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.
blackbird on March 10, 2009 at 03:27 PM
In defense of the Ciera....
I spent my early driving years behind the wheel of a 1989 Cutlass Ciera, and as time marched on, and I graduated college, got some money, and bought better cars, I always kept my Ciera for trips into the city, winter transportation, and as a spare knock around car. When I got my licence in 1993 it's what I learned to drive on, and when mom got her new 1995 Taurus, my folks gave it to me, rather than trading it in. It had 145,000 miles on it by then, and I figured if I could nurse it through college I could save myself a car payment. It lasted almost a decade longer.
The car proved to be more than reliable, but a pleasure to drive. The 3300 V6 (the smaller version of the legenary 3800) proved to be utterly reliable, and provided ample power for such a light car. It was easy to work on, and parts were always available for cheap at any parts store. Most repairs could be accomplished with a 8, 10 and 13 millimeter sockets and a phillips head screw driver. I never had the engine or transmission apart. It's handling was sloppy when I first got it, but after I replaced the outer tie rod ends, shocks and struts, and the car handled reasonably well.
it's 185/75r14 tires could be had at wal-mart for $30 bucks back in those days. Fuel economy was usually around 23-25 mpg, the stereo sounded great, even using a cassette adapter for my CD player. Everything in the engine bay was accessible. Waterpump? 30 minute job in the dorm parkinglot. I could pad slap the front brakes in about 15 minutes. The DIS ignition system was almost fail proof, and anytime the check engine light came on, it was a 9$ one wire o2 sensor, no scan tool required... just a paper clip.
The car did eat up 3 alternators, and a starter, but they were easy to change. The car rode great, and was a pleasure to drive. The interior was comfy, but cheap, and the dashboard warped, the headliner sagged, and bits and peices were always falling off, and the power windows always seemed to have some sort of failure, but otherwise I found the car to be excellent transportation.
I racked up 361,607 miles on the Oldsmobile before the rear axle mounts rusted and broke out of it in the fall of 2007. The engine and transmission still ran like new when the tow truck came to pick it up. It outlasted our taurus by 190,000 miles, as well as the V6 engine in the 2000 Camry that replaced the Taurus (although to be fair, toyota replaced that engine free of charge)
I now have a 1992 Buick Century clad with snow tires to brave the winter months.
marcus on March 10, 2009 at 07:11 PM
i have a 1992 oldsmobile it a alsome car never failed me
CJinSD on May 11, 2009 at 08:15 PM
I don't understand rob's combination of V6 maintenance issues and sub-VW performance. While not a fast car, the driver of a stock Beetle wouldn't even see where a V6 Cierra went when the light turned green. Beetles were slower than they felt, and they really didn't feel all that fast. I had a friend who thought his '75 Beetle with '74 carbureted engine was a rocket, but the ugly truth was that it was no faster that the '76 Mercedes-Benz 240D I had at the time.
I spent most of '96 and '97 driving rental cars. One week I had a Plymouth Breeze. It had very nice seats and an excellent ride and handling balance. All it lacked was a drivetrain, being 'powered' by the twin cam version of the neon engine attached to an automatic transmission. The next rental I was issued a Corolla. Having spent too much time in RHD Toyotas in third world dives, I asked for something else. The rental company refused to offer me something else, so I went to another car rental place which promised a Neon.
When I got there, they had no Neons. Instead they 'upgraded' me to a deliver mileage Buick Century. It was so new that nobody had gotten around to installing the driver side weather stripping, which was hanging down and closed in the door. Thank you UAW. You can't wind up fighting for food in the street soon enough. The Century was everything the Breeze wasn't. It had seats designed by someone who'd never even thought about the human form. Someone seemed to have forgotten to fill the shocks with oil. The tires may well have been made of wood. The car had but one redeeming quality. After the Breeze and half a dozen small Toyotas, it felt like a top fuel dragster. The fuel injected V6 may have been a maintenance headache, and it may have been headed for a short miserable life, but that thing would reel in the horizon with a roar when prodded.
A buddy and I went river tubing with the Buick. The drill was to park one car at the bottom of the stretch of river we were going to ride and drive the other to the top. Then you'd tube down the river, drive the bottom car to the top and retrieve the other car. On the way to the river, we basically raced on all these wonder winding rural back roads. My buddy had a late model Nissan Sentra. His car had shocks, not to mention tires. Mine was a scud. It was one of those drives that stays with you. I had that thing in a few smooth slides, and was off the speedometer on everything resembling a straightaway, but it really didn't have any shocks. It would start bouncing when you got in it and still be bouncing when you closed the door of your destination.
TRL on May 13, 2009 at 01:49 PM
I had an early 1982 first year Ciera Brougham. It killed my relationship with GM for almost 25 years.
It was the worst car I have ever owned. I've forgotten most of the problems but can remeber; Radio caught fire; Armrest came totally off (shop I took it to look up when I entered holding the armrest and simply asked Olds or Buick?; trans failed at 50,000 miles. I think these A's were the first GM's with the fuel pump in the tank. That put it on a toe hook in the first 500 miles if I remember. I kept this car for 3 years and suffered through every minute of them. When it wasn't being fixed you got to suffer with the worst suspension I can think of. Any size bump at all and this thing bottomed out with alarming noise.
I heard that two or three years later GM fixed most of the problems and the car became simply mediocre, not horrible.
Until I was assigned a 2006 company Impala I stayed completely away from GM after the Ciera. That Impala was such a nice totally reliable car that in 2007 I actually bought a Lucerne CXS with my own money.
I can fully understand why people who bought cars like this are unwilling to give GM a second chance. Too bad as I really do believe their current product is great.
Jim Allegretti on December 28, 2009 at 03:36 PM
Have one of these 86 GT Ciera cars you said you wanted. Black with Claret interior. Would make a good restoration, and I have ALL of the hard to find emblems and rubber ready for that restoration.
Moving to Phoenix, and I will leave the car in Hilo if I dont find a buyer - Need to find a home for this really rare Olds GT.
Note - There were no other GT Oldsmobiles. Only the Ciera GT.
I'll all but give away this car. Come get it.
Jim Allegretti
Hilo Hawaii
Jallegretti@hawaii.rr.com
tomm on June 23, 2010 at 01:19 PM
These Cieras killed Oldsmobile, they kept them too long. Eldery buyers loved them, but then no one else wanted any Olds by the 90's.
So, is it any wonder why the Intrigue and Alero flopped? Elder buyers wanted a bench seat in these new cars, and younger buyers didn't think of going to an Olds dealer at all.
Francis Ziegler on June 24, 2010 at 12:51 PM
Truthfully, I've grown to really love these cars: Cutlass Ciera and Buick Century; and probably more for their familiarity than for their good looks or performance. I drove my Century to 232,000 miles before it finally gave it's last gasp; and we've actually owned several Cieras from different years of their production run.
The 4 Tech engine was wimpy and troublesome. But if you are/were lucky to have had a Cutlass Ciera with the 3.8 V6, you'll definitely have notice a higher degree of reliability. I own an '87 at the moment, and it has the bigger engine--which, although, is obviously inefficient compared to the 4 cylinder, is effortless to drive.
The air conditioners in these cars were very strong for the time, though they had a tendency to leak their refrigerants (just got mine repaired as a matter of fact). To give you an idea of how cold they were: my brother's '96 Ciera literally cooled the cabin enough for us to blow smoke--no lie! They also seemed to work better at highway speeds.
I still have a transplanted Delco radio from my '92 Century. It works, but I'd really like to try Sirius some time.
Big Dave on March 10, 2011 at 09:14 AM
I had a 1995 "Ciera" with the 3.1 L V6. I think everyone in America had a Cutlass Ciera somewhere in their life, be it themselves or a family member or close friend. I feel for Chris' father. I drove mine from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to southwest Missouri, and scuttling across central Illinois with the V6 version was a chore. I can't imagine Kansas with the Iron Duke wearing a business suit.
Christopher Eichorn on May 05, 2011 at 04:37 PM
GM's engineer and desgined for GM A body Front wheel drive planned for 1982 from 1977! Full size clay model in 1978 or 1979. spy photo drive test in 1979 or 1980. Debut Sept 28th 1981! A body FWD used some parts from X body FWD.
Planet Cadillac on May 11, 2011 at 11:23 AM
I am currently driving as a daily driver a 1990 Buick Century wagon with 3.3V6. Purchased it in 1997 with 50K from original owner. Currently after 21 years has 211,357 miles on original engine and transmission. Since I am in auto business I have had 17 cars in 25 years. It has been the most reliable every day car I have ever driven. Followed closely by 1989 Buick LeSabre. The Buick V6/4spdOD transmission is one of the most reliable drivetrain combinations ever. Especially in later models.
John Correia on August 16, 2011 at 09:09 AM
I love my Cutlass C. I've got a 1994 V6. It's body is good but it has a bit of hail damage. An old lady used to own it and she only drove it in town. The engine looked brand new. I've been driving it for about 7 years now and put maybe about $500 in to repairs. IMO it's a sturdy car. Every mechanic I've talked to says you can put 300k on them easy. I bought it at 94k and now it's at about 115k. In total after repairs I payed $2200 So not a bad find. No one's going to steal it because it's not a pimp ride I love how it blends in with all the other Cutlasses that are still running like champs.