Electel Blogspot

By 1990 General Motors was on its path from industry dominance to bankruptcy.  Ford's aerodynamically influenced 1986 Taurus was a marketing success that required a response from GM.  That response was in the form of its new W Platform .  Coupes appeared for the 1988 model year, sedans following for 1990. The present post deals with the sedans.  These were the Chevrolet Lumina , Pontiac Grand Prix , Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Buick Regal . Shamed by the lookalike 1982 A Body line, GM made an effort to have W Body cars for each brand look distinctive.  Some details are discussed below. Gallery Chevrolet Lumina Euro I owned one of these during my time as demographic forecast supplier to GM.  The basic Lumina had a different grille and no trunk lid spoiler. Pontiac Grand Prix This car had a slightly higher beltline and six-window passenger greenhouse.  Rear door cutlines differ. Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme The basic body here is similar to the Lumin...

During the 1940s and 1950s General Motors marketed five brands while using three body platforms.  How this was done for its two larger platforms was in a Special-Interest Autos magazine article I referenced here .  The subject of the present post is Oldsmobile's use of all three platforms on its 1951 line of models. Due to its intermingling of body segments, sometimes it can be difficult to identify the plaform a given GM car might be based on.  For example, this Wikpedia entry on the B Platform indicates the 1951-vintage Oldsmobile 88 and Super 88 models used that platform.  Yet the images below strongly suggest that the 88 line used the A Platform also used by Chevrolet and Pontiac. Let's take a look. Gallery Fold-out showing many examples of the 1951 Oldsmobile line.  Click on the image to enlarge. First, some images of a for-sale 1951 Oldsmobile 88 four-door sedan. Along with one of a beat-up for-sale A-Platform 1951 Pontiac four-door from a similar point ...

Recently while I was taking my morning walk in the town near where I live, I spotted and photographed the car shown above.  It's an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, probably from around 1990. Back when I was buying General Motors cars because I qualified for a supplier discount, a Ciera would have been more affordable than the GM car I actually bought.  But I knew that Cieras had been in production for what seemed ages, so I disregarded it because I wanted what I hoped was a car with newer technology. As the title of this post indicates, Cieras lasted through 15 model years, all using the same platform and body.  This was remarkable for GM in those days.  The cars apparently filled a strong market niche.  Better yet for corporate beancounters, Cieras were quite profitable because tooling costs were amortized during the first few years of that long production run. The Ciera's Wikipedia entry is here , and a link with perhaps more information is here . Some images of C...

A body type fashion that began in America for the 1955 model year was the four-door hardtop sedan which lacked a visible B-pillar when windows were rolled town.  This was an extension of the hardtop coupé concept that General Motors first mass-produced for the 1949 model year.  The idea was to market a design with a fixed metal roof having the grace of a convertible coupe/sedan. It took European manufacturers slightly longer than GM's major American competitors to produce four-door hardtops (Ford and Chrysler marketed theirs for 1956).  Today's subject is the Mercedes-Benz 300d ( werknummer W189) launched in August, 1957. The W189's Wikipedia entry is here . I wrote about the closely-related W186 large Mercedes 300s here . About 3,100 W189s were produced 1957-1962.  Their styling was close to that of the W186s, aside from the "pillarless" feature.  Unless noted, the images below are factory-sourced photos. Gallery A 1960 W189 with windows rolled up.  Asid...

I can think of only one example of an American car having its aft end drastically shortened in order to create a new model or new brand.  That was the American Motors Corporation (AMC)  Gremlin derived from the AMC Hornet . A slightly similar example is the General Motors "Aeroback" style found on some 1978 Buick and Oldsmobile models.  Some background regarding these poor-selling cars is here . Aerobacks were created by putting an angular fastback on what was basically a bustleback design.  Due to the shaping details, the visual effect was that of a chopped-off rear end on four-door versions (but less so for coupés). Gallery A 1970 AMC Hornet 2-door, the basis for the Gremlin. High rear quarter view of a 1971 Gremlin. Side view of a 1972 2-door Hornet. Side view of a 1971 Gremlin.  Gremlins were the same as Hornets forward of the B-pillars, though the aft door cuts differ slightly.  The Gremlin's wheelbase is one English foot (305 mm) shorter than the Hor...

General Motors' Motoramas of the early-to-mid 1950s featured one or more show cars from each of the Corporation's divisions.  Many were unique, but some others were based on cars currently in production or about to be introduced to the market.  An example of a production-derived dream car is the 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 (Wikipedia entry here ). As should be evident from the images below, the F-88 clearly resembles the Chevrolet Corvette.  The Corvette first appeared in the 1953 Motorama as a show car, and was in limited production by late that year.  As for the F-88, it was likely okayed around that time. Unless otherwise noted, images are factory publicity photos. Gallery 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 1954 Chevrolet Corvette Although the link states that the F-88 was Corvette-based, there are significant differences.  The cockpits and windshields look about the same, but the door cuts are different -- the F-88's extends closer to the rear wheel opening, and those wheel ope...