Repair-It

This video showed up from your W-body video and I watched it. It is exactly what I think of when I hear 90's Gm, and is exactly why I think 90's GM was terrrrrriiiible. This is a miserable lineup. The Monte Lumina, the terrible Blazer, the hideous Sunfire, the Eldorado that died at 80K, these are just awful. The Cutlass Supreme was ok, and the Trans Am was ok except for the cheapest interior ever. To me, these cars are not a shining moment for the brand. The Regal is ugly, the Cavalier was ok for what it was, but the interior totally sucked. Geo Metro. The Aurora was so ugly. That Saturn - Ugly. Can't say anything bad about the Riviera... The Tahoe was good.

What a disgusting mess. This video is exactly why I cringe when you guys talk lovingly about GM 90's cars. There are a couple good outliers, but the large majority is miserable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CutjgZyyo9Y

Some comments that could have come from me:

Was a big GM fan....but they lost me. Most of these cars were shit

Just look at all of the mediocrity!

Truly the most awful era of GM cars. They've come a long way since then.

Except the 70's were worse... Yikes.

The problem with all these cars is that by 2005, 90% of these cars were either in the junkyard or rotting away on sketchy used car lots in the bad part of town.

98 is a little better...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOJQqblS5vk

Sweet, the Corvette convertible can fit a whoopee cushion in the trunk. Camaro spaceship... and they put the Chevy name on the Metro...and Prism... Still with the Monte Lumina... Denali looked good, so did the STS, but Deathstar... Saturn... still ugly.

The 90s get a pass because of the 3800 series I and II, the LT1, LT4, LT5 and LS1. Vehicles with those engines are the only ones I would drive from that era. Fortunately, they will all easily do 200k. And I'd rather drive those vehicles than their previous generation counterparts from the 80s. The 90s vehicles were more reliable, had ABS, air bags, fuel injection, actual power AND fuel economy. Not to mention less rust-prone. They were better vehicles, for the most part. The Northstar, for all its flaws, was STILL a better bet than the 80s garbage they were peddling (HT4100, for example).

So... I agree with the 3800 and improvements with the LT/LS engines. The problem is that a lot of stuff was made without those engines, and those cars were miserable. The styling of some of the cars that were lucky enough to get the good engines was also not great most of the time. Yes they rusted less than 80's cars, but style was mostly bad, and so was reliability except for these engines.

The 80s cars were miserable, too. And generally worse. You were much more likely to see a 20 year old 90s car on the road than a 20 year old 80s car, as general transportation.

I wonder if the H and C-body FWD cars of the 80s generally outlasted their 90s W-body brothers/sisters. Not really sure. I think the A-body likely also succumbed to rust before total engine failure. But if we are talking about rust, you know what is rusty as hell? 80s Japanese cars.

And when it comes to family transportation, I still stand behind the 90s stuff over the 80s stuff even when we are talking about the G-body. The regular G-body was, like most other 80s cars, likely to have a 10-15 year life and then be in the junkyard. The W-bodies probably outlasted them, and had better interior space, fuel economy, safety and winter performance. Which are the things regular people care about.

Though it would have been interesting to see what GM would have done with the G-body if it lasted in the 90s like the B-body (modernized body, modernized powertrain, old platform). It makes sense though - it is easier to replace a midsize RWD car with a FWD one than a fullsize RWD car with a FWD one. Aside from the coolness of the LT1 B-bodies, nothing FWD even came close to the immensity of the B-body wagon, for example. Though the minivan was rapidly proving a more practical package for family hauling. Face it - car buying trends are largely influenced by incredibly boring factors.

bill25 wrote:This video showed up from your W-body video and I watched it. It is exactly what I think of when I hear 90's Gm, and is exactly why I think 90's GM was terrrrrriiiible. This is a miserable lineup. The Monte Lumina, the terrible Blazer, the hideous Sunfire, the Eldorado that died at 80K, these are just awful. The Cutlass Supreme was ok, and the Trans Am was ok except for the cheapest interior ever. To me, these cars are not a shining moment for the brand. The Regal is ugly, the Cavalier was ok for what it was, but the interior totally sucked. Geo Metro. The Aurora was so ugly. That Saturn - Ugly. Can't say anything bad about the Riviera... The Tahoe was good.

What a disgusting mess. This video is exactly why I cringe when you guys talk lovingly about GM 90's cars. There are a couple good outliers, but the large majority is miserable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CutjgZyyo9Y

So I finally watched this. First, this is not the 95 GM line as titled. It is apparently the new or updated models for 95. GM actually made substantially more cars than this. And I disagree that these were all bad. I actually like many of them. They were all better in some (probably most) way than their 80s counterparts (ok, aside from the Monte Carlo). I don't want to own most of them but I don't want to own most 80s GM cars, either, so that is hardly a test of anything. Aside from the models where the aforementioned good engines were available, I will highlight the following that appeared on the video:
- Any 4.3L S10 or Blazer is a fine choice for that form factor. I forgot to mention that engine before. I think the Jimmy looked better than the Blazer that year (front end styling mainly). The Bravada was fancy with an AWD transfer case.
- I agree the Cavalier was a decent economy car. I think it looked just fine, drove just fine and was reasonably reliable. And it was cheap which is a thing that people like. With standard dual airbags and ABS, too!
- The Metros look pretty sad but they did deliver on their mission - MPG.
- I always thought the Aurora was cool and it shared a platform with the Riviera. I think the interior was nice also. Drove pretty well.
- I did like the Cutlass.
- I like the big Olds 98. Not a bad way to get B-body space in a non-Cadillac package actually.
- That Riviera looked so much more upscale than anything Buick did in the 80s imo.
- The Regal was ho-hum (I don't really see "ugly") and in the GS trim had the supercharged 3800 - a real sleeper. I thought those were cool.
- Saturn was actually huge in the 90s. They were very reliable and I think decent cars (as an economy car). I was sad that it gained 15 hp to 100.
- The interior of the Sunfire seems a lot better than the Cavalier
- Eldo looked good. 300 head gasket busting horsepower.
- Tahoe/Yukon. Nothing To Lose. The movie. Go watch it.

Also it is interesting that the 90s marked a turnaround for GM. Clearly that wasn't due to making unpopular vehicles.