(Update: the text has been revised since publishing to amend one factual error regarding the project’s origin, plus some other minor revisions)
Let’s revisit this Deadly Sin chapter through this 1982 R&T review, covering the model’s updates for its second year. Unlike what you’d expect, this is a review where the Cimarron gets generally favorable impressions. An odd thought, considering the model has become a prime example of GM’s cynical badge engineering of the period.
Then again, R&T had to weigh the car as seen at the time. Was it an improved offering? Arguably, yes. Plus Cadillac still carried plenty of prestige at the time. Could the corporation be on to something with the quickie approach to model development? Could the Cadillac badge be enough to sway upscale buyers into this upscale J-car turned BMW slayer?
That said, despite the fairly decent appraisal, it’s a page 68 feature. So not quite front-page material.
As briefly told in the review (and elsewhere at CC), the Cimarron was a hastily contrived Cadillac proposal pushed by headquarters. A 3 Series/Audi fighter, based on the J-car platform and woefully underwhelming at launch. In what became a GM practice, hasty fixes were applied to bring about the product’s fortunes.
So, to prove how it had learned from its errors, Cadillac brought two Cimarrons for road testing and comparison sake; an ’82 and an ’83.
Under testing, the ’82 unit reminded testers of all they had disliked about the model. The Chevy-derived 1.8 liter carbureted engine “stumbled and was not very quick… It didn’t pull that well and sounded buzzy when pushed to the limit.”
Swapping vehicles “couldn’t come soon enough”, and the ’83 model felt quicker and smoother in its delivery, reaching 0-60 in 14.5 secs. Numbers that improved over the ’82 model.
Much of the car’s difference was thanks to the engine under the hood. The old 1.8L was no longer found, and instead, a more refined fuel-injected 2.0L LQ5 4-cyl. provided power. Now, let’s not get too excited. Unlike the GM of decades past, no exclusivity for Cadillac on that newly available mill, as it was found in all J-Cars.
Meanwhile, the manual was an Isuzu-built gearbox, with 5-speeds that were considered “well spaced.” Along with the engine’s longer stroke and higher compression ratio, plus revised gear ratios, the ’83 Cimarrons (and J-cars) provided more torque at the lower end. (At an 8-10 percent decrease in fuel economy).
Improving on other inadequacies, the ’83 Cimarron was noticeably smoother thanks to upgraded engine and transmission mounts. The ride was considered softer, though handling had improved. Furthermore, trim updates made an effort to give the upscale J-car a bit more of a Cadillac identity.
Finally, the review ends with what seems faint praise, assessing that the upgrades made the ’83 Cimarron more “like a Cadillac and less like a Chevrolet or Honda.”
Regardless, we have the benefit of hindsight to know the market never accepted these downmarket Cadillacs. Heck, forget hindsight. Even back in the day, all I saw was a Cavalier with a kit job when one of these showed up in traffic.
They’re topics covered elsewhere at CC. But in summation, one can see that GM’s execs learned all the wrong lessons from their earlier badge-engineering jobs.
Begun as a quick way to recover lost ground in new market segments, early efforts like the first gen. Seville probably led the Cadillac division to reach the wrong conclusions. If a reworked A-body frame (with enough re-engineering to merit its own K-body code) could sell like hotcakes as a Cadillac, were such efforts worth the trouble? And in a marketplace in need of new products, why not -quickly- jump into the J-car fun? Hence, the 14-month Cimarron program.
On the positive (?), don’t go around with the impression that domestics always got poor evaluations on enthusiast publications. Don’t worry, the public didn’t need a magazine to tell them what a dud was.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: Cimarron By Cadillac – GM’s Deadly Sin #10
Curbside Classic: 1984 Cadillac Cimarron – Poor Execution Meets Bad Timing
Vintage Reviews: Cadillac Cimarron 1982 -1985 – Clippings From The Mediocrity Files
The first-generation Seville didn’t have a Nova silhouette, a Nova dash, and a Nova engine. Had Cadillac addressed these three items with the Cimarron and added some bits like better bolstered seats and maybe 4-wheel disc brakes, things may have been very different.
With a bit more time, these things might have happened. But the Cadillac dealer network was in a big hurry to get a small car, ASAP, and that haste cost them, big time.
The later versions of the Cimarron did have significant drivetrain improvements. As was typical of GM, the final 1988 Cimarron, while still basically a Cavalier underneath, was quite a nice car, otherwise. But, by then, the damage was done.
The interior design of the Cimarron, looked similar to that of the mid-’70’s Ford Granada Ghia. Seats, armrest, and door panel designs, with similar pleating. If anything, the Ghia seats, appeared fuller, and more luxurious.
Other than the hatchbacks and wagons, I generally didn’t like J-Car styling at the time. More cars from GM, since the late ’70’s, that seemed increasingly cheapened in appearance, and details. The initial Cimarron helped consumers more clearly see, the direction GM was going.
That’s actually a base Granada with the optional upgraded interior and bucket seats in that photo, not a Ghia (which had a slightly different sew pattern, Jaguar-esque woodgrain on the top of the doors with carpeting on the bottom).
The damage was already done and sales didn’t recover to an appreciable degree, the general buyer was not an R&T reader and the snickering from bystanders whenever an early Cimarron scuttled past was too obvious, the public wasn’t aware of these improvements. Sure it was incremental volume for the J-car program (always good) but at the price of serious reputational damage to Cadillac (always bad). Getting it into production may have been a rushed 14-month job from inception, but noting that it took only an extra 12 months to improve on some of its most serious deficiencies shows the cynicism existing at GM at the time, none of that should have needed to be done after introduction, or it would have been far better to just delay the top model’s introduction that same 12 months and get it figured out from the beginning. Perhaps those extra 20,000 early sales could/would have been recouped and then some in every other year.
What I would have liked to have seen most was a comparison test between a Cimarron and the most equivalent Cavalier, I don’t believe this ever occurred, but if so would love to read it. Too bad R&T couldn’t have gotten one at this time (or actually they very likely could have but GM would likely also have seriously frowned at that). It’s interesting this “test update” even occurred, R&T wasn’t really one to give second chances like that and then also to belittle the ascending power house, Honda, in the article is astounding. An ’83 Accord was already starting to be seen as a VERY smart choice that conveyed status on its owner, never mind its generally excellent execution, although it never attempted to be above its station but gave obvious rise to Acura a few short years later, coincidentally (or not?) a year or two before the Cimarron’s plug was finally pulled.
The Cimarron need not have failed as badly as it did, there are things to like about it (if in a vacuum), but the way it was presented/foisted is what rankled, it basically insulted the buyer’s presumed intelligence.
Hopefully R&T’s ad sales to General Motors increased again after this issue, and Joe Rusz prostrating himself was worthwhile to the publisher.
A Cimarron/Cavalier comparison wouldn’t have worked for one, single reason: price. IIRC, the Cimarron was priced at almost 3x the price of the Cavalier (probably closer to 2x with a completely loaded version). That simply wouldn’t have went over very well and I can most definitely see GM fighting with any major magazine trying such a thing.
The Cimarron was a very nice Cavalier. But whether it was worth the price of two Cavaliers, well…
That (price) would have been precisely the point. Consumer Reports would perhaps have been the ideal (or the only possible?) outlet to perform such a comparison.
Cadillac dealers had been screaming for a smaller car to sell since their sales plummeted in mid-’79, hence the urgency. Division profits must have taken a huge hit. Supposedly, Cadillac’s first choice was the Citation platform, but its initial sales were so high, GM didn’t see enough production capacity for another version, and just as well it avoided the X’s early problems.
If the Cimarron could have debuted with a standard V6 in either X or J form, IMO its history would have been very different, even with borrowed sheet metal, but power wasn’t a priority in ’80-1, after gas prices had doubled and people feared more shortages and still higher prices. It was tragically stupid that the V6 arrived late, yet it didn’t completely displace the 4 for several years.
It was at best the Cimarron that should have been the first one. The original intent was just that too, to introduce a better developed Cimarron a year or so after the other J cars arrived. But Cadillac (and its dealers) had a major hard on to get a little import fighter into the showrooms.
This was all Cadillac’s doing, not the mothership GM. In fact GM President Pete Estes warned Cadillac general manager Edward Kennard: “Ed, you don’t have time to turn the J-car into a Cadillac.” All too true.
There’s a common tendency to think these kind of product decisions were made by GM corporate headquarters. Not so; the divisions back then had a huge amount of decision making within the confines of certain broad program guidelines. If Cadillac wanted to rush a so-called BMW fighter by slapping a few badges and a new interior on a Cavalier, so be it.
That GM could simultaneously be so cynical and clueless was so amply demonstrated by the Cimarron and its second-year improvements. This article appeared at roughly the same time as the infamous Fortune magazine cover photo of the four intermediate A-bodies, all in metallic dark red, lined up for inspection, with only minute detail differences to distinguish the Chevy from the Pontiac from the Oldsmobile from the Buick. Smarting from that PR disaster, GM chose to fight back with this, a warmed-over J-car turd deemed good enough for its flagship division, which billed itself “the standard of the world”. And for once, they did go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
At the same time, the competitors mentioned in the R&T article had improved dramatically from where they had been five years earlier, acquiring some heft and body integrity, not to mention rust resistance, modern HVAC systems, and automatic transmissions appropriate to the needs of the median American entry-level luxury car buyer. It was painful to watch GM writhe in such agony, but such a feeble attempt to address an emerging niche in the luxury car market shows just how out of touch and self-involved the GM brass were at the time.
Part of the problem with the Cimmaron goes back 2 or 3 years earlier with the launch of the radically new 1980 Seville. That thing flopped HARD.
Personally I love the bustle back, but it was an entirely different type of car from the 75 to 79 Seville. That car was clean, understated, didnt have that vulgarness of the typical Cadillac. The bustle back, well that was the most vulgar car Cadillac had made since 1959 Buyers looking to trade in their first gen Seville went elsewhere.
The bustleback also really encroached on the more convential/traditonal Sedan Deville market as well. Both were flossy chromed out boats, the bustleback being a good bit bigger than the previous Seville. Soft handling, soft ride, button tufted seats, landau tops, wire wheel covers, you could get all that on the much more conventially handsome Deville. The bustleback should have stuck with clean, less fussy styling, alloy wheels, blackwall tires, firmer ride and good handling. What was delivered was a fugly version of the Sedan Deville. Cars drove similar despite being radically different under the skin.
My point is Cadillac and their dealers were in a panic because of the bustleback. They had NOTHING to compete with Benz and BMW. Thus the rushed development of the Cimarron.
Im convinced there would be no Cimarron if they had not fouled up the 2nd gen Seville and scared away all their customers who had bought the 1st gen Seville
With the planned demise of the RWD X-body Nova in 1979, Cadillac was really between a rock and hard place for a smaller, luxury import fighter like the 1G Seville. They passed on putting true Cadillac touches on the upcoming FWD J-car (itself an improved X-body Citation) and, instead, went to the E-body platform (Eldo/Riviera/Toro) for a sedan with the bustle-back to give it some flash. As stated, it didn’t work, and Cadillac management (and dealer network) panicked. The result was the J-car Cimarron created in a hasty 14 months, and the rest is history.
As others have lamented, if the improvements GM eventually made on the Cimarron had been there from the get-go, things might have turned out quite a bit differently. The final, 1988 Cimarron was actually quite nice but, by then, the damage had been done.
Aaron, this belongs in a Gen 2 Seville post but your comment compelled me to run something out that got rid of the bustleback. Added some rearward lean to the front while at it. Conclusion: dunno.
Platform sharing has been going on among Detroit manufacturers for a very long time. The top end makes like Cadillac, Lincoln and Chrysler have based their wares on the corporate platforms, though usually with better differentiation. They hadn’t used too many bespoke platforms since after WWII.
When the public views the lower price car as reflecting the styling of an already established higher line car, then that’s a plus. When the higher car reflects the style of a current lower priced car, then that’s a negative.
I had high hopes for the Cimarron when it appeared.
Sometimes the big three have done a good job, other times, like with the Cimarron they rushed it out the door and suffered for it.
Ford took the easy route with Lincoln for too many years and almost sunk the marque. It’s taken a long time to re-establish more credibility to the line.
Typical of GM, when they got the car right, they killed it.
I wonder how many people, as the R&T article sort of suggests, cross-shopped the Cimarron with the Accord. My dad did in 1982 and thought the Accord was the better car (although he wound up buying a Nissan Stanza XE which was new that year). Just a few years earlier, say 1979, cross-shopping a Cadillac with a Honda would have been unthinkable.
The ’83 changes to the Cimarron were mostly playing catch-up to the competition. EFI was still not the norm in 1983, but a decently powerful engine and 5-speed manual were available on an Accord since its inception (and on many Bimmers and Audis too). The ’83 Accord also had an optional 4-speed automatic, probably more important to potential Cimarron buyers since the vast majority of these I’ve seen have the automatic, which was still a 3-speed when the last ’88 Cimarrons rolled off the line.
It was interesting that after the Cimarron was put out of its misery (after the 1988 model year) Cadillac abandoned the sporty/luxury compact segment for many years until they came back with the compact ATS for the 2013 model year. The ATS and its CT4 successor were decent cars, if still not quite everything they should have been.
In between the Cimarron and the ATS there was the odd 2006-2009 Cadillac BLS, the only Cadillac never actually sold in the U.S. Apparently the BLS was a Saab 9-3 with unique body panels and a mildly reworked interior built in a Saab factory. I’ve seen a couple of them in southern California with Mexican license plates. The BLS might have sold reasonably well in the U.S. I just don’t know.
The Catera was clearly intended for this segment of the market. It was roughly similar in size to the ATS.
So were the first two generations of the CTS, though the ATS was more cramped inside.
I always thought of the Catera, CTS and CT5 as being mid-sized cars, but they certainly do overlap with the compact segment.
The Catera and first two generations of the CTS were the entry level cars for Cadillac, and straddled the line between the C/3series and E/5series. They were sized closer to the bigger cars, but priced closer to the compact cars.
When the ATS was introduced, it was because the CTS was moved larger and more upmarket, and was actually closer in size to the STS that had just been killed off.
Interesting, with the original Catera (a rebadged Opel Omega) it seemed like Cadillac kind of “gave up” (at least for awhile) trying to make a domestic version of a smaller luxury car and kind of punted by putting its name on a European luxury division car. The problem of course ended up that the Catera was not a good car, it might have been more luxury oriented than the Cimarron, but it had lots of problems (we actually tried to rent an Omega in 1996 on a trip to Europe but got bumped into a Ford Scorpio instead).
It seems to me that almost all the domestic brands really didn’t take small cars seriously, or at least seemed incapable of making a good small car that lots of people would find desirable (almost said “want to buy” but it is more than that, some people want to buy a car based on price alone, they consider it almost disposable (which it is, but hopefully in longer term). To me it seemed like Chrysler came closest, though they did it in the form of altered K cars, they eliminated all but the F body RWD cars by the early 80’s…you might argue that they really didn’t make a luxury car like Cadillac but it seemed to me they tried harder to make smaller cars that were not viewed as “compromises” of the larger car the customer “should have bought instead”. GM seemed particularly unable to consider someone might want a smaller but high quality car…
I don’t have experience with the Cimarron, but my parents bought another J car, a new 1984 Pontiac Sunbird. My Sister also bought one new (before my parents) which turned out to be an OK car (other than rust which is normal for where she lived). My Parent’s Sunbird went through 2 complete engines in less than 8 years, despite being maintained per schedule at the same dealership they bought it at…the last engine threw a rod, at less than 90k miles (the engine was probably half that, since the prior engine also went, maybe in the 40k range). The car had less than 500 miles on it when the timing belt broke (didn’t damage valves, but still…only 500 miles from new needing a belt)…and the switchgear was obviously very cheap, plastics cracked and broke, and the power steering sprung more than 1 leak. They didn’t abuse the car (other than driving it in the Sunbelt, which is admittedly bad on plastic and rubber pieces) but the car was junked in less than 8 years, only 1 owner. It took my Dad a long time till he forgot enough and bought GM again (as his last 2 cars, Chevy Impala, they were much better fortunately. He would probably argue that his J car experience wasn’t worthy of any GM division, let alone Cadillac. But of course maybe he just got a bad one…but 2 different bad engines? How snakebit can you get?
Except for the last 2 years (when it was an old car in 7th and 8th year) it sold about 20k a year. That is better than US sales numbers today for most of the smallest luxury cars (UX, IS, A3, 2 series)
Profit was good because it cost next to nothing to design and the cost to produce was not that much more than a loaded Cavalier (the extra cost of leather vs cloth is minimal for a company that buys leather by the mile).
The difference is that the UX, IS, A3, and 2series are not just sold in the US, they are sold around the world, and while I haven’t looked it up, I assume they sell in larger numbers in total. If the Cimarron still existed it wouldn’t be competing against those (well, maybe the IS) but also the A4, 3-series, C-class, and of course the Tesla Model 3 which is the one that really took the wind out of the sails (sales?) of all of those mentioned. The descendant of the Cimarron is presumably the AT4 which has been pretty much dead in the water since it was released and never broke 10k a year in the US and I believe now actually is dead. CC’s review here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/new-car-review/curbside-review-2020-cadillac-ct4-premium-luxury-awd/
Rust issues. Those upper strut towers under the hood, rusted away quickly in Michigan. 5 years and they all needed repairs to hold the struts. Just totally gone.
What was all the ass-kissing of R & T on Cadillac about? I can only think that R & T was trying to show how “objective” it could be. Whatever the reason the Cimarron still looked and ran like a Cavalier; “semi-independent” rear axle, pushrod engine and all.. Cadillac had to be totally naive or totally out of touch with reality to believe they could take on the Germans with this misbegotten device.
Apparently Cadillac didn’t learn anything from Lincoln’s big goof called Versailles. Yeah it was marketed differently but when the only people who think that it is special are the few suckers who buy them, the enthusiasm quickly dies.
What caught my eye in the R&T review was the reference to the Accord. When the first Accord came out in 1976 as a slightly sporty hatchback, sized and priced above the Civic, it was really revolutionary (even though there wasn’t anything special in its technology; but the sum was hugely greater than the parts. Just a few years later when this article was written, the 4 door Accord had become a benchmark. Now, over 40 years later, the Cimarron is pretty much forgotten by all except CC readers. And the Accord, while perhaps not the benchmark it was then, is still chugging along and selling quite well.
That was what caught my eye as well. And the Accord got (generally) better with every generation or at least helped to advance the class as a whole; any manufacturer contemplating building a midsize sedan (which admittedly is almost nobody today) would surely have an Accord as well as a Camry to compare their thoughts to…You can bet Toyota always has a couple of Accords around.
Imagine if Cadillac had kept the Cimarron and “advanced” it over the next two decades based on how they started. Imagine a 1995 Cimarron based on that year’s new Cavalier. And then the Cimarron Cobalt in 2004…Oy vey. It just wasn’t going to ever really go anywhere. Nothing against the Cavalier (or Cobalt), they were built to and for a purpose and price and I suppose delivered on that, but the silk purse thing doesn’t work with sow’s ears and even less with cars. One rung is achievable, maybe two, and working down from the top can work too but not going from the basement to the top floor, certainly not when the competition is already starting out halfway up the ladder from a quality and fit/finish perspective.
Indeed. Honda would never slap an Acura badge on an economy car.
Mission accomplished if you believe Acura is/was thought of the way Cadillac was thought of at its height except Honda is far too humble to actually ever proclaim itself the “Standard of the World”.
What I will never understand about this car is why GM let it wither on the vine year after year, knowing it was a brand-damning embarrassment. Was it that profitable? Why let yourself continue to be the punchline of your own bad joke?
I was a flag waving 13 year old car nut when these came out. I was absolutely stunned and confused when the first year came out. Looked just like a Cavalier. A 4 cylinder and a 5 speed? Whaaaaaat? I immediately knew this thing would fail. “That” was not a Caddy and it was not going to fool anyone. Besides the leather seating, the interior was a sea of hard plastic. Why buy this when you can get a Cavalier at less than half the price? If a 13 year old armchair auto “expert” saw this, why didn’t anyone else?
Why didn’t they offer the car with some of the other body styles too? At least the 2-door. Seems they left some volume opportunity on the table.
We got J cars in NZ one from GMH which handled well used little fuel but had no power GMNZ badged some Isuzu Askas as Holden Camiras 2.0 more power terrible road holding but very well put together, the wiki car went backwards thru a wooden guardrail then end for eng down a 20 metre bank the driver my father was unhurt, the car was destroyed,
I always thought the Cimarron should have been built on the Pontiac 6000 chassis. I mean, if Pontiac could deliver a car as good as the 6000STE, couldn’t Cadillac have improved on that car?
I remember looking at those brand new. A neighbor wanted one but the dealers in the Fort Lauderdale area were marking them up. He ended up with a Honda Accord.