21st Feb 2020, 18:22
True, but cost cutting is still a trick used by manufacturers today. I preferred 1980s cars' simplicity when they went wrong though - easy to fix or improve.
21st Feb 2020, 23:44
That must have been one rare 1993 Chevy Celebrity, seeing how the model was discontinued after 1990.
22nd Feb 2020, 00:17
We had several of these for brand new company cars. Mine was black, luggage rack, wire wheel hubcaps. No issues. Cannot fault the Pontiacs that were all new. In three years they were all replaced with Fords. Had many sedans. I recall the Pontiac radio had an equalizer with slide controls. Engines were 3.8 6 as I recall. Great engines. Drive trains no issues. Again keeping cars under 3 years, there shouldn’t be. Maybe a 10 year old example might have clear coat loss. By then that’s 2 more company cars to have had. Tremendous benefit getting company cars for decades. No expense, no gas, no insurance bills. Company credit card. Some of the guys had them for their only car and didn’t own one. Paid mortgages off with savings over time. Now many companies make you buy your own. Some still do. This was the perfect size work car.
23rd Feb 2020, 04:05
Well, I trust someone remembers what they were driving in Driver’s Ed. For me, it was a Chevy Malibu.
23rd Feb 2020, 17:00
Somewhere in the mix, my son in his early 40s had a fox body Mustang GT Convertible. Driving to the same high school as myself. In my high school days we had a Mark Donahue Javelin, one Vette, GTOs, Camaros, Lotus Europa, a 914, a couple of Road Runners, VW Bugs, Vega. They were mostly under 3k used. A lot depends on the school or area. And if parents bought them.
24th Feb 2020, 19:07
Maybe it was a Corsica. That was back in an era when GM made an awful lot of cars that looked almost identical to one another: generic blobs of a car with different names. The one we had in driver's ed had a nasty looking red interior. As a teenager the only thing I can remember about it was that it at least felt somewhat fast.
I think anyone looking at what GM makes today versus the 90's will see what a huge improvement they've made. The old Celica I had in high school was seemingly light years ahead in terms of fit and finish and interior design. The driver's ed car we had was almost a joke in terms of how awful the thing was. There's a reason hardly any GM cars from that era are still on the road: Because almost all of them went to the crusher a long time ago. OTOH I still see tons and tons of 90's era Toyota and Hondas being daily driven.
24th Feb 2020, 20:20
Sounds like you praise Japanese cars. Ever see any late model Nissan Altimas that can't seem to hold their paint? Or a late model Civic with the clear coat flaking off? These are well known finish problems on both vehicles.
24th Feb 2020, 23:29
Probably the same model year I took driver's ed, but not 100% sure. I want to say the local Chevy dealer leased cars to the high school to use for drivers ed (run during summer) then sold them afterward.
If you’re talking about the model year, who knows where the commenter is from. They still made the Celebrity in 1993 in Mexico (https://www.optimabatteries.com.mx/es-mx/product_fitment/1993/chevrolet/celebrity) for instance.
Here’s a replacement engine for a 91-93 Celebrity (http://www.hiperformer.com/engines/chevy-celebrity-used_engines-x_2165.html).
25th Feb 2020, 05:41
"it seemed it was a small miracle if any of these made it past the 100k mark."
If you are talking about the Pontiac 6000, I would like to point out a small detail that there are 162 model 6000 reviews on this website from years 1983-1991.
Exactly 139 of them including the ones measured in KMs have made it past the 100,000 mile mark (4 reviews don't say). That's just a small website alone. Now imagine years ago when there were large amounts of these cars everywhere.
25th Feb 2020, 20:46
Very nice. Now try to provide a picture of a so called Mexican 93 Celebrity or any other internet source to prove your claim besides a faulty gel battery ad.
Oh - and the 3.4 GM twin cam engine? Never used in a Celebrity or ANY of its sibling cars, including the Cutlass Ciera and Buick Century which hung around till 1996 when the entire family of these cars were done.
Sorry but these links are about as useless as the ones provided a couple years ago when somebody tried to "prove" that Buick Lucernes were built in the early 80s.
26th Feb 2020, 05:24
Nissan is essentially Renault these days. Not really fair to compare Nissan post 2000 to actual quality Japanese-made pre-2000 Nissans.
26th Feb 2020, 05:58
Those companies must be losing money producing products for non-existing cars... As somebody stated already that the Chevrolet Celebrity was axed after 1990.
26th Feb 2020, 19:03
I couldn’t tell you, as after 1993 I didn’t own one anymore. Or every worry about any of the nameplates mentioned, as after all it’s 2020 now. In the past we went to junkyards for good scarce interior parts. Knowing we could rebuild everything else. Many of the 80s-90s cars are not worth restoring. Disposable and to the boneyard. Rust use to really kill the imports too. I had a 5 year old 280zx rusting inside out. Expensive car, but terrible metal protection. My definition of the period between 1973-1998 is bleak. With a few exceptions. Not even worth discussing. Thankfully there are fantastic cars today.
26th Feb 2020, 21:33
Axed in the UK or US or wherever that commenter is from. Apparently not axed everywhere. Still made in Mexico as of 93 & Venezuela too per some Google searching.
26th Feb 2020, 21:51
Pretty simple actually. Here’s a repair manual from General Motors (i.e. the ultimate source, considering they made the car):
Here are multiple photos of the 96 model, the final year it was made:
https://www.streetsource.com/rides/21590/byrds-1996-chevy-celebrity
26th Feb 2020, 22:31
"Sounds like you praise Japanese cars. Ever see any late model Nissan Altimas that can't seem to hold their paint? Or a late model Civic with the clear coat flaking off? These are well known finish problems on both vehicles."
Uh... No? I don't "praise" Japanese cars. I instead appreciate good engineering. And the fact of the matter is that back in the 90's American cars were not at the top of their game. They were at best mediocre. None of the reports in general gave them very high marks for long term reliability with the exception of some outliers like the Buick Century or some of the captive re-badged imports like the older Ford Escorts, which were simply Mazdas with Ford badges stuck to the front.
I live in California where commuting is brutal. On a daily basis it's not at all unusual for me to see 80's and 90's Honda Civics, Corollas, Accords and old Mazdas still being daily driven. If I see a similar era American car, I almost have to do a double take as it's getting to be so rare to see any that have made it that long.
At this point the US auto manufacturers are right up there in terms of fit and finish, as well as overall quality. But it took so long for them to get their act together that many people simply abandoned those brands, which is sad. And it's not just Americans who took note: GM has pulled out of Europe, Australia and many other markets they once did well in. Ford and GM have stopped selling most of their sedans and compact cars in the US, which means that opens the floodgates for the Japanese, Korean, and even German automakers who somehow seem to be able to do just fine with their cars here. That speaks volumes.
21st Feb 2020, 17:00
I'm in my 40's and so when I was in high school cars of this era were just starting to trickle down to some of the students I went to school with. A few of them had Pontiacs of this era and yeah - they were pretty junky cars. I too recall none of them retained their paint. This was during perhaps one of the less wonderful periods of American cars, and back then it seemed it was a small miracle if any of these made it past the 100k mark.
It reminds me of the Chevy Celebrity we drove in driver's ed. A 1993 model. Even though the car was brand-new it was already falling apart. If you turned on the stereo it rattled. Why? Because the speakers in the back were attached to the underside of a big slab of cardboard covered with cheap carpet.