(first posted 6/9/2013) Here’s another find from our excursions yesterday. Pinpointing the exact vintage of this Olds Cutlass (Ciera) Cruiser S would have been quite difficult had I not spoken with the owner at the graduation party we were attending.
The young lady driving the car related that it was given to their family by grandparents who had parked it beside their barn when it was no longer needed… a bit of cleanup and fresh gas put it back on the road with a minimum of fuss.
The presence of a “Supplemental Inflatable Restraint” confirms this is a 1993+ model, as airbags were made standard in that year. As a 1994 model, the car has the 3.1l V6 (160hp) engine that succeeded the 3.3l from the previous year, along with a four-speed automatic transmission. A 2.2l four-cylinder engine making 120hp (up 10hp from 1993) was also available.
The SUV craze was in full ramp-up mode in the mid 1990s, and traditional station wagon offerings were getting mighty thin. There was still a market for the Cutlass Ciera, and sales stayed well north of 100,000 annually (all body styles combined), due to older, conservative buyers snapping up these tried and true A Bodies. Quality was good in these last years of production, too—the car had been in production for over a decade—long enough for even GM to get it right.
Not only was the Cruiser one of the last remaining station wagons on the market at this time, it was also one of the last Oldsmobiles to wear the Rocket emblem. After a fourteen year run, the Ciera name would be retired and Cutlass would become an N Body starting with the 1997 model year.
The sheer number of Cieras produced over such a long timeframe with decent quality toward the end ensures they will be around for some years yet—true Roaches of the Road™.
Nice find! I love these cars. Perfect old beaters, and I love how that you get a very 80s feel from them, even though they were made as late as ’96. I would love to get a fairly low mileage wagon as a beater car. Something nice enough that I’m not embarrassed to drive it, but worn enough to park it anywhere without fuss and not worry if the doors aren’t locked. I still see these all the time around here where I am (CT/MA border), even though the last one was made 17 yrs ago.
I would love to get the convertible one I found a few months ago right now:
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/cc-capsule-1984-oldsmobile-cutlass-ciera-brougham-convertible-by-hess-eisenhardt-theres-a-sucker-born-every-minute/
You can always look at the 10th digit of the VIN on 81+ cars to tell the year. Older cars you can get the VIN and decode it online. Only cars older than 1972 before the law took effect about displaying VIN in window are harder to identify. But then, car design changed often and it was easier to tell visually.
Who am I to complain about a late model A wagon?
Come to me, you reliable grocery-getting roach! Seriously, I must have seem three of these today.
I like how the color has rubbed off the steering wheel of seemingly every GM product of this vintage.
Also, I think the plastic horn buttons are broken on every Oldsmobile with this wheel design.
Yup, my ’90 brougham has a steering wheel hat has lost the color around the rim, and feels rough to the touch. I wish the original buyer opted for the standard plastic wheel vs the leather!
Be careful what you wish for. My 1985 Cutlass Supreme Brougham(seen below) has that plastic steering wheel and it is brittle and missing chunks on it(I have it covered up with a steering wheel cover until I replace it with a junk yard one of the same color
Now a very common sign of beaterdom: black exposed steel wheels (those cheap plastic wheelcovers don’t stand the test of time like the old-school metal ones did)! Yes, you might lose one or two, but not all 4.
If the odometer showed over 300K it woudn’t surprise me. Well…not in NC anyway. Idiocy (abuse and lack of routine maintenance) is what sends these cars to the scrapyard.
Idiocy will send ANY car to the scrapyard. You wouldn’t believe how many vehicles I’ve seen at Pull-a-Part & other salvage/junkyards that are only a decade old at MOST! My ’05 Chevy Astro has gone over 260K miles & STILL runs reliably every time I drive it. The previous owner(s) had to have maintained it to a plausible degree for it to still be on the road today (I bought it last December). Sure, several things have needed fixing or replacing, but the van hasn’t missed a beat during any of it. Neither it nor my Ranger will be seeing the guillotine any time soon.
No matter how reliable these Cieras were all they did in my opinion was further drag down the Oldsmobile name. These weren’t truly Oldsmobiles to me, they were cash-cows for the division as they were the only real sellers they had. As a kid through the 90’s the only Oldsmobiles I ever saw were these and they were the first ones that introduced me to the name. There were so many of them they were almost anonymous. Then when they started to disappear they looked like this example. Who would buy Olds as a prestige brand when a car like this was degrading the name? Somehow the Buick Century wasn’t as common but at least the Celebrity and 6000 knew when to leave the party, not being made after 1990 and I can’t recall seeing many after the late 90’s. As an Olds guy I have a grudge against these cars.
Really that surprises me. I worked for Oldsmobile for a long time and always liked the Ciera. It was very good for the 80s and 90s in a sort of FWD/Delta 88 sort of way. Yes it was a top seller and accounted for 50% of sales at one point. By the end of the 1996 model year, yes it was time to move on but I can’t imagine Olds in the 80s without it. The Firenza was a dud, the Calais a mixed bag, but most of the my issues with Olds stem from the marketing direction taken after the 88 Cutlass came out.
I agree about that campaign hurting the brand. The 80’s era ones I don’t really have an issue with, they were fine for their time, it’s just that after 1990 they seemed stale and detrimental to the image of Olds, at least that was my take on it. For example they come out with the Aurora, something that is supposed to take the brand in a new, futuristic direction yet they’re selling it side by side with these things. I just grouped these with the k-cars, even though they played an important role, they were appliances and the brand was much better than the image these portrayed.
I’m distracted by that pretty red Bonneville in the driveway…..
Yes 2nd generation H-body Pontiac por favor. I’d snatch that one up in a heart beat…
I think my only complaint about these cars was that Olds made them all rather plain towards the end, and even dropped the Cutlass part of the name, and made all the 1996 models simply “Ciera SL”.
FWIW, the color of this car, with the exception of the right front door is called Light Adriatic Blue.
The right front door looks like it might have come off of a Buick Century, based on the different side molding.
There’s a Buick Century across the street from us, but in sedan form.
Whether in sedan, rare coupe or wagon configuration, there are still lots of these on the road.
Personally I disliked them all – compared to the GM I USED to know, these were clunky and lacked any finesse at all. I liken them to a Soviet version of an American car, or what a Trabant SHOULD have been!
I do admire their survivability, though…
The Taurus wagons to me were the last gasp for US wagons. Anything afterwards, like the Dodge Magnum, was a classifed as a ‘truck’, with AWD as an option.
What’s funny is how newer CUV’s keep getting lower and wider, to nearly having same proportions as a wagon. But, don’t dare call them that, or else the “We dont want to be like our parents” buyers will gasp.
“We don’t want to be like our parents”?
Parents drove MINIVANS.
Grandparent drove wagons.
That depends on how old you are. 🙂
Well, *my* parents drove a wagon (’68 Country Squire LTD), *we* drove minivans, and now that we’re grandparents, we’re driving a wagon (and a Buick at that)! (c:
A friend bought a Chevy Celebrity Eurosport wagon. Looked sort of like a Volvo that had gained U.S.citizenship.
I had an 89, 2.8 V6. Decent car except for the drivers side reclining seat back, which would recline every time I hit the gas rather hard. You can imagine……
Oh how I want one of these. I’ve been looking for a Century/Ciera wagon for a few years now. It’s just the thing for trips to Menards. Now if I could only find one for sale that isn’t beat to death. I don’t even care if it’s rusty as long as it runs good. This wagon is probably exactly what I’m looking for. I still miss my 93 Century sedan with the 3.3 and 4 speed auto. I should have never gotten rid of that car.
Back in the mid 80s our formerly southern neighbor used to call hers a “Michigan Mercedes”, which was probably an accurate statement of what a new one was viewed as in the flyover states. On the other hand we were in the New York city suburbs where A body wagons were outnumbered by actual Mercedes 300TDs and XJ Cherokees.
That example is actually wearing the passenger side front door of a 1990 Chevy Celebrity wagon(you can tell because the door looks a bit more square then the other doors and that color and black belt molding was not a Olds/Buick offering and as for it being from a 1990 Celebrity wagon, the 1990 Celebrity was the only Celebrity offered with the door mounted seat belts. The 1990 Celebrity was only offered as a wagon(the sedan and coupe were dropped in favor of the Lumina coupe and sedan) and the 1990 was the last year for the Celebrity )
What, no wood grain? 🙂
Having almost all of my experience with the 80’s versions of these cars, the airbag looks out of place to me.
The wheels may have once had the wire wheel covers held on with that funny little key-tool. They used to make creaking noises when you drove or hit bumps as the wheel flexed a little. My dad insisted on keeping them on his old 1984 Pontiac 6000 wagon, but they used to drive me insane with all the racket they would make as the car got very old. I’m thinking that they were removed at some point in this car’s life.
Funny Paul should repost this today, as we recently bought a new/leftover 2018 Buick Regal TourX (which I’ve mentioned at least in one other article’s comments), which, while marketed as a crossover, is really more of an old-school station wagon. I’m hoping it proves to be as long-lived as this post’s subject car was.
When I get a few hours free (slow writer), I’ll do a post on it. We’ve already logged close to 5,000 miles on it, and I find it to be a well composed, comfortable road trip car.
That green is my favorite color for the new Regal.
I’m going to be giving one a good hard look early next week. The local dealer has one in Rojo Red that has been languishing on the lot since early in the 2018 model year.
I’ve been looking at the forums as research and saw your avatar… I suspected as much had occurred. 😉
“Smoked Pearl Metallic.” It’s a really nice warm grey that changes tone depending on how the light hits it. The Shale interior is a light warm tan color that’s really nice to be in, especially with the moonroof shade retracted. Sightlines are really good, too – you don’t feel like you’re in a pillbox. The 8-speed auto behind (beside, actually) the Ecotec turbo 2.0 is a good combination, with pretty decent shift programming.
We almost bought a Rioja Red Metallic that the dealer had agreed to 30% off sticker, but my wife had second thoughts about the red and we ended up with the grey one because it was at a dealer only an hour away vs. six.
I’d be really interested in hearing about the TourX! I’ve seen a couple of these on the road, but don’t know much about them.
The TourX reminds me of the late Toyota Venza and earlier, non-minivan Chrysler Pacifica. Neither of those crossovers set the sales charts on fire and were eventually discontinued with little fanfare.
With that said, the Subaru Outback enjoys a solid following. Unfortunately, Subaru’s quality reputation has taken something of a hit lately. So, the Tour X (with standard AWD) definitely has potential to get a slice of that pie.
In the automotive industry, it’s said that timing is everything. The Tour X certainly seems like a solid alternative to not only the Outback, but SUV saturation, as well. Perhaps, unlike the Venza and Pacifica, the Buick’s time has come.
It’s a shame that, with the demise of the Volt, GM has given up on PHEVs. The Tour X would seem to have been a perfect platform for that hybrid system.
Great car!
No – that isn’t an “Oldsmobile”
Just in name…
I think of the Taurus/Sable wagon as the last of that breed – that is – until now.
See that new Escape?
WAGON
Grandpa drove wagons.
Wagons be cool now!
Chuck Taylor’s sneakers were what us poor kids wore to school. We were reminded often that they were poor kids shoes. OFTEN! Today they are what the hipsters wear! WTF?
Someone at work has one this color, I’m assuming it belongs to the woman that used to drive a rusty white one.
“…to put it back on the road with a minimum of fuss.”
After spending $3K on maintenance for a 9-year old Lexus, I’m wishing I had this car instead.
Love boxy old-school domestic wagons, but these were garbage. I owned one, a 96 bought lightly used in 1999. The interior started falling apart within a year of purchase, the front end had a shimmy that no mechanic could fix, and once it hit 60k miles it started breaking down every few months like clockwork. These are Roaches of the Road because of sheer volume produced with a few beating the odds for long term-survival, not because of any innate reliability or durability. This is the car that made me finally swear off domestics for good.
You certainly got a bad one. This is classic GM, where some got good ones that never broke, and some got ones that hardly ever ran well. My mom’s 2001 Aurora 4.0 has been nearly trouble-free, with the only major failures being A/C compressor at 14 years, the coil cassettes at 16 years, and the catalytic converter and secondary air pump at 18 years. And the water pump at 12 years and again at 18. I would say not exactly Fat Toyota reliable, but she has spent less maintaining and repairing it than the discount she got when buying it due to the Olds death stench. It still looks, sounds, and drives fantastic. And many of these failures are common on much more overall reliable makes and models at similar ages. It’s an early 2001, too, being built in March of 2000. Which breaks the cardinal rule of never buying an early, complex GM. I wouldn’t ever take the gamble myself, but it has certainly panned out for her.