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Comments
These are still depreciating, albeit slowly
Seems like a reasonable deal
Just think of what it cost new
Andre's dreamboat, except for the rims.
What to buy if you can't afford an AE86.
That front wheel looks weird
Probably a POS
lost title but have old owners name
This isn't exactly the last IROC on Earth. Why would you give this guy 1500 for this headache
I so want to beleive his story because this looks sweet except for that pesky salvage title I guess that alot a 5 series ge totalled for minor sheetmetal damage
Looks OK in the pics
It's over Johnny
I guess he reached his breaking point as far as dumping money into this
How much do you think those heads cost?
It's really over Johnny
The alleaged book value is a pipe dream
If you happen to love this car, this might be alright
The 528 is way overpriced for a '97 with a salvage title. You can buy a non-salvage one for less than that. Miles are good, that's true, but so what? Salvage means Kiss of Death in the marketplace.
Now the bucket seats and a floor shifter are a bonus. I guess if the a/c worked, and it was a well-optioned model with power windows and a power seat (unlikely, as I think power bucket seats were rare back then), and if it had a 455-4bbl, or even the 400, I might be tempted to go to $7K.
Very strange thing to turn up around here
Can't be many left like this, but not a "classic" no matter how the owner insists - looks like another shyster who bought cheap from an estate and wants to reap a windfall
"top speed 160mph" - if dropped from a plane at 40000 ft?
"comparable to a Rolls Royce" mmhmm
Buick Somerset Regal Deluxe Elegante Supremo El Fantasico:
don't you just love those bordello interiors? It looks like a Vegas gambler's underground liar.
Mercedes 450SL: For the sake of accuracy, the actual top speed of that car is a theoretical 124 mph, given the vacuum of outer space and the chance of finding a long flat road out there. In the real world, I'd guess that at about 118 mph the car would send a message: "Please stop this. It hurts!" Euro cars would probably do an honest 135 on the Autobahn I'd guess.
Jaguar 420G: Yeah, it's comparable to a Rolls Royce in that it's impossible to sell, horrendously expensive to fix, and depreciating like a cobblestone dropped from a lighthouse.
Real Value? $10,000 would be very very generous offer.
Vauxhall: Kinda charming, price is fine, why not?
Sport Satellite: Not sure what 'sport' this car represents (WWC? Sumo wrestling? Shot put?) but the price seems fair enough, especially by the square yard.
I actually wouldn't mind something like that Sport Satellite, if it's in good condition, to use as a daily driver.
As for that Somerset Regal, in an odd sort of way, I kind of like those. But not for $5K! They had really nice, cushy interiors that looked luxurious when new, but often, over the long haul, that cheap looking Playskool/Fisher-Price quality stuff really does hold up longer. Those felts tend to thin out and peel off, and the soft-touch plastics crack, and the dashboards warp....
Still, in 1985, a power seat would've been somewhat rare even on a Cutlass Supreme/Regal/et al, unless you got a Brougham/Limited trim level. And even then, it was an option.
Arrogantly enough, GM tried to position these N-body coupes as upscale, BMW contenders in 1985. I don't think very many people fell for it though, although for small domestic coupes they were pretty nice for the time.
The Ciera we had when I was a kid had a pretty plush velour interior, but luckily it was a beige/gold kind of color, so it was tolerable. Red really looks pimpy in that material, and dark blue looks the same.
I had a '86 Grand Am 4 cylinder/5 speed, with the handling package. It gave me 188,000 miles of low maintenance service, over 14 years, before it blew the head gasket. By that time it didn't owe me anything, particularly since a couple of weeks before the head gasket went a friend of the teenager who lived across the street backed into the left side of my car. The Grand Am rode and handled well. It's weakest point was the farm tractor-like Iron Duke engine. It sounded and performed little better than a '80s diesel.
The Quad 4 could have been the answer to the prayers of the owners of these GM cars, if it hadn't been for the disastrous head gasket problems these engines had. The Quad 4 was powerful and economical, but, in what we all know to be typical of GM for that period, it introduced the new engine before it was fully developed.
My main gripe is that it was RIDICULOUSLY overpriced...it was basically a GOUGE and the fools fell for it.
Fortunately, the 6 cylinder 325 came out and a legend was born.
So much can be said about this
1958 Jupiter
james
The Omega was a nimble handler, with good road holding characteristics, for its day. It also featured above average styling, in my opinion. A drawback was limited rear seat leg room, for its size...similar to the Contour/Mystique, 20 years later.
Looking back, I think the Omega was a better choice than the Audi 5000 of that period.
Yeah, I've heard that those '75-79 GM X-cars, in general, are good handlers for the era. GM offered a Nova police package up through 1978 that was a formidable car. I've heard that Chrysler's biggest break in what was then known as the "compact" police car market was when GM decided to switch the police package from the Nova to the Malibu in 1979. Seems to me that, being a more modern, slightly smaller, lighter, and theoretically more nimble car, the Malibu should have been a better all around performer than the Nova. But police tests did not bear that out, and the 1979 Volare walked the Malibu like a dog.
It's quite possible though, that GM did some tampering with the 350 for 1979 that kept hp the same, at 170, but made real-world performance suffer? So if the Chevy police package had stayed on the Nova, it may have been slower for 1979, anyway?
There was a '77 Omega Brougham 4-door sedan for sale at a local park-and-sell lot, years ago. I remember sitting behind the wheel of it, to see how it felt. Legroom was definitely tighter, both front and rear, than something like a Dart or Volare. The deficiency wasn't too noticeable up front, but in the back, with my long legs, I could tell a huge difference. Another thing I didn't like about the Omega was that I could actually reach out and touch the base of the windshield without leaning forward. That made it feel a bit claustrophobic to me. And that must be a GM thing of that era, because after I bought my '76 LeMans, a midsize, I discovered that in the position I have my steering wheel tilted, my fingers will hit the windshield if I simply "palm" the steering wheel instead of grip it.
Style wise, I think all of GM's '75-79 X-cars were pretty good looking, although the Phoenix version, which came out in 1977 I think, seemed a bit awkward with the square headlights and the hint of a beak. It made the car look a bit like a '78-80 LeMans. I wonder if that hurt LeMans sales, with a much cheaper car looking so much like it?
On the down side, it had an air pump with the air distribution tubes to the exhaust manifold. It would burn through a set of those tubes in less than 20k miles. I think I replaced them three times before getting rid of the car.
You mean, like, both of them?
-Mathias
I'd pay 800 for that car.
I think these downsized FWD C/H bodies were okay, but IMO they weren't truly big cars. But then, I wonder if people said the same thing about a newly-downsized '77 LeSabre compared to a '77 Newport or '77 Marquis! However, while a downsized '77 GM car actually gave up very little room (actually gained in some dimensions) compared to those pre-downsized mastodons, these FWD models lost about 1/4 of their trunk volume (down to around 15-16 from 20-21 cubic feet) and a few inches of shoulder room (~58-59" compared to ~61-62"). They were still big enough to "technically" be a full-sized car in the way that an Impala, 2000 Taurus, Intrepid, or '08 Accord is, but they were really closer in interior volume to something like a Regal/Cutlass sedan than they were a RWD LeSabre or Delta.
I think they probably would have been better replacements for those RWD intermediate sedans, as they were a more substantial car than the first attempt at replacing those cars (Celebrity, Ciera, et al) had been. As full-sized cars though, they just didn't quite cut it, and they probably sent a few buyers over to the Caprice, which suddenly sprouted a few new upper trim levels, probably to satisfy buyers who would have otherwise gone for a RWD LeSabre, Delta, or even Electra or 98. I imagine a few buyers jumped ship to the Grand Marquis and Crown Vic, too.
That downsized C-body LeSabre was pretty good for Buick, though. It maintained consistent sales right up through the end, and for the most part stayed as popular as the older RWD models. For some reason though, the downsized 88 didn't do as well for Olds. Deltas were a smash hit for Olds from 1977-85, but the '86+ style never saw the same level of popularity. Maybe Olds started confusing buyers by suddenly changing their marketing from "The family car that didn't forget the family", and suddenly it was "not your Father's Oldsmobile"?
I drove the car from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla to Houston, TX with my wife and the three kids plus all the luggage, a/c on all the time and didn't slow much under 70 mph and averaged 30 mpg for the trip which I thought was great (I still do!).
Dad has a pampered Voyager with 128K. It is on its 3rd tranny. With the exception of an '86(?) model he had with a 3spd auto, every Voyager he has owned has had at least one tranny replacement. The only reason he drives these things is because they are easy to get in and out of.
While the '78-'83 Malibu was indeed "...a more modern, slightly smaller, lighter, and theoretically more nimble car..." than the '73-'77 Malibu, I believe it was heavier than the '75-'79 X-cars. If this is correct, that would explain why the same engine would have resulted in a decrease in performance between the '79 Nova and Malibu. That said, the '78-?? generation GM RWD intermediates represented a significant improvement over their '73-'77 counterparts, in terms of handling, space efficiency, and fuel economy. They were also generally better than the similar size, albeit slightly smaller, X-cars. For example, the X-cars had crude rear leaf rear springs, if memory serves me correctly, whereas the intermediates had coil springs. The coil springs delivered a better ride and handling proposition than the leaf springs. Also, the leaf springs tended to sag. Often one side sagged more than the other, which made the car go down the road crooked.
Andre, are you going to display any of your cars at the upcoming Rockville Classic Car Show?
Wow, I'm glad you said something...I forgot all about that show! Yeah, I'm going to have my '76 LeMans there. I've been getting really absent-minded lately...totally forgot about a training course I was supposed to go to today. Oops!
Here's a pic of the LeMans when I had it there last year. So if you come out to the show, stop by and say hi!
Those downsized Malibus were actually a bit lighter than a Nova, maybe 200-300 pounds I'm guessing? I've seen 4-door V-8 Novas listed around 3400-3500 pounds, while I think a V-8 Malibu was more like 3100-3200. I dunno if the THM200 tranny is much lighter than the THM350, but that may have been part of the weight savings. Novas all got the 350 tranny, even 6-cyl models, while the Malibu almost always got the 200 tranny. I'd imagine a copcar model would have had the 350 tranny though!
And yeah, the X-cars did still use leaf springs.
Another thing I just thought of...I wonder if the Nova copcar simply used more agressive gearing than the Malibu? GM started slipping some obscenely tall ratios in some of their later cars, and it's possible that they did that with the Malibu...even a copcar version? And for some reason I'm picturing the Nova copcar as having 15" rims, versus 14" for the Malibu, so that might have had something to do with the handling?
It seems logical that the THM200 tranny was lighter than the THM350, but that's another assumption. Too bad the intermediates converted to the THM200. In addition to being less rugged, the THM200 didn't shift nearly as crisply as the THM350. The shifting action of the smaller automatic was annoying, irritating, and didn't inspire confidence, so in that respect, and maybe only that respect, the compacts (inside, especially) were better than the intermediates.
Sure, if I go to the Rockville show, I'll stop by. I generally go every other year, and since I didn't go last year I'll probably go this year.
Rugged
Yeah, but that IS the language used in college...