1986-1991 Pontiac Grand Am SE
It may sound odd today, in a world in which the Pontiac Grand Am is considered dull rental-car fodder, but there was a time in the mid-1980s when the Grand Am was a stylish, desirable car--even, in fact, a semi-credible American response to European sports sedans like the BMW 3-series and Mercedes-Benz 190E. I'll pause for a moment to allow the cognitive dissonance to clear. Still with me? Good.
When the Grand Am debuted in 1985, its clean good looks, rorty V-6, and sprightly personality overshadowed both its Grand Am ancestor (an incredibly ungainly clone of the lovely 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass) and its Buick Somerset and Oldsmobile Calais stablemates. The motoring press sat up and took notice; the attention turned to outright praise when the sporty SE trim arrived in 1986, followed by a turbo in 1987 and the 16-valve Quad 4 engine in 1989.
The Grand Am may not look like much today, but in the mid-1980s, it was sensation. Most American automakers had begun to downsize their cars by 1985, but compared to the sleek, smooth, and aerodynamic Europeans, many American cars of the time were bulky, over-styled, uninspired, square-edged dinosaurs. Many had proportions and baroque styling right out of the 1970s and were slathered with intricate filigree and acres of chrome, imitation wood, and vinyl. With the exception of the Ford Taurus and Thunderbird, contemporary domestic cars just didn't capture the purpose or purity of line of the European cars.
Within this context, the 1986 Grand Am SE, especially, was a knockout. Like a BMW 3-series, the Grand Am had a trim, purposeful, shape, and small overhangs. The SE package added composite headlamps, a front air dam, aerodynamic skirts, and, of course, a monochromatic color scheme evocative of the legendary AMG Hammer. The Grand Am's monochromatic duds were as stylish in the mid-1980s (and as laughably gauche today) as Sonny Crockett's white jacket, pastel T-shirt, linen slacks, and loafers worn without socks. The look was very fashion-forward, very European and very now.
The look was the highlight, but the rest of the package matched up better with the contemporary BMW 3-series and Mercedes 190E than one might expect. The Grand Am SE's sport suspension provided good grip on smooth roads, though not a lot of sophistication on rough surfaces. The 3-liter V-6 was fairly willing and sounded good, but the Grand Am really found its legs with the introduction of the Quad 4 engine. The Quad 4, GM's most sophisticated engine since the ill-fated Cosworth Vega, boasted 16 valves and dual overhead cams, features that had previously only been available in European and Japanese high-performance engines. The Quad 4 was frequently criticized for being loud and thrashy, but it revved like a race car and cranked out 180 horsepower in high-output form. That was serious power for the time; more, for example, than the much-praised Honda VTEC engine that powered my 1994 Acura Integra GS-R.
Unsurprisingly, Grand Ams armed with the HO Quad 4 were very quick, with low 7-second runs from 0-60--in line with such sporting hardware as the later Subaru SVX, the 1985 Nissan 300ZX Turbo, or even its big brother, the Pontiac Trans Am. More to the point, the HO Grand Ams were as quick as the late-1980s BMW 325i and even the special hot-rodded Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16. The Grand Am didn't just look like it belonged with the expensive German compacts; it ran with them too.
Of course, the whole success story eventually fell apart. The Grand Am's durability and build quality too often ruined a positive initial impression; and while BMW transformed the 3-series from performance laggard to performance legend, the Grand Am twisted in the wind. GM was enamored with the positive response to the Grand Am's styling but ultimately learned the wrong lesson. Rather than keeping the Grand Am European and contemporary, GM kept rehashing the same body-kit look well past the point at which it became tacky. In fact, we can probably blame the mystifying preponderance of plastic Pontiac body cladding over the past two decades on the Grand Am's initial success. It's as if Don Johnson was still wearing pastel T-shirts and Ray-bans in 1996.
I have always been fond of Grand Ams. A young, hip co-worker of my father's drove a Grand Am SE back in the 1980s, he kind of had the Sonny Crockett thing going on at the time and helped drive home to me what a stylish, in car it was. My aunt and uncle still have an early 1990s Grand Am that they bought new; I sorta-kinda learned how to drive a manual transmission in that car. When traveling a few years ago, I used to request Grand Ams as my rental cars. Sure, their body kits and faux-jet-fighter interiors were cheesy, but something about them just felt more aggressive, more together, more right than the other GM small cars.
The first commercial below shows off the 1980s Grand Am's unique monochromatic look, as well as one of the most annoying pitchmen in commercial history. It took me roughly 1.62 seconds of the commercial to begin hating him. What's with the slow, over-casual tire kick at 0:13? Frankly, I don't want to be associated with any car this guy likes.
The second commercial is actually for the next generation of Grand Am, which I didn't really discuss here in any detail; but I include it because I love what the guy does at the 0:27 mark. His wife(?) asks him, "We like the Grand Am better anyway, right?" and he gives what can only be described as a half-hearted sigh of grudging assent. Unfortunately for Pontiac, that's probably how most people felt about the car.
Most recent pictures of 1980s Grand Ams show the cars as dilapidated beaters, so I'm using original advertisements to accompany this post instead. They, at least, show the Grand Am in its original glory.
The first two came from vintage-original-ads.com; the third is courtesy of adclassix.com.
--Chris H.
jmose on April 29, 2009 at 04:18 AM
I had a 1994 grand am 2door gt Iput 178000 miles on it sold it to my brotherinlaw and he did another 60k GREAT CAR!!!
...m... on April 29, 2009 at 04:24 AM
...great piece - might there be something forthcoming on the grand prix as well?..
Cookie the Dog's Owner on April 29, 2009 at 05:29 AM
The guy in the second commercial seems to be thinking to himself that he really really wanted the Accord, but since the missus controls the checkbook in this family,....
That Car Guy on April 29, 2009 at 07:32 AM
Some Calais, Grand Ams, and Somersets had a strange rear roof/backlight slope. Dubbed the "Whackback" by the press, it hurt an otherwise well-proportioned design. The flat roof continued back, took a strange curve, then dropped almost 90 degrees straight down to the trunk.
These cars had great style for the time. The interiors were plush, especially compared to their counterparts today. I agree 100% that the exterior design was later carried too far and became "tacky". Had they put the development money into the chassis and powerplants, the Grand Am might still be alive today.
Chris Hafner on April 29, 2009 at 08:19 AM
...m...: "...great piece - might there be something forthcoming on the grand prix as well?.."
Thanks! I considered doing something on the Grand Prix, but I don't really have a lot of knowledge on it, a hook for a story or an overwhelming passion for it that would allow me to do a good job covering it. I'm tempted to do one on the GM10 Grand Prix, but again I'm not quite feeling it. Anybody else ... ?
We *do* have an Our Cars Grand Prix 455 SJ piece that we'll be rerunning this week, so there's that.
David Colborne on April 29, 2009 at 09:44 AM
I have to agree with you - the looks and performance of the Grand Am were quite adequate for the time. Unfortunately, they just did not age well AT ALL. I don't think I've seen a single one of these in anything approaching decent shape in years.
Anthony Cagle on April 29, 2009 at 10:59 AM
I'd thought about doing a 1970s Grand Prix post. I love love love those things.
jhp2 on April 29, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Had an '86 Grand Am. An absolute piece of crap. Head gasket blew, heater core blew, went through clutches each year at tuition time. arrrgh! Traded a Honda Accord for it and this car cured me of American cars forever. I have not owned an American brand since. The car defiled a once proud brand and the result is the end of Pontiac. Because even after they improved their cars, I had no intention of giving them another shot.
Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame on April 29, 2009 at 07:59 PM
I remember thinking that the first version of the third generation Pontiac Grand Am (1985 through 1988) was one of the nicest looking cars out there, and I idly thought I might like to buy one after I finished college.
Interestingly, even before I finished college, I ended up needing a new used car, and there was a can’t-pass-up great deal on a second version, third generation 1989 Pontiac Grand Am SE. It looked just about the same, but had an inclined front grill instead of the vertical one found on the earlier version. Mine was a 4-cyl, 5-spd manual transmission. It developed an overheating problem, but other than that, never gave me any problems.
It was big enough for 4 or 5 adults, and I never felt cramped sitting in the front or the back. It was small enough and light enough to get decent gas mileage, though. I remember it usually getting around 25 to 29 mpg, and even achieved 34 mpg on an all-highway marathon trip between Houston, TX and Monterey, CA.
With the standard transmission, I always felt it was sporty and powerful enough for anything I wanted it to do, from navigating twisties to merging into fast traffic on the freeway. Obviously, it was not a sports car, but it certainly was a sporty car. It was “zoom zoom” in a decent young adult car before Mazda ever coined the phrase.
Now, I admit I don’t understand cars as well as some of my colleagues on this blog. And I understood cars far less at the time. But I remember being shocked when Pontiac tried to compare the following generation (1992-1995) to a Toyota Camry. It just didn’t feel like a medium-sized family car at all. First of all, I always felt the best looking and most popular Grand Ams were the two-door coupes, and Camrys were about unoffensive but nice family sedans, not about “coupes.” Second, the Grand Am was sporty, and I couldn’t see people buying Camry out of any serious search for sportiness and fun driving. If anything, I think the Grand Am could have competed against the sportier versions of the Mazda 626…but the 626 wasn’t the class leader for that size car. Still, the ad campaign minimized what I felt were the Grand Am’s strongest points: it was fun to drive, but still got great gas mileage. There have been two cars I’ve driven since that got better gas mileage: a slightly smaller and lighter 1990 Toyota Corolla automatic that got only slightly better mileage and couldn’t hold a candle to the Grand Am’s sportiness, and a much smaller and much lighter 1995 Honda Civic manual that got much better mileage, but could not hold four adults comfortably.
Did abandoning the Grand Am’s strengths to chase after the Camry market without the ability to match Camry’s bland reliability end up sinking the Grand Am and eventually Pontiac? That may earn an “Objection!” for leading the witness, but I have to say: Yes. Yes, it did.
Rob the SVX guy on April 30, 2009 at 09:33 AM
My only association with these cars is that of street racing in Madison back in the mid 90s. We were in my friends 5spd neon (hooray) and surprisingly, it was pretty quick. Then we lined up next to this 1980 pontiac that looked like a pile of crap, and it roasted the tires and destroyed us. It happened again and again. I don't like the styling, but I do respect the performance of that little car.
Jonathan on May 03, 2009 at 12:31 AM
Great write-up! I had an '87LE 3.0/auto back in the day and loved it. Came across an '91SE Quad4 HO/5spd with 64,000 miles the other day in suprisingly good shape. Hoping to pick it up in the next week or so. I worked as a Tech for a Pontiac dealership from '83-00 and really liked the styling.....no matter what anyone thinks...the 80's were the best as far as this model was concerned.
John on May 08, 2009 at 10:08 AM
I have a 1986 that is in perfect condition with 31,910 original miles. My bought it off the showroom floor in 1986 and it has been in her garage ever since. She has had new cars every 3 years since then and it sits in my garage.
jesse on May 13, 2009 at 10:01 PM
I have a '91 Pontiac Grand Am I bought for 300 bucks and now has over 200,000 miles and it runs great and the only thing wrong with it is a leaky tapit cover gasket.
tomm on June 19, 2010 at 09:19 PM
Yes, a good example of GM messing up a good thing. Pontiac got its own roofline and did a better job styling it. This was when divisions still had some autonomy. It looked modern and got some yuppie buyers.
Problem was the outclassed motors, the Iron Duke and the 2.8 v6 were unrefined. For 1988-91, only Quad 4 and Duke were available. Roger Smith spent $$$ on EDS and buying out Ross Perot. And the rest is history.
Ksoakley on January 16, 2011 at 05:28 AM
I had a 1986 Grand Am 4 door, I can't remember right now if it was the SE or not. I do recall the color though, it was a goldish brown. Does anyone remember the correct color name for this? At the time I didn't realize it but that was a great car, the engine was very decent. Wish I still had it now.