Tag Archives: Oldsmobile

The one vehicle that was introduced during my senior year in high school played a significant part in my life. It helped shape the first 11 years of my driving life. It’s timing could not be any better.

Just like my first car – it was from General Motors.

While the clock continued to tick for the end of 1981, GM indicated that they weren’t finished with their flood of new products. Their next step was to introduce a line of mid-sized sedans aimed to eventually replace its already-downsized rear-drive models. The old A-Bodies were GM’s bread-and-butter. The Oldsmobile Cutlass lineup was the best selling passenger car in the USA. To replace it would affect sales of the entire company.

The plan was to retain the old rear-drive A-Bodies, but rename them as the G-Cars. That meant a consolidation of several lines across the board. The Buick Century sedan took the Regal name, while all rear-drive Cutlasses were known as Supremes. Pontiac was left without a full-sized car in the USA, so the former Grand LeMans became the Bonneville Model G.

The new A-Bodies rolled out on extended front-drive platforms that appeared to be better executed than the X-Cars. Buick’s Century name appeared on their new front-drive mid-sizer, while Oldsmobile adopted the Cutlass name by adding Ciera at the end. Chevrolet introduced their A-Body as the Celebrity, while Pontiac simply used a numeric nomenclature on theirs: The 6000. Continue reading →