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People sleep on the later year Pontiacs soo much it's kinda sad. They really weren't that bad and the 3800 platform ones had solid tuning potential, any ounce of decency they had unfortunately were destroyed by the owned by broke crack addicts stereotype they eventually got later on. It doesn't help that the Flint Michigan plant would carefully put together one car, then slap the next one together. But if you take your time finding a lower mileage loved one they can be a supriser
The condition of that Grand Prix is AMAZING.....it had to have lived in a garage its entire life ....paint alone on those cars would fall off as they were sitting on the sales lots .....not to mention you could almost hear the dash pads cracking the day after the warranty expired....Josh is a lucky owner 👍
A museum should hire that guy to watch over their shit. Maybe the library of congress. Future Generations of Americans need this man so they can remember the great political speeches of the likes of Ted Cruz, , Shelia Jackson and Maxine Waters. Surely the greatest orators of our time..... equals to the likes of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.
It looks like a respray to me. When it zoomed in on the Grand Prix logo on the side of the vehicle it looks like you can see where it was taped around and repainted.
@@stephenj4937 I was thinking somebody went after this thing with the machine buffer and didn't take off the badges. Does have a lot of orange peel in the paint, but that was kind of standard back then.
This car is impossibly clean. I expect GM's one-stage paint and clearcoat to be faded less than a year out of the factory. Somehow... the owners did an awesome job preserving such an car. I was born in 1979, so I was right about the age of seeing something like this new and thinking it was cool, without realizing how an car it is. They were *EVERYWHERE* in Detroit where I was growing up.
Same here, these things seemed to roll out of the factory half way falling apart; somehow still chugging along on 5 cylinders, no muffler and most of the sheet metal consumed by rust in just 4 short years later when I would reach driving age (born in '77). Friends had these, they were pretty common as well as the grand ams of this era. (Probably more Grand Ams; those were truly everywhere Downriver)
I had a 1990 Beretta GT in high school with that exact same paint and it was still pristine when I sold it. Even when I was parking it outside. I have no idea how. It shouldn't have lasted that long. I miss that car.
@@ShinkazeVT my Mother got a Beretta GTU brand new when they came out, I think it was a 88 but not sure. It was black with red lettering/accents and sunroof. It also had the exact same 2.8 liter V6 and it seemed to get up and go. It did look faster than it probably was but my Mom had a heavy foot and liked to do red light drag races. 🤣 She was quite sassy back in the day! When my sister started driving she blew the car up, never told my Mom exactly what happened. Daddy had a new motor put in it but it wasn't the exact one but one out of a Celebrity or something and it was never the same.
You always think to yourself "okay, mr regular MUST be out of forgettable and/or cruddy voices from our past", then BOOM, Cave Johnson meets Chesty Puller.
My mom used to drive us to school in one of these as a kid- I didn't realize I would spend the rest of my life being let down by seat adjustment in EVERY. OTHER. CAR. My dad has a $70000 Duramax now, my mom has a brand new Palisade, I've sat in $100,000 Audis with massaging seats that didn't have as much adjustability as this thing. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
@@PaulRudd1941 An average. Maybe a median. Fact of the matter is that if that still works 32 years after, throw some Peugeot in there for good measure.
My grandpa used to have a specced out M5. That had incredibly complex seat adjustment options. This is like Egyptian compared to that. This is next level.
@@RegularCars "All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons? Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! 'I don't want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?' Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"
I had a 94, my first car, electric blue. I was an 18 year old alcoholic juvenile delinquent, and that grand prix saw more air than Shaq at the free throw line. Center console? Olde English malt liquor. Off road? No problem. Every button on that thing came loose or straight up disintegrated. I cannot believe this one has all the buttons in mint working conditions. Thanks for the nostalgia trip, RCR.
I cannot be the only one whose inner parent kicked in the minute he started repeatedly flicking all of the buttons. Oh lord, you're gonna break it, those buttons are technically older than I am and considering the shape I'm in, it's a bloody miracle they all still function
I had the 95... I swear if you breathed on the covers for the window switches they'd break off. I had so much JB weld in there to keep it together. Was great for long highway trips but I was ALWAYS working on that old car.
@@marinertheraccoon when mine finally shit the bed, there were no covers on the doors anymore. It was literally switches hanging out of the door on the wires. I loved that fucking pile.
@@marinertheraccoon I still daily drive my 95. Window switches are broken off, head gaskets are leaking, rockers are completely gone from rust, gonna nurse it along as much as I can. Car has just over 285,000 miles. Cruises all day at 80mph on I-94 no problem!!!
This is what I watch RCR for. The sports car reviews will always be interesting and entertaining, but your commentary on these cars-the cars you see in the background of old movies and never think twice about-that’s way more interesting than any muscle car or sports car to me. They always end up having the most fascinating quirks or backstories. Also I was not expecting to see that many buttons. Wow.
Those recessed quad sealed beam headlights. Always an awesome look. The Camaro looked great with them too until they got the composite headlights from the Chrysler Concorde.
I had one of these in college, as a winter beater, back in 2003. I could see the ground through the floor boards. I popped the hood once while it was running and was squirted in the face with power steering fluid. The fluid was shooting a solid 4 feet up out of the car. I sold it for $200, and bought a Ford Probe GT.
"IS THE WHOLE WORLD NOW A GIRL!" When you said that I saw the "CEO of GM" as JK Simmons looking like J. Jonah Jameson, smoking a big fat smelly cigar, in the most delightful demi-misogynistic way and laughed my ASS off.
This was one of those cars that I wanted when new, but somehow never got around to buying used. I don't remember about the '89s, but the '88 SE had bucket seats front and rear, an aspect of this car that you barely bothered to show or mention. There were four seat variants available with Oldsmobile and Buick as well. And why not? If you're not playing with about 60 inches or more of hip room, three across tends to be uncomfortable. Selling the K car as a six seat sedan had to have been among the world's cruelest jokes. As for that five speed manual, good luck finding that at the dealer when new, or ever as a used car. Maybe that's why I never had one of these.
I can relate. I thought this platform of cars was cool when new, but I guess by the time I got old enough to buy one, new or used, I moved on to something else. My little league coach bought a brand new 1989 GP. He wasn't that much older than us at the time, and this was his first new car, so he was very proud of it. The seats were comfortable, but the styling inside and out were as busy as this review suggests.
I dunno - something about it reminds me of the Volvo 480, but without the pop-up headlights. A rare example of a Volvo being more extreme than the mainstream.
It may have been more impressive if we didn’t all know that it was basically just a Buick Regal/Olds Cutlass with a bunch of tacky add-ons and plastic body panels. Back then GM and it’s cookie cutter cars were really wearing thin on the publics patience, especially since the foreign automakers were really stepping up their game
I feel the same way about seeing Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky and I just look at like the rolling VCRs they're still fully functional after twenty-some odd years
You've made me so happy! I had a 1989 Grand Prix LE, and I miss that car every day. My LE didn't have the 30 way seats, Or that crazy looking steering wheel. I loved the conversion switch on the electronic dashboard, since I did a lot of trips across the border back in the day for concerts. That car had about 113,000 miles on it when my parents made me trade it in back in the mid '90s for a "newer more reliable" car. The salesman literally told me to sell it myself to someone, since the dealership's offer was $50. I sold it to a girl I worked with, who promptly backed into a light pole a week later. A lot of stories of my younger and dumber days were made in that car (mine had a bench back seat)...
I had a summer job in in '89 at GM Design Staff. Worked in the copy room. They had 3 months of meetings regarding having one or two wiper styles for the redo of the W body. Thousands of pages of copy. Thousands of hours of meetings. They decided on two. Accounting said one with a memo. Enough said.
Graduating in spring '90 and a job offer to work for EDS in a GM plant, I went car shopping at a Pontiac dealer. Compared to Honda and Toyota, GM disappointed me so much that I thought they were doomed and I refused the job.
Recently had the pleasure of saving the buick version of this car, a 1996 regal coupe. Loved the weird pillar door handles. Only 61,000 miles. The previous owner could not get it started. Turns out, both battery terminals were completely stripped and not making contact with the battery. Long story short, ran beautifully. Was impressed with how nice it was to drive with its quiet interior and smooth ride thats impossible to get in new vehicles. Suprisingly there were no rattles or squeaks. By 96, the quality had been inporved greatly. These old 90s buckets have a light and nimble feel to them, likely because they are very light and lacking safety equipment. Even with the buick suspension, it was fun to toss around. An older woman bought it for her daughter to drive. Sold the old girl for a great profit and kept her out of the junkyard.
I have ALWAYS wanted a Fiero. Loved them from the first time that I saw one. But I was stationed in Europe during the duration of their manufacturing run with USAFE. So I missed the boat on buying one new. Now finding one not modified is like finding another Hope diamond. How was your Fiero?
@@vapsa56 it was a lot of fun. Mine was unmolested with a V6. The most surprising thing was how small yet heavy it felt, in a good way. It wasn't exactly nimble for its size, but you still felt safe. I mostly enjoyed it for its ambition within the GM bureaucracy. It was definitely a parts bin car, but it kind of rose above that as a whole.
@@leightonmann I owned a 1984 4-cylinder Fiero when I was a teenager in high school. It was gutless and I always wanted a later model with a V6. But it was a pretty unusual/sporty/coolish car while I had it. I'm pretty tall, but I remember that the Fiero was really comfortable for me.
Buddy of mine had one, loved it. Then at 14 years old, for whatever reason, everything just rusted to shit. Floorpan, fenders, taillight housing, strut mounts, everything just disintegrated.
I had an '89 Grand Prix as my first reliable car, bought in 1998. Changing the rear spark plugs in that thing was almost an enjoyable experience: You'd remove the two dog bone engine mounts on top, rock the whole engine forward, and then hold it in place with one of the mount bolts. I'd like to shake the hand of the person who thought of that feature because it was definitely intentional.
My dad had an 88 SE, which didn't have all the bells n' whistles this brought back so many memories. Can confirm this car was louder than it deserved to be, could hear it coming a country mile away. The backseat folding up was how I started my day and how it ended my day coming home from kindergarten. He ended up donating it in 2002 after it had been a winter beater for a good 5 years. Good review
In 1989 as a young college grad with a computer science degree, bought a Chevy Berretta GT. I was the type customer GM wanted. That was a piece of junk vehicle and last GM car I ever owned.
Oh no, so sorry for you. I've actually inherited a '92 Beretta GT from my dad (owned it for 26 years) and now I'm kind of stuck with it. On the plus side, there was, I believe whoppin' 200 units sold here in Finland, so it's a very rare sight. On the minus side; no spare parts as no one knows what it is. But that's about it, well you should know, having owned one. :D
I have a friend who inherited one of those when his mother passed away. It literally had sat in the garage never driven, but she insisted on having "a car" in case she need to go out and his father wasn't home to drive her. He drove that car maybe a year before it all but fell apart...
Had a 94. 4 banger with a 3 speed that couldnt get to 70 MPH. To its credit, it made it 21 years and 186k miles in the salt belt before things just kinda fell off of it, the gas tank mainly. Loved the star trek dash. A beretta with the quad 4 or v6 and a 5 speed today would be sick
@@Nick-ue7iw WHAT? I thought that the Malaise Era was long gone by 1994. How could a 1994 model year car be unable to reach 70 mph? That sounds more like a Chevette or a diesel Oldsmobile. Are you sure that the third gear was working? Was one of the cylinders not firing? I'm sure that something was broken.
A friend of mine had a '91 GP SE coupé in highschool. Not as well equipped as this example but in 2000/2001 it was a hot car for a high schooler in nowhere Wisconsin.
Wow. I could not imagine having a "newer car" (10 years old or less) in high school. I graduated in 1980 with a 1963 Cadillac! (Yes, they are "classic" now, But THEN just a very elderly used car!) "Scary" to me that it would be the same as an '05 Caddy now. 🤔 😳😲
@@jamesslick4790 Hah, I had a 13 year old Escort (at the time) L trim. At least it was manual and had "EFI" (really just throttle body) on a 1.9L engine.
@@jamesslick4790 TBI theoretically beats a carb - I've had a few. The 87 Escort had a steady leak into the TB, my 93 Swift would flood the TB if taken a turn too quickly before it's fully warmed up (ebrake slides in the HS parking lot in winter) and to this day I run 4 cars with carburettors, and yeah they're problematic at times, but I would rather deal with those than TB. I don't even like EFI, but at least that's more reliable ;)
Okay, aside from the exterior styling, I'm a huge fan of this car. It's so "This is the future" from the 1980's, and it's got, like, ALL of the weird quirky 1980's-1990's features. It's so dumb and I love it. I especially love how adjustable and comfortable those seats look.
@@the_kombinator It's certainly not the worst styling of the time, but it's not my preference, particularly when the Nissan Z32 came out the same year in Japan. But, the Z32 doesn't have nearly such exquisitely adjustable seats.
Good on this guy for taking such good care of this gem. My first car was a 92 grand prix LE that my parents gave me. Then when unfortunately it was hit and totaled by a semi, I got me the 95 SE two door that I wanted so much. I love those cars so much, this takes me back. My dad also had an 87 trans am gta that shared allot of interior bits between these cars. GM, yeah we're merica, parts bin to the max.
I was in a long distance relationship with a woman that owned one of these. It had the digital compass in the centre stack. The seat adjustment blew my mind. We drove from Des Moines to Pittsburg. Comfortable, but an underwhelming driving experience.
Take heart, within a couple of years that wheel would be replaced by a first-generation airbag wheel with all the style and grace of an overstuffed laundry bag. :)
@@ajesuale Hell, yeah. It's the physical manifestation of a "GodMode" folder in Microsoft Windows. EVERTHING in ONE PLACE! Even if you NEVER use half of it, HAVING it right in front of you means YOU ARE THE BOSS! 👍😊👍
What a fantastic looking car. It certainly has an air of 'Honda Prelude' about it, especially the interior. The closest equivalent we had to this in the UK was the 1989 Vauxhall (Opel) Calibra. That initially had 2.0 4 cylinder engines until the 2.5 V6 was launched around 1993.
@@AshleyPomeroy Please don't compare the 800 Coupé to the Grand Prix. The Rover is gorgeous and has a gorgeous interior, the Grand Prix is a Grand Prix.
Gotta love all those old school analog controls. My 2019 civic is all touchscreen climate controls, and they are mounted at the very bottom of the dash near the gear shift, forcing me to take my eyes off the road every time I need to make an adjustment. After a couple months of driving this Grand Prix you would have the muscle memory to recognize where all the controls are, operate them without taking your eyes off the road, and they emit a satisfying *click* when you operate them, so you know you've actually pushed the button.
I had a 1990, Grand Prix LE sedan with the 3.1 and the same 4AT. It had the same button-laden steering wheel as this one. But…mine was from the time when GM had some awful primer or paint and it flaked away down to the metal. Sometimes I miss that car because of what that car meant to me and at the time in my life when I had it.
Had the Lumina variety of this car and you could beat that 3.1 worse than the wife and it would still put out. The primer was crap and I recall the hood giving away half the paint right around paying off the car.
The paint was not just a GM issue. This was during the time when the whole industry was transitioning from single stage enamel/lacquer paints to the current base coat/clear coat. The primer used was flawed and would lose its bond with the metal. It affected all colors, but it especially affected vehicles with metallic flake paint.
"Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks - manufactured by General Motors, the most vigorous purveyor of philistine vulgarity the world has ever known." - Bill Morris
Two things, The 2.8 always sounded awesome. And it's probably best served by the 4 speed auto because it's more torque than revs. And we had a citation x11 in my earliest years. I reached into the back seat to get my mom's purse to get the house keys, and the seat fell back and broke my pinky finger with a 80s karate chop
I often come to RCR for a unique review of cars I'll never have the chance to drive, but also a masters course in various psychology and English literature. This was none of the above, and I still freaking loved it.
I had a Lumina Eurosport with the same engine, same exhaust and a few less buttons and , while I despise GM, I have to admit it was one of the best cars I've ever owned. I totaled it with 220k and still ran and drove like a new car.
I don’t believe the Luminas came with the 2.8L V6. They 1990 and by that time it was the 3.1 across the whole fleet. My wife had a 1992 Z34 with the 3.4 DOHC V6. Was a head turner but definitely not reliable. You had to remove the whole engine to replace the alternator.
I love that Mr.Regulars impression at the start of the video is like a more congested and "angry-wierd-dad" version of Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. One of the best impressions I have ever heard.
I really like this generation of the Grand Prix. One of my dream cars is the Pontiac/McLaren model because it has this synthwave feel that no other GM model of the period gives me.
Pontiac made a McLaren version of this with a turbo. I remember seeing one in a junk yard years ago and it had the multitude of buttons syndrome as well.
I actually really dig the styling on these late '80s and early '90s Pontiacs. Ones like this, the slightly later Grand Prixs, and the ones with the front light-bars.
Funny thing, the full-width light-bar was there in styling proposals from nearly the beginning, but then the Mercury Sable came out with one, and they didn't wanna seem copycat, so they shelved it until a later facelift cycle. (Source: my uncle who worked for Pontiac design.)
my GP has a lightbar. All my friends say its the ugliest piece of shit they have ever seen but I think its unique you dont see too many GPs of this era on the road anymore
In about 2005 I got a 94 Grand Prix GTP that was this clean. It was gorgeous. Every option and a million buttons. This was the original owners garage kept baby. Then I started to daily drive it.... The sunroof leaked. Interior panels came loose and rattled. Exterior door handle broke. One by one the options stopped working. Then one day I put the key in it and smoke started coming out of the ignition. Drove it straight to a dealership and traded it in.
FWIW I'm a two weekend a month dad (because that's how the system does it) and this weekend I drove my kid 200 miles (each way at $4.85/gal in a 4Runner) to play in a travel baseball tournament. They lost two games in which they had 5 run leads late. The second game was a walk off win on an error by the catcher who threw a missile to left field trying to "hold a runner on" at 3rd base with two outs and an 0-2 count on the batter in the final inning. My kid started pitching that game and lost the win on that throw (and several other mental errors made by the entire team). Whatever. It's part of the game. They went on to win Sunday but missed advancing on the 5th line tie breaker. Runs allowed. The team that got in... the same team that took the walk off win by error. The point of all this... There's a lot of two weekend a month dad's out there delivering the goods with what little time they have to work with. Those disappointment dad's of the 80s and 90s? They had sons. And now those sons are father's. And we're fixing it. Edit: I'm off to fix my son breakfast in the rare three day weekend that I savor having him one extra day. And because this is the way it's set up I will have my son for about 100 more days before he graduates high school in just over four years. 100 days in four years. That shit weighs heavy on a father's heart. I want more time but neither the court or his mother will hear it. Not without tens of thousands of dollars spent in court.
@@remingtonspeed7481 Thanks. We make the best of it. He asked if we could go to the gym after breakfast. But before that if we could go outside and work his arm a bit. Yes. Yes. Yes. Edit: It's important to understand most fathers do well. They pay support on time and invest the little time they are "permitted" with their children wisely. Even in bad circumstances. It's the bad ones that everyone talks about. And the good ones that are the target of a bitter mother that has no reservations about spreading false information about the father. Just remember the next time you hear a father isn't living up to his roles that there are two sides to every story. Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
I worked As a mechanic at GM during the life of this car. I always joked that they should have had a holiday for the dealership technicians to celebrate this car, because it bought them new homes, new boats and put kids through college on the flat rate they earned working on these. They tried too many different unproven things all at once in this platform. The front struts with the replaceable cartridge, the rear disk brakes with the pins that always seized up (they fixed it by 93), the monoleaf rear suspension with the grommets and bushings that always came off, the powermaster brake system (thank god that was short lived), the awful 3400 DOHC engine that had problems they could never figure out, and all the weird electrical problems. The 2800/3100 V6 wasn’t bad, and they ran forever. The Pontiac seats were comfy, not so much with the other brands. This was allso the time whennGM was trying to go FWD on almost everything, including the Cadillacs. When the next generation W body came out in 1997, they learned a lot of lessons and the Grand Prix was a great car till the end of the Pontiac division.
Words cannot describe how gorgeous this car is in person. It’s like it left the showroom floor in ‘89 and sat in a garage until present day. It couldn’t have a more perfect owner either.
As a GM10/W body enthusiast, I'm in love with this clean, pristine '89 Grand Prix! It's underpowered like hell, but that 2.8L V6 has that pushrod V6 exhaust note that's pure nostalgia for someone like me who grew up around so many GM cars in the early 00's. File this car in as one of the many reason why I miss Pontiac.
My mom’s boyfriend had a Pontiac Grand Prix. I remember it was left in a lot by his dad who had recently kicked the bucket. When I got in I remember the smell of wet, aging cardboard throughout the car with the carpeting now a texture similar to that green floral foam stuff, around that color too. Wasps frying under the rear windshield. I remember there being trouble in starting it and when it was finally up and running, night-time about 8:00pm, staring into that bright red clock center of the dash I doubt showing the right time. I remember winter time, the breaking down miles from home in near negative weather, no heater because of course no heater, braving the cold and wet wind forcing itself into the car via the indefinitely-down windows. We would’ve been in my moms car BUT her blazer’s transmission “banzai’d” itself. Josh sucked, his car sucked. My worst nightmares are seeing him again, or being forced to drive a Pontiac Grand Prix.
@RegularCars - those 30 way seats were perfect UNTIL you get a hyperactive 9 year old in the passenger seat and every single switch and button is mashed. The seat, the same seat that you've spent hours on perfecting the optimal amount of comfort and support, has now become a Middle Ages torture rack, hellbent on hitting every pressure point you have in your lower back and neck. And without seat memory (really GM...30 way power seats and NO MEMORY???), all of your hard work is lost due to the grubby, twitching fingers of a brat you didn't want to take with you.
You should have hand cuffed him with his hands behind his back before you put him in the car or put him in a straight jacket. The arm, hand, and body static memory imposed by the restraint would have prevented your seat from losing its perfect settings. 😂
Your commentary is awesome! You have a way of describing vehicles in a way a true enthusiast can understand and I can’t get enough of these reviews! Thanks for that! 😃
I remember some of these on the road in the early 2000's, less by the end of the decade with plenty in a nearby junk yard, along with lots of Plymouth vouger mini vans and various old Oldsmobiles.
Thank you for this! I had an 89 that a GF bought in 91 from original owner. Standard Grand Prix with a 3.1 automatic and factory 16in wheels. It was unusually fast, and would screech the tires going into second gear. I always kept it maintained for her while we were together. She drove it all over the country and then gave it to me ten years later with over 200k. I then drove the crap out of it and swapped it around among friends and another GF for about 5 years. It even saved me from a near death experience. When it finally left the circle it had over 300k on it and was still going strong. It will always remain one of my favorite cars. On a side note: Second owner GF bought a 2007 GP that her niece ended up with when she sadly passed away. Her niece called me a couple months ago and offered it to me for a good price. I just have to travel 300 miles to get it. Let the circle begin once again!
Late 80s GM was insane, there was this, the Fiero and that one Buick no one bought that had a frickin touch screen. Cocaine must've been cheap af back then.
Buddy of mine had one of these back in highschool in the late 90s/early 00s. It was 2 door with the 2.8 and a 5 speed. We cut the mufflers off it in auto shop and stuck some gigantic chrome tips on it that were probably 3.5 or 4 inches in diameter and like 30 inches long, they basically filled up the area where the mufflers use to be, and surprisingly it actually sounded kinda tough. My favorite memory was him always telling everyone that the "FI" (fuel injection) stamped on the intake manifold was actually F1... Lol
The first thing I thought of was how amazing this thing looked I swear every one that I see is usually either on blocks or the paint is so peeled back it's like it needs so much. Though never can get close enough to see the inside The only equivalent I've seen that's indecent condition recently but not the same car is a Geo Storm, that got me very excited when I saw it. It's like... I see them every couple years, but this one still had the pinstripes, the name plates, and RAN! I'll never find my Storm unicorn again (friend had the rare wagon/hatchback in the early 2000s) but this Car makes me smile xD
My mother had one of these in 1989, in white, with the manual transmission. You didn't mention the "pre-fastened" seatbelt option. You just hook in the seatbelt and then, when you open the door, you can get in and out without having to take the seatbelt off. I don't know how effective it would be in a crash, but mostly found the tension in the seatbelt made it very hard to open the enormous doors...but it was there.
Did anyone really use the seat belts in that manner? I assume that everyone just buckles and unbuckles the seat belt in the normal fashion. The regulators who thought that those "passive belts" of that era (door-mounted or motorized) were a decent alternative to air bags were a special kind of stupid or were heavily smoking crack.
You became corporate American 80's guy reacting to imports from Japan & I love you for it!! Had me laughing my a*s off. Then I saw your POV driving shot & DREAR LORD!!! There's less buttons in the Millennium Falcon!!!
I thought I had seen the cleanest used 2dr Grand Prix around 2008 or so when my friend from college owned one. It was a 94 bright red 2dr SE. It had the facelifted exterior and interior with dual airbags and soft touch dash. No cracks and everything worked. And it had the 3100 V6 with a bit more beans. But this 89 trumps that one by a long shot. What a time capsule. I'm not even fan of these but I would own it in a heartbeat.
Im 34, When i was 16, I had a 1992 4 door SE with the 3.1 (the 3.4 DOHC was an option), with the appearance package, 16in alloys in that bright white. She was my first car at a time when i was becoming the "car guy" i am today. I love these ugly things. Sounded alot faster than they were, they did sound nice.
My mom had a Grand Prix in the 1990s. She tried getting a 2001 Sunfire when the GP went out, brand new on the lot the Sunfire had a warped and cracked dashboard. My mom went and got a Civic
The first thing I thought when I saw a full-body shot was that it would have been a lot better-looking if the lower half - the bit with the BMW grille - was much shorter. The front is like a blocky Volvo 480.
@@Thumper68 ya the 3.4 was trash…I had a 92 with the 3.4 died at 40k miles….But the one in the video was a 2.8 so they did have smaller than the 3.1 in the earlier years..My point was the least the car should have had was the 3.1..
A really interesting thing is that Pontiacs interior design was inspired by modern aviation at the time. Light grey buttons on a dark grey panel are a hallmark feature of aircraft with Collins Proline avionics… like the flight guidance panel (autopilot) on the Canadair Regional Jet.
Awesome as usual. I don't think I've ever heard a video end with "Rehoboth". That made me crack up. I'm from MoCo MD but live in Maine now -- so we spent a lot of time on the MD/DE beaches. This piece made me re-think those late 80's Grand Prix -- GM was actually trying something new. I loved the style right before this one (Monte Carlo SS, Grand Prix) -- I was 17 and convinced my mom that she wanted an 87 Monte Carlo SS. We loved driving that. Thank you, and I love the writing in these videos -- insightful, wistful, crass, sublime and smart-as-hell.
