There is so much late 1980s about this video, right down to the stage set John is standing in. From the "techy" textured wall, to the moody spot lighting. If anyone wants to know what things that were on-trend were like in the late 1980s, that was a prime example. 1985/86 was an iconic pivot in cultural history for everything, including cars. For American cars, it was truly a growing pains period, and it took quite a while to get to where they are, for better or worse. Despite how it may have looked, American cars still ruled the road in the 80s, and the experience was way better than today's criticism too easily tries to lead you to believe. It was exciting to buy a car back then, because there were so many models to choose from and you were buying a lifestyle. People loved to show off their cars, but today, the variety is lacking, and nothing stands out as special. Car culture has shifted. Not a necessarily bad, but nothing like it was since post WWII to, maybe, the mid-90s, when car companies started to whittle away their brands, and homogenize their model lineup. YES, cars are way better today, but then, so is all technology. Respective of their model sector, there's very little that separates cars from one another, today.
Yep sure did. Esp when it comes to Styling pretty much most vars all have the similar basic silhouette nowadays with very minor differences its very hard to tell each apart.
@@Samspianopage People say cars look the same now, but I think the '80s were the worst in that respect. Everything had rectangular sealed beam headlights and very little to set the front end apart from other cars. Plus, everything had that straight edge, angular styling and boxy design. You draw one sedan in profile, you draw 20. Not to say there weren't some beautiful and classic designs from that era, though.
The downsizing of the 1986 Seville was a disaster. Sales plummeted as compared to the 1985 Seville. Add in the notorious HT4100 motor and you have a perfect storm.
"Cherry wood plastic". God bless John for saying that with a straight face. Not to mention saying something nice about the Cimarron in passing. That's a professional.
130hp from a V8 😨 and 0-60 in 12sec 😱 We really are spoiled these days. My Corolla with its 132 hp 1.8L 4banger would have been like a race engine back in those days
Thank you for sharing this GM video. It is appreciated. Those were some lean and difficult times at GM and at Cadillac. GM could not get anything right back them. The 1989 Deville could not come fast enough and the 1992 Seville either. The 4.5 Liter V8 that became the 4.9 could not come fast enough in 1988. The engine in that car in 1986 was beyond sad. Now people know the beginnings of the Cadillac DTS. It was not a new thing at all. The downsized era at GM 1985-1990 was a rough time. It took GM years to correct all of that. What was sad is how Seville looked like the cheaper N Body sedans( Pontiac Grand Am, Oldsmobile Calais/Cutlass Calais, and Buick Skylark). The Deville was not much better either looking like a Oldsmobile Ninety Eight or Buick Park Avenue. Thank you again. GM was using a lot of new technology across all the brands.
Especially when you consider 1985/6/7 was right in the middle of the oil glut. The Saudis were convinced by Reagan to increase production to torpedo the Soviet Union's oil sector. No one cared about the price of gas. A lot of small time oil companies in TX actually went bankrupt
My dad had a 1988 Seville with the better 4.5l engine. He had over 275k on it when he sold it in 1998. It was a great car and I miss it. Never gave us any real trouble.
@@melrose9252 I did all of the maintenance on it and followed GM's recommended service intervals. That included special attention to the requirements for additional additives in the cooling system. Being a Buick Pontiac dealership employee helped with reasonably priced genuine GM maintenance parts too.
I worked at a Cadillac dealer in the late 90s. 4.5s and 4.9s were dead reliable if you flushed the cooling system every 30-50k and did rod bearings every 70-100k. We had a guy in our shop that could drop the oil pan and do a full set of rod bearings in well under an hour. The folks that took their caddies to joe blo shops (and even some irreputable dealers) that didn't bother to read TSBs are the only ones who complain about the later HT engines
I just checked and the Deville was only 194 inches long. As a kid in the 80s, I thought this car was huge! But it is shorter than the current Honda Accord length.
I must go on record & confess that this was always my least favorite body style of the Seville. I understand that the name of the game in the 1980's was efficiency, & this car DID have a gorgeous interior, but you could literally park this car next to a Buick Skylark/Somerset, Oldsmobile Calais, or Pontiac Grand Am of the same year & people would be very hard-pressed to tell the difference.
100% right. The fact that this generation of E/K-body came out the model year after the N-bodies debuted made it even worse, much like how the Maserati TC came out after the J-body Chrysler Le Baron convertible. Toronado and Riviera sales never really recovered, even after the heavy facelifts that gave them the longer tails and less boxy greenhouses they should have had in the first place.
Starting price of $26,756 is almost $75K in today's money. No wonder the Japenese and Germans were able to take over the luxury car market. Imagine paying that much for a rebadged Buick. 12 seconds 0-60 was "fairly quick" back then. No wonder old people drive so slow.
Growing up in the 80s, I never understood why American cars in the same price class had such a large engine versus their import counterparts. I guess big engine doesn’t mean big power
people talk badly about mercedes prices back in the day - sure they were expensive but even a 4 cyl merc smoked the us luxury cars! and they were 10 times more durable and reliable than these Cadillacs.
It was enough for 1986…. Back then it was torque not horsepower that mattered. Government regulations strangled horsepower in the early 70s due to emission standards and CAFE standards.
@@Andrew-bb3lcthe ford Taurus’ v6, the smaller, cheaper duratec, I think, had around 140 hp. It did 0-60 in 9.8 seconds. It’s not Cadillac-like to be thoroughly outgunned by a base model ford. This 4.1 was pathetic in its day. The saving grace was supposed to be better gas mileage, here the Taurus was better too.
My uncle took me to a football game once in his new car. I believe it was Cadillac with a north star v8. What I remembered most was when he took a sharp turn, my body would slide around the front seat like a fried egg on a Teflon pan.
This was the same year Acura began selling the Legend, and in just a few short years, Lexus and Infiniti were on the scene. With the already-established European brands selling well, Cadillac never found that younger demographic they were truly looking for.
I do think that these “modernized” Cadillacs might have helped bring in some (though not much) younger buyers. Frankly, far more desirable cars than the Lincoln Continental and the turbo 4-cylinder Chryslers or the outdated RWD 5th Avenue
Those brands swooped in to eat Cadi's lunch. Cadillac had no clear strategy during this time; keeping 1970s interiors while being economic sports cars, they were all over the place and sales plummeted as a result. Between this blunder, followed by the Eldorado and Cimarron, it's almost a shock the brand survived the 1980s.
I never understood trying to bring in younger buyers who typically can't afford luxury vehicles anyways. If the brand is selling good, who cares if it attracts younger buyers? Buick used to be the top selling luxury brand until they started trying to attract younger buyers.
So interesting to look back and see this car and imagine what it was competing against. Also, Looks like it was filmed on a not yet open 295 between DC and Baltimore.
I love Cadillac Seville and Deville 86 e too 85, 87 and 88. I love Cadillac Eldorado 85-88, Fleetwood, 85-88, Cimarron 85 - 88. I love Cadillacs 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988, best cars
No wonder the US auto industry needed so many bailouts. 2:38 Good ol’ GM engines, turning gasoline into nothing. 3:48 One look tells you that this is a badge-engineered Chevy Caprice.
0:33 Welcome back to c1986 & hold up. These Cadillacs were extensively downsized for the 1985 (DeVille) & 1986 (Seville)model years, but in 1986 they were already considered "large"? 😕
Cadillac acted as though its goal was to put itself out of business. Sales of the 1986 Seville plummeted, along with those of the Eldorado. Then you had the pathetic Cimarron. The division at the time was not exactly the epitome of success.
Better engines and a better 4-speed automatic would have helped these Cadillacs a lot. Cadillac should have had all their cars RWD except for the Cimarron. All these would have made Cadillac more competitive with the European luxury brands as well as the upcoming Japanese luxury brands.
12 seconds to 60… 12.8 average fuel economy… My how times have evolved. Even basic transportation today would seem like a supercar back then, and only because there was an inability to make these old style designs efficient on fuel
In that year I was driving the Lincoln LSC. Loved it, sold it for great $. Trouble free for 4 years. Cadillac owning friends were disappointed with theirs.
This was about when Cadillac hit its all time low. HT-4100s? Check. Cimarron? Check. Bodies that looked like Buick/Oldsmobile clonemobiles? Check. Cool to see how this dreck was reviewed when it came out, must have been hard to stay so positive! April 23, 2023 7:45 am
All depends what era you grew up in. In the early 80's 12 sec would have been 'pretty good' - a lot of stuff on the road was in the 15 second (or worse) range. Say an 83 Sedan DeVille, that Fairmont wagon in your neighbor's drive or Jimmy's old Volare that you caught a ride to school in :)
I love the styling of these cars! The engine is just sad 4.1L 130 HP 😂 They both deserve an engine swap. Fun fact Cimarron V6 had 125HP. I bet it was the fastest Cadillac that year.
My Grandfather had a '85 Coupe Deville, My Grandmother a '86 Sedan Deville and my Parents a '87 Sedan Deville as well. They were all comfortable cars. My parents had leather and my Grandparents had Valor. In '92 My Grandmother got a New Deville which she still has to this day. She will be 100 in October, but says she liked her '86 better because of the Valor Seats they were more comfortable then in her '92 😆🤦♂️
@@Andrew-bb3lc< The GM diesels had run many Caddie owners away not to mention shoddy gas engines. By the mid 90’s Lincoln and the imports were tearing them up.
Cadillac didn't need to be European, they needed to be powerful and rugged, their mistakes, making small expensive so called small luxury cars with cheap parts, furthermore money is money who cares who's spending it.❤❤😊BOC
What a piece of junk! Why would anyone in their right mind choose this over a BMW or Benz of the same time? Plastic wood, junk leather, and garbage electronics that only served as gimmicks. I’ll take a 5 series or E series over either of these. Also, here we are nearly 40 years later and there are still plenty of fine examples of German luxury cars left and these pieces of junk are mainly found in salvage yards or rusted out pieces of lawn decorations. No wonder it was so easy for the Japanese to come in and take the market by storm. We particularly rolled to welcome mat out for them.
As an impressionable young child in the late 80s, my mom‘s wealthy, best friend only drove Cadillacs. And in my mind, I thought they were the best cars ever! But started in 1990, they slowly switched over to all European imports. I guess that was the typical trend back then
There are reasons,weak transaxles,throw away weakly designed engine, erratic climate control system, leaking rack and pinion, plastic strip window regulators,and the sad part is it could have a great car.
Look at this and look at the W126 and you see why Cadillac just completely lost it in the 80's and has been struggling every since. Then 1990 came.........the rest is history. That said, for some reason I still remember this DeVille fondly. I like the look even now.
It always amazes me how low power output was with these engines way back when (I was 2 years old in '86). My CTS with a turbo four makes more than double the horses of the V8 featured here.
Times have changed. Literally. Today's 4cyl Camaros & Mustangs will beat the fast editions of 1980's and most 90's V8 Camaros & Mustangs. I remember the 13 second 1/4 being VERY fast at the local drag strip for cars that people also drove everyday.
My uncle a seville like this. I remember sitting in it as a very young child and being completely unimpressed with the interior space. My Grandma's caprice classic felt like an aircraft carrier compared to the Caddy.
The 1980s were a low point for Cadillac. Cramped little cars with weak engines and plastic interior wood trim, which was common in much cheaper cars at the time. This 4.1L V8 made 10hp LESS than GM's own 2.8L V6 used at the same time in cheaper cars like the Chevy Celebrity Eurosport. Cadillac started improving in the early 90s, but always struggled to compete with new luxury offerings from foreign car makers, which were much better built cars overall.
@@palebeachbum honestly by 1990 they were propably the best american luxury cars (despite the ugly lengthening redesign). but at launch the engine just didnt cut it and was very prone to problems.
Cadillac's HT4100 engine fiasco of the early- to mid-1980s damaged Cadillac's reputation. However, if we zoom out to get an even bigger picture, we can see that the HT4100 was a symptom of a much broader failure of GM's corporate leadership at that time. GM, along with other U.S. automakers began a grand, multi-billion-dollar "downsizing" program for its passenger car lineups in the late 1970s in order to comply with escalating (and necessary) federal fuel economy regulations known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). The original goal was to achieve a fleet sales CAFE average of 27.5 miles per gallon by the late 1980s. Reagan and Congress softened these regs, allowing for less fuel efficiency. But domestic automakers still faced a challenge of keeping up with the tightening regs. This escalating fuel-efficiency standard forced most passenger cars to adopt a familiar formula: unibody construction, front-wheel-drive, smaller overall body size, less weight, and smaller engines with overdrive transmissions. This standard formula swept through GM's X, J, N, A, C, L, K, E and W car body lines, plus others. For engines, GM adopted smaller engine designs. For larger cars, GM took existing V8 engines and derived new 90º V6 engines. The most famous, and indeed legendary result, was Buick's now-legendary 3.8-liter V6. Less famous but still popular was Chevrolet's 4.3-liter V6, which made its debut in the popular 1985 Chevrolet Astro / GMC Safari minivan. Chevy's 4.3 V6 was essentially a 350 V8 with two cylinders chopped off; Buick's 3.8 V6 was similarly derivative on an old Buick V8. GM hit one out of the ballpark when, in 1985, Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac introduced the even-more-downsized front-wheel-drive C-body Electra/Ninety-Eight/deVille sedans, most of them using a new port-fuel-injected Buick 3.8 V6. But the legend would not come to full fruition until 1988 when the Electra/Ninety-Eight received GM's rebuilt "Series 3800" rebirth of the Buick 3.8, given a balance shaft for smoothness and made better and more reliable in every way. The Series 3800 would become widely used, and more widely known as one of GM's best engines of the 1980s and '90's. But the "Series 3800" was never used in a Cadillac sedan. And the lessons learned from the "Series 3800" were not applied to Chevy's 4.3 V6 until the mid-1990s. Why? Even more baffling: GM embarked on such a major, expensive downsizing initiative, one that wiped out several rear-wheel-drive V8 car lines, and replaced those car-lines with smaller cars powered mostly by Fours and V6s, but Cadillac had to be bestowed a lackluster, lesser-quality V8. And Cadillac would eventually develop that V8 into a much larger V8 for larger cars. Soooooo... what was the point of this downsizing program again??? This decades-long tale of downsizing, downsizing again, and then upsizing underscores how GM's leadership embarked on an expensive series of obviously uncoordinated blunders. Buick's V6, right under GM's nose all along, held the key to saving Cadillac's reputation and boosting GM's image overall. For one thing, Buick's 3.8 V6 was GM's "Comeback Kid", to say the very least. In the early 80s, Buick's 3.8 in carbureted form made only about 125 horsepower. But by 1988, the Series 3800 was like a new engine, making about 160 horses and getting better gas mileage while being as smooth and reliable as a good V8. So, why didn't GM's leadership make sure that a coordinated downsizing effort also applied to Chevrolet and Cadillac? Where was the balance shaft-equipped, modernized "Series 4300" V6, to replace the 5.0-liter (305 cubic inch) V8 in the Caprice? And, for that matter, where was a new "Series 4100" V6, also derived more directly from Buick's "Series 3800" motor, for 1988-model-year Cadillacs? The logic for these modernized engines should be obvious (especially since a "Series 3800" motor was excellent for C-bodied Electra and Ninety-Eight, yet somehow not for deVille) but logic meant nothing if GM's poorly coordinated leadership wasn't paying attention. A Buick "Series 3800"-derived Cadillac 4.1 V6 could easily have made 170-180 horsepower, and probably more as GM continued to improve the "Series 3800" engine. (The Series 3800 V6 wound up making 200 horsepower in plain fuel-injected trim in the 1990s.) So, in the end, GM (especially Cadillac) could have avoided shooting themselves in the foot if only they had more coordinated leadership that actually looked more critically at their overall downsizing program and the tremendous role that Buick's 3.8 V6 played in that program. Instead, they embarked on a confusing mission, allowed their decisions to suffer from mission creep, and wound up partially defeating what they set out to do. The Series 3800 was the key all along. If GM's leadership had the foresight to seize the initiative and more aggressively coordinate their downsized engines and transmissions, they could have accomplished so much more, so quickly. Instead, they dawdled and wound up dragging it out, clear through the 1990s.
The FWD DeVille handles surprisingly well. The problem with it is both the HT4100 V8 and 4 speed automatic are both utter garbage. One is the worst engine ever in a Cadillac, and the other is the worst transmisson.
12 seconds 0-60 , if they were reviewing anything other than American that would be described as leisurely or steady, but in a Cadillac review its described as quick, 12 seconds 0-60 should never be described as quick even if they are the pro Americans batting for their own, maybe 12 American seconds are quicker than they are anywhere else and the supposed sportier car being slower than the more luxurious one, think they got that a bit mixed up
1984 Mercedes 190e 2.3 (the base 4 banger "Baby Benz"): $25k, better fuel economy, 0-60 in 10.2 sec. I love Cadillac design in this era, but what a miserable powertrain.
Crazy that a V8 in a Cadillac makes so little horsepower ! I just purchased a Honda Civic that only has a 4 cylinder that makes 315 hp ! It’s turbo but still less than half the size of the V8 in this car .
Nobody understands these cars anymore. The truth is they're jealous because they can't figure out why cars are such an important part of life outside of their narrow "japanese lambo go zoom" way of looking at it. There's a reason that the average Cadillac buyer is so old; they've been around long enough to actually figure out what a real car is. They get a Cadillac/Lincoln and a muscle car and you just sit in your Civic you paid the online chump tax for and wish you were them.
Not a great time for GM. Cadillac was desperate to attract a younger demographic, but held on to, too much of the "old" Cadillac in the designs (inside and out) of these models. It would be years before the new Seville and Eldorado would evolve into the STS and ETC and then they could honestly lay claim to competing with the imports.
Davis has always been a car maker's brown nose. I remember when my father in law finally got a Caddy, the car he always wanted. 1986 De Ville. he was so freaking disappointed compared to his earlier Bonneville. It did not ride plush, nor did it handle anywhere near "European" like. After a few years it became an endless money pit.
Cadillac tried to make more youthful luxury cars, only thing that was missing, the engine transmission and suspension but at least they came fully equipped, how sad.
Cadillac would have been so much better off appealing to their traditional buyers. People didn't want all that digital nonsense. You never saw a Mercedes with a digital dashboard. Cadillac should have been about lots of room, smooth ride and big powerful engines.
When everyone today is reminiscing about the lack of large american sedans available now, you can blame these videos from Motor Week along with all the car magazines of the day talking smack about them... very sad
