Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
We spend a lot of time here at Car Lust blogging about unsung heroes--cars that for whatever reason never received the recognition they deserved. The Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera is not one of those cars. It received all the recognition it deserved--absolutely none.
With its reputation already listing after the torpedo hits of the 1970s, General Motors did the best it could to scuttle the remnants of its good name with a series of relentlessly mediocre sedans through the 1980s and early 1990s. The Cutlass Ciera was one of those sedans, joined in abject mediocrity by its A-body cousins, the Buick Century and Chevrolet Celebrity. Strangely, the A-body Pontiac 6000 STE escaped the curse--despite its mechanical similarities, it was a surprisingly effective sports sedan by the standards of the time.
The Cutlass Ciera and its fellow A-bodies weren't terrible in the same way as Cookie the Dog's Owner's Chevy Monza Wagon. They didn't tend to grenade, or rust away rapidly. They sold well and typically gave their owners many years of grudging, unenthusiastic service. Even now, more than a decade after the last of these cars went out of production, you can see Cieras and their brethren cruising around with scabrous paint and drooping headliners.
Of course, when these cars debuted in 1982, they weren't at all alone in their mediocrity. The Cutlass Ciera's chief domestic competition in 1982 came from Chrysler's K-car and the Ford Fairmont; the similarly uninspired Ford Tempo was still two years away. The difference is that I had a front-row seat to the Cutlass Ciera's weaknesses during many of my formative years.
I've talked about my father a few times on this blog; he is the inspiration of my car lust. He introduced me to muscle cars, he owned an Oldsmobile 4-4-2, he dropped a V-8 into a Vega, he rebuilt a muscle car engine in his dorm room ... and the stories go on. My dad is a muscle car man from way back.
My dad traveled quite a bit during the 1980s when I was a kid--always on long road trips throughout the Midwest. I've lived the road warrior life, and it's a punishing one. Long miles on the road, slummy motels, bad radio reception, greasy, unhealthy food, lots of sitting--it all comes together in an unappealing stew. But my experience was nothing compared to his; he coped with the impossibly slow 55-mph speed limit and a four-cylinder Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera company car. Strapping a performance guy like my dad into a 90-horsepower Cutlass Ciera for forced marches across Kansas at 55 mph was as cruel a punishment as forcing Carl Lewis to wear wooden clogs.
Burdened with its 92-horsepower Iron Duke four-cylinder, the Ciera richly earned its "Gutlass Ciera" nickname. I still remember my dad's joy the day his company authorized him to order the 2.8-liter V-6 in his next Cutlass Ciera. I've never seen anybody happier about 125 horsepower. Weeping with joy might be an exaggeration, but let's just say he had a quiet glow about him.
I am actually pretty fond of these cars. Since we only "owned" our Cutlass Cieras for a year at a time, we never got to see their inevitable deterioration. They were good-looking in a generic way, with blandly formal lines. They had the overstuffed bench seats, sloppy suspension, numb steering, two-spoke plastic steering wheel, and awful left control stalk typical of GM sedans of the time.
This was par for the course in the mid-1980s; the major problem was that the Cutlass Ciera wasn't replaced in 1988, when it was clearly obsolete. No, the Ciera--with the "Cutlass" eviscerated from its name late in life--soldiered on essentially unchanged until 1996, a time when slick, sophisticated, sporty family sedans were the norm. It's as if an unexceptional 1916 biplane was still tasked with combat missions in the Korean War.
Oldsmobile also tortured the Cutlass with what must have been an inspired sense of irony. The Cutlass Ciera, like the rest of the Oldsmobile line, received a logo made up of many national flags--the implication being that the car was distinctly European. Right. The most deliciously ironic model was the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera GT--a name that inspired an epic level of cognitive dissonance that my head is still ringing. Monochromatic paint, a body kit, no extra horsepower, no extra horsepower ... the Ciera GT was a sport package ranking with the master of toothless sport packages, the Yugo GVX.
The Cutlass Ciera wasn't a great car, but I'll always remember it fondly. And, despite my better judgement, I sorta want the woody wagon and the Cutlass GT above. As long as it has the V-6 ...
The awful commercial below is yet another example of a car ad that says absolutely nothing about the car. In this genre, however, this ad comes up a clear second-best to the "Born in America" Plymouth Sundance ad we featured a few months ago--the music is cheesy and the lyrics horribly stilted. "I'm the Olds they call Cutlass Ciera! ... I'm your native car!" I can't imagine a 1985 car buyer watching this ad spellbound and saying, "Man, I have got to get me one of those."
The top image came from Wikipedia and is a perfect representation of every one of our Cutlass Cieras. The second is a perversely attractive wagon from Flickr user forwardlookguy, the third is a later Ciera from Flickr user rotorglow, and the fourth is a Cutlass Ciera GT press image found at Encyclopedia.ClassicOldsmobile.com.
--Chris H.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on October 27, 2008 at 11:11 AM
Steve Goodman's "The City of New Orleans" is the greatest train song ever written. I am just old enough to remember what my "fathers' magic carpet made of steel" was like before Amtrak, and for me it is particularly moving. To hear it bowlderized into a throwaway jingle for the Gutless Ciera just makes me cringe. The ad agency people responsible for this deserve nothing less than to be haunted to the end of their days by the vengeful spirit of Steve Goodman.
That Car Guy on October 27, 2008 at 12:34 PM
In a desparate attempt to save the marque, Oldsmobile adopted the "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" ad campaign in 1988. Among others, The Judds, Naomi & Wynonna, added their unique country flavor as daughter Wynonna said, "...It's my mother's!" as a tag to the slogan. They drove a "champagne" Cutlass Ciera with the then-new curved backlight as shown in Chris' third photo in the ad, which is special to me as part of it was filmed at my house.
Why does GM stick with dumb car names? Ciera, Sierra, Torrent, Relay, Astra (A former Pontiac/Vega derivative now used on a Saturn) are a few. GM needs to reinvent itself just to survive, and killing off great names like Oldsmobile, or using former great names like LeMans and GTO on rubbish is not the way to do that. Building quality, innovative cars right here in the 48 is. Honda, Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW are... and VW soon will be... why can't GM?
Will on October 27, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Car Guy,
It was Pontiac Astre, not Astra.
Steaming Pile on October 27, 2008 at 01:47 PM
@TCG - OI think the idea was that Olds was preventing people from ever visiting a Buick dealer, even though they could afford it. So to get people to make the jump from Chevy (or Pontiac) directly to Buick (and spend more money), Olds had to die.
Still, I can't understand why GM would want to crank out what Chevy Chase (as Fletch) once called "Oldsmobuicks" year after year, thinking they can fool people into believing they were driving something value-added when they were really driving a Chevy with extra Plastichrome on it. Given a choice between an '88 Cutlass Ciera, and the same year Camry of Accord, I don't think I'd ever bother with a GM vehicle ever again.
That Car Guy on October 27, 2008 at 02:22 PM
Will: I stand corrected. But the pronunciations seem to be identical. Oh, there's now a Chevy Astra for Mexico and Russia. Then there's the Chevy Astro minivan. All have an ashtray option. They come with astronomical payments, too!
danup on October 27, 2008 at 03:55 PM
The Ciera is the prototypical "handsome" car, especially with the late-80s aero stuff. Invisible in traffic, but no disaster.
Personally I was always fond of the W-body Cutlass Supreme, with the hidden c-pillars. Of course the Aurora-language stuff was great, too--what a shame GM couldn't keep Olds together.
Rob the SVX guy on October 27, 2008 at 04:41 PM
I always dug this car too... my friend had one, and despite it's awful blown suspension and vague steering, it was always a blast for roadtrips. The stereo cranked, the windows down, we were headed somewhere to cause trouble, have fun, and evade Johnny Law. We even made up fake Cutlass Ciera gang symbols with our hands, which we flashed at other people driving Cutlass Cieras (everyone always looked confused). I shall now contribute the following pictures, the last of which was the LAST DAY of this particular Cutlass Ciera before it was sold to a scrapyard.
Please watch and enjoy a slideshow I put together of a very memorable car:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30771100@N00/sets/72157608432308021/show/
Peace!
Chris Hafner on October 27, 2008 at 04:50 PM
I love that slideshow, Rob. Yeah, I could see the Cutlass Ciera as a fantastic road trip car--blasting tunes from the Delco radio that was in *every* GM car. I like the close-up of the multi-flag emblem, too.
Do you have any photos of the Cutlass Ciera gang symbols?
Rob the SVX guy on October 27, 2008 at 05:48 PM
Nope... it was just a C and a C overlapped, sort of. And if you look close, you'll see the Delco radio is absent from this Cutlass. It had a CD player. :)
Cookie the Dog's Owner on October 27, 2008 at 06:26 PM
Rob: that was a wonderfully artistic slideshow about a wonderfully un-wonderful car.
Shawn on October 27, 2008 at 07:05 PM
From the commercial: "There is a special feel...in an Oldsmobile!"
tapioca?
I swear that song would've fit right in with the mock patriotic songs in Team America: World Police. So over the top.
My experiences with the CC are few, but my parents owned the equally bland A-body 1983 Buick Century. It was their first car that I remember. For some reason the "BODY BY FISHER" badge on the door sills still seems classy to me to this day. My mom hated driving it...yet they bought another Buick soon after: a 1986 LeSabre. Which she also hated, and lead them to buy foreign cars from then on and never look back.
Dave In Iowa on October 28, 2008 at 06:48 AM
Hoo boy.
In the summer of 1985, when I was ten, the time came to replace the family's tomato soup-orange 1982 Corolla wagon with something roomier, as my younger sister and I were both growing. Dad wanted to get a Camry, noting the years of faithful service his then-current car (a '78 Corona wagon) had given us; mom instisted on "buying American." Long story short, we ended up with a brand new 1985 Cutlass Ciera. With the 4 cylinder.
Egad, what a dog that was, and not just performance-wise. The car left mom and dad stranded on a night out barely three weeks after we'd taken delivery; a bad alternator. I remember dad cursing when he discovered the best way to access the oil filter was to remove the front passenger wheel. In the next three years and 45,000 miles, the car went through an additional two alternators, three sets of brakes, and a couple other failures I can't remember now.
Mom, having realized the error of her ways, authorized the purchase of a new 1988 Camry...one of the few five speed Camries in captivity, and the car I eventually would learn to drive on. That car lasted over 200,000 miles and through two teenage drivers. Since then, they've never bought a Big 3 car again.
There has never been a better Toyota commercial made than an '80s GM car.
Jason O. on October 28, 2008 at 07:01 AM
My high school summer job was washing and detailing cars for customer delivery at an Olds/Cadillac/Volvo/Saab dealership from 1988-1990...FYI it took about one hour to prep a Cutlass Ciera.
Sorry, Cookie the Dog: Johnny Cash's "One More Ride" is the best train song:
"As the years go by I wonder why I longed to leave my home
And to hit the trail of the iron rail away out there alone
But my heart would sigh till I know that I am leavin'
If I don't come back on a one way track way down in Mexico
You can find me there or any old where that a tumbleweed will grow
It's goodbye now you'll never know how I'm grievin' "
rob on October 28, 2008 at 07:36 AM
My father had one of these pathetic machines, of an 86 vintage.
Utter peice of gutless crap, with exploding transmissions and impossible to change rear 3 spark plugs. The saddest part was that when moving, and "convoying" aLL 3 of our cars, that thing could not even keep up with my bone stock 72 super beetle (all raging 57 hp) or my mother's incredible quick 78 rabbit (sporting 75 or so hp).
The bug still runs, and the rabbit was sold off a while back, but the Cutlass Ciera was sold off long long before, and good riddance.
Rob
Steaming Pile on October 28, 2008 at 08:11 AM
@rob - I hear you on the transverse-mounted V6s. It was actually in a service bulletin for one 80s Big Three car - I think it was for a Plymouth Voyager - that the engine mounts had to be removed and the engine rotated forward to reach the plugs. No shit. From that day I resolved never to saddle myself with one - four bangers all the way for me. If I can't do basic maintenance on it, I don't want it. Period.
RacerS3 on October 28, 2008 at 09:29 AM
My dad was a salesman for a company that supplied tooling to the automotive industry and they would lease new cars every two years. He had ordered a Cutlass Ciera GT 4door in 1986 as a company car. I can’t remember if it was an 86 or 87 model year though. Since our family always had bigger V8 powered cars, I just remember thinking it was going to be un-inspiring. Maybe it is because my expectations were so low, but I remember kind of liking it, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was bright silver with a lot of backed-out trim, dark maroon leather interior, bucket seats, and automatic in a console and a (cool in the 80’s) digital readout dash. It also had FE3 suspension package with 15” aluminum lace wheels, which made it fairly nimble. What I remember most about this car is that it had the 3.8 liter E.F.I. Buick V6 in it and it was quite peppy, but had a fair amount of torque steer with that big 3.8 V6. It even had a decent exhaust burble. I think it was the most loaded Cutlass Ciera you could get. Styling wise I think it looked as good as any offering in that segment in that time, foreign or domestic. We never had any problem with the car in the two years we owned it. But I am sure it would have succumbed to a lot of the same problems other GM cars of that era had.
I do remember one night me and my brother were working on his 70 SS396 Chevelle and we needed to make a run to the auto parts shop. The Ciera was the last car at the end of the driveway so we took it. On the way back home from the auto parts shop we ran into a buddy of mine on the street who had a 66 or 67 Pontiac Lemans, with a 326 V8 and automatic, nothing special but he thought it was “Hot”. At the stoplight, as kind of a joke, my brother revved the engine of the Ciera and my buddy responded by doing the same. When the light turned green we both floored it. The Ciera squealed its tires as my brother worked the steering wheel to keep it pointed straight, fighting the torque steer. We pulled ahead by about a fender to half car and the Ciera actually chirped the front tires when it shifted into second gear, shortly after my buddy in the lemans let off probably to avoid any further embarrassment.
Not that it would be worth anything now but I think that car was fairly rare considering its luxury and performance options. Over the years I have never seen another one like it. It was a fun little car when it was new.
David Colborne on October 28, 2008 at 09:56 AM
A friend of mine had an '88 Celebrity Wagon with the V-6, which was part of the same body style. It wasn't a bad car, especially for a teenager (enough kick to be almost interesting, but not enough to get in serious trouble), and it sat eight if you deployed the fold-up seat in the back. I don't remember him ever having any problems with it that weren't self-inflicted; then again, he got it 10 years after it was made, so his grandparents (the previous owners) probably dealt with the worst of any "breaking in" issues.
That said... that thing could barely get out of its own way with the V-6. I shudder to think what it would have been like to try to drive a 4-cylinder version of those things. I don't think it's an accident or a coincidence that most of those that are still running are not Iron Duke-equipped.
meccano on October 28, 2008 at 01:07 PM
>There has never been a better Toyota commercial made than an '80s GM car.<
Hows 'bout one made by Chrysler?
Sigivald on October 28, 2008 at 02:51 PM
92 horsepower? Luxury!
My Mercedes has a mere 77 horsepower, one more than the year of its manufacture.
There's a lot to be said for being able to drive a car at its limits, all the time. Flooring it from almost every stop without a chirp or smoke (or a reckless driving citation)...
Sillypickle on October 29, 2008 at 11:32 AM
My roommate has a deep red Cutlass Ciera. I have not been in the car yet, since I just moved in a month ago and we have not needed to go anywhere together, but it is definitely a car you don't notice much. It seems like you could definitely do worse for a college car, especially given that many of them are hand-me-downs from grandparents who either bought a newer Cadillac or are just too old to drive much anymore. As Rob noted earlier, such cars are best for long road trips. Somehow a road trip in one of my family's Toyotas just doesn't compare to cruising along in one of my grandparents' cars (inevitably made by GM). Driving long distances at high speeds is downright boring in a Camry because it handles far too competently. If you're gonna drive a non-sporty car, it should be an absolute boat that floats around on the freeway even when you're just trying to go straight ahead. This is, I think, the key to interesting 10 hour drives.
That Car Guy on October 29, 2008 at 01:55 PM
I have a copy of a commercial for this car, but it's on VHS. I can transfer it to DVD, but I'm lost after that. If somebody can help me get this to Car Lust, I would appreciate it very much!
Rob the SVX guy on October 30, 2008 at 01:08 PM
Hook the VHS up to a minidv cam, or any modern video camera via RCA input. Hit record on the camcorder, then hit play on the VCR. Then hook the camera up to the computer, import the footage, etc.
Or, just send me the DVD and I can get it on youtube for you.
- Rob
That Car Guy on October 30, 2008 at 01:31 PM
Hey Rob! I have transferred it to DVD... I have a PC, and the Movie Maker program is rubbish. My email is cpl-1617@hotmail.com. Please send me an address I can mail it to, and it'll be out first thing in the morning! This is the Olds Ciera ad with The Judds, and part of it was filmed at my house. Thanks!
87 Cutlass Ciera on November 19, 2008 at 08:08 AM
Wow, I must say this is quite the bashing on the Cutlass Ciera. I have the 1987 version, with the duke in it (from an 88 Fiero, melted no.3 piston) For a little four banger it's not a dog, mind you I've never been lucky enough to get behind the wheel of a V6 yet so I guess I have nothing to compare it to, but comparing it to other 4cyl cars (90/92 Corolla auto and 5spd, 2000/03 Cavalier) I've driven it's not horribly gutless and I can squeal the tires from any dead stop, burying the needle isn't hard to do, and like people have said above, it's usually not something the cops are looking out for. It's my first car, it's never left me stranded and it gets great fuel mileage (30+MPG for the tank it is)! Plus it's still in really good shape, now I must concur, the suspension leaves nothing to be desired, but highway cruising is extremely comfortable which is what I do a lot of. And there are a lot worse out there.
Dr.wz on November 22, 2008 at 10:18 PM
Dear sir,
I've a car olds mobile Cutlass model 1987 there is a problem with that is its fuel injectar are not working properly so sir plz help me out this problem i'll be ur thankful sir
Thank
Fawaz Ali