with blue backlighting was standard (more complete instrumentation or digital instruments were optional at extra cost). The steering wheel spokes, even on the optional “sport” wheel, were mounted at 4 and 8 o’clock, a suboptimal placement for gripping the wheel. The center console storage bin/armrest sat on top of the center mounted parking brake handle, so when the brake was engaged, the console armrest tipped awkwardly back. Embarrassingly sloppy.
Ergonomic flaws paled in comparison to the pathetic powertrains. Here was an all-new design running the same tired engines that had been rattling around in GM’s arsenal for decades. Base power came from the Pontiac Iron Duke 2.5 L four, and provided gruff, uninspiring power to countless GM cars including the X-Body, FWD A-Body, P-Body (Pontiac Fiero) and F-Body. It was essentially one half of a Pontiac 301 V8, an engine that had its roots in the first Pontiac V8 of 1955.
Ironically, GM had to spend money re-engineering the 4-cylinder in order to wedge the engine into the smaller J-Car-based N-Body. Per Car and Driver in July 1984: “it was necessary to trim this four-cylinder engine’s length to fit the available space. A total of 3.7 inches was eliminated by narrowing the front and rear main bearings, moving the end cylinders’ crankshaft counterweights inboard, minimizing the block overhang beyond the end cylinder bores, and sinking the water pump and the cam drive farther into the block.” Leave it to GM to extensively rework a very low-tech engine in order to “make it fit” rather than to design a proper, competitive four, something GM seemed incapable of doing for decades. Surely Boomers would love to rock (literally) an Iron Duke in their new sporty coupe!
The better engine choice for the Calais was the Buick-built 3.0 Liter OHV V6. Yet another “heritage” engine, this mill started life 24 years before the Calais was launched, back when many of the Baby Boomer target audience were little kids. At least the pushrod V6 provided respectable power, though fuel economy was not great at all for a compact. The only transmission choice was a 3-speed automatic—at a time when most key imported competitors were offering 4-speed automatics. As for drivers who preferred to shift for themselves, the 5-speed manual was only available on the 4-cylinder.
Let’s see, horrible styling, dated powertrains, bad seats, ergonomic flubs—why wouldn’t buyers come running? Naturally they didn’t, and Oldsmobile only managed to unload 106,240 Calais for 1985, 24% short of the 140,000 target GM had set for the car. Nor were these units incremental business for Olds, since Firenza sales tumbled 40% for 1985 and the compact Omega was gone, meaning that 86,821 of the Calais sales were really just filling in for the lost volume from 1984 for those models. As for the Cutlass Supreme, that 8-year-old design trounced the Calais: 151,926 of the RWD coupes were sold for 1985. But probably not to a lot of Baby Boomers…
C&D estimated that the Calais V6 as tested price was $12,500, which would equate to $29,082 in today’s dollars—pretty pricey for such an ugly, incompetent car. Plus, let’s think about the competitive set for those Baby Boomer shoppers: an all-new front-wheel-drive Nissan Maxima GL with the impressive 3.0 Liter SOHC V6 and 4-speed automatic would have cost only $1,000 more ($2,327 adjusted). Comparing a Calais Supreme with the Tech IV and 5-speed manual to a 1985 Accord LX 5-speed, adjusted for equipment, and the Calais MSRP was actually $344 ($800 adjusted) more than the Honda. Granted, these imports were selling at or above sticker, while the Calais was surely heavily discounted. But still, the Calais had an eye-popping high price for a car that was so uncompetitive and needed so many options to match the standard equipment on the imports.
If the appallingly bad Car and Driver review wasn’t bad enough to turn off potential customers, then Oldsmobile’s own marketing surely did. Here was a dumpy little car served up with underwhelming, dated engines. So how do you show it off?
That’s right, a modified Calais (convertible conversion) paced the 69th running of the Indianapolis 500. Just imagine watching this dorky little thing make its way around the track ahead of the race cars….
But wait, there’s more: Olds also offered a “limited” production Calais 500 so that buyers could park a piece of Indy history in their driveway. With a standard Tech IV!
And look inside! An interior sure to impress Baby Boomers from coast to coast. Talk about a date magnet!
Did the embarrassing Pace Car marketing really make a difference? Was the enthusiast-oriented Car and Driver’s assessment too harsh? After all, most car buyers weren’t car buffs in 1985, so maybe the mini-me Cutlass Supreme would suffice for some. Then again, maybe not. Consumer Guide 1985 Auto Test provided reviews for both the Calais Supreme and Cutlass Supreme, and once again the new car came up short.
The Consumer Guide test Calais had the optional V6 and sport suspension, which helped elevate the score in several areas. In the same issue, CG tested a Somerset Regal with the 4-cylinder and 3-speed automatic and found it sorely lacking. Their verdict on performance: “GM announces improvements to the 2.5 “Iron Duke” every year, yet it never seems to be enough. With automatic it’s sluggish, plus the transmission is slow to respond to the throttle for downshifts and it will quickly change to a higher gear unless you keep the pedal to the floor.”
The old-fashioned Cutlass Supreme was the preferred choice by Consumer Guide’s testers. Tried and true in every way, it was a comforting throwback for buyers still interested in a large, body-on-frame Detroit icon. However, the classic design did nothing to lower the average age of Oldsmobile buyers.
Having given up on the Calais as a Cutlass Supreme replacement, Olds added a 4-door sedan to the Calais model mix for 1986. At least that way the Calais line could be a more comprehensive replacement for the late, unlamented Omega X-Body. The move did add some incremental volume, as combined Calais coupe and sedan sales hit 151,307 units for 1986 (which would be the high water mark for Calais sales). However, the good ol’ Cutlass Supreme Coupe and Sedan retailed 211,156 units that same year.
Olds could not have been happy with the Calais sales performance. So what did they do? How about an ultra-bland minor facelift to make an already boring front-end even more generic? Hey, at least the car finally got flush, aerodynamic headlights.
What the Calais really needed, aside from a complete reskin, was help under the hood. By the early 1980s, it was clear that multi-valve OHC engines were the wave of the future, given the performance and efficiency advantages of that design configuration. Except General Motors had zero interest. In the book Setting The Pace: Oldsmobile’s First 100 Years, Engine Engineer Tom Leonard noted that “Management didn’t want four valves because…they cost twice as much.” Assistant Comptroller Jim Rucker recounted “We had a devil of a time trying to explain to the corporation that we needed another four-cylinder engine, because at that point we had a J-car engine, a T-car engine (for the Chevy Chevette/Pontiac T1000), and we had the Iron Duke. You add all those up, that is 7000 a day or more—a lot of four-cylinder capacity. What we had to do was prove to the Corporation that (the Quad-4) wasn’t just another engine.” Rucker and the Olds team actually had to buy a Mercedes 190, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry for a management roadshow to demonstrate that “the engines we [GM] had wouldn’t make it into the Nineties and weren’t what we had in mind for the N-Car (Cutlass Calais).” Though The General would ultimately market the Quad-4 as a leading-edge “clean sheet” design, the reality was that they had no desire to produce the engine at all.
This level of ignorance and complacency was shocking, but sadly it represented just another day at GM. Imagine being a talented GM employee suffocating under these clods. To make matters worse, Roger Smith’s disastrous reorganization was put into place during 1984, effectively eliminating independent divisions and consolidating massive North American GM into two gigantic bureaucracies: Buick Oldsmobile Cadillac (BOC) and Chevrolet Pontiac Canada (CPC). Imagine being a loyal Oldsmobile employee now having to tell people you worked for BOC. No wonder nothing got done right, if at all.
The Quad-4 was not done right. When the engine finally debuted for 1988, it did make an impression: a loud one. Corners were cut and the engine was noisy and unrefined. Consumer Guide Auto ’91 dryly noted that the Quad-4s were “the noisiest Calais engines, producing a grating, raspy growl…” Plus, CG pointed out that the Quad-4s developed “their power at much higher engine speeds, so you have to work them hard for brisk acceleration.” Flogging a gruff engine for speed is hardly the dream of any driver, particularly ones tempted by smooth imported 4-cylinders.
Even with the 1988 model year arrival of the Quad-4 and the new FWD W-Body Cutlass Supreme (yet another attempt to replace the old RWD G-Special, which ironically was still being sold as the Cutlass Supreme Classic), Oldsmobile sales continued the slide that had started after 1984—1988’s sales total was 36% lower than 1984 despite a slew of new models. The root cause of the problem was that the new front-wheel-drive Oldsmobiles were subpar, generic GM cookie cutter cars, both in looks and driving dynamics. The old Cutlass Supreme magic was destroyed, with neither the Calais nor the W-Body Cutlass Supreme able to take over for the successful older car and reinvent the brand for a new generation of buyers. Apparently, making great cars to attract Baby Boomers (and their parents) was too hard and too expensive. Surely there was an easier way to lure those pesky Boomers. Perhaps all that was needed was a new advertising campaign….
This infamous “New Generation of Olds” brand campaign debuted for the 1989 model year, and introduced the punchline “not your father’s Oldsmobile” replete with young “hip” people doing cartwheels on Oldsmobiles. In this case, there was truth in advertising: these cars were definitely not my father’s Oldsmobiles (actually my mother’s): our Olds were smooth, powerful, good looking, reliable, comfortable cars with good resale values. These chintzy, ugly, unrefined front drive Oldsmobiles? Not so much. Plus, by insulting previous Oldsmobile customers, GM managed to further offend the dwindling brand loyalists.
Thirtysomething buyers must have thought the advertising was hysterically bad. They happily continued buying Hondas, and the Accord became the best selling car in the U.S. for 1989. Close behind in the sales race were successful American designs like the well-executed Ford Taurus.
At Oldsmobile, the hemorrhaging continued. Brand sales continued to drop year-over-year. By 1991, the stale Cutlass Calais was still on the market with the same awful styling that had seemed out-of-date when the car had appeared 7 years before. During this same time span, Honda had served up 3 generations of the Accord, while the Toyota Camry and Nissan Maxima had seen two design generations. Olds had simply offered the “Quad-Roar” engine, flush headlamps and passive seat-belts. 1991 Calais sales bottomed out at a miserable 75,414 units for the year. Nothing Supreme about that. Total Oldsmobile sales for 1991 were down 62% from 1985 when the Calais was first introduced.
The crown jewel at Oldsmobile for the 1970s and early 1980s had been the Cutlass Supreme, but GM couldn’t figure out how to reinvent the gravy train in a downsized world. Olds failed spectacularly in keeping the Cutlass relevant for new buyers, with the Calais being the poster child for how bad design, dated and/or half-baked engineering, wretched marketing and a complete lack of understanding of target customers could conspire to create an unmitigated disaster.
So Jean Lindamood was correct with her prediction of doom: in December 2000 GM announced that Oldsmobile would be closing. The last Oldsmobile—an Alero, the successor to the Calais/Achieva–was produced in April 2004, almost 20 years from the date when Lindamood penned the 1985 Calais review predicting the Olds division’s death two decades hence. Sins don’t get much deadlier than that!
Related: Curbside Classic’s Complete Cutlass Chronicles Central
My own theory can be summed up by the turn signals. I had the Pontiac version of the N car. Every time I used the turn signal, it felt like I was breaking a chicken leg. The turn signal on my 2nd car, an older Honda Civic just felt so much better.
A little thing to be sure, but it summed up the whole car. GM cars felt “cheap and tacky”. If you hung onto one very long, the experience only got worse.
A car is a major purchase. Even an economy car buyer wants to feel they’re getting a well built machine. GM cars of this era weren’t – no matter how much you paid.
“Breaking a chicken leg” is the best description of that feeling ever. I knew it reminded me of something! (And the “n”s weren’t alone…)
I’ve never driven the Calais, but I can say that my ’84 Olds Cutlass Supreme that I had many years back had the feeling of the description “breaking a chicken leg” with the turn signal stalk. It didn’t feel natural at all, like something was always gonna break. It never did, but it didn’t inspire confidence that it wouldn’t give out at some point.
Since my 82 Regal was virtualy the same as your Cutlass Supreme. We had the same gear. Mine never broke, but always felt like it was just about too. It’s a tactile thing. I have a 1940s American Standard faucet on my lav sink,the handles of wich feels like it’s going to fall of. (the screw is tight, but I guess it’s 0.5mm to long?) It’s been doing it’s job for 70 years (20 of it with me not doing any thing to it!) so it’s not a “bad” product, just feels weird.
If I had a dime for every single mom I knew that bought a used N-body, be it a Calais, Grand Am or Somerset, I’d be able to get a new LaCrosse. I’ve always wondered what the attraction was for single mothers and this GM platform…
the price and something remotely familiar.
Say what you will about the Calais’ styling, looks, and what-have-you, the car certainly was reliable.
In my case, once I happened upon an 85 Calais with only 65k miles upon it – its owner had passed away and her relatives wanted to get rid of it so I snapped it up for just a few dollars. I drove that car hard, through three New England winters, and often skipped regular maintenance/oil changes, etc.
The car always started up, never died, never fell apart except at one point I had to replace tires and the muffler.. When I moved away I was able to sell the car for $1200 and it still was in good condition & ran like a top.
That’ll be young urban professionals.
Nah Daniel….where I come from, it’s upwardly mobile.
Alright, I’ll be sure and call them yumpies when I’m where you come from, then.
I remember one of the “sported up, Calais’s” sitting on the lot at “Farrish Olds” , in Fairfax VA. Always wondered, who ‘drove it home”?
This long thread gives the Calais more attention than I recall it getting when it was new. Reminds me of an old joke.
A preacher and a pilot are both entering heaven. St. Peter gives the preacher a wood staff and cotton robe. The pilot gets a gold staff and a silk robe. The preacher asks why. St. Peter responds: “When you preached, people slept. When he flew, people prayed.”
Perhaps the ultimate Calais sin was putting people to sleep. Not so many prayed they could someday own a Calais.
Just a few days ago there was a writeup here lambasting GM for changing their car names too often. Now we have one highlighting a C/D article that starts by criticizing Oldsmobile for still having the same car names they did two decades earlier. GM just can’t catch a break.
> Base power came from the Pontiac Iron Duke 2.5 L four, and provided gruff, uninspiring power to countless GM cars including the X-Body, FWD A-Body, P-Body (Pontiac Fiero) and F-Body. It was essentially one half of a Pontiac 301 V8, an engine that had its roots in the first Pontiac V8 of 1955.
The Iron Duke is all but unrelated to the 301 V8. It is more closely related to the 151 4 that GM do Brazil used, which itself was derived from Chevrolet’s 153 4 from the Chevy II/Nova. Pontiac did briefly have an engine they called the Trophy 4 that was used in the first-generation Tempest, which was basically one bank of the 389 V8, and I think this engine is being confused with the Iron Duke.
I never understood GM’s midsize strategy in the ’80s. Weren’t the 1982 FWD A bodies originally supposed to supplant the RWD A/G line? Buick transferred the Century name to the new car, and Olds used the Cutlass name on it, suggesting this. Then the N bodies were supposedly originally G body replacements too. Then the W body aka GM-10 finally filled this role, although Olds still kept the G body Cutlass Supreme Classic for one last year, meaning Olds sold their 1978-vintage Cutlass Supreme coupe alongside three cars that were supposed to replace it. Meanwhile, if the new N bodies didn’t float your boat, you could wait a year and buy a lookalike shrunken E/K body (Toronado, Seville) for only twice the cost. There were also the L bodies (Corsica/Beretta) that were about this size, or the FWD C and H bodies that were just a bit larger and similarly styled. I have to wonder if the N body’s shrunken-G-Special looks and names were just a ruse to get people to think of them as such rather than what they really were – updates of the troubled X bodies. The Calais was about the same size and same shape as the departing Omega, and often had the same Iron Duke/3 speed automatic drivetrain too.
I assume the original rationale for retaining the RWD G-bodies a while longer was to spread out the retooling expense. Toyota did the same thing with its transition to FWD. That’s why the E80 Corolla/Sprinter coupes remained RWD, but the sedans and five-doors were FWD. Toyota was building something like a million units a year in all, so they didn’t want to spend the money to retool everything at once, and they judged that the packaging advantages of FWD were more urgent in the family car lines than in the coupes.
Ironically, Toyota in Japan had a similar blizzard of different models that weren’t all that different in size, price, styling, or features. While we got the Camry instead of the Corona, Japan got the Camry AND the Corona, and the Carina (which became a platform twin of the Corona with the switch to FWD), AND then the Vista, which was a Camry twin. This isn’t even getting into the coupes and four-door hardtops, or the Camry V-6 Prominent (basis of the subsequent Lexus ES250), which at least had a different mission; there wasn’t a lot to choose between a Camry and a Corona, and almost no mechanical difference between the actual platform twins.
The main reason it worked rather than being a disaster of confusing lookalikes is that it allowed Toyota to sustain its different distribution channels (they even added one — the Vista was its flagship), which gave them a much stronger dealer base than Nissan or any of the others. If they’d put a T160 Carina sedan next to the V10 Camry in the same showroom, even the salesman probably couldn’t have told you how they meaningfully differed, but that wasn’t the point.
I guess the moral of the story is a decision that seems commercially inspired when you’re on top may be disastrous if you’re slipping, or vice-versa.
What made Toyota different from GM was that even though they kept some older configurations around as new ones were introduced, they still kept the “old” RWD designs fresh. I’m not sure if this was always true in the JDM, but at least in N. America in 1984 the new FWD Corollas were joined by a revamped line of RWD Corollas that were all new inside and out. There were a few holdouts from the previous generation (1980) in Japan and likely elsewhere, but these tended to be less-popular body styles like wagons/estates and panel vans that were not produced in the new E80 generation. They didn’t keep their 1978 design of the core coupes, sedans, or hatchbacks going through 1988 with just a facelift, and the carryover models from previous generations were planned rather than accidental “we can’t drop the old models because they’re so popular” as happened with GM in the large and mid-sized segments.
I never understood the (old?) Toyota dealership model in Japan, with the Corolla Store, Camry Store, or whatever the others were called, all selling almost the same vehicles. At first it seems like GM in the ’80s and ’90s with mass overlap, but the GM divisions at least were originally separate companies, and all still had separate engineering staffs into the 1980s. Whereas Toyota seemed to go out of their way to sell near-duplicate cars at different dealerships.
Historically, the reason Toyota established the multiple dealership channels was because that was the only way they could add more dealers.
Toyota during the early postwar occupation had what for the time was a really strong dealer network. However, because there was almost no market for passenger cars, there weren’t that many dealers, and to keep them viable, Toyota had given most of them very large territories.
So, when the market started expanding and Toyota needed more stores than the existing dealers could or would establish, they had existing contractual obligations for territorial exclusivity. Adding new distribution channels provided a way to open additional stores in existing territories without technically violating existing exclusivity agreements. Of course, some dealers cried foul anyway, although Toyota mollified them by allowing them to buy minority interests in the new channels. (See https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/text/taking_on_the_automotive_business/chapter2/section9/item1_a.html)
I think also Japanese car dealership tended to be smaller than typical American dealerships, so having a more finite lineup for each channel’s outlets made sense. There was eventually some sense of the channels seeking different audiences, but I don’t think that was ever as central as just having more stores.
For instance, in the early ’90s, Corolla Stores had the Corolla, Corolla II (Tercel twin), Camry (narrow-body JDM version), Windom (Lexus ES300), Estima Lucida (Previa), Townace van, Celica, and Supra. Vista Stores had the Tercel, Sera, Vista (JDM Camry twin), Saber (U.S. Camry), Cresta (Mark II/Chaser twin), Aristo (Lexus GS), Hiace van, MR2, and Land Cruiser. So, some models overlapped (Tercel/Corolla II, Camry/Vista), some didn’t, and none of the channels had all the models at once.
So much has been said, it’s hard to come up with something other than Amen, but I’ll try…
Was it just yesterday we were considering Name and Form? What a horrible example of GM trying to hang onto a name but getting it wrong. From Cutlass as a sharp edged weapon pretty much at the head of its class, it had become more of a dull butter knife, a small item of dubious appeal and function. Who ever aspired to a butter knife? And Calais – though I’ve never been there, from what I’ve read it seems a rather uncomplimentary name to give a car.
But ugh, the looks! And GM really thought they could sell a car that looked like this! Wake up guys – advertising isn’t the answer to all product ills and shortcomings.
Could a case be made for the appointment of Irv Rybicki over Chuck Jordan as a deadly sin? Real Cutlass below.
Very nice! As a fellow artist, always impressed how clean your paint edges remain. And your paint finishes in general, show outstanding workmanship, and quality. Besides, excellent colour choices.
Thank you Daniel. I will admit whenever I post a model now I always wonder what Daniel will think. 🙂 This was an ’85 442 kit which I turned into a mainstream Cutlass, by adding extra chrome, wheel covers, whitewalls and the landau top. Why? Because I wanted to build it differently!
Clean paint edges are the result of careful masking with quality tape, but these are simple compared to some work I’ve seen others do. The chrome trim is usually adhesive foil which I cut to shape before applying; I will admit that is tricky around wheel arches. For this Cutlass I pretty much followed a brochure photograph, just leaving off the mid-body protection strip, so I can’t claim credit for the colours this time.
Fellow modeller agrees! Well done.
Just an excellent piece, well researched, well reported.
I have sought for a name for the early eighties Cutlasses, and “shovel mouth” perfectly fits the bill! “Cow catcher” could have been another option. Not to say I didn’t like the look, at the time anyway, but it was certainly an odd feature. Kind of a reverse waterfall as opposed to the 73-75-77 versions.
To think the planning and design execution of these duds, took years in advance. Plenty of time, to see the market evolving, and clearly see these were turds in the making. Styling-wise, the cookie-cutter ’82 A-Body design template, was already getting tired by ’83/’84.
A shining example of wholesale corporate hubris.
Design began when everyone believed gas prices would keep climbing, so the company’s life could have depended on them being successful, making their mediocrity even more shameful. If they’d chosen higher quality & style, they might not have needed to cut costs so much, but there was also a bad recession in the early 80s when the bad decisions were made, and no one but Reagan believed the economy would take off like a Rocket V8 in the mid 80s.
GM was lucky that gas plummeted in ’85 so they could sell profitable big cars again.
Peak Lindamood. She became a cartoon as she dragged Automobile beneath the surface, but this is a reminder that she used to have something to say.
They should have just changed the division name to Cutlass to reduce confusion. I thought the bland styling began with the ’77 B/C bodies, especially their front ends. The ubiquitous vinyl roof spoiled the ’78+ Cutlass Supreme. It is harder to style a small car distinctively, and then they had 4-5 versions to make of most of them. I wonder if the switch to unibodies and robots had much impact on the styling envelope.
I like the boxy styling of GM’s cars in the 80’s, as well as Chrysler’s K-cars and derivatives, and the Ford Fairmont. I was just scared of GM quality in the 80’s. There was no internet, but it was well known that those cars were unreliable and unrefined.
It seemed as though GM loved to recycle and cross-reference certain notable divisional nomenclatures from the past. Like for example Chevrolet Chevelle Concours (from 1968 through the 1972 Concours Estate more like a glorified Chevelle Malibu Classic Estate Wagon), 1976-77 Chevrolet Nova Concours and then later on in 1994 the Cadillac Sedan deVille now had the top of the line Sedan deVille Concours to only legitimately and directly make this FWD option a notch below the 1994 Chevy Caprice Classic RWD stretched platform based Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. With the Calais designation, Cadillac availed this version as a notch below the Fleetwood Brougham in 1974-75 but above the Sedan deVille. After Cadillac ditched the Calais nomenclature several years later, Oldsmobile used this in the Cutlass Supreme lineup from 1980-84. After 1984, the 1985-87 Cutlass Calais (later just plain Calais from 1988-91) were the new compacts which replaced the FWD X-Bodied 1980-84 Oldsmobile Omega. After 1991 the Oldsmobile Calais was replaced by the Oldsmobile Achieva new body but still the same exact FWD J-Car based Oldsmbile Firenza platform from 1982.
One likely reason for this was to maintain ownership of the trademarks. Generally (at least in the U.S.), you have to use a trademark to hold onto it — if you stop using it for longer than a certain period, it may be considered abandoned and you’ll be in serious danger of losing the rights to it. This is also why, for example, Ford kept finding excuses to slap the “Cobra” name on different things.
GM was lucky that gas plummeted in ’85 so they could sell profitable big cars again.
I don’t know if I’d call it lucky, all of GM’s resources were poured into cars like the N bodies and when fuel costs stabilized and made the RWD B bodies and G bodies viable again they had both withered on the vine in technology and design, and much of the buyer base who would have bought a Supreme on the same basic bodyshell 7 years earlier had moved onto greener pastures(imports), leaving mostly GM loyalists buying them, and not buying the N bodies that had sucked up so much development.
That they were lucky any line at all was selling, maybe, but they were between a real rock and a hard place between aging legacy models and underbaked all new models cluttering lineups. I don’t think the strategy of fielding both was wise at all, the N bodies shouldn’t have ever been developed, period. GM had plenty of smaller cars already in the BOP lineup (X, A and J bodies) without the N bodies to keep showrooms busy, so this whole effort to downsize literally everything including something as contradictory as PLCs to compact proportions was really a putting all their eggs in one basket, it defeated the whole purpose of having a full model lineup where one line sells if another doesn’t and can lines can reverse fortunes with trends
Trucks are main reason GM is still around today, though now going into EV’s.
GM’s 80’s car program was to “bring out smaller cars”, to the demands of the 1979-81 market, screaming for fuel economy. As Brock Yates said in his book, GM “made them look small” and used low HP motors to “make buyers think they get good MPG”.
In other words, “good enough for loyalists”, thinking former GM buyers would trade in older RWD cars for the Alphabet soup products in droves. But, ignoring competition, as if “they don’t exist”
I’m also a boomer, remember when these came out. I didn’t have much exposure to them, but someone in my condo complex at the time (I’d just bought a condo the year before while in graduate school) had one. I wasn’t the target audience for these at the time, but curiously as time progresses I find I’m more interested in these than I was back in the day…except for one thing, my parents had bought a new ’84 Pontiac Sunbird, which despite being maintained at the dealer, by the book, went through 2 engines in less than 80k miles and was junked after 5 years…it lost a timing belt when it had less than 1000 miles on it. The car it replaced, a ’78 Caprice Classic wagon, was much better, my Dad should have kept that and fixed it up after his accident (a minor fender bender but my Dad didn’t want to spend any more on it). The Sunbird did get better gas mileage, but it doesn’t matter how good mileage it got if it was junk after 5 years…despite being less expensive than the Caprice Classic, the depreciation makes it much more expensive to own per year. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but back then GM seemed to punish those who wanted a smaller car (while staying with GM). I know it wasn’t an easy time for them, and they even messed up on Cadillac and other big car engines, but that’s not a way to encourage repeat buyers…My Dad actually did return to GM for his last 2 cars (both Impalas) but it took quite a while for him to even consider buying one.
To be fair, my sister owned essentially the same car, also an ’84, also a Sunbird, but other than rust (we’d moved to Texas so rust wasn’t an issue, but she lived in Vermont still) it gave her decent service. You could argue that he got a bad one, but I don’t think he was that much of an exception…you didn’t see too many of them after a pretty short time (at least from my observation).
I don’t think I’m a typical buyer these days, I’m a car person, I don’t want AWD, nor a truck, cars ride well and that’s become more important to me as I’ve aged (plus ease of ingress-egress, which I think helps sell trucks as they are generally higher than cars). Image isn’t a consideration….I know I’m old and I’m certain most people know that independent of what I drive. What I think I’d like is an old-fogey mobile, something like a full sized 60’s or 70’s car. They say you can’t sell a young guy an old guy’s car, but you can sell one to an old guy…if they were still available. But a comfortable car, with a bit higher seating than a compact car is pretty attractive to me…just don’t punish me for wanting one by making it undependable or not have reasonable expectations of being able to keep it a few years without major repairs. Other than low seating, one of these would probably satisfy me, even though it is not full sized, if it had the promise of keeping it for awhile….maybe I should find an old Buick Century or Cutlass Cierra, since you can’t find anything like that available new…now that I’m “that age” I’m disappointed that I don’t have the choice to buy one (unlike my counterpart 50 years older than I).
I owed a Calais Supreme in 1985 and loved it. Had it for 5 years and was very reliable. I have many since, but hands down best car ever