Paging Hirst... Hirst to the curse word-car-phone

A Caddy badged V6'd Mk2 Cavalier

NOMNOMNOM...

The J-car at it's weirdest. And only $5995...

I really shouldn't like the look of either of the two above, but I do. Not in a 'poor little underdog' way either, I actually genuinely like the styling. Retro Rides, what have you done to me!

I've no idea if it's got T&T but I can check. The interior is pretty horrific...

Stop it, your making me come ;D

It's like the B-Movie of the car world, so bad it's become culterific! I mean, look at that trunk and the embossed monikers on the seats, it's ridiculous.

I think you mean.....



....y awesome!!!!!

V6 front wheel drive auto - that's gonna be lovely to drive!

I was reading a 1983 copy of Motor Trend recently and it had something about a special edition Cimarron with blacked-out chrome, looked quite mean. Might scan it later so me and Akku can go "wahey" at it.

To be fair on the old Cimarron, it was more a dismal marketing/pricing failure than a rubbish car in itself. The J-car was a good platform and that V6 is used in some pretty decent stuff. The first ones didn't even offer that V6 though, they were a 2.0 4cyl only at the start. Even so it'd have been an alright drive I guess, but calling it a Cadillac and increasing the price was "brave". Then there was the whole thing that dealers weren't meant to refer to it as a Cadillac to prospective buyers, but to say it was a Cimarron (by Cadillac). Plus the TV adverts which drew attention to things like affordability and fuel economy, making it sound like some sort of cheap economy car (when in fact it was quite pricey). This in turn drove away existing buyers who felt the brand was being cheapened! Wasn't entirely without reason though - the Cadillac brand was a bit stuffy by the early 80s, basically the car of rich old men, New Jersey gangsters, etc. Meanwhile, aspiring young executives were looking at European luxury cars and GM looked over at the existing platforms and had a think, the whole thing was rushed together, etc etc.

Although, something less mentioned is that Cadillac also needed a fuel-efficient car to balance out the average fuel economy of their range (CAFE regulations) or they'd be paying hefty penalties based on how much they were over the MPG average. These regulations were designed to get cars more fuel efficient - not so bad if you're dealing with a wide range as your little economy cars can balance out the full-size/land yacht type stuff, but this was Cadillac. Didn't have to be done by introducing a small car though - Lincoln dealt with it by downsizing the Continental, changing to smaller engines (since they weren't as heavy) and fitting an overdrive box.

Just as a side note - the CAFE regs led to a very odd situation for law enforcement. They still wanted full-size cruisers (for reasons of durability, ability to ram people off the road), but the engine sizes kept going down. At one stage, the California Highway Patrol were mostly using a version of the St Regis which struggled to break 100mph (still a V8, I dread to think what the Slant 6 was capable of). A lot of law enforcement agencies ended up using compact/mid-size cars as it was the only way to have a car quick enough to make their job feasible. Strange times indeed!