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I don’t mind the 90-92 style as long as it has the 350. The GM guys in here may disagree with me but 91+ Town Cars were much more modern and better cars overall. Modern 4.6 OHC engine, modern dashboards, air bags and ABS w/traction control.
I omitted the 90 Town Car since it still had the 5.0 Lopo… why on earth they didn’t put the HO in l will never know.
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There was a Lincoln commercial where they poked fun at all the GM varients that looked the same.
Here it is (starts at 30 seconds):
I think it was more with the Mustang crowd, and perhaps the T-bird/Cougar as well, but I seem to recall there being some pushback to the 4.6 at the time, vs the 5.0. But, people are often resistant to change, even if it is for the better. And, maybe it was something along the lines of the 5.0 getting its peak torque a lot lower in the rpm range, so it felt like it was quicker, even if it wasn't?
The Chevy 305 was up to around 170 hp in these big cars by 1991-93, I believe. But, for some reason I'm thinking they were a bit light on torque? (**Edit: Just looked it up, and in '91 the 305 had 255 ft-lb) The '90 Brougham was still using the Olds 307 as its standard engine, as well as the old 4-speed THM200C transmission. It only had 140 hp, same as it always did, but I think it had 255 ft-lb of torque. GM probably could have gotten better performance out of the 307, but the THM200C had a taller 1st and 2nd gear than the 700R4 that the 305 used in big cars. And I think the 305 used a quicker rear end ratio as well
While my preference tends to run towards GM, I think they could have learned a few lessons from Ford, in how to style a big car to look modern and aerodynamic, yet at the same time be tasteful!
Interior shot of dash is "strange." Beautiful car.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I like the styling of those Town Cars best of all Town Cars, and liked when they got rid of the 'vent on a vent' look and went with full door glass styling in the rear doors at some point.
I had a couple that had warped brake rotors; that I remember well from driving in Tennessee hills. But, really, I can't imagine the guys at Budget who rotate tires were especially careful about not unevenly or overly tightening lug nuts.
The 90s TC was facelifted for the 95 model year when it lost the soft pillar in the rear door. That facelift really freshened up the car, those are good looking. I recall in my first "real" job after school, my manager had a silver blue on grey facelift 90s TC, seemed like a super nice car.
BAT listing.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1970-plymouth-superbird-50/
"...The NB Center, in which Mr. Bulgari has invested at least $10 million, has about 200 vintage cars from his collection (another 100 are in storage in Italy). Nearly all of the vehicles were built between the 1920s and the mid-1950s, in the middle of America, for the middle of the market. There are Chryslers, Chevrolets, Nashes, Oldsmobiles, Studebakers and, most abundantly, Buicks.
Mr. Bulgari knows each of the vehicles by make, year, specification — and often by purchase date and location, too. He rattled off the bona fides of several cars on a recent tour of the center: They included a 1934 Buick 96S with “a smooth reliable engine that is unparalleled,” as he put it; a 1941 Nash with a rear seat that converts into a bed; a 1948 Buick “woody” station wagon with an ash-and-mahogany body..."
In 1960 Chrysler developed the Astradome cluster which used space-age electroluminescent lighting instead of bulbs. I gather the bean counters nixed that after a couple of years for being too expensive. Notice the various switches and controls sprouting from the side of the column. I suspect some buyers did not like that design much. It even evicted the turn signal stalk.
In ‘65 they did a tribute to the ‘60 but with bulbs and a conventional turn signal stalk and even a shift lever instead of the usual Chrysler pushbuttons. I think it looked pretty good.
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grandma's baby
Easy now… I had a 2000 SLE V6
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“Solara” always reminded me of “Polara”.
😆
Low-mounted turn signals in back. Not linked in any way to the large, red lights higher up on the body.
Remember when 'high-mounted' meant 'easy to see'?
Other than styling in the old days, not a fan of 'change for the sake of change'. People are accustomed to turn signals being up high, because they were that way for absolute decade-upon-decade.
We had a mildly cantankerous discussion of this a few years back, but I'm still not convinced how superior pushbutton starting is, when you still have to have the fob in the car. My daily driver still has a key.
When we got our 2019 Equinox, it was our first with pushbutton start. It toots the horn when you get out and the car's still running--but after over 40 years of driving with a key, I'll admit that when my mind is going in twenty different directions when I pull into the store, early on, twice I came out to find the car running.
My boss' parents avoided disaster when they left their car running in the garage--pushbutton start--and their CO detector upstairs started going off.
You can call it idiotic--as many here did--but fact is, people died from that.
All probably because it was cheaper to make, after decades of requiring keys in the ignition.
I know, I know, GM had problem with keys in the ignition. Figured I'd head that off here.
Years ago a friend of my Stepdad's bought his wife a Mazda 929. it was a 95 or 96 white over ivory and heavily optioned. It was a very nice car that is long forgotten... anyway, it ran so quiet that the first day she took it to work it idled for 9 hours in the parking lot on a 95 degree summer day. That must have been just great for a new engine with all of 50 miles on it.
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My only real experience with pushbutton starting is my 2023 Charger, and I don't drive it that often, so it's still "newfangled" to me. I usually have the fob in my hand when I go to the car, so I have a habit of just dropping it in the cupholder when I get in the car, since there's no need to stick it in the ignition like all of my other cars. I haven't forgotten to turn the car off, yet, but there have been a few times I'd get out of the car and momentarily forget to grab the fob. I'd reach back in and grab it pretty quickly though, since I use the fob to lock the door.
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If you google it, it was sort of a ‘new thing’. People did this when they probably hadn’t left their cars running before because it was second nature to take the keys out.
Any opinions on the low-mounted turn signals?
Another thing I don't like about modern turn signals, is that when they're integrated into the headlight cluster, they're not always as visible, as a turn signal that's separate. The problem isn't as common with the rear turn signals and taillights, but I have seen it from time to time.
I've heard people say the amber rear turn signals are more visible than red, but I don't always see it. Depends on the application, I guess
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If I tried to make my wife use a car without keyless entry and start she would divorce me. Or kill me. Something like that.
The huge benefit is not having to fish anything out of the bottom of her 10# purse. Me, I just keep the fob in my pocket.
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Even when I was a kid I thought this was iffy.
My mind is blown that that car is 42 years old now.
What's weird to me about the HyunKias I've seen (and someone mentioned a Venza with them), is that there are large red lights in the normal place, but they don't contain the turn signals.
andre, I remember you commenting on how bad your grandparents' '82 Malibu Classic wagon was. I always thought, even then, that the '83 GM's got increased QC as the detail things you could see seemed better to me...including paint. They seemed to get "Computer Command Control" right, from '81 and '82. More importantly, the 305 4-barrel was the optional V8 in '83.
Of course this isn't a huge deal overall since there are weeks she doesn't even drive anywhere!
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It was a good looking car, though. In 7/8th grade, I was in a private school, and their bus didn't come out our way. So some of the local families organized a carpool. One of the ladies my Grandmom worked with told her about it, and we joined. In those days, we were living across the street from my grandparents, and Granddad was retired, so he had plenty of free time.
Initially, Granddad only drove one day a week, as there were five families total, and we split it up. But at one point, one of the families offered Granddad some money if he'd take over their day, and then the rest ended up doing it as well, so Granddad ended up driving 5 days a week. He enjoyed it, though. Usually, he drove us in his '76 GMC 3/4 ton crew cab. But, on days that Grandmom wasn't working, he'd drive the Malibu. I do remember the housewives mentioning what a great looking car it was!
I can still remember the cars the other families had. One family had a '78 Volare wagon. My Grandmom's co-worker had an early 80s LeSabre wagon with the 350 Diesel. Actually, I think she may have been the first to pay Granddad to take her day. I also remember her mentioning how great the car was, and that she could get 30 mpg, easily. The other family had two cars they rotated...an early 80's Electra coupe, and an early 80's Riviera. I can still remember how awesome the stereos in those two Buicks sounded...for the most part my family was driving cars with just an am/fm radio and one speaker! Although, I can't remember now if the Malibu had one speaker or was stereo. The final family had a '76-77 Dodge Aspen wagon, light blue, that was looking pretty ratty, even though were only in 1983-84!
There were 8 of us kids total, ranging from 2nd to 8th grade. How the hell we crammed 8 kids plus the driver into that Electra and Riviera is beyond me, at this point! And considering the Malibu and the two Mopars did not had a third row seat, there were kids piled in the back, bouncing around like lotto balls.
And even worse, on nice days, Granddad would let us kids ride in the bed of the truck! I'm sure the police, as well as most parents, would have a fit over that nowadays!
Another thing Granddad hated about that Malibu was how much of a dog it was. It had the 229, with 110 hp. I always presumed it had the same 175 ft-lb of torque as Mom's '80 Malibu coupe. But I just looked it up on Automobile Catalog. And presuming they're correct, the '82 was slightly worse, at 170! I knew about the hp reduction, with the '80 having 115 and the '81-84 having 110, but didn't realize torque actually dropped! For '83 they got it up to 190 ft-lb, so that might have been enough to be noticeable.
My Mom's Malibu coupe didn't seem too bad at the time, with regards to performance, but I'd imagine the heavier wagon body, plus the slight hp/torque reduction, were enough to cause a noticeable drop. My grandparents most likely bought it for fuel economy, as this was February 1982. But I have a feeling that Granddad just had no idea it would be as slow as it was. It replaced a '72 Impala with a 350 that was obviously faster. The '76 GMC just had a 350, and you'd think it would have been overmatched in a 3/4 ton, crew cab, 8-foot bed configuration, but it seemed fine. They also had an '81 Dodge D50 (Mitsubishi) with the 2.6 and automatic. And that was probably light enough, and geared more aggressively, so performance might not have been too bad. Plus, with smaller vehicles and smaller, high-revving engines, they can often feel quicker than they really are.
I remember when I saw my first new '82 Malibu. I didn't like how they got rid of the sloping front end and squared it off. But worse, you could see the seams on the front fenders from the side, where the old slanted front end had been!
We've touched on this before, but those carved-out rear door armrests never seemed so practical to me, more forward than resting your arm would be naturally.
In our small town, I never once rode a bus and walked to all three schools I attended. But we lived almost smack in the middle of town. I did ride my bike to middle school on occasion. But I bet I can count on one hand the number of times anyone ever dropped me off or picked me up in a vehicle!
My mother never even drove.
She always had virtually zero opinion on what car Dad bought, but she did like the Monte Carlo and put her foot down when he looked at a '72 Chevelle in that very bright green metallic that I liked. She said it looked like it was painted with a brush in that color.
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For 2nd-5th grade, we lived about 5 miles away. In 6th grade, I also went to a private school, which was Episcopalian. The public schools seemed like they went to hell around here almost overnight, so my Mom enrolled me in a private school that was maybe 1 1/2-2 miles away. It probably would have been walking distance, but part of that was along a busy state road. Granddad also drove me to and from that school. That school only went up to 6th grade, and the traditional path for their students was to go to a middle school that was REALLY expensive, so I got put into a Catholic school for 7th and 8th grade. That one was also about 5 miles away.
The high school I should have gone to, is the main reason I had gotten put into private schools. Which is sad, because it was the high school both my Mom and my uncle had gone to. It was about 2.5-3 miles away, so far enough to still need a bus. Luckily, I got into a science and tech program at another school, about 5 miles away. The science and tech program was separate from the "general population." The bus did come out our way, but ran all over the map because the science and tech students out our way were really spread out. I remember school was 9:30-4, but the bus usually picked me up around 8:30. And I usually got dropped off around 4:50-5, depending on traffic.
Funny thing is, that Malibu got Grandmom so distrustful of modern cars that, when Granddad was planning to buy his '85 Silverado, Grandmom took a tape measure, and measured the width of the front seat of the '76 GMC! She was convinced that the trucks got shrunken, somehow. And, when she measured the seat on the Silverado, damn if it didn't come up a bit narrower, somehow! She was really reluctant to let Granddad get that truck.
I have no idea though, why the seat of an '85 Silverado would be narrower than a '76 GMC, though. Unless it's because the GMC was a crew cab, with a fixed seatback, while the Chevy was a single cab, and the seatback folded forward so you could store things behind it. So perhaps it was narrower to allow for the hinges?
I do remember folks who said GMC's had "thicker sheetmetal" than Chevys in the '70's, LOL. They both seemed to rust in the same places!
Somehow though, I have trouble picturing that being enough to get the car up to $11,000. Even throwing in shipping and tax. So either Granddad really got screwed, or he was remembering it wrong.
I don't know if they were discounting Malibus by 1982. On one hand, bigger cars in general weren't selling, but I do remember Motortrend or C&D testing an '82 Caprice with the 305, and they said that Caprices were selling for close to sticker, while the new Celebrity, which was supposed to be sort of a family car of the future, was selling at deep discounts.
The Celebrity was pretty expensive at first, though. My auto encyclopedia lists a 4-cyl 4-door model at $8,463. In contrast, a V8 Malibu Classic 4-door was only $8,207. A V8 Impala was a mere $7,988! And even a Caprice Classic V8 sedan was only $8,437. Now granted, all those V8s were only 267's, but still.
I have a feeling that GM may have cut back full-sized production enough that there weren't so many on the market. So while the overall market for big cars did fall during that timeframe, GM cut the supply so far that there was still plenty of demand. Meanwhile, the Celebrity got launched into an already crowded midsized segment that occasionally got overlapped with the larger compacts. So at its price point, it just wasn't competitive. But, I don't know where that left the Malibu, which was sort of somewhere in between the Celebrity and the big cars. Buyers probably felt like they were getting more car for their money than a Celebrity, but I guess it's possible they did run pretty big discounts on them from time to time.
By contrast, a few years ago someone in the neighborhood owned one of these and I always liked this rear end design:
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We ended up buying the Maverick and one day later on I did his test. The Ford fender flexed in the spot where the Merc did not. Hmmm.
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I think it must have been a pilot line car, built in the Baltimore plant. It had its share of problems. The window cranks on the front doors stuck out too far and were maybe 1” proud of the door panels. The drivers door glass fell out of the regulator and into the door. The door panels didn’t clip into the metal inner door properly so the window sweeps never touched the glass and kind of flopped around. The air vents in the dash didn’t work because something was disconnected. The tailgate window rattled badly. Some of the plastic trim pieces inside around the doors were warped. Sometimes when you started it from cold it would rev like mad, maybe 2500rpm or more and you’d have to shut it off and try again. After a year or so there was enough flex in either the roof structure or the roof rack that it caused the paint to crack and flake off where they met each other and it began rusting out. The di-noc woodgrain on the exterior apparently had some issue I could never actually see, but on their own, the dealer ordered in a new set of it and gave it to us gratis. It never did get used. Funnily enough, the thing that bothered Dad the most was that the woodgrain plastic trim piece on the dash above the glovebox said “Safari” and apparently it should have said “Grand LeMans”, so they replaced that. The assembly and build quality was bad even for that era of GM.
Ours had the identical rear bumper. One thing about that era of GM bean counters I never understood was why they didn’t allow divisions to have variations on those taillights. Maybe some different molding of the lenses or a platichrome overlay to make them look a little different.
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When my Mom bought her 1980 Malibu, she really wanted a LeMans, as she had a preference towards Pontiacs. But I think the draw for the Malibu is that it was cheaper. Looking at my old car book again, the base price of a 1980 Malibu coupe was $5502, vs $5602 for a LeMans. Interestingly, here too, the LeMans was a heavier car. Base weight of 3064 lb, vs the Malibu's 2996. In this case, I would think the Malibu should weight more, mostly for two reasons. First, the 229 V6 was heavier than the 231. And second, the Malibu had those big chrome bumpers, whereas the LeMans had those plastic fascias over the bumpers that tried to give the car a cleaner, more integrated look. Yeah, it still had the steel bumpers underneath, but they were smaller than the Malibu's bumpers.
So, I wonder where the LeMans's extra weight went? It was about 4" longer than a Malibu, and I think all of that was up front. So maybe part of that weight was because of a longer front header panel? And maybe the shock absorbers on the front bumpers were longer, and therefore heavier, than the Malibu?
I’d bet a box of donuts there was no difference between Maverick and Comet, or Chevy and GMC body panels. Huge cost and loss in manufacturing flexibility if there was.
The front fenders were almost the same, except on the Malibu, the front of the fender cut at an angle, to account for the side marker light. On the LeMans, the front was vertical, as the side marker light was completely ahead of the fender. I don't know if making the fenders almost identical, but not quite, saved any money though, versus having more variation. After all, "almost" the same probably still required different tooling for stamping them out.
In the rear quarters, there was a bit more variation. The Malibu had a beltline crease that went all the way back to the upper part of the taillights, but on the LeMans, there was none. And on the LeMans, the beltline itself kicked up in the rear. I think it worked really well on the coupes, sort of evoking that "Coke Bottle" look of the '66-67, but on the sedans it was a bit awkward. I think the trunk lids were identical on the '78s. In '77, they were most likely similar, as in the same width, and hinged at exactly the same location, but the LeMans trunk extended down further, between the taillights. On the Sport Coupe/Grand LeMans models it housed a set of dummy reflector lights, and some extra chrome (probably pot metal) trim on the Grand LeMans.
I'm pretty sure the Century and Cutlass Salon also shared most of their sheetmetal in their downsizing. The personal luxury coupes all seemed a bit more unique, although still less so than in '77. Although, in '77 The Cutlass Supreme and Regal (and Century) coupes seemed awfully close in style...and shared a lot more with their lesser Century/Cutlass non-personal luxury coupe models, than the Grand Prix/Monte Carlo did with the LeMans/Malibu. The dashboards in the '78 midsizers were also a lot more similar, whereas in '77 they actually had five different designs (Pontiac accounted for two...LeMans and Grand LeMans/Grand Prix/Can Am). So I'm sure GM definitely saved some money there.
RE.: The Celebrity when introduced:
As Iacocca gloated at the time, both the Celebrity et al, and Cavalier et al, were "lousy launches". Both were stickered quite high, and the Cavalier and co. with the 1.8 engine were poorly reviewed for performance.
In '83, the 2.0 engine came out in those cars, and was considered a decent improvement. Also, Cavalier and Celebrity pricing went down I'm pretty sure I remember.
'82 and '83 were weird years at Chevy.
Monte Carlo bucket seats went away, Impala coupe went away, Caprice coupe was gone in '83, Citation Club Coupe went away. Monte buckets, Caprice coupe, and Citation Club Coupe all returned after being discontinued earlier, weird.
Lots of new product in '82--Camaro, Celebrity, Cavalier.
It'd be interesting to see FoMoCo's parts number for Maverick and Comet front fenders. Unless holes were different for nameplates, it seems they'd be the same number. But who knows.
I had a discussion here several years ago, about the 250 hp 327 in a '62 Corvette being the same engine as the 250 hp 327 in a full-size Chevy. That was my take, that they were the same engine. I know in a C1, they had a bright metal air cleaner and "Corvette" stamped on the valve covers. The person arguing that they were two different engines had a hard time convincing me that Chevy would bother, just to have identical output as a result. I subsequently asked an acquaintance who had owned both cars and had the factory parts manuals. He reported that major internal engine part numbers, including heads, were the same.
He tested transmission parts. He said the jig for the Mercury had tighter tolerances than the Ford. So, some parts that were okay for Ford, might not pass for Mercury.
True or not, I do not know. But, he told me that in 1977, while he was working there.
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I also recall Marge Simpson's car has bumper lights (might have been loosely based on a similar car):
Long before that I was in a GM plant and was told the best quality parts from production went to Cadillac, the others with less than perfect finishes went to other GM vehicles sharing parts.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
And the fuchsia car reminds me of a Cadillac
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I never thought the back end of the car was handsome. The tailgate was ungainly and the bumper chunky, no style.
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Still a fan of the five-slot Rally Wheels, which in the '73-77 years were only used on Chevelle and Monte Carlo. The Malibu Classic was the only Colonnade wagon that had a wide rocker molding. Well, I think the Grand LeMans might've had one, now that I think about it. EDIT: Looks like the Century wagon had it.
I always did like the '74-77 Malibu Classic seating--nice tuck-and-roll, and a lot of buttons.
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